Jonah pressed send. The phone buzzed to life. Within seconds, the signal bounced off three separate orbiting satellites and a thousand miles of fiber-optic cable to a hard line on the far side of the world. He yanked down his oxygen mask, letting it dangle around his neck.
“Hello?” came a sleepy voice from the incredible distance. Despite the grainy connection, Jonah was relatively certain he could hear the soft patter of a Seattle drizzle.
“Hey beautiful,” he said, trying to adopt his best calming voice. She was going to be pissed receiving this phone call. What time was it in Seattle, anyway?
“What the hell?” demanded the voice from the other end. “Is this Jonah?!”
“Marissa,” said Jonah. “I am so happy to hear your voice.”
“Jonah fucking Blackwell?” shouted Marissa, anger overriding the sleepy tones of her voice. “I thought you were dead! You say you’re going to Spain for a week and then you fucking vanish!”
“Who is that?” demanded a male voice from the other end of the line.
“It’s my ex,” said Marissa, just as much to Jonah as the man sleeping in bed next to her. “For Christ’s sake, Jonah! You let me think you were on the bottom of the ocean or buried in a shallow grave somewhere. What the hell happened to you?!”
Half-listening, Jonah watched as the mercenary mothership disgorged two small boats into the water. Behind him, the broken-off snorkel in the rear of the conning tower belched out black smoke as the engines drove beyond full capacity. At least Alexis seemed to have knocked the misaligned propeller shaft back into place.
“Marissa, I’m really, truly sorry,” said Jonah. “And I can explain, but that’s not why I—”
“Fine!” yelled Marissa. “What do you want? It’s two in the goddamn morning! Are you in jail? A car accident? And how many people did you call before you called me?”
Jonah stomped at the diving plane, trying to drive it back into alignment. “Marissa,” said Jonah, taking a break from stomping to get some air. “This is literally the first phone call I’ve made in years.”
Gunfire ripped around him, pinging off the conning tower and open hatch, sending Jonah flying back behind the hatch for cover.
“What the fuck was that?” yelled Marissa.
“Somebody’s shooting at me,” said Jonah. “I hate to cut this short, but I’m kind of on the clock here. Remember that silver wreck we worked off the Horn of Africa?”
“I don’t understand—the SS Richard Thompson James?”
Jonah remembered the name now. The SS Richard Thompson James, an Allied Victory-class ship transporting silver coins to the Saudis in the closing days of World War II. An American ship pursuing American strategic interests but under British protection, the British allowed it to wander alone into the hunting grounds of a particularly prolific German U-boat. It was torpedoed and sank in nearly six hundred feet of water, abandoned until Jonah and a small team of salvagers ripped it apart for the silver within.
Another burst of gunfire rattled around him, interrupting his thoughts.
“What about it?” she demanded. “And why is someone shooting at you?”
“Pretty sure they’re trying to kill me. Look, I need the coordinates to that shipwreck, Marissa. I need them right now. I don’t have time to get into the details.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Marissa. He heard the sounds of her climbing out of bed, walking to her office around the corner of her bedroom, booting up her computer. Part of him missed her, missed her smell, her warmth, and the normalcy in which she conducted herself and all her affairs. That was to say, all her affairs outside of the one she shared with him.
“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously, thank you. You’re saving my life here.”
Marissa started rattling off a series of numbers, the coordinates to the silver shipwreck. Jonah memorized the numbers and aimed one final kick at the depth plane, forcing it back into alignment with a snap of metal against metal. A fresh salvo of gunfire clattered off the hatchway and conning tower, the ringing ricochets narrowly missing him.
“I don’t even want to know what you need this for,” Marissa asked. “Can I go back to bed now?”
“That’s all I needed,” said Jonah. “Thank you. Let’s, uh, do lunch sometime.”
“Lose my number, asshole.” Marissa slammed down the phone with the fury of a woman who’d probably be on the next flight out if Jonah would only ask. But he didn’t. Instead, he ducked back inside the conning tower and slammed the hatch shut behind him. He raced down the interior boarding ladder and re-secured his oxygen mask.
“Helm, dive now!” ordered Jonah.
Vitaly nodded and sent the Scorpion into a tight, stomach-churning dive at a speed and angle Jonah thought impossible.
“Make our depth five-five-oh feet,” said Jonah as he plugged the new coordinates into the navigational computer. Good news—they were less than fifteen minutes away, maybe less if Alexis drew the batteries hard and pushed the electric engine beyond spec. He stole a suspicious glance at Vitaly, who maintained his stoic vigil at the helm. Vitaly turned and glared back through the clouded plastic of his oxygen mask.
“That’s still within range of the depth charges,” protested Vitaly.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Jonah. “We can’t out-dive the explosives.”
“Rig for silent running?” asked Vitaly.
“No,” said Jonah, pressing the intercom to the engine room. “Stay noisy. Alexis, full power to the engines. I don’t care about range or endurance, just speed. Vitaly—follow my course, but be unpredictable. Run like a rabbit. I want them wasting depth charges. Doctor—report!”
“Fire in the engine room has been contained,” Hassan said. “We lost a few batteries, nothing crippling. Hydrophones are working again. Vitaly rerouted the systems past the damaged circuits. They’re still following us—and they’ve made no attempt at communications.”
“Do we still have those bodies in the freezer?”
“We do,” said the doctor, confused. “But why—?”
“Hand the headphones to Vitaly and follow me,” said Jonah, walking towards the bunkroom-adjacent galley. “I want those frozen bodies in the diver lockout chamber along with any trash from the galley.”
“Splashes!” came Vitaly’s tinny voice from the command compartment. The submarine abruptly changed course, speed and depth, sending the Scorpion jolting in a new direction, almost dropping Jonah and the doctor to their knees with the abruptness of the course change. They righted themselves and opened the small walk-in freezer where five lumpy bodybags were stacked against one wall.
“Two should be enough,” said Jonah over the distant popping sound of three underwater explosions. The mercenaries had missed again. Vitaly was a talented navigator, especially under such pressure. Whether or not he could keep it up for the next critical minutes was another question entirely.
“Let’s get the burned ones from the front compartment,” Hassan said. “They’re in pieces, should be lighter.”
“I like the way you think,” said Jonah, chucking one bag of body parts towards Hassan and grabbing the other for himself. They exited the freezer, each grabbing a stacked bag of kitchen waste as they did so.
“What’s happening?” asked Fatima as they both passed.
“I wish I knew,” Hassan said, closely following Jonah.
The mercenaries stopped dropping charges, not wanting to waste them on the seemingly panicked, fleeing crew of the Scorpion. Jonah and Hassan opened the body bags, gagging as they dropped the burned, chopped-up, frozen, and tattooed body parts into the lockout chamber along with two massive bags of galley waste.
“Go ahead and throw up if you need to,” said Jonah, dry heaving. “It’ll just add to the effect.”
“You never told me what we’re doing,” Hassan said, covering his face and mouth with one hand, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrific scene.
“Garbage shot,” said Jonah. “We blast this out of the l
ockout chamber. The bodies and trash float to the surface. They’ll think we’re dead.”
“Ah, clever.”
“Not really. It’s an old trick from World War II. Problem is nobody’ll buy it without a massive oil slick.”
“How do we do that?” asked the doctor. “Can we vent from the fuel tanks?”
“Not enough to sell it.” Jonah slammed the hatch to the lockout chamber shut.
“So what—”
Jonah cut him off. “You’re not going to like it.” Fingers punching the controls, Jonah programmed the chamber to over-pressurize.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Stay here,” said Jonah. “When my signal comes, press the green button. The outer hatch to the chamber will open automatically and the air pressure will evacuate the contents.”
Hassan stole a look through the small portal window into the chamber. “I’m about to evacuate my contents,” he said.
“And hold on,” said Jonah. “The ride is going to get bumpy.”
“Captain!”shouted a voice from command compartment below. “Come quickly!”
Jonah slid down the ladder, joining Vitaly at his helm console. The Russian brought up a passive acoustic reading to the main screen, rendering the underwater terrain as a crude, shifting 3-D model.
“What is it?” said Jonah.
“This,” said Vitaly, pointing at the screen. “I following your coordinates, but I believe there is obstruction.”
The screen depicted the forward-looking sensor reading of the Scorpion as it steamed towards a large, blocky object.
“It’s not an obstruction,” said Jonah. “It’s a shipwreck, the SS Richard Thompson James. I dove her during a salvage mission a few years ago.”
Vitaly looked up at Jonah, eyes wide with understanding. “This is suicide.”
“We have to create an oil slick. Our pursuers won’t believe the possum act without floating bodies and lots of oil. That wreck is chock full of seventy-year-old bunker fuel. The tanks are amidship, right in the center of the ship. Aim for them.”
“I do not like this plan,” said Vitaly, as he bore the bow of the Scorpion down on the increasingly clear acoustic image of the hulking war transport. The Scorpion zeroed in on the image at frightening speed. Jonah realized the window to change his mind was approaching quickly. He swallowed and allowed it to pass.
One final time, Jonah punched the all-call button. “All hands, brace for impact!”
Vitaly ducked underneath his console and Jonah slid underneath the communications console. Jonah slipped his oxygen mask once more over his face. He didn’t want to suffocate while unconscious, if it came to that.
The submarine slammed into the fuel tanks of the shipwreck, driving deep into the hulk like a spear, bucking and throwing her crew across compartments like toys. Emergency klaxons rang as pipes burst, flooding the compartment with rushing water and white, foamy spray. Fires burst from consoles. Vitaly leapt to his feet, grabbed the remaining extinguisher and hosed down the sensitive electronics. Water rushed down from the damaged forward compartment, frothing as it ran across the deck and over his feet. From above, Jonah heard the familiar whoosh of a diver’s lockout chamber as Hassan obeyed the order to activate the outer door, sending burnt body parts spinning into the rising column of debris and fuel oil.
Ignoring the fires and the spraying hydraulic lines of the command compartment, Jonah rushed into the burned, blackened forward compartment. The nose of the submarine had absorbed the worst of the impact. Several of the seawater circulation pipes had sheered, spilling their high-pressure, foamy contents into the compartment. The submarine’s stern sank until it hit the ocean floor, seawater rushing downwards like a newly-formed river of oil and debris.
Behind him, Vitaly scrambled from console to electrical box, trying to keep ahead of the dancing flames. Jonah used all of his strength against the feeder valves, trying to stanch the powerful flow of water. He dug deep, reliving every betrayal, heartache, prison whipping, gunshot, stabbing, dead friend, and ruined life. Joints popping, muscles straining, the valve squeezed close, choking off the flood.
An immense, overwhelming PIIIIIIIIING rang through the submarine, fraying already-shattered nerves as Jonah made his way back to the command compartment. He put his hands over his ears. PIIIIIIING, PIIIIING, PIIIIIIIING, rang the assaulting sound three more times, reverberating in the submarine and against the speared shipwreck. With just as much warning as they’d begun, the noises ceased.
Jonah crawled to the communications console, one hand holding the earphones to the side of his head, listening intently. He held up a single finger, forbidding anyone from saying a word. Hassan paused on his way down the interior boarding ladder, careful not to move or make a sound.
They waited in silence.
“They’re leaving,” he said, at first with a mumble, then louder. “They’re leaving!”
Surely enough, the soft swish-swish-swish of propeller screws slowly faded into the distance, replaced with the still-settling metal of the wartime shipwreck’s hull against their own.
“Don’t get comfortable,” he warned. “Probably intend to return with a salvage crew, pick through our bones.”
“Let’s not be here when they return,” Hassan said, dropping down next to Jonah.
“Agreed,” said Jonah. “This bought us time, but it won’t take long before they they figure it out.”
In the dim emergency lighting, they surveyed the remnants of battle, the filthy, sewage-ridden floodwater swirling around their ankles, burn-marks and extinguisher foam on the bulkheads and electrical boxes, flickering lights and the vicious cuts and bruises worn like medals of valor by all of those aboard. Around them, the shipwreck settled, steel members moaning as they found new forms after the vicious impact. From the engine room, Alexis emerged, holding both welding gloves in one hand, oxygen hood in the other. Dirt, grime, blood, and tears streaked her face. Shaking, she opened her mouth to speak, but made barely a noise before she closed it.
“I … tried—” she began again.
“What?” asked Jonah.
“She won’t breathe.”
“Where is she?” Hassan’s face contorted with horror. “Where is my mother?”
Alexis shook her head and looked up at him, eyes glistening with tears. Hassan shoved her aside and charged into the engine room, Jonah, Alexis, and Vitaly at his heels.
Fatima lay face-up in a collecting pool of water, skin pale and white, eyes open but unseeing, muscles bound, small flecks of white foam in the corner of her mouth. Hassan dropped to his knees beside her and picked up her hand. Her fingers were charred to the second knuckle. He glanced up at a blackened, smoldering electrical panel and tore open his mother’s shirt, revealing a white spiderweb of electrical burns encircling her heart.
“I tried to resuscitate her,” Alexis said, barely audible over Hassan’s hoarse, ragged breathing.
“You wouldn’t have been able to,” he said, “She was dead”—his voice warbling with grief—“the moment she touched the panel.”
Alexis choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry.”
Hassan leaned down and kissed his mother on the cheek, using his fingertips to close her eyes for the last time.
“Goddammit!” Jonah yanked the oxygen mask from around his neck, rubber straps snapping, and hurled it against a bulkhead. It clanged off the hatch, dropped into the water and bobbed face-down like a drowning victim.
Vitaly crouched in the filthy water and wrapped both arms around Hassan’s sagging shoulders.
“These motherfuckers are not going to stop,” Jonah growled. “We’ve taken everything, everything they’ve thrown at us. We’ve been shot at, shot down, beaten up, blown up, tortured. We’ve spilled blood, theirs and ours. If we don’t fight back, they’re going to keep coming until we’re done for.”
“What can we do?” Alexis asked. Behind her, Dalmar emerged from the bunk room, disoriented and unsteady. Seeing Fatima, he shook
his head, drew in a long breath, and turned away. Vitaly stood and drew Hassan back to his feet.
The muscles in Jonah’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he surveyed his traumatized crew. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” His face twisted with rage. “I’m going to walk into Bettencourt’s playground and knock his fucking sandcastle down.”
Hassan simply shook his head, unable to even bring tears to his eyes.
Jonah cleared his throat to continue, suddenly wishing he wasn’t still wearing a pair of dead man’s pants. “Charles Bettencourt deserves what’s coming to him, but I can’t ask you to risk your lives again, not now that we finally have a real, solid window to escape. We can make for Oman so everyone who wants to leave can leave. We’ll run dead silent and submerged as far as we can to the north, then recharge the batteries with the snorkel as needed.”
“Boss, no snorkel,” said Vitaly.
“That’s right,” said Jonah, recalling the sheered-off snorkel. “What happened?”
“Collision with ship,” said Vitaly. “You missed much excitement when you on little vacation.”
“Fine, we’ll charge surfaced,” Jonah fixed his gaze on the engineer. “Alexis, you have your parents and a life back in Texas. What are you still doing here with us pirates, deserters, and outlaws, anyway? It’s time to go back to the land of big hair, big trucks, and barbeque. What do you say?”
Alexis glanced down at Fatima and then let her eyes rest a moment on Hassan. “I’ll follow you on down the road apiece,” she said with an exaggerated drawl. Then she crossed her arms and stared at Jonah. She didn’t need to say another word for everyone to know she fully intended to stay.
Jonah nodded and turned to the doctor. “Hassan, take your mother home, give her a proper burial. You can still go back to your medical practice.”
The Wrecking Crew Page 27