It took some effort to get the men moving. They were dazed and confused by lack of food, water and air. Once they were moving, however, they were motivated. Slade armed four of them and led them through the now deserted engine room. Up the stairs they went. He stopped them outside an exterior door.
Turning off the lights, he opened the door and scanned the deck. There was an armed patrol that did the circuit of the ship, completing it in fourteen minutes. By his calculations they should be on the other side of the superstructure and just completing their circuit. Looking toward the bow he lowered the lenses of his Night Vision Goggles — nothing.
“We’re going to the lifeboat!” he said. Word went down the line. A renewed sense of hope infused the sailors with desperate energy. Leading the forty-one men along the deck was easy; they knew where they were and where they were heading. They followed Slade at a quick trot.
They reached the freefall lifeboat at the same time Eva and Captain Fletcher reached it. The men didn’t wait but piled into the boat through the aft hatch.
“Once you get in the water head away from the ship as fast as you can. The Key West should be out there; they should see your launch and be there to pick you up.”
“What about you?” Fletcher asked. “You sound as if you’re not coming.”
“I’m not, my job is to make sure this Uranium doesn’t get used by terrorists,” he said. “Now get going.”
Eva stopped by him and kissed him on the cheek again, “Take care of yourself Slade. I won’t forget this; my father won’t forget this.”
Captain Fletcher held out his hand. Slade took it. “Good luck!” the captain told him.
“Skol!” Slade said, giving the secret Vikings farewell.
“Skol!” Fletcher smiled.
Slade closed the hatch and stepped away from the lifeboat. Seconds later the latch released and the lifeboat plunged down the forty-five degree incline and into the water. The ocean completely swallowed the craft, but it bobbed to the surface fifty yards from where it entered the water with the engine running.
The orange lifeboat disappeared into the darkness.
Every light on the freighter came on. Colonel Nikahd’s strident voice sounded over the ship’s speakers, calling out, “All hands on deck! All hands on Deck! Alarm!”
CHAPTER 35: The Galaxus Game
Iranians spilled out onto deck armed and angry, driven by Colonel Nikahd’s fury. The launch of the lifeboat was automatically relayed to the bridge and the Iranian colonel was none too happy about it. When he discovered that all of his hostages were gone he was livid.
The two deck guards were thrown overboard — alive.
The rest of the troops were mustered on deck. They began a painstaking search of the ship. From the announcements Nikahd made over the ships address system, Slade thought Nikahd suspected someone other than Christian Fletcher and his crew but he couldn’t confirm it. So began a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
With almost two hundred men at his disposal, Nikahd could have someone in every section of the ship at once; this made it difficult on Slade, but the darkness helped. He was nearly invisible in his wetsuit. That was good, because Slade couldn’t just hide. Soon after the search started the Galaxus turned south. It took him a few minutes to figure out why. When the engines revved and the Galaxus picked up speed he finally figured it out: Nikahd was after the lifeboat.
The lifeboat was a marvel of modern engineering. It was completely self-contained with its own propulsion system, food, water, and with the ability to right itself if capsized by a wave. It was a true lifeboat, but it wasn’t a speed boat. The one thing the lifeboat could not do was to outrun its mothership. The mothership was supposed to be sinking or sunk; it wasn’t supposed to be tracking the lifeboat with radar and trying to run it down.
That’s exactly what the Galaxus was doing.
Slade intervened, shooting the thick cable running from the radar to the bridge. That effectively blinded the Galaxus; but it also told Nikahd he had a saboteur on board.
Despite the ardent searches Slade made it through the night without any serious encounters but when the Sun dawned things changed.
Slade went below deck, taking refuge in the labyrinth of corridors and storerooms, ductwork and mechanical shafts in the huge ship. He didn’t go deep into the ship, however, because in the back of his mind was the Key West. If Slade were in charge he’d torpedo the freighter, and that thought kept him thinking escape. Of all things that were possible Slade didn’t want to end his career or his life going down with a ship. The thought of drowning in the dark, trapped in the bowels of the Galaxus, sent shivers down his spine.
Possibly to cover his growing unease, or possibly because Slade hated being hunted with no repercussions, Slade took advantage of his situation and turned the table on the Iranians at every opportunity.
When dawn came Nikahd ascertained the position of the lifeboat visually. He came ten points to starboard and ordered the engines full speed ahead. “We’ll ram them! So much for their escape!”
The crew abandoned their search to gather on the bow, eager to watch the destruction of the recalcitrant crew. Everything went according to plan until they closed within a thousand yards of the lifeboat. Nikahd was looking at the lifeboat through his binoculars when the water to the right boiled and turned white.
A great black tower broke the surface of the water followed by the smooth black hull of what could only be an American attack submarine. The boat launched out of the water, pointing directly at the tanker.
A message came over the radio over the international emergency frequency. “Champion Galaxus! Champion Galaxus, this is the USS Key West! Turn away from the lifeboat or we will fire on you and sink you! This will be your only warning!”
“Ram them!” yelled Nikahd’s lieutenant.
Nikahd back handed the officer across the face, knocking him to the deck. The helmsman looked stunned and the ship kept barreling toward the lifeboat. Nikahd shoved the helmsman aside and turned the rudder hard over, veering back east and away from the Key West.
The lieutenant got up, fuming. “You’re letting them get away!”
Nikahd drew his sidearm and shot the man in the face. He glared at everyone else on the bridge. “Does anyone else want to disobey Ayatollah Hayayi’s directives and jeopardize our Holy mission?” When no one spoke up, he said, “Good! Helmsman, steer course one-six-zero degrees. Speed twelve knots!”
“Yes sir!” the helmsman said, taking over.
He told his guards to remove the body of his lieutenant and then promoted the next man in line. Then came a call over his handheld radio.
“Colonel Nikahd, we are in the captain’s cabin; I think you need to see this sir!”
“On my way!” he said curtly. He hurried off the bridge with his private guard of four men. When he reached the cabin at the aft end of the superstructure, there were a dozen soldiers gathered there, murmuring and looking at the bed.
On the bed were four soldiers. Their mouths were stuffed with bacon. The men looked on in horror, imagining themselves humiliated in such a way.
Nikahd ran his hand through his hair, and said, “Our intruder has a strange sense of humor; a Western sense of humor.”
Another call came over the radio. Another man’s voice called for his attention. “Colonel Nikahd, sir, you will want to see this. We are amidships on the starboard side.”