Chapter Eleven
May 10, 2006
Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Georgia:
Warm wind caressed Renard’s cheeks as he glanced over the bow of a leisure craft. He aimed a flashlight into the St. Marys River, illuminating reeds at the water’s edge. A sign jutting from the tranquil surface warned unauthorized craft to turn back from government property. Renard lowered the light, cut the craft’s engine, and drifted into a cove.
Six men in wetsuits sprang from the leisure craft’s cabin. They teamed up to inspect and adjust each other’s scuba gear and slipped into the water. One of them, Sergeant Kao Yat-sen, a veteran Taiwanese commando, stayed behind with Renard.
Renard felt Kao tugging on his scuba equipment.
“Your equipment is properly fastened,” Kao said. “After you are in the water, grab the strap across Mister Tiger’s back. He is our strongest swimmer.”
Pulse racing, Renard watched polymer hoods bob in shimmering moonlight. A raised thumb broached near a head, indicating that a young commando, mission-named Tiger, waited to help him swim to the Colorado.
Renard bit his mouthpiece and inhaled stale air from his rebreather. He leapt flippers-first over the side. Coolness enveloped him.
A gloved hand pulled his wrist and guided his grip to a web belt. His escort commando turned, and the belt jerked his arm. He twisted to his stomach and kicked to keep pace with his escort to the Colorado.
*
Palms sweating, Jake hung up a phone in the Colorado’s control room. He had just broken Renard’s ten-million-dollar account into a seven-million-dollar account for himself and Mercer and three one-million-dollar accounts for his hijack accomplices.
He glanced around the empty room and tapped at the phone again.
“Hello?” Grant Mercer asked.
Realizing that failure to steal the Colorado would make this the last conversation with his friend, Jake froze.
“Hello!” Mercer said.
“It’s a go,” Jake said.
Jake had offered Mercer twenty percent of the theft’s price in exchange for controlling the money and a pivotal shore-based role.
Telling his friend the heist had begun, Jake expected that Mercer would call his bank and change the access code on his seven-million-dollar account. Then he would move his two-million-dollar share into his personal account before fleeing Chicago, leaving Jake with five million.
“It’s a go, here. Good luck,” Mercer said.
Jake hung up and dialed again. In the Colorado’s engine room, more than a football field away, Machinist Mate Second Class Mike Gant answered.
“Yeah?”
“Petty Officer Gant, I just called the bank. You, Bass, and McKenzie are rich.”
“Serious?”
“You didn’t forget your access code, did you?”
“No.”
“Then make a telephone call and tell me if I’m serious. You have twenty minutes before I run the drill."
*
Jake tossed a key, a training prop with a red tag hanging from it that read ‘Captain’s Firing Key’, onto the linoleum deck. He raised a microphone to his mouth. His voice resonated throughout the ship.
“Security violation in the control room,” he said. “A classified key was found on the deck. Security alert team, lay to the control room. Back up alert team, report to the forward small-arms locker. Security violation in the control room.”
Jake twisted a metal handle. The pulsating siren of the general alarm rang throughout the Colorado. Half a minute later, he told his red-eyed duty crew that the violation was a drill.
Rubbing sleep from their eyes, sailors teamed up in pairs with unloaded weapons, searched for intruders, scanned for bombs, and simulated a communications network with squadron personnel.
After thirty minutes, Jake ordered his duty crew to assemble in the crew’s mess and wait for a debriefing while he completed his midnight tour of the ship.
*
The explosive handling wharf, covered by a hangar to hide submarine missile and torpedo movements, kept the Colorado invisible to the outside world. Lights nestled six stories high between the rails of an overhead crane network bathed the covered wharf in yellow.
Jake found the buzz and glow within the hangar surreal, but the sweet scent of algae rising from stagnant saltwater reminded him that he stood upon the back of a real submarine.
He strained his eyes for signs of uninvited life in the dark silence outside the hangar. Confident that no unexpected visitors spied upon him from outside the covered wharf, he inspected the nylon lines that held the Colorado to the pier.
The lines swung low, as did the sprawl of cables, ropes, and piping that mated the submarine to shore facilities. The Colorado’s life support was in place.
Jake approached the ship’s conning sail, a tower rising from the front of the boat out of which extended fairwater planes that resembled undersized wings and served the purpose of fine-tuning the Colorado’s depth.
Beside the sail stood a rotund young man with a twelve-gauge shotgun slung across his back.
“What’s up, sir? Taking your midnight tour of this old steel pig?”
“That’s right, Heitzman,” Jake said.
Jake glanced over his shoulder. From the engine room, Scott McKenzie climbed through a hatch carrying a tool bag. Jake looked back at Heitzman who, accustomed to machinist mate mechanics working all hours, ignored McKenzie.
Jake scanned the water. He saw no sign of Renard or Taiwanese commandos, but he sensed they were there.
“Heitzman, you’re the topside sentry, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s the topside petty officer?”
“Davis is...let’s see.”
Jake followed Heitzman behind the sail to join the topside petty officer. Petty Officer Davis leaned against the sail under a fairwater plane, his arms crossed while staring at the hangar’s far side concrete peninsula.
“Mister Slate, I swear I saw something under that pier over there,” Davis said in a southern drawl. “Something kicked up water.”
“How many fish have you seen popping up around here, Davis? And how about the dolphins? You wouldn’t shoot Flipper between the eyes, would you?” Jake asked.
“I guess you’re right, sir. I must sound like a paranoid bastard, but I just got a funny feeling.”
“Everyone gets funny feelings before spending two and a half months underwater,” Jake said. “It’s okay.”
With his sentries standing together, Jake reached for his dark blue Colorado ball cap. Certain that the commandos were watching, he tugged the rim and held his breath.
Two finned darts whipped through the muggy air and pierced the uniforms of both Davis and Heitzman.
Jake grabbed Heitzman’s wrist with one hand, his triceps with the other, and yanked the sailor’s drugged body against the sail. As Heitzman landed on the deck, Jake propelled himself toward Davis.
Davis slumped wide-eyed against the sail. He reached at the dart in his chest, but his arms fell, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he tumbled headfirst toward the basin.
Jake grasped the back of Davis’ crackerjack jumpsuit and wiggled for leverage. Losing the battle against gravity, Jake reached for the sail but found only a flat wall. He looked over his shoulder at the limp sailor’s body and the muddy basin seven feet below.
A chill went up his spine. A shipmate, a husband, and a father of two children would drown if he let go. Jake redoubled his efforts, swearing to himself he would not begin his journey by killing an American sailor. He yanked Davis back.
Jake stepped over the drugged sailors and studied the briny water. Five humps appeared on the surface. Near the aft of the ship, two more men swam toward the Colorado.
Five hooded heads broached. Facemasks covered each pair of eyes, and rubber air tubes dangled from each mouth. The mouth belonging to Pierre Renard opened, and a LAR-V rebreather mouthpiece fell to the water.
“The infiltration team is present and ready,” Renard said.
“I ran the security violation drill,” Jake said. “The crew is on the mess deck below. Send your team to the shore power cables and wait for my signal.”
A thumb broke the water’s surface and the heads again submerged.
As Renard and the commandos climbed on the wharf and submarine, Scott McKenzie came into Jake’s view. The mechanic’s brown eyes opened widely.
“They’re here?” McKenzie asked.
He looked spooked.
“Get used it,” Jake said. “This is what we all wanted. Think of the money. Think of your future. You’ll have the entire world to find a new love of your life.”
McKenzie froze. Jake shook him.
“Come on! Wake up! Tell me what’s going on,” Jake said.
“I disconnected the ship internally from shore water, air, and sewage,” McKenzie said. “All I’ve got left is to unrig the connections topside.”
McKenzie’s hands were shaking.
“Everything’s okay,” Jake said. “Finish unrigging topside. We’ll be fine.”
“Unrig topside connections, aye, sir.”
“You going to be okay?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know about this.”
“Hang with me. It’s too late to turn back.”