Still holding his breath, Randall took cover beneath the swell of the Russian vehicle's hull, close beside the port-side tracks. Pausing only a moment to unsheathe his knife again, he launched himself up and then over the curve of the hull, lunging for the dimly seen shape of the other diver.
He had only an instant's glimpse of the Russian Spets swimmer, his legs still inside the open airlock set into the top of the vehicle's squat conning tower. The man was raising the bulky-looking underwater pistol for another shot when Randall collided with him.
They grappled above the yellow-lit, open hatchway, Randall grasping the Russian's right hand and the gun, the Russian clutching Randall's right hand and the knife. Randall used his forward momentum to knock the Spets diver over backward, bending him back over the edge of the open hatch. A third time the sound of ripping cloth shrilled, accompanied this time by a heavy blow to Randall's left side.
The pain followed a moment later, shrill and burning, but he kept wrestling the Spets swimmer back, gripping the man's right wrist and bending it backward until the fingers opened and the rocket-projectile weapon dropped into darkness.
Releasing the man's empty hand, Randall clawed the mask from the other diver's face and ripped at the mouthpiece clenched between his teeth. Bubbles exploded in his face and he could hear the man's strangled, drowning scream. The Spets swimmer thrashed and struggled, but Randall held him pinned in the hatch, blocking his attempts to reach his air hose or Randall's face. The Russian's grip on his right wrist increased, exploding into blinding pain, and Randall lost his knife.
Randall's lungs were bursting. He couldn't simply out-wait the Russian; he was willing to bet that the Spetsnaz drownproofed their own recruits just as the SEALs did, and conditioned them until they could hold their breath for long minutes underwater. Randall had already been exerting himself for a good thirty seconds or more since his last breath. In a breath-holding contest with this guy, he would lose.
Somersaulting over the Russian's head, he grabbed the flailing, bubbling air hose with his left hand, turning so that he was now behind the Russian, his feet braced against the Soviet sub's conning tower, yanking the other man over backward. He tried to pull the air hose to his face to steal a quick breath, but the Russian twisted in the hatch and pulled the air hose and mouthpiece away.
With horror, Randall saw the air hose tear wide open with the rough handling. Bubbles filled the water, blinding them both. The Russian was groping at his waist, trying to draw the knife scabbarded there.
Randall beat him to it. He could see the knife, while the Russian was trying to reach it by touch alone. That tiny advantage was enough; he grasped the hilt, found the catch-release, and drew the blade with a sharp snick of steel on plastic. The Russian raised his arms, trying to block him, but the SEAL slipped the blade home, puncturing the wet-suit- covered skin of the man's left armpit, driving it in hard and deep. The Russian struggled, blood pouring into the water, but his thrashings quickly became weaker. Randall withdrew the blade, then cut the struggling man's throat with a single sharp, clean slash.
His lungs burning, Randall pulled the body clear of the hatch and sent it drifting into the darkness at the sub's starboard side. Feet first, he dropped into the yawning, yellow-lit opening, pulling the hatch shut above him as he moved down, squinting as he tried to find the controls he knew must be there. Turning the hatch locking wheel until the dogs engaged, he turned in a steel compartment somewhat shorter than a coffin, looking for the vent, blow valve, and WRT and sea flood valves.
Physics, he reasoned, worked the same on Russian submarines as on American boats, and they should share similar controls. Good design demanded those controls be placed where he could see them, where they would not be blocked by his own shadow cast by the single small lighting fixture in the trunk.
Then again, these were the people who planted a sonar unit where it couldn't see past a thirty-inch seabed oil pipe.
There … up high, a series of four valves, and they were even signed. Voshdooh pavlenye — that was air pressure, the equivalent of a blow valve. More navodnyat' — sea flood? Vodoeem navodnyat' was the WRT flood, which meant that Vipuskat' must be vent….
Blow valve first. He turned it, fighting desperately the need, the demand to draw breath. He felt the pressure on his eardrums growing, and swallowed hard to equalize. The largest valve was unlabeled, but it must be the WRT flood valve. He turned it, opening the connection to the submarine's Water Retaining Tank. The pipes rumbled and rattled, and he quickly closed the blow valve. As the sound died away, he closed the WRT valve, then opened the vent valve.
Air was being forced into the escape trunk. The surface bubbled and churned as it dropped past his head. Turning his face upward, he gulped down a deep, desperately needed breath… and another… and another.
He might be giving himself a case of the bends, but all he could do was try to slow his breathing, keeping each breath as normal as he could once the gasping stopped.
The interior hatch was in the wall in front of him, five feet tall and rectangular, with rounded corners. No window, thank God. If there was anybody left on board this thing, they'd most certainly heard the racket when he started draining the airlock and were waiting for him to come out.
Reaching down into the water, he slipped off his swim fins. If he was going to face another Spetsnaz trooper, he didn't want to trip over his own flippers and fall flat on his face. As he bent, the pain in his side struck him like a hammerblow. He looked, and saw blood welling up from a deep slash in his side, and the grating sensation told him he had a busted rib. The Russian's Gyrojet projectile must have been kicked out of the gun like a conventional bullet, with enough kick to cause some serious damage. It didn't feel like it had entered his body, though; it felt as if it had glanced off the rib, breaking it as it passed.
The pain nearly brought him to his knees, and each succeeding breath hurt worse.
A small speaker set over his head crackled. "Gennadi?" a voice called, tinny and rough. " Vih tudah?'
Reaching up, gasping again at the pain, he touched the intercom switch. "Da!" he called back. He didn't have to fake the pain-rough edge to his voice, the disguising gasp. "Da! Ya raneen.!'
Telling the Russian on the other side of the watertight door that he was wounded might explain any strangeness in his voice, and just might make the other guy lower his guard for a moment.
The water was being forced now past his legs. He reached up and grabbed the locking wheel to the inner hatch and felt someone turning it from the other side. He grasped his knife and waited, fighting the pain and weakness. A moment later, the dogs opened and the hatch swung outward with a clang. Water still in the airlock rushed over the combing and onto the steel deck beyond.
Inside, a young Russian sailor, wearing the red-and-white-striped T-shirt of the Soviet Naval Infantry, clung to the open hatch. His eyes bulged when he saw Randall, who took a step across the combing, lunging with the knife.
The Russian was too agile, and Randall too weighed down by his wound. He missed and nearly fell as the Russian yelped and backpedaled.
Randall had an instant's glimpse of the submarine interior, a cylindrical, steel-walled compartment cluttered with pipes and valves, wiring bundles and instrument panels, air tanks and supply lockers. A pair of narrow bunks were stacked up to starboard; beyond was a control room, of sorts, a padded shelf just big enough for a man to lie flat on, extending forward into the silvery hemisphere of the plastic viewing bubble. The air stank, a foul, gagging fog of diesel fumes and oil, gasoline and sweat. The Russians' snorkel system must not be completely efficient.