“Perhaps,” Yousif said. “But if so, I don’t know how. However, I’ll take their location when their propellers fell silent and extrapolate a simple exponential decay of speed. Assuming that three miles is their drift distance—”
“No, no,” Asad said. “Why not instead ascend to snorkel depth, raise our radio mast, and ask them where they are? Since they are close, we can dial down transmit power to avoid snooping ears. If they cannot hear us, then we dial up power until they do.”
“I like that much better than guessing,” Salem said. “Take us shallow.”
The Leviathan rocked as Salem peered above the waves. The sunlight seemed bright and foreign.
“I don’t see them” he said.
“Me neither,” Asad said. “The contrast on my monitor is excellent. They’re just not in sight. Would you like Latakia to take us shallower to give you a greater height of eye?”
“Why?”
“You see farther when the periscope is higher.”
“No. Just send them our greeting and a request of their position.”
He heard one of his linguists speaking Farsi into a microphone. The ensuing silence weighed on him.
“This periscope has a radio antenna on it, right?”
“Yes, Hana,” Asad said. “You used it last night to send rendezvous coordinates to the Zafar.”
“Apparently they only partially listened,” Salem said. “Either that or they grossly underestimated their stopping distance.”
A voice crackled over a loudspeaker, and Salem’s pulse raced. His linguist’s voice became animated.
“They’ve acknowledged our message. They are at one and a half knots, still slowing. They are located at… please, someone write these numbers down… I believe they are coordinates.
“I’ll write them,” Yousif said.
Salem heard scribbling as the academics dictated and wrote numbers.
“They’re estimating another mile before full stop,” the linguist said.
“Tell them we’ll be in position soon,” Salem said. “I’m lowering the periscope. Asad, take us down to thirty meters.”
An hour later, Salem had the Leviathan within half a mile of the drifting tanker.
“We should slow, Hana,” Asad said.
“I agree. Two knots?”
“Yes, until nightfall.”
“Will we see them?”
“Yes, I hope so. They are supposed to leave their stern light on. It’s white with a narrow field of illumination, but we should see it from our position.”
“And nobody else should see them?” Salem asked.
“Only those who would be directly behind them, and so what if they do? If interrupted, we’ll wait until an intruding ship passes. Our visual signature at night is almost imperceptible. We won’t be seen.”
“Nightfall is when?”
“Thirty minutes,” Asad said. “This is perfect timing.”
The Leviathan had drifted to a stop behind the tanker Zafar. Salem peered through the periscope at a white spec.
“I see its light,” he said. “But I can’t see them.”
“Let your eye adjust, Hana. It will take time, but you will make out their silhouette.”
“It’s time to contact them. We need to make sure that they are lowering the skiff.”
“Perhaps we should surface now,” Asad said. “If we do not, their skiff will be challenged to find us.”
“I’ll surface once I’m sure their skiff is approaching,” Salem said. “No sooner.”
With the Leviathan’s high-frequency radio set at a minimal power setting, the linguist contacted the bridge of the Zafar. As he reported that the tanker had lowered a skiff, Salem made out the white outline of the tanker’s monstrous superstructure. He had failed to see it while darkness dilated his pupil and his mind refused to acknowledge the tanker’s girth.
“Surface us,” he said.
After running a blower to push air into ballast tanks and lift the ship, Salem ordered a battery charge. Two of the Leviathan’s diesel engines ran, drawing air through the snorkel mast while Salem donned an Israeli officer’s uniform and had his linguist do the same.
“Pressure is equalized,” Asad said.
“What?”
“I equalized outside air pressure and hull pressure. This will keep you from flying out of the ship as you open the hatch.”
“It’s good you thought of it.”
Salem opened and passed through the hatch. The night enveloped him in a half moon glow. The linguist joined him by his side, pointing a flashlight in the direction of the obelisk floating a football field away.
With the close proximity, the skiff from the Zafar found the submarine with ease. The twenty-five-foot motorized vessel approached close enough for Salem to see its pilot’s moonlit face.
His four Hamas soldiers brushed by as they moved to the Leviathan’s bow. In pairs, they knelt with socket wrenches and flipped over a cleat on either side. He admired their efficiency and looked back to the skiff.
The small watercraft’s pilot seemed nonplused by the lack of convenient mooring as he pulled aside the submarine and ran twin outboard engines in reverse. A thick towing line rose from the water, the skiff struggling against the line’s neutral buoyancy.
Placing his fingers between his lips, the pilot unleashed a piercing whistle. A deckhand beside him tossed a baseball-sized rubber sphere at Salem, who dodged it and watched it bounce on the hull and splash into the sea. Unsure what to do, he welcomed Asad who rose through the hatch and examined the activity.
“Take the rope and pull,” he said. “I’ll get the soldiers to help. You’ll need help and gloved hands.”
Assisted by the linguist, Salem pulled the rope and looked to the skiff for guidance. He noticed a capstan on the watercraft’s bow rotating and paying out towing line as it redirected it from the Zafar toward the Leviathan.
As he pulled, an oval, metal-clasped eye hook bumped up against the hull. The soldiers arrived, and he gestured for their help. They took the small rope from him and pulled it in unison to the deck.
The soldiers grabbed the hook and shuffled toward the bow when another piercing whistle shot from the skiff. Shaking his head, the pilot gestured for additional pulling. Nodding, Hamdan barked out commands and had the soldiers redouble their efforts.
As their reward for ten meters of yanking, the mooring line presented a split. Added tugging lifted the split half to the deck, revealing a second eye hook. As the soldiers dragged both eye hooks to the bow cleats, the pilot nodded approval.
Asad darted toward an eye hook and reached for a tumbling black box dangling from a wire. He cradled it while following the soldiers forward.
As the soldiers lay the hooks over the cleats, Salem watched Asad unfurl coiled cord that swirled around one of the hooks. A perplexed look on his face, Asad came up to Salem.
“It appears to be communications equipment.”
Salem glanced at the pilot who cycled his gaze through the soldiers, his watercraft’s slicing toward the front of the submarine, and a deckhand paying out tow line to the cleats with the capstan.
A voice rang from the box in Asad’s hand. It spoke Arabic in a dialect Salem recognized as Iraqi but with an accent of a native Farsi speaker.
“Are the ropes over your cleats?”
“How do we answer?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Asad said.
Asad depressed a switch, and a green light illuminated.