CHAPTER 58
A
fter following the Suburban from the marina, Ken parked his Corvette on the far side of the grocery store's parking lot, pulling into a stall next to a pickup truck. He stood in the shadows beside the tailgate of the Dodge Ramâspying.
Laura and one of her boat companions spent nearly an hour inside before wheeling out half a dozen shopping carts bulging with bags and boxes of groceries. They were currently loading the last cartful into the rear of the SUV.
Why so much food?
he wondered.
* * *
“Release your line,” ordered Captain Dan Miller. He stood on the port bridge wing peering downward. The workboat's diesel idled, filling the still night air with a deep-throated growl.
“Okay,” Nick Orlov said. He stood on the floating pier near the center of the workboat's hullâamidships. Nick released the spring line from the dock cleat.
Standing on the side deck above, Yuri retrieved the mooring line. The bow and stern lines had already been taken up.
Nick stepped to the far end of the float and climbed aboard.
Miller walked back into the wheelhouse. He took his customary position behind the wheel, spinning it a couple revolutions to the starboard before advancing the throttle. The
Hercules
crawled away from the pier.
Watching from the rear of the bridge, Laura admired Captain Miller's skill as he navigated his vessel southward down the center of the marina channel.
They were on schedule, the weather was favorable, and even Elena was cooperating by making a fresh pot of coffee in the galley.
Nevertheless, Laura remained antsy.
Yuri was about to risk everything.
* * *
Ken Newman sat in his Corvette, now parked in a public parking lot near the marina's entrance channel. He peered down the channel. The navigation light on the tip of the offshore breakwater blinked red. The night sky seemed as black as his heart.
Ken had just watched the
Hercules
cruise by and then pass around the breakwater. Illuminated by a barrage of overhead lights, he observed Laura as she walked out of the bridge house. She headed aft to the main deck where she joined a male working with some type of gear near the stern. He moved about with a pronounced limp.
Ken slumped into the bucket seat, disheartened. The fully provisioned vessel had just departed with his wifeâand her loverâaboard, bound for parts unknown.
* * *
Laura reached forward and tugged on the left strap of Yuri's backpack harness. “How's that?” she asked.
“A little tighter.”
She yanked down one more time.
“That's good.”
Laura and Yuri stood on the aft main deck of the
Hercules
. The workboat had just pulled up to the
Neva
's VLF buoy. Captain Miller, under the watchful eye of Nick and Elena, nudged his vessel into the ten-knot southerly breeze with just enough thrust to maintain thirty feet of separation. Elena helped by keeping the deckhouse spotlight zeroed in on the buoy, and Nick monitored the radar display for nearby traffic.
Laura stepped back and surveyed Yuri's attire. Clad head to toe in a black dry suit and equipped with a rebreather backpack and a buoyancy compensator, he appeared ready for outer space.
The bulges along the thighs and waist of the dry suit caught her eye. She probed the nearest one with a finger. “Are those weights?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“But they're sewn inside your suit.” Laura knew just enough about diving to grasp that something wasn't quite right.
“That's correct.”
She frowned. “Shouldn't you be wearing a weight belt or something, you know, so that you can release it in an emergency?”
“We don't work that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“We're not allowed to surface if there's a problem.”
Laura put it together. “Because you're operating in enemy waters?”
“Yes.”
“That's not right,” Laura mumbled while shaking her head.
Yuri turned to his right, checking the nearby video monitor. The open door between the torpedo room and the second compartment filled the screen.
Before taking up station next to the VLF buoy, Yuri and Laura retrieved
Little Mack
's tether. The cable reel was suspended ten feet below the sea surface by three of the
Herc
's air-filled dock fenders. Yuri plucked the reel with the crane. After unsealing and drying the cable leads, Laura reconnected them to the ROV's shipboard electronics and
Little Mack
returned to life.
“Remember now,” Yuri said, gesturing toward the monitor, “once I get inside I'll clear the tether and you move
Little Mack
closer. I can use all the light I can get.”
“I will.” Laura looked up at Yuri. “Do you know how you're going to make the vent?”
“There should be some isolation valves in the bilge that I can work with.”
“That's what the wrenches are for?”
“Yes.”
Laura eyed a canvas bag on the deck next to Yuri. It was full of tools from the engine room of the
Hercules
. Captain Miller would have a fit if he were aware of the pilfering.
“How long do you think it will take you?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“But the coldâdidn't you say that would be a limiting factor?”
“I'll manage.”
Laura moved to Yuri's side. She wrapped her arms around his waist, tilting her head back at the same time. She stood on the tips of her toes and offered her lips.
He respondedâvigorously.
CHAPTER 59
“I
t's over seven hundred feet deep here,” Captain Miller said as he gawked at the Fathometer readout. “Is he really going that far down?”
Miller and the two SVR officers stood in the boat's wheelhouse. All three just returned from the starboard bridge wing after watching Yuri leap overboard. He had remained on the surface for about a minute checking his gear and then submerged.
“Don't worry about him,” Nick said while he studied the radar display. “He knows what he's doing.”
“My God, man, I don't know that much about diving, but that's so deep. Won't he need a decompression chamber when he comes back up?”
Elena joined in, “It's all been covered, Captain. He'll be fine.”
Miller rolled his eyes.
* * *
Yuri completed a second equipment check at ten meters. While grasping the VLF cable, he looked upward wondering if he could still see the
Hercules
. He aimed his dive light downward to minimize topside interference.
A ghost shadow loomed off to the side, but something else caught his attention. The sea exploded with bioluminescence. Tiny phosphorescent creatures put on a spectacular lightshow: miniature carmine flares and dazzling turquoise sparks.
With his light switched off and his legs anchored to the cable, he waved his right hand by his face mask. The wake burst into a firestorm.
Transfixed by the spectacle, Yuri luxuriated in the presence of the light-emitting life forms until the exhibition dissolved. Whatever had been swimming with the current had moved on.
Time for Yuri to move on, too.
Yuri passed the hundred-meter mark, almost three hundred and thirty feet deepâno bio-display here, just the deepest coldest black imaginable. Propelled by the deadweight of his dive dress and with a safety line clipped to the buoy cable, he dropped fins first. He concentrated on monitoring the LED displays on his depth gauge and dive computer, both strapped to his left forearm. He paced himself at twenty meters per minute, an aggressive but tolerable descent rate.
Several minutes into the dive, the pain in his injured left leg had begun to fade; it had now disappeared.
The water temperature dropped steadily as he descended, but the ensuing cold had yet to penetrate through the extra layers he wore. What had penetrated, however, were his utter sense of aloneness and the ever-present fear of death.
God, don't let me die down here!
* * *
“Captain, I hear something,” reported the
Neva
's sonar operator as he adjusted his headphones.
“Is it Yuri?” asked Captain Borodin. He stood next to the technician. They were alone in the sonar room.
“I'm not sureâwait. Yes, there's the signal!”
Borodin didn't need headphones. The hammering on the pressure casing telegraphed the entire length of the hull.
“He made it, Captain!”
“Yes, he did!”
Borodin couldn't help but grin as he envisioned his friend.
Good going, Yuri
.
Now please get inside and get to work.
* * *
After pounding his hammer on the hull from inside the VLF buoy compartment, Yuri heard three dull metallic thuds in return. Grateful for the confirmation, he swam out of the compartment and proceeded along the deck. Thanks to the near slack tidal conditions, he tolerated the crosscurrent.
Yuri aimed the dive light forward, toward the bow. A thin pale ribbon streamed in the distance.
Little Mack
's tether arced over the
Neva
's sailâa twelve-foot-tall raised section of the hull that housed the periscopes and other surveillance equipment.
Yuri pulled himself over the bow and peered into torpedo tube five. He used his dive light to illuminate the forty-foot-long bore. He shoved the tool bag into the tube and pulled himself inside.
The bulk of his dry suit and rebreather made a tight fit. He could feel the backpack scraping the top of the tube while his belly pressed against the bottom. Yuri kicked but barely made any headway. Fearing he might become stuck, he stopped. Yuri wiggled out of the torpedo tube and hung on to the lip of the opening. He repositioned the dive light within the tube so that its beam aimed outward, illuminating his torso. The tool bag held the light in place.
Yuri released his hold on the torpedo tube and reached down, blindly searching for the straps that secured the rebreather backpack. He unbuckled the waist strap. He released the left shoulder and then the right. With his teeth clamped to the mouthpiece of the breathing hose, he reached over his shoulders and pulled the backpack over his head.
Yuri held the backpack with both gloved hands, pulling it tight to his chest. He worried that his unorthodox maneuver would cause the water trap in the counter-lung to flood the breathing loop. But the breathing bag continued to function. The gas flow remained steady and seawater had not contaminated the CO2 absorbent.
He looked back toward the bow, his dive light serving as a beacon. He had sunk almost to the bottom. He kicked hard, his fins stirring the mud into chocolate slurry. A few seconds later, he returned to tube five.
Yuri pulled himself inside, pushing the rebreather ahead. He had plenty of room now. He removed a twenty-meter coil of line from the tool bag. He lashed one end of the line to the handles of the canvas bag and attached the other end to a chest harness D-ring.
With his left hand holding the light and his right anchored to the backpack, he pumped his legs and the fins propelled him into the tube.
Yuri took great care around the broken rail guide that had snagged Viktor.
He reached the end of the tube and stopped. The light beam streaked into Compartment One. His motion inside the tube had already upset the equilibrium of the flooded torpedo room. Weightless particles swirled about in the light beam.
Yuri retrieved the tool bag. He swam into the torpedo room, reminding himself not to look at the faces.
Yuri followed
Little Mack
's tether straight to the snag. He removed the coil from the pipe stem and continued farther into the hull.
* * *
“I see something!” Laura announced.
“What?” asked Nick.
She pointed to the top right-hand corner of the video monitor. “There, see how it's getting lighter?”
Nick studied the display. “Yeah, I see it. Do you think that'sâ”
He stopped speaking, startled by the sudden change of
Little Mack
's camera angle. No longer focused on the open bulkhead door between Compartments One and Two, it swept clockwise. “What are you doing?” Nick demanded, facing Laura.
“NothingâI haven't touched the controls.”
“But what's happening?”
Yuri's face mask filled half of
Little Mack
's viewfinder. His gloved right hand with the thumb pointed up occupied the other half.
“It's Yuriâhe's okay,” Laura announced.
Nick muttered,
“Neverojátnyj!”
Incredible.
* * *
Yuri peered into the camera lens, holding the ROV in place. Reaching to the side and grabbing the tether, he held the cable in front of the camera and again displayed the thumbs-up signal.
The ROV's dual lights blinked off and on three timesâthe pre-arranged signal.
* * *
Yuri opened the bulkhead equalization valve between the torpedo room and Compartment Two.
“He's heading back to the door,” Laura said.
“Okay,” Nick replied.
Little Mack
hovered about six feet away as Yuri swam to the bulkhead door. He released the mechanism that held the door open and swam through the circular opening into Compartment Two, carrying the tool bag. He dropped the bag onto the deck. He reached back into the torpedo room and pulled the steel door shut.
Laura and Nick watched as the door's rack-and-pinion locking ring engaged, activated by Yuri pulling a steel lever on his side of the door.
“Why did he shut the door?” Nick asked.
“It's a safety measure.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me that if something happens to him, the door will already be closed. That way the crew can pump air into it.”
Nick responded, “But how will we know if he's having a problem?”
“If he doesn't come back in ten minutes that means he's . . .” Laura couldn't say it.
“Oh,” Nick said.
Nick engaged the stopwatch feature of his wristwatch. He said, “What's he doing now?”
“Looking for a way to make a more efficient seawater vent.”
“Can't they just pump the air into it with the door sealed?”
“That's what I thought, too. But no, it doesn't work like that.”
“So how is he going to add a new vent?”
“Find a pipe that penetrates both compartments and open it up somehow.”
“How big of a pipe?”
“He didn't say, but the bigger the betterâthe more seawater it will carry.”
“Hmm. That sounds like it could take awhile.”
* * *
Yuri advanced into Compartment Two, following a passageway through the crew's quarters.
The condition of the space bewildered Yuri. Unlike the torpedo room that had been peppered by shrapnel from the exploding torpedo breach door and scorched by the runaway rocket motor, this chamber showed no damage. The storage locker doors lining the passageways remained closed and the decks were clear of debris. Other than a hint of detritus in the water column, everything appeared in its place. Yet, as he swam farther into the crew's living quarters, dread chewed away at his comfort.
He had invaded a tomb.
The dead littered his route, some grounded on the deck and a few suspended at mid-depth with their heads down and arms spread eagle. Most of the corpses bobbed against the overhead, the skulls rubbing against the cable bundles, pipe chase ways and other hardware that occupied the ceiling.
As he'd rehearsed, he avoided face contact and took care to steer around bodies. Still, he couldn't help but notice as he passed by how the hair rippled against their skulls as if swept by a macabre ghost wind.
* * *
Nick checked his watch. Four minutes had elapsed since Yuri closed the hatch door. Laura remained fixated on the video display.
* * *
Yuri's head and shoulders projected above the water surface. The upper deck of Compartment Two had not completely flooded. Compressed bubbles of air and leftover toxic rocket exhaust gas matched the sea pressure. He used the dive light to scan the partially flooded space. He counted five bodies in the officer's wardroom, including Captain Tomich, all floating on the air-water interface.
Although he did not remove his face mask, Yuri sensed the stench of rotting flesh. He re-submerged to the lower level.
* * *
“How long?” asked Laura.
“Eight minutes.”
“Thanks.” Laura turned back to the video monitor. She unconsciously chewed the index fingernail of her left hand.
Even Nick was jittery. He paced on the deck behind Laura.
Both were oblivious to the
Herc
's surroundings. A gigantic northbound containership passed three hundred yards to the west.
* * *
Yuri swam in the bilge space, two deck levels below the bulkhead door that isolated Compartment Two from the torpedo room. Thankfully, he had not encountered any dead here.
He followed a pipe about eight inches in diameter, looking for a valve. To eject the most seawater, he needed to vent Compartment Two low in the hull cross-section.
Halfway through the bilge space Yuri found the inspection port, part of a T assembly in the bilge pipeline. He opened the port's control valve. As he expected, nothing happened.
The bilge pump in the flooded sections never worked after the sinking. But with the inspection port open, it would drain seawater when high-pressure air flowed into the space.
Yuri and Captain Borodin's plan for de-flooding Compartment Two consisted of releasing the
Neva
's compressed air reserves into the flooded space. With proper venting, the expanding air inside Compartment Two would force seawater through the vent into the forward compartment, and then through the still open torpedo tube. Although the calculations indicated that the
Neva
's compressed air reserves did not have anywhere near the sufficient volume to displace all of the seawater from Compartment Two, there might be just enough to make a difference.
Unlike U.S. submarines, which operate with minimal reserve buoyancy, Russian submarines have generous reserves. The
Neva
was designed to surface should any one of its eight compartments flood. With the ballast and trim tanks already air-filled, every ton of seawater vented from Compartment Two would bring the
Neva
closer to positive buoyancy.
Should Yuri not be successful in venting Compartment Two, releasing high-pressure air into the sealed compartment could overstress the bulkhead door that separated the second compartment from the central command post. Failure at this critical juncture would be the end for the
Neva
.
That's why Yuri had already opened the equalization valve between the first and second compartments. A flow path, although considerably undersized, would remain, allowing seawater a slow escape route if compressed air were dribbled into the second compartment.
Yuri made his way back to the torpedo room. With every minute critical and the cold seeping into his bones, he kicked harder.