Better to run on the surface, with the diesel fully venting topside and fresh air freely available through the boat's deck intakes. Later, the storm might become so rough that he would have to submerge, and when that happened, he wanted a full battery charge to give him a minimum of ten to twelve hours at depth. In the meantime, the fresh air blowing from the bulkhead vents below helped combat the seasickness, and cleaned out the mingled stinks of diesel fuel and vomit — a little, anyway. No man lasted long as a submariner if he didn't have a very strong stomach. "Captain? Captain!"
He looked down at the open sail hatch in the deck beneath his feet. The face of Lieutenant Saad al-Muhabi peered up at him through the circle of the hatch combing.
Ul Haq squatted on his haunches, sheltering his ears from the roar of spray and wind so that he could hear.
"What is it?"
"The prisoners again, sir. They say they're dying, that their sickness is worse."
"They will have to make do."
Al-Muhabi looked worried. "Captain, with respect…"
"What?"
"Sir, there's talk among the crew. They say you're torturing the Americans. The cabin they're locked in… sir, it's a hellhole. It is an affront to Allah, the merciful."
"And what do they suggest that we do, Lieutenant?" he replied. "Throw them overboard?"
"Sir, that might be the kindest thing we could do."
He shook his head. "Our orders are to bring them to Zaki. The leader, DuPont, may have value for the movement."
"If there were only DuPont, there would be no problem, sir. But keeping so many locked in that compartment… Captain, we could at least put the women overboard. They are only women, after all, and their treatment is inflaming the other prisoners, and some of the crew as well."
Al-Muhabi, ul Haq remembered, was Saudi, with the conservative Saudi's belief that women were of less worth than men. As a Pakistani Muslim, ul Haq had a somewhat more liberal view. Women might not be as intelligent or as powerful as men, he believed, but they were still people, not things, not property.
"All have value in Allah's eyes, the men and the women both," ul Haq replied. "The Prophet himself, blessings on his name, declared that women deserve just treatment. It is our duty to keep all of our guests safe."
He thought for a moment. Between the diarrhea and the vomiting, the senior petty officer's quarters must indeed be a hellhole by now.
"Detail extra men to keep watch on the prisoners," he said. "See that they have access to the sanitary facilities every hour, and permit them to shower if they wish. Have someone who speaks English tell them that they will be allowed up on deck for air as soon as this storm is past. That might give them something to look forward to."
"Yes, sir."
"Maintain a guard of two men at the door."
"I do not believe our 'guests,' as you call them, are going anywhere, Captain."
"No. The guards are there to keep out members of the crew who may wish to take advantage of the women… or of the men, for that matter. And two guards allows one to watch the other."
"It almost sounds as though you trust the Americans more than you trust your own crew. Sir."
"I know my crew, Lieutenant. They are men, with men's weaknesses. And they will see the helplessness of our guests as an invitation to take advantage of them. I will not have that."
"Yes, sir."
"In any case, they will not be on board for much longer. We will be rendezvousing with Zaki on our way back to Small Dragon Island."
The other nodded. "That, of course, is the best solution, sir. There is no room for prisoners on board a submarine."
"I agree. Please check with the navigator on watch and get me an expected time of arrival at Waypoint Alif." That was the agreed-upon location, some two hundred kilometers south of Spratly Island, where they would rendezvous with Zaki's yacht.
"Yes, sir." Al-Muhabi ducked back into the hatchway, vanishing down the ladder.
Ul Haq stood up again, drawing a deep breath, savoring the sting of spray on his face.
He was eager to make that rendezvous. He'd talked personally to Zaki over the radio the night before, discussing with him the problem of the prisoners. One or two prisoners could be cared for easily enough, and might indeed have served the purpose of providing a human shield against enemy retaliation, but only if that enemy knew they were on board.
But communicating that fact to the world, enabling them to use the prisoners as an onboard deterrent to attack, was problematical in the first place. And in the second, it was clear that the presence of those prisoners — especially the women — was affecting the morale and the performance of his crew. He needed to get them off the submarine as quickly as he could.
At worst, he would take them back to Small Dragon
Island. Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen needed to refuel and replenish her provisions. But the fact that Zaki was supposed to be near Point Alif for the next several days would let him offload them that much sooner.
"Captain?"
Al-Muhabi was back. There was an intercom speaker on the sail's weather bridge, of course, but it could be difficult to hear in this kind of wind. He squatted down again, the better to hear the man. "Yes?"
"The navigator says — if we can maintain twenty knots — fifteen hours."
He nodded. "Excellent." By one o'clock tomorrow afternoon, the prisoners would be someone else's problem… thanks be to a merciful Allah.
"Captain?"
"Yeah."
"Weps wants permission to take the weapons systems off-line."
Garrett looked up, meeting Jorgensen's gaze. The direct eye contact was almost more than he could stand, and he looked back down at the touchscreen on his board. "Why?"
"He's swapping out some of the 3Cs in the firing circuits. Remember?"
Garrett looked up again. He'd heard the worry in Jorgensen's voice. Had he done something or forgotten something to trigger the XO's concern?
This time it was Jorgensen who first broke the uncomfortable eye contact, checking something on the clipboard in his hand. "The swap-out's on the sched, sir. You approved it."
"Yes, XO. I remember." He sighed. "Sorry, Pete. Woolgathering. My mind was somewhere else."
"Not a problem, sir."
"He's sure the swap-out won't leave us toothless for more than twenty-four hours?"
"That's what he says, sir. Although there's always the unexpected."
"That is God's own fucking truth."
Jorgensen started at that, and Garrett realized how tightly wound the man was right now. Garrett rarely, if ever, used profanity, and his sailor's talk must have caught the exec off guard. Or had it been the intensity with which he'd said it?
It didn't matter. He was going to have to watch himself more closely, keep a tighter rein on the emotions galloping through his brain. It wouldn't do to let his officers or the crew know just how shaken he was.
"The People's Republic is still right off the starboard beam, XO," he said. "And we still don't know what their intentions are, what they're up to. I'm a bit nervous about entering the South China Sea without torps or Tomahawks."
"Same here, Captain. But we agreed that it made more sense to take both systems off-line at the same time, so that we have both when we reach the Spratlys."
"I know. Pass the word to the sonar boys, would you? I want an extra sharp set of ears out in these waters." Jorgensen didn't answer, and Garrett pressed him. "What?"