Robert Doherty - Section 8

"Jesus," the medic muttered.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

"His job," Orson said.

The medic shook his head.

"He needs to be in a hospital ASAP."

Orson frowned and glanced at the other members of the team.

"I'll go with him. You two continue mission preparation. Contact me ASAP if you hear from the recon element."

Orson and the medic put Hayes on the stretcher and carried him to the Humvee. They slid the stretcher in and Orson climbed up next to Hayes. The black man was sweating profusely, his gaze vacant. The medic slammed the back door shut and got in the driver's seat. The Humvee ambulance slowly wound its way through the tunnel toward the outside world.

Orson glanced at the front – the medic was focused on the road. Orson leaned over and placed his forearm across Hayes's throat, applying pressure. Hayes's eyes went wide and he reached up and weakly grabbed Orson's arm, trying to push it away, but he was too sick. Orson kept the pressure up as he watched the front of the Humvee.

The panic in Hayes's eyes disappeared as the life drained from them.

When the Humvee cleared the tunnel, Orson rapped on the back of the driver's seat.

"Let me out."

The medic stopped the Humvee and turned, confused.

"What?"

Orson indicated Hayes's body.

"He's gone. I've got to get back to isolation."

"'He's gone'?" The medic hopped out and came into the back. He checked Hayes's vitals, confirming that the man was indeed dead.

"I don't get it," he muttered as he pulled a blanket over Hayes's face.

"He was sick, but – "

Orson stepped out of the Humvee.

"We really needed him to last a while longer."

He shrugged.

"Some things you just can't control."

With that he disappeared into the black gaping mouth of the tunnel entrance.

The Navy F-14 Tomcat came in low and fast. It had made the flight from Hawaii in less than two hours, dispatched after the tower on Johnston Atoll failed to respond to repeated radio queries. That, combined with a complete electronic blackout from the atoll – no e-mails, faxes, phone calls – absolutely nothing, had caused the jet to be scrambled.

It roared across the island one hundred feet up, the pilot peering out of the cockpit. He saw nothing out of the ordinary except that he saw nothing happening on the island. No movement. No people. He did a wide loop then came back, flying slower, just above stall speed, while transmitting, trying to contact the tower. There was only the sound of low static in reply.

The pilot knew that the sound of his engines could clearly be heard, even by people inside the buildings. Yet no one came running out to look up. Absolute stillness.

Then he noticed something else. There were no birds.

"Target bearing zero-six-seven degrees, range four hundred meters."

Moreno nodded at the sonar man's report. Exactly where it should be.

"Periscope depth," he ordered. It wasn't necessary to make a visual confirmation, but Moreno believed in double-checking.

He grabbed the handles for the periscope as it ascended, flipping them down, and pressed his head against the eyepiece, turning in the direction the sonar had indicated the target. Moreno blinked as he saw the massive ship. He'd seen pictures, but that had not prepared him for the real thing.

It was one of the largest oil tankers in the world – the Jahre Viking . It wasn't moving through the ocean so much as plowing through the water, ignoring the four-foot swell that pounded against its steel hull, heading almost due east, toward San Francisco. The tanker was over a quarter mile long and seventy meters wide.

"Down periscope," Moreno ordered.

"Descend to fifty meters."

According to the intelligence he had, the tanker drew almost twenty-five meters when fully loaded. Moreno went forward to the sonar man.

"Range?"

"Three hundred meters," the man announced. Moreno waited. He cocked his head as a noise began to reverberate through the hull. The sonar man turned down the volume on his set and looked up at Moreno.

"The screws."

They were hearing the sound the Jahre Viking 's propellers slicing through the water. It grew in intensity as they got closer.

"Two hundred meters."Slow to one half," Moreno ordered. The Viking was big, but it was slow, making no more than tenknots.

The entire submarine had begun to vibrate, and when the ship rolled almost ten degrees before righting itself, Moreno knew they were passing through the massive tanker's bow wake.

"One hundred meters!" The sonar man had to yell to be heard over the vibrating sound echoing through the steel tube.

"Slow to one-quarter," Moreno announced.

"Are we past the propellers?" he asked, leaning close to the sonar man.

The man nodded, his eyes closed, focusing on the sound.

"Fifty meters," he announced. Moreno felt a bead of sweat dribble down his temple onto his cheek. He did not raise his hand to wipe it off, knowing the action could be more easily seen than the perspiration.

"We're under!" the sonar man yelled.

"Up, slow, very slow," Moreno ordered.

"Maintain one quarter speed."

He licked his lips, as this part was guesswork. It they were over and didn't make contact squarely or hit the propellers – he didn't allow himself to project those lines of thought further.

"Forty-five meters," the dive master announced.

"Slow and steady. Forty meters."

Moreno slowly walked back into the center of the crowded control room. Every eye was on him, except those of the dive master, who was watching his gauges, hands resting lightly on his controls.

"Thirty-five meters."

The submarine was rocking even more violently now, turbulence from the proximity to the massive ship right above them.

"Thirty meters."

"All stop. Brace for impact!" Moreno yelled, and the order was relayed through the submarine.

"Turn on the magnets."

His executive officer threw a red switch, and power ran to the two horseshoe-shaped brackets fore and aft. The energized magnets caught the nearest attraction – the steel behemoth above the submarine. The invisible lines of force reached out and pulled the much smaller submarine toward the vessel above it.

Moreno's knees buckled as the magnets made contact with the oil tanker with a solid thud.

"Contact!" the executive officer yelled unnecessarily. Moreno stood still for several moments, the only sound that of the tanker's screws behind them and the turbulent water rushing by.

"Maintaining contact," the executive officer said. Finally Moreno allowed himself to smile. They had their ride to San Francisco.

"Power down to minimum," Moreno ordered.

"Silent running."

Not that anyone was going to hear anything from the sub, given the sound of the tanker's massive screws churning just a couple of hundred meters behind them, but it never hurt to be careful.

"The Golden Lily," Vaughn said.

"Literally," Tai confirmed. They both sat back on their rucksacks, listening to the air being pulled by them.

"At least part of it."

"But our target isn't the gold," Vaughn noted.

"We still have to find Abayon."

"And when we find him?" Tai asked. They were seated on their rucksacks, the only light the dim red glow of Tai's flashlight.

Vaughn pulled out a canteen and took a deep drink.

"Then we get out of here, call it in. The rest of the team comes in. We kill him. We leave."

"Hell of a plan, since we still haven't pinpointed his location."

"That, we do next."

"And go where, after the mission is done?"

"That's too far ahead," Vaughn said.