Nighthawk

17

The outstretched jaws of the retrieval bucket plunged downward, crashing into the wreckage surrounding the Angler. Metal screeched as it was torn and twisted. A cloud of silt erupted from the impact site and the Angler tilted over to one side.

With the teeth of the bucket embedded in the silt below, the powerful hydraulic struts activated. The jaws were forced together, burrowing through the silt, until they slammed shut beneath the heap of tangled metal.

The powerful winch in the Typhoon’s cargo bay was engaged and the steel cables pulled taut, straining against the suction created by the sediment. The resistance didn’t last. With a sudden lurch, the latest collection of wreckage was pulled from the seafloor to begin its journey upward.

Watching from the outside, the divers in hard suits saw nothing to differentiate this load of material from any other. It was just another stack of twisted metal being hauled away, with a long trail of silt pouring from the gaps and streaming in the current.

As the bucket neared the opening in the Typhoon’s hull, a maneuver called the shake was performed. The ascent was halted and the jaws were opened a few inches. The tension on the cable was released and the bucket allowed to fall several feet before being stopped.

Each time the crane operator shook the bucket, a new cloud poured from the bottom. After several shakes, there was little sediment left. The jaws were closed once again. The winch was reactivated and the load drawn into the cargo bay.

Once it was fully retracted, the bucket began to move horizontally. At a predetermined position, it stopped and dumped the latest pile of wreckage on the inner deck.

Inside the Angler, Kurt and Emma were thrown about. They remained in their seats. When they were finally dropped inside the Typhoon, both of them were amazed to be alive. The claws had gone under and around them. The hull hadn’t been punctured or even scratched; the acrylic of the canopy was free of cracks.

“Look at the size of this hold,” Emma said, gazing around.

“Used to be the missile bay,” Kurt said. “In their original configuration, Typhoons carried twenty-four extremely large ICBMs. The largest ever deployed to sea.”

As Kurt spoke, he got his bearings. The bay was filled with water, which could be pumped out once the heavy doors were closed. At the moment, they were facing aft and tilted over at a thirty-degree angle. To get free, they’d have to rise up, make a U-turn and then dive out through the opening. Assuming, of course, that they could get free.

Leaning across the cockpit, Kurt spotted the offending piece of wreckage. “I think I can cut us loose.”

“Better be quick,” Emma said. “There’s not much wreckage left down there.”

Kurt moved an acetylene torch into position. At the touch of a button, it snapped to life. He brought it up against the bent metal spar that had snagged them. The flame burned bright blue and the metal flared, red and molten, dropping away in burning fragments.

As he worked, the Typhoon repositioned itself and the retrieval bucket descended once again.

Emma watched the gearing above them spin. The cable let out for several seconds and then came to a rather abrupt stop. “Now would be a good time,” she urged.

Kurt continued to burn through the length of metal, watching small bits melt and fall off. It seemed to be taking forever, as if the metal was made of something other than aluminum.

The gearing above began to spin as the cable was reeled in to bring the next load of wreckage on board.

“Hurry, Kurt,” Emma urged.

“I’m cutting as fast as I can.”

The torch finished its cut and a large triangular piece fell away. The Angler was free.

Kurt switched over to the throttle, tilted the thrusters and poured on the power. The Angler rose up out of the junk pile, shedding metallic debris and the coating of silt it had acquired.

Once they were above the wreckage, Kurt spun the submersible in a half circle and accelerated toward the open gap at the end of the cargo bay. They reached the edge, dove downward underneath the bucket just as it shook loose its next great cloud of silt.

Momentarily blinded, Kurt kept the throttle wide open. When they emerged on the far side, they were in the clear, headed for the darkness and safety beyond.

Sitting in the operations room of the Typhoon, Captain Victor Tovarich of the Russian 1st Salvage Flotilla watched the operation unfold on several screens, each linked to cameras on the underside of the Typhoon. An additional screen was divided into four quadrants and displayed the video feed from cameras mounted on the divers’ hard suits.

He was proud of his men and his great machine but anxious to complete the project. He turned to his second-in-command. “Progress report.”

“Eighty percent of main wreckage recovered,” the officer replied.

“Any sign of the Nighthawk?”

“No, sir,” the officer replied. “I’m afraid not.”

“It has to be here,” he said, walking over to the monitor to study the grainy picture that was coming in. “We know they had it in their grasp.”

“Permission to speak freely?” his First Officer said.

“Of course.”

“If the Nighthawk is not with the bomber, we should stop wasting our time on this recovery and get back to searching for the American craft.”

Tovarich resisted the urge to smile. His First Officer was a charger. He wanted the glory that came with plucking the American space plane off the bottom. He wasn’t alone. “I share your desire, Mikael. But they’ve decided in Moscow that this craft is a priority.”

The officer nodded.

“Besides,” Tovarich added. “It could still be here. There was always a chance that the pilots managed to hold on to the Nighthawk even as they lost control.”

“A blind man’s chance of catching a sparrow.”

“Perhaps,” Tovarich agreed. “Only an airman could come up with such a plan. We should salute their bravery. Which reminds me, we’ll need to search the wreckage in the cargo bay and recover the bodies.”

He reached over and tapped a button, switching one of the monitors to an internal camera view. “Have one of the divers report to…”

Tovarich froze midsentence. Something on the screen caught his eye. A flickering light: fire. His first concern — that they’d brought something combustible on board — vanished as the firelight snapped off, but his confusion grew worse as he saw movement in the wreckage. “What in the name of…”

Tovarich watched in disbelief as a white submersible with a broad red stripe rose out of the tangled metal and spun around. It came forward, heading right toward the camera, and then dove out through the open cargo bay doors, but not before Tovarich noticed the letters NUMA prominently displayed on the top of the submersible.

Rushing to the tactical section of his control room, Tovarich grabbed the sonar operator. “We have an uninvited guest out there,” he said. “American submersible. Find them!”

The sonar operator worked feverishly, pressing the earphones to his head and listening for the tiny, electric-powered submersible. With all the background noise, it proved impossible.

“It’s no good, Captain. Too much interference from the salvage team and the thrusters.”

Tovarich turned to the navigation officer. “Thrusters off. All stop. Shut down the salvage operation.”

The positioning thrusters were turned off and the vibration they produced began to fade. As the Typhoon began to drift, the work outside came to a halt as well. No one dare move.

“Anything?” Tovarich asked.

The sonar operator continued searching. Finally, a signal emerged.

“Small craft,” he said. “Bearing zero-four-five. Depth seven-fifty and rising.”

“I want a positive range-and-firing solution,” Tovarich said.

The tactical officer looked surprised. “Sir?”

“That’s my order. Lock on and fire!”

Out in the dark, racing as fast as they could and heading for the surface, Kurt and Emma listened through the hydrophone as a strange silence grew up in their wake. “They’ve shut down the thrusters,” Kurt said. “It means they’re listening for us.”

He considered shutting down as well and drifting on the current, but if he did that, the Russians would just resort to active sonar and would find them eventually. The only way to be safe was to reach the surface. He doubted the Russians would do anything once they were out in the open.

He angled the nose of the sub higher and watched as the depth went below seven hundred feet. They still had a long way to go when the sound of the Typhoon’s main engines coming back to life reached them.

The heavy pinging of a sonar sweep caught them seconds later, followed by the sound Kurt was dreading: a sudden rush of compressed air as a torpedo was thrust into the water to track them down and destroy them.