Warren Murphy: White Water

Back the way Remo came, the trapped sailors began pounding on the dogged hatch. That was all they did. Pound. They said nothing. They might have been completely mute. Or what they seemed to bemimes.

"What would mimes be doing with a sub?" Remo muttered to himself, wishing Chiun were here. The Master of Sinanju would have an answer. It was even money it would be wrong, but at least it would be something to argue about. This slipping around a submarine wasn't exactly Remo's idea of a productive evening.

Remo knocked on each closed hatch as he passed by, hoping to draw someone out. He got no takers. A white-faced sailor dogged a hatch after himself when he saw Remo coming.

That meant they were afraid of him-always a good way to start an interrogation. All Remo needed was someone to interrogate.

Behind him another hatch clanged shut. It was far behind. Then, not twenty yards down the passage way, a hatch opened and a hand tossed out a grenade.

Remo shot into reverse, knowing the blast radius would be small.

When the grenade let go, it did so with a pop, releasing a spurt of yellowish white gas cloud. The cloud had nowhere to go but Remo's way.

Remo smelled the first wisp of gas and understood he was not at risk. It was pepper gas. Nonlethal.

Pausing, Remo picked a hatch and tried to undog it. The wheel wouldn't turn. Someone had locked it on the other side. The same was true for the next hatch. He took hold of it with both hands and forced it to turn. It did give a bit, then it cracked and Remo found himself holding a broken section of useless wheel.

A hatch at the end of the corridor was locked, too.

And the white exhalation kept spreading Remo's way.

He pinched his eyelids shut, making them tear. That was to protect his eyes.

Closing his mouth, Remo sucked in a long breath of air. It stung a little, but was mostly good. Then he began to exhale in a long, slow release of carbon dioxide.

As long as he kept air flowing out through his nostrils, no gas could get in.

That left him practically blind and with limited oxygen. Remo just hoped the gas didn't work through the pores, too.

Turning to face the hatch, Remo found the exposed hinges. They were massive. Laying the side of his hand against the top one, he brought it back and chopped hard at the place his sensitive fingertips told him the metal was weakest. The hinge shattered. Remo chopped the other one. It broke, and a chunk of cold steel fell with a clang.

Grabbing the wheel, he exerted pull. The wheel remained locked, but without functioning hinges, it was useless. Remo wrestled the hatch off its shattered hinges, and the locking mechanism twisted out of its groove.

Dropping it on the floor, Remo moved on.

He found another hatch that was open. It led to a corridor. He moved down its length by feel, ears alert for the pounding of excited hearts. Every sense was alert.

After a while it felt safe to open his eyes. Remo squeezed out the last protecting tears as he tried to figure out his next line of attack.

Before, he had been headed toward the control compartment amidships. Now he was angling back toward the tail.

Remo could feel eyes on him. From time to time, he spotted ceiling video cameras. Remo waved at them where he could.

No one waved back. No one tried to stop him, either.

But a lot of hatches were hastily shut as he approached them. After he passed them, too.

Just to see what happened, Remo knocked on one hatch.

"All clear!" he shouted through the steel. He repeated the call, knocking loudly.

He heard a gunshot. A smooth spot on the hatch abruptly bulged out, followed by two closely spaced ricochet sounds.

Remo decided to leave well enough alone. These guys were so nervous they were capable of sinking the sub with everyone aboard, including Remo.

He moved on. It was weird. The crew seemed pretty scared of him-which they should be. But this was a different scared. Usually Remo had to pile the bodies to the rafters to get this kind of reaction.

Finally he found himself under the deck hatch through which the two sailors first emerged to attack him.

Behind him a hatch clanged shut. The other hatches were also closed. Only the deck hatch remained open like a clear invitation.

Then, with a sudden gurgling of moving water, the sub began shifting and settling. They were blowing the ballast tanks.

Bitterly cold brine began slopping down from the open hatch. Remo saw he had two choices: close the hatch and sink with the sub or get topside and swim for it.

He decided to swim for it.

Remo went up the hatch like a moth on wing, gained the deck and sprinted through the sloshing water surging over the deck plates for his bobbing power boat.

He jumped into it, unhooked the line and pushed off.

The engine refused to start. Remo pressed the starter button again and again. Finally the props churned water.

"Great," he muttered darkly. "Maybe I should have stayed on the sub."

Remo succeeded just as the closing waters met along the dorsal spine of the submarine. The sail was slipping under the waves like a retreating deity of black steel.

Remo stayed with the power boat as long as he could. He felt the undertow drag and clutch at it. A vortex began to take shape.

In the end he was forced to face the same choice as seamen in distress face. Abandon ship--or go down with it.

The boat was sucked under the waves. Remo was, too. He allowed the cold waters of the Atlantic to close over him, then kicked with all his strength. Not up, which was impossible now, but sideways, out of the vortex.

Like an elastic band snapping, the downward tug relaxed, and Remo shot to the surface.

Reaching breathable air, he treaded water.

Then and only then did he realize he had made the mistake of his life.

"I should have stayed with the sub."

In the immensity of the black night, with the uncaring sea holding him in its frigid grasp, and the familiar New England stars looking down from their remote stations, Remo's own voice sounded surprisingly small in his ears.

Chapter 7

The cold of the North Atlantic felt like bands of cold steel squeezing Remo Williams's chest. The air coming in through his nostrils, warmed by nasal passages and throat, was still too cold when it reached his lungs. They burned. It was a cold, life-draining burning.

He was losing body heat rapidly. His nerves were shutting down.

Yet somehow Remo was able to sense the upward ripple of the icy ocean water being pushed by the blunt snout of the shark.

Expelling the remaining air from his lungs, he slid under the waves. If a shark wanted to eat him, it was going to have to fight for its supper.

Under the water Remo's night vision came into play. He made out a blue-gray shape rising to meet him. Jackknifing, he went down to meet it.

Predatory eyes glinted toward him. A mouth like a grinning cave filled with needles showed dim and deadly. It yawned. Teeth revealed themselves, ragged and overlapping but wickedly sharp. Teeth that could snap off an arm or a leg cleanly, Remo knew.

The gap closed. Remo twisted his back to create torsion in his spinal column. He could no longer see the shark, but he could roll out of its path-if he timed it to the last second and the shark cooperated.

At the last second Remo felt the lack of oxygen and knew the maneuver was doomed. He was too weak. His nerves were like spidery icicles that would break under the simplest strain.

Sensing the weakness of its prey, the shark gave an eager, convulsive wiggle of its sleek body and lunged for Remo.

In that moment, with ugly teeth straining for his flesh, Remo noticed a loose shark tooth and remembered something.

Shark teeth are like baby teeth. They come loose easily and regenerate later.