The PVC pipes exploded, sending shards of plastic through the room. Seawater spurted through where they had been. Lake shook the spray out of his eyes and turned his head. The level in the room was going up at an inch every five seconds. Slower than the ship was going down, he estimated, based on how quickly the water had filled up the passageway on the other side of the hatch.
The arc of movement oh the handle was getting slowly larger, now almost two inches. As water crept up around his chest and threatened to cover, his head, Lake had to stand and go back to just using his arms. As his muscles worked, his mind calculated. There were three variables. The wood holding the door shut was the key one. If it didn’t give before water filled the room, nothing else mattered. If it did, then there was the question of inside pressure versus outside water pressure. The ship was probably all underwater now and the pressure outside was greater than that in here. Lake wondered how deep the ocean was at this point. If they went down over a hundred feet, he could forget everything. There was no way he could make it out of the bridge complex and then make it to the surface from that depth.
The water edged up around his hips and continued sliding up his body. Lake had tied off the trash bags with the document box in them to his weight belt and the box thumped against his back as he continued to work the handle.
As the water reached his neck, Lake’s hands slipped off the handle. He quickly regained his grip and continued. Three inches now.
“Goddamn!” Lake hissed. The thing had to give! He accidentally sucked in a mouthful of seawater and tilted his head up to spit it out. He stood on his toes and took a deep breath, then squatted, completely submerged and gave one great shove. Four inches but that was all.
Lake let go and floated to the air trapped in the upper left corner of the room and took another breath. He felt the ship settle and come to a halt, still angled down and to the right. Lake didn’t know it, but the keel was down at over a hundred feet, but the height of the ship itself and the bridge tower put his depth at just about sixty feet below the ocean’s surface.
Lake dove down to the handle and gave three shoves before he had to swim back to the air pocket. It was about four feet by three feet by fourteen inches deep. Lake visually marked a spot on the wall before he dove back down for another try. When he came back for more air, he noted that the pocket had lost two inches. That gave him about four or five more tries before he was out of air. At least the pressure on both sides of the door would be equal now, which was a slight consolation.
Lake dove down and grasped the handle. He pulled it up, then slammed it down. Up again, then down. He felt something give. Excitedly he spun the handle and was rewarded with the door swinging open. The way out beckoned.
Lake turned and swam up to his air pocket, which-was now less than six inches in depth. He tilted his head back and his mouth was just below the ceiling as he sucked in several lungfuls of air.
Taking one last deep breath, he turned and dove for the door. He shot through and turned left up the outside corridor. The door to the left railway was open and Lake was out in the open, then he slammed to an abrupt halt, his waist jerking him. He twisted and looked. The garbage bag had caught on the railing and he was anchored to the ship. His hand grazed down his side and pulled out his dive knife. Just as he was about to slice through the offending plastic and free himself he halted. He reached down and grabbed the railing with his free hand. Dropping the knife, he pushed on the bag and freed it. Then he finned for the surface. Looking up, Lake could only see dark green. He had no idea how deep he was.
He reached and grabbed the knobs of his life preserver and popped them. The water wings inflated and accelerated his race to the surface.
Lake trailed a steady stream of bubbles out of the corner of his mouth as he’d been taught to do by sadistic instructors so many years ago in the water outside of Coronado, California, just a couple of hundred miles to the south of here.
But he realized he’d never been as deep as this as he ran out of air to blow out. He felt his chest spasm, then he involuntarily opened his mouth and seawater came in, filling his mouth, leaking down his throat into his lungs. Lake spasmed, doubling over, no longer swimming, his body fighting to expel the foreign substance filling his lungs, but no matter how much he retched out, it was just replaced with more water.
Lake felt unconsciousness from lack of oxygen coming and he was looking forward to the relief from the pain in his lungs when he burst to the surface. He retched again, water and vomit pouring out of his mouth and air making its way in as he gasped. Lake’s insides felt like they were being torn apart as he coughed and hacked at the same time trying to suck oxygen in.
After several minutes of agony, he could breathe somewhat normally and he lay on his back and looked up. The fog was dissipating and the ocean around him was empty. There was a three-foot swell and an occasional wave lapped over his face.
Lake knew the currents around here were not favorable.
He was caught in the great surge of water coming out of the Golden Gate and pushing out to sea. He lay on his back and began finning to the east, even though he knew it was futile; the outward current was much stronger and quicker than his leg strokes.
Lake reached across his chest with his left hand and pushed a button on the side of the homing device that Araki had given him. Now he was going to find out how trustworthy his expedient partner was.
CHAPTER 9
“I want the rest of the payment credited to the same account before close of business today,” Okomo said. The wounded were being carried off the tug to dark cars parked on the otherwise deserted pier. They were being whisked away to doctors who owed the Yakuza a favor.
“You will be paid,” Nishin said, deliberately omitting the title of respect he had so grudgingly been forced to use the last several hours. He no longer needed the old man and would be glad to be done with all of this.
“That includes the payments for the dead,” Okomo growled.
“Yes, yes, I will include the blood money.”
“Some of those wounded may die of their wounds,” Okomo added.
Nishin again felt he was in the fish market dickering with some old hag. “Sensei Nakanga will contact you in two weeks. Let him know if there are more dead. But do not count bodies that are still breathing, old man, or you will face the wrath of the Black Ocean.”
“Ah, the puppy growls,” Okomo said with a short laugh.
“But you do not have very long teeth,” he added. “Remember, you are not out of reach of my arm yet.”
Nishin turned his back on the Oyabun and walked off the tug. He headed for the first phone booth he could find. Stopping at it, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper. There were two messages on it, from the dates, obviously copied from messages in the box.
Nishin ran his eyes down the first one.
DTG: 1 AUGUST nHS/lDDD HOURS TOKYO
FROM: IMPERIAL NAVY STAFF/COMSUBGP
TO: COPI/1 SM/EYES ONLY
TEXT: PROCEED TO HUNGNAM-, KOREA-i AT FLANK SPEED TO TAKE ON CARGO-FURTHER ORDERS WILL FOLLOW.
Then he read the second one and his heart felt an icy hand surround it. He now understood why the North Koreans had been so willing to die.
With shaking fingers he dialed the phone number he had memorized and was gratified to hear Nakanga’s voice answer after the second ring.
“Yes?”