Piranha Assignment (32 page)

There was a click. The door swung in on new, squeaking hinges. Man and woman closed their eyes. Morgan curled fists that were again his own.

Felicity sat up straight, reacting to the footsteps.

“Incoming,” she said.

“Move!” Morgan said, and stiff-armed her down the corridor.

Felicity had taken four big steps before she realized she was alone. She turned in time to see the arms room door swing closed. She knew then she must lead the search party away. She waited at the corner until a follower spotted her, then she ran with everything she had.

Long red tresses hung under the bright orange rack. Felicity knelt beneath a rack of twenty-one inch torpedoes, with her hands pressed together. She was ashamed of how unfamiliar the posture was.

She had led the guards on a wide tour of The Piranha. They had run down past the reactor control center and dropped a level into the turbo generator area. She had gone forward to the diesel generator, then back up to the second level's crew accommodations. She had a close call near the communications center. By the time she settled into the torpedo storage area, Cubans were wandering in three different directions. With any luck, they would be shooting at each other.

Now Felicity knelt, wrestling with the hardest thing she had done in a decade. Raised Catholic, brought up by her uncle, a priest, the reverence was buried deep in her heart and mind. But when Felicity left her only kin behind in Ireland she embarked on a long, twisted road of survival that led her to become her generation's most gifted thief. In the process she had abandoned the childish trappings of religion. Or so she thought.

Then she met Morgan Stark. He loved her, not her body. He was as close as a brother would be, strong and in his own odd way, kind. With Morgan in her life she came to rely on someone other than herself.

Now she saw that leaning on something was not so bad,
calling for help not so awful. That is what she would do now, if she could only remember how.

“Lord?” she whispered, with every ounce of sincerity in her heart. “I haven't come around for a long time, I know, but I hear the switchboard's always open. I don't imagine there's much of a suite for me in your house after the life I've been living, but maybe you know my Uncle Sean? One of the best, he is, one of your soldiers for sure. Maybe you can give me a listen for her sake. Besides, this time I'm trying to do something good.”

Something was thickening in her throat and she had to swallow hard to clear it. “Lord, I think we can save a lot of kids and mothers from that wacko up the control room of this boat, and when I get up there to your house I'll try to explain why I did some of the things I did. Anyway, I'm not calling for me. You know Morgan Stark? He's spent a lot of years trying to fight for what he thought was right. All I'm asking is, don't let him die. Please? It looks bad, but I know you can figure a way. Just give us half a shot, okay? Thanks. Our Father, who art in heaven…”

“There you are,” Morgan said, stooping to get into her hiding place. “Good news. I can get you out of here. Look what I found in the arms room.” Felicity looked up. Two automatic pistols were jammed into his belt. All his shirt and pants pockets bulged with loaded magazines. He was holding a rope that trailed out behind him. At the other end of it was a net filled with gear that he must have dragged through the submarine.

“What is all that stuff?”

“Everything you need,” Morgan said with a cold smile. “Aqualungs, fins, wet suit, mask, weight belt, regulator, even a depth gauge. Don't know how we can open those torpedo shutters yet. That's a three thousand pound hydraulic lock. But soon as I figure that bit out, I can put
you out the torpedo shutters and when I blow the torpedoes…” Felicity interrupted by diving into him, smothering him with a hug.

“You great, big, beautiful teddy bear of a man, you,” she said through a laugh. “You did it. We've got a shot now. Both of us.”

“No,” Morgan said, pushing her away. “You were right. I've got to sink the sub.”

“Sure, but we're not going to do it that way. There's a better answer, and I've had it all this time, right in the palm of my hand.”

They crouched around a corner from the control room door, dressed in wet suits. Morgan had returned to the storage room for a duplicate of all he had gotten for Felicity. He held his two pistols high.

“First, let's lock that door,” he said. He stepped suddenly into view at the end of the corridor. He fired the first two shots in this war's last battle, not at the four armed guards, but at a pipe over their heads. A blast of hot steam burst forth, angled at the control room door, searing paint from it. It would be suicide to open that door so, in effect, Bastidas was sealed inside. Before the guards knew what was happening, Morgan and Felicity had disappeared.

Minutes later, having eluded any followers, they were back at the starboard turbo generator.

“Franciscus said it himself,” Felicity said, shouting against the turbo whine. “What really powers the submarine is steam. If you puncture enough of those pipes the pressure will drop. No way they can patch them all. They'll have no drive power, no hydroplanes to steer, no air circulating. They'll literally be dead in the water.”

“Well, let's get to it,” Morgan said, cheerful at the prospect. He fired, and a jet of steam shot down, creating a tiny tropical storm over the generator.

Further forward, Morgan punctured a pipe over the diesel generator. Upstairs at the reactor control center, he ducked around a corner and shot the steam pipe above a guard's head. The Cuban screamed as live steam burst into his face. That passageway would be impassable for a while.

Morgan felt like a kid playing hide and seek, or tag. He remembered being good at that stuff as a kid in The Bronx. On the lower level he shot out a pipe outside a room full of auxiliary machinery. On the center level he hit a pipe outside a crew bay. Then he hustled back down to blow out a pipe outside the communications room. Then he sealed off every approach to the torpedo storage racks and tubes with a few well placed steam sprays.

“We're committed now, Red,” Morgan said. “So what about the torpedo tube shutters?”

Felicity pointed and backed away. “Here and here. And be careful.”

Morgan stood to the side and carefully placed two shots. This time, instead of steam a thick fluid flew out like a Texas gusher. The oily liquid flooded the passage, pointing away from them.

“That ought to take care of the hydraulic pressure, but we don't have a lot of time,” Felicity said. They helped each other into masks, fins and tanks, hurrying but not rushing. Each wore two aqualungs. Morgan looped a rope around Felicity's waist with a bowline knot, then did the same for himself. With another line he lashed four extra tanks to himself.

“This could be a pretty scary experience, Red,” Morgan said. “Any questions I might have forgot about?”

“Well, remember, I've only dived in pretty shallow,
tropical places. You know, looking at the fish, ten feet down. I'd sure like to get to do that again. But I've heard some horror stories about deep dives. Are we going to get the bends?”

“That's the one bit of luck we didn't earn,” Morgan said, adjusting her regulator. “Decompression sickness happens because nitrogen bubbles out of your blood. This deep nitrogen narcosis is also a threat, so submarine crews get special diving gear for emergencies. The gas mixture in these tanks is called heliox. Just oxygen and helium. No nitrogen, no decompression sickness. As long as we keep our breathing fairly shallow, we shouldn't have any real problems.”

Okay, so what else?”

“Well, no dive is foolproof, and this is deeper than almost anybody ever goes. You will feel the pressure. And it'll be cold out there, at least on your hands and feet, and darker than hell. I've got a flashlight but it won't penetrate far. I've got my big knife strapped to my leg, but if something with fins and teeth likes the way we look, there isn't much of a chance of winning that kind of fight. And we'll have to go up fairly slowly, to decompress safely.”

“I thought with no nitrogen…”

“We'll still be compressed,” Morgan said. “You can get an air embolism, or the squeeze, they call it. I worked a commercial dive this deep once. Of course I was working at that depth all day, so I had to spend nine days decompressing.”

“Nine days?”

“Yeah, but since our bodies won't have much time to adjust to the pressure, we won't need very long to adjust back. We'll still have to be real careful, though. We can't even risk getting a nose bleed or something out there. Aside from the problem of breathing, the blood would bring
sharks and such. Rising at about twenty-five feet per minute, we'll be under for a good couple of hours.”

Felicity nodded her head. “Doesn't sound too bad. And even if something goes wrong, it's better than dying in this big steel coffin. Let's go for it.”

Morgan swung a torpedo tube open and crawled in. Then he hauled the extra air tanks in behind himself. Felicity followed, feet first, and swung the hatch closed behind her. She was facing the wrong way, and the space was cramped, but it could not be helped. Morgan poised one gun to smack the catch off the big steel shutter.

“Hey Red?”

“Yeah Morgan.”

“Just in case, what do you want it to say on your headstone?”

“Never gave it any thought,” she admitted. “You?”

“I just want it to say ‘died trying'.” He clanged the gun butt three times against the catch. Then, using the gun as a lever, he started prying the shutter aside.

A pinhole gap was enough to break the seal on the shutter, but the pressure was unexpectedly severe. Their tiny air envelope burst out, carrying Morgan with it. Felicity's head slammed into the hatch. Then, the rope around her waist tightened and dragged her into the ocean.

She was dazed, but no spots floated before her eyes. In fact, she was not sure at first if her eyes were open. No dark was as dark as this. Her heart started thumping, and she ordered it to slow down. Morgan had said not to breath too deeply, because as they ascended the volume of the gasses they breathed would increase. Holding your breath during ascent could burst your lungs.

So she floated, disoriented, totally blind, in the ice cold silence. Then she felt the rope tug her into motion. Were they going in the right direction? Up, down and sideways felt the same. Would they float forever? No. It was Morgan. Of course they were going in the right direction.

Felicity found the rope and pulled herself in the direction of movement. Soon she touched another body, although she could not see it. She traced Morgan's side, then his arm, finally grasping his hand. Now she would be okay.

Slowly, Felicity acclimated to her new environment. It was not sensory deprivation, after all. She felt comfortable in her wet suit, but even with gloves and booties, her hands and feet were in contact with the cold. The sound of her breathing combined with the sound of the regulator. She
reached up, put her hand in the bubble flow above her. Actually, she found they were moving at almost the same pace as her bubbles heading upward. They moved slightly ahead of her, reassuring her that she was moving toward the surface.

She kept her mouth clamped tight around her mouthpiece, yet the sea's strong salt taste filled her mouth. That, and the taste of stale air. Becoming more relaxed, she closed her eyes. It was more comfortable being blind with her eyes closed.

Her special awareness of time was an advantage now. Time moved at its own pace for her, not faster or slower based on conditions. Under these circumstances, time might drag for most people, but she knew the next two hours would move as quickly as any other two in her life. Still, she had nothing to do but breath and keep her legs swinging gently. The change in pressure would, by design, be too gradual to feel. Maddening, knowing there was actually danger in speeding their ascent.

Needing something to occupy her mind, Felicity pictured her office. Then she began mentally redecorating. A relaxing way to pass the time, she thought. She began moving furniture in her head, replacing wall coverings, carpet, and lighting.

Felicity's mouth flooded with water. She felt a hard squeeze on her hand. Panic seized her and she bit down hard on her mouthpiece, expelling the water. Then she was yanked up a few feet and a light shone into her eyes.

In a rush of alarm she knew she had nodded off. Morgan squeezed her arm painfully hard, but she could not see his face with the light in hers. He must be examining her eyes, she realized, for signs that she was blacking out. In reality, the monotony of sound and sensation had lulled her to
sleep. She raised one thumb in front of her mask, nodding her head vigorously to indicate she was okay and wanted to continue. Morgan reached down, gave her a hug, and continued upward.

About forty-five minutes after they left the submarine, Felicity felt a downward tug. She had drifted past Morgan and the rope stopped her ascent. He had prepared her for this. When his hand gently pulled on her mouthpiece she took a deep breath and opened her mouth. A new mouthpiece replaced it. Morgan had switched to a second set of aqualungs and was helping her do the same. In the darkness, she felt straps slide off her shoulders, to be replaced with a new pair. It was easier than she expected. Like that they were drifting upward again.