“Not mutiny. If you were fighting for control of the sub, why would you focus your efforts on an area that had nothing to do with it? Secure the sub, turn around, head back to Korea.”
“No!” Larsen said, his voice resonating through the room. “You’re not listening. I told you, they were trying to kill the crew sleeping down there.”
“Lieutenant,you’re not listening. If it was just a fight, they would have been falling all over each other-all of them, not just the mutineers-to get away from the gas. But they stayed.”
“I take back what I said about knowing why the general wanted you on this boat. Where the hell is this theory going? I’d like to hear how it tells us any damn thing.”
I held up my hands. “Whoa, whoa. You’re right. It’s not a complete theory, and it doesn’t tell us exactly what happened. But I think the more we find out about that locker, the more we can piece it together. It’s at the heart of the motive. That’s all I’m saying.”
Larsen pulled himself to the end of the bench and glared at me, his face knotted with irritation.
“And here’s all I’m saying: You try to open that fucking thing, and I’ll make sure you don’t move more than three feet the rest of this trip. That’s if I don’t throw your narrow ass out the emergency hatch. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to keep a neutral tone. “I’m not going to open it. I don’t want to, and I don’t need to. That’s for the technicians on the shore. But-”
The vibrations in the floor, which had long since faded into a familiar background sensation, had stopped. I could feel the deceleration as the water’s drag began to bite into the sub’s sides.
“What the fuck?” Larsen said, standing. He wrenched the door open, but stopped when a speaker on the wall, which I hadn’t noticed before, addressed him.
“Sir, the diesels have stopped.”
“I’m aware of that,” Larsen said after mashing the “talk” button. “I’m on my way. Sit tight.”
I expected him to turn around and growl at me to stay where I was. But he threw himself out the door and down the claustrophobic hallway without addressing me. After a few breaths, I followed.
“What’s going on?” Young asked. He had been standing in the middle of the corridor, watching Larsen disappear through the hatch to the control room, but turned to face me when he heard my footsteps.
I saw his confused expression and felt his breath, sour and hot, on my cheek as I pushed by. I ignored him and crouched next to the hatch. Larsen was a few feet into the control room, facing to my right.
He must’ve seen me move at the edge of his vision.
“We don’t have room for you in here, Doctor,” he said, pointing at me. Without waiting for an answer, he addressed someone outside my view. “What happened, Lieutenant Matthews?”
“We’re not sure, sir. We were making revolutions for eleven knots. Then the engines cut out.”
“What did Miller say?”
“Nothing, sir. No word from the engine room.”
“What do you mean, ‘no word’? Didn’t you call down there?”
“Yes, sir. But there was no answer.”
“Is the intercom working?”
“It was when we ordered the engine start-up. But I can-”
“Who’s in the aft torpedo room? Vazquez? Call him. Tell him to go find out what the fuck happened to the engines. Tell him to get Martin up here.”
“Aye-aye, sir. Torpedo room, conn. Go to the engine room and report back on the engines’ status. Send Martin to the control room.”
“Conn, torpedo room,” a distorted voice replied after a few seconds. “Aye-aye. I’m on my way.”
“Sir, couldn’t we just send someone from the electrical control room to check?” asked the unseen man to Larsen’s right.
“No. Find out how much the batteries have charged. Can we make headway with the power we have?”
“Aye-aye, sir. Electrical, conn. How are the batteries?”
They seemed insistent on using the awkward introductory decorum at the beginning of each intercom exchange. I suspected it was born more of training than any practical use in this situation.
A different voice replied from the speaker, its boyish timbre and Southern twang evident despite the electronic background noise.
“Conn, electric. We’ve only got one battery array online, ’cuz the forward bay is trashed. So right now we’re at about 10 percent of our total capacity.”
“Electric, conn. What kind of speed can you give us, and for what duration?”
“Well, that’s… I mean, conn, electric, we’re not in too good shape there. We can run the creep motors for a couple hours, maybe, and give you twenty-five, thirty-five minutes at two-thirds throttle with the main electrics. You want us to switch them on?”
“Electric, conn. Stand by. Sir?”
“Diving, are we stable?” Larsen said, taking a step to my right. All I could see were the backs of his legs now.
“Hovering at sixty feet, sir,” said another crewman I couldn’t see. “We’re not going anyplace.”
“Right. Tell electric to continue to stand by. I want us to get back underway with the diesels and charge the batteries up a little more.”
“Aye-aye,” the first SEAL he had addressed replied before relaying the instructions to the electrical compartment.
Then the speaker’s crackling flooded the control room again. Larsen’s legs jerked.
“Ah, conn, engineering. I dunno what’s wrong with the engines, but… um… but Miller and Martin aren’t here.”
“We already knew that, Vazquez,” Larsen said.
“They’re just not here,” Vazquez repeated. “I looked on both decks.”
“Young, get in here!” Larsen yelled, half-turning toward the hatch. I stood back and let the SEAL climb through.
“Lieutenant Matthews, take Young, Wilkes and Henderson down to engineering. Find out what the hell is going on with the engines.” He seemed more annoyed than worried. “Get Young working to see whether we can start them back up. And find Miller and Martin. Go!”
A chorus of “aye-aye, sirs” erupted in the room as the four SEALs headed through the aft hatch. When they had gone, Larsen strode back over to my side of the room and took a knee in front of me. I knew what was coming.
“Doctor, you stay in the next compartment while we figure out what is going on. Once things are secure, you’ll have free rein on the boat again. Campbell!” he said, standing back up. “You’re with the doctor.”
The SEAL snapped to attention at his post near the ballast tank controls, trying to erase the surprised look from his face. “Aye-aye, sir.” Larsen dismissed us by turning his back and starting a hushed conversation with whomever was sitting at the steering station. Campbell walked over to the hatch and climbed through as I moved out of the way.
“Weird stuff, huh?” he asked, pulling his rifle around to the front and fiddling with its folding stock. “Did you hear all that?”
“Sure did. I’m trying to figure out where two SEALs could disappear to on a submarine.”
“It’s not a big deal, I’ll bet. Nothing in this sub works right all the time. They probably went to go do something else, but the intercom was busted when they called up here. Maybe they’re trying to get the forward battery bay online.”
“What about the engines?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Like I said, nothing here works. They step away for a couple of minutes, and the engines slip a little out of whack. There are a million things that could have happened. They might have gone to the head or something.”
“Walked off to take a leak and shut off the engines before they went?”
The sickly lighting made it difficult to tell, but Campbell’s face seemed to flush to the same color as his hair.