Jack Du Brul - Vulcan's forge

The sound of the ship’s props filled the silence of the sea, but the vessel itself was still hidden in the gloom. Mercer was hesitant to turn on his dive light for fear of being detected by a lookout on deck, but at last he took the chance.

The knife-edge bow of the John Dory was no more than ten feet away and bearing down on him at eight knots. Mercer dove hard, but his reaction came an instant too late. The steel plates of the ship’s bow scraped along his body, shredding the thick rubber of his wet suit. The thick crust of barnacles grated against Mercer’s skin like a thousand tiny paring knives.

Mercer screamed into his mouthpiece as pain shot through his system, racing through his body to explode against the top of his skull. He felt the gray blanket of unconsciousness falling over his mind, but managed to push it aside by sheer force of will. He wouldn’t allow pain to stop him now. He had only a few seconds in which to find a handhold of some sort before the vessel passed him. And if that happened, he had no chance of ever catching her.

Training the dive light upward, Mercer recognized the smooth curve of a submarine’s hull. At least he had the right ship. He flashed the light to starboard and saw a space between the freighter silhouette and the sub’s hull. He swam into the gap.

When his head broached the surface, he spat out his mouthpiece and gulped down the warm humid air trapped between the steel plating and the sub. The water in the four-foot-wide gap was churned in a vortex that carried Mercer along with the ship.

Since he did not have the luxury of time, he didn’t bother glancing at his watch. He was certain that the sub was getting into position to fire the missile. He immediately set to work. The magnetic limpet mines he’d pilfered from the SEALs’ stores stuck to the hull with a quiet snap; the timers had all been set, and as each one made contact with the sub’s hull, it went active.

As soon as the explosive charges were planted, Mercer began climbing the spiderweb of steel girders that locked the bogus freighter hull to the submarine. Because of his injured ribs and the scuba gear hanging from his back the climb was exhausting. He wished he could dump the dive equipment, but if he hoped to escape with Valery Borodin, he needed it. At the top of the girders, he paused to look at his watch. Four minutes until launch.

Shit.

The sharp steel struts had ripped into his hands; blood poured from the wounds and dripped onto the deck where Mercer stood, just forward of the submarine’s conning tower. The empty superstructure of the freighter soared thirty feet above his head. The cavernous space echoed with the hiss of water sliding across her hull and the beat of her props. The nearly total darkness smelled of diesel oil and saltwater. As quietly as possible, Mercer stashed his scuba gear and dive fins in a corner.

Two minutes.

He crept up the ladder of the rounded conning tower. As he neared the top, he made out muted voices. The language was unmistakably Russian.

He popped his head over the top of the conning tower and gave a friendly smile to the two shocked officers standing at the open hatch.

“Take me to your leader,” Mercer grinned. Exhaustion and the adrenaline he was using as a substitute for real courage had made him giddy.

The two officers produced pistols in record time, leveling them at Mercer’s head. One of them shouted down into the sub. Though Mercer did not speak Russian, he assumed that the captain had just been informed that they had a prisoner. Prompted by curt gestures from a pistol barrel, Mercer went down the hatchway and into the Soviet submarine.

At the base of the ladder, Mercer casually glanced around the vessel’s control room. By the slack-jawed looks and the lack of movement, he rightly guessed that the launch had been suspended for the moment.

“Hi, my name’s Barney Cull.” Mercer stuck out his hand but no one made a move to shake it. “I’m offering a sale on hull scraping and wondered if you needed my services.”

Captain Zwenkov stepped forward, his face set in a deep scowl. “Who are you?” His English was thick but understandable.

“Actually I’m Sam O. Var, your local Coffee Wagon Company representative. How are you guys fixed for blinis?”

Zwenkov said something that in any language would have sounded like, “Get him out of here and lock him up.”

Mercer was hustled from the control room by two armed sailors. He called over his shoulder, “Don’t think strong-arm tactics will get me to lower my prices.”

He would have continued with the jokes but the pistol stabbing into his kidney jammed the air in his throat. He was led through the sub toward the stern, thankfully away from where he had planted the charges.

He was stripped of his wet suit and after a rather extensive body search, one of his guards undogged a hatch and thrust Mercer into a small cabin. The hatch was closed behind him but not locked.

In the spartan room, a man a few years younger than Mercer sat on one of the bunks. He was handsome in that Connecticut shore, hair blowing in the wind, sweater knotted around the throat kind of way. Mercer assumed, correctly, that this was Valery Borodin. Borodin said something to Mercer in Russian.

“Sorry, I don’t speak it.”

Mercer’s use of English drained the color from Valery’s face. “I said, you’re not a member of the boat’s crew. Who are you?”

“I’m Philip Mercer, the guy you sent the telegram to.”

“Who?” Valery’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Philip Mercer. You sent a telegram to me in Washington, warning me about the danger to Tish Talbot.”

“Tish sent you?” Valery stood, his voice brightening.

“No, you sent me.” Mercer was getting confused himself.

“I don’t know who you are, but you know Tish?”

“You didn’t send a telegram to me in Tish’s father’s name?”

“No.”

“Just after you had her rescued from the Ocean Seeker ?”

“No.”

“If you didn’t, then who the hell did?” Mercer muttered. “Well, anyway, I’m here to help you get off this tin can.”

“Did Tish ask you to come?”

“Not exactly, but she’s safe and waiting for you right now in Washington, D.C.”

“There’s no way to escape. We’re hundreds of miles from Hawaii.”

“Listen, in thirty seconds this sub is going to have more holes in it than the golf course at Pebble Beach. I’ve got a helicopter waiting for us, so don’t worry about it. Where’s your father?”

“He died two days ago. Heart attack.”

“For the pain he’s caused, don’t expect my condolences.”

Mercer glanced at his watch and held up his right hand with fingers splayed. As each second ticked by, he curled one finger downward. With two fingers to go, several explosions rocked the John Dory . Immediately klaxons sounded throughout the sub. The dim battle lights blinked once, then shut off completely; a single white bulb lit as the emergency system took over. Above the wail of the sirens and the shouts of men, Mercer could hear the sound of water pouring into the vessel, signaling her impending death. Mercer thrust his hand down the front of his pants, ignoring Valery’s startled look.

Few body searches ever explore the area between the scrotum and anus. As Mercer’s fingers grasped the four-barrel pepperbox Derringer pistol held there by his jock strap, he was thankful that homophobia struck Russians, too. The gun, a favorite of nineteenth-century riverboat gamblers because of its small size, had been a gift from his grandfather years before and had remained in Mercer’s desk at home since then.

He yanked the tiny pistol from his pants, mindful of the stray hairs caught in the gun’s hammer. Although the Derringer was only twenty-two caliber, it was loaded with bored-out hollow-points filled with mercury. At a range of more than ten feet the gun was useless. Closer, a hit would be fatal.