Using his tools, Dex broke the tag loose without extensive effort, and slipped it into his collection bag. He checked his gauges, then signaled Tommy to back out of the torpedo room.
“We have enough time to check that hatch to the aft deck-housing if you want,” he said.
Tommy gave him a thumbs-up. “This might be our last chance. Let’s do it.”
Several minutes of careful maneuvering had them in the engine room amidst the crumbling banks of batteries. Atop a short ladder lay the access hatch to the deck above them. Tommy floated up and gave the wheel a wrenching yank counter-clockwise — it should have been enough to break open the seal, but the hatch refused to disengage.
“Hmmmm,” he said. “Stuck.”
“You’re kidding,” said Dex.
Tommy braced himself as best he could with tanks and equipment in the way, pulled again.
This time, there was a loud squeak as the hatch wheel turned.
“How ’bout that? You want me to go up first?”
“Easy. Slow. Just get your head up there and take a look first, okay?
Tommy nodded and he worked his hand holding his big flashlight up ahead of him. “Looks really dark up there.”
“Get yourself through the hatch and wait for me.”
Tommy slipped through the opening and Dex squeezed through as soon as he cleared the space. The darkness of the hangar was enhanced by the open area, nothing close enough to reflect nearby light. Dex played out the yellow-white beam of his torch and suddenly broke the surface of the water.
What?
Looking to his right, he saw the bright red color of Tommy’s suit, gestured at him.
“There’s an air pocket in here.”
“Yeah, amazing…”
“All this time, and it’s still tight as a crab’s ass.” Dex figured he should lift his mask to check the air, which would be stale and foul at best. If bearable, they could save some of their mix.
At the same time, Tommy’s light touched the fuselage of a plane painted in green and gray camo. “Wow! Check it out, Dex.”
They were both standing on the hangar deck, with water just past their knees. Tommy took a step toward the plane, and Dex reached out to stop him. “Hold it. You don’t know what’s in there.”
“Huh?”
Holding up his index finger, indicating him to wait, Dex lifted his mask off his face, sucked in a quick breath. He could almost taste the air, like putting your tongue on a slab of metal.
“Hey, guys?” said Don Jordan through the Divelink. “What’s going on? You forget about us?”
“Looks like we’ve got a light-to-medium bomber in here. Seaplane. You copy, Donnie?”
“No kidding. In good shape?”
“Looks perfect,” said Dex. “Never used.”
Tommy began to video the scene and Dex moved closer to touch the engine cowling. Even in the shadows beyond their torchlights, Dex could see the configuration of a sleek, pontooned plane, its pinioned wings tucked tight against it fuselage like a falcon sleeping on its perch. Along the bottom of the fuselage, he saw the bomb bay doors cantilevered to their widest open positions.
Tommy moved closer, still shooting video. “Hey look… how come the bottom’s open?”
“Approach with extreme caution,” said Dex. “There’s something I should tell you.”
“Huh?” said Don in the headset. “What? What’s going on?”
“Hang on…” said Dex. “I’ll let you know in a sec.”
Motioning Tommy away from the open bomb bay, Dex moved in to shine his light up into the belly cavity. He hesitated for an instant, not sure he wanted to see what he knew lay in wait for them.
“Hey, Dex!” Donnie’s voice sounded sharp and high on the radio. “Looks like we’re getting some company.”
Dex gestured to Tommy to hold up, then he spoke into his mic again: “What’s that? Who? What’re you talking about? What is it?”
“Don’t know. Some kind of aircraft. Still way out there.”
“Maybe you should check in with the Coast Guard?” Dex said quickly. “See if it’s them?”
There was a short pause as Dex moved through the murky confines.
“Okay, I just did. No reply yet…”
“Keep me in the loop. We’re on our way up.”
“Copy that.”
Dex looked up at the open belly of the bomber, then backed away. Alarms were going off in his subconscious. They were telling him to get out. Now.
“Tommy, get down the hatch. We’ve got to get topside.”
“Gotcha.”
Dex watched him slip beneath the stale water and enter the hatch. Precious seconds passed, then: “I’m clear,” said Tommy.
“Right behind you.” Dex flashed his light on the seaplane one last time, re-adjusted his mask and regulator before he slipped into the water. When he descended through the hatch, Tommy was half-floating past the bank of batteries, panning his torchlight back and forth, waiting for him. Dex gestured toward the bulkhead door that would get them back to conning tower and the hatch to the bridge.
“We’re getting ready to exit,” said Dex into his mic. “You copy, Donnie?”
There was another pause as Don left the base unit mic open, then: “Hey, I can see it now — a chopper heading this way, from the southeast. Low. And Jesus, this mother is fast! Coming up on starboard and—”
There was a blur of sound that could have been helicopter rotors or… a slurry burst from a big automatic weapon.
Then the Divelink went dead.
Dex followed Tommy out through the hatch and once in the open, he strained to see his red suit through the brackish water.
“Dex, you hear that? What the fuck!”
“Don’t know yet. Head up slowly. On an angle.” Pulling out his Spyderco marine blade, he sawed through the safeline attached to the inflatable buoy.
“Huh?”
“We need to get away from that line and the wreck! You hear me?”
Muffled sounds pushed through the water, dissipated by distance and the currents. Sounds that could be anything from an aircraft in trouble to gunfire. Tommy gave him a thumbs-up, and starting flippering horizontally away from the 5001. Dex caught up and guided him farther west of their position. He didn’t like it. Sounded like very bad news up there.
He’d caught up with Tommy and continued to swim away from the wrecksite as fast as possible. Checking his air, they had less than five minutes left in their tanks.
A lot could happen in five minutes.
He touched Tommy’s shoulder, pointed to his Divelink mic, unplugged the lead as he jettisoned the transceiver. Looking at Tommy, he gave him a thumbs down. No more talking on that thing.
Tommy nodded, disconnected his own unit and dumped it.
Dex didn’t want anybody using it to track them. Watching the units sink out of sight made him feel a little less exposed.
They spent the next sixty seconds angling slightly up and as far from the wreck as possible. There was no way to tell how far they’d moved laterally, but they had closed the distance to the surface by twenty feet or so. Tommy looked over and Dex gestured for him to continue along the same generally ascendant course when the explosion resonated through water behind them.
Dex barely had a chance to twist himself around, turning face-up to the surface, when the shock wave rippled over him. Like being whacked with a wide paddle, the wave starched him flat, then passed through the soft tissues of his organs. Like getting hit by car, so hard that his breath pushed the regulator out of his mouth like a bellows. Dex fought to force it back between his teeth and pull another lungful of air before he passed out. Luckily he and Tommy had gotten far enough away to avoid the lethal perimeter of an underwater blast.
No way the Sea Dog had been so lucky.