She held the sock to her head as he nudged her in front of him and cupped her shoulders. Tentative, she walked as if in a snake garden. Jake guided her aft.
Out of habit, he studied the hydrogen meter to be certain that the chemical byproduct of acid and lead had not accumulated to dangerous levels, but from his in-flight studies, he knew the state of the art water-cooled batteries posed minimal threat.
“This time, duck real hard,” he said.
He supported her through a hatch into the forward auxiliary machinery room. Solid state conversion modules transformed the battery’s high DC voltage to the lower DC and AC voltages needed to run the operations room displays and navigation equipment.
Another hatch led to the after battery compartment, and yet another crawl through one of Olivia’s ovular nemeses opened to the galley.
A Taiwanese sailor in officer whites stared at them.
“Hello,” Jake said. “We seem to be surprising everyone today. You speak English, I hope.”
The officer, a handsome and well-proportioned young man with tanned skin, extended a hand.
“Lieutenant Sean Wu,” he said.
“Sean?” Jake asked and accepted the hand.
“That’s my western name. I needed it for my year abroad at UCLA. It’s easier.”
Jake pointed at Olivia’s head.
“You got any ice? Maybe a towel, too?” he asked.
“You caught me rummaging through here for a snack,” Wu said. “But I got you covered.”
Wu grabbed a clean rag from a metal counter and reached into a freezer. He withdrew a handful of ice and wrapped it in the rag.
“Thanks,” Jake said, but Wu ignored his outstretched hand and moved the rag towards Olivia’s forehead.
“Stop!” Jake said and grabbed his arm.
Wu glared at Jake.
“She’s HIV-positive. We both are. You might want me to handle this.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Wu said. “Let’s get you to the medical cabinet.”
Wu led Olivia through a passageway and sat her down in a small alcove. A bandage appeared in his hands and he handed it to Jake to place over Olivia’s forehead.
Jake heard someone enter the compartment. After taping the gauze to Olivia’s skin, he turned with the care of a submarine veteran. His nose passed so close to a fire extinguisher nozzle that he smelled plastic and dust.
“Is she okay?” Commander Ye asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “She’s fine, but you may want to get rid of these socks. I used one to absorb the blood. She’s HIV-positive.”
Ye snapped an order in Mandarin. Wu slipped a latex glove over his hand, pinched the socks between his thumb and finger, and stepped away.
“I feel like an idiot,” Olivia said.
Ye extended a stack of compact disk cases wrapped in rubber bands.
“From squadron command,” Ye said. “The acting Defense Minister himself tasked me to deliver them.”
Olivia accepted the disks.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” Ye said. “Your laptops are in the commanding officer’s quarters.”
Jake shrugged.
“I’ll show where that is on my way back up.”
Jake followed Ye through a hatch and up a ladder to the ship’s upper of two decks. He lost his balance for a moment but recovered.
“Was that a wave, this deep in the harbor?” Jake asked. “I thought we just rolled.”
“A little,” Ye said. “The tugs can be rough.”
“Tugs?”
“Yes,” Ye said. “Did Mister Renard not tell you we were getting underway as soon as you were aboard?”
Jake reached the top of the ladder and had to brace himself against a bulkhead. His life had become a chain of surprises.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“On a three-ship operation with us as the primary attack platform,” Ye said. “We’re off to change the tides of war.”
CHAPTER 21
Jake helped Olivia into a Spartan vinyl seat and placed her laptop on a foldout desk.
“The operations room is straight ahead,” Ye said. “I must go.”
Jake closed the door to the commanding officer’s quarters and knelt in front of Olivia. A purple stain blotted the outer layer of the gauze on her head.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s just a cut.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Everything’s just happening so fast,” she said.
Jake noticed a ball cap on the desk. He reached for it and slid it on her head. It was too wide until she stuffed her hair underneath it.
The cap had two large-font Mandarin characters embroidered over a handful of smaller ones.
“It says ‘Hai Lang’,” she said. “That means ‘Sea Wolf’. All Taiwanese submarines are named after the sea and a land-based predator, if you count dragons in that.”
“At least you’re starting to look less feminine,” Jake said. “The bandage is a nice touch, but a pair of baggy coveralls should finish you off nicely.”
She ignored him and slid a disk into the laptop. Her eyes sparkled as she read.
“Wow,” she said. “Rickets came through. I’ve got data on Hayat from A to Z. This is amazing.”
“Fine, I guess,” Jake said. “But I’ve got bigger problems at the moment. If I know Pierre, we’re taking on half the Chinese fleet by ourselves today.”
Olivia kept her nose angled toward the laptop. Jake opened the door and stepped out.
“See you,” Jake said.
She tapped the keyboard. He closed the door and left her to her own world.
He marched forward through a room with equipment that looked like controls and modules for radio and satellite communications. He then ducked through an ovular hatch into the Hai Lang’s operations room.
Six dual-stacked Subtics monitors spanned the left side of the room. He recognized one of the three men who filled half of the seats as Antoine Remy, Renard’s sonar expert. Short with a wide nose, Remy wore a sonar headset that made his head appear extra-wide. He reminded Jake of a toad.
Remy waved his hand but didn’t smile. The pre-battle atmosphere in the room was too businesslike for levity.
“Hello, Jake,” he said and turned back to his monitor.
The Taiwanese sailor seated beside Remy pointed and said words inaudible to Jake, and then he turned to another Taiwanese sailor. Jake surmised that the middle sailor was correlating sonar data with radar contacts as the ship navigated the channel.
Ahead, a single Taiwanese sailor sat at the front of the room jiggling a joystick that controlled the rudder. The seat beside him at the ship’s control panel was empty, and Jake realized that it would remain empty until someone needed to control ballast, stern planes, and bow planes once the Hai Lang submerged.
To Jake’s right, Renard stooped with his face in the periscope optics. His feet traced a semi-circle until the optics pointed backwards. A Marlboro wiggled in the corner of his mouth as he talked.
“Channel entrance range, mark,” Renard said.
The middle sailor at the Subtics monitors shouted in accented but confident English.
“Good fix,” he said. “Are we on track?”
Leaning over a horizontal screen to Renard’s right, one of the final two men in the room, a short Taiwanese sailor with a slumped body and thick glasses, tapped a magnetic pen against the electronic navigation chart. He stiffened his fingers over the chart and slanted his arm. Standing opposite the sailor, Lieutenant Sean Wu nodded.
“We’re twenty yards too far to the right,” Wu said. “We need to come left. Recommend five-degrees rudder.”
Renard peeled his eye from the periscope and reached above his head for a microphone.
“Jake,” he said. “We won’t need you until we’re submerged. I want you to study the battle plan. Over there.”