Then they began to back out down the tunnel. When they had gone about a hundred meters, as they were rounding the dogleg, the ship caught against the wall, and the vessel seemed to stall.
“What’s happening?” said Decker. “What’s going on?”
“The starboard manipulator arm is caught,” said Speers. The thrusters moaned, then ground down to a halt.
“What does that mean?”
Speers shook his head. For the first time in the dive he looked worried.
Swenson sighed and said, “It means we’re stuck.”
Chapter 46
The wave encroached upon the Caribbean. On a beautiful, manicured golf course on the island of Bermuda, Seamus Gallagher was enjoying an early-morning round at the Mid Atlantic Golf Club — ignoring every call from his office. He was only on the second hole, a grueling 471-yard par 5, and he was already in trouble. His ball had blown off to the side into the high rough overlooking the Atlantic. He scowled as he tried to get a good look at the pin. It was still pretty dark. He hated par 5s. His eyesight wasn’t what it had been, he recalled nostalgically. He couldn’t even see the fucking flag.
Gallagher settled into his stance, swiveled his hips and studied the ball. Remember the wind, he told himself. He looked back at the distant green. He wiggled his driver. Then he stared down at the ball again. As he began his swing, he was suddenly distracted by a thunderclap to the east. He sliced the ball.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He threw the club down on the ground. Then he stared up at the sky as the ball curved round and tumbled toward the sea, bouncing once on the rocks below before disappearing into the surf. He turned toward his caddy, an old black man with a lime green shirt, but — luckily — the caddy seemed distracted. He hadn’t seen him make a complete and utter fool of himself. The sound of thunder grew more intense.
Gallagher turned to follow the caddy’s gaze and, as he did so, he noticed the tide retreating from the flats at an alarming pace. Where his ball had disappeared — only a moment before, into the surf — was now dry land. “Hey, what the… ” he started to say when he finally noticed the wave.
It was a mile or two away. No, less. At first Gallagher thought he must be seeing things. The wave looked to be fifteen stories high. He picked up his driver. He held it against his chest. “Jesus Christ,” he said, completely stupefied. He looked up at the sky. The wave was already on him. It was already there. And for some reason, his whole life didn’t flash before his eyes, nor did he see his family and friends, the sacred places of his heart. All that he noticed was the divot at his feet, that patch of tattered grass. He bent down to replace it as the wave washed him away.
Speers continued to struggle with the switch panel, trying to leverage the six degrees of movement in the starboard manipulator arm: the shoulder pitch and yaw; the elbow pitch; the wrist pitch and rotation. He even tried to open and close the hand, but the Alvin wouldn’t budge. He cursed and reached for the position feedback master/slave mechanism that controlled the port manipulator. He began to extend the arm. Decker could see the hand outside his view port gradually reach out until it was practically touching the tunnel wall. Then it stopped.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Speers cursed again. “The port manipulator has a maximum extension of seventy-four inches. I was hoping to push us free.”
“No luck?”
“It isn’t long enough,” said Speers. “Hold on. I’ve got an idea.”
Speers pushed the master and the wrist began to torque. “Fully extended,” the pilot continued, “the arm has a lift capacity of only one hundred and fifty pounds. But the wrist torque is rated at thirty feet over pounds, with a rotational speed of sixty-five rpm.”
At first Decker didn’t understand. Then he realized that Speers was trying to use the port manipulator arm to lever the starboard arm away. There was the sound of metal scraping stone. The tunnel wall began to crumble and the ship finally pulled free.
“That was fun,” said Speers, looking over with a grin.
“Yeah,” said Decker, smiling back. “Let’s stay and do it again.”
Speers whooped and laughed as they continued their ascent. Within fifteen minutes, they were back out in the open water of the blowout. But they were running out of time. If they were to detonate the bomb and intercept the mega-tsunami, they’d have to do it while still dangerously close. Without saying it, each of them knew exactly what this meant. The blast would probably kill them. It would hurl the small submersible against the Continental Shelf. Unless they could initiate a considerable amount of negative buoyancy, they’d be smashed to pieces.
“Are you ready?” Speers said, reaching for the console. He had rigged up a temporary firing switch. “We’re at the point of no return.” Decker looked at Swenson. She nodded and turned away.
“Go ahead,” said Decker.
“Fire in the hole,” said Speers and pushed the button.
At first nothing seemed to happen. Not a sound. Not a ripple. Then a huge explosion reverberated through the ship. The shock wave from the nuclear explosion hurled them roughly through the water column. The sound caught up. Decker felt as if his ears were bursting, and the power suddenly cut off. The ship was thrust into darkness.
After a few seconds, the emergency battery-powered lights flashed on. Swenson moved over to assist Speers in the navigation of the ship. Decker felt completely helpless. “What can I do?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Speers, “unless you can replace these thrusters.” He slapped the console and looked up. “Three of them are fried.”
Swenson turned toward Speers and said, “They’re the ones mounted athwartships, in the stern, designed to turn the vessel sideways.”
“Plus forward and reverse,” Speers added bleakly.
“Yeah, but the thrusters amidships, the ones that enable vertical lift are still operational, right?”
“We barely have any power. Even if we could somehow generate more buoyancy, and miraculously miss the shelf, I doubt we’d have enough thrust left to make it to the surface.”
“I don’t like the way that sounds,” said Decker. “Let’s not do that.”
“It’s our only choice,” said Swenson.
They both looked at Decker. He shrugged and tried to smile. “Fine. Let’s do that then. Sounds good. Sounds like a plan.”
Speers laughed and checked the SERVICE RELEASE switch on the service bus to make sure it was in the up position. Then he released the remaining ballast weights by holding the ENABLE switches in the down position, and toggling them for two seconds. The vessel shuddered. The DSV began to climb, then stalled. The current was just too strong.
Suddenly, another noise, as loud as the explosion of the bomb, perhaps louder, echoed through the craft. Decker could feel it in his bones. The ship vibrated as though they were swimming through a kettledrum.
“The shelf-edge,” Swenson cried. “It’s beginning to collapse.”
A sound like two giant steel plates rubbing against each other reverberated through the ship. She was rocked by yet another blast. The DSV began to tumble, to freefall through the ocean depths.
“We’re going to have to blow the ballast tanks,” said Speers. “We’re being sucked down by the shelf.”
“You can’t do that,” cried Swenson. “We’re still below a thousand meters.”
“We’ve got no choice. If we don’t, we’re going to hit the wall.”