Vitaly looked up at Jonah, eyes wide with understanding. “This is suicide.”
“We have to create an oil slick. Our pursuers won’t believe the possum act without floating bodies and lots of oil. That wreck is chock full of seventy-year-old bunker fuel. The tanks are amidship, right in the center of the ship. Aim for them.”
“I do not like this plan,” said Vitaly, as he bore the bow of the Scorpion down on the increasingly clear acoustic image of the hulking war transport. The Scorpion zeroed in on the image at frightening speed. Jonah realized the window to change his mind was approaching quickly. He swallowed and allowed it to pass.
One final time, Jonah punched the all-call button. “All hands, brace for impact!”
Vitaly ducked underneath his console and Jonah slid underneath the communications console. Jonah slipped his oxygen mask once more over his face. He didn’t want to suffocate while unconscious, if it came to that.
The submarine slammed into the fuel tanks of the shipwreck, driving deep into the hulk like a spear, bucking and throwing her crew across compartments like toys. Emergency klaxons rang as pipes burst, flooding the compartment with rushing water and white, foamy spray. Fires burst from consoles. Vitaly leapt to his feet, grabbed the remaining extinguisher and hosed down the sensitive electronics. Water rushed down from the damaged forward compartment, frothing as it ran across the deck and over his feet. From above, Jonah heard the familiar whoosh of a diver’s lockout chamber as Hassan obeyed the order to activate the outer door, sending burnt body parts spinning into the rising column of debris and fuel oil.
Ignoring the fires and the spraying hydraulic lines of the command compartment, Jonah rushed into the burned, blackened forward compartment. The nose of the submarine had absorbed the worst of the impact. Several of the seawater circulation pipes had sheered, spilling their high-pressure, foamy contents into the compartment. The submarine’s stern sank until it hit the ocean floor, seawater rushing downwards like a newly-formed river of oil and debris.
Behind him, Vitaly scrambled from console to electrical box, trying to keep ahead of the dancing flames. Jonah used all of his strength against the feeder valves, trying to stanch the powerful flow of water. He dug deep, reliving every betrayal, heartache, prison whipping, gunshot, stabbing, dead friend, and ruined life. Joints popping, muscles straining, the valve squeezed close, choking off the flood.
An immense, overwhelming PIIIIIIIIING rang through the submarine, fraying already-shattered nerves as Jonah made his way back to the command compartment. He put his hands over his ears. PIIIIIIING, PIIIIING, PIIIIIIIING, rang the assaulting sound three more times, reverberating in the submarine and against the speared shipwreck. With just as much warning as they’d begun, the noises ceased.
Jonah crawled to the communications console, one hand holding the earphones to the side of his head, listening intently. He held up a single finger, forbidding anyone from saying a word. Hassan paused on his way down the interior boarding ladder, careful not to move or make a sound.
They waited in silence.
“They’re leaving,” he said, at first with a mumble, then louder. “They’re leaving!”
Surely enough, the soft swish-swish-swish of propeller screws slowly faded into the distance, replaced with the still-settling metal of the wartime shipwreck’s hull against their own.
“Don’t get comfortable,” he warned. “Probably intend to return with a salvage crew, pick through our bones.”
“Let’s not be here when they return,” Hassan said, dropping down next to Jonah.
“Agreed,” said Jonah. “This bought us time, but it won’t take long before they they figure it out.”
In the dim emergency lighting, they surveyed the remnants of battle, the filthy, sewage-ridden floodwater swirling around their ankles, burn-marks and extinguisher foam on the bulkheads and electrical boxes, flickering lights and the vicious cuts and bruises worn like medals of valor by all of those aboard. Around them, the shipwreck settled, steel members moaning as they found new forms after the vicious impact. From the engine room, Alexis emerged, holding both welding gloves in one hand, oxygen hood in the other. Dirt, grime, blood, and tears streaked her face. Shaking, she opened her mouth to speak, but made barely a noise before she closed it.
“I… tried—” she began again.
“What?” asked Jonah.
“She won’t breathe.”
“Where is she?” Hassan’s face contorted with horror. “Where is my mother?”
Alexis shook her head and looked up at him, eyes glistening with tears. Hassan shoved her aside and charged into the engine room, Jonah, Alexis, and Vitaly at his heels.
Fatima lay face-up in a collecting pool of water, skin pale and white, eyes open but unseeing, muscles bound, small flecks of white foam in the corner of her mouth. Hassan dropped to his knees beside her and picked up her hand. Her fingers were charred to the second knuckle. He glanced up at a blackened, smoldering electrical panel and tore open his mother’s shirt, revealing a white spiderweb of electrical burns encircling her heart.
“I tried to resuscitate her,” Alexis said, barely audible over Hassan’s hoarse, ragged breathing.
“You wouldn’t have been able to,” he said, “She was dead”—his voice warbling with grief—“the moment she touched the panel.”
Alexis choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry.”
Hassan leaned down and kissed his mother on the cheek, using his fingertips to close her eyes for the last time.
“Goddammit!” Jonah yanked the oxygen mask from around his neck, rubber straps snapping, and hurled it against a bulkhead. It clanged off the hatch, dropped into the water and bobbed face-down like a drowning victim.
Vitaly crouched in the filthy water and wrapped both arms around Hassan’s sagging shoulders.
“These motherfuckers are not going to stop,” Jonah growled. “We’ve taken everything, everything they’ve thrown at us. We’ve been shot at, shot down, beaten up, blown up, tortured. We’ve spilled blood, theirs and ours. If we don’t fight back, they’re going to keep coming until we’re done for.”
“What can we do?” Alexis asked. Behind her, Dalmar emerged from the bunk room, disoriented and unsteady. Seeing Fatima, he shook his head, drew in a long breath, and turned away. Vitaly stood and drew Hassan back to his feet.
The muscles in Jonah’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he surveyed his traumatized crew. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” His face twisted with rage. “I’m going to walk into Bettencourt’s playground and knock his fucking sandcastle down.”
Hassan simply shook his head, unable to even bring tears to his eyes.
Jonah cleared his throat to continue, suddenly wishing he wasn’t still wearing a pair of dead man’s pants. “Charles Bettencourt deserves what’s coming to him, but I can’t ask you to risk your lives again, not now that we finally have a real, solid window to escape. We can make for Oman so everyone who wants to leave can leave. We’ll run dead silent and submerged as far as we can to the north, then recharge the batteries with the snorkel as needed.”
“Boss, no snorkel,” said Vitaly.
“That’s right,” said Jonah, recalling the sheered-off snorkel. “What happened?”
“Collision with ship,” said Vitaly. “You missed much excitement when you on little vacation.”
“Fine, we’ll charge surfaced,” Jonah fixed his gaze on the engineer. “Alexis, you have your parents and a life back in Texas. What are you still doing here with us pirates, deserters, and outlaws, anyway? It’s time to go back to the land of big hair, big trucks, and barbeque. What do you say?”