“Nowhere to run, baby,” Larsen agreed. “Classic snare ambush.”
“The key thing, though,” Grimm said, addressing me again, “is whether it’s going to go for the bait.” I was starting to hate that word. “Is it going to just charge after Myers? Are the temptations going to cancel out its smarts?”
“They will,” the bait replied. “We’re basically going to offer it the exact things that motivate its actions, and we’re going to present the illusion that it can obtain them without any resistance. It’s driven-that’s the thing that cancels out its intelligence. When we present it with the chance to get exactly what it wants, it’s not going to be able to pass it up.”
I wasn’t doing a good job explaining it, but both Larsen and Grimm seemed to get the idea. I had more to say, though.
“What we have to be careful about-and what you have to make sure everyone is perfectly clear on-is that this is not a person we’re dealing with. It’s beyond normal. Superhuman. So it’s going to move faster and react faster than we expect.”
“You saying we can’t do it?” Grimm asked.
“No, I’m just saying we have to be careful. Remember what Vazquez said about the Serpent? How it moved so fast he couldn’t hit it with fully automatic fire? Well, I think Ridder will have a much better chance at getting it because, as the lieutenant says, it won’t have anyplace to dodge. But other things, like how fast it moves from place to place, will seem impossible. For instance, I think Campbell will start shooting a lot sooner than the guys in the engine room expect. This whole thing is going to be over in a flash.”
“It’s about time,” Grimm said, picking at the top of the nav table.
“Don’t worry, Myers. We’ve seen what this thing can do. No one’s going to underestimate it. This is our best chance to take it down.”
I looked at Larsen. “I know it is. Just don’t… you can’t give it any slack. If one person doesn’t take it seriously enough, we’re all fucked.”
And maybe we already were. Maybe this was just whistling in the dark, imagining we could conquer an immortal foe. But the one thing I was sure about-and that I was convinced Larsen believed, too-was that this was our only real choice. If it worked, we survived, mission accomplished. If it didn’t, we died. But inaction would result in death that was just as certain.
“What about this skin camouflage stuff?” Grimm asked.
“Shouldn’t be a factor. As long as it’s moving and isn’t stopped in front of a background, its skin can’t possibly adapt fast enough. And if it’s wearing clothes, you’ll be able to see those no matter what.”
“Jesus, this is fucked-up,” Grimm said to no one.
“OK, couple more questions,” I said. “First, what if it’s not in the aft torpedo room anymore? What would have stopped it from going elsewhere?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Larsen replied. “But if it’s in the galley area or anyplace on the lower deck, the five-man team will be positioned to ambush it.”
“But it won’t go after the bai… it won’t try to get to me. And then we lose our tactical advantage.”
“So we adapt. Even if we don’t have all the cards, we’ll still win the game. Five on one. I’ll take those odds, even if it’s not the optimal situation.”
“Well, OK,” I said. I wasn’t reassured by his cockiness, but I also didn’t have any suggestions for making the plan airtight. “The other question is, who’s going to be steering the ship while we’re doing all this?”
“Yeah, thought of that one, too,” Larsen said. “I checked our course, and there’s no turn charted for another hour or so. If we maintain speed, the drift won’t be too bad. Plus, after we kill this thing, there’s no reason to rush back to port, and we can slow down and conserve batteries.”
It made sense. Drifting off course was at the bottom of our pile of priorities. I had only one more question now.
“When are we going to do this thing?”
I was sure that the more we sat around and talked about it, the less at ease I’d feel about being dangled in front of a psychopath.
“We’ll do the briefing in the electrical control room. Might as well get started now.”
No. That was a problem.
“Hold on. We can’t do it in there.”
Grimm and Larsen, who both already had stood up, stopped and regarded me without excitement.
“Why, Myers?” Larsen asked.
“The Serpent’s hearing. We don’t want it to even get a chance to pick up a word of the plan, and for all we know, it could be sitting with its ear pressed up against the hatch from the engine room.”
“She’s right,” Grimm said. He sounded surprised at his own observation.
“Yeah, good point.” Larsen turned aft, then forward. “OK, we’ll do it in shifts. Brief half the team in the forward torpedo room, then move them back to their posts and brief the other half. Then we’ll get this show on the goddamn road.”
I was pretty eager to shove off, too. It was amazing. I couldn’t even remember how it felt to be paralyzed, in mind and body, by fear. But I knew I had been in that exact state, what, less than an hour ago? Time seemed irrelevant.
Now that we had a plan, I had a lifeboat of rationality, and I was motoring for shore as fast as I could. So was the Dragon itself, I hoped.
I sat in on both the briefings. If nothing else, it was just convenient: I already was where I needed to be for my part in the operation.
The first group comprised me and Larsen-of course-as well as Ridder and the guy they called Chief. He got there first and introduced himself as Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Moretti.
“This is our shot to catch the Serpent off-guard,” Larsen said. He had given up on calling the infected crewman anything else, even after we explained the true nature of the Serpent to the rest of the SEALs. “The doctor will be in here. Ridder, you will be in the officers’ mess. Campbell will be in the captain’s room. The rest of us are going to clear out and act as though we are searching the ship.”
“But we’re not?” Chief asked.
“No. We’re trying to… I know you like football. The Giants are your team, right?”
Chief nodded.
“Well, it’s like we’re the safety. And we’re acting like we’re not covering the receiver, trying to lure the quarterback into throwing it to him. But after he lets go of the ball, we turn on the jets, close in and intercept that motherfucker.”
“Myers is the receiver. And the Serpent’s the quarterback. The ball, too, I guess.”
“You got it, Chief. So we back off, head down into the lower deck, leaving one guy to covertly watch the hatch to the electrical control room. When he sees the Serpent rush through there, we’re almost ready to go for the ball.
“Ridder, that’s where you and Campbell come in. Campbell’s going to be watching the passageway through his door. When he sees something-anything-come through there, he’s going to start shooting. That’s when you swing into the passageway and open up, too.”
“You need to move fast,” I interjected. “Don’t expect it to move like a human. In fact, I wouldn’t even bother to look for a target. Just start firing.”
“We’ll leave that to Seaman Ridder. I don’t like the idea of just shooting blindly at whatever happens to be there.” It was the first time I had heard Larsen contradict me without any disparaging comment. We had indeed turned a corner.
“Got it, boss,” Ridder said. Then he continued to me in his characteristic monotone. “I got a quick trigger finger. If there’s anything in the passageway besides air, it’s gonna have about a millionth of a second to start dodging. But I won’t miss.”
“Damn right, you won’t. Ventilate that thing. And even if you don’t, it’s going to retreat toward the control room. That’s when the cavalry arrives,” Larsen said, warming to the story. “It’s running full-tilt at us, a bunch of hot lead chasing it, and what does it see? A bunch of pissed-off SEALs with MP-5s. You’re the rock, we’re the hard place, and it’s a bug caught in the middle.”