“Dive!” screamed Alexis in the conning tower to Vitaly below. “Dive, dive, dive!”
Freezing, ice-laden water rushed over the bow, flooding across the deck like Moses releasing the parted waters of the Red Sea. A massive wave slid over the short foredeck, drenching Alexis as it crashed against the conning tower. She vaulted down the interior ladder, the hatch clanging shut just as a second wave of ice and water curled over the lip of her post.
And then they were free, gliding through the water column of the North Korean shoals, again hidden beneath shifting ice.
Jonah pointed at Alexis. “Report!” he ordered “Did we get everybody?”
“Every man, woman, and child,” she announced with pride through chattering teeth. Freezing droplets of seawater scattered across the metal deck as she shivered uncontrollably.
“Good,” said Jonah, squinting as he eyed the long corridor through the heart of the Scorpion, now thick with shivering refugees. “We should be able to pull off a clean escape from here. North Korean subs are not ice-rated, and their surface ships and airplanes won’t be able to find us beneath the pack.”
“Scorpion not ice-rated,” complained Vitaly as he turned the submarine sharply to the north, plotting an unpredictable route out of hostile waters. “You make us go anyway.”
“I told you the ol’ girl would be fine,” said Jonah, patting Vitaly on the shoulder. “Nice work getting us out of there.”
“Worst captain ever never listen to Vitaly,” muttered the Russian, trying to hide his smile at the compliment. “Vitaly must save day again.”
Glancing in both directions, Alexis pulled Jonah to the side for a quiet word. “This was way too close—even for us,” said Alexis, whispering into his ear. “I didn’t sign on for a shoot out with the North Korean military.”
“Agreed,” said Jonah. “None of us did. The moment we get to Kanazawa, these people are off my boat, and I’m throwing Marissa out on her narrow ass. We got lucky this time. We won’t get lucky twice.”
Alexis pushed through the crowding, coughing refugees and made her way to the crew compartment. They were everywhere—mothers and fathers holding children and entire families piled into the sparse bunks. The strongest tended to the young and old, some of whom could barely stand. The engineer couldn’t believe how small and frail they all were. Some little more than person-shaped twigs.
Hassan was inundated with patients, throngs pressing against him as they pleaded for his attention. He’d hung a stethoscope around his neck as he attended to the first of the injured, but it may as well been a magnet. Dalmar and Marissa controlled the crowds the best they could, helping the elderly into their bunks, trying to stem the flow of the human sea surging within the submarine.
The refugees had already found their way into the galley. The last of the fruit and raw vegetables were passed overhead, the rations steadily deflating as outstretched hands darted into the sacks. Alexis spotted an entire oversized can of dehydrated potatoes move from person to person, the white flakes within disappearing by the fistful.
“Don’t eat those!” shouted Alexis, futilely pointing towards the can. “We have to cook them first! You really shouldn’t—oh.”
Within seconds, the potato-flake can dropped to the metal deck, all but empty. A small gang of children attacked the tin, licking their fingers and wiping them across the inside, desperate for every last spec of the starchy dust within.
A big glass jar of candied apple slices went up next—a gourmet variety Hassan had found during their brief stay in Puget Sound. The doctor started to protest, but abandoned the useless fight almost immediately and turned his attention back to the patients at hand.
Alexis threaded through the last of the crowd, finally close enough to reach out and squeeze Hassan’s hand. Looking up, the doctor returned the squeeze, and allowed himself a harried smile in her direction.
“The apples—” stuttered Hassan, barely able to form a thought among the chaos. “I was saving them. For your birthday—well, any special occasion, I mean.”
The engineer tugged on his hand again, taking it in both of hers. “It’s a special occasion for them,” she said. “It’s okay. Really.”
A commotion erupted behind them, suddenly interrupting the moment. Alexis caught the next moment in flashes. Screams, refugees pushing, trampling each other. One of the tallest men faced off against Dalmar, teeth gritted—a glinting knife in his fist. He jabbed toward Dalmar twice as the pirate parried with his bare hands. And then she couldn’t see them. Dalmar and his attacker were on the floor, the pirate slamming his attacker into the metal bulkheads as they struggled for the blade.
A second tall man emerged from the roiling mass, his eyes trained on Dalmar as he moved to attack. Alexis slammed her palm against the intercom, shouting for immediate help. And then she yanked out the lighting circuit breakers, plunging the compartment into utter darkness.
Alexis roughly shoved people out of her way, almost swimming as she made for her workbench—and the night-vision goggles in the top drawer. She’d been fixing a broken eyepiece to return them to working order. Fingers outstretched, she found the drawer, yanking it free. She flicked the on switch and they came alive with a familiar electronic whine, the single working eyepiece flickering to an iridescent green light.
Turning to the crowd, Alexis desperately scanned the crouching, frightened refugees. She couldn’t see Dalmar, but she could hear the dull, wet thumps of the fight on the deck. Someone was getting a hell of a beating. She just hoped it was Dalmar’s two attackers. In the bunk behind the crowd, Hassan held an old woman in his arms, gently pressing an IV into the crook of her inner arm despite the darkness.
And then she saw Jonah. Through the parting refugees, the captain grabbed one of the attackers from behind in a vicious chokehold. A knife tumbled from the attacker’s hands and onto the deck. Using the sound alone, Jonah threw his body to the deck, snatched up the knife and plunged it into his throat with a sickening squish.
She could see the imposters now, kicking herself for not noticing them before. Three more men among the ranks of the refugees, only taller, better muscled, no longer hidden under the disguise of blankets and loose-fitting rags. Hidden and waiting to strike, they intended to take the Scorpion.
The trio made their way through the crowd, each with a knife cocked back in one hand and the other pushing aside bodies, feeling for something other than the gaunt ribs of the refugees as they approached Dalmar from behind. Jonah was lost in the crowd, too far back to assist.
“Dalmar!” pleaded Alexis. The pirate heard her voice pierce the darkness.
“What?” he shouted
“Turn around!”
Dalmar swiveled to face the threat in the darkness.
“Wait!” ordered Alexis, heart in her throat as the three men pushed their way past the last of the refugees between themselves and the pirate.
“For what, woman?” demanded Dalmar.
“Fight!” screamed Alexis, her voice hoarse.
No hesitation and with impossible speed, the pirate lunged. His hand shot out to grab the nearest man by the neck. The would-be attacker didn’t even have time to strike with his cocked knife before Dalmar slammed his meaty fist into his face once, twice, a third time. The man hit the deck, a bloody and unconscious mess.
Before Alexis could issue the next order, a young, soggy boy had found the breakers and flipped them back on. The engineer whipped the goggles off her face, nearly blinded by the sudden illumination.
Oh shit, she thought. One of the infiltrators had found the lights. For all she knew they were still outnumbered, and if the imposters had anything more than a knife, the Scorpion would be overrun in seconds. The boy at the breakers screamed in Korean, his face contorted with rage as he pointed out the two infiltrators.
But then the crowd came alive, the refugees tackling and beating the traitors in their midst, tearing knives and pistols from their clothing, clubbing them mercilessly with hands and
feet. Alexis dug back into her drawers and took out four rolls of duct tape, hurling them across the compartment and into the mob. In seconds, the intruders were trussed up in thick grey tape, with three or four persons sitting on each while the other refugees stripped the lone dead man for his clothes and shoes.
There was little time to celebrate the victory as the intercom squawked with Vitaly’s request for the crew to go to the bridge. Alongside Jonah, Alexis pushed through the refugee crowd once again, and then sat at the hydrophone console next to Vitaly’s helm.
“Leaving North Korean maritime territory in three …” began Vitaly, “two . . . one . . . we now in international waters.”
Standing in the entrance to the bridge, Marissa nodded, turned, and announced the news. One of the small Korean women screamed a translation for the others. A collective cheer went up from the refugees, celebrating their escape. Alexis watched in total shock as several Chinese phones emerged from pockets and some of the refugees began taking selfies. She couldn’t help but shake her head in disbelief. What a world, when a smartphone was easier to come across than a daily meal.
“I hope they got all that noise out of their fucking system,” barked Jonah to anyone who was listening. “We can only run silent if we all stay goddamn silent.”
Alexis held up a hand as the din of the celebrating refugees slowly faded. The familiar sound of approaching propellers echoed in her hydrophones. Her blood ran cold with fear.
“I hear prop wash!” she announced in a loud whisper, loud enough to make everyone on the bridge freeze.
“A ship? Are we being pursued?” demanded Jonah.
“It’s not a ship.” She looked up, the color gone from her face. “It’s an entire fleet. And they’re right on our tail.”
CHAPTER 6
Jonah didn’t need updates from the hydrophone station; the sounds of churning, knife-like blades filled the command compartment, becoming louder every moment. The frozen ice off North Korea’s coastline had made for a claustrophobic, precarious ceiling, but now the Scorpion was dangerously exposed without it. The fleet of ships behind them—how many exactly, Jonah did not know—matched their speed and heading, slowly closing in on their quarry. The fleet would be within striking distance in minutes. And then what? Depth charges, like the ones they’d barely survived off Somalia? Or would their pursuers simply chase the Scorpion until the last of their straining batteries ran dry and their air turned foul?
Shit, Jonah thought. He couldn’t believe he was about to get blown out of the water in front of his ex-girlfriend. Worse, he wouldn’t even know who’d sunk him—just a high-pitched wail of an incoming torpedo before the big pop. The lucky ones among his crew and refugees would die in the pressure wave of the initial blast. The rest would drown as their ear drums burst and lungs filled with choking seawater, the Scorpion collapsing compartment by compartment as she plunged into the depths for the final time.
Dalmar stood watch on deck, waiting for orders as Vitaly maintained his able control of the helm. Alexis worked capably through her fear, her hands shaking ever so slightly as she optimized engine output to compensate for their heavy human payload. Even Marissa was at attention, ready to follow his lead. Jonah forced down a wave of bitter pride, burying the emotion. He just wished Hassan could be by his side; the doctor’s calm presence and steady mind was an asset in every circumstance. Not that the doctor would have any tricks up his sleeve for an entirely one-sided underwater gunfight.
Jonah glanced at the navigation screen. Good—they’d already made it further out to sea than he’d anticipated, the increase in the Scorpion’s top speed a credit to Alexis’ recent engine retrofit. But he knew full well they couldn’t run forever.
“Vitaly—make our depth five hundred feet,” Jonah ordered.
“Five-zero-zero depth, aye,” said Vitaly as he pushed the control yoke downwards. The deck abruptly shifted, leaving Jonah to press his palm on the low ceiling for balance. The hull creaked, adjusting not only to the increasing pressure, but the presence of a colder thermocline water layer. Jonah allowed himself a wry smile—the invisible barrier between water temperatures would refract and partially mask the acoustic signature of their propellers, maybe even give the Scorpion the chance to slip away undetected.
“Follow our backup escape course. Keep it unpredictable; I want to skirt the edge of Russian waters. Let’s see if they’re willing to cause an international incident over us.”
“I think we’ve already caused the international incident,” muttered Alexis, rapidly flipping through a series of engine diagnostic readouts. The battery banks were finicky at best; staying one step ahead of breakdowns was a constant battle.
“How’s our trim? I’m feeling some yaw up here.”
“Very difficult to maintain,” said the helmsmen. “New weight balance, much movement. Maybe everyone sit down, please?”
Jonah turned to Dalmar. “Go aft and get our guests situated. Tell ’em to keep their hands and feet inside the ride at all times.”
The big pirate nodded in acknowledgement and left the command compartment. Jonah tried not to think about how he’d carry out the order. Dalmar was just as likely to wave a gun around as to ask nicely.
“Steady on,” said Jonah, reassuring himself just as much as anyone else within earshot. “They haven’t pinged us, and they haven’t fired on us. They could just be investigating some unusual acoustics. We’ll lose them in the main shipping lanes, turn east and slip into Japanese waters underneath a cargo freighter. They’ll never even know where they lost track of us.”
“Captain!” interrupted Alexis, waving him over to the communications station. “I think we’re getting a message!”
“What? I thought we were too deep for radio.”
“It’s not radio,” said Alexis. “I almost didn’t see it at first—its telemetry on the Extremely Low Frequency band. I’ve never seen ours so much as beep before.”
The message slowly materialized as Jonah watched with increasing concern.
// SURFACE AND SURRENDER //
Shit. The fact that the orders were in English wasn’t a good sign. It was one thing if their pursuers thought they were chasing a DPRK submarine. Sinking one might set off the whole touchy, semi-nuclearized Korean peninsula. But going after the Scorpion was quite another. As an unflagged outlaw vessel on an illegal smuggling mission, she was fair game.
“How did they find us? Did we miss another spy? Or a transmitter?”
“Running an internal electromagnetic scan,” said Alexis, her fingers jumping across her console. “No EMF signals detected—and we’re not broadcasting on any frequency. The fleet must be following us by propeller noise alone.”
“Vitaly?”
“We already rigged for silent running and beneath thermocline. Submarine as quiet as submarine get!”
“Can we—” began Jonah before he was cut off.
“Getting another transmission!” Alexis called out. She swiveled her terminal towards Jonah as telemetry crawled again across the screen, one character at a time.
// SUBMARINE SCORPION //
// SURFACE AND SURRENDER //
// COMPLY OR BE DESTROYED //
“They’re calling us out by name,” Jonah muttered. “Vitaly—who the hell are these guys? US Navy? Russians? Chinese?”
“I do not know, Captain. Could also be Korean, Japanese, DPRK. Many navy in Sea of Japan.”
“Are we responding?” asked Alexis, looking up at him with concern.
“You bet your ass we’re responding,” said Jonah, pointing at Marissa. She stood behind the conning tower ladder on the other side of the command compartment wearing a shocked Who, me? expression. “Go aft and find a North Korean passenger who speaks English. Good English.”
Marissa didn’t answer, just turned to sprint back towards the crew compartment.
“Vitaly—make our depth six-zero feet and deploy the radio antenna. I want clear and unencumbered voice transmission capability.�
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“Captain!” protested Vitaly. “I must advise against! Twenty meters? It very easy to sink Scorpion at this depth!”
“Angles and dangles ain’t working, Vitaly. Whoever is following us won’t be snookered by the usual tricks— confirm depth six-zero.”
“Aye Captain. I bring Scorpion to suicide depth.” He pulled back on the yoke, the bow of the submarine rising sharply.
Marissa marched back into the command compartment, dragging a short, wide-eyed refugee by the hand. The young North Korean woman in tow was all of four foot ten inches in height, round-faced, and topped with an unfortunate government-sanctioned bowl cut that only further cemented her tragic resemblance to a mushroom.
“You speak English?” asked Jonah.
The small Korean woman nodded, too mesmerized by Jonah to answer out loud. She instead reached up with one tiny hand and pinched at his beard with irrepressible curiosity. He couldn’t help but suspect it was the first one she’d ever seen in person.
Jonah batted her hand away.“What’s your name?”
“I am Sun-Hi,” she said, still staring at his short beard, but keeping her hands to herself this time.
“What’s your job?”
“I read radio news in Myongchon, North Hamgyong province.”
“Good. Can you act? Improvise?”
“I play Koppun in stage version of The Flower Girl!” She lifted both fists in the air like a cheerleader as she gave him a wide, unexpected smile, almost dancing in excitement. Jonah had no idea what the tiny woman was talking about, but knew he’d tapped into the right part of her personality. She’d need every bit of that moxie if his plan had any chance of succeeding.
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