Dr. Nassiri dropped the periscope and stepped up to it. He was surprised to see the sun in the sky. Daylight already and he hadn’t slept. Fortunately Fatima had found a quiet place to get some rest; he supposed she needed it more than he did.
Alexis yawned, mirroring his exhaustion. Dr. Nassiri felt terrible, his eyes sunken, face unshaven, complete exhaustion anchoring every sigh and footstep.
Visible through the periscope, a single wispy column of smoke rose from the horizon. Alexis kept the submarine on course, advancing on the mysterious target. Before them, the smoking hulk of a ship lay dead in the water.
“It’s the Horizon,” announced Dr. Nassiri. “Continue forward, dead slow.”
“Dead slow,” confirmed Alexis as she piloted the submarine ahead.
The Scorpion edged closer to the hulk as Dr. Nassiri scanned the area for any remaining pirates. None appeared on the radar screen or through the periscope. They’d either given up the chase or decided the smoking wreck was not worth retrieving.
“Surface,” he ordered. The Scorpion rose through the water, her conning tower slicing through a dissipating biodiesel slick.
“What should we do?” asked Alexis.
“I’m going to take a look,” said the doctor.
He left the command compartment, made his way through the engine compartment and stepped into the bunk room. Vitaly could continue sleeping but he’d need Fatima. He gently touched his mother’s shoulder, allowing her to gradually wake.
“What is it?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“We’ve found the Horizon. She’s dead in the water.”
“Any sign of Klea? Or the pirates?”
“No pirates,” said Dr. Nassiri. “And no signs of life. I’m going to take a look; I’d like you to accompany me.”
“Of course,” said Fatima. “Give me a moment to dress.”
Fatima followed him up the interior ladder of the conning tower. Dr. Nassiri wrestled with the hatch until it came free and squeaked open. He lifted himself outside, feeling better for a moment as sunshine and fresh air washed over him. For the first time, he could see the true extent of the damage inflicted when the Fool’s Errand rammed the Scorpion. Much of the steel plating behind the conning tower was torn away down to the pressure hull. Chunks of carbon fiber and aluminum were still stuck in the submarine’s skin like shrapnel. Thick gouges and scars covered much of the rear of the submarine.
The still-smoldering hulk of the Horizon bobbed in the water. Dr. Nassiri descended the conning tower, paused for a moment, then jumped onto the nearest pontoon of the experimental yacht. Hand over hand, he made his way to the main body, to the cockpit, and the fantail. The entire cockpit of the ship had been completely torn open by a single explosion, laying the interior bare to the hot sun beating down from overhead.
The yacht was an unsalvageable mess. She was completely holed; the only thing keeping her afloat was her half-empty pontoon fuel tanks. Seawater washed over the deck, more with each passing wave. Fatima leapt onto the fantail, awkwardly clambering up to join her son.
“Any bodies?” she asked.
“No,” said Dr. Nassiri. “No bodies.”
“The pirates could have taken them. Or just dumped them at sea.”
Dr. Nassiri said nothing. Fatima tapped a nearby railing.
“There was a lifeboat here,” she said. “Maybe they escaped in that.”
“Doubtful,” said Dr. Nassiri.
“What do you want to do? They’re not here.”
Dr. Nassiri stood for a moment, watching the Horizon toss in the waves, flexing and groaning with each movement. Jonah must be dead. The alternatives were worse — captured or floating alone in an unforgiving ocean, far from shore. Every professional instinct in his body insisted to him the hopelessness of the situation.
“We stay,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Jonah is not a man to give up. Neither shall we. We will search until we find him.”
CHAPTER 14
Jonah slowly stirred awake, sunlight easily penetrating the thin safety-orange ceiling to the ten-man inflatable raft. His gaze fell across Klea, who stared at him cross-armed as if she were trapped in the raft with a tiger.
“How can you sleep?” she demanded, her fierce eyes flashing.
Jonah gave her a pained smile but didn’t answer.
“I’m actually asking you how you can sleep right now,” she said. “It’s not a rhetorical question.”
“It’s a trick every sat diver picks up eventually,” Jonah answered. “Learn to sleep anywhere. You don’t know when or where your next snooze is coming, so you have to get ’em in as you can.”
“What’s a sat diver?”
“Saturation diver,” said Jonah. “Like recreational SCUBA divers, but much deeper and for industrial projects. Oil and gas industry, shipwrecks, that sort of thing. We stay underwater or in a pressurized environment for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Atmospheric gasses dissolve into our tissues to the point of saturation.”
“Tell me how you do it. How do you sleep like that?”
“I don’t know. Try forcing yourself to stay awake.”
“That’s stupid,” she said.
Jonah pulled himself up against one of the bumpers of the circular raft, using the wall for support. The raft was relatively well stocked. A side pocket held bottles of water amounting to about three gallons, fishing gear, a small knife, medical kit, and flashlight. He reached up and checked his slashed arm, finding it not as bad as he’d feared. It’d long since stopped bleeding, probably wouldn’t even need stitches. Good. He wasn’t looking forward to sewing himself up with repurposed fishing gear.
“What about you? How did you sleep when you were a prisoner on your ship?”
“Routine,” said Klea. “My captors gave me small electronics projects to work on, mostly from their outboard motors. Sometimes televisions or radios. I think they were running a little side electronics repair business for the locals. I’d work on those for most of the day. I’d make myself meals from whatever they’d bring me. I worked on the Horizon and made weapons all night. And then I’d do exercises until my arms and legs couldn’t move. I’d get maybe three or four hours of sleep if I was lucky.”
“Three hours a night? That sucks.”
“So what’s your secret?”
“My first rotation on a research ship was pretty rough. I was part of a base crew for a saturation expedition to a sunken turn-of-the-century ocean liner. Spent more time dodging hurricanes than we spent actually getting any work done. I barely slept. Every night was the same. We’d ride these waves like a roller coaster; bow in, one after another. Eventually I would get used to the rhythm and fall sleep. But then we’d have to turn around so that we weren’t so far off station when the storm ended. The ship would start to change course and we’d take a massive three, four story wave almost completely broadside. The entire ship would heel over nearly forty-five degrees. Anything not strapped down would go flying across the entire breadth of the ship. Terrifying. I’d get jolted completely awake. For a moment, I’d be absolutely convinced that the ship was going to turn turtle and I was about to drown.”
“How long did this last?”
“Weeks. Eventually, I realized I could catch a few minutes here and again if I slept in my full uniform and steel-toed boots. Maybe part of my brain figured it was safe to sleep if I could wake up at a moment’s notice and make a run for it. Eventually I didn’t need the boots anymore.”
“What’s your name?” asked Klea out of the blue.
“Jonah. Jonah Blackwell.”