After Bryan effectively ordered him to be cut off, Rear Admiral Silver remained in the cockpit. He told the pilot to get Major Bryan back on the radio. Special ops guys were a tough and independent breed. Yet while Silver may have spent his career in R&D and not in the field, they were all still military. He intended to remind this officer of that.
Captain Puckett reported that he could not raise Major Bryan. The Chinook had been locked out.
“You’re unable to communicate with your commanding officer?” Silver said incredulously.
“We are not, sir.” The pilot pointed to the display on the radio. “Major Bryan has input code 12–2.”
“Meaning?”
“This is an unsecure line, sir. ‘Twelve’ is a communications hold and ‘two’ indicates the presence of a foreign military force. Shall I raise NORDSS, sir, as the major requested?”
“No,” Silver said. “Let me know if you hear from the major.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rear admiral returned to the bench. Grantham would be up his ass about the security breach and Silver would buck that down to Bryan. A major, however heroic, however moralistic, was not the one to determine the disposition of years of effort and billions of dollars. The Chinese had chosen to be where they were, to do what they did. The rear admiral felt nothing for them. Nothing good.
Master Chief Petty Officer Wingate was crouched by the hatch. The door had been closed to keep out the wind. But he was looking out the window, watching for more than the broken bones of the Abby .
Wingate turned and shouted to the cockpit as yellow dye appeared on the water, “Team decompressing!”
L.A.S.E.R. used the dye to indicate they were decompressing and would be ready for retrieval in five minutes.
Captain Puckett acknowledged. He continued along the coast for another quarter mile then turned back. There were no remains and little debris. Silver looked over at Warren and Angela, both of whom had been given sedatives. He himself had declined medication of any kind. He went back to the cockpit and looked out the window. The first of the rescue workers broke the surface.
“Captain, when will you be able to talk to them?” Silver asked.
“Unless the code changes, we won’t be speaking until the team is on board, sir,” the pilot informed him.
Silver drew air through his nose; it felt like fire when he breathed it out. Bryan had pushed the radio silence too far. The rear admiral wanted to know the condition of his submarine.
The rear admiral waited impatiently as the Chinook moved in to recover the team. When the helicopter was about ten feet up, Wingate opened the door and rolled out the ladder. Silver watched the divers as they started up. He saw seven, not eight.
Ensign Galvez was the first one back. Wingate helped him in and he flopped onto the starboard bench. The ensign pulled off his mask and leaned his head against the fuselage. He was breathing heavily from the full-gear climb up the ladder. After being in a buoyant environment, the equipment felt heavy.
Silver walked over to him. “What’s the situation, Ensign?”
“Sir, I’m not really sure what happened down there.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were planting thermite to free the sub when the ice came down,” Galvez told him. “The submarine reported a complete shutdown of electronic systems.”
“We’re talking about our submarine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Batteries, too?”
“No, sir. They had battery power. But the thermite was lost. Major Bryan and your captain were trying to free the submarine some other way. We cut the cable that was wrapped around the American and Chinese subs, then the major ordered the rest of us to come back.”
Then it was the towline, Silver thought. The nail that had cost them a kingdom. “Is the major still down there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know what they were going to do?”
Silver thanked the ensign. The other members of the team were coming aboard. He watched the others as they removed their gear. No one spoke; they looked spent. The divers reminded him of training films he had seen years before, of men returning from combat missions. However the battle had gone, there were no cheers, no locker room camaraderie. They were just beaten down. It was something he had never experienced, never even witnessed.
Ensign Galvez shut the door and Lieutenant Black went over to Captain Puckett. The rear admiral followed her.
“Captain, how much hovering time do we have left?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Puckett replied. “That’s assuming we’re going to try and get back to Stanley with available fuel.”
“We are,” she said. “We don’t want to be here when the Chinese arrive.”
“Why not?” Silver asked.
“We managed to get some of their people out, sir,” the woman told him. “Your submarine—it’s a prototype with a new kind of drive, isn’t it?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“I understand. The reason I asked, sir, is that the Chinese apparently knew it would be here.”
“Do you have information to that effect?”
“No, sir,” Lieutenant Black admitted. “But our guests might. They have an English-speaker on board.”
The rear admiral didn’t like that nugget of information. He didn’t like it at all. Signal intelligence was typically collected above-water. Other than coincidence and spying, there was no reason for an English-speaking sailor to be on board that submarine. The Chinese did not do anything by whim. He began to wonder, unhappily, if perhaps the death of Charlotte Davies had not been an accident either. Silver didn’t want to believe that but he couldn’t dismiss it.
Moses Houston was examining the divers and overheard what was said.
“It’s a good thing we took some of them on board,” Houston suggested. “If the major can refloat the submarine, sir, you may want to see that our guests spend a few days in a U.S. hospital. A Valium and Demerol drip to relax them—we’ll get that information.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Silver snapped. Houston was taking the side of his superior officer. That was understandable. Silver just didn’t want to hear it.
Silver went to the hatch. Black dragged herself up behind him. They stood beside Wingate, looking out the small window, waiting for something to happen. Another man was waiting there, watching. One of the divers.
Suddenly, the water below them began to ripple excitedly. It rose, ridgelike, along a thick, short line from north to south. The helicopter jerked awake, soaring up and away as a wall of water erupted below them, geysering into the sky. Some of the spray reached the windows of the Chinook before it could bank away.
“Lieutenant, what did that look like to you?” Silver asked Black.
“C-4, sir.”
“Are you sure? It couldn’t be something that triggered the thermite?”
“No, sir. That was an ex plosion rather than a meltdown. It also wasn’t im plosion or landslide, which could be good news,” she replied.
“Why?” Silver asked.
“Because the only thing down there that could blow up that way was the C-4 the major was carrying.”
Silver continued to watch the spray as it fell back to the sea, sparkling in the sunlight. He did not say what was on his mind, what was probably on the minds of Black and Wingate as well.
He hoped that the detonation was to free the submarine, not to destroy it.