But the gunfire continued. Court had to scream to be heard. "We're going up on deck!"
"Don't forget the sunscreen."
"We're sinking. We're going to have to go over the port side. Maybe we can wait a while, transmit the distress on the VHF when they leave."
"Not gonna work. We're nowhere near international waters. The Sudanese will hear the distress, come back, and finish the job."
"I'm not going to sink that navy boat. I don't have any other alternative."
Zack laid his head back flat. "Do what you gotta do, bro. I'm staying right here."
The machine gun fire stopped abruptly. Court looked around. He noticed the water bottle he'd left on the floor earlier had rolled to the port side. Within seconds other items in the room began to slide on the mirrorlike finish of the deck.
"We're dead in the water," Court said. "The engine room must be filling up. But why aren't they shooting?"
Zack said nothing.
"I'll be right back." Court climbed the stairs on his hands and knees. The yacht was sinking incredibly quickly. Already it leaned to port at a ten-degree angle. On the deck he laid flat, so he was concealed to the starboard side by the list to port. He crawled to the railing and peered over carefully, looking for the gunboat. The navy vessel was moving out of the area, away from the yacht, and Court could not imagine why. Quickly he looked into the sky, worried about a fighter plane with a bomb or some other attack that would necessitate the patrol craft hauling ass. But the starry skies were clear.
He was about to turn to slide back to the companionway when he noticed it, above the waterline, just below his position at the railing. In the darkness it glistened and hung there like a big, wet tumor on the hull of the Fatima.
It was attached to the hull with cables and suction cups, and had been below the waterline before the yacht began listing hard to the opposite side.
Cigar-shaped, black as onyx, and twenty feet long, an enclosed prop and rudder at the rear, and a clear plastic canopy on the top.
A mini submarine.
Court shook his head in disbelief and mumbled with a little smile, "Zack, you rat bastard."
Court realized now why the boat had pulled so hard to starboard at speed.
Hightower had neglected to mention it because his primary mission was to kill the Gray Man. His secondary mission would be to save his own life.
Court had an incredible respect for Sierra One's mission focus, even if it did piss him off.
Court looked back to the Sudanese patrol boat and realized they must have seen it, too. But apparently they had taken it for a large torpedo and decided to back off lest one of their machine gun rounds set it off.
The Gray Man turned away, slid down the sharply angled deck to the companionway, and returned to the saloon. Zack was still on his back.
"Would it have killed you to tell me about the sub?"
"I was hoping it would kill you if I didn't."
"You going to tell me how to drive it?"
"You've never piloted a mini sub?"
"Who the fuck has piloted a mini sub?"
Zack smiled and said nothing.
"Don't suppose there is an instruction manual lying around anywhere."
No response.
"I feel like ripping that tube out right now, Zack."
No response.
"God, when I'm done saving you, I swear I'm going to kill you." Court knelt and lifted Zack onto his wounded shoulder. He screamed in pain.
Zack screamed as well from the agony of being hefted by his bandaged right arm, but Gentry did nothing to make his patient feel better.
FIFTY-ONE
Court pulled the small canopy shut. From the difficult action of the closing mechanism, and the absence of a good handhold on the inside of the Plexiglas, he got the impression there was some sort of a button or knob that would cause an automatic shut and seal, but Court couldn't even see the dials and gauges in front of him in the dark, so yanking it tight with his fingertips would just have to do.
He'd managed to get Hightower inside without one iota of assistance from him. By the time they'd made it back on deck, it was listing at twenty-five degrees. Every bit of strength in Court's good arm was put to use sliding Zack up to the railing and over the side. Skittering together down the wet hull to the sub, the satellite phone popped out of Gentry's pocket and bounced off into the ocean. Court found a latch on the outside of the canopy and popped it open. He struggled to get Hightower's dead weight slid into the rear recumbent position. Court buckled him in like a child in a car seat and scooted down into the front.
Exhausted, once enclosed in the small cockpit, he took a few seconds to recover. Then he called back to his unwilling passenger, "Come on, buddy! Give me a hint! What do I do?"
"I'd love to help, bro. But my orders are to terminate you. This is kind of a roundabout way to achieve my objective, but…" His voice had grown much weaker after the strain of movement, even if his attitude remained in full effect.
"Fuck your orders. Let's go for a ride!"
Zack did not reply.
Court went back to feeling around at the controls.
A sudden, loud screech filled the air, and a shell landed in the water twenty-five yards short of the sub. The small craft shuddered, and foamy water splashed on the Plexiglas like a mini-hurricane was passing overhead.
"I guess their smoke break is over," muttered Hightower from the backseat.
"Shit!" Court began fingering all the dials in front of him, found nothing that felt right to flip or twist or punch. He wanted to activate everything; it might still come to that, but he was scared to do so. He really had no idea what he was getting himself into, only that the alternative was to sit on a sinking ship and dodge high-explosive shells from the patrol boat's deck gun.
He ran his fingers faster on the controls, feeling for some sort of power button, which he imagined to be larger and more pronounced than what his fingertips had so far come across in the darkness. His hands next moved to either side of him, to the outside of the vinyl armrests, along the walls. On the left side his hand wrapped around a simple lever with a ball extending three inches horizontal from the wall. It was in the "up" position. With nothing else feeling right, he pulled the lever.
Immediately the front of the sub disengaged from the cable attached to the suction cup on the hull of the yacht. The nose dropped towards the water, and Gentry slammed forward into the cockpit controls.
He had neglected to fasten himself in the seat harness as he had Hightower behind him.
He screamed in pain. With all his might he leaned back, felt above him for a lever aft of the one he pulled, and he found it and yanked it down.
The rear cable disengaged, and the midget sub slid off the angled side of the Fatima and plunged five feet down to the black water, nose-first.
Upon hitting the sea, the craft righted itself for a moment, and Court used the time to fumble back into his cockpit chair. It was difficult to do, but he managed, had only just snapped the clasp when he felt the weight of gravity on his right side. The water around the Plexiglas's bubble was an opaque dark green, so Gentry waited for the sub to come back up to the surface so he could get his bearings.
For five seconds he waited to resurface, and all the while he felt the pull harder and harder to the right, as if the sub was somehow beginning to roll.
At ten seconds he realized it was rolling, but the pull to the right seemed to stop. The sub was still submerged.
He pulled the small folding knife from his pocket, held it in his lap, and let it go.
The knife flew upwards, just missing his chin and nose, before bouncing on the plastic canopy and sliding forward.
Court realized then that they were inverted, and they were sinking.
"Zack! Zack!" Gentry's ears popped, and he fought a wave of panic. He had no situational awareness whatsoever now, completely entombed as he was in a dead craft in dark water.