Brittany found the access shaft behind the SHF SATCOM transponder, just like Red had said. Once the rumor had begun circulating that Red had been incapacitated by the same intestinal ailment that had stricken Coach, Brittany knew in an instant the real reason for her abrupt disappearance. With both of her allies in detention, she had a choice of attempting this daring rescue or trying to stop the Chairman on her own. Now that the EAM had been sent, and Yankee Hotel was one step closer to being implemented, time was of the essence, and Brittany knew that whatever she did, it would have to be done quickly.
What Red had neglected to pass on was that a screwdriver was needed to remove the cover panel. Brittany found one in the flight avionics bay, an equipment-packed compartment that adjoined the forward lower equipment area. Brittany wasn’t comfortable with tools, and it took a bit of doing to remove the screws and pry off the panel.
The narrow shaft inside was pitch-black, and she had to return to the avionics bay to get a flashlight. This would hopefully be the last item she would need to initiate the dangerous task at hand, and she knelt before the now-open shaft and prepared to enter it.
It was at this inopportune moment that an airman entered the compartment. She had no choice but to duck inside the shaft, and her pulse was madly throbbing as she reached out and did her best to cover the open portal with the cover panel. From the black confines of the shaft, she cautiously peeked outside and watched the airman begin working on the VLF transmitter, which was positioned at the aft end of the room. He seemed to take forever to complete his work, yet Brittany didn’t dare continue until he had finished.
When he finally completed the job and left, Brittany moved forward. The shaft was just wide enough to fit her shoulders, with thick cables running along the walls. The iron rungs were hard to grip, her progress further slowed by the constantly vibrating fuselage. She supposed that most of the maintenance work performed in this portion of the airplane would occur when Nightwatch was on the ground, and she continued the difficult climb as quickly as possible.
The sound of muffled voices signaled her arrival at the deck above. She halted to catch her breath, and was able to hear the distinctive chatter of people talking. One of these voices was female and could belong to Red, and Brittany prayed that the Admiral’s stateroom was nearby, though there was no sign of any vent opening.
She swept the shaft with her flashlight, and discovered the outline of an access panel that appeared to be identical to the one she had originally climbed through. The voices seemed to be coming from the other side, though the screws holding this panel were nowhere to be seen. Fearful they could be removed only from the other side, she began probing the shaft’s surface with the pointed tip of the screwdriver, and in this manner uncovered a layer of stiff, rubberized insulation that she quickly pried free.
A familiar pattern of screw heads was soon exposed. She hesitated briefly before removing them, well aware that, other than Red’s cursory description earlier, she didn’t know which portion of the airplane this cover panel would open up to. And even if it turned out to be the Chairman’s stateroom, were the prisoners there with no sentries or any of the coup supporters present?
A woman’s voice could be heard once again from the other side of the panel, and Brittany took several deep breaths before deciding that the gamble was worth taking. Her hand was badly shaking as she raised the screwdriver to the head of the first screw. It took a concentrated effort to remove it, and as she went to work on the second screw, Nightwatch suddenly lost altitude, causing the entire shaft to suddenly pitch forward.
The screwdriver slipped from her grasp, and as it began dropping into the black void below, she blindly kicked her leg out and was just able to trap the tool between her thighs. She reached down to grab it, and no sooner did she secure it in her grasp than air turbulence caused the shaft to begin wildly vibrating.
All but forgetting about the immediate task at hand, she found herself hanging on for dear life.
By the time Nightwatch finally leveled out and found smooth air again, her nerves were all but shot. She fought the temptation to give up, and resolutely re gripped the screwdriver to get back to work. Except for one stripped screw that needed her every last bit of strength to budge, the rest of her effort went smoothly, and with a great sense of relief, she put the palms of her hands onto the center of the panel and pushed. It opened with a dull pop, and she could barely contain herself to see Red’s smiling face appear in the aperture.
“It’s about time. Commander. What took you so long?” said Red.
Clearing a safe lane for the unit was proving to be a nerveracking, time-consuming process, now that antipersonnel mines had been discovered buried alongside the trip-wire-activated booby traps. This was the first time Thomas had ever seen Army Sappers clear such a field, and he was impressed with their expertise, patience, and thoroughness.
A hand probe had uncovered the first Yugoslavian, pressure activated mine. Thomas was close by as the Sappers carefully extracted the cleverly constructed device, crafted out of molded plastic. Ted Callahan pointed out that this type of mine had no metal content, making it impervious to discovery by a magnetic mine detector. It could be neutralized only by hand, mine plow, or a line charge.
Seven similar mines had since been discovered buried in the track-laden footpath. Instead of digging them up, the Sappers marked them with Cyalume chemical light sticks or chemlites, as they were better known, their wrappers partially torn off in such a manner that only the advancing unit could see them.
Thomas was continuing to travel with the point Sapper unit, with much of their progress measured in mere inches. He had adapted well to his Night Vision Goggles, and was trying his best to ignore the ever-present mosquitoes and other biting pests.
“Special Agent Kellogg,” whispered Sergeant Reed from the head of the formation, “check this out.”
Thomas crawled forward and looked farther down the trail, in the direction that the Sapper instructor was pointing.
“Do you see those cylinder-shaped objects on the left side of the path, some ten yards ahead of us?” Reed questioned.
With the assistance of his NVGs, Thomas spotted what appeared to be a sizable grouping of thick, five-inch-long firecrackers scattered on the ground.
“Are they M80s?” he asked.
“They’re much more lethal than that,” replied Reed.
“Those devils are what we call toe poppers. They’re activated by pressure, and are designed to mutilate by blowing off a foot.”
Thomas made certain to give the toe poppers plenty of leeway when it came time to pass them by. He made it a point to hug the trail’s far right side, a decision that almost had tragic consequences.
“Special Agent, stop in your tracks!” ordered Sergeant Reed, who was now following him.
Thomas had to hear no more to freeze in mid-step. He carefully placed his foot back on what he thought to be solid ground, and the earth gave way, causing him to lose his balance and fall forward into some sort of newly exposed depression. He felt a firm hand grab his shoulder and yank him back on his feet. It was Sergeant Reed who proved to be his savior, and Thomas found himself staring down into a shallow pit filled with a wicked-looking group of very sharp stakes.
“Punji sticks,” said Reed with a grunt.
“And odds are they’re covered with excrement. Somebody out here certainly knows his business. Special Agent. And that means if the VP and his party passed over this trail without triggering any of these pitfalls, you can rest assured that the folks who set them are the ones leading their way.”
Dick Mariano anxiously paced back and forth like a caged animal.
The other occupants of the subterranean Operations Center were trying their best to give the ex-SEAL a wide berth, ever afraid of further aggravating his rotten mood, and triggering yet another invective-filled outburst.
“Damn it, Richy!” yelled Mariano to his green-faced associate, who was seated at a vacant communications console sorting through an MRE.
“How can you even think of chow at a fucking time like this?”
Richy held back his reply until pulling a miniature bottle of Tabasco sauce out of the plastic packet and downing its contents in a single gulp.
“I was only looking for a pick-me-up. Skipper,” he said, after licking his lips and tossing the packet aside.
“That Cajun rotgut’s gonna eat a hole right through that belly of yours, bro,” Mariano remarked, before venting his rage on the beard-stub bled BDUclad technician responsible for monitoring their SATCOM unit.
“Are you certain that the motherfucking receiver is even working. Chief? Surely we should have heard from that cocksucker Pierce by now.”
The technician somewhat nervously beckoned toward the series of green lights that lit his console, saying, “All systems are up and operational, sir. If you’d like, I can run another systems check.”
“Do it!” ordered Mariano, who looked at Richy and shook his head.
“Ain’t this the ultimate goat fuck? How much longer is that pencil-pushing government asshole going to keep us waiting?
His plane should have landed at Leonard Wood by now, and besides, don’t those flying palaces of theirs have phones in them?
Hell, here we are standing around at ground zero with our dicks in our hands, all primed to pass on the news he’s been waiting for all day, and that motherfucker has forgotten that we even exist. It’s just like fucking “Nam. Those self-important government pricks haven’t changed in the least, and if we didn’t need them for funding, we’d do better to eliminate them all and let the military run the show.”
“How ‘bout the prisoners. Skipper? I still say shoot them, and kick ass getting as far away from this place as possible before those warheads fly,” offered Richy.
“The safest place to ride out that storm is right here, bro. And as for our distinguished prisoners, regardless of what the Speaker has to say, their time’s a-comin’, never fear.”
“Where in the blazes did that sucker disappear to?” queried Brad Bodzin, in reference to the sonar signature that had unexpectedly faded from their waterfall display.
“Jaffers, run me a quick systems analysis, to see if the problem isn’t with our sensors.”
“My money says it isn’t. Sup. But it’s your call.”
While Jaffers attacked his keyboard, Bodzin addressed the blond-haired sailor seated beside him.
“I hope to God we haven’t lost Sierra Three, Wilford.”
“That we haven’t. Sup,” remarked the easygoing Tampa native while pushing back one of his headphones.
“The signature of our mini-sub is coming in loud and clear. ETA Rhode Island in two minutes, fifty-eight seconds.”
“Sonar, Conn,” a deep, amplified voice broke in over the PA.
“What’s the status of Sierra Seven?”
Bodzin recognized this concerned voice as belonging to the XO, and he answered him as honestly as possible.
“Conn, Sonar.
I can’t really say, sir. We never did have a firm lock on them, and sometime within the last two minutes, our sensors lost them altogether.”
“Sup,” said Wilford, his tone urgent, “I think Sierra Seven could be back.”
“It’s them, all right!” exclaimed Jaffers, a thick white vertical line forming on the right side of his CRT screen.
“Approximate rough range twelve thousand yards, bearing zero-eight-five.”
Bodzin hurriedly addressed his keyboard to isolate this contact on his headphones. And as he was in the process of putting the intercom handset to his lips, a dreaded, growling, buzz-saw whine sounded from the direction of Sierra Seven.
“Conn, Sonar. Torpedo in the water!” he shouted into the handset.
“Sierra Seven has reappeared on bearing zero-eight-five, and sensors indicate a confirmed torpedo launch. Relative rough range is eleven thousand five hundred yards and quickly closing, with Sierra Three a possible target!”
A garbled warning came from Dan Calhoun, courtesy of the Folk’s underwater telephone: “Sierra Three, torpedo continues its approach.
Range down to eleven thousand yards, and we have a definite confirmation that you’re the target!”
From his position in the mini-sub’s copilot seat, Benjamin Kram curtly spoke into his chin mike and acknowledged the transmission, then turned his attention back to isolating the oncoming threat on sonar.
“ETA Rhode Island in two minutes, eleven seconds,” informed the pilot, who was seated to Kram’s immediate right, his hands tightly gripping two black plastic joysticks.
“Can we make it, sir?”
Dozens of gauges and digital readouts were mounted into the cramped bulkhead before them, and Kram isolated the green-tinted CRT screen that monitored the mini-sub’s passive sonar array. He was able to make out both the signature of the advancing torpedo and that of the Polk as it steadily picked up speed, with neither readings lightening his spirits any.
“I’m afraid it’s just not worth chancing. Commander,” replied Kram glumly.
“That torpedo has us in its crosshairs, and we can’t risk drawing it any closer to our boomer. Come around hard on course one-nine-zero, and let’s see if she’s as fast as the contractor says she is.”
With a flick of the left joystick, the pilot was able to guide the mini-sub into a tight turn. Kram felt his restraint harness bite into his shoulders, and he could hear the grinding whirl of the boat’s single-screw, battery-powered propeller bite into the surrounding water. Even with this all-out speed, the digital knot indicator never budged over eight, and with the torpedo coming in at over ten times that speed, the prognosis wasn’t favorable.
“What are you trying to do. Captain, outrun the damn thing?” asked Doug Gilbert from the adjoining passenger module.
The SEAL team leader was seated there alongside a wet suit clad associate. Four additional SEALs sat shoulder to shoulder in rows of two behind them, with a full load of weapons and other equipment stuffed into the cramped, elongated compartment as well.
“Sierra Three, torpedo has broken the ten-thousand-yard threshold,” reported the Folk’s XO, his garbled voice barely recognizable over the mini-sub’s PA speakers.
“Please state your intentions. Over.”
Kram relayed their new course change, and he listened to his XO’s firm reply.
“Sierra Three, we intend to get between you and Sierra Seven. On my mark, please initiate wipe-off procedure. Five. four… three… two… one… Mark!”
Impressed with Dan Calhoun’s bravado and tactical ingenuity, Kram didn’t dare challenge his decision, and he ordered the pilot to immediately deactivate the mini-sub’s power train. As they powered back to zero, the digital knot indicator dropped accordingly, as did the constant whirring grind of the boat’s sole propeller shaft.
“What the hell are you doing up there?” quizzed Gilbert as the mini-sub began silently drifting.
“We’re nothing but a sitting duck out here, and without any propulsion, we don’t stand a chance.”
His fellow SEALs supported him with a chorus of concerned chatter, and Kram interceded to ease their anxieties the best he could.
“Gentlemen, we all knew the great risks we were taking when we started this mission without first addressing the threat of that unidentified submarine out there. Now that it’s taken a cheap potshot at us, the Polk is attempting to readdress the situation by getting between us and the torpedo. By powering down and going silent, we’ve essentially gone invisible to any probing passive sensors, including the sonar that’s directing that wire guided torpedo.”
“If that’s the case, how’s the Jimmy K gonna shake that fish off its tail?” asked one of the SEALs from the back of the passenger module.
Kram replied while worriedly rubbing his forehead.
“I guess we’ll all know the answer to that one about sixty seconds from now.”
Kram reached out to the console and set the digital timer to sixty seconds. He somberly watched the seconds begin counting down, all the while fitting on his headphones to listen to the frantic underwater battle that continued to develop outside their fragile hull.
In the cold depths almost due north of them, a warship he was still personally responsible for was selflessly positioning itself to draw away the ever-approaching torpedo. He knew that it would be the ultimate travesty to end his long career at sea by losing the Polk, and the one hundred and forty-seven men who remained on board, while he cheated death.
“Torpedo has lost us and reacquired the Polk.” informed the pilot, his own gaze locked on the target acquisition sonar.
“I make the new range to target five thousand yards and closing.”
This almost matter-of-fact revelation generated no joyous outburst from the mini-sub’s occupants. In their minds, they collectively knew that though they might be out of harm’s way for the moment, their co-workers on the Polk were now in a relentless race with oblivion.
The deep, guttural roar of the Folk’s nuclear reactor powering up for flank speed sounded in Kram’s headphones. With a distinctive cavitational hiss, the Folk’s propeller could be heard biting into the sea, and he could imagine the huge vessel gathering momentum, the eyes of the control room crew centered on the diving console, frantically urging the knot indicator forward.
“Range to new target, forty-five hundred yards and continuing to close,” came the rote voice of the pilot.
Kram breathlessly listened to the grinding report of the Folk’s noisemakers being launched. These diversionary simulators were designed to divert the torpedo, and the cacophony of sounds that soon met his ears seemed to meld together in a single, macabre symphony.
It was as the digital timer hit the ten-second mark that Kram yanked off his headphones, and he flinched when a rumbling explosion sounded clearly in the distance. The mini-sub’s sonar was rendered all but inoperable by this deafening underwater blast, whose ensuing shock wave tossed the vessel violently from side to side. The lights failed, and in the impenetrable blackness that followed, Benjamin Kram’s thoughts refocused themselves from forlorn mourning to selfish prayers for his own survival.