Attack of the Seawolf

Pacino climbed into his bunk and shut his eyes. When sleep finally came he saw the chart of the piers change from the gold-and-blue coloring of the chart to the brown-and-gray of a bird’s-eye-view of the pier, and he saw the Tampa, and his friend Sean Murphy, a revolver being held to his head-When the wake-up phone from the conn rang at 2300, he had blanked out the dream.

CHAPTER 14 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 0605 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY, XLNGANG HARBOR

P.L.A NAVY PIER 1A, USS TAMPA

1405 BEIJING TIME

How long, Sean Murphy wondered, could a man go without sleep? It had been days since the ship had been taken by the Chinese, maybe over a week. Since he had regained consciousness after being shot in the control room, he had been kept awake by one of two bodyguards. He had been confined to the tight quarters of his stateroom with the guards, not allowed to sit in a chair or lie on the bunk. He was kept sitting on the hard deck, the thin carpeting giving little cushion to the carbon-steel decking beneath. When his buttocks and back could no longer bear the pain of sitting or lying on the deck, he was allowed to stand, limping in the small stateroom. Even though his right arm was paralyzed from the bullet he had taken when the Chinese came aboard, his hands were cuffed behind his back. It had been painful from the first, but after endless hours jolting pains shot up his arms to his chest from the awkward position of the cuffs. That was before the numbness mercifully set in. A Chinese medic had bandaged the bullet wound, stopping the bleeding, but the round was still inside him, and he was convinced the wound had become infected. His skin felt hot, feverish.

No one had yet spoken to him in English. The torture so far had been relatively low-level — no one had beaten him or threatened him or interrogated him. He had felt an undercurrent of fear, fear that he would not hold up under questioning, fear of the torture, fear that he would break and tell them everything.

He had not been allowed to speak to his men or officers. The ship was oppressively hot and stuffy.

The fans were off but the ship’s lights were on. Either the battery was running, supplying only the lights, or the P.L.A had brought on shore power Were their voltage and current the same as the Americans’? No, improbable. Maybe the steam lines had been repaired enough for Lube Oil Vaughn’s turbine generators to be steaming, supplying the ship’s distribution with power. But if they were, the air-conditioning and ventilation systems would be working. Which left the question — if the only electricity they had was the battery, how long could it last? Supplying only the lights, maybe a week, ten days max. Which meant that they soon would be out of power.

Murphy felt his eyes get heavy for the hundredth time. He let them shut, and in spite of his numb arms, he felt himself sinking into sleep. And just as he saw the first drowsy sleep images he felt the butt of the AK-47 rifle jabbing him in the ribs, in the spot sore from having been jabbed there before. He came awake with a feeling like a severe hangover, head heavy, stomach churning. God, how he craved sleep. For a moment he almost wished they would ask him something so he could tell them and be allowed to sleep.

But there was no one to ask him questions, just an ox of a guard who seemed to enjoy keeping him awake.

A sudden noise came from the passageway outside.

The guard stood and checked the door, then came to attention. The man who entered the room could only be an interrogator. Murphy decided. The guard motioned Murphy to his feet, but he was too weak. Even after repeated jabs in the ribs, all Murphy could do was roll on the deck.

Finally the interrogator pulled him up by his soaked armpits, propping him against the bulkhead.

Murphy thought he was losing consciousness. The room swirled around him. The interrogator pulled over the swivel chair and sat Murphy down in it. Murphy looked up at the interrogator, whose Mao jacket showed no insignia or rank or ribbons. He was tall for a Chinese, Murphy thought idly. His face was cut from flat planes, his high cheekbones and thin lips making him appear severe. His build was not slight, not heavy, efficiently muscled like a decathlon athlete’s body. His eyes were neither menacing nor friendly — just dark, glassy.

The interrogator pointed to Murphy’s wrists. The guard unlocked the cuffs. For a moment Murphy was unable to move either arm. He tried to move the left first, finally pulling it up in front of him, the limb stiff and burning and tingling as circulation returned. He massaged the right arm with the left, the injured side of his body still numb and unmoving. The interrogator opened the stateroom door a crack and shouted, the Chinese dialect sounding oddly melodious and lilting, the sounds incongruous with the man’s severe demeanor.

Within seconds another guard brought a steaming mug. The interrogator handed it to Murphy.