The Wrecking Crew

CHAPTER 15

Dr. Nassiri stood on the fantail of the Horizon and stared off into the distance. It wouldn’t be long now; the experimental yacht had already begun to break apart in the gentle swell. One of the pontoons was nearly separated from the body of the ship and the flooding in the main cabin increased with every wave. She’d soon be on the bottom of the ocean, joining the Fool’s Errand and centuries of ill-fated ships. He released the mooring line, separating the Horizon and the Scorpion. The physical exertion felt good, especially in the fresh sea air and the still-cool early morning.

Fatima stepped up beside him, love and pride welling up into a powerful mixture of emotions she was not well-equipped to demonstrate. Her son had risked everything to save her — no, not her; he thought she was dead — but her legacy. He had willingly set his life aside to finish what she had started. How does one thank a son for that?

She looked up at him. Dark, unruly hair ruffled in the wind as he squinted into the vast emptiness, searching for any sign Jonah and Klea had survived the explosion. He was as handsome as his father had been. No wonder the American girl watched his every move. The girl tried to hide it, of course, but a mother could always sense a woman’s interest in her son. But a Texan? Not what she’d imagined for Hassan, but she wouldn’t interfere. Not after all this. Without thinking, she licked the palm of her hand and went to work trying to pack down an errant clump of hair.

“Mother!”

Alexis stuck her head over the lip of the conning tower, just as Dr. Nassiri batted his mother’s hand away from his head.

Alexis laughed and Dr. Nassiri turned and held his hand to his forehead, blocking the sunlight to get a better look. The morning light did the Texan more than justice, she was radiant. He swallowed hard and ignored his mother’s ministrations.

“Thought you should know — we’re getting incoming radar contacts,” shouted Alexis. “Looked like a flock of birds at first but they’re flying too straight and much too fast. Vitaly says they’re drones bearing in from Anconia Island. They’re fifteen minutes out on a direct intercept course.”

Dr. Nassiri frowned. A cluster of drones wasn’t a good sign. Just one might have been surveillance or on some unrelated mission. A cluster meant they were potentially armed and maybe even accompanied by a surface vessel. He held the mooring line fast as his mother gingerly stepped from the smoldering yacht to the submarine. She ascended the ladder to the conning tower and disappeared inside.

“Are they weaponized?” he shouted.

“Vitaly says yes. Air-to-ground missiles.”

Dr. Nassiri ably hopped from the yacht to the submarine and deftly untied the mooring line. Knots came easily to his surgeon’s muscle memory, even unfamiliar designs. It was his guess that a surveillance drone had picked up on the smoke column from the Horizon. Whether any of the drone operators had seen the Scorpion or not, he couldn’t guess. But he knew he didn’t want to be around when they arrived. Dr. Nassiri climbed the boarding ladder and joined Alexis on the top of the conning tower.

“We have another problem,” said Alexis. Wrench in hand, she pointed towards the snorkel pipe rising behind them as it hummed along, gently exhaling a steady stream of diesel exhaust.

“What is it?”

“Batteries are charged off of the diesel engines,” she said. “And they’re only about twenty percent of capacity. We’re not going to have much juice to play with if we submerge now.”

“That does sound like a problem,” he mused.

Alexis stepped onto the interior boarding ladder. He followed, slamming the hatch shut behind them, twisting the wheel until it sealed tightly.

Dr. Nassiri dropped into the command compartment, right next to where Vitaly manned the pilot’s console. Vitaly shot him a pain-tinged smile — it made Dr. Nassiri just a touch uncomfortable, but he couldn’t place why. Fatima found a seat in the corner, close enough to listen in, but far enough away to keep out of the action. Dr. Nassiri got the sense that she needed a job on board, something to keep her busy and useful.

“Submerge the Scorpion,” ordered Dr. Nassiri. “Head towards the coast. Let’s get a little distance between us and those drones. Appreciate the warning, Vitaly.”

“Is not problem,” said Vitaly. “Vitaly does not want to die. Making depth one-zero-zero feet.” He pressed forward on the controls, and the Scorpion almost imperceptibly leaned forward as she slipped underneath the waves. The side-to-side motion of wave action ceased, replaced by a sense of momentum and calm.

“Set to cruising speed,” continued Dr. Nassiri. “No need to use any more electricity than necessary.”

“What’s the decision about Jonah?” asked Alexis.

“We will stay and find him,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“We will search as long as possible. He deserves that much.”

Fatima nodded at him with a look of approval. “As does Klea.”

“We save?” asked Vitaly, not completely convinced.

“We save,” confirmed Dr. Nassiri. “My working theory is that Jonah escaped on the missing life raft at some point after we rescued my mother. Perhaps Jonah set the explosion off himself as a distraction. It would certainly be his style.”

“I do not understand — why blow up own boat?” asked Vitaly.

“They couldn’t outrun the pirates, not without a greater head start. From my examination, it appeared the explosion came from within the main cabin. That’s interesting to me for two reasons. First, I don’t think the pirates could have hit the cabin interior with a rocket-propelled grenade. It’s just too lucky of a shot. Second, why the cabin? Why not the engines? I think the goal was to make a big explosion without immediately sacrificing speed. To me, it appears deliberate and purposeful. A desperate plan, but a plan nonetheless. There was plenty of debris for them to hold on to… overturned skiffs, parts of the hull, maybe even a life raft. We can’t be out here indefinitely, but I imagine we can search for a least a few days. After that, it wouldn’t matter either way. What do you think?”

“If Jonah alive, he know Vitaly stay and save him,” said Vitaly “If Jonah dead, Vitaly will know for sure. Either way, Vitaly sleep better at night.”

“So we need a plan,” said Fatima.

“I have not only plan. I have solution,” said Vitaly. “You know search theory Bayesian?”

“No,” Fatima admitted.

“I learn this some time ago,”said Vitaly.“Is mathematical equation for finding lost man at sea. We start with the voyage of the… what is the name of Batman’s yacht?”

“The Batboat?” said Dr. Nassiri, a little incredulous.

“No! The ship we chase! Look like Batmobile.”

“Ah,” said Alexis. “The Horizon.”

“Yes, yes,” said Vitaly. The Russian pulled up a regional map on his console and inputted a series of coordinates.

“So we know coordinates where beautiful Fatima rescued,” said Vitaly, pointing at a blinking cursor.

Vitaly flashed a very genuine smile towards Dr. Nassiri’s mother. She visibly blushed despite herself. Alexis rolled her eyes just a little too obviously.

“And we know speed of Horizon,” said Vitaly. “And we know point where we find her drifting. According to calculation, she is under power for seventy-three minutes after rescue then stop and drift. This seventy-three minutes is window where big man Jonah escape with lady friend of Fatima.”

Vitaly added in a second set of coordinates to his map, the location where the Horizon would have lost power. Dr. Nassiri noticed that the coordinates were a little off from where the Horizon currently drifted. Vitaly had already compensated for the hours the stricken ship spent in the current.

“What if he abandoned the Horizon after she lost power?” asked Alexis.

“If he abandoned ship after lost power,” said Vitaly. “Then they would drift together. Same current, same drift. We would have found already.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” said Fatima.

“Okay, no more stupid question,” said Vitaly. “Let Vitaly do Vitaly magic.” Vitaly punched in additional variables, creating a search grid, showing the potential area over six, twelve, and twenty-four hours.

“Given sight distance of periscope and range of radar,” he said, “we have eighteen hours to find Jonah.”

“And Klea,” added Fatima.

“Why eighteen?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

“After eighteen hours, every hour we search represent exponentially greater search area,” said Vitaly, with a confident facial expression that indicated he expected everyone assembled to be impressed. “After this, odds of finding big guy very small.”

“Impressive. How do you know all this?” asked Fatima.

“Learned in Russian Navy while looking for lost sailor,” said Vitaly. “He took piss off back of aircraft carrier. Lost balance, fell in ocean.”

“Did you rescue him?” asked Alexis.

“We find him!” announced Vitaly with no small amount of pride.

“That’s good — why, that’s fantastic!” said Dr. Nassiri. For the first time, the doctor felt a warm surge of optimism flow through his body. Maybe it was possible to find Jonah after all.

“Not so good,” said Vitaly. “Lost sailor drowned. But we find him!”

At least they found him, thought Dr. Nassiri.

Despite Alexis’s protests, Dr. Nassiri insisted they run the batteries down to less than seven-and-a-half percent before the Scorpion surfaced to charge batteries. As near as anyone could guess, seven and a half seemed to be the magic number, any lower and vital systems were compromised or rendered inoperable. It was a gamble. They’d be dead in the water if they were caught, but surfacing earlier or at intervals would leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading the Bettencorps mercenaries directly to their location.

“Preparing to surface,” said Vitaly, slowly bringing the Scorpion up for air.

It wasn’t night yet, not quite, but it should be close. Dr. Nassiri raised the periscope. Through the lens, he could see the perfect reds and purples of yet another brilliant African sunset.

Alexis started the engines, and the entire command compartment was instantly filled with the soothing, familiar hum of the massive twin-diesel engines. A few hours like this and they’d be at full battery power and ready to tackle anything. Vitaly had smartly piloted the massive submarine to one of the far corners of their computer-modeled search area. The course was intended as just random enough to throw off any pursuers while still making effective ground in the search for Jonah.

Dr. Nassiri slowly swiveled the periscope in a full circle. Once clear, he’d have Fatima join him on the conning tower with a pair of high-powered binoculars.

Suddenly, the view out of the periscope fell on a pair of incoming rigid-inflatable zodiacs, the type favored by commandos and pirates alike. They were gaining ground on the Scorpion with every second, and both vessels bristled with heavily-armored mercenaries and weaponry.

“They found us!” shouted Dr. Nassiri. “Dive, dive, dive!”

“The batteries — they’re too low!” said Alexis, almost shouting, intense distress in her voice.

Fatima just stared ahead, wide-eyed and terrified.

“How close?” demanded Vitaly.

“Close,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Dive, dive now!”

“How close to reaching us?” demanded Vitaly again.

“I don’t know,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Fifteen seconds. Maybe less.”

“How did they find us?” said Fatima, breaking her silence.

“Engines to full power,” said Vitaly. He pressed the throttle forward and was rewarded with a rapidly increasing pitch from the engine room as the Scorpion surged to flank speed.

“I ordered a dive,” shouted Dr. Nassiri, clapping a hand on the Russian’s back. “So dive, Vitaly! Dive now!”

“Please trust,” said Vitaly. “Give me countdown.”

I suppose the betrayal was inevitable, thought the doctor. Vitaly actually wanted him to count down to his own capture and probable execution.

The next few seconds played out in his mind. The Bettencorps mercenaries were going to beach their boats on the back of the Scorpion and rush the conning tower. They’d blast open the hatch and—

In fact, they wouldn’t even need to blast it open. They had Vitaly. The Russian could simply toggle some unseen switch and the hatch would fly open. Please make yourself at home. Remember to wipe your feet.

Dr. Nassiri drew his pistol.

“Fine, no countdown for Vitaly,” said the Russian.

Vitaly abruptly threw the submarine in reverse. Time froze for a moment as anything not bolted down flew forward — computer monitors, operational manuals and human bodies alike. Dr. Nassiri barely braced himself on the periscope as the entire submarine rattled and groaned with a symphony of a mechanical torture, gears grinding, propeller shaft shrieking under the strain. Fatima tumbled forward as if blindsided by an errant rugby tackle, falling through the hatchway, protecting her broken wrist while trying to brace herself with the other, landing hard. A loud, Texas-accented goddammit echoed out of the engine compartment, accompanied by a loud clattering.

Dr. Nassiri grabbed the periscope and brought it to bear at their attackers. One of the two inflatable boats had overshot the Scorpion completely and was circling back for another pass. The second had been sucked into the reversed propellers, leaving chopped-up rubber, screaming men and an oil slick in the Scorpion’s wake. One out of two wasn’t bad — and maybe they’d gotten both if he’d given a Vitaly a proper count-down. But they couldn’t count on trying the same trick twice. Worse, the remaining inflatable boat wasn’t alone. Her mothership, a massive, battleship-grey converted transport, fell into the submarine’s long wake, throwing out rescue lines for the survivors.

“Brilliant work,” said Dr. Nassiri as he re-holstered his pistol.

“So maybe you don’t shoot me?” asked Vitaly as he increased to flank speed again.

“So maybe next time you tell me the plan.”

“Learn Russian,” Vitaly grumbled. “To explain English take longer than just do plan.”

Fatima rose to her feet and found a seat in the communications console next to Vitaly. “Is there any way we can charge the batteries without exposing the Scorpion?”

“Is tricky,” said Vitaly, squinting as he spoke. “I think we bring Scorpion to snorkel depth. We then use diesel engines to charge batteries. Takes excellent pilot to do correctly.”

“Please be our excellent pilot,” said Fatima.

“Okay,” Vitaly said with a boyish grin.

The Russian released some of the ballast air from the tanks, allowing the submarine to glide beneath the waves with only the periscope, diesel engine intake, and exhaust snorkel still exposed.

Dr. Nassiri knew they wouldn’t escape this way — all the mercenaries needed to do was follow the trail of diesel fumes — but it might give them the time they needed to charge the batteries, submerge the submarine, and slip away.

The militarized transport ship caught up with the Scorpion, coming alongside. The mercenary mothership paced the submarine, maintaining a standoff distance of less than a hundred feet. Mercenaries crowded the railing, heavy assault weapons slung across their backs. Men manned a series of three heavy machine guns, none of which scared Dr. Nassiri. Even if surfaced, nothing less than a howitzer could put a dent in the Scorpion’s thick steel hull, and the mercenaries knew it.

Without warning, the mothership broke her course, swinging hard towards the Scorpion.

“They’re going to ram us!” shouted Dr. Nassiri.

Vitaly swore in Russian as he reversed the engines and pushed the tiller hard to port, but not fast enough. With unexpected speed and maneuverability, the mothership cut across their bow. The mothership impacted the snorkel structure, narrowly missing the periscope. The intake and exhaust sheared off instantly. Dr. Nassiri’s ears popped with a sudden vacuum pressure as the emergency valves in the snorkel clapped shut, forcing the engine to suck in air directly from the internal compartments of the submarine. Emergency sirens wailed as the suffering diesel engines belched exhaust into the engine compartment.

“Now we dive!” shouted Vitaly over the din of impact and siren.

The diesel engines choked to a stop as the Scorpion plunged beneath the surface, her metal skeleton groaning under the increasing pressure.

The depth gauge barely registered two hundred feet when the bow of the Scorpion dug into the soft sedimentary seabed, scraping to a halt atop an ancient layer of mud and seashells. And then all was silent, save for the chu-chu-chu of the mothership’s propellers cutting through the waters above.

Alexis stumbled out of the engine compartment, coughing. She’d caught the worst of the exhaust. Dr. Nassiri hoped the ventilators were up to the task, the air was so filled with sulfuric diesel fumes it was barely breathable.

“How in the hell did they find us so fast?” asked Alexis.

Before anyone could answer, the main communications relay crackled to life, the Scorpion’s external hydrophone automatically receiving an acoustic transmission.

“Calling the hijackers of the Scorpion,” sounded a booming voice over the radio. “Come in, Scorpion.”

Dr. Nassiri saw Vitaly shudder with recognition. Over the hydrophone, the voice was tinny, distant, echoing as it transmitted through the thermoclines of the water column.

“Who is that?” whispered Dr. Nassiri.

“Colonel Westmoreland,” said Vitaly. “Commander of all Bettencorps forces.”

Dr. Nassiri thought for a moment, then clicked the transmit button.

“This is the Scorpion,” he said.

“Very happy to hear your voice,” continued Colonel Westmoreland. “Everybody okay down there? Our multibeam sonar indicates you are set down on the bottom. That’s good, just stay there. You good for batteries? Air? No leaks, I hope? You guys took a pretty nasty hit.”

“What should we do?” said Fatima.

“Just listen for now,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Even listening very dangerous,” protested Vitaly. “Colonel Westmoreland is liar.”

“We’re at about ten percent for batteries,” added Alexis. “But every system — air circulation, lighting, everything — is sucking juice. We’ve only got a couple of hours before we’re dead on the bottom.”

“How much air do we have?” asked Fatima.

“I think we’ll circulate out most of the fumes out in the next few minutes,” said Alexis. “The CO2 scrubbers don’t need any power for the lithium hydroxide to do its job. Breathable air could last for days, maybe even a week or more. We’ll freeze to death first.”

“You want me to be impressed?” continued the colonel over the hydrophone system. “I’m impressed. You’ve had a great run. Charles Bettencourt is not interested in drawing this out. You have our vessel; we want it back. No need for further messiness or hurt feelings. Let’s just get you to the surface and we’ll figure things out from there.”

“He’s bullshitting,” announced Alexis.

“Agreed,” said Dr. Nassiri. “But given our situation, I’m not certain if there is anything to do but play along.”

“Guys, I hate to do this, but there’s always a stick to go with the carrot,” continued Colonel Westmoreland. “I’ve got nothing but time and resources. How charged are your batteries? Forty percent? Thirty?”

Ten, thought Dr. Nassiri.

“You cannot outrun us. You cannot outlast us. Every time you surface, we will be waiting. I’m giving you a onetime offer of a negotiated surrender—”

Vitaly clicked off the hydrophone systems. He’d heard enough. It went without saying that any surrender would end with the abrupt execution of all aboard.

“Vitaly, give me a solution,” demanded Dr. Nassiri. “Something other than listening to this man talk us into our own murder.”

“I have theory,” said Vitaly. “I believe there may be hidden transponder on this ship.”

“How would you not know?” asked Fatima.

“Is only for hijack scenario, hidden even from crew,” said Vitaly. “I believe it broadcast our location.”

“Can we find it?” asked Dr. Nassiri. “Turn it off somehow?”

Vitaly shook his head. “Whole purpose is so hijackers cannot find, cannot deactivate!”

“There’s got to be a way,” said Fatima. “Think!”

“Cannot be done!”

Dr. Nassiri slammed his fist into the console with anger as Vitaly shouted at him in Russian. Commando divers were probably already on their way, secretly mobilizing to board the Scorpion and kill everyone—

“I can do it,” whispered Alexis, her volume almost imperceptible.

Everyone stopped dead and stared at her.

“What?” said Dr. Nassiri.

“I can do it. I can find the transponder.”

“How?” demanded Fatima.

“It’s going to be powered, right? It has to be powered in order to transmit.”

“How would we possibly find it? There are active electronics everywhere.”

“We shut it all down,” said Alexis. “Every console, computer, light, oxygen supply, anything with an electromagnetic signature. And then we scan every millimeter of the submarine. The transponder should be the only system still active.”

“Is possible,” mused Vitaly. “I never consider this.”

“I saw an EMF detection meter earlier. I’m not going to pretend the transponder will be easy to find, but I don’t know what else we can do.”

“How do we begin?” asked Dr. Nassiri. “Time is of the essence. Obviously.”

“I can’t do it,” said Fatima. “Crawling around in the dark, feeling for who knows what? I’m sorry Hassan, but after the crash, being underwater is—”

“That’s fine.” The doctor put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and earnestly hoped he wouldn’t be forced to search the forward compartment alone. Too many bad memories made all the more vivid by the dark, to say nothing of the smell of antiseptic and burned skin. “Find a bunk and close your eyes. It will be over soon, one way or the other.”

“Beginning system-wide electronic shutdown,” Vitaly said as he powered down the computer systems to the command compartment.

“Vitaly, I think we have to put you back in your bunk. I don’t want you crawling around in the dark; the risk to your stitches is too great.”

“I get handcuffs?” asked Vitaly glumly.

“No handcuffs. I trust you.”

The doctor was impressed with the speed of Vitaly’s recovery and had been slowly weaning him off a series of powerful painkillers. Even so, the Russian was still not very mobile and struggled to get in and out of his chairs and bunk.

“Two days,” said Vitaly exuberantly, his mood now entirely improved by the proposition. “In two days, I will be recovered. I will wrestle you, Doctor! Russia versus… Egypt?”

“Morocco.”

“Russia versus Morocco! One night only! Crowd is very excited!”

Fatima followed closely behind as the trio made their way into the bunk compartment. After Vitaly was settled, she found an unoccupied bed, climbed in without taking off her shoes, closed the curtain and rolled a blanket over her head. Maybe she could convince herself she wasn’t marooned in a steel tube on the bottom of the sea.

Dr. Nassiri joined Alexis in the engine compartment. The Texan experimentally held the EMF meter up to a light bulb. It chirped, the needle dancing. She hoped it’d be sensitive enough to discover the source of their tracker, concealed somewhere in the length of the submarine. Alexis nodded, satisfied. With a final grunt, she tripped the series of main circuit breakers for the battery bank. Compartment by compartment, the lights flickered and died.

The doctor felt as though he’d just fallen into an ocean of darkness in the center of the earth, a vast emptiness of starless space. The darkness surrounding him was so deep, so intense, that the effort of his eyes and mind adjusting to the sudden blackness resulted in dull, flickering hallucinations, flashes of imaginary light.

He heard Alexis’s footsteps beside him, heard her breath. In the stillness, he almost thought he could hear her heartbeat over his own.

“Shall we?” he asked.

“Might as well,” she said. “Can’t dance, can’t sing, and it’s too wet to plow.”

He didn’t know what this meant, but could sense her fear matching his own. Alexis’s hand brushed against his chest, feeling down his arm. He allowed her to grasp his hand, their fingers intertwining. With his limited perception, the heat of her fingers and the electricity of her touch became his entire world.

“Let’s start with the weapons locker,” said Alexis.

Dr. Nassiri allowed her to lead him, taking cautious steps towards the stern of the submarine while he reached forward with his free hand, trying to anticipate when he’d reach the hatchway. Alexis was a good guide, she found the hatchway in moments. She released his hand, and a twinge of loss ricocheted through his body.

Sounds — Dr. Nassiri heard Alexis running the silent EMF meter over the walls, along the deck. She bumped the device against rifles and ammunition boxes. The detector made not so much as a burble.

“Maybe it’s not working,” whispered Alexis.

“May I?” replied Dr. Nassiri in his own hushed tone.

The doctor gingerly walked towards her voice, making little gentle sweeps with outstretched fingertips to find her. He touched something firm, her shoulder, and ran his hand down her upper arm. He reached her wrist, fingers softly running over the barely-there peach fuzz of her forearm. The doctor felt goosebumps, felt her shiver. Strange — it was not cold in this compartment. He felt around the outside of her hands, coming across the plastic construction of the EMF reader and slipped it from her grasp.

The doctor placed his free hand into the small of Alexis’s back and brought the EMF reader up underneath her left breast, gradually increasing pressure until it was firmly against her chest. He felt the muscles in the small of her back tense up for just a moment, then release.

The EMF reader gently chirped, reading a faint signature.

“It’s your heart,” he whispered, holding the device in place. “The EMF reader is detecting the electrical charge in your skin from each beat.”

“It works,” whispered Alexis, breathlessly.

She fumbled against his hands, taking the device back as his hand fell away from her lower back. No guiding her fingers this time, he was forced to follow the sounds of her footsteps as she exited the weapons locker for the engine room.

Dr. Nassiri followed, trying to keep up with her. She stopped dead and swiveled and the doctor collided with her. He’d just opened his mouth to utter a profound apology when he felt her arms reach around his torso, running up and down the length of his abdomen, pulling away at his shirt. His body reacted before his mind could issue a single command. He found himself lifting her entire body onto his, her legs wrapped around his waist as he held her in his arms, hands sliding across her back and up to the nape of her neck.

Her mouth found his. The EMF reader dropped on the ground and clattered across the metal deck as Dr. Nassiri pressed Alexis into the wall, her nails digging into his skin, days of tension and attraction between them culminating in a singular moment. She ripped open his shirt, buttons bouncing off the engine block as she pressed herself against his bare chest.

The EMF reader sat unnoticed a few feet away, as if content to chirp away merrily and without attention.

“Wait! Did you hear that?” Alexis pushed Dr. Nassiri’s face away from the tiny dimple just above her clavicle.

“What?” he asked as he held Alexis suspended, her legs still wrapped around his waist.

“I… I think it’s beeping,” said Alexis.

The Texan wriggled her hips, lowering herself to the ground. Both she and the doctor dropped to all fours, feeling around for the reader.

“Found it,” Dr. Nassiri said, his fingers brushing against the undamaged plastic casing of the device. Alexis took it from him and began running slow sweeping patterns across the floor and wall. The beeping strengthened as Alexis found the source of the signal behind a panel just a few degrees off the apex of the rounded ceiling.

“Clever putting it in here,” said Alexis. “The electromagnetic signature from the batteries could have made it impossible to find. I guess we’re lucky they’re so low right now.”

“Lucky,” mused Dr. Nassiri. He could still taste her lips on his.

“I think it’s just behind this panel,” said Alexis. She grabbed Dr. Nassiri’s hand, a little more forcefully this time, forcing him to mark the location.

“Got it,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Don’t move,” she said. “I’m going to turn all the lights back on.”

With that, the Texan walked away, the sound of her footsteps disappearing into the far end of the compartment. A few moments later, the lights flickered back on. Dr. Nassiri winced, covering his eyes with his free hands as the blinding illumination forced its way through the gaps between his fingers.

Looking down, he saw his pants askew, and the entire front of his shirt was open, buttons missing. Alexis reappeared, grinning at him as she adjusted her tank top and shorts. One of her shoes had fallen off, it lay not far from Dr. Nassiri’s feet.

They both turned as Fatima entered the compartment, rubbing her eyes against the light. Embarrassed, Alexis ducked behind a console and busied herself in a toolbox.

“Did you find it?” Fatima asked, her glance shooting between her son and the American girl. “What happened to your shirt?”

“I… caught it on something in the dark,” gulped Dr. Nassiri. “It ripped.”

Alexis stifled a snicker which she tried to mask by clattering around in a drawer. Fatima frowned and crossed her arms.

“But I think we found what we were looking for. How’s Vitaly?”

“He’s asleep,” said Fatima, scowling. “Whatever you gave him really knocked him out this time.”

“I didn’t give him anything.”

“Maybe he finally understands we won’t murder him in his sleep,” Alexis said, brandishing a particularly menacing-looking crowbar. She stood on her tip-toes and stuck the edge of the crowbar underneath the panel, carefully prying it away from the wall.

Rivets strained then popped and the panel fell free, still suspended in the air by electrical cording.

“Um,” said Alexis, emerging from behind the hanging panel. “There isn’t anything back here.”

“That’s not good,” mumbled Dr. Nassiri. He looked, and didn’t see anything either.

“What do we do?” asked Fatima. “Are you sure about the reading?”

“A hundred percent,” said Alexis. “A transmission is coming from that location, it couldn’t be anything else.”

Dr. Nassiri looked Alexis squarely in the eye and realized they were both thinking the same thing.

“It’s on the outside of the vessel’s hull,” he said. “So it cannot be accessed while submerged.”

“Can we surface?” asked Fatima.

“There’s just no way,” said Alexis. “Even if we surface, we can’t dive again, not until we’ve charged the batteries to at least twenty percent. The mercenaries will be on us like a tornado on a trailer park.”

“Charming,” interjected Fatima.

“I’ll do it,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Do what exactly?” demanded Fatima. “What are you going to do? You said it cannot be accessed while submerged!”

“It’s obvious what has to be done. Someone has to swim out of the lockout chamber, find the transponder and deactivate it.”

“Certainly you cannot—” began Fatima.

“Your mom’s right,” said Alexis. “It’s suicide, and we — we need you.”

“Who would you have me send?” he demanded, his voice raising. “Mother, look around you. Shall I send the only man who can pilot the ship, a man who can barely get in and out of his bed? The woman who runs the engines we’ll need to escape? Or perhaps you’d have me send my own mother out with her broken wrist?”

Fatima fell silent.

“I’ll go,” said Alexis.

“You will not,” said Dr. Nassiri. “I will not further imperil your life.”

Alexis too fell silent.

“I don’t know how to dive,” he admitted, “but I paid attention when Jonah was preparing for our dive in Malta—”

“Malta?” Fatima interrupted.

“It’s a long story.” He turned back to Alexis. Just one air bottle would probably be safest. I do not intend to be outside the submarine for long. Alexis, please use a hammer and rap it against the hull loud enough for me to hear it. Mother, please go attend to the lockout chamber. It will just be matter of pressurizing the chamber until it matches the pressure of the sea outside.

“Once flooded, I can simply open the door and swim out. I will change into a wetsuit and join you shortly.”

Fatima nodded, and left the engine room without another word. Wrestling with his own fear, Dr. Nassiri stormed into the weapons locker. He found a small bottle of air — he believed he’d heard Jonah refer to it as a “pony bottle”—and a marine flashlight. He grabbed a wetsuit that appeared to be more or less his size and stripped off his shirt. He noticed that he seemed leaner somehow, tauter than he’d remembered. While this dangerous life did not suit him, his body had already begun to adapt.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind him.

Shirtless, the doctor turned towards the voice. Alexis stood in the hatchway, blocking his path. She raised one long, graceful leg and braced it against the bulkhead.

“Hello to you as well,” said Dr. Nassiri, giving her the benefit of a small smile despite his overwhelming sense of impending doom.

“I want to finish what we started,” she said. “So come back in one piece.”

Alexis turned around and with that she was gone. Her promise lingered, if in no other place than Dr. Nassiri’s vivid imagination.

Fatima was still familiarizing herself with the controls of the lockout chamber when her son climbed up the ladder to meet her.

“Lock chamber,” she whispered to herself, reading the manual, her fingers pretending to press the buttons. “Pressurize interior at a rate of no more than one atmosphere per every ten seconds. Check interior pressure against exterior pressure. When equalized, flood chamber. Open outer doors.”

“You understand what you’ll need to do?” her son asked.

“I woke Vitaly up. He gave me a brief overview,” said Fatima. “He says he has to stay in the command compartment.”

“I don’t think he can stand for any prolonged period of time yet,” said Dr. Nassiri.

Fatima nodded, opened her mouth to speak then closed it again.

“It will be okay, mother.”

“I made this for you,” said Fatima, breaking eye contact and nodding, trying to reassure herself as well. The professor reached into her pocket and drew out a small glow stick on a long shoelace. She tied it around his neck and cracked it, illuminating mother and son with a gentle yellow.

“Thank you.”

“It’s like a lamb’s bell,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “Please come back safe, little lamb.”

“I will.”

The doctor wasn’t certain whether to be deeply touched or mortally embarrassed. He gave his mother a light kiss on the top of her head and entered the diver’s chamber, a small compartment no larger than a shower stall. Fatima closed the door behind him. When it shut with the loud sound of bolting locks, he realized all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.

Swim out. Get the transmitter. Swim back.

Do it, he mouthed to his mother through the tiny four-inch portal window separating them. Vents hissed loudly as tanks released air into the chamber. The compartment pressurized quickly, too quickly, forcing Dr. Nassiri to gulp air, plug his nose and violently squeeze it into his ear canals before the increasing pressure burst them. Everything hurt, his teeth, his eyes, every joint protested with pain at the rapid pressurization.

The hissing stopped. With a click, water rapidly rose through the gaps in the steel deck. He shivered from the moment it touched his toes, the cold water of this depth was only a few degrees above freezing, more than a match for his thick neoprene suit. With his last few seconds, Dr. Nassiri adjusted his swimming goggles and took two experimental breaths out of the pony bottle.

Water flowed over his face and head. For a moment, Dr. Nassiri wondered why he wasn’t floating. Between the air in his lungs and the neoprene suit; he thought he’d need to practically peel himself off the ceiling. Not at this depth, he recalled. The air in his lungs, the bubbles in the neoprene, all would be compressed by the surrounding pressure. At least that was good news, the idea of stepping out of the chamber and rocketing to the surface for crippling decompression sickness and immediate capture wasn’t appealing.

The door to the lockout chamber clicked open and swung wide, revealing the bow deck of the submarine. He could only see what little was illuminated by the light streaming out of the chamber; the rest disappeared into impenetrable darkness.

He clicked the flashlight on and swam out of the lockout chamber and around the back of the conning tower. A sudden wave of contentment and ease washed over him, strengthening with each muscled exertion.

Nitrogen narcosis, he lazily thought to himself. Why didn’t I think of that before?

He knew the hazards of surface air breathed under so much pressure — tranquility, loss of reasoning, calculation errors, poor choices and over-confidence, not entirely unlike the benzodiazepine family of pharmaceuticals. He did the math. If every thirty feet below sixty was about the same as drinking a martini, that would put him at what, six martinis? Seven? Part of him felt like maybe all the concern was unnecessary. This was going to be easy.

As he swam along the length of the deck to the immediate rear of the conning tower, Dr. Nassiri realized he could hear the tinny clanging of a hammer against steel over the sound of his own hissing, ragged breath. Somewhere inside, Alexis was doing her job. Time to do his. He played his flashlight around the area where the clanging emanated but saw only bare hull. The device, wherever it was, had to be between the pressure hull and the outer hull.

Dr. Nassiri swam down into the massive gash left by the Fool’s Errand where it had stripped away the gun emplacement and large chunk of the outer hull. The clanging now seemed to be coming from everywhere, every direction. He felt for the vibration of the hammer with his fingers, lazily allowing them to crawl over the cold metal skin of the submarine and lead him to the source. The doctor wriggled between the cross-members between the inner and outer hulls.

He sucked at the regulator and felt resistance. Terror flooded over him. He managed one more half-breath, then let the pony bottle fall away from his mouth and disappear into the darkness, empty and useless. At six atmospheres of pressure, he’d sucked through the bottle six times faster than he’d intended. In his shock, he tried to turn around and smashed the face of his flashlight against one of the crossbeams. With a distinct pop, the plastic front imploded and the light vanished.

The clanging grew louder and louder, almost matching the ferocious volume of his heart in his ears. At least the cold water would slow his metabolism, buying him a few precious seconds to try to make it back to the lockout chamber. Dr. Nassiri tried to back his way out. His wetsuit caught on something blocky and plastic.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, the hammer banging on steel just wouldn’t stop. He could feel Alexis on the other side; she was there, right below him, inches away. She was banging with the hammer and he was drowning. Dr. Nassiri pulled at the blocky shape, snapping plastic rivets and freeing it from its mount on the pressure hull. He saw two now-severed wire leads hanging and realized he’d been caught on the transmitter. He yanked hard and it came free.

Boxy transmitter in hand, Dr. Nassiri wriggled free of the tight compartment, losing precious seconds and oxygen as he did. His chest pounded, his vision swam, his lungs involuntarily spasmed, trying to force him to just breathe!

The electronic transmitter dropped from his hand, knocking once against the side of the submarine and vanishing into the all-encompassing darkness. He desperately kicked towards the light of the lockout chamber, hand outstretched, trying to reach for something, anything to pull himself inside. He caught the rim of the outer hatchway and forced himself into the chamber, squeezing it shut behind him. Just as the last of his consciousness slipped away, he sucked in a massive lungful of freezing sea water and his entire world vanished into white.