Garrison Lee saw a blur of motion and heard Sarah yell out. As he turned, he knew he was too late. Robbins sprinted for the edge of the ice and dived headfirst into the freezing Ross Sea.
"The fool, he's just killed himself!" Niles said as the frustrated Lee slammed his broken cane against the ice, angry he didn't think of doing the same thing himself.
"Yes, Director Compton, he has indeed just killed himself," Farbeaux said, watching Robbins's weakening strokes as he splashed his way toward the floating rubber boat. "A magnificent gesture" — he turned toward Niles—"for a traitor, wouldn't you say?"
As Henri shouted his rebuke to the others, Robbins went under the rising sea and reached for the Zodiac. They waited, frightened that he wouldn't resurface from under the freezing water. Then they were relieved as he splashed up to the surface. Ice was forming on the computer scientist's face and hair as he tried desperately to get his limbs to function.
"His body is shutting down," Lee said sadly. "Come on, son, push, push!"
Robbins pulled the Zodiac to within ten feet of the shrinking shelf, and then pushed with all of his remaining strength. The giant rubber boat bounced over one swell and then struck the ice as Sarah, Niles, and Farbeaux grabbed for it in a desperate moment of near-panic.
Lee couldn't believe what had just transpired.
"Swim, Doctor, swim toward us," Alice shouted as a section of the grounded side of the ice shelf calved away and fell into the sea with tremendous force, creating an impact wave of more than ten feet that rushed toward the struggling Robbins.
"He can't, his body has already died," Lee said. He watched as Robbins looked toward them with an expressionless, ice-covered face. The ten-foot wave rolled over him and he disappeared.
They couldn't believe how easily Robbins had given his life for them. Then again, they never knew that all the doctor had thought before making his final decision was the question, What would Captain Everett do?
"He died well, give him that — you owe him that," Farbeaux said as he pulled the Zodiac up and out of the wave's way. "Now, get the children inside the boat. We must head for the grounded section of shelf."
LEVIATHAN
As the captured Event Group was pushed, shoved, and slapped to the deck, and then up against the starboard bulkhead, Jack saw Tyler step forward and then lash out with his booted foot, catching him on the side of his head. Jack fell backward as Mendenhall and Ryan tried to stand.
"At ease, lieutenants!" Jack called out, shaking his head to clear it.
"You are a pain in the ass, Colonel. I knew we were asking for trouble letting you go the first time. Well, that situation is finally about to be remedied, isn't it?"
Jack looked up into the Irishman's face, not responding at all. His expression was blank, which made Tyler uneasy.
Alvera turned away from the scene, as she was slightly disgusted at Tyler's bullying ways.
"Why don't you just kill them?" she asked, staring at Tyler.
"He knows where the captain is, and as long as she is alive, she's a danger."
"Strange, I think I told you that very same thing a few hours ago." She turned away and raised the 1mc microphone. "Sonar, conn, what is the status of Missouri?"
"Sonar is still scrambled from the EMP effect. It is just now clearing, it looks as if we have no—"
Alvera heard the words catch in the sonar operator's throat as she attempted to explain why the sonar suite went offline momentarily during the effects of the electromagnetic pulse — an electrical field that shorted out all nonshielded electronics in modern weapons platforms by a nuclear detonation. The yeoman became concerned very quickly. As Leviathan came out from under the now-broken and free-floating Ross Ice Shelf, she noticed one red blip speeding toward them as it came up on her holographic display.
"Conn, we have a single torpedo in the water and it is actively seeking — no, it has acquired Leviathan, and is tracking!"
"Helm, hard-right rudder, take us down to three thousand feet—"
"Sensors are picking up a nuclear trace element!"
Jack raised his brows and looked at Everett, then at Tyler, who was also taken aback by the news.
Alvera froze. Missouri had somehow managed to get off a snap shot as she started going down, and it was not only a torpedo, but a nuclear-tipped one.
Alvera looked at the blip as it closed. The order for countermeasures caught in her throat as she realized her training never fully prepared her for this.
"Weapons, prepare to launch vertical tubes one through thirty for deep submergence launch. Helm, take Leviathan deep. Launch a full spread of countermeasures!"
"Yeoman, did you know that Sergeant Tyler was planning on selling Leviathan and her technology to the highest bidder?" Collins said, finally utilizing the paper Farbeaux had passed him from Heirthall's medical file.
Alvera, shaken, turned and looked down at Collins.
"What?" she asked, looking from Jack to Tyler, who only smiled and raised his automatic to silence the pest before him once and for all.
Tyler froze when one of the midshipmen who had been seated at the closest console silently stood and placed a gun to the back of his head.
"He's lying — my intention is to fulfill our bargain. Leviathan will protect the trench syms."
"The task of maintaining something as daunting as Leviathan is far beyond the scope of a mercenary, Yeoman. She would soon succumb to her own age, or the nations of the world would track Tyler down and destroy him because this idiot couldn't sail her — just as the Missouri tracked her to this point," Jack said, nodding toward the red blip speeding right at Leviathan.
"Call the doctor to the conn, we'll ask him," Alvera said, never letting her eyes leave Tyler's.
"You can't. He was found dead in the observation compartment. It had to have been a stray bullet," said Jack.
"That's very convenient." Alvera turned and studied the oncoming weapon, then looked back at the sergeant.
"After all of our planning, you are going to actually listen to this outsider?" Tyler asked as he felt the pistol push into his head.
"My breast pocket. You'll find a little notation from Heirthall's medical file, written by someone who wasn't an outsider."
Alvera reached down, plucked the paper from Collins's pocket, and looked at the open entry.
"I suspect with your intelligence you'll recognize Dr. Trevor's handwriting?"
Alvera read the scribbled notation outlining Tyler's real plan, which included the doctor, and then looked up angrily.
"Trevor says that you never had any intention of using Leviathan for our protection. You were going to sail her into the nearest port after our return to the sea and—"
"Sell her off, system by system," Heirthall said from the darkness of the companionway. "Avarice — mere money. If he had known where the Heirthall treasure had been hidden, he would have taken that also."
Alvera watched as security surrounded Captain Heirthall and Virginia, who was assisting the captain in remaining upright as they came into the light of control. She locked eyes with Jack and nodded her head ever so slightly.
"Yeoman, you have been betrayed, just as you and the others have betrayed me and my family," Alexandria said as she was helped into her chair, guns still pointing at her.
Alvera threw the paper at Tyler, striking him in the face.
"Have your men stand down, Sergeant," Heirthall ordered as she slumped in her raised chair. "Or I will allow the yeoman's misguided maneuvering in evading Missouri's strike to stand. You can't outdive that weapon, Yeoman," she said as she opened her eyes and smiled.
The security men lowered their weapons. Jack and the others stood and rushed forward to take them, but several midshipmen rose from their seats and pointed handguns in their direction.
"Colonel, they will shoot to kill," Alvera said.
Alvera swallowed as she saw the red blip getting closer to the diving Leviathan. She gestured for the midshipmen to return to their statio
ns, but to keep aware of Collins and his three men.
"Captain, I am still launching the strike. We as a species have no other choice. We tried to do it without loss of life, as you had planned so thoroughly with the help of your symbiant—"
"You mean with a little coercion… and brainwashing from Dr. Trevor's invasive procedures," Alexandria said, her eyes partially closed in pain.
"Yes. You would never have allowed such a plan against the world's navies in a normal state of mind. Your family's influence over us ends today."
Heirthall sat motionless in her chair. "You will do what you have to do, Yeoman."
Alvera nodded, then walked to the weapons station. She raised the protective cover over the red flashing button. She looked at the other midshipmen operating their stations, each doing their duty, and then she pushed the button.
A brilliant flash of light burst from every manned station in the control room. Midshipmen didn't have time to scream or move before twenty thousand volts shot through their bodies. A few of them who weren't touching any metal on their consoles rose in shock when they saw what happened to the others around them. Jack and his men quickly subdued them. He looked at the frozen Alvera. She was still touching the weapons console and was clearly dead, lying across the panel as the short-lived electrical strike ended. All around them, midshipmen lay dead against their stations.
It took only a few moments for the action consoles to regain their holographic imagery.
"Lieutenant Ryan, bring in the remainder of my crew, please. We have very little time."
"Aye, ma'am."
Heirthall looked down at the deck as her crew removed the dead midshipmen. Virginia could clearly see the tears as they streaked down her cheeks.
Jack pulled Virginia aside as the crew started up their consoles and awaited orders.
"You did well, Doc. That was one hell of a wiring job you did, rigging those consoles."
"I killed children, Jack. I don't know—"
"You did what you had to do, Virginia, just as we all do. And in answer to your next question, no, you never learn to live with it."
Virginia watched as Collins walked by a shocked Tyler and sat next to the weapons control station.
Sergeant Tyler knew for a fact he was a dead man. As Collins sat down, with lightning speed Tyler turned and elbowed Mendenhall in the stomach, then leaped at the weapons console, slamming his palm down on the launch button. The plastic cover smashed under the blow, and the red blinking button slammed home. Then he quickly turned and escaped through the hatch leading to the forward compartments.
Collins cursed and started to pursue Tyler. Everett started after Jack.
"Keep your station, Captain, and assist in Leviathan's defense," Collins called out as he vanished from control.
Everett stopped his pursuit of Jack and Tyler, slamming his hand against the bulkhead.
"He really does have a death wish," Everett said with clenched teeth. 'Well, don't just stand there, damn it. Go after him!"
Ryan and Mendenhall grabbed two weapons and went after their boss.
"Vertical launch in one minute," came the computerized warning.
"Helm, are we getting answering bells… on the console?" Alexandria asked, becoming weaker.
"Yes, Captain, Leviathan is answering all commands."
"Very well," she said calmly. "We need to turn the boat one hundred and eighty degrees. Bring our speed up to a hundred knots and blow ballast. Take her up to the ice."
"Alex, are you sure you want to do that? You'll box Leviathan against the ice."
"Ginny, we are caught between a rock…. and a hard place, as the saying goes. We cannot stop the launch of those missiles; on the other hand, Missouri has made our running away impossible. I can only be at one place at any given moment—Leviathan will die today no matter what I do."
"Do what you need to do," Virginia said.
"Ginny, Ginny, give me some credit, I fully intend to take the lesser of the two evils. The high… road, you might say."
"Thirty seconds to launch," the computer announced. "Obstacle at launch coordinates detected. Launch in twenty seconds."
"Conn, sonar, we have thirty-five miles of broken ice and pressure ridges dead ahead. Ten seconds until we have limited open sea."
"Maintain speed and rudder, helm."
"Aye, ma'am, maintain heading."
"Sonar, how thick is the ice?"
"We are currently ranging from one quarter to half a mile of ice."
"Thank you," Alex said as calmly as if she were just ordering dinner.
"Launch in ten, nine, eight, seven—"
"Leviathan has just gone under the ice."
"Three, two, one — vertical tubes one through thirty successfully launched."
The computerized voice prepared all hands for the minute jolt as compressed air shot thirty missiles from their tubes.
"Helm, evasive maneuvering, take Leviathan down forty degrees. Dive the boat… deep and fast," Heirthall ordered, allowing her head to droop onto her chest.
As Leviathan shed the missiles, she started a steep dive for the seafloor, three and a half miles down.
At six hundred feet, the specially designed missiles fired a solid rocket booster that would carry them to the surface of the sea. Unfortunately, they weren't near the surface. There was a half-mile-thick ice sheet above them. As they approached at more than a hundred miles per hour, the conical-shaped weapons slammed into the blue bottom pressure ridges of the dying Ross Ice Shelf, smashing them to oblivion and sending the warheads to the bottom of the sea.
"Captain, we have Missouri's torpedo closing at sixty knots. She is still acquiring our sound signature — it must be locked onto our damage. Estimate impact in one minute."
"Very well, maintain course and speed. Ballast control; stand by to blow all tanks."
"We dodged one nuclear disaster, but we'll never avoid this one," Everett said as he and Virginia took a handhold. The blip on the hologram became one with Leviathan.
* * *
Collins hit the winding staircase that led down three decks to the engineering level. The captain had sealed off the elevators, and Jack knew that Tyler had no choice but to go down.
The massive engineering room contained the reactors. They were starting to scream at 115 percent power as the main water jet of Leviathan tried desperately to push her forward-flooded sections down through the sea. The operational stations were all empty as every available crewman was in control or battling flooding on the other decks. The smell of burning rubber and hot steam permeated the air. Jack rounded a console and was taken aback when Tyler made his final stand. He grabbed Collins by the leg and pulled him to the deck.
Jack slammed against the rubber decking and bounced into the reactor control station. Tyler was trying to gain his feet, hitting Jack three times in quick succession as he rose. Collins shrugged off the blows and then lashed out with his boot, catching the larger Irishman in his right knee, producing a satisfactory, and sickening, crunch as the blow cracked the shin and tore ligaments in the sergeant's knee. He still maintained his footing, but with very great effort. He steadied himself on the bad leg, raised his left, and tried to bring it down onto Jack's neck, but Collins rolled free just as the boot struck the rubber matting.
Collins jumped to his feet and struck Tyler three times in his side, making the security man cough and grimace in great pain. Instead of going down, he collected himself faster than Jack realized he could and swung backward, hitting Collins in the chest and driving him back against the bulkhead. Collins bounced off, but he used the rebound action off the hull to his advantage. He came forward and caught Tyler with three straight, powerful blows to the face. Tyler reeled and spun away just as the pitch of the electric motors changed, screaming at even more power than before. Then the world changed as Leviathan started heading straight down, sending both Collins and Tyler sliding down the deck as if they were on a giant, very precarious slide.
Jack n
ever had a chance to end the fight with Tyler. The Missouri's nuclear torpedo struck, and the world went dark.
* * *
"Okay, give me ninety-degrees dive on the planes. Increase ballast in the forward tanks to one hundred percent," Alexandria said calmly, closing her eyes to think, but still with her head lowered.
She was ticking off the seconds until detonation. When the American torpedo's computer detected the change in the angle of attack, the weapon would detonate as a preprogrammed precaution against losing contact with its target. This was exactly what she had hoped for. Alexandria suddenly opened her eyes and leaned forward in her chair.
"Hard-left rudder — one hundred percent down on fore and tower planes — all up on aft planes — all-ahead flank — full emergency power!" Everyone in the control center was shocked at the strength coming from Heirthall.
* * *
Leviathan started a straight-down, headlong run just as the torpedo reached its target area. In essence, what the captain did was bring the great vessel to an attitude where the hull would be less exposed — bringing the strongest portion of Leviathan's hull head on against the detonation and the thickened composite armor at her protected stern. Running at close to one hundred miles an hour toward the bottom of the sea, Leviathan was still vulnerable as an egg in a cattle stampede.
The American warhead detonated ten thousand yards from the massive stern section of Leviathan. The tremendous heat generated by the warhead turned the sea to steam in a microsecond. The pressure wave shot in all directions, even down into the exposed jet ring-rudder of the giant submarine.
The first sensation for all inside was the feeling of free falling, as the seawater around her started running faster than Leviathan herself. The second sensation was that of the great boat flipping over as if it were a twig caught in a flashflood. The shock wave tore free the directional ring acting as the main rudder for Leviathan. Then the same heated wave assaulted the jet-thruster housing, causing the main seal to fail. The shaft that sent high-pressure water outward from the main engines, giving the submarine her thrust to the four water jets, backwashed and forced the rubber seals to melt, and then fail, allowing seawater to enter the pressurized hull with tremendous force.
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