Attack of the Seawolf

Morris shouldered him aside and pushed his own head up above the lip of the sail, craned his neck to see around Lennox and observed the flames on the water from what looked like crashed aircraft or perhaps the remains of patrol boats. Ahead a Chinese frigate was sinking, vanishing into the water of the bay, a smoky column of fire rising from its dying hulk.

Within moments the frigate vanished into the foam of the bay water, leaving only a small airframe of a helicopter behind, and then it too sank. The bay was quiet, the moon lighting the bay water with a bright white glow.

“What the hell happened?” Morris barked.

“Where’s Baron?”

Lennox said nothing. Morris saw von Brandt’s corpse on the deck. He looked up at Lennox, his face dark with anger.

“You ran us aground, didn’t you?”

Lennox nodded.

“Well, get us out of here. Use the engines, do something.”

Lennox stared into the distance, still saying nothing.

Morris reached inside his vest to his radio and switched frequencies so that he was on the channel that Stinky was using back in the aft escape trunk.

“Stinky, it’s Boss. Get the Engineer up there and put him on the VHF.”

“HE’S RIGHT HERE.” There was a brief silence on the line.

“BRIDGE, ENGINEER HERE.”

“Eng, we’re hard aground on a sandbar or obstruction.

You got power?”

“REACTOR’S CRITICAL. IT’LL BE ANOTHER MINUTE TILL WE’RE IN THE POWER RANGE, A FEW MORE TO SPIN THE TURBINES UP.”

“Leave someone with brains in charge and get your ass up to the bridge — you’re driving this bucket of bolts out of here.”

“ON THE WAY, ENG OUT.”

Morris pulled Lennox around so the man was facing him, then slapped his face a few times, enough to focus his eyes.

“Get below, Lennie,” Morris said quietly.

“Find some men who can take over the control room below and get them ready to dive the ship. In the meantime the Engineer’ll drive us out, if he can get us off the sandbar.”

Lennox handed Morris a chart and a red flashlight and his headset, and as if sleepwalking, left the bridge and lowered himself down the access trunk ladder. As the hatch shut after him, a tall man with a dirty face and disheveled hair appeared from the port side of the sail. He had just climbed the ladder rungs set on the outside.

“Permission to come up,” he said.

“Get the hell up here,” Morris told him.

The man climbed over the panels of the clamshells, reached under and retracted them, expanding the bridge to its former size.

“I’m Vaughn,” he said.

“Ship’s engineer. Who’ve you?”

“Morris, Jack Morris, SEAL Team Seven CO.

Here’s the radio headset. Here’s Lennox’s chart and here’s a flashlight. Now do us all a big goddamned favor and get us the hell out of here.”

Vaughn looked over the port and starboard lips of the sail, took the headset, chart and flashlight. As he studied the chart in the glow of the light he gave Morris orders as though the SEAL were a green ensign just reporting aboard.

“Get below and go to the ballast control panel. It’s on the forward port corner of the control room.

Above the console you’ll see two big stainless-steel levers. When I give you the word pull the plungers on the levers down and rotate the levers to the up position.

The levers will initiate an emergency ballast-tank blow. Got all that?”

“I just killed thirty, forty Chinese guards to save your butt. I think I can flip a couple of levers.”

“Good man. Get going.”

Morris scrambled down the ladder, annoyed but glad to have someone on the bridge who seemed ready to take charge. As he entered the control room he saw Lennox sitting at the ship control panel.

“Lennie,” Morris said, “where are the emergency blow levers?”

Lennox pointed to the BCP. Morris went to the levers and waited for Vaughn’s orders.

On the bridge above, Vaughn’s radio crackled.

“BRIDGE, WE HAVE PROPULSION!”

“Bridge aye,” Vaughn replied.

“Shift the coolant re circ pumps to fast speed and prepare for a flank bell.”

Vaughn looked up from the chart and checked the water below one final time. He was gambling that the ballast tanks had leaked air out over the last five days in captivity, letting in water from the vents below.

Usually that happened in port, and when at the pier the daily routine called for the duty officer to blow the ballast tanks full of air. Otherwise, after a week or two, the ship would lose a foot of draft. Left unattended and with no ballast tank blow a submarine would probably sink after a month at pier side