The torpedo shuddered and veered, churning water. Abruptly its steady mechanical whir sputtered out. It slowed. Tail first, it began to sink.
Reaching out, Remo wrapped his arms around it and, as the pod of whiting broke in every direction, clearly startled, Remo pushed to the surface.
The torpedo was heavy, but it responded to his upward thrusts. Feet kicking furiously, Remo followed it, pushing at intervals to keep it moving along. Finally he got it to the surface.
Treading water, one arm wrapped around the middle, Remo called up to the cutter deck. "Hey! Lower a net!"
Sandy Heckman's startled face showed at the rail.
"Where did you come from?"
"I dived."
"I didn't hear you. We thought you'd ducked below-decks."
"How about that net? My toes are turning blue."
A net was lowered. It was studded with orange flotation balls, and after Remo got it wrapped around the torpedo, he climbed a stainless-steel hull ladder while the crew hauled up the long object.
On deck Remo said, "It's a torpedo. I disabled it."
"With what?" Sandy wondered aloud, looking the thing over.
"A side kick."
"You kicked it out of commission?"
Remo grinned stiffly. His face was still numb. "You should see me stun a shark with a flick of my finger."
Sandy Heckman seemed unimpressed.
They uncovered the torpedo on the afterdeck and looked it over with cautious respect.
"I don't see a detonator," the helmsman was saying.
"It's a torpedo. No question about that," said Sandy.
"The fish were swimming ahead of it like it was their mother," Remo advised.
"I don't see any manufacturer's mark or serial numbers."
"Maybe they were burned off," said Remo.
Sandy looked up. "Burned off?"
"Yeah. You know, when thieves steal a gun or a car, they burn off the serial numbers with acid so it can't be traced."
"Nice theory. But this doesn't look like an explosive torpedo. The nose is as smooth as an egg."
"Could be a proximity fuse. They don't need to strike a target to blow it up," the helmsman offered.
Sandy stood up and adjusted her gun belt grimly.
"Well, it's ours now. We'll let the experts figure it out."
"Anybody got a cellular phone?" asked Remo.
"Sure. What for?"
"I want to contact my boss. Maybe he has a satellite fix on that sub. If the torpedo was launched from a sub, it can't be too far from here."
A cell phone was produced, and Remo dialed Harold Smith's contact number from the privacy of the bow.
In the middle of the third ring, the phone picked up. And an unfamiliar voice said, "We have lost contact, Commodore."
"Smitty?" asked Remo.
Chiun, hovering close, hissed, "That is not Emperor Smith."
"Shh," said Remo.
A second voice, smooth and almost without accent, said, "Repeat, please."
"There is no telemetry coming from the Hound."
"Take the usual precautions."
"Understood, Commodore," the first voice said, fading slightly. Then it called out, "Transmit selfdestruct signal."
Remo said, "Self-?"
His eyes went to the iron thing on the afterdeck. Sandy Heckman was looking it over with her bone white fists on her orange hips.
Dropping the handset, Remo covered the distance from midships to the afterdeck in two seconds. He took Sandy by her big floppy collar and sent her spinning backward. Her yelp of surprise was lost in the clang of the torpedo after Remo punted it with his naked big toe.
The torpedo shot off the deck, dragging netting along with it, and slipped over the side.
It made a healthy splash, and the salt spray was no sooner pattering on deck than the stern gave a convulsive leap.
A geyser of salt water roared a solid dozen feet over the rail and came down on deck to immerse the spot where Remo had stood. Remo was no longer there. He had faded back, grabbing Sandy Heckman by the waist while on the move.
They were in the shelter of the pilothouse when the cutter's stern finished bucking and wallowing.
"What the hell happened?" the helmsman shouted over the after roar.
"Later, I gotta check the stern," called Remo.
Remo flashed back to the stern and leaned over.
He was looking for diesel fuel and oil. There was neither, just sea foam boiling. A few dead whiting popped to the surface, their eyes looking stunned and incredulous.
Dropping over the side, Remo grabbed on to a coil of nylon line. With this he lowered himself under the waterline, away from the screws.
From below, the cutter looked a little ragged. One screw was turning with a slight wobble. But there were no ruptures, no serious damage.
Going back up the ladder, Remo reached the deck.
Sandy Heckman confronted him. "How did you know it was going to explode?"
"The cellular picked up some kind of transmission about a self-destruct signal. I figured it meant the torpedo."
Sandy frowned. "A cellular shouldn't pick up ship-to-ship radio traffic. It's on the UHF band."
"I know what I heard, but if you want I'll go get the torpedo back and we can try again."
"No, thanks."
The Master of Sinanju came bustling up with the cellular, saying, "Smith desires to speak with you."
Remo took the handset. "Smitty. Is that you?"
"Of course," Smith snapped. "You called me."
"I tried to. I got some kind of intercept."
"I heard it, too. One party calling another 'Commodore.'"
"We almost went down out here, Smitty. We hauled up some kind of dingbat torpedo and it blew up right after the commodore gave the self-destruct signal. I got the torpedo into the water just in time. Not that there's a lot of gratitude floating around," Remo added dryly.
Lieutenant Sandy Heckman pretended not to hear him.
"Listen, Smitty. Can you get a new fix on that sub?"
"I have its position as of four minutes ago."
Remo relayed the coordinates to Sandy.
"We can be there in ten minutes," she said crisply.
"Get us there."
Smith broke in. "Remo, if you intercepted a cellular phone call on the high seas, it had to have come from a boat or submarine."
"My money's on the sub."
"A submarine cannot broadcast while submerged. Therefore, it should be visible on the surface. If you move quickly, you will catch it while it is most vulnerable."
"Great. I'm itching for another crack at that pigboat."
"I want answers first, bodies second."
"You'll get both," Remo promised, snapping the phone off.
Facing the Master of Sinanju, Remo said, "We're about to have our showdown."
"Bodies first, answers second."
"Smitty wants it the other way around," Remo said.
"I am certain you will be able to explain your errors to Emperor Smith without bringing dishonor on the House you have shamed by your abysmal failure," Chiun said thinly.
"You're pretty pissed for a guy who only lost a boatload of fish."
"My soul yearns for good fish."
"Hope tin fish will satisfy you."
The Master of Sinanju looked puzzled. "I have never tasted tin fish. Is it like steelhead trout?"
Chapter 17
Finding the submarine proved the easy part.
The USCG cutter Cayuga hammered along on a dead heading for the coordinates Harold Smith had provided, and abruptly there it was, wallowing in the trough of a wave like a wet black cigar.
"Thar she blows!" said Remo.
They stood in the bow beside the sixteen-inch gun, which was coated with a rime of frozen salt spray.
Lieutenant Sandy Heckman, the floppy collar of her orange Mustang survival suit pulled up to her ears, trained her binoculars on the sub and said, "I never saw a flag like that before."
Chiun's eyes thinned, and he said, "It is a French vessel."
"That's not the French flag."