“Hovering at periscope depth at the rendezvous point, Captain. I finally have visual on the helicopter.”
“Flood the forward escape trunk.”
“Aye, sir, flood the forward escape trunk,” Voorheese repeated back. “Chief of the Watch.
Flood the forward escape trunk.” Kane looked up at the control room’s periscope-view monitor, the screen set up in the overhead of the room above the attack center. The helicopter now filled the high-power view.
“Do a horizon scan, Officer of the Deck,” Kane ordered Voorheese.
Fixating on the helicopter could make him miss an oncoming merchant ship appearing on the horizon. “Aye, sir.”
“Offsa’deck, sir, forward escape trunk flooded,” the chief of the watch reported from the forward port wraparound ballastcontrol panel. “Open the upper hatch,” Kane commanded. “And find the helicopter again.” Voorheese gave the order to open the escape-trunk upper hatch, then turned his attention back to the periscope, the view in low power showing the approaching helicopter, the image shift to high power revealing the markings on the chopper’s sides, the door open, the feet of two men sticking out. The admiral and his aide, done up in scuba gear. Typical, Kane thought. It seemed overly flashy, intended to wow the crew. An admiral swimming aboard in scuba gear was as radical as the queen of England wearing a thong bikini.
Pacino moved up to the chopper’s open door, dangling his flippers over the sea, some fifteen feet down. White moved up next to him.
“The periscope is in sight. Admiral. We’re setting up now.”
Pacino checked Paully, who looked pale behind his mask. White had told Pacino it had been years since he had been diving. Pacino had been away from it for ten years, but how hard could it be?
The chopper slowed and hovered, the sea below deep blue with whitecaps from the stiff breeze. Pacino looked out at the sea and the sky, his habit to enjoy his last air before going into a sub still compelling. He took a breath, aware that he’d be breathing canned air for the next weeks. He exhaled, clamped the regulator into his mouth, tested the air and nodded at Paully. He pulled the mask onto his face, careful not to disturb the black eyepatch over his left eye. Going into the water with full scuba gear could be tricky, he remembered. The idea was to make water entry without losing equipment.
“Ready when you are. Admiral,” the copilot shouted.
Pacino waved at the pilots, put his left hand on his mask and regulator, his right on the strap for his canister, looked down at the water, bent low at the waist and leaned out over the water until he fell out of the chopper.
The freefall into the sea was busy with sensations, the violent wind from the rotors of the gray-and-black Sea King machine floating above him, the sea careening toward him, his flippers breaking the surface, the sea coming up to splash into his face, threatening to knock off his mask. Pacino’s instinct took over as he went underwater, the brainstem telling him not to breathe. He had to force himself to take the first breath from the tanks. He looked for Paully, swimming back to the surface to find him. When his mask broke the surface he could see the helicopter flying away, its noise gone ever since he’d hit the water.
Paully was on the surface. Pacino looked for the periscope, finding it silhouetted against the sun. He nodded to Paully and they swam on the surface until they got to the periscope. Pacino then jackknifed his body so that his head went down, the mast of the periscope extending into the darker depths. He kicked his fins, swimming downward, the air flowing naturally now. The feeling of incredible freedom flooded him, the sea around him now welcoming instead of nightmarish. The water was pleasantly warm against his skin inside the wet suit.
Pacino’s ears were now compressing in the pressure, the pain coming slowly, then urgently. He grabbed his nose through the rubber of the mask, clamped his nostrils shut and blew against his sinuses until his eardrums blew back out, equalizing through his Eustachian tubes, the pain gone.
