Terminal Run

While Thompson waited for the underwater telephone, he brushed off a part of the surface of the metal, exposing the skin, and spot-welded a lug to the metal, then threaded a cable through the lug. It was like trying to thread a needle while wearing metal mesh gloves, but after twenty minutes of trying, he managed to get the cable through the lug. He secured the cable at the hull end and released the float on the other end. The float ascended to the surface, marking the location of the wreck in case heavy weather required them to abandon the sinking site.

For three hours Thompson assembled the underwater telephone. It was not so much assembly as it was reassembly, since he had to remove and replace the hydrophones in an attempt to get a clear signal from inside the vessel. Chances were that it would not work, since too many things could distort sound in such a situation, but his office mate at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute had engineered a computer software application that would take the blurry transmissions and clean them up so that they could be understood. When the underwater telephone work was done, it was time for the Narragansett to try to communicate with the wreckage. Thompson clicked the microphone and said slowly and distinctly, “Is this the submarine Piranha!”

His stomach churned as he waited for a response.

Captain Rob Catardi sat up in the dark, only the glow of an instrument panel for light.

“Captain,” Pacino’s voice said in his face. “There was a knock on the hull.”

Catardi’s heart thumped in his chest. “Energize the percussion device full-time,” he ordered.

A booming voice suddenly sounded throughout the DSV, coming from outside the hull. They could tell it was a voice but couldn’t make out the words. Catardi and Pacino began screaming at the overhead. The voice came again, but then went silent. There were more scraping noises, until a half hour later the voice came through the hull again.

“Is… this… the… submarine… Piranha?” the voice asked.

Catardi held up a finger. “Let me speak,” he said quietly to Pacino. He looked up at the overhead and shouted, annunciating clearly while projecting his voice, “This is Captain Rob Catardi of the submarine USS Piranha. Do you read me?”

There was a pause, then: “Roger … we … read … you.”

“Are you rescuing us?” Catardi asked.

“Not yet,” the blaring male voice said. “We are the Navy DSV Narragansett, here to locate your position. The rescue will be done by a British deep-submergence rescue vehicle. The Brits will be here in seven zero hours, over.”

Seventy hours. Catardi sat down on the deck, dejected. They might not have enough current or oxygen to survive that long.

“Narrangansett, you must expedite the rescue. I say again, expedite the rescue. We will not last seven zero hours. We are low on battery amps. Temperature is extremely cold. We are running out of medical supplies and oxygen will be out in two days. You have to make the rescue in forty-eight hours or less, over.”

“Piranha, Narragansett, understand. We will pass the word along. Are you in the deep-submergence vehicle?”

“Yes. We are in the command module of the DSV in the special operations compartment. I believe the submarine hull has been damaged and breached, but the DSV hull is stable, over.”

“Roger, Piranha, understand. Request list of survivors and their medical status, over.”

It was a short list, Catardi thought, as he reeled off the information.

“We have the list, Captain. We will be patching in a DynaCorp expert on the DSV to see if he can talk you through a system lineup to conserve your resources. Please standby, out.”

What the hell were they supposed to do? Catardi thought, but he smiled at Pacino.

“We may make it out of here yet.” He grinned.

“I hope so, Captain.”

“How are Alameda and Schultz?”

“Still out. I’d feel better if they were conscious. If they have brain injuries they may never wake up.”

“Let them sleep. If we get them conscious, they’ll breathe air faster. We won’t make it forty-eight hours. If fact, you and I should try to sleep until the DynaCorp technician comes on the underwater telephone rig.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep, sir. But I’ll try.”

21

Commander Kiethan Judison cursed as he scanned the command console’s firecontrol display. The Snare, Target One, was over two hundred forty thousand yards distant to the northeast, far outside of weapons range, and her speed was higher than the Hammerhead’s, even if the ship was ordered to a reactor-ruining emergency flank. If Admiral McKee had hung up the phone when Judison had asked him to, the Snare would not be so far downrange.