Spartan Gold - Cussler Clive. Страница 28

He took a final breath, then dove to the bottom. Flashlight extended before him, he wriggled through the sub’s dome hatch and turned aft. He knew from his cursory study of Kriegsmarine subs back in the Pocomoke, the nose section of a Marder-class boat held only a seat and some rudimentary steerage and diving controls. What he was looking for—the scuttle valves—would be in the tail section. Pulling and pushing himself along the interior piping, he felt the cylindrical walls close around him, felt the darkness and the water pressing him, crushing him. He felt the hot bloom of fear in his chest. He quashed it and refocused: Scuttle valve, Sam. Scuttle.

He shined his flashlight left, right, ahead. He was looking for a lever, a raised cylindrical fitting in the hull. . . . And then, suddenly, there it was, ahead and to the left. He reached out, grasped the lever, and heaved. Stuck. He drew his dive knife, wedged it between the lever and hull, then tried again. With a squelch and spurt of rust, the lever gave way. Lungs pounding, he turned to the opposite valve, repeated the process, then backed out and finned to the surface.

“You okay?” Remi called.

“Define okay.”

“Not mortally wounded.”

“Then, yes, I’m okay.”

The next part of the plan took three hours, most of which they spent sorting and splicing the rope the Germans had left behind, about half of which was either completely rotted or so weakened Sam wasn’t willing to trust it. They would get only one chance at what they were attempting, he told Remi. If they failed, they would have to turn to her signal fire idea and hope help would arrive before the smoke killed them.

After four hours, at nearly two A.M. according to Sam’s watch, they were almost ready. They stood at the edge of the pier, studying their handiwork.

Two quadruple-braided lines, one secured to the sub’s bow and the other to its stern cleats, rose from the water to the ceiling, where Remi, superb climber that she was, had threaded each through a catwalk ceiling eyelet. From there, each line dropped down again and was tied off to a cable under the catwalk planking. The vertical support cables were themselves connected, midpoint to midpoint, by a carefully constructed spiderweb of rope. To one of the cables—the farthest one from the lines secured to the sub—Sam had lashed one of their scuba tanks.

“So,” Remi said. “Let’s review: You shoot the tank, the blast sheers the cables, the catwalk drops, the sub pops to the surface, and the water drains out. Is that it?”

“More or less. The tank won’t explode, but it’ll take off like a rocket. If I’ve rigged it right, the torque should part the weakened cables. Beyond that, it’s all math and chaos theory.”

Estimating the weight of the sub and the water inside it, as well as the combined weight of the catwalks and the shearing limit of the cables, had given Sam a headache, but he was fairly confident in his process. Using the ancient and rusted but still-serviceable hacksaw they’d found in the toolbox he’d cut halfway through eleven of the eighteen vertical catwalk cables.

“And gravity,” Remi added, curling her arm in his. “Win or lose, I’m proud of you.” She handed him the revolver. “It’s your mouse-trap. You get the honors.”

They climbed behind the protective bulwark of crates they’d assembled at the far end of the dock and made sure everything was snug around them, save Sam’s firing slit.

“Ready?” he asked.

Remi cupped her ears and nodded.

Sam braced his gun hand on his opposite forearm, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

The gun’s report was instantly overwhelmed by a whump-whoosh, a flash of light, the shriek of rending steel, and a thunderous splash.

Sam and Remi peeked their heads above the bulwark but for ten full seconds could see nothing but a fine mist filling the cavern. Slowly it cleared. They climbed out and walked to the edge of the pier and looked down.

“Never had any doubt,” Remi murmured.

The Marder-class mini submarine UM-77, having spent the last sixty years of its life lying on the bottom of a sea cave, now sat perfectly upright on the surface, water gushing from its scuttles.

“Beautiful,” was all Sam could say.

CHAPTER 20

With a reverberating gong that both Sam and Remi felt in their heads, the sub glanced over another boulder, tipped hard to port, then snapped upright and nosed over, plunging back into the river’s main channel. Water sluiced over the acrylic dome, obscuring Sam’s view for a few moments, then cleared. He clicked on the flashlight and shined it over the bow, but could see only rock walls flashing past on either side and whitewater crashing over the nose cone. The deadly seriousness of the experience notwithstanding, it was a lot like a ride at Disney World, Sam decided.

“You okay back there?” he called.

Remi, lying behind the cockpit seat, arms braced against the hull, shouted back, “Peachy! How long have we been going?”

Sam checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

“My God, is that all?”

After recovering from the mild shock that their plan had actually worked, Sam and Remi had climbed into the water and hung from the sub’s bow line, lifting the nose a few more inches off the surface and allowing the rest of the water to drain out. Remi had then crawled inside and closed both scuttles.

From there they’d had little work to do: check the sub for leaks and shore up the inside with a few carefully positioned planks from the catwalk. The fifty-gallon ballast tanks—a four-inch pipe running lengthwise down the port and the starboard side—were full and nicely balanced the sub.

Satisfied they were as prepared as possible, they’d caught four hours of sleep huddled together on the pier in a circle of lanterns. At dawn, they’d risen, eaten a breakfast of tepid water and damp beef jerky, then piled a few essentials into the sub and climbed aboard. Using a catwalk plank, Sam had paddled the sub to the mouth of the river tunnel, then closed the hatch and held on.

So far the sub’s reinforced aluminum hull was holding up well, but they both knew geology was also on their side: While the tunnel walls were still jagged, the rocks and boulders in the channel itself had long ago been smoothed by erosion, leaving no sharp edges to rip the hull.

“Brace yourself!” Sam called. “Big rock!”

The sub’s nose slammed squarely into the boulder, rose up and over the crest, then veered left. The current caught the tail section and spun it around, slamming the hull against the wall.

“Ouch!” Remi shouted over the rush.

“Okay?”

“Just another bruise for my collection.”

“We’ll get you a Swedish massage when we get back to the Four Seasons.”

“I’ll hold you to that!”

One hour turned into two as Sam and Remi rode the rapids, the sub caroming off the walls, vaulting over boulders, and tossing from one side to the other in the water. Occasionally they would find themselves in wider, calmer parts of the river, allowing Sam to open the dome and let in some fresh air to supplement the oxygen Remi was intermittently pumping into the space via their remaining scuba tank.

Almost like clockwork every few minutes the sub slammed into a jumble of boulders and they would find themselves beached, the sub either lying on its side or perched above the rapids, balanced like a teeter-totter. Each time either they would dislodge themselves by gently rocking from side to side until the sub slipped back into the channel or Sam would have to open the dome and push and lever them free using his plank paddle.