Noel Hynd - The Sandler Inquiry

His common sense screamed at him.

"Turn it around Go back!

While you still have fuel enough to return!"

Leslie spoke.

"It's together," she said, raising the rifle and checking the sight.

"I'm loading it!"

She bolted the rifle and slid a long six-bullet magazine into it.

She stood up and looked over his shoulder.

"Straight ahead' she said, tense but encouraged.

"I think you're gaining, " "Impossible," he muttered.

He squinted at the horizon. No, she was right. For some reason Zenger had cut his engines. They were gaining.

Thomas looked at the compass as their craft continued to move in a straight pattern toward Zenger's boat. The speck on the horizon was larger, more elongated. The compass told them that they'd altered their course.

Leslie stood behind Thomas, glancing at the compass, frowning.

"What's he doing?" she asked in a half whisper.

Thomas paused for two or three seconds before answering, a signal to her that he wasn't sure.

"It looks like he's turning," she said.

"But why? There's nothing to turn to."

She looked back to where they'd come from. The island was smaller now.

They approached international waters, greater depths, and trickier currents. The fuel needle was on E. The water was tangibly choppier, the bottom of their small boat being battered hard by the four-foot waves.

"He's crazier than we are," he said.

"He doesn't do anything without a reason," she answered.

He nodded. He knew that.

Zenger's ship took a zigzag pattern now. Their pursuing boat traveled a'straight line after it, drawing closer. Then Zenger's craft seemed to turn in an arc, going out to deeper waters. Its radar scope was on, spinning quickly amidst the elaborate antennae on the roof of the boat.

Several more minutes passed. They knew they were beyond U.S. territorial limits now. No other boat was in sight. They drew nearer.

Zenger seemed to be leading them in an arc now, as if he were looking for something or waiting for something, but were still trying to keep a respectable distance from his pursuers. It was starting to rain. They were within a half mile.

Then zenger's craft veered sharply left ward as if he had seen something. He had. Moments later Thomas knew what.

Perhaps a mile away, there was a thin black vertical line breaking through the water, leaving a long silver wake. The line resembled a large iron pipe, traveling upright as if to defy gravity. It broke the surface suddenly and was moving toward Zenger's craft.

Leslie and Thomas saw it at the same time, through the gray rain and water.

"What the…?" she began to ask. And then she knew. It was all so painfully obvious. Yet Thomas had realized it, not her.

"It's his escape" said Thomas.

"We're not going to catch him. He's made it' She slammed the loaded carbine against the cushioned seats. The sound made Thomas jump, scared the weapon would discharge.

"Full speed he said.

"Come on," he coaxed the boat.

"Move!"

He glanced to the fuel needle. It was below E. No way they'd have the fuel to return, he realized. Only if they could overtake Zenger's boat.

He watched the black line traveling through the water, rising now, cutting a brisker wake.

"Holy Jesus he said.

"Just look at it" The black line rose and was joined by other black lines. Lines of iron and steel. They were closer and the line was readily identifiable. A periscope. And the rest of the Soviet submarine gradually became visible.

Thomas felt an incredible shudder. As Zenger's ship neared its destination, the contours of the submarine rose like a slumbering giant from the ocean. Its outline was gray and jagged, like the waves, the water, and the sky. It was far larger than he had ever imagined one would be, far larger than a small cruise ship, for example. It rose to the surface, cut its own engines, and seemed to come about, turning its side to the two small pleasure craft that approached it. They resembled minnows charging a whale.

A few yellow deck lights were visible. Thomas drew closer.

Zenger's small craft drew near the submarine and turned its side to it.

A party of sailors emerged on the deck, lowering along rope ladder down the sub's side. Zenger drew closer to the submarine.

Thomas looked up. Through the gray mist he could see the markings on the topmost point of the submarine. The red hammer and sickle of the workers paradise to the East, defiant and strong in the international waters off Massachusetts. They were on a rescue mission of sorts, picking up a spy of three decades' service. The least they could do was whisk him away in fluorescent, air-purified, underwater safety back to the Motherland.

Zenger was alongside the submarine. He abandoned his own small craft, leaving it to drift to oblivion in the north Atlantic. He was pulling himself up the ladder, aggressively and gamely, a man of fifty-odd well-conditioned years rather than a man of seventy-six or eighty-two.

Their own boat lurched and the engines spat and hesitated.

Thomas looked to the fuel needle a final time. Their supply was finished. The last drop was gone. A red light flashed on the dashboard and the needle pointed far below E. They were, at half a mile from the submarine, as far as they could*O.

The boat rocked with the waves, starting to turn sideways in the current which would carry them farther into the Atlantic.

"We're out" he said.

"Finished. Failed." He whacked the dashboard in disgust with his fist.

Zenger was scrambling up the rope ladder.

"Not quite," she snapped bitterly.

She went to the rifle, grabbed it angrily and went to the starboard side of the boat. It was rocking with the waves but she started to kneel. She pointed the rifle across the railing of the boat, seeking to steady it.

He looked at her, almost disbelieving what his eyes saw.

"You're not?" he asked.

She looked at him.

"After everything I've done?" she asked, as if to imply insanity to his question.

"You'd let him go?" She paused, then added,

"We're even, you know. He tried killing both of us three times "What's the range of the rifle?"

"Five hundred yards with accuracy," she said.

"Beyond that?

Wind and luck determine everything."

The rain spattered the boat. They stood in the back, getting wet with the gray mist. She looked at the safety catch and seemed to fumble with it.

"Ever fired one of those?" he asked.

"I know how it works," she allowed. She looked at him as if to offer it. The boat rocked spasmodically. She said ncithing, asking with her eyes.

Suddenly his instinct propelled him forward. He thought of his life, arranged for and conspired against by forces he'd never known.

He went to her side and pulled the rifle away.

He examined it quickly. Zenger was at the top of the ladder, being helped onto the deck by sailors with sidearms.

Thomas looked through the sight, zeroing the two fine cross hairs in on the man on the submarine deck.

Zenger was on his knees, stumbling slightly.

The small craft rocked, then eased slightly. The rifle was moving with the boat.

"Put your hand on the barrel," he said, propping it on the railing.

"Help me steady it' She did.

"All I can do is aim high and hope' "You know your way around rifles" she commented.

He glanced at her, taking his eyes off the cross hairs for only an instant.

"My father taught me," he reminded her, realizing the irony.

"We used to go deer hunting."

She looked at the deck of the submarine.

"An impossible shot," she said.

"Damn!"

He aimed high, waited for the peak of the wave, sighted the weapon again. He fired in that one instant the boat stood atop the wave crest.