Cliff Ryder - The Ties That Bind

The propulsion system pulled him through the water. He hadn't traveled with this particular system before and was surprised at the speed he was able to travel. The submarine was holding a position about four miles offshore. Jason slowed his approach, not wanting his speed to give away his presence. Few sea creatures would swim as fast as he was moving, and being detected now would make getting to the sub impossible.

The massive vessel floated still and silent in the water. Jason was amazed at the lack of distortion in the water surrounding it. Even though it was holding position, he still expected to feel the suction of the engines as he approached it, but the water was absolutely still. Either the engines were off-line, or this was the kind of technology that the bad guys should never be allowed to have.

All around him, tracking beacons floated in the water — some were his, some were not. So far, his hadn't been able to transmit the information that the submarine was in the area, so they were either jamming or ghosting on top of the signal or it was just invisible to them. From the pack he'd attached to his back, Jason removed a different type of beacon and made several adjustments to it, spreading the signal out over a larger bandwidth and on several different frequencies, including radio and ultraviolet pulse.

Shutting down the propulsion system entirely, he swam in closer to the hull of the boat. He was careful not to bump any of his equipment on the hull of the vessel, knowing the sound would travel easily through the metal skin and might alert the crew to his presence.

He attached the sensor to the underside of the sub, marveling at the smooth metal skin that was so unlike any sub he'd ever seen before. At least with the sensor placed where it was, even if it surfaced, someone would have to go beneath it to find and remove it. He began to swim along the hull, noting the location of the torpedo tubes and which one might give him the best chance for access. Using a handheld sensor, he scanned the tubes carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary. By all indications, they were fairly standard launch tubes.

Each one had two openings. One was on the inside of the sub, where a torpedo or — in his worst nightmare — a nuclear warhead was loaded. The second was on the outside of the sub, which opened during the launch sequence, and was controlled by a computer system. He positioned a set of locking magnets around one of the tube doors.

The easy part was done. Now all he had to do was somehow access the computer system from the outside and tell it not to go crazy when he disengaged the locking mechanism and opened the tube from the outside.

He continued moving farther down the sleek hull of the sub, taking readings as he went. Finally, he found what he was searching for — a watertight access panel that had one of the main computer lines running through it. In an emergency, a crewman could open the panel and work on the system from the outside. Still, if he opened it, alarms would go off on the bridge and his mission would be doomed to failure.

Sometimes, what was needed was a subtle touch rather than brute force. He reached into his pack again, this time taking out a small transmitter with a magnetized backing and a shield much like the one that operated around his dive suit. Visually, it looked like nothing more than a sea barnacle, but if one looked closer, tiny metal tendrils could be seen floating from its surface.

He attached it to the access panel and activated the tendrils. Much like the antenna of an ant or the tongue of a snake could read the environment, the tendrils from this device would tap into the submarine's computer system line by extending into the line itself. In some ways, it was like a computer parasite. Once it was in place, he could use his handheld in sync with his computer and tap into the sub's system. With any luck, it would be fully online within eight hours — and totally undetected.

Jason turned and began making his way back to the front end of the sub where he'd left the propulsion unit. Preoccupied with thoughts of everything he needed to accomplish, he was slow to notice the two Russian minisubs headed straight for him. He did a double take, then put on a burst of speed, barely avoiding a harpoon fired from the nearest one.

It clanked off the metal hull of the sub behind him with a sharp pang that echoed through the water. He knew that even a dry suit as advanced as his would have a hard time fending off gas-fired harpoons. He reached the propulsion unit just as they closed in.

Fortunately, he'd left the machine on standby mode, and it launched itself forward with barely a touch of a button. The timer on the console showed that he'd been in the water for the better part of an hour, which meant that Tina should still be waiting in the Scorpion where he'd left her. If he could somehow survive long enough to make it back, he might have a chance at escape. Out in the open water, however, he was as good as dead. Sooner or later, if nothing else, they'd simply run him over.

He pushed the unit to its top speed, then dived for the shelter of a rocky outcropping, zipping around it just as the minisubs closed the distance once more. They would expect him to try to hide, so he did the opposite, careening around the far side and heading straight for the surface.

On the map display, he could see his location and the location of the Scorpion, but he didn't want them too close when he got there. That would be almost as bad as having them catch up to him in the open water.

He risked a glance behind and saw that the minisubs had slowed and were carefully searching for him around the rocks. The light-bending technology was working and he wasn't showing up on their sonar; they had to spot him visually in order to find him.

Jason took an indirect route back toward the Scorpion, zigzagging in different directions and varying his depth, just to be on the safe side. At one point, running without lights, he nearly collided with the bottom of one of the minisubs, but fortunately, he saw it in time to swerve away. He breathed a sigh of relief that it had been the bottom side, rather than the front where the operator would have had him dead to rights.

It took the better part of his second hour, but he finally made it back to the Scorpion and came to a stop beneath it. He knew that he had a few minutes, maybe five at the most, before they'd find him again. They'd adopted a grid search pattern and were likely using their own sonar, as well as the sub's, to track anything remotely suspicious in the water. He attached the propulsion unit to the underside of the Scorpion, grabbed his pack and used the remote to open the hatch.

He stuck his hands through the opening and pulled himself inside.

Tina was watching him, her eyes filled with fear and anxiety. As soon as he had his faceplate off, she said, "Oh, my God, are you okay? I was just about ready to push the button and give you up for dead!"

"I'm fine," he said, peeling off the dry suit as quickly as possible. "But we've got to get out of here in a hurry."

"Did you find the sub?" she asked.

"Lots of them," he said. "Including the one I was looking for."

He slipped back into the seat for the controls. "I'll bring you up to speed later, but right now, time is not our friend."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because of the other subs I found," he said. "Or, rather, the ones that found me."

"You mean those subs?" she asked, pointing through the view screen.

"That's them," he said, punching at the controls.

The Scorpion leaped off the rock perch he'd parked it on and shot between the two oncoming minisubs like a missile. The sharp clank of another harpoon hit the side, but bounced away harmlessly. They would have to do better than that to stop him now.