The Victoria Stone

by Bob Finley

  "Stay where you are. If you move a muscle, I'll kill you where you stand."

  Jambou moved out of his peripheral vision. Marc wondered what the man was doing that he didn't want to be seen, or...

  "AAARRGHH!!" Justin yelled as a white-hot pain streaked from his left shoulder to his right hip. He jerked forward and spun away from whatever it was, turning in time to see Jambou deftly take several steps backwards. "WHAT’D YOU DO?!" he yelled, furious.

  Jambou had both hands on the gun and was crouched in a shooting position, with the Beretta leveled at him.

  "Stay where you are!" he yelled. "Move and you’re dead!"

  Justin hesitated just long enough for his anger to boil away to survival levels. Then, several feet from Jambou, he saw the knife. It was lying on the floor behind the gunman and there was unmistakably blood on it. His blood, he knew now, because he felt the first drops of it drip from his fingers onto the carpet. He looked down at his hand and was startled by how much blood had already run down his back, his leg and his arm.

  "Are you absolutely, totally insane?!" he said incredulously. "Why did you do that?!"

  It was when Jambou smiled that Justin made the connection between the opening in the floor and the slash across his back. Jambou saw the realization on his face and smiled even wider.

  "Nooo, I'm not insane. With the diamonds I was able to salvage, and the wonderful things this ship can do, I’d say I’m very, very smart. And I have to thank you for showing me what I needed to know about how to operate this limousine of ships."

  "You said, if I recall, that if I helped you escape, we’d both live and I’d get to keep my ship."

  "I lied."

  "You know what will happen if you make me get in that water out there, don’t you?"

  "Oh, yes...I most certainly do. And that will be my greatest pleasure...except, of course, for my getting away and still being reasonably wealthy. But, you’re a survivor, Captain, as am I. I told you that already. Back before you took away everything I’d worked for. But, enough of the small talk. It’s going to take me forever to clean up that mess you’re making on my carpet." He threw his head back and laughed.

  "Now. Would you rather be dead when you go through that hole in the floor, or temporarily still alive? The choice is yours. Though I'd much rather you’d still be alive and bleeding when you go. It would make what comes next so much more fun."

  Marcus Justin scowled at him. He was fresh out of ideas. Jambou was being far too careful for him to rush him. And there was no way he was going to beg this sewer rat for anything. He turned to the diver’s access and, without another word, stepped into it.

  Jambou stood transfixed by Justin’s act. He’d been sure the man would have asked for a knife or some kind of weapon to defend himself once he was in the sea. Instead, like a suicidal jumper, he’d simply stepped off the ledge and silently disappeared. For a moment he almost admired his opponent for his stoicism and panache in the face of certain death. But then he shook his head, closed the hatch as he’d seen Justin do it, and went forward, smiling as he went.

  The salt water sent another stream of pain across his back and arm as he dropped into the sea beneath the VIKING. He knew he wouldn't have long before Jambou fired up the ship and he didn't want to be anywhere near the water jet intakes when he did. So he kicked away from the ship...his ship...and began a free ascent from sixty feet down. Even though his vision underwater was blurred without a face mask, he nevertheless watched the submarine for as long as he could see it, the tall stabilizer with its camera ripped away during the tunnel escape being the last thing he saw of it.

  He burst through the surface above and hungrily filled his aching lungs with fresh salt air, taking a half-dozen deep breaths. He took a quick look around. There were three-foot seas and a partly cloudy sky. From the position of the sun, he guessed it must have been after two in the afternoon. He raised his arm to look at his wristwatch and saw that it agreed. Then he looked at the watch again for a moment before he put his arm back down in the water. Ducking his head under the water’s surface, he waited, holding his breath. In less than ten seconds, he heard it. The VIKING. The big jet thrusters thrummed and rose quickly to a high whine. And then it was gone.

  He was alone in the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The coast of Spain was fifty or sixty miles away, and it was the nearest landfall. He had no survival equipment and he was bleeding. He slipped out of the blousy coveralls to streamline his shape and tied them around his waist. He might need them later for air bladders to help him stay afloat. He stretched his arms out and felt the gash on his back open up again. Couldn't be helped. He took one more look at the sun, spun around toward the northeast, and began to swim.

  A lone seagull far overhead looked down on the tiny dot on the vast expanse of the rolling sea and glided away. The figure below didn't look edible. At least, not to him.

  Chapter 102

  Their reception aboard the USS George Washington had been great. All the people and the excitement, the television interviews, the hot shower and the food. But that was hours ago. Now, it was going on four o'clock in the afternoon and there was still no word on the VIKING. Kim sat in the wardroom with Janese Cramerton, drinking cup after cup of coffee.

  A deuce-and-a-half officer in khakis came in and drew himself a cup. As he did so, he seemed to be looking the two of them over. He ladled in heaps of cream and sugar. The spoon was loud as he stirred it. He came over.

  "Mind if I sit down?" he asked quietly.

  Kim shook his head and slid over. He'd seen the man before, somewhere up on deck.

  "Lieutenant Commander Wesley Gray," he said. "Wes will do."

  "I thought all navy men drank black coffee," Janese mused, a smile playing furtively across her face.

  "Real men do. Or so they constantly tell me," he smiled in return. "You folks want anything from the galley?"

  They both declined. Gray looked Kim over carefully.

  "Do you feel like talking about what happened? To your friend, I mean?"

  "Do you know something?" Kim immediately asked, his eyes boring into the officer’s.

  "No, no, nothing like that. What I meant to say was, what was he doing the last time you saw him, what his plans were, that kind of thing."

  Kim stared at him. "That’s an odd question. Why do you ask?"

  The man looked sheepishly down into his cup and then back up at Kim. "I’m with naval intelligence."

  "I’ve heard rumors that that’s an oxymoron," Janese teased.

  He looked at her and smiled. "So have I."

  "I’ve already told a bunch of people all about that," Kim objected.

  "I know. And I know this is a bad time for you. But sometimes, in thinking through the same events several times, one little detail pops up that we forgot before. That one little detail might be just what we need."

  "To do what?" Matsumoto growled, just wanting to be left alone.

  "To help find your friend," Commander Gray said gently. "We really do want to, you know."

  Kim glared at him a moment, but finally softened. "Yeah," he admitted softly. "Thanks."

  Gray let the silence linger before he began again. "Where was he the last time you saw him?"

  Kim looked away. "In the penthouse. I wanted to go with him on the ship. But he wouldn't let me."

  "Did he say what he planned to do?"

  "Yeah. He was going to try to get to the ship and take her out the tunnel. The one we came in."

  "Could he have done that by himself?"

  Matsumoto face flushed with anger. "Why do you think I wanted to go with him?" he demanded.

  "I'm sorry," the Commander said apologetically, "I wasn't judging you. What I was asking was, whether one man could handle the submarine by himself?"

  Kim drank some of his cold coffee. Finally, he said, "Normally, yes. But these circumstances weren’t normal. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He...helped me drive the ship in, when we first arrived. It would ha
ve been very difficult doing it by himself with the volcano coming down around..." He stopped suddenly and looked off into the distance, his mouth still open.

  "What's the matter, Kim?" Janese Cramerton sat up and asked him.

  For a moment he didn't answer. Then he slowly turned to look at her. In a voice stirring with wonder, he said, "He wasn't alone."

  "What?" they both asked at once.

  "He wasn't alone. He wasn’t alone!" And a smile began to spread across his face.

  "I don't understand," Janese said, but stopped when Gray touched a restraining hand to her arm.

  Kim looked at her. Then he looked at the officer. And smiled, his voice becoming excited. "He had Yoko!"

  It took a moment, but Janese understood. And then she, too, smiled.

  "Who’s Yoko?" Commander Gray asked, confused.

  "Not ‘who’, ‘what’?" Janese said.

  "No," Kim corrected her. "Who," he said with reverence.

  When Gray looked back and forth between them, Janese explained. "Yoko is an artificial computer intelligence that Kim has created. She practically runs the ship."

  "She?"

  Janese nodded. “She sounds like a she. And Kim says she's a she. So, she must be a she."

  "And this...Yoko? ‘She’ could be helpful to Captain Justin?"

  Both Kim and Janese laughed out loud. "If she can help him as much as she harasses him, he’s in good hands," Kim joked.

  "A computer that harasses the ship’s captain? Why?"

  Matsumoto grinned and got up to go over to the coffee urn. "Partly because I told her to," he chuckled. "And partly because she enjoys it."

  The officer swung around to see whether Kim was pulling his leg. "You talk about this computer like it’s a real person."

  Kim turned from drawing his coffee and looked Gray directly in the eyes. "She is," he said firmly, with pride obvious in his voice. "And if anybody can pull Marc’s fat out of the fire, she can...if only he trusts her enough to let her do it."

  "Mr. Matsumoto?"

  They turned to the wardroom door where an enlisted man stood at attention.

  "Yes, that's me."

  The man turned his head just enough to look at Kim.

  "Sir, you have a SatLink call. You can take it right over there." He motioned across the room and Kim turned to see a telephone where the man indicated. He crossed to the phone and picked it up like he was handling a snake.

  "Yes? Yes. From where? Alright, thank you." He turned to them and announced, "It’s a call from the home office. I wonder how they tracked me down here?"

  "With your face all over the televisions in ten countries, how could they not know where to find you?" Janese jibed.

  "Yes. Trish? What is it? What’s wrong?" The alarm was evident in his voice. "What?! When?" He listened intently for ten or fifteen seconds. "Who has the coordinates? They do? No, no, that's fine. That’s great! Is that all? Was there any word on...okay, no, that’s just fine. Oh, yeah! You bet! Thanks, Trish. Okay...you too. ‘Bye." He quickly returned the telephone to its cradle. When he turned around he wasn't the same person he'd been before the call.

  "Hah!" he exclaimed, grinning hugely. "We’ve got him! Now all we’ve gotta do is go get him!"

  "Could you calm down long enough to tell us what you’re talking about?" Janese urged.

  "The VIKING," he said, as if they were dumb to have asked. "She’s been found! A satellite relay reported an emergency transponder signal that matches the VIKING’s. The coordinates have been passed on to the Washington."

  "What does that mean, a ‘transponder’ signal?" Janese asked.

  "If there’s an emergency," Matsumoto explained patiently, "the ship releases an electronic buoy that floats to the surface and alerts a satellite...or, several of them. The buoy is a miniature GPS...Global Positioning Satellite...receiver, so it plots its position in latitude and longitude from the satellites, then transmits it back to the satellite, which reports the position to the home office."

  "What happens then?"

  "It's like a cop calling in on the radio and saying ‘Officer Down’. Every cop in the city drops everything and goes to help. Same here. Every resource the company owns will be diverted to locate and rescue the ship." He wound down and there was a moment of silence.

  "So," Commander Gray mused aloud, "the submarine is down. Why is that good news?"

  Kim looked at him. "Are you kidding? Five minutes ago I thought the VIKING, and Marc, were both blown to smithereens when that volcano blew a hole the size of the George Washington in the bottom of the sea. Now I know the VIKING’s intact, somewhere out there, because we wouldn’t be getting a signal if she weren’t. That means, probably, that she’s disabled but still alive. And we can deal with that!"

  "Was there any mention of...you know..." Janese couldn't quite form the words.

  "No, we haven't actually heard from Marc yet, but that's probably because of damage to the communications systems. Don't you worry. We'll be looking at his ugly face before long." He turned to the officer. "Can we go find out who has those location coordinates, and what we’re doing about it?"

  "Of course," Commander Gray replied and ushered Kim ahead of himself toward the door. As Kim eagerly stepped over the threshold, Gray turned and met Janese Cramerton’s stare. He answered the unspoken question with a shrug. "Anything’s possible," he said, and stepped aside as she entered the passageway after Kim.

  Chapter 103

  Bereel Jambou walked the length of the ship with a jaunty bounce to his step, and ceremoniously sat down in the command chair. Aware of the drama of the moment, he smiled to himself, turned around, and slid the chair on its tracks until it locked into place. He put his hand on the throttle and advance it slowly, carefully keeping his feet on the other controls. He felt his body sink into the seat slightly as forward speed smoothly increased, and he watched with pleasure as the speed gauge rolled up to 45 miles per hour. With the joy stick he planed the VIKING down and kept a watchful eye on the depth gauge. 100 feet. Then 500. 1200. At 2000 feet he leveled her off and pushed the throttle forward until the speed increased to 80 miles per hour. He smiled again. With 10,000 feet of water below him, and traveling at double the speed and far beyond the depth of any other submarine in the world, he knew he was finally safe. Nobody could touch him. Nobody!

  He knew he would soon have to decide where he should go. Some place where a rich man could buy anonymity, yet enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

  "Computer." His voice sounded oddly alone.

  "My name is Yoko," came the immediate reply in a silky voice.

  "Well, then, Yoko. It’s time you met your new master. My name is Bereel Jambou. You may call me Captain Jambou. And I want you to display a map of this part of the world on the screen in front of me."

  "I’m sorry Captain Jambou. I can’t do that."

  Jambou frowned. "What do you mean, you can’t do it? I'm the Captain and I gave you an order."

  "I can call you Captain Jambou. But I cannot carry out your requests."

  "What?! Why not? And that wasn’t a ‘request’, it was an order!"

  "You are not authorized to issue orders on this ship, Captain Jambou."

  "I don’t need authorization! I am in charge here!" Jambou's voice had risen in both volume and pitch.

  "Please forgive my contradiction, Captain Jambou, but you are not in charge here," Yoko responded cordially.

  "I’m the only one here!" Jambou bellowed. "If I’m not in charge, then who is?!"

  "In the absence of Kim-san and Captain Justin, I am in charge."

  "You! You're just a computer!" he sneered. "Do you know who I am?!"

  There was a pause. It dragged out to five, six, seven seconds. Then Yoko spoke.

  "Yes." Her voice was very quiet. Something had happened. "You are my prisoner."

  The powerful hum of the thrusters abruptly stopped and the turbines whined swiftly down in a decrescendo until they faded away. The rush of water past
the ship, not detectable with the engines running, gurgled quickly away to nothing as the VIKING slowed to a crawl. A loud rumble of air belched from the ballast tanks into the surrounding sea. The VIKING nosed over into an unpowered dive, the deck canting to 45, then 50 degrees.

  Jambou, now leaning slightly into the seat restraint, watched the depth gauge wind out at an ever-quickening pace. In just seconds the ship had dropped to 2500 feet. He grabbed the controls and worked them but they seemed totally dead and unresponsive.

  "What's going on?" he finally thought to ask out loud. He wasn't used to talking to a ship.

  "The reactor has been SCRAMMED," Yoko answered. "VIKING is now inoperable."

  "Inoperable?" Jambou bleated. "What do you mean, ‘inoperable’?"

  "Inoperable means that all systems except life support systems shut down until the reactor is restored."

  "Well, when will that be?"

  "I don’t know."

  The depth gauge was rolling past 4000 feet.

  "You said you were in charge. Can’t you restart it?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" Jambou asked plaintively.

  "That decision is not included in the parameters of my programming."

  Jambou felt the first icy fingers of fear.

  "Are you telling me the ship is sinking?"

  "That is correct."

  "How far down will it go?"

  "Sonar indicates the depth at point of expected touchdown is twelve thousand, one hundred twenty-one feet."

  "You mean we’re going all the way to the bottom of the ocean?" Jambou asked in a hushed voice.

  "Yes."

  "We’re sinking? I mean, we’re actually...sinking?!"

  "Yes."

  "But...this is only temporary...right? I mean, you can make the ship go up again, right?"

  "Which question do you want me to answer?" Yoko asked.

  Jambou’s breath exploded in exasperation. "Is... this...situation...temporary?"

  "I don’t know."

  "Well, then, can you make the ship go up again?"

  "No."

  "NO?!" he roared. "NO!?! What's going to happen to me?!"