“We’re inside now, Skipper. Everything looks fine”
“No sign of anyone yet” Webb radioed. “Negative”
“Tony, the signal has just about died. Check out the radio room first, and then make a quick sweep through the entire boat, including the engine spaces. COMSUBMED wants us out of here on the double”
“Aye, Skipper” D’Angelo radioed, and he stuffed the walkie-talkie in his pocket. “Charlie, check the engine room. Don, you take the cabins belowdecks. Doc and I will find the radioman” Markham and Gilmore took the stairs below, as D’Angelo and Davidson went forward through the saloon, past a small but efficient-looking galley to port, and what appeared to be a well-stocked pantry to starboard. The owner’s stateroom opened straight ahead. To the port was a big head with a bathtub, and to starboard a narrow, closed door was marked RADIO ROOM. D’Angelo raised his pistol and slowly pushed the door open. He was beginning to get spooked. Something all of a sudden didn’t seem right to him, though he didn’t know exactly why. The radio room was crammed with electronic equipment. A few lights shone on one of the consoles, and the very faint sound of the Morse code SOS message came through one of the speakers.
But there was no one there. “What the hell” D’Angelo said, stepping the rest of the way into the tiny compartment and shining his flashlight over the equipment. A small tape recorder had been plugged into one of the transmitters. It was sending the message. “What’s going on.”
Davidson started to ask when they both heard the sliding glass doors in the saloon close softly. The medic spun around. D’Angelo shoved him aside and rushed down the passageway. Something popped and began to hiss angrily to his left. He turned at the same moment his entire body was gripped with an incredibly painful spasm. “Charlie.” he screamed, grappling for the walkie-talkie in his pocket, but he was failing, an impenetrable darkness descending over him.
Arkady Kurshin, dressed in black, crouched in the darkness of the Zenzero’s afterdeck, counting slowly to ten. Dr. Velikanov crouched behind him. “Now” Kurshin said softly. He pressed a button on a small transmitting device, and the cruiser’s airconditioning units rumbled into life. He counted another ten seconds and hit the button again shutting off the air-conditioners. Checking over the rail to make certain the submarine had not moved, and that no other boat was coming across, he pushed open the saloon door and went inside. D’Angelo, his eyes open, his tongue protruding from his mouth, lay on his side in the middle of the big room. Davidsor lay crumpled in a heap in the passageway just behind him. “Get started, we don’t have much time”
Kurshin told the doctor. He turned and hurried down the stairs belowdecks. Gilmore was dead at the foot of the stairs, and Markham’”, body lay half in and half out of the doorway that led into the engine room. He seized Gilmore’s body beneath the armpits and dragged him up the stairs, dumping him in a heap in the middle of the saloon. The doctor had his bag open and the equipment he needed laid out beside him on the carpeted floor. He had already opened D’Angelo’s jacket and shirt and had cut away the dead man’s undershirt, exposing his broad barrel chest. “Tony, what’s going on over there” D’Angelo’s walkie-talkie blared. Ignoring it, Kurshin hurried back downstairs, where he grabbed Markham’s body and dragged it back up to the saloon. Dr. Velikanov had opened a twelve-inch gash in D’Angelo’s gut. The wound was bloodless although some of the dead man’s body fluids were seeping out. The smell was horrific. “Tony, for Christ’s sake, what’s going on over there” the walkie-talkie crackled. “Do you copy” As the doctor continued with his gruesome task, Kurshin yanked open the jackets and shirts of the other five sailors, cutting their undershirts open with his own knife. “How much longer” Kurshin asked. Dr. Velikanov was already sewing up the gash in D’ Angelo’s gut, using coarse thread and big running stitches.
He glanced up, his jaws tight, his eyes narrow. “Five minutes and this butchery will be done”
“Tony, this is Captain Webb. I want you out of there now”
Kurshin scrambled over to D’Angelo’s body and pulled out the walkie-talkie. He keyed it and, holding the unit well away from himself, screamed hoarsely. “Christ … Christ … Skipper, we’ve got a fire started over here … there are … dead bodies everywhere … God, it’s … horrible.”
“Tony, is that you? Tony, get the hell out of there, now, it’s an order”
“Skipper … this place is … about ready to blow … oh, God “Tony!
Tony” the walkie-talkie blared, but Kurshin switched it off and tossed it down on the floor. Dr. Velikanov was just about finished with Davidson. Kurshin hurriedly rebuttoned D’Angelo’s shirt and jacket and dragged his body out onto the afterdeck, making sure he kept well below the level of the rail. The beam of a searchlight suddenly swept across the ship. Kurshin waited until it had passed, and then dragged the body forward and dumped it over the side into the rubber raft. By the time he got back to the saloon, Dr. Velikanov was finished with Davidson and was halfway through with Markham. Whatever the man was, he was efficient.
Kurshin dragged Davidson’s body onto the afterdeck and dumped it overboard. The searchlight was still playing over the cruiser. “You’ve got two minutes” Kurshin said, hurrying again below decks. In the engine room he used a hacksaw to cut the fuel lines to both engines and then started the pumps. Diesel fuel began spurting out all over the place.
Setting an incendiary fuse for five minutes, he tossed it down on the floor and then set the other charges to blow five seconds later. He rushed back upstairs. Hurriedly he rebuttoned Markham’s shirt and jacket and dragged the body outside, where he dumped it over the rail.
“Ahoy the vessel Zenzero, this is the US. Navy” an amplified voice rolled over the water from the Indianapolis. “Stand by to be fired upon unless you immediately signal your identification”
“It’s done” Dr. Velikanov shouted from the saloon. Kurshin rushed inside, helped him rebutton Gilmore’s shirt and jacket, and together they dragged his body out onto the afterdeck and around to the port side, where they dumped it down into the rubber raft on top of D’Angelo’s body. “You have thirty seconds to comply, Zenzero”, the amplified voice boomed from the sub.
Kurshin yanked open a compartment door across from the boarding ladder, pulled out a rubber raft canister, and dumped it over the side, the raft immediately popping open and inflating with a hiss. Next he pulled out a waterproof equipment bag with its own flotation collar and dumped it into the water. He hustled the doctor down the ladder and bodily shoved him into the sea. Pulling out his knife he cut the painter holding the Indianapolis’s rubber raft to the ladder and shoved it away with his foot. He jumped into the water and in a few powerful strokes reached the equipment bag, which he hauled up into their own raft, and then clambered aboard himself. As he was shipping the oars, Velikanov climbed aboard, and they headed away from the cruiser, keeping it between them and the submarine. The raft was black, as were their clothes. They were completely invisible to radar, and twenty-five yards out they would be invisible to anyone aboard the sub. An explosion suddenly shattered the night, and flames roared out of the saloon door.