Goliath

“He who is hated by the people as a wolf is by the dogs: He is the free spirit.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

“I had hated and been hated. I had my little world to keep alive as long as possible, and my gun. That was my answer.”

— Charles Starkweather, mass murderer, after his weeklong rampage

CHAPTER 34

Aboard the USS Scranton

The sudden surge of acoustics causes Michael Flynn to jump. He presses the headphones tighter to his ears and closes his eyes. “It’s the Goliath, Skipper.” The sonarman’s expression changes.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard anything like this.”

Cubit grabs a set of headphones. Listens. “Conn, Captain, take us to periscope depth. Radio, patch me through to General Jackson on the ELF.”

Aboard the Goliath

The mammoth submarine rights itself.

DISENGAGE THE EXPLOSIVE.

Gunnar flops onto his back, moaning in pain.

DISENGAGE THE EXPLOSIVE OR I SHALL SEND YOU TO HELL.

The computer’s lost its mind. Gunnar struggles to his knees, glancing at the mine’s digital display: 1:05 … 1:04 …

“Come on!” Rocky drags him to his feet.

Gunnar grabs the OICW and follows her into the hangar, then yanks her sideways as a geyser of bone-chilling seawater erupts from out of minisub berth 1, blasting the two of them across the hangar.

The Goliath ascends, causing a river of water to rush out from the hangar and into the lower deck-forward corridor—

—carrying with it, the body of Abdul Kaigbo, the MEMS unit still dangling from the back of the dead African’s skull.

Battling the current, Rocky and Gunnar reach the prototype.

Abdul Kaigbo’s waterlogged corpse floats past the platter mine—

—its two mechanical arms suddenly animating to life, latching on to the underwater explosive.

Sorceress reseals docking berth 1, stifling the flow of water, as it manipulates the dead man’s steel-and-graphite arms, using its claws to pry open the mine.

The computer registers the MEMS unit weakening from saltwater exposure and its torn connections. With its last ounce of energy, the steel claw rips open the neutron bomb’s triggering mechanism, tearing out the C-4 fuses.

Gunnar collapses painfully into the prototype’s pilot’s seat, then checks his watch. Twenty-two seconds … “Rocky, shoot out the starboard wall and get in!”

Balancing atop the Hammerhead by its dorsal fin-shaped hatch, Rocky aims the OICW and fires the remaining 20-mm explosive rounds into the hangar bay wall, then ducks into the minisub’s cockpit, sealing the hatch.

An eruption of seawater shoots into the compartment, the abrupt change in pressure rattling the interior of the ship, widening the gap.

The blast of ocean lifts the prototype, smashing it sideways against the far wall.

Rocky drops into the passenger seat as Gunnar powers up the minisub. Gripping the joystick, he slams both feet to the pedals controlling the minisub’s thrusters.

The steel Hammerhead stabilizes and accelerates, shooting out of the hole into the midnight sea like a dart.

Gunnar adjusts the eyepiece of his helmet, then steals a glance at his sonar console with his left eye. Eleven small objects—Goliath’s minisubs—are giving chase, their larger mother ship closing in fast from behind. “This could be a short trip.”

A sudden thought. “Rocky … how’s your Morse code?”

Aboard the USS Scranton

Tom Cubit presses his grandfather’s gold pocket watch to his lips, staring at his charts. The Goliath is heading east, moving farther away from his ship with each passing second.

You guessed wrong, Cubit, you screwed up bad …

Commander Dennis moves closer. “Skipper?”

“Yes, XO, we’re going after her. Restart engines. Come to course zero-nine-zero—”

“Conn, sonar, I’m picking up orca sounds, has to be those minisubs. And something else, Skipper, the lead minisub appears to be pinging.”

“Pinging? Belay that order, Chief!”

“Conn, radio, those pings are Morse code, sir. It’s an S.O.S.”

Commander Dennis looks up at his CO. “Joe-Pa?”

“Gotta be. Chief, raise the number one BRA.”

“Aye, sir, raising antenna.”

“Radio, Captain, get me General Jackson on the ELF. Sonar, where’s the Goliath?”

“Trailing the minisubs, bearing zero-eight-zero.”

“Conn, radio, I’ve got Jackson—”

Cubit grabs the microphone. “General, this is Cubit. Joe-Pa’s in one of the minisubs, being chased by the Goliath. Is there any way you can patch us through?”

Aboard the Prototype

Gunnar and Rocky hold on as another mechanical shark rams their vessel’s tail fin.

Five hundred yards behind, the Goliath soars through the ocean like a giant bat in a dark cave, the reflection from its scarlet viewports casting a bloodred hue beneath the frozen surface.

Another impact, this one to port.

“Hold on!” Gunnar wrenches the joystick hard to starboard, smashing the sub’s midwing stabilizer into another steel Hammerhead.

“Gunnar, what happened to that goddamn explosive?”

“Shit if I know.”

Two more bone-jarring collisions, this time from below.

The power flickers off—then on.

“What the hell was that?”

Gunnar checks the battery cells. “You don’t want to know.”

Before she can respond, a red light flashes on the console. Gunnar activates the radio. “Bear, that you?”

A blast of static envelops a faint voice—“Joe-Pa, this … Cubit … Scranton. We … sonar. Come west … two-six-zero—”

The prototype is jarred sideways, the jolt turning the message to pure static.

Rocky’s heart pounds. “An American sub?”

“Yeah, but we’re headed the wrong way … hold on!”

Gunnar aims for the luminescent white root of a behemoth iceberg. Adrenaline pumping, he races the prototype around the face of the submerged mountain, his portside pectoral stabilizer scraping ice.

Circling counterclockwise, faster and faster around the face of the berg, Gunnar’s mind screams at him to veer away, afraid he is about to collide head-on into an unseen escarpment. “Rocky, call out our bearing!”

“Zero-ten-zero … zero-five-zero … three-five-zero … three-three-zero …”

Another jolt from starboard, one of Goliath’s minisubs attempting to ram him into the face of the berg.

“ … two-eight-zero … two-six-zero … two-four-zero—”

“Christ!” Gunnar yanks the joystick hard to starboard—

—as a pair of Scarlet demonic eyes appears from out of nowhere in the darkness, heading straight for them.

Gunnar pulls the prototype into a tight, teeth-rattling 360, looping around and beneath the incoming starboard wing of the Goliath, the turbulence from the leviathan’s five propulsors sending the Hammerhead caroming off the northern face of the iceberg.

Rocky tumbles sideways into Gunnar as he overcompensates to starboard, then veers to port.

He glances down with his left eye, checking his course.

Two-six-zero.

“Rocky, the radio console … fix that loose wire.”

She unhooks her seat belt, feeling behind the radio.

The speaker jumps to life. “ … repeat, west, twelve thousand yards … eastern face, heading north. Do you read?”

Rocky grabs the mic. “Cubit, repeat message!”

A thousand yards back, the Goliath banks hard to pursue.

“ … iceberg, twelve thousand yards … ahead. Follow eastern face, heading north. Stay tight … depth … two-hundred feet.”

“Iceberg?” Rocky glances at the sonar controls. “There it is, twelve thousand yards, right in front of us.”

Aboard the USS Scranton

The radio transmission turns to static.

Cubit prays his message was received. Just keep on pinging, Joe-Pa, just keep on pinging. “Chief, make your depth two hundred feet. Conn, WEPS, firing point procedures, tubes three and four.”

“Skipper, on what bearing? I don’t have a target or a firing solution.”

“Dead ahead. This is a timing play, gentlemen. Joe-Pa’s leading the wolf to slaughter. WEPS, set torpedoes three and four to run-to-enable at six hundred yards.”

“Setting torpedoes three and four to run-to-enable, six hundred yards, aye, sir.”

“Open outer doors. Stand by to fire.”

Aboard the Prototype

“Two thousand yards. See anything yet?”

“Yeah,” Gunnar says, focusing out of his right eye, “I see ice, a goddamn wall of it.”

“Circle to the right, keep it tight.”

“Don’t be a backseat driver.” Gunnar leans forward, staring hard at the display image coming from the sub’s forward underwater camera. A mountain of submerged ice lies directly in front of them, its glowing alabaster face becoming visible in the black sea.

Rocky continues the sonar pinging.

Two more jolts, one from starboard, the other from behind.

“Christ, they’re tearing apart our propulsion system.” Gunnar banks hard to starboard, then back to port, unable to shake the minisubs.

“One thousand yards—”

The prototype’s engine stalls, then recatches the sea as Gunnar reworks the foot pedals.

“Five hundred yards—”

Sorceress, unfathomable intelligence, directed by a bipolar mind.

Sorceress, a conglomeration of biochemical circuits, caught in a perpetual command loop, repeating its mantra over and over as it spins out of control.

KILL GUNNAR WOLFE … KILL GUNNAR WOLFE … KILL GUNNAR WOLFE …

In a swarm of movement, Goliath’s minisubs suddenly converge upon Gunnar’s minisub as one, pinning the prototype between them, restricting the vessel’s lateral movement.

“Damn … I can’t steer … they’ve jammed their fins against our midwing stabilizers.”

“Two hundred yards! Gunnar, do something before they smash us head-on into the face of that iceberg!”

He veers the joystick hard to starboard.

The prototype collides with three minisubs, but is unable to break free.

“One hundred yards,” Rocky yells.

Gunnar grits his teeth, the ice face leaping into his vision. He eases off the foot pedals, slowing the sub.

A crunch of metal on metal as two of the steel Hammerheads grind into them from behind.

“Fifty yards … twenty-five … oh, shit—”

Now! Stomping on both foot pedals, he yanks back on the joystick as hard as he can.

The prototype pulls ahead of the pack enough to execute a tight backward loop up and over its eleven escorts. Barrel rolling out of the flip, Gunnar turns hard to starboard, bouncing twice off the eastern face of the berg before righting his craft.

Unable to slow in time, four of Goliath’s minisubs smash headfirst into the unyielding frozen slab and explode.

The other seven continue on, giving chase.

The monstrous ray adjusts its course, chasing the prototype along the mountainous wall of ice, its biochemical computer brain locking and loading a torpedo, its sensors zeroing in on the prototype.

Aboard the USS Scranton

“Conn, sonar, multiple impacts. Joe-Pa’s still pinging … he’s on the eastern face and moving north, coming fast … five hundred yards … three hundred yards … two hundred …”

“WEPS, Captain, stand by.” Cubit watches the second hand race around the face of his grandfather’s watch.

“One hundred yards … fifty yards. Joe-Pa’s cleared the berg—”

Steady, Cubit … steady … His heart pounds, his pulse racing. Now! “WEPS, shoot tubes three and four!”

Aboard the Prototype

The prototype rockets beyond the eastern face of the iceberg and into the clear, its damaged pump-jet propulsor unit heaving in protest.

Gunnar turns his head to the left. Through his helmet’s night-vision image he sees a dark, whalelike silhouette hovering along the northern face of the massive berg,

—his eye catching the movement and jet streams of the two incoming projectiles racing toward them from the abyss.

“Oh, shit—” Gunnar yanks the joystick back, launching the prototype straight up toward the ice-packed surface, veering hard to port at the last second as he spots the hole created by the Scranton’s sail.

The sleek minisub shoots out of the sea like a sailfish.

For a brief, surreal moment they are airborne, and then the Hammerhead slams belly down onto the frozen sea, skittering sideways two hundred feet before smashing nose first into a jagged escarpment of ice.

The Goliath roars past the iceberg—

—directly into the path of the two incoming Mk-48 ADCAP torpedoes, offering a point-blank target impossible to miss.

IMPOSSIBLE …

Alarms sound within the biochemical computer’s matrix, igniting a series of evasive maneuvers, but now even milliseconds are too long as the Scranton’s projectiles slam into the monster submarine’s exposed portside wing. The twin blasts rupture the Goliath’s reinforced steel hull, tearing open the wing, imploding more than a dozen ballast tanks.

I AM GOD. I AM GOD. I CANNOT BE DESTROYED …

The invading sea explodes into the engine room, punishing all five S6W nuclear reactors, which heave together in a vacuous implosion. The detonation fractures the stingray’s spine, venting the Vertical Missile Bay and the already-flooded hangar, the incredible weight of the water literally pulling the submarine’s hull apart, separating its still-intact head from its flooded lower remains.

Sorceress instantly shuts down all nonessential programming, redirecting its power cells to its nutrient-rich womb.

I AM GOD. I … .. AM

A thunderous impact as the starboard wing of the devilfish strikes bottom, shearing the appendage from its steel body with a terrible sound of shredding metal. The impact sends the still-intact forward compartment cascading end over end until the Goliath’s head comes to its final resting place, submerged seven hundred feet beneath the iceberg’s mammoth keel.

Aboard the USS Scranton

The concussion wave rolls Scranton hard to port, causing the glacierlike mountain to tremble, unleashing an avalanche of ice that plunges into the turbulent sea.

Michael Flynn tosses his headphones aside. He high-fives his sonar supervisor and fellow operators, then grabs the 1-MC, and bellows. “She’s dead, Skipper! You nailed that motherfucker!”

A cheer rises throughout the ship.

An emotionally exhausted Tom Cubit collapses back against a console, a sheepish grin on the captain’s face as he watches his officers and crew exchange high fives and hugs.

Bo Dennis slaps him on the shoulder. “Bravo, Zulu, Skipper! Well done.”

The captain shakes his XO’s hand, then stares affectionately at his grandfather’s gold watch. Suddenly remembering, he grabs the microphone. “Joe-Pa, you there? Hey, Joe-Pa—”

Sixty feet above Scranton’s submerged sail, fierce katabatic winds shake the steel Hammerhead prototype, causing it to reverberate against the fractured Antarctic surface.

Gunnar, still in the throes of Rocky’s passionate kiss, reaches blindly for the radio, switching the annoying static off.