Campbell cocked an auburn eyebrow and chuckled.
“Inadvertently? Right. You’d have to have the world’s dumbest fucking crew to leave all those valves in the wrong positions. I guess it could happen, but even if it did, the pressure gauges would tell that something had gone wrong. All of that is right there in the control room. Bunch of wheels and dials and pipes.”
“And with all of these pipes bursting, all that water… how much chlorine is that going to create?”
“Jesus. A bunch. I’ve never seen a situation like this, where so many leaks were spraying so much H2O on a battery array. In fact, I’ll bet the leaks didn’t stop until they blew the tanks and surfaced.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Hey, am I keeping you from work here? Larsen said we were going to move soon.”
“Work? Yeah, right. I’m trying to fix some of these busted pipes, but that ain’t gonna happen. This all needs to be refitted. I already called the control room and told them to isolate the low-pressure lines in the forward half of the ship and keep them empty. Shouldn’t be a problem for this short of a trip. And you can see from the rest of this,” he said, slapping the rack to his left with the palm of his hand, “there’s nothing else to salvage. The water’s already drained into the bilge bay.”
I moved past him, steadying myself on a support as I stepped over a body. I stopped at the forward end of the compartment. The hatch, which was designed to open into the next room, was shut.
“Where does this go?” I asked.
“Forward torpedo room. It’s jammed, though.” He watched me as I looked over the room. “So come on, spill it: what do you think happened to these people?”
The battery rack on the left side of the compartment ended about two feet short of the forward wall. The resulting space was occupied by what looked like a gray refrigerator about as tall as a man, and wide enough that even Campbell’s broad shoulders could probably fit inside.
“Hold on,” I said. “Is this thing standard?”
“Uh, no. No, I have no idea what that is.”
“Did you look at it at all?”
“Not really. Shit, I’ve only been in here a few minutes, it seems. Just trying to check out all the equipment.”
“Well, come here for a second. Can you tell me what that says?” Two-inch-high lines of Korean characters were stenciled across the door of the locker… refrigerator… whatever it was. A shiny handle was set on the left-hand side next to a numeric keypad.
He smirked at me. “You know I’m the only person on this sub who can? I spent a little time at the Presidio language school. Let’s see. We-uhm. Duh ruh oh jee mah sayyo. That means something like ‘Danger. No open.’ No, ‘Do not open.’”
But I didn’t need his translation to figure that out. The spiky biohazard symbol stamped on the door above it told the same story.
“And you said you didn’t examine this when you came in here?”
“No, not really. I told you, I was checking out all the batteries and the busted pipes.”
“You don’t know what’s in there?”
“Maybe it’s medical supplies or some shit. I didn’t open it.”
I slipped a finger under the handle and applied the tiniest bit of pressure. There was no give.
“Jesus! What the hell are you doing?” Campbell stepped on one of the dead crewmen as he lunged toward me.
“Whoa, whoa, relax,” I said, turning to face him and holding my hands up, palms-out, in front of my chest. “I was just trying to figure out whether the lock mechanism was functioning.”
“Well, I hope it fucking was! Didn’t you hear what that writing on the door said?”
“Yeah, but it could be anything. Medical supplies, maybe, like you suggested.” I watched his eyes as they tracked my body language. “Anyway, the handle didn’t move at all. Seems locked up tight.”
“Good thing, too. Let the technicians at the dock put on some bio suits and open it. Our job’s just to get this boat back to port in one piece.” He paused and closed his eyes. His barrel chest expanded under the black turtleneck, then deflated as he released the breath in a deep sigh. “We’ve all had biowar training, you know? And honestly, that stuff really puckers my ass. So if we can just let that storage bin be for now, I think we’ll all be better off. You know?”
“I do know. I understand. And you’re right, there’s no reason to actually open it. So how about I just take a few pictures, look over these bodies and then get out of your hair?” I smiled. If nothing else, Campbell deserved that much for offering me the longest conversation since I had joined up with the SEAL team.
He flashed a half-grin that extended to his green eyes.
“Ah, don’t worry about my hair, ma’am. I’m about done here, anyway… none of this shit is fixable. I’m going to head up to the control room in a sec.”
“And I think I’ll follow you before too long. Thanks for your help, Campbell.”
“Not a problem,” the SEAL said, then reached back toward the ceiling with the wrench, fighting with a pipe fitting.
I kneeled near the forward hatch, looking aft, then stood back up. I took a wide-angle picture of the compartment, kneeled again and photographed the bodies wedged between the battery racks.
Interesting. Two of the four bodies on the floor wore khaki uniforms decorated with various insignia. I rolled them over and took face shots.
Both of them were older men. The taller of the two, who was lying closest to me, had thick eyebrows and gray hair interlaced with the occasional black strand. His features poked at the back of my head, digging for a memory. I set my bag down on a clear patch of deck and opened up the dossier Patterson had given me.
Yes. It was Yoon, the captain. His tongue lolled from his mouth like that of a hanged man, and the other officer wore a similar expression.
Rolling over the other two crewmen on the floor, I saw that their countenances were twisted into the same grotesque, bug-eyed visage.
“I’m done here,” Campbell said, bracing himself against the battery rack frame as he stepped among the splayed limbs and moved toward the hatch.
“Thanks again for your help. Oh, hey, before you go, I have a question for you: are the bodies stuck between the racks electrified? I mean, can I touch them without getting shocked?”
He nodded, then frowned. “Usually, I’d say you’re pretty safe touching them. But with all the water that was in here, I wouldn’t do it, personally.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll stay on the safe side, then.”
“All right. See you, then. Uh, good luck.” He started to wave goodbye, then stopped in mid-gesture as he realized he was still holding the wrench. He shrugged, smiled again and ducked through the hatch, the stock of his rifle clanging against the edge.
I turned back to the sailor atop the lower battery rack to my right. My imagination provided me with an image of Larsen rolling his eyes as he saw my unconscious body lying on the deck, smoke rising from my fingers.
Nope. A closer examination of the four crewmen arrayed amid the batteries would come later, when I had more assurance that I wouldn’t be barbecued for my efforts.
I zoomed the camera in on the sailor’s head, capturing the spray of reddish brown on the bulkhead next to it. The rest of his body seemed free of injury.
The two lying between the racks on the other half of the compartment weren’t facing the wall. The one closest to me had a continuous necklace of bruises encircling his throat. Even from a few feet away, I could see the exophthalmos of his eyes. They bulged, staring through the shadows at the bottom of the rack above him. I snapped a picture.
The other crewman was lying on his side. The area just under the center of his forehead seemed obliterated by a blossom of red. My flash showed a massive injury where his nose would be. The bridge of it had been flattened, and I could see a few teeth poking through the ruined remains of his upper lip. It was like someone had dropped a cinder block on his face.