Eddie turned to Juan. “It’s routine. They’ve been doing this ever since I entered the harbor. Every couple of hours a single patrol boat races along the dock. I think they’re searching for sailors trying to jump ship.”
“If he maintains his course, he’s going to pass right over us.”
“Does that class of boats carry sonar?” Max asked.
Juan checked the computer again. “Doesn’t say.”
“What do you want me to do?” Eddie’s voice remained calm and professional. “Keep running, or settle onto the bottom and let him pass?”
Cabrillo checked his watch again. They’d traveled little more than a quarter mile. Too close. “Keep going. If he hears us or detects our wake, he’s going to have to slow and turn back to try to find us again. We only need six minutes.”
A moment later the four men inside the minisub could hear the thrash of the patrol boat’s props through the water, an angry sound that rose in pitch as the craft drew closer. As it roared overhead the din filled the hull, and the men waited expectantly to hear if it would come back for another pass. The moment stretched as time turned elastic. Max and Hali let out their breaths as the patrol boat continued on. Cabrillo kept his eyes glued to the sonar screen.
“They’re turning,” he remarked a second later. “Coming back for another look. Hali, check the radio, see if he’s transmitting.” Hali Kasim headed the
The communications suite aboard the
“I’m not getting anything,” Kasim answered after a few moments.
The North Korean patrol boat crossed over the minisub again, and the men heard her engines throttle back.
“They’re pacing us,” Eddie said.
The powerful sonar picked up a pair of splashes too small to be depth charges. Juan knew immediately what was about to happen. “Brace yourselves!”
The grenades were knockoffs of the Soviet RGD-5, and while they only contained four ounces of high explosives, the water amplified their explosive power. The two grenades went off nearly simultaneously just yards behind the Discovery. The sub pitched up by the stern, knocking Hali Kasim against a bank of batteries. Eddie fought to bring her nose up as the murky bottom suddenly loomed outside the large acrylic view port. With their ears ringing, no one heard a second pair of grenades hit the water. They blew just above the minisub, slamming her into the mud just as Eddie got her on an even keel. Billows of silt exploded around the Discovery, cutting visibility to zero. Electricity arced and snapped from a loose connection in dazzlingly bright flashes that temporarily blinded the men.
Eddie quickly powered down the sub to give Max a chance to fix the connection. By the glow of a miniature flashlight clamped between his teeth, the engineer worked to bypass the affected row of batteries, but the damage had been done. The flashes of electricity could be seen from the surface through the sub’s portholes and looked like an eerie blue glow from the depths.
“They’ve got us now,” Hali said. “They’re transmitting something. Just a short message, but I think the jig is up.”
“How’s it coming, Max?” Cabrillo inquired with no more concern than if he were asking when coffee would be ready.
“Just a few more seconds.”
“Anything from shore yet, Hali?”
“Negative. The brass must be mulling over the report from the patrol boat.”
“Got it,” Max announced. “Eddie, turn her back on.”
Eddie Seng hit a button, and the display screens lit with their muted glimmer.
“Okay, Eddie, emergency blow. Bring us to the surface.”
“The patrol boat’s right above us, boss.”
Cabrillo’s response was a dark smile.
“There goes our warranty,” Eddie muttered, then blew ballast from the Discovery’s tanks with compressed air. The little sub seemed to launch itself from the bottom. He watched the depth gauge and called out the numbers. When he said there were only five feet of water over the Disco’s top deck, all four men instinctively ducked lower in their seats.
The steel hull slammed into the underside of the North Korean craft with a deafening screech. The sub was several tons lighter than the patrol boat, but her upward momentum tipped the Koreans until their starboard rail was in the water. One crewman had his legs crushed when he was pitched over the side by a rolling fuel drum. Juan reached across Eddie and punched the command for a crash dive before the upper deck broke the surface.
High-speed pumps filled the ballast tanks in under fifteen seconds, and the Discovery dropped like a stone.
