Ted Bell - Phantom

There were five crew members and two engineers in the compartment, all under the immediate command of Warrant Officer Lohmatov. It was he who supervised the laborious loading of the two “Fat” antiship torpedoes. Thirty feet long and weighing over two tons, each torpedo was moved slowly along its tracking into position in front of tubes one and two.

Were this a live fire exercise instead of merely a drill, the target in Nevskiy ’s crosshairs would be an American aircraft carrier or heavy cruiser, not a cruise ship full of sunburned, rum-drenched tourists on holiday.

Senior Lieutenant Dobrov was still calculating the attack coordinates of the American cruise ship as the huge torpedoes slid into their firing tubes. The tubes’ inner doors were both closed.

There was nothing to do now but wait for the order from the CCP to arm the two fish and simulate the firing sequence. Senior Lieutenant Dobrov stayed at the fire control panel. He knew his wait could be anywhere from five minutes to thirty depending on Captain Lyachin’s sense of strategic considerations far beyond Dobrov’s area of responsibility.

A bout an hour before daybreak, Fancha climbed out of her berth and tried to make her way across their cabin to the bathroom. In the dim light, Stoke could see she had her hand clamped over her mouth and was making gagging noises and trying to make it to the head before she threw up.

It had not been a fun night. Fancha’s lighthearted mood had been dropping as steadily as the barometer ever since they’d left the restaurant for a stroll around the deck. The wind had freshened considerably. There were whitecaps and Stoke estimated about ten-foot seas. He’d been keeping a weather eye on the barometer for the last six hours. It had been dropping precipitously.

A tropical storm was forming just north of Jamaica, moving northwest at fourteen miles per hour. He knew they were in for a very rough ride. Just how rough it would get he had no idea.

He saw her reach for the door to the head at the exact moment the ship got slammed by a rogue wave on the port side. Fancha flew across the small cabin just as the mirrored closet door swung open and cracked her forehead with its edge. She uttered a small whimper of pain and then collapsed in the corner and got sick all over her brand-new silk nightgown.

Stoke leaped out of his berth and went to her. She tried furiously to push him away. Blood was trickling down her forehead and into one eye. Stoke examined it and knew she was going to need stitches. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was whimpering softly. He staggered into the head and came back with two damp hand towels, one for the wound, one to try and clean her up a little.

“Baby, I’m so sorry, let me just try to-”

“Just leave me alone, Stokely Jones. I’m sick and I banged my head. I told you I didn’t want to come on this damn boat. And now look at me.”

“Honey, look, it’s a storm. It happens all the time. This boat is built for this kind of weather. Now let me look at that cut. I think you might need stitches. I’ll go to sick bay and get the doctor, okay?”

“Whatever you say. It’s your honeymoon.”

It was useless. She was relatively safe here on the floor, holding on to the foot of the berth. He got a pillow and put it behind her head, then draped a blanket over her. Her distress was making him rethink the whole idea of the surprise honeymoon, and guilt reared its ugly head.

“I’ll be right back, baby. The doctor will stitch you up and give you something to calm… something to help you sleep. Okay? I love you.”

Angry silence.

Stoke climbed three flights of the main staircase to the promenade deck and pushed through the door. The wind was howling, and he felt a stinging rain on his face. He leaned into the blow and crossed the wet deck to the ship’s rail. Enjoying the sting, the salt air, and the heaving sea, he paused a moment to savor it all. Then he saw something out there in the blackness. Something that made him doubt his sanity.

Something glimpsed in a trough between two ten-foot waves that made him dash like a madman back to the cabin and his new bride, huddled on the floor. He ran past the purser’s desk, and, seeing the guy he’d spoken to earlier, stopped suddenly. There were five thousand souls aboard and he couldn’t just “Pick up that phone and get the captain. Now! This is an emergency!”

“I’m sorry, but passengers-”

Stoke flashed the CIA badge Harry Brock had given him for situations just like this. The guy blanched, picked up the phone, spoke briefly, and handed the phone across the counter. Stoke somehow managed to convey urgency but speak calmly.

“Captain, you need to sound the ship’s alarm. Now. All passengers and crew need to don life jackets and muster at their stations. No time to explain. The problem is off your starboard bow at ninety degrees. It’s either a torpedo wake or the wake of a submarine periscope headed directly for you at high speed. Collision course

… Yes, Captain, evasive action, right now.”

Stoke dropped the phone and raced down the wide staircase, taking the steps three at a time.

“A ll ahead two-thirds, make your depth one hundred,” Captain Lyachin said. “Fifteen degrees down on the bow planes.”

“Ahead two-thirds, depth one hundred meters, fifteen down,” came the reply.

Lyachin took a slow drag on his Sobranie. It was the most expensive Russian cigarette but worth every ruble. “Come to heading two-zero-two.”

“Aye, Captain. Turn on my mark, course two-zero-two. Speed, eighteen knots. Depth, one hundred meters… mark.”

“Diving downward, course two-zero-two.”

“Two-zero-two, aye.”

“Speed eighteen knots.”

“Speed eighteen knots, aye.”

“We’ll slip right under that fat tourist barge bastard’s belly,” Lyachin said, grinning at his XO.

“A brush with the angel of death,” the XO replied, smiling, “and he won’t even know it.”

A second later, the blast of the boat’s alarms began sounding, an awful din that turns every submariner’s stomach. Dim red emergency lights began flashing in the CCP. Every man at his post stared at his screen in disbelief. The XO scrambled, moving from post to post, assessing the situation.

“What the hell is happening?” Lyachin said.

“We still have propulsion, sir, reactor normal, but all our operating and propulsion systems have been… co-opted.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Lyachin shouted. He’d never heard the word co-opted and he didn’t like words he’d never heard.

“No longer in our control, sir. It’s as if… as if the sub is operating independently. We’ve lost the helm, the diving planes, and

… holy mother of God!”

“What?”

“The two torpedoes in the forward tubes just went live, sir! They’re showing ‘armed’ on my panel! And the… my God… outer doors of tubes one and two… they’re opening, sir, on their own. Tubes flooded… what the hell is going on?”

“Weapons Officer, shut everything down. Disarm! Now!” Lyachin said. “Go to Fail-Safe! Kill it!”

“Can’t execute, Captain. Nothing on my panel is responding.”

“Torpedo room, close the outer doors. Helm, come right to one-eight-zero.”

“Helm is frozen at two-zero-two, sir! She’s maintaining a heading directly to the target, sir.”

“Torpedo room?”

“Outer door controls not responding. Both torpedoes armed. Active guidance to target. Launch sequence countdown has been initiated.”

Lyachin went white. “How long have we got?”

“Sixty seconds to launch, sir.”

The captain looked at his XO.

“The entire boat has been infected,” he said.

“Infected?”