Salem stood, trying to display authority over a man trained to kill with his bare hands.
“We’ve invested far too much to take sporadic jabs,” he said. “This mission — trust me on its greatness — requires patience and trust in our outcome.”
“How can you be sure?”
“A future is never certain,” Salem said. “But it can be seen.”
“Seen? Have you seen it?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it,” he said. “In my dreams. And I feel it now, alive in me.”
“God is speaking to you.”
Salem risked placing his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. Hamdan raised his chin to meet his glare.
“Indeed, he is, my brother. We need only keep our wills strong and our intent pure to see it through.”
“My imam said you had a special blessing,” Hamdan said. “I am now beginning to see it.”
“Good,” Salem said. “Now go. Bazzi needs your assistance in preparing for our high-speed run.”
The soldier nodded and marched off. Salem exhaled, and Asad turned to him.
“This isn’t part of the plan,” Asad said.
“What isn’t?”
“Our brothers from Hamas. They’re supposed to follow orders. Not question them. We were told we’d receive solders to support us, not challenge us.”
“I’m afraid that Hamdan is intelligent and inquisitive,” Salem said. “He may question my every move until the end.”
“Then I pray that God stays on your side.”
“He will,” Salem said. “One way or another.”
Salem ducked his head through a door into the propulsion spaces and saw reddened skin glistening through gray strands.
“How are you, Bazzi,” he asked.
The retired sailor looked up with concern.
“I’m calculating how long we have until we need to snorkel again.”
“Any idea yet?”
“If we move slowly, say at six knots, then at best fifty hours.”
“That’s plenty of time,” Salem said. “This ship is built smartly, and it has endurance.”
“I don’t trust this modern automation,” Bazzi said.
“This is solid German engineering,” Salem said. “And you have a translator, the ship’s technical documents, and an exceptional mechanical engineer at your disposal.”
Bazzi looked to the propulsion motor and followed the form of the thin man, a mechanical engineering doctoral student in his young thirties, who held hand-written translated notes about lubrication oil leakage rates and pressure ratings while crouching by the shaft. Hamdan crouched by the student’s side, learning.
“These men spent months studying and training,” Salem said. “Have faith.”
“I would like to,” Bazzi said. “But there’s so much we don’t know.”
Salem ignored the comment and stepped beside Yousif, who studied the controls and indications for the Leviathan’s propulsion, electronics, and machinery.
“It’s starting to make sense to me,” the rotund professor of electrical engineering said.
“Good,” Salem said. “I trust your skill.”
“I’m ready,” Yousif said.
“Then it’s time.”
Salem returned to the control center and found Asad pacing behind Latakia. A post-doctoral student linguist sat at the stacked monitors. All other educated minds joined able bodies in the propulsion space or scattered themselves throughout the Leviathan.
“I’ve stationed men throughout the ship at locations where leaks would most likely occur,” Asad said, “but this is a guessing game on a new ship.”
“Take the ship to two hundred meters,” Salem said.
“Don’t you want speed first?” Asad asked. “Speed to drive back shallow if needed.”
Salem sensed that the submarine training provided to him and his crew from Russian vendors and remnants of the Syrian submarine fleet would be taxed.
“Sure,” he said. “Do we just jump to top speed or move in increments?”
“Increments,” Asad said. “Try ten knots.”
“Ten knots then.”
Asad maneuvered a joystick, and Salem thought that the Leviathan’s metallic pulse quickened.
“We’re at ten knots,” Asad said.”
“Okay. Two hundred meters, now, right?”
“Yes, Hana.”
Shifting numbers on a digital gauge, a creak, and a groan informed Salem of the Leviathan’s new depth. Asad and Latakia, who wore a sound-powered phone headset to speak with men throughout the submarine, exchanged words.
“All is well, Hana,” Asad said.
“So what’s next?” Salem asked. “Fifteen knots?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Okay. Fifteen knots.”
The vessel quivered. Salem’s heartbeat quickened.
“Fifteen knots,” Asad said. “All is well.”
“Do we dare go all out?”
“Bazzi wants us to go all out, and I agree,” Asad said. “We shake the ship to find its weaknesses before they find us.”
“Okay. Full speed.”
“You mean flank speed, right?”
“Yes, thank you. I had forgotten the term. That’s what I mean. All the ship can do.”
The Leviathan settled into a trembling cadence that Salem found ominous and graceful.
“Twenty-two knots,” Asad said. “And it looks like we’ll soon reach… yes… twenty-three knots.”
“All is well?”
“So far. Bazzi wants to stay at this speed and watch the battery discharge.”
“Fine.”
The deck shot downward and, his heart in his throat, Salem reached for a railing.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Asad ignored him, jostled a joystick, but the ship gave no apparent response.
“Asad!”
“I don’t know, damn it.”
The ship dived, and the door to berthing loomed at the bottom of the hill the Leviathan’s angle created.
“Do something!” Salem said. “Do the opposite of everything we just did!”
“Bow planes are unresponsive,” Asad said, one arm curled around the back of his chair. “We’re applying the stern planes now.”
“Should we slow the ship?” Salem asked. “We’re driving ourselves too deep.”
“Bazzi already took the liberty of slowing us. I recommend a backing bell.”
“Do it!”
The Leviathan shuddered in protest as it slowed and leveled. When it returned balance to Salem, he fixed his gaze to the depth meter. It read four hundred meters.
“That’s too deep,” he said.
A groan enveloped the control room and continued in ominous echoing along the length of the hull. Salem saw his life ending as water erupted through tearing metal.
The echo subsided, the Leviathan held, and Salem noticed that his jugular vein throbbed.
“I would like to go up now,” he said.
“We have full rise on the bow plane and stern plane,” Asad said. “Let Latakia move water from forward trim tanks to aft to assure an upward angle on the hull as well.”
“I prefer not to wait.”
“Neither do I, Hana, but we obviously don’t fully understand the ship’s hydrodynamic response.”
Salem felt the deck angle upward a degree or two but no longer trusted his orientation.
“We’re already rising,” Asad said. “The denser water at this depth made us relatively lighter and—”
“Curse your analysis and get us up!”
“Yes, Hana. Five knots.”
The ship climbed past three hundred meters. Salem stared at the digital depth meter, demanding silence by example, until it read one hundred meters.
“Steady us on a safe, shallow depth,” he said.
Smelling the stench of fear wafting from his armpits, he turned and left the room.