The Silent Sea (37 page)

“Depth, one-eighty feet. Horizontal range from the bow is five yards.” A second later, she amended, and said, “Depth, one-fifty. Range, three yards.”

Juan ran the vectors in his head, calculating the torpedo’s glide slope as it arrowed in on them, his ship’s speed and position, and how the waves were affecting her. He had one shot or they were all going to die. There was no margin for error. And there was no hesitation. He slammed on full power for less than two seconds and then threw the impellers into reverse. The ship lurched forward, shouldered aside a big breaking wave, and slowed once again.

“Depth, fifty feet. Range is zero.”

Eric keyed on a fish-eye camera attached high up on a bulkhead, overlooking the moon pool. Water surged from the hole in the ship in black glossy mounds that spilled over onto the grated floor and sank to the bilge.

“Depth zero,” Linda said in an emotionless monotone.

Like Leviathan rising from the deep, the bulbous nose of the Chinese torpedo exploded out of the moon pool. Meeting no resistance, its motor thrust the weapon fully out of the water. Its quick last-second acceleration was enough to snap the two guy wires trailing miles back to the sub. It crashed back into the water, ringing like a bell when it hit the edge of the pool. And then it sank from sight. With no control inputs coming from the mother ship, the onboard computer shut the weapon down.

A victorious roar filled the op center and echoed throughout the ship, where other crew members had been watching video monitors. Max slapped Cabrillo on the back hard enough to leave a red handprint. Tamara hugged Juan briefly, and then Max much longer.

Cabrillo made to leave the room. “Chairman,” Linda called to stop him. “What about the sub? Our torpedoes hit in forty-five seconds.”

“I’ll be in the head if they need me.”

He was in the restroom, sighing contentedly, when another cheer went up. The fish had done their job, and the route to Antarctica, and the end of this affair, was open.

 

 

 

A
LIGHT TOUCH ON THE SHOULDER WOKE JORGE ESPINOZA. Like any good soldier, he was awake instantly. His aide, Corporal deRosas, stood over him, holding a mug of what he hoped was coffee.

“Sorry to wake you, sir, but a large ship has appeared at the mouth of the bay.”

“A warship?”

“No, sir, a freighter. It’s beached.”

Espinoza threw off the thick sheaf of blankets and regretted it immediately. Though the overseer, Luis Laretta, had boasted that fuel wasn’t a problem for the facility, the air in the building they used as a billet had a perpetual chill that seeped into everything. Espinoza pulled on two pairs of long johns before donning fatigue pants. On his feet went three pairs of socks.

“Has anyone aboard tried to make contact?”

The aide opened the metal blinds to let in what passed for sunlight in this godforsaken deep freeze. The room was barely big enough for the bed and a dresser. Its walls were painted plywood. The single window overlooked the back of another building just three feet away. “No, sir. The ship appears abandoned. One of its life rafts is missing from the davits, and, judging by how beat-up it is, it looks like it was deserted some time ago. Sergeant Lugones scoped it with a thermal sight. Nothing. The ship’s stone-cold.”

Espinoza took a swig of the strong coffee. It didn’t go well with the film in his mouth, and he made a face. “What time is it?”

“Nine A.M.”

Three hours of sleep. He’d survived on less. He and Jimenez and a couple of Sergeants had been out most of the night, scouting the hills behind the base for ambush sites. The fractured terrain was a natural fortification, with hundreds of places to position fire teams. The only problem was keeping them warm. Today was going to be dedicated to seeing how long the men could stay in position and still maintain combat efficiencies. The Sergeants guessed four hours. His estimation was closer to three.

He finished dressing and downed the rest of the coffee. His stomach rumbled, but he decided to investigate the mystery ship before breakfast. “Wake Lieutenant Jimenez.”

It took just fifteen minutes in one of the workboats to cross the bay. The effect of the warm air bubbler was amazing. Not only was the bay ice-free, the air directly over it was a warm fifty degrees, while at the base it had been a bone-chilling ten below. Beyond the bay, a crust of ice rose and fell with the waves as the first inkling of summer tried to melt it away. There was a clear path out to the open ocean, where an icebreaker continuously plied back and forth to maintain a vital link back home.

The workboat passed close enough to one of the oil platforms to see that its camouflage was thin sheets of riveted metal designed to make it look like an iceberg. From fifty yards away, the only way to know it wasn’t the real thing was the massive steel support columns that peeked out from under its white skirt.

At the narrow entrance of the bay, they passed over an area of agitated water. This was the curtain of warm air rising up from the pipes that prevented ice from flowing into the harbor. For the few seconds it took to cross, Espinoza was warm for the first time since arriving in Antarctica.

He turned his attention to the ship. It was old, that was for sure, and possessed a haunted quality even if he hadn’t known it was abandoned. The hull was a mishmash of marine paint, blotchy and streaked, as if applied by children. Her upper works were mostly white, and her single funnel a faded red. She had five cranes, three fore and two aft, making her what seamen call a “stick ship.” Since containerization had taken over maritime commerce, such ships were considered outdated, and most had long since been turned to scrap.

“What a rust bucket,” Lieutenant Jimenez commented. “I bet even the rats abandoned her.”

As they got closer still, they could see that she wasn’t a small ship. Espinoza estimated her length at well over five hundred feet. Her name was difficult to make out because the paint had faded and was streaked with rust, but he could see she was called the
Norego
. Twenty feet of her prow was hard up on the pebbled beach. There was another workboat pulled up next to the massive bows, and a group of men standing around. One was erecting an aluminum extension ladder that looked tall enough to reach the rail, barely.

Espinoza’s boat pulled up alongside the first, and a crewman threw a line to one of the soldiers. He heaved the boat in as close as he could while another crewman lowered a gangplank that was nothing more than a twelve-foot piece of lumber.

Sergeant Lugones snapped a salute as soon as the Major’s padded boots touched the rocky beach. The sky was clear, for once, and the temperature was a relatively balmy ten below zero.

“Quite a sight, eh, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. We spotted it at first light and came out to investigate. Begging the Major’s pardon, but I thought it best you stay in bed and get some beauty rest.”

From anyone else, that would have been gross insubordination, but the gristly Sergeant had more than earned the right to tease his commanding officer from time to time.

“You’d need a thirty-year coma to help that mug of yours,” he called back, and the men who heard snickered.

“All set, Sarge,” the soldier working the ladder called over.

Espinoza was the first to climb up, with two men bracing the base in case of a wind gust. He had modified his outer gloves so he could peel back the index finger, and when he unholstered his pistol he could get his finger through the trigger guard. He peered over the gunwale. The deck was a mess of loose clutter, oil drums, and scrapped pieces of nautical gear. He saw no movement, so he climbed over and signaled for the next man to join him.

Wind moaned though the crane’s rigging, a warbling keen that sent shivers down his spine. It sounded like a dirge. He looked up at the bridge windows but saw nothing but the reflection of the sky.

Raul was at his side a moment later, followed by Lugones. The Sergeant carried a machine pistol with a powerful flashlight secured under the stubby barrel. They crossed the deck, moving carefully, and with one of them always covering the advance of the others. There were no hatches on the forward bulkhead under the bridge, so they moved to the starboard rail and proceeded aft. Here, they found a door just a few feet away. Above them were the two skeletal arms of the empty davit. A steel cable hung from each.

Jimenez undogged the latches, and when he glanced at Espinoza, who nodded, he pulled open the door. Sergeant Lugones had his weapon at the ready.

The interior hallway was dim, so he snapped on his light. The paint job inside was about as bad as the exterior. The linoleum floor was badly chipped in places and looked like it had never seen a mop.

Their breaths formed halos around their heads.

“Looks like nobody’s home.”

“A wry observation, Lieutenant. Let’s get to the bridge. If there are any answers to this mystery, that’s where we’ll find them.”

The men climbed up several decks, checking rooms as they went. Judging by the way the furniture had been tossed around, it was clear the derelict had seen some heavy weather. Beds had been overturned, and a great number of the wooden pieces had been smashed. They found no evidence of the crew, living or dead.

The bridge was broad and dim because of the rime of salt on the windows. Again, they found nobody, but on the chart table behind the helm was a piece of paper that had been placed in a plastic sleeve and heavily taped in place.

Lugones used a combat knife to cut the paper free and handed it to his superior.

Espinoza read aloud: “ ‘To anyone who finds this, we were forced to abandon the
Norego
when the pumps failed and the sea poured through a breach in the hull caused by a rogue wave. Chief Engineer Scott did everything in his considerable power, but they would not restart. The decision was not an easy one to make. These are treacherous waters far from any shore. But a floating lifeboat is better than a sinking ship. I pray for my men. If we don’t make it, please tell my wife that I love her and our boys very much. It is safe to assume that goes for all the men and their families.’

“It’s signed ‘Captain John Darling of the Proxy Freight Line,’ and, get this, it’s dated January of last year. This old girl’s been adrift for twenty months.”

“Think the crew was rescued?” Lugones asked.

Espinoza shook his head. “No idea. I’m wondering why the ship didn’t sink. For a captain to abandon his vessel, he should be damned sure of his reason. I want to check the engineering spaces.”

It took several minutes and more than a few wrong turns to find a stairwell that led down into the guts of the ship. As soon as Jimenez pulled the door open, a six-inch surge of icy water washed over their boots. Lugones trained his light into the stairwell. It was completely flooded. The water was thick with oil and flashed rainbow spectrums at them.

“That answers that,” the Sergeant said. “She’s flooded, all right.”

“I wonder what she was carrying.” Jimenez mused. “If I remember my salvage law, whoever finds her gets to keep not only the ship but her cargo.”

“And when did you study salvage law?” Espinoza asked sarcastically.

“Okay. I saw something on TV about it.”

“Tuck your larcenous hands back in your pockets. We’re soldiers, not scrap dealers. More than likely, this heap will drift off again at the next high tide or when another storm brews up.”

“Think we should pop some more holes in her to make sure she sinks for real this time?”

Espinoza considered Lugones’s question. “You know what? No. Let her keep wandering. If she’s survived this long, more power to her.”

A DECK BELOW WHERE the three men stood, Juan Cabrillo relaxed back into his chair. He hadn’t thought the Argentine Major, whose face he was beginning to see in his dreams, had a romantic side. That had been his one main concern—that they would use the
Oregon
for target practice. These soldiers were once boys who probably liked to blow stuff up. The only difference is, now they had plastique explosives rather than firecrackers. The crew had defeated the thermal imaging by cutting the heat to the “public” parts of the ship, lowering the temperature in the rest, and letting the flooded ballast tanks shield them from the scan. The trick with the flooded staircase had been accomplished by simply closing the bottom hatch and pumping in some bilgewater.

Cabrillo looked over at Max Hanley, who was shaking his head. “What?” he said. “I told you I could hide the ship right on their doorstep.”

“This doesn’t count,” Max groused.

“The more outrageous the lie, the more easily it’s accepted. By rights, they should be suspicious as hell, and look at them. They called off the search after ten minutes, and our good Major is practically in tears.”

“I’ll give you this, Juan. You are one crafty SOB. So now what? You got us here. What’s your plan?”