Chapter Nineteen

The thirty-thousand-ton cargo vessel Custom Venture had set sail from Santos, Brazil, stopping in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to exchange freight. Loaded with dry storage, the ship steamed along the transit lane to the Straits of Gibraltar en route to Marseille, France.

Steel cans filled all but three of the containers. Of the three, one was welded watertight and empty. Another was filled with sand and welded shut. The final vessel contained an anti-submarine depth charge.

Two Custom Venture crewmen, Taiwanese Army Captain Chu Hsin-min and Sergeant Ding Mou-shih, had infiltrated the Custom Venture under cover as longshoremen. Baggy coveralls concealing forty-five caliber pistols, lock picking tools, and a pair of high-powered binoculars, Chu and Ding climbed to the weather decks.

Leaning against the ship’s railing, Chu inhaled the salt air and raised binoculars to his eyes. He studied stars flickering against an indigo backdrop, traded the binoculars with Ding, and pointed at the sky in a feigned lesson of astronomy.

However, the heavens held less of Chu’s interest than the horizon where he expected to see a surfaced submarine.

 

*

Ryder entered the situation room and looked at a clock. It had been thirteen hours since the Miami had lost the Colorado.

“Admiral Mesher, what’s the status?” he asked.

“We still have the Colorado contained, Mister President. The submarines Boise and Philadelphia are holding fifty-mile perimeters on the northern and southern boundaries, and two P-3 Orions have established the western and eastern ends. Each platform is sweeping inward, closing down the perimeter. The Miami is conducting a spiraling search from the Colorado’s last known position.”

“Are we going to regain the Colorado?” Ryder asked. “Don’t candy coat this.”

“Sir, when the Colorado evaded, it lost its stealth-quieting advantage at twelve knots due to damage imposed by the F-16’s. That either restricts the Colorado’s speed or makes it easier to find.”

“Enough with this game,” the Air Force Chief of Staff said. “We need to sink this Trident!”

“We still maintain-” Mesher said.

“No, Admiral,” Ryder said. “You’ve had your chance. The Colorado knows we’re looking for it, and it’s proven its hostile intent. As soon as it’s found, sink it.”

 

*

“Did you figure out who it was?” Jake asked.

He felt anxious about having been trailed, and he wanted to know who hunted him.

“I believe so,” Renard said. “I compared the frequencies we recorded during the encounter with your database. I was afraid our pursuer might have been a Virginia Class or a Sea Wolf, but it was only a third-flight Los Angeles class submarine.”

“Which one?” Jake asked.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three. The frequencies from the port turbine generator and the starboard reactor coolant pump matched the sonic records of the Topeka, the Miami, and the Asheville - of those still in commission.”

Jake flipped through the pages of a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships. His chest tightened.

“Topeka and Asheville are based in Hawaii,” he said.

“Then we were trailed by the Miami.”

“Oh shit,” Jake said.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s John Brody, the best skipper in the fleet. His ship was the one we passed on the way out of Kings Bay.”

Renard raised a Marlboro to his mouth and blew smoke.

“The best skipper in the fleet?” Renard asked. “Then I hope that the world will soon take us for dead.”

 

*

An hour later, Jake inched the Colorado forward at three knots. To fight the slow ascent, he ordered a seven-degree down angle. Tiger pushed the stern planes to a full dive and Cheetah strained his thin arms against the fairwater control wheel. His body tingling with the numbness of lost sleep, Jake stood by the ship’s control panel.

“How are we doing, Scott?” he asked.

“Every tank’s pumped dry,” McKenzie said. “It took a while without the trim pump.”

Jake sensed that, in protest against lack of maintenance, the Colorado was breaking down. Its trim pump’s motor controller had burned out.

“Hovering tank’s full, though. Right?” Jake asked.

“It’s the only thing keeping us under.”

“That’s what I want. We can’t risk pumping air into our ballast tanks. There’s no quiet way to get air into them, and I don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”

Ten minutes later, Jake took in residual sunlight through the periscope. A green running light twinkled on the Custom Venture’s silhouette. He ordered the Taiwanese commandos to release the stern and fairwater planes and McKenzie to drain the hovering tanks half way.

Swiveling the periscope optics downward, Jake watched bioluminescence and whitewash skim over the rising missile deck as the Colorado inched to the surface.

 

Straining his eyes against the setting sun of the mid-Atlantic, Captain Chu saw the rectangular silhouette of the Colorado’s sail. He entered the cargo ship’s superstructure, climbed four decks, and watched Ding apply his tools to a locked door that read ‘Officers Only’.

With Ding behind him, he ascended another flight of stairs and pushed open a door to the captain’s quarters.

The captain reclined in his bed reading a copy of Newsweek.

“What’s this about?” Captain Eduardo Martino asked in Portuguese.

Chu brandished his pistol. Martino lowered his magazine and placed his reading glasses on a table.

“I have no intent of arguing with armed men,” Martino said. “What do you want from me?”

“Stop the ship and prepare your crew for crane and line handling work,” Chu said.

Chu escorted Captain Martino to the bridge and took control of the four-man piloting team.

“Stop the ship,” Chu said.

“This is a large ship,” Martino said. “This will take time. Do you want me to sound a backing bell?”

“No, coast to a stop as if you had suffered an engineering casualty. If you receive radio contact from another vessel, that is what you will say has happened.”

“I must tell you that there is a vessel six hours behind us in the transit lane.”

“That poses no problem.”

“Why am I slowing my ship?”

“Off your starboard beam you will see a surfaced submarine in the moonlight.”

Martino raised binoculars to his eyes.

“A submarine? Whose?” Martino asked.

“You will know soon enough.”

The first mate, Hector Verdugo, had been on the bridge when Chu arrived with the captain as his prisoner. Verdugo’s brown eyes flashed.

“What makes you think we will obey you blindly? You are two men with pistols against an entire crew.”

Sergeant Ding leveled his pistol at the first mate. Chu grabbed his arm and shouted for control. He then withdrew a list from inside his coverall pocket.

“Hector Verdugo,” Chu said. “Your wife is Isabella and your sons of three and five years are Javier and Luis. You live with them at 37 Rancho Palos Verdes in Sao Paulo.”

“You bastard!” Verdugo said.

“Captain Martino,” Chu said, “I have similar data for most of the men on board. If you value the safety of your wife and four children, you will do as I tell you.”

Martino nodded reluctantly.

“Stop the ship,” Chu said. “Cycle your starboard running light every thirty seconds. Make a skiff ready and prepare for crane operation and rigging.”

 

Two miles behind the Custom Venture, the Colorado slid through the ocean’s surface and glided to a stop. Through the periscope, Jake spied the spotlight of the approaching skiff and barked at McKenzie.

“I’m going up to the bridge. Get some tools ready for topside cleats. And bring a rope.”

Climbing through the sail, Jake felt the crisp sea breeze that blew through the bullet holes. Reaching the moonlit bridge, he examined the damage caused by the jet fighters.

A missile had dented the starboard side inward and cleaved the outer tip of the right fairwater plane. Reflecting moonlight, explosive residue caked the bent and severed plane.

McKenzie placed a rucksack of tools on Jake’s shoulder and tied a rope to a welded handle. Jake heaved his leg over the bridge, descended ladder rungs down to the fairwater plane, and caught a rope McKenzie had tossed. Hand over hand, he scaled to the deck.

When his sneakers reached steel, he looked for the approaching skiff. The small boat’s light caught his eye, and he waved his arms.

“Over here! Toward the bow!” Jake said.

Jake heard the whir of an outboard engine as the skiff circled, slowed, and backed down beside the Colorado.

“I have been instructed to offer assistance,” the third mate said. “I have a mooring line, wireless telephones, and a bridge-to-bridge radio.”

Jake heard Kao land with a clunk behind him. Kao helped him turn over a half-submerged cleat and tie the skiff alongside the Colorado.

Jake hurled the coiled end of the rope dangling from the fairwater plane to the mate. Holding the rope, the mate braved the rope-assisted jump and climbed onto the rounded bow of the Colorado. Jake helped him to the deck, and the third mate offered a waterproof bag.

“No thanks,” Jake said. “My associate goes first.”

Kao grabbed the bag, rifled through it for a wireless phone, and disappeared behind the sail. When the commando returned, he handed Jake the phone.

“I have confirmed with my associates that the mission is proceeding per plan,” Kao said. “There is a text message containing codes to ten accounts totaling forty million American dollars.”

Jake felt revitalized.