“There she goes, Lieutenant,” Gus said.
With a stately deliberation, the submarine’s stern was disappearing beneath the sea. Sinking vertically, it was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing behind but a swirl and a flurry of bubbles in the water.
That, and a single figure adrift in a life jacket.
“Gray Lady, this is Zero One. The Han is a goner. I repeat, the Red boat has gone down. We have a single survivor in the water. I am orbiting him at this time.”
“Zero One, this is Gray Lady,” Amanda replied, an intentness in her voice. “Drop a smoke float and hold station over the survivor until we can get a boat out there. We’re going to need to talk to this guy.”
34
Rescue operations were still in full sway aboard the Cunningham. Half-emptied life rafts clustered around the destroyer’s flanks, and all three of her missile-handling cranes were deployed and lifting Zodiac boat loads of survivors up to the weather decks.
On those decks, a rescue assembly line had been established.
Hospital corpsmen ran triage, separating the wounded and injured from the stunned and shocked. The former were given into the ministrations of Doc Golden, while the latter were moved along to the next phase.
Cunningham hands led the Nationalist sailors belowdecks to the showers. Hot water and gasoline cleared away the clinging residue of the oil slick and fresh clothing was issued.
Then they were taken to the crew’s lounge and mess deck, there to be given food, hot coffee, and a quiet time to become reacquainted with being alive.
The Nationalist Navy personnel were given something else as well by the men and women of the Duke. A multitude of gentle slaps on the back, acknowledging nods, and quiet words of support, understood even if the language wasn’t. If fate had turned just a little bit differently, they all could have been left floating around out there.
“We’re going to have to get her down into the hangar bay in a hurry, sir,” Zero One’s crew chief yelled over the declining whine of the helicopter’s turbines. “We’ve got medevac helos coming in from Seventh.”
“Roger, Chief. Carry on,” Arkady replied, levering himself up and out of the Sea Comanche. A RADCON (Radiation and Contamination) Team circled the helicopter, waving Geiger-counter probes over the fuselage surfaces, scanning for any radioactive agents that might have escaped from the sinking Chinese nuke.
Arkady was more than a little pleased when the team leader gave him a thumbs-up and pulled his people back.
Standing with one foot still in a fuselage step indent, Arkady peered into the rear cockpit.
“What it is, Mr. Grestovitch, is a successful mission.”
Their hands came up and met in a ritual palm slap.
“Another day in toward five and out, Lieutenant,” the S.O. replied sardonically.
“Still not planning to re-up?”
“I would have to be out of my fucking mind, sir.”
Arkady laughed and dropped to the antiskid decking.
Across the helipad, Lieutenant (j. g.) Nancy Delany leaned against the crash-containment barrier, almost lost in the bulk of her flight suit and survival vest.
As Arkady crossed over to her, he noted that the quiet natured brunette was looking even more somber than usual.
It was understandable. She had served aboard the Duke throughout the Argentine campaign and had seen some hard duty. What she had never done before was to drop the hammer on another human being.
“Well, Nancy. Paint yourself a sub under your cockpit.”
She looked up, and her brown eyes widened. “Me, sir? We both dropped on the sub.”
“Yeah, but I got a good look at that boat when it came to the surface. You dropped off her bow, and as far as I could tell, all of the damage was in her forward aspects. My call is that your unit made the kill, and that’s how I’m writing it up. Welcome to the history books, Lieutenant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you and your S.O. are the first ASW team to ever make a kill on a nuke. I don’t know what kind of decoration authorization is going to be set up for this deal, but you’re going to get some kind of a gong out of it. Count on that.”
She ran a hand through her short, helmet-matted hair and looked back down at the deck for a moment. “Thank you, sir,” she replied softly. “I don’t know what I should feel just now. Excited, or just sick to my stomach.”
“Either one’s valid.” Arkady reached over and rested his hand on the younger aviator’s shoulder for a second. “Stand down and get some rest. We’ve still got another couple of bad boys waiting for us out there.”
“Aye, sir.”
A superstructure hatch swung open and Amanda Garrett, Ken Hiro, and Christine Rendino emerged, hurrying aft along the helideck. Arkady found himself straightening a little as they approached. His first instinct was to go to Amanda and fold her in his arms. Instead, he had to content himself with exchanging the briefest of acknowledging nods.
“Lieutenant Arkady, Lieutenant Delany, very good work, both of you.”
“Our pleasure. Captain,” Arkady replied. “How did the pickup go with the Red submariner?”
“He’s alive, but there are complications. We’re going to check it out now. Arkady, you’re with us. Let’s go.” Proceeding toward the stern, they descended the sloping face of the deck brake to the well deck.
A medical isolation point had been established in the lee of the aft Oto Melara turret, a space outlined in yellow tape marked with the red radiation-warning trifoil. A single, blanket-wrapped form lay within the zone in a basket stretcher. Another figure, clad in a disposable plastic anti contamination suit, was just backing away from the stretcher.
Recrossing the warning line, he stepped clear and allowed a waiting deckhand to sluice him off with a saltwater hose.
A second more and Doc Golden was pulling off his perspiration-hazed hood and protective gloves.
“Is he still alive, Doc?” Amanda asked.
“It depends on your exact definition of alive, Captain.”
There was a tinge of bitterness in Golden’s voice. “His heart’s going to beat for a while. He’s going to breathe. He’s going to feel a lot of pain. However, for all intents and purposes, he’s dead.”
“Radiation poisoning?”
“Putting it mildly.” Golden began peeling off the rest of the coverall. “I think this guy was an engineer, and I think they suffered a massive containment failure in their primary reactor coolant loop. He was wearing one of those old-style film safety badges. The damn thing was jet black from end to end. I have no idea about how many roentgens this man has absorbed, but it’s way over any survival limit.”
Golden paused for a moment as he stuffed the contamination suit into its disposal bag. “God, Captain. He was breathing that shit!”
Amanda took a quick step forward. “What about the rescue detail? Have they been exposed?”
Golden shook his head. “Our people may have picked up a couple of rads, but nothing bad. We had antiradiation protocols in place. I had ‘hosed off up here, and they’re scrubbing down again belowdecks just to make sure. As for the sub guy, he was sloshing around out in the open ocean for better than half an hour. That’s about as good a decontamination as you can get.”
“Can we talk to him?” Christine Rendino asked, her voice flat.
“You can try. I’ve checked him out with a Geiger counter and I can’t find any active gamma sources on him, only alpha and beta secondary radiation from his internal tissues. Just don’t get too close and don’t stay too long.”