Nick grabbed his binoculars and scanned the skies. He moved his gaze down along the coastline and the surface of the water. He saw just a ripple in his peripheral vision and returned to the spot. Nothing … he held the position, watching and waiting. There it was again, a ripple; there’s something there—and again …
Nick rang Mitch.
“At your ten o’clock,” he said giving the approximate location, “there’s something underwater and it’s moving.”
Mitch hung up and swung around. “Nick’s got something.”
“I’m going in.” Ellen zipped up her wetsuit.
“What’s your radius Ellie? I don’t want you going too far.”
Ellen gave Mitch an exasperated look.
“I know you are a divemaster,” Mitch said, “but I’m not if anything goes wrong and I have to rescue you. Visibility is crap at this hour.”
“Trust me Mitch, I won’t take any risks, I assure you, I know what I’m doing.”
“OK,” he reluctantly agreed.
Ellen slid quietly into the water and Mitch watched her disappear. He glanced to the beach, expecting the Asian party any moment now. Then he saw the ripple. It was increasing; something was moving near them, parallel but not heading into the shore. A midget sub maybe, but where’s the mother ship and is there one? he thought, excited.
Mitch glanced to the shore and saw the party of four men walking down the beach. He glanced around but couldn’t see Samantha or Nick. Good. He felt his phone vibrate and answered it.
“There’s a signal, looks like it’s a mirror reflection,” Nick told him. “I’ve noted the location.”
“What’s the depth there at a guess?” Mitch asked.
“About forty feet. What’s a midget submarine need?”
“About fifteen to thirty-five feet,” Mitch said.
“So it’s possible,” Nick said.
“Sure is. What are they doing?” Mitch asked watching them on the shoreline from afar.
“William Ying is returning the signal,” Nick informed him. “The other three are on watch by the looks of it.”
“I can see it now, the signal,” Mitch said.
“Two of them are stripping off again and going in. One’s doing the timing. Danny Huang by the look of it,” Nick reported.
Mitch looked to the side of the boat. No sign of Ellen. He kept the phone line open, grabbed his binoculars, slid down low in the boat so he couldn’t be seen from land and watched the men enter the water. After they disappeared below the surface, he saw something that almost made him dive underwater himself … bubbles, a massive spray of bubbles.
“Did you see that?” he whispered down the line to Nick.
“You bet.”
“I think the test has worked,” Mitch said. “There’s an air vacuum by the looks of it and I’m guessing that’s how they’ll do the real thing.”
“But next time with the VIP,” Nick said, keeping his voice low. “Take him out, get him in the air bubble or onto an air supply and walk him to the midget sub.”
“Why aren’t we picking that sub up for chrissake?” Mitch said.
“OK the men have surfaced and are coming in, they’ve drifted a bit again,” Nick said.
“Right, signing off, got to call Sam. Nick, take the plane out as soon as you can. See if you can spot anything unusual … anything.”
“Aye, aye, Major,” Nick said.
“Thanks.” Mitch hung up.
The two men swam towards shore just as the sun began to tip the horizon. They wiped themselves down and with Danny and William moved to the vehicle.
Mitch rang Samantha. “Anything?”
“Yep, just heard in my ear from the translator the words, ‘mission successful’!”
Samantha snapped shots of the men on the beach. She zoomed in to get the man closest to the waterline doing the timing. The other two men looked around.
Hard to be subtle, boys, when you are on the beach with a folder and stopwatch at this hour, Samantha thought. She watched them return to one of the cars in the beach parking lot, enter it and sit. They sat and talked. Then one man alighted, went to the second car and drove off by himself. The others followed not long after in the second car. She received another message from the translator and rang Mitch. It went to his message bank. He must be on the phone to Nick, she thought.
She left a message: “Mitch, I just got another message from the translator. One of the men rang the four in the car and reminded them to pick up what they needed for stage two before they head back to D.C. So I’m just going to follow to see where they stop to do that and what they need for stage two. Let me know if you don’t want me to, otherwise I’m on the road now.” She hung up and ran to the car.
Ellen surfaced and Mitch helped pull her into the boat. He answered a call from Nick before speaking with Ellen.
“OK, thanks,” Mitch hung up. “Nick’s confirmed they’ve driven off.”
Ellen grinned from ear-to-ear. “It was dark but there was no doubt it was a midget sub. You should have seen it. Clever, very clever and extreme.”
“This is amazing,” Mitch said, as he ran his hands over his face. Frowning, he looked at Ellen.
“Tell me it’s not an American sub?”
“Impossible to tell,” she said. “It had no visible markings that I could see. But if it is an American sub, that would explain why it hasn’t been picked up because it’s one of ours. It means the crew is going to defect too, I’m guessing.”
“Doing my head in, this case.” Mitch rose and grabbed Ellen a towel while she stripped off the wetsuit.
Ellen shivered. “So did it work? The test?”
“Yes, the translator confirmed they said it passed.” Mitch ran through his air bubble theory.
“I could see the mass of bubbles heading to the surface—bizarre,” Ellen agreed. “I’ll see what the SEALs think, but to me, it looked like a small diving bell. They moved it from a sealed section in the sub, it gave off this huge spray of air and then they put it back in.”
“Where is the sub when it is not here I wonder?” Mitch thought aloud.
“I’m just thinking …” Ellen began.
“Go ahead,” Mitch encouraged her.
“Any chance it could be a privately-owned sub … is there any such thing?” she asked.
“Good question—and who would be funding that? Let’s get in, get back home and find out. We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Mitch said. He turned the boat towards the shore as Ellen dressed.