“Great,” Feliks muttered. “Just great.”
If he could have whistled, Lake would have, but the mouthpiece from the scuba gear prevented that. The swimmer-delivery vehicle, or SDV, that Araki had ridden down was top-of-the-line equipment. About twelve feet long with double propellers, it was only three feet high, which meant it had very shallow draft. It was of the “wet” type, which meant that the place for the crew was not watertight. Lake looked in: there was room for two men side by side on their stomachs in the crew compartment. The double screws meant that the engine was probably very powerful, driven by banks of batteries in a watertight compartment in the rear. The SDV was held to the midget by a steel cable running from its front to an eyebolt on the midget’s deck, just forward of where the bomb sled was attached.
Lake looked up as Nishin swam out of the hatch of the midget sub. Lake pointed at the SDV and Nishin came over. Lake pointed at the cable, then back at the bomb sled. He could see Nishin’s face through his mask; it squinched up in confusion for a second, then cleared as the other man understood what Lake wanted to do. Nishin nodded. Lake pointed at his chest, then into the SDV. Then he pointed at Nishin, then the cable. Nishin gave a thumbs-up, international diver talk to indicate he understood.
Lake slid into the driver’s place. Looking around, the controls were not much different than the SDVs he had been trained on in the SEALs. There was even a place for Lake to hook his regulator in to breathe air off tanks on the SDV and conserve his own back tanks.
Lake powered up the SDV. The twin screws churned behind him as he got the feel of the controls. They were quite simple. Two levers, each of which determined power to a screw. That handled speed and turning. Then a shorter lever above those two that controlled a single horizontal stabilizer that was behind both propellers. That controlled attitude, which determined whether the sub went up, down, or remained at constant depth.
Lake looked out the Plexiglas window to his front. Nishin was holding onto the anchor cable, waiting. Lake signaled for him to release the cable, which he did. The current immediately grabbed hold of the suddenly free SDV and Lake manipulated the controls. It took him a few seconds to get the feel and in that time they were swept fifteen feet away from the midget and the sled.
Lake eased them back in, Nishin dangling at the end of the cable like a hooked fish. He maneuvered until Nishin was hanging right over the sled. He held in place while Nishin hooked the cable onto the front of the bomb sled. Then Nishin released the two cables that had anchored the sled to the midget.
Nishin swam up and entered the SDV, taking his place next to Lake. Pushing the center lever up slightly, Lake then increased power to both screws. For several moments nothing happened. Lake pushed the levers forward until they couldn’t go any further. Water churned in the rear but still nothing. Then slowly, with a cloud of mud, the sled began moving. For the first time in fifty-two years, Genzai Bakudan was on the move again.
CHAPTER 17
“We’ve got a contact!” the sonar man announced. “Heading nine-five degrees. Depth nine-zero feet and climbing.”
Captain Carson hurried over to the sonar, Feliks right behind him. The lines on the screen were an incomprehensible jumble to both men. The Sullivan was in the main shipping channel, about a mile west of the Golden Gate Bridge, moving toward the harbor.
“What is it?” Carson asked.
“Small,” the sonar man said, one hand holding the headphones, the other playing with knobs. “Very small, sir.”
“Where is it?” Feliks asked.
Carson turned and led him to the table behind the wheel. He pointed on the chart. “Nine-five degrees from us is here. Near the bridge and just to the south of the main shipping channel.” Carson turned back to the radar man. “What’s the contact’s heading? Is it moving?”
“It’s moving, sir. Heading …” There was a pause, then, “… heading is six-zero degrees.”
“Heading into the harbor, somewhat north,” Carson interpreted.
“Follow it,” Feliks ordered. Then he remembered something. “What about the other ship? What’s it doing?”
Carson checked with radar. “It’s starting to move in that direction also.”
“One big party,” Feliks muttered.
“Oyabun, we “have picked up an underwater contact moving away from the base of the tower.” Despite the cool air in the cabin, sweat was standing out on Okomo’s forehead as he made his report. “I have ordered Captain Ohashi to follow on the surface.”
The figure Okomo addressed was seated in the shadows in the corner of the room and did not respond. The woman standing nearby stepped into the light. “Could it be the Korean submarine?” Peggy Harmon asked.
“I do not believe so,” Okomo replied. “The contact is very small. More likely it is an American submersible. Or perhaps one from the CPI or Black Ocean.”
“From the Coast Guard cutter?” Harmon asked.
“I do not know.” Okomo was keeping his eyes on the third person in the room, not Harmon.
That person finally spoke, the voice so low, Okomo had to lean forward to hear it. “Could it be the midget submarine?” ‘
Okomo had not considered that possibility and he was momentarily thrown off guard. “I do not know, Oyabun. I do not think it would still be capable of functioning after all these years.”
There was a noise that might have been laughter and the figure held up a metal box in an age-withered hand. “I have been told that with the right frequency this detonator will still work. I have been told Genzai Bakudan will still work. Why not, then, the submarine?”
To that Okomo had no answer.
“Leave us,” Harmon snapped.
With a bow, Okomo scuttled out of the room.
Nakanga was standing on the other side of the cabin, waiting for further orders. The phone at Kuzumi’s elbow buzzed and he picked it up.
“The SDV is moving to the east,” the voice on the other end said succinctly in Japanese. “There are also two surface contacts. I believe one of them is a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. I do not know what the other one is.”
Kuzumi was surprised that the SDV was moving to the east, but he didn’t bother asking why Araki was doing that because there was no way the man on the other side could know why. Araki was simply supposed to recover the bomb back to the stealth ship which was to the west.
“Follow,” Kuzumi ordered the captain of the stealth ship. It was the prototype for a model that he had sold to the Japanese Navy. The government thought the ship had been disassembled. Like many other projects completed under government contract, it went into the Black Ocean arsenal.
Kuzumi turned the phone off. “Tell the pilot to be prepared to lift off.”
The current was fighting the SDV and keeping its speed down to less than five knots. Lake was giving more power to the right screw, pushing them slightly to the north. Nishin had been still for a while, but now he picked up a board that had been lying inside and wrote on it with the marker that was clipped to it. It was the only way people inside could communicate with each other and part of the standard equipment for the SDV. Lake glanced over at the message:
WHERE?
Nishin wiped the question off and handed the board to Lake. Locking the controls, Lake took the marker and wrote the answer.
ISLAND. SECURE BOMB.
Nishin took the board and looked at it. It was the best idea Lake could come up with. Actually, what he didn’t bother to write was that he wasn’t sure how exactly he was going to secure the bomb. He had considered taking it out to deep sea and dumping it, but that would only reinvent the problem they had just encountered, leaving it out there for the next person to find.