by Andy Lettau
While Captain Ji bit his lips tensely, the First Officer, who had been hit in the chest, was fighting for his life in a cloud of blood on the side of the vessel facing the Americans. If something did not happen within seconds, the man would drown, a miserable death.
"Comrade Political Officer, I appeal to your compassion. Let's get Hong-yon out of the water."
Pak took a step back and laughed manically. He did not notice the pain in his left upper arm. "You want me to get this man out of the water, the man who was first to shoot at me. You must be joking. The hell I will."
"You're completely insane. How could I have been so wrong about you? No Captain in the world lets his men drown."
"And no Captain in the world tolerates a First Officer who shoots at his own people. You are forgetting that it was Hong-yon who fired at me in that cowardly underhand way. I am just defending myself. He fired the first shot. It's just bad luck for him that I'm a better shot. But bad luck that he's brought on himself. And now I'm ordering you for the last time to bring the crew to their senses and go back below deck. Before I put a bullet through your head."
Yong-Jo Ji took his time to make one final attempt to persuade Pak to change his mind. "What you are about to do is madness. If you fire the nuclear torpedo from this distance, we will all die. Even from a relatively safe distance, this attack makes no sense. The Americans have a desalination plant on board that could save us from dying of thirst. Have you thought about that?"
Pak had to think for a moment about the Captain's words. Then he laughed out loud. "A clever diversionary tactic, but one I'm not going to fall for. Sooner or later it will rain. Nobody will die of thirst. We will return home as victors."
"Comrade Captain", screamed Kol-yan, the Chief Engineer who had just come to, "Hong-yon is drowning.
"Then we can save him a painful death," Pak pre-empted Ji and with lightning rapidity fired at his First Officer struggling in the water. Another gentle plop. An accurately discharged bullet put an end to the desperate man's struggle for life.
The whole crew on deck stepped back in horror. Captain Ji on the other hand swallowed once again and fixed his burning angry eyes on Pak. Without warning he suddenly threw himself at Pak with an agility that surprised the much younger man and crashed against him with his powerful body like a bulldozer.
The two men began to struggle, slid over the deck and held on desperately to two metal mooring rings with great effort, just a couple of feet from each other.
Encouraged by Pak's unfortunate situation, the crew edged forward to help Captain Ji and pull him up. In the certain belief that Pak was no longer able to do anything, they clustered around Ji.
Pak on the other hand saw that nobody was about to prevent him from slipping away. His strength was ebbing, especially as the bullet in his upper arm was beginning to take its toll on his body. His body was wracked with pain and it was only because of his anger that large amounts of adrenalin had been released and given him unimaginable reserves of strength. Although his pistol had slipped out of his hand into the sea in the struggle with Ji, he still had a final trump card up his sleeve, which he meant to use.
It was clever of him to carry a second weapon, with enough ammunition to send all of the bastards into eternity.
With an almost superhuman effort of will Pak swung his wounded arm in the direction of his vest to open it and put his hand inside his uniform. He felt the weapon, put his hand around it, pulled it out and expertly emptied the magazine before the poor devils could react. Half a dozen men were fatally wounded and slipped portside into the sea, while Captain Ji could only look on at this slaughter without being able to intervene.
"You murderer, you cold-blooded murderer!"
Pak had to take a short breath because everything had gone black. The wild attacks of Ji, which took the form of an arm swinging out of reach, began to lose their effect.
"Save your energy for a last thought, Comrade Jong-Jo Ji", grinned Pak and held the pistol pointed at the aged Captain with an arm that was almost numb.
"Go to hell," Ji replied and looked death in the eye.
"I am going to Pyongyang", said Pak coldly and pressed the trigger. Ji fell into the water. Seconds later, he himself slid into the salty waters. His burning eyes saw that Ji had disappeared from view.
He had been swallowed up by the sea. And it was the sea that would judge him.
Quite suddenly Pak was overwhelmed fatigue, which was pleasant at the beginning but within a few seconds was turning into uncontrollable panic.
'Hold on. You must hold on ...'
Once again he was caught by a wave, which forced him below the surface. As he kicked himself to the surface again, spewing out salt water, he felt worse than he had ever felt in his life before.
He then saw, a few yards away, the black flipper and began to hyperventilate fast.
'Damn. Damn, damn, damn ...'
Another wave swept over him, pulling his body about ten feet into the water. His reflexes began to fail, and he could only keep his eyes open for fractions of seconds. But in these infinitesimally short intervals he was able to see something flashing on and off, something in the form of a small box attached to the hull of the DA BAK SOL.
'Limpet mines. The Americans had attached mines ...'
In Pak`s head all of his thoughts resolved themselves into one:
'SURVIVE!'
Like an agitated and wounded animal he crawled along the slippery portside, overcoming the pain and exhaustion one last time. Somewhere in the rear there were a few gaps in the metal big enough to get through. If he could just get to them, he would be able to use his last remaining strength get back on board to ....
He had no time to think of anything else. Mechanically, he moved his arms through the water, almost instinctively. His pulse was racing and his eyes were almost popping out of his head. He was swallowing huge amounts of water. Without noticing, he peed into the water while he was swimming. In spite of the thick protective vest, he was moving forward like some world record swimmer, but the bodily fluids he was exuding, a mixture of blood, sweat and urine, released an olfactory cocktail that would send his lurking enemy into ecstasy.
Pak had almost reached the rear when he felt something move against his leg. He resisted the temptation to turn and try to guess what was happening and concentrated instead totally on the goal before him. There were only a few yards between him and the steps.
Ten yards.
Nine yards.
Seven yards.
He felt something.
Six yards.
Five yards.
Four yards.
The next contact was a bit more than that. It was hefty jolt in the side.
Three yards.
Two yards.
"Ooouuuhh …"
Pak groaned with pain. Something extremely large had rammed him in the side from the rear. Almost delirious, he stepped into the water and desperately grabbed the planking of the hull.
Then he saw - just one yard away - the steps. With his good right hand he started to haul himself up. Like a string of pearls the plate-sized indentations led above.
When Pak tried, with one foot, a leap from below the water level, his heart missed a beat. He had almost done it. With final concentration he co-ordinated his movements and climbed up.
He was already completely out of the water, when a powerful body shot smartly out of the water and closed in on him.
CHAPTER 18
Atlantic Ocean
31st December
Captain Ji was losing strength. He had lost all sense of time and did not know how long he had been in the water. He had lost so much blood through his gunshot, and this had made him weak. He knew that his lungs were filling up slowly with blood and water. Every time he tried to take a deep breath there was a rattling sound in his windpipe. He would not be able to hang on much longer, especially since his body was cooling off constantly, despite the heat that hung over the ocean.
The
US submarine was becoming a gloomy shape between the individual wave troughs in the darkness that had long ago descended. The image of a large whale passed before his mind's eye, and he remembered a novel by Hermann Melville, that he had read secretly many decades ago. The GEORGE W. BUSH looked like Moby Dick, waiting for a crazed Captain to seal both their fates.
Yong-Jo Ji almost had to laugh at this genuinely absurd situation. Moby Dick, the American, had been his enemy for so many years. A enemy that he had been unable to destroy for lack of technology. And now that he held all the trump cards, the light of understanding had finally been switched on his brain. Destroying the class enemy was as pointless as a hole in the head. This planet was at its end, where was the sense in sinking each other?
The true enemy was at his back. In the shape of a superannuated submarine that was only still partially seaworthy, modified into a lethal weapon of attack by some blind idiots in Pyongyang. The regime had eaten its children, excluded them as ideological suicide killers, and sent them off into the final battle. From being an obviously thoughtful young Political Officer, who was tied up in knots with love and originally had wished for nothing more than to return in one piece to his wife and unborn child, though he would never have said this, he had become a soulless robot, a killer machine ready for anything. Ji now felt pain at the memory that it was he who initially had continued the mandatory political education classes while they were at sea. Ji blamed himself, even though in the last few weeks he had become personally acquainted with his long-standing subordinate officers and had wanted at all costs to prevent the Shkval from being fired at a civilian target. Now that recent chaotic events could mean the end of all of them he felt ashamed of ever having accepted this command. Men like Pak could obviously not understand him and regarded him as a traitor who had to be eradicated like some troublesome vermin.
Ji looked around once again. The distance to the DA BAK SOL had now increased to about two miles. He had no idea if this was because the submarine had moved using its own power or because he swum so far. Or if the vessel had been swept away by the ocean current. If the DA BAK SOL moved back using its own power to achieve the calculated and relatively safe firing position, this could mean only one thing: Pak was still alive and getting ready for an attack.
He must be dead, Ji convinced himself and remembered once again the dramatic events on board. With his own eyes Ji had seen how Pak, who had also been hit by a bullet, slid into the water after him, after he had executed the last crew members. Ji, who had been caught up by a current and driven against the starboard side, had then lost track of him.
CHAPTER 19
Atlantic Ocean
American submarine USS George W. Bush
31st December
O`Brian was standing in the mess, where President Johnson was about to make a speech in a few seconds. The rooms had been cleaned, the crew looked impeccable. Some of the passengers, despite their emergency water landing, had managed to secure part of their wardrobe and wore evening clothes or tuxedoes. They looked as out of place as the enormous Christmas tree, on which some jokers had hung homemade miniature torpedoes and drawings of the North Korean dictator in a red Santa outfit.
As Johnson stood on a small podium and spoke his first words into the microphone, there was rapt attention. O`Brian looked briefly at the First Lady. The Secret Service official next to her awkwardly held Pinky in his arms. On formal occasions of this sort it was clear that the First Dog should be next to the First Lady.
"My fellow American friends, I speak tonight not as your Commander-in-Chief, but as your friend and comrade. After the greatest catastrophe on earth in human history, we find ourselves like Noah on his ark, completely surrounded by water. Our planet, the victim of an orbital killer, has lost most if not all of its leaders, even in the most remote areas. This state of affairs obliges us to take up the challenge and become the leader of whatever life remains. We want to support those we may meet on our journey. We want to be strong for those on board, willingly or unwillingly, in their despair and mourning. And under no circumstances do we want to have to eat kimchi instead of turkey."
Johnson displayed considerable wit on the edge of the abyss, but somehow the audience was unable to respond. He himself was a practiced enough orator not to be unaware of the mood of depression and not to be able to turn on his heel to positive matters. Suddenly he made use of another standard item of rhetoric, one which he reserved for emergencies.
"Finally, our European friends in particular warned us that we were overheating the planet with our C02. To err is human. We also made a mistake with our ambitious and ultimately correct plans to democratize Iraq and Afghanistan."
The first smiles.
"Yes, they said, our Western life style, of which I have always been an advocate with all due respect for other cultures, would drive the world into collapse. But today I can assure you with all due respect to the men and women of science: The demise of the world has been caused neither by C02 emissions, which we clearly reduced with the greatest of efforts, nor by the much talked about war of cultures. Rather it was the boundless nature of the cosmos that produced something frightful and reminded us how small and insignificant we ultimately are. We come from dust and will return to dust. That goes for Presidents too."
Thoughtfulness. Nods of agreement.
"But death at the hands of a megalomaniac enemy, a Communist regime is totally avoidable. This was a base and infamous act that will not go unpunished, the aggressors will be called to account for it immediately. As you probably all know by now, our Navy Seals have mined our enemy. At midnight exactly - in a few minutes - these mines will explode. You can imagine what will happen after that. But anyone who thinks this is an act of barbarism has time to change sides. Anyone who thinks we will watch passively until the enemy attacks for a second time, please raise his hand or forever hold his peace."
This theatrical section of the speech was particularly effective. Everybody looked around to see if anyone would abandon patriotism and object. As expected, nothing happened. When the chips were down, the country was solidly behind the President. Individual cries of "Down with North Korea" and "God bless America" could be heard.
"As I see, we are all of the same opinion. We will not tolerate those who trample on freedom. We will not allow democracy to be besmirched. We will not allow a dictator to get the upper hand. We will fight till the last man and last breath. And whatever happens: We will see it through together."
"Well said, Mr. President“, someone called out. "Let's bomb them back into the Stone Age," another shouted. "Mr. President, get us home," said a woman's voice.
Applause began to spread. The President and his wife picked up the glasses full of champagne, provided on a tray by the orderlies. Johnson had to ask twice for quiet so that he could carry on with his speech.
"We are not monsters and we take no pleasure in the death of others. But what I have ordered - what any President and Commander-in-Chief would have ordered in this situation - is unavoidable. Those out there or we in here. Those out there, or those after whom is the end to all free-living civilization! Ladies and Gentlemen, let us pray."
President Johnson began the Our Father.
O`Brian was almost on edge of losing emotional control. Many felt as he did, but prayer united them all in their emotion, grief, pain and their last spark of hope. Nobody left the room. They all held hands.
Except for O`Brian.
He had to get out.
There was some force he couldn't fight against.
He was already in the tower when the prayer ended and he heard the countdown as in a trance.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
O`Brian went on deck. He had hoped to be alone, but he found two guards there. One of them had a searchlight pointed at the sea. He told his comrade that there was someone in the water.
O`Brian assessed the situation in an instant. "Man overboard", he shouted and tore his jacket off. H
e kneeled and untied his shoelaces.
He could hear a yelp. Pinky's yelp. All of a sudden the dog was there. The noise below deck had obviously become too much for him.
"Not now, my friend," O`Brian said and ruffled the hair on Pinky's head. He then jumped up before the other men on deck could have prevented it. The dog did not hesitate for a second and did the same as O`Brian. When he saw this, O'Brian cursed. This was really not the right time for games.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
O`Brian's crawl was as good as it had ever been. Unaware of it, he was swimming with Pinky in front of him.
The man in the searchlight shouted out something he couldn't understand.
Four.
Three.
Two.
O`Brian formally plowed through the water.
He saw exactly what he had to head for.
Only a few yards in front of him he saw a shape in the water.
One.
Zero.
CHAPTER 20
Atlantic Ocean
31st December
Captain Ji suddenly felt the need to let fresh drinking water run through his throat. So far he had resisted the temptation to swallow salt water. Instead he pulled together his last reserves of strength to reach the rear end of the USS GEORGE W. BUSH. He was only a few yards from the beaten-up steel colossus, when he heard the murmur of voices and applause. He turned on to his stomach with a final effort to see what was going on in front of him. Expecting to be attacked by snipers he saw instead two quite surreal-looking silhouettes.
Ji rubbed the salt out of his burning eyes to be able to see better. Either he had become so weak that his senses were deceiving him or what came up to him was the craziest reception committee he had ever seen.
The old Captain forced himself to keep going and tread water. Almost delirious with pain he blocked out almost everything and focussed with tunnel vision on a few square yards occupied by a yapping dog and a man in American uniform calling to it in English.