The Wrecking Crew

by Taylor Zajonc

  “The Batboat?” said Dr. Nassiri, a little incredulous.

  “No! The ship we chase! Look like Batmobile.”

  “Ah,” said Alexis. “The Horizon.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Vitaly. The Russian pulled up a regional map on his console and inputted a series of coordinates.

  “So we know coordinates where beautiful Fatima rescued,” said Vitaly, pointing at a blinking cursor.

  Vitaly flashed a very genuine smile towards Dr. Nassiri’s mother. She visibly blushed despite herself. Alexis rolled her eyes just a little too obviously.

  “And we know speed of Horizon,” said Vitaly. “And we know point where we find her drifting. According to calculation, she is under power for seventy-three minutes after rescue then stop and drift. This seventy-three minutes is window where big man Jonah escape with lady friend of Fatima.”

  Vitaly added in a second set of coordinates to his map, the location where the Horizon would have lost power. Dr. Nassiri noticed that the coordinates were a little off from where the Horizon currently drifted. Vitaly had already compensated for the hours the stricken ship spent in the current.

  “What if he abandoned the Horizon after she lost power?” asked Alexis.

  “If he abandoned ship after lost power,” said Vitaly. “Then they would drift together. Same current, same drift. We would have found already.”

  “Yes, that makes sense,” said Fatima.

  “Okay, no more stupid question,” said Vitaly. “Let Vitaly do Vitaly magic.” Vitaly punched in additional variables, creating a search grid, showing the potential area over six, twelve, and twenty-four hours.

  “Given sight distance of periscope and range of radar,” he said, “we have eighteen hours to find Jonah.”

  “And Klea,” added Fatima.

  “Why eighteen?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

  “After eighteen hours, every hour we search represent exponentially greater search area,” said Vitaly, with a confident facial expression that indicated he expected everyone assembled to be impressed. “After this, odds of finding big guy very small.”

  “Impressive. How do you know all this?” asked Fatima.

  “Learned in Russian Navy while looking for lost sailor,” said Vitaly. “He took piss off back of aircraft carrier. Lost balance, fell in ocean.”

  “Did you rescue him?” asked Alexis.

  “We find him!” announced Vitaly with no small amount of pride.

  “That’s good—why, that’s fantastic!” said Dr. Nassiri. For the first time, the doctor felt a warm surge of optimism flow through his body. Maybe it was possible to find Jonah after all.

  “Not so good,” said Vitaly. “Lost sailor drowned. But we find him!”

  At least they found him, thought Dr. Nassiri.

  Despite Alexis’s protests, Dr. Nassiri insisted they run the batteries down to less than seven-and-a-half percent before the Scorpion surfaced to charge batteries. As near as anyone could guess, seven and a half seemed to be the magic number, any lower and vital systems were compromised or rendered inoperable. It was a gamble. They’d be dead in the water if they were caught, but surfacing earlier or at intervals would leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading the Bettencorps mercenaries directly to their location.

  “Preparing to surface,” said Vitaly, slowly bringing the Scorpion up for air.

  It wasn’t night yet, not quite, but it should be close. Dr. Nassiri raised the periscope. Through the lens, he could see the perfect reds and purples of yet another brilliant African sunset.

  Alexis started the engines, and the entire command compartment was instantly filled with the soothing, familiar hum of the massive twin-diesel engines. A few hours like this and they’d be at full battery power and ready to tackle anything. Vitaly had smartly piloted the massive submarine to one of the far corners of their computer-modeled search area. The course was intended as just random enough to throw off any pursuers while still making effective ground in the search for Jonah.

  Dr. Nassiri slowly swiveled the periscope in a full circle. Once clear, he’d have Fatima join him on the conning tower with a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  Suddenly, the view out of the periscope fell on a pair of incoming rigid-inflatable zodiacs, the type favored by commandos and pirates alike. They were gaining ground on the Scorpion with every second, and both vessels bristled with heavily-armored mercenaries and weaponry.

  “They found us!” shouted Dr. Nassiri. “Dive, dive, dive!”

  “The batteries—they’re too low!” said Alexis, almost shouting, intense distress in her voice.

  Fatima just stared ahead, wide-eyed and terrified.

  “How close?” demanded Vitaly.

  “Close,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Dive, dive now!”

  “How close to reaching us?” demanded Vitaly again.

  “I don’t know,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Fifteen seconds. Maybe less.”

  “How did they find us?” said Fatima, breaking her silence.

  “Engines to full power,” said Vitaly. He pressed the throttle forward and was rewarded with a rapidly increasing pitch from the engine room as the Scorpion surged to flank speed.

  “I ordered a dive,” shouted Dr. Nassiri, clapping a hand on the Russian’s back. “So dive, Vitaly! Dive now!”

  “Please trust,” said Vitaly. “Give me countdown.”

  I suppose the betrayal was inevitable, thought the doctor. Vitaly actually wanted him to count down to his own capture and probable execution.

  The next few seconds played out in his mind. The Bettencorps mercenaries were going to beach their boats on the back of the Scorpion and rush the conning tower. They’d blast open the hatch and—

  In fact, they wouldn’t even need to blast it open. They had Vitaly. The Russian could simply toggle some unseen switch and the hatch would fly open. Please make yourself at home. Remember to wipe your feet.

  Dr. Nassiri drew his pistol.

  “Fine, no countdown for Vitaly,” said the Russian.

  Vitaly abruptly threw the submarine in reverse. Time froze for a moment as anything not bolted down flew forward—computer monitors, operational manuals and human bodies alike. Dr. Nassiri barely braced himself on the periscope as the entire submarine rattled and groaned with a symphony of a mechanical torture, gears grinding, propeller shaft shrieking under the strain. Fatima tumbled forward as if blindsided by an errant rugby tackle, falling through the hatchway, protecting her broken wrist while trying to brace herself with the other, landing hard. A loud, Texas-accented goddammit echoed out of the engine compartment, accompanied by a loud clattering.

  Dr. Nassiri grabbed the periscope and brought it to bear at their attackers. One of the two inflatable boats had overshot the Scorpion completely and was circling back for another pass. The second had been sucked into the reversed propellers, leaving chopped-up rubber, screaming men and an oil slick in the Scorpion’s wake. One out of two wasn’t bad—and maybe they’d gotten both if he’d given a Vitaly a proper count-down. But they couldn’t count on trying the same trick twice. Worse, the remaining inflatable boat wasn’t alone. Her mothership, a massive, battleship-grey converted transport, fell into the submarine’s long wake, throwing out rescue lines for the survivors.

  “Brilliant work,” said Dr. Nassiri as he re-holstered his pistol.

  “So maybe you don’t shoot me?” asked Vitaly as he increased to flank speed again.

  “So maybe next time you tell me the plan.”

  “Learn Russian,” Vitaly grumbled. “To explain English take longer than just do plan.”

  Fatima rose to her feet and found a seat in the communications console next to Vitaly. “Is there any way we can charge the batteries without exposing the Scorpion?”

  “Is tricky,” said Vitaly, squinting as he spoke. “I think we bring Scorpion to snorkel depth. We then use diesel engines to charge batteries. Takes excellent pilot to do correctly.”

  “Please be our excellent pilot,” said Fatima.

>   “Okay,” Vitaly said with a boyish grin.

  The Russian released some of the ballast air from the tanks, allowing the submarine to glide beneath the waves with only the periscope, diesel engine intake, and exhaust snorkel still exposed.

  Dr. Nassiri knew they wouldn’t escape this way—all the mercenaries needed to do was follow the trail of diesel fumes—but it might give them the time they needed to charge the batteries, submerge the submarine, and slip away.

  The militarized transport ship caught up with the Scorpion, coming alongside. The mercenary mothership paced the submarine, maintaining a standoff distance of less than a hundred feet. Mercenaries crowded the railing, heavy assault weapons slung across their backs. Men manned a series of three heavy machine guns, none of which scared Dr. Nassiri. Even if surfaced, nothing less than a howitzer could put a dent in the Scorpion’s thick steel hull, and the mercenaries knew it.

  Without warning, the mothership broke her course, swinging hard towards the Scorpion.

  “They’re going to ram us!” shouted Dr. Nassiri.

  Vitaly swore in Russian as he reversed the engines and pushed the tiller hard to port, but not fast enough. With unexpected speed and maneuverability, the mothership cut across their bow. The mothership impacted the snorkel structure, narrowly missing the periscope. The intake and exhaust sheared off instantly. Dr. Nassiri’s ears popped with a sudden vacuum pressure as the emergency valves in the snorkel clapped shut, forcing the engine to suck in air directly from the internal compartments of the submarine. Emergency sirens wailed as the suffering diesel engines belched exhaust into the engine compartment.

  “Now we dive!” shouted Vitaly over the din of impact and siren.

  The diesel engines choked to a stop as the Scorpion plunged beneath the surface, her metal skeleton groaning under the increasing pressure.

  The depth gauge barely registered two hundred feet when the bow of the Scorpion dug into the soft sedimentary seabed, scraping to a halt atop an ancient layer of mud and seashells. And then all was silent, save for the chu-chu-chu of the mothership’s propellers cutting through the waters above.

  Alexis stumbled out of the engine compartment, coughing. She’d caught the worst of the exhaust. Dr. Nassiri hoped the ventilators were up to the task, the air was so filled with sulfuric diesel fumes it was barely breathable.

  “How in the hell did they find us so fast?” asked Alexis.

  Before anyone could answer, the main communications relay crackled to life, the Scorpion’s external hydrophone automatically receiving an acoustic transmission.

  “Calling the hijackers of the Scorpion,” sounded a booming voice over the radio. “Come in, Scorpion.”

  Dr. Nassiri saw Vitaly shudder with recognition. Over the hydrophone, the voice was tinny, distant, echoing as it transmitted through the thermoclines of the water column.

  “Who is that?” whispered Dr. Nassiri.

  “Colonel Westmoreland,” said Vitaly. “Commander of all Bettencorps forces.”

  Dr. Nassiri thought for a moment, then clicked the transmit button.

  “This is the Scorpion,” he said.

  “Very happy to hear your voice,” continued Colonel Westmoreland. “Everybody okay down there? Our multibeam sonar indicates you are set down on the bottom. That’s good, just stay there. You good for batteries? Air? No leaks, I hope? You guys took a pretty nasty hit.”

  “What should we do?” said Fatima.

  “Just listen for now,” said Dr. Nassiri.

  “Even listening very dangerous,” protested Vitaly. “Colonel Westmoreland is liar.”

  “We’re at about ten percent for batteries,” added Alexis. “But every system—air circulation, lighting, everything—is sucking juice. We’ve only got a couple of hours before we’re dead on the bottom.”

  “How much air do we have?” asked Fatima.

  “I think we’ll circulate out most of the fumes out in the next few minutes,” said Alexis. “The CO2 scrubbers don’t need any power for the lithium hydroxide to do its job. Breathable air could last for days, maybe even a week or more. We’ll freeze to death first.”

  “You want me to be impressed?” continued the colonel over the hydrophone system. “I’m impressed. You’ve had a great run. Charles Bettencourt is not interested in drawing this out. You have our vessel; we want it back. No need for further messiness or hurt feelings. Let’s just get you to the surface and we’ll figure things out from there.”

  “He’s bullshitting,” announced Alexis.

  “Agreed,” said Dr. Nassiri. “But given our situation, I’m not certain if there is anything to do but play along.”

  “Guys, I hate to do this, but there’s always a stick to go with the carrot,” continued Colonel Westmoreland. “I’ve got nothing but time and resources. How charged are your batteries? Forty percent? Thirty?”

  Ten, thought Dr. Nassiri.

  “You cannot outrun us. You cannot outlast us. Every time you surface, we will be waiting. I’m giving you a onetime offer of a negotiated surrender—”

  Vitaly clicked off the hydrophone systems. He’d heard enough. It went without saying that any surrender would end with the abrupt execution of all aboard.

  “Vitaly, give me a solution,” demanded Dr. Nassiri. “Something other than listening to this man talk us into our own murder.”

  “I have theory,” said Vitaly. “I believe there may be hidden transponder on this ship.”

  “How would you not know?” asked Fatima.

  “Is only for hijack scenario, hidden even from crew,” said Vitaly. “I believe it broadcast our location.”

  “Can we find it?” asked Dr. Nassiri. “Turn it off somehow?”

  Vitaly shook his head. “Whole purpose is so hijackers cannot find, cannot deactivate!”

  “There’s got to be a way,” said Fatima. “Think!”

  “Cannot be done!”

  Dr. Nassiri slammed his fist into the console with anger as Vitaly shouted at him in Russian. Commando divers were probably already on their way, secretly mobilizing to board the Scorpion and kill everyone—

  “I can do it,” whispered Alexis, her volume almost imperceptible.

  Everyone stopped dead and stared at her.

  “What?” said Dr. Nassiri.

  “I can do it. I can find the transponder.”

  “How?” demanded Fatima.

  “It’s going to be powered, right? It has to be powered in order to transmit.”

  “How would we possibly find it? There are active electronics everywhere.”

  “We shut it all down,” said Alexis. “Every console, computer, light, oxygen supply, anything with an electromagnetic signature. And then we scan every millimeter of the submarine. The transponder should be the only system still active.”

  “Is possible,” mused Vitaly. “I never consider this.”

  “I saw an EMF detection meter earlier. I’m not going to pretend the transponder will be easy to find, but I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “How do we begin?” asked Dr. Nassiri. “Time is of the essence. Obviously.”

  “I can’t do it,” said Fatima. “Crawling around in the dark, feeling for who knows what? I’m sorry Hassan, but after the crash, being underwater is—”

  “That’s fine.” The doctor put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and earnestly hoped he wouldn’t be forced to search the forward compartment alone. Too many bad memories made all the more vivid by the dark, to say nothing of the smell of antiseptic and burned skin. “Find a bunk and close your eyes. It will be over soon, one way or the other.”

  “Beginning system-wide electronic shutdown,” Vitaly said as he powered down the computer systems to the command compartment.

  “Vitaly, I think we have to put you back in your bunk. I don’t want you crawling around in the dark; the risk to your stitches is too great.”

  “I get handcuffs?” asked Vitaly glumly.

  “No handcuffs. I trust you.”
>
  The doctor was impressed with the speed of Vitaly’s recovery and had been slowly weaning him off a series of powerful painkillers. Even so, the Russian was still not very mobile and struggled to get in and out of his chairs and bunk.

  “Two days,” said Vitaly exuberantly, his mood now entirely improved by the proposition. “In two days, I will be recovered. I will wrestle you, Doctor! Russia versus … Egypt?”

  “Morocco.”

  “Russia versus Morocco! One night only! Crowd is very excited!”

  Fatima followed closely behind as the trio made their way into the bunk compartment. After Vitaly was settled, she found an unoccupied bed, climbed in without taking off her shoes, closed the curtain and rolled a blanket over her head. Maybe she could convince herself she wasn’t marooned in a steel tube on the bottom of the sea.

  Dr. Nassiri joined Alexis in the engine compartment. The Texan experimentally held the EMF meter up to a light bulb. It chirped, the needle dancing. She hoped it’d be sensitive enough to discover the source of their tracker, concealed somewhere in the length of the submarine. Alexis nodded, satisfied. With a final grunt, she tripped the series of main circuit breakers for the battery bank. Compartment by compartment, the lights flickered and died.

  The doctor felt as though he’d just fallen into an ocean of darkness in the center of the earth, a vast emptiness of starless space. The darkness surrounding him was so deep, so intense, that the effort of his eyes and mind adjusting to the sudden blackness resulted in dull, flickering hallucinations, flashes of imaginary light.

  He heard Alexis’s footsteps beside him, heard her breath. In the stillness, he almost thought he could hear her heartbeat over his own.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  “Might as well,” she said. “Can’t dance, can’t sing, and it’s too wet to plow.”

  He didn’t know what this meant, but could sense her fear matching his own. Alexis’s hand brushed against his chest, feeling down his arm. He allowed her to grasp his hand, their fingers intertwining. With his limited perception, the heat of her fingers and the electricity of her touch became his entire world.