Chapter Twenty-eight
June 14, 2006
Chukchi Sea, north of the Bering Strait:
Four days had passed since Brody had led the Miami from the icecap. After communicating with higher authorities, he had two P-3 Orion crews from Whidbey Island, Washington, in a dedicated full alert status to back him up. Two submarines from Hawaii, still a day’s transit away, were en route to the Bering Strait to assist.
Brody steered the Miami back and forth along the ten-mile wide underwater opening that he believed offered the Colorado its only passage from under the ice.
His latest orders matched his instincts – destroy Jake Slate and the Colorado.
*
As the ice-roof clamped down upon the submarine, the under-ice sonar system blared. Jake reached for a microphone to order Bass to slow the ship, but the deck fell.
He grabbed for a handrail and regained his balance, but his legs hit his chest as the Colorado scraped the ocean floor. He felt the ship rebound and graze the overhead ice again.
Silence. Jake hoped the collision was over.
It wasn’t.
A handrail knocked the air out of his lungs. He winced as crumpling metal creaked. Splintering ice snapped. The shattering fiberglass bow crackled.
Expecting a wall of water to crash in, Jake held his breath. Chunks of ice banged the Colorado. A circular rib in a ballast tank groaned and buckled.
Jake stood and stumbled across the slanted deck.
At the helm, the wiry Cheetah lay limp over the rudder control yoke.
“You okay?” Jake asked.
Cheetah nodded, palpated his stomach, and winced.
Broken ribs, Jake thought.
Jake moved to Kao, who was hunched over the ship’s control panel. Blood covered his forehead. Jake cradled Kao and set him on the deck.
Cheetah, bent to his side, limped toward Jake.
“Take care of him,” Jake said.
Standing, Jake grabbed a phone and called the engine room. After learning that Mike Gant had escaped harm but that Leopard had broken his arm, he saw Renard appear atop the staircase.
“What happened?” Renard asked.
“Ice ridge came out of nowhere. Mister Lion’s hurt pretty bad. Mister Cheetah’s probably got some busted ribs. Gant’s fine, but Mister Leopard’s got a broken arm.”
“I banged against the side of my rack,” Renard said, “but no major damage. I think most of us who were sleeping are okay. How’s the ship?”
“We’re on the bottom, but I don’t know much else.
“Look at our under-ice sonar,” Renard said. “I no longer think we’re stuck.”
“What?”
“The roof. It’s sixty feet above.”
“That correlates to charted water depth,” Jake said.
Jake watched a sardonic smile form on Renard’s face.
“Your methods are most brutal, but I must congratulate you on clearing the icepack.”
*
Brody scurried to the Miami’s control room.
“Captain, the sonar room called it an ice event, but now they think it’s sounding like the Colorado,” Parks said.
“What do you have?”
“Cracking noise, and lots of it, but afterwards we picked up metallic crumpling and popping on the same bearing. Something hit the ice hard.”
“Do you think the Colorado hit the ridge we cleared four days ago?”
“That’s my guess, sir.”
Brody envisioned the impact of a Trident smacking ice. The sonar dome would be damaged, and the warped metal of the bow would add flow noise to an already battle-scarred submarine. He had found his prey, and it was wounded.
“If the Colorado isn’t already flooding,” Brody said, “we’ll close in and finish her off.”
*
Jake entered the missile compartment and coughed out toxic fumes. He reached for a cubby with stenciled red ‘E-A-B’ letters, grabbed a canvas bag, and pulled out a facemask.
With the rush of air and a snap, he popped his Emergency Air Breather EAB line into a forced air breathing station, pressed the facemask to his cheeks, sucked stale air and tightened straps around his head.
Wisps of black floated by his face mask. Gulping a last breath, he disconnected from the air supply and held his breath, pinched his air line, and descended the ladder to the missile compartment’s lowest deck.
Here, he pressed his air line into a copper fitting and exhaled. His lungs burned, and he craved the ensuing breath. Hoping his connection was valid, he sucked from his mask. Clean air filled his lungs.
Above the bilge, a high-pressure air valve fanned a glowing flame. Orange danced against a paste green lagging canvas.
Jake gulped and disconnected. He walked to an extinguisher and hauled it back to his air connection. Heat billowed over him as he shot smothering foam over the lagging. When the foam stream sputtered and died, he dropped the canister and retraced his steps to the air.
Smoke rose above the green hull insulation. A tiny flame burst through the white foam. Jake took a breath and retreated.
*
His EAB facemask slung over his shoulder, Jake climbed up the ladder to the control room.
“Fire in missile compartment lower level!” he said.
“How bad?” Renard asked.
“I don’t know but it’s in the hull lagging and getting fanned by a busted air reducer. An extinguisher did no good. We need hoses. Fast.”
“I will summon the crew,” Renard said.
The entire eleven-man crew - sans Gant and Leopard stranded a world away in the engine room on the fire’s far side - assembled around Jake.
For the first time, Jake noted the commandos looking more spooked than the sailors. His men were trained for damage control, but fire in an inescapable confined space was a new horror to the frogmen.
“We’ve got a hull lagging fire in missile compartment lower level,” Jake said. “We’ll use two hoses to keep the fire from spreading aft while we push it forward and douse it. We’re going to use EAB’s on a buddy system.”
“Bass,” Jake said, “take Mister Tiger and hook his air line into yours on a buddy-breathe. Flake out hose nine on the third level and attack from above. I’ll take Mister Panther and get it done at the source with hose twelve. Grab some EAB’s and wait for me at the third level watertight door. Scott, take Mister Jaguar to the oxygen breathing apparatus locker, put on the OBA’s, and get into fire fighting suits. We might need you guys on self-contained air. When you’re geared up, join us with hose ten. Go.”
Men scrambled. Jake turned to Renard.
“Get us off the bottom to level the deck so we can fight this thing.”
Jake studied Kao, who leaned his head into paper towels held by the wincing Cheetah. Blood trickled from a forehead gash, and indigo and black discoloration covered his eye. His fingers trembled, and Jake expected that the commando was entering shock and would pass out.
He slipped by the injured commandos and flipped knobs that directed pressure from trim tanks to the fire main.
“There’s a first aid kit in the galley when you have time,” he said and descended the stairs.
Jake met his firefighting team and peered through the tiny window into the missile compartment. Thick smoke filled the other side.
“Mister Panther, I’m going to hook into this air manifold. Once I do, hook your EAB into the manifold on my belt. Then slip your mask on.”
Jake tasted stale air. He heard his muffled voice resonate from his EAB mouthpiece.
“Can you hear me?”
Panther nodded.
“Good, because you won’t see me when we’re in there. Whatever you do, don’t panic or we’re dead. I can find any manifold in that compartment. Just inhale when I tell you and keep an arm on me while we’re moving. Got it?”
“Yes,” the wide-eyed commando said.
“Ready, inhale!” Jake said.
He tugged open the circular door to the missile compartment and stepped into dark smoke. Moving through opaqueness, he groped for a ladder, pinched his air hose between his fingers, grabbed the railing, and stepped down the rungs. The commando’s sneakers bumped his head on the way down.
When he reached the deck, Jake’s lungs were burning. He felt the commando’s weight hit the deck and his hand slap his shoulder. Jake grabbed the hand, moved to the nearest air manifold, and clicked his hose.
“Inhale!” Jake said.
Jake sucked several breaths while sweat trickled from his brow. Crackling flames started to roar.
“Around the corner. Ready?” he asked.
“Ready!” Panther said.
“Inhale!”
Jake reached the coil of hose twelve and drew breaths from a nearby manifold. He heaved the hose’s bronze and plastic nozzle to the deck.
Tossing lengths about the floor, he unraveled the hose, giving it room to expand. He twisted a valve and watched the hose bulge with water pressure.
“Can you reach the nozzle?” Jake asked.
“I have it,” Panther said. “There is no water pressure.”
Jake grabbed the hose, jerked, and straightened a kink. He returned the nozzle to Panther.
“Drag this. We’re moving aft. Ready, inhale.”
Jake reached a manifold, clicked the air line, and breathed.
“Stand behind me. Press down,” he said.
Jake pointed the nozzle at the flames and flipped forward a piece of bronze. His chest and arms tensed against the backlash. He welcomed Panther’s weight over the hose.
A conical burst of water shot at the hull lagging. From above, sheets of water from Bass’ hose cascaded down the curved hull. Squinting at the flame, Jake watched the fire outpace the efforts of two hoses.
Clouds of black enveloped him. The fire spread into the bilges and created a wall of flames that blocked Jake’s forward escape route. He shut and dropped the nozzle.
“It’s over! Forget it. Let’s go. Engine room. Ready, inhale!”
When they reached the back of the missile compartment, Jake could again see his companion’s opaque shape. He shouted to Panther to inhale, unhooked from the manifold, and started up the ladder to the third level. Reaching the ladder’s midpoint, he felt a tug at his belt.
Jake twisted and watched Panther’s eyes bulge as he swallowed the vacuum of his facemask. Falling backward, the commando reached for Jake and grabbed his air cord. Jake’s mask chafed his cheeks and slid across his face. Smoke burned his eyes.
Jake heard a thump and saw Panther cough, gag, and rip off his facemask. He jumped to the deck and reached, but the commando kicked his arm. He reached again, but his fingers slipped off a flailing arm. His lungs burned, and he craved air.
I need the self-contained air of an OBA to save this guy, he thought.
He popped free from the buddy fitting and left the commando’s useless EAB next to its dying owner.
Jake retreated to an air manifold. He plugged in and breathed, but toxins made him want to tear out his lungs. He pried open the seal of his mask and coughed. As he inhaled again, the air tasted less noxious. He expelled air through his mask one more time, unplugged from the manifold, and sought the ladder.
After breathing tainted air in his mask at successive manifolds, Jake saw light through the round window of the engine room’s watertight door. He slapped his hand against the handle, depressed it, and pulled. The door opened and he staggered through.
Ripping off his mask, he knelt and rested his chest on the doorframe’s machined ring, inhaling deep, rapid breaths. Then he stood, held his breath in the path of the flowing smoke, and shut the door behind him. In the narrow tunnel through the reactor compartment, he fell to all fours and shut his eyes while he cried to clean the smoke from them.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Tiger, a mountain of muscle, towering over him. The broad-shouldered commando screamed.
“Where is Chanlin?”
Chanlin, Jake thought. Mister Panther has a real name.
“I said where is Chanlin!”
Jake looked up at Tiger’s smoke-covered cheeks. Black pupils seemed to pop from the husky commando’s head.
“You left him to die.”
“He panicked. I had to leave him, but I can save him. There’s a mobile OBA breathing system at the engine room damage control locker. I can put it on in thirty seconds and have him back in here in ninety seconds. We can revive him.”
The commando stepped aside.