Ted Bell - Phantom

“Fifty seconds to launch.”

“Some kind of cyberweapon. We’re about to sink an American cruise ship, Aleksandr. Go forward and see if there’s anything you can do to stop that from happening.”

The XO stared into his captain’s eyes with stunned disbelief for a millisecond and then he bolted from the CCP. Both men knew there was nothing to be done.

“Thirty seconds, Captain.”

Control of their submarine, and their fate, had been snatched from them in the blink of an eye. And by whom? They would never know.

“Fifteen seconds. Ten. Five…”

Lyachin closed his eyes and waited for the muffled explosive sounds that would signal the end of a very long and distinguished career in the Russian Navy. Not to mention the end of his life, blindfolded, his back to a wall at Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Stokely Jones smoked soles down the ship’s starboard B Deck corridor, careening from one bulkhead to the other as the liner pitched and yawed in the heavy seas. He stopped just outside stateroom 222 and slid the card key into the slot. He found his bride just the way he’d left her-stunned, scared, still bleeding and huddled in the corner on the floor.

He knelt beside her, kissed the top of her head, and examined the wound more carefully. Stitches could wait, but he had to stop the bleeding. He scrambled into the head, grabbed a terry hand towel, and soaked it in warm water. Then he carefully folded it into a workable compress. Looking for something to secure it with, he spotted a pair of pantyhose hanging over the shower door.

“We’ve got to get out of here, honey,” he said quietly once the compress was firmly in place on her temple. Her eyes went wide with fear as he pulled two life vests from the cabinet above her.

“What? What is it, Stokely?” she asked, her eyes wide with terror. “Are we sinking?”

“No. But I saw something I didn’t like,” he said, grabbing her rain gear and his from hangers and her pair of running shoes. “Up on deck. Here, put these on. I’ll help you get to your feet.” As she struggled into the clothing, he put his own life vest on, then helped her with her own.

“What did you see?”

“Maybe nothing. But it sure as hell looked like the wake of a torpedo. Could have been the wake of a sub’s periscope maybe. Either way, it was headed toward us at high speed and it didn’t look promising.”

“A torpedo? Somebody’s firing a torpedo at a cruise ship?”

“Doesn’t make any sense, I know. That’s why I hope to God I was just seeing things. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Our muster station. Where we had the drill back in Miami. That’s where we board the lifeboat.”

“Stokely Jones, this is the last time I will ever, I mean ever — ”

She never finished that sentence.

Two massive explosions rocked the mammoth vessel. One torpedo, from the sound of it magnetic and not impact, had struck amidships, probably exploding directly beneath the Fantasy ’s keel. If that fish had broken the ship’s back, Stoke figured they had about forty-five minutes before she went down with all hands.

And then the second torpedo impacted just forward of the stern. The engine compartment, Stoke thought, feeling the big ship instantly start to lose forward momentum as the big bronze screws stopped turning. After two decades in the U.S. Navy, he could hear when a screw was loose in the bilge. Now all he could hear were the screaming alarms throughout the huge liner. He waited for the captain to make his announcement.

“Attention, all passengers. This is your captain speaking. We have sustained cataclysmic damage. A damage assessment is already under way. However, in the interest of everyone’s safety I am taking no chances. I am now issuing the order to abandon ship. All passengers must report immediately with their life jackets to their assigned muster stations. The crew will assist you in boarding the lifeboats. I repeat, this is your captain speaking… abandon ship. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill.”

Stoke, with Fancha in his arms, was already en route to the lifeboat muster station.

A board Nevskiy, Lyachin struggled to maintain his composure as his boat continued on a collision course with the now sinking American liner. He stared through the periscope in horror as fire spread and the massive cruise ship’s bow angled sharply down. If there were to be a secondary or tertiary explosion, thousands of innocent civilians could lose their lives.

Including the men aboard his command.

They were now on a collision course with the sinking liner, and control of his boat had been wrested from him. The XO stood beside him, his furrowed brow beaded with perspiration. He’d been scrambling all over the boat, trying to find some way, any way, to regain control. Or, at least shut down the reactor. The reactor had now gone to 105 percent, dangerous in itself, and they were increasing their speed toward the doomed cruise ship.

“Perhaps it’s for the best, Aleksandr,” he said quietly.

“Sir?”

“Better to die out here where we belong than face the wrath of the admiralty.”

“And a firing squad.”

“Yes. That, too.”

“Any chance we’ll scrape beneath her?”

“No, sir. If she continues sinking at the current rate, we’ll impact her bow in less than three minutes.”

“Inform the crew to brace for impact. Officers to remain at their posts, continue attempts to regain control. ”

“Captain, one thought if I may.”

“Of course.”

“The escape trunk is inoperable. But the main hatch has a manual override. We could open it. Scuttle the boat.”

“No. We will attempt to regain control until the end. That is all.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

He saluted and left Lyachin alone with his thoughts for these last few moments. He was headed for the planesman who was desperately trying to rewire his panel in a last-ditch effort to “Conn, Helm! I have regained control!”

“Helm, Conn, make your course one-nine-zero! Hard over!”

“Helm, aye.”

“Conn, engineer. Reactor panels back online.”

“Shut down, I repeat shut down! Go to diesel!”

“Reactor shut down, going to diesel, aye.”

“Planesman, Captain, make your depth one hundred meters. Down thirty degrees on your bow planes.”

“Depth one hundred meters, down thirty degrees on bow planes, affirmative.”

The submarine angled sharply downward. The periscope slid back down into the well with a soft hydraulic hiss. From every corner of the command post great shouts of wild cheering and laughter broke out as the men celebrated their miraculous escape from disaster.

Captain Lyachin breathed a sigh of relief.

He would live to fight another day. But first he would have to prove his innocence to the admiralty. He now had incontrovertible proof that the enemy possessed cyberweapons capable of taking over the most modern Russian submarine. By living to tell the tale, he would have done the navy a great service. How great? An admiral’s worth? Perhaps.

If the brass believed him.

Meanwhile, he would do everything in his power to learn who had secretly managed to steal his submarine from under his boots. If this could happen to the Nevskiy, the entire Russian Navy was now at risk.

C aptain Flagg Youngblood, a U.S. Navy sub driver, was thirty-nine years old, a Naval Academy graduate, and happened to be a native of Austin, Texas. The skipper of the Texas was legendary in the U.S. Fourth Fleet operating in the SOUTHCOM area of focus. He’d been awarded numerous honors and decorations for his valiant service, including the Navy Star, the Silver Star Medal, two Presidential Unit Citations, the Legion of Merit, and the National Defense Service Medal.