Byrd picked up a mic and his entire crew heard the following over the intercom: “This your Captain speaking. I know that what just occurred onboard the USS Hampton may seem strange or even frightening to some of you. However, I can assure you that everything is under control. We are professional submariners, and we shall act accordingly. Proceed with the Emergency Nighttime Surface Drill. Captain out.”
He replaced the mic.
Jason was just outside Cobra’s Forward Torpedo Room. He shouted down the corridor to the Control Room. “What the hell happened, Captain? Did we miss?”
“You loaded the wrong goddamn torpedo!” Pankov shouted back.
“That’s impossible,” Jason shouted. “Uri loaded the damn thing himself!”
“Obviously he screwed up!” Pankov yelled. “Now shut up and load the live one, damn it!”
Jason knew it too late, the flooding was getting worse, and the USS Hampton was probably long gone anyway. Purely out of curiosity, he went back to take a look at the torpedo that was still on the rack.
But what he saw there was not the conventional weapon Uri had described. It was a forest green torpedo with the markings: VA-111 Shkval.
It was a goddamn nuke!
That’s why Fagan was fighting with Pankov when I shot him, Jason thought miserably. He found the nuke. He knew that Pankov and Uri were planning a damn suicide mission!
Chapter 59
Aaron knew he had to make his move. He figured his mother, Katya, and Brandy were safer with him than alone in the Captain’s Cabin, so he gathered them together and moved cautiously out and down the corridor toward the Control Room.
The flooding was out of control, now, and even Pankov knew they had to abort the mission. But in his crazed state he was certain they could pick up where they left off at a later date — if only he could save his beloved submarine.
“Forget the torpedo, Jason,” he yelled down the corridor. “Blow main ballast. Flank speed! We need to surface!”
Jason heard him, and did his best to make that happen.
Aaron had the girls wait in the corridor while he entered the Control Room alone. Pankov was hunched over the helm trying desperately to make something happen. He looked up briefly — Aaron stiffened and started to go for his knife — then returned to the controls, ignoring him.
Aaron gestured to the others, hoping that they weren’t too deep and that he and the girls could climb the ladder to the fin hatch and escape.
He felt a shake and heard the sounds of Cobra’s propellers struggling to drive the sub to the surface; but her old batteries were weak and the electric motors were unable to overcome the weight of the seawater filling the pressure hull.
Suddenly the sounds stopped, followed by a low, metallic groan, like the bellow of a great, iron demon from a cavern in hell. The submarine drifted slowly downward, tilting slightly on its side before hitting the mud on the bottom of the bay with a tremendous WHUUMPP!
Aaron and the girls were knocked off their feet, splashing into water that was now almost knee deep.
Pankov held on and managed to remain at the helm, his hair wet and falling in his eyes. Chilling seawater sprayed in from every direction with a deafening roar.
Aaron stood and helped the girls to their feet. “Can’t we surface?” he shouted to Pankov.
“Didn’t you hear that?” Pankov yelled back. “We’re on the bottom! The engines have quit! The electrical has shorted out! We’re taking on water like a sieve, and we have no compressed air to blow ballast! A damn cinder block would have a better chance of making it to the surface!” He turned away and put his gun to his head.
“No!” Katya cried, running to him.
POP!
The lead entered Pankov’s right temple, followed by a gush of blood, and he fell backward into the rising flood.
Katya watched her father sink beneath the churning waters, never to breathe air again. She turned and looked at Aaron, her eyes filled with the kind of horror only a grieving daughter could know, and then she collapsed in his arms.
Aaron held Katya close, looking desperately at his mother. He had hoped that before they died, she would learn the truth: that her only son had not been killed but had lived through the crash after all. He knew in his heart that that was all she’d need to snap her out of the amnesia and bring her back where she belonged… with him.
But they were running out of time.
Chapter 60
Brandy stood in the back of the Control Room, staring blankly at the others. Her dress was drenched and clinging to her skin like tissue paper, and she was in a state of shock. Along with everything else that had happened to them tonight, this was too much to take on.
Suddenly a hand closed over her mouth and another gripped her arm, and she was hauled violently down through the watertight hatch leading to Compartment Two.
Brandy struggled with all of her strength as Jason pulled her down the corridor and threw her into the Captain’s Cabin; but instead of hurting her, he backed her against the wall and kissed her passionately on the mouth.
Frightened and confused, Brandy kissed him back, and for a brief, glorious moment she thought he really meant it. Everything else in her chaotic world vanished, as she lost herself completely in him.
But then came a frightening, sickening, excruciating pain in her abdomen. A pain like she had never known or begun to imagine. She opened her mouth to scream, but Jason covered it with his hand, using the other to yank his knife out of her stomach. He stepped aside to avoid the gush of blood, and then let her fall on the bunk where she lay looking up at him.
Why did you do this Jason? she pleaded silently. What could I possibly have done that would make you do this?
Jason looked down at her, seawater dripping from his hair and clothing. He wiped the sharp blade on his wet thigh and turned to leave.
He stopped and looked back at her. “Before I go,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
Brandy saw the evil that was coming and her eyes narrowed. Let me die in peace, you sick bastard.
“My last name isn’t really Beckham,” he said. “I assumed that name after being kicked out of the Navy. My birth name is Souther. I’m Johnny’s brother.”
Brandy stared at him, utter disbelief momentarily masking her pain. But what Jason had just told her was far too cruel to be a lie. The bastard had lived a lie, and he would die a liar… but for once she knew he was telling the truth.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you as well, Jason,” she said. “You’ll never be half the man your brother was.”
Jason faked a smile and then turned and left the room.
Brandy tried to sit up and call for help, but she was far too weak and only managed a feeble moan.
Chapter 61
Aaron held Katya tightly, not knowing how to comfort a girl who just witnessed her own father’s suicide.