Blank Slate (A Kyle Jackle Thriller) (21 page)

Rivera continued to scan the length of the boat ready to fire at any remaining signs of resistance as they approached the vessel, but it looked like if there were any survivors, they had wisely decided to stay out of the fight. Davis grabbed the rail and vaulted onto the deck, closely followed by Miller while Rivera continued to keep watch with the .50. Within a minute, they reappeared with the only two survivors-the captain who had somehow survived the hail of bullets in the pilothouse and then engineer they found hiding below decks. Neither seemed to be much of a threat.

I was quickly running out of fresh ideas. It seemed time was at a standstill since we had been hit, but in reality it had only been a couple of hours at most. I was worried about Tasha-she seemed withdrawn, understandably overwhelmed by the events that had occurred.

“Tasha,” I said trying to sound as upbeat as possible under the circumstances. “I’m sure we have some help on the way soon. The Dolce Vita was under satellite surveillance all the way to this bay. I’m sure that by now they’ve located us. Just a matter of waiting for them to get here.”

“How long can we wait?” she asked. “What if they can’t locate us?”

“We have plenty of air,” I said pointing at the racks of scuba tanks lining the wall. The problem is we have no way to vent the CO2 in the cabin. I figure two days at most before it hits a dangerous level.”

“Those are scuba tanks-can’t we use those to get out?” Tasha asked with a spark of hope in her voice.

“Nice idea, but won’t work. We have the tanks, but there’s not a scuba regulator to hook to the tank that we can actually breathe through. I think our best shot is to blow all the tanks and see if the buoyancy is enough to float us to the surface for a few seconds. We need to do it now, before the aft compartment is completely flooded. You ready?”

“Sounds like our best option,” Tasha agreed. “What do you need from me?”

I pointed at the panel with the controls for the two main ballast tanks, the fore and aft trim tank, and the safety tank. “I’ll take care of the main tanks and you handle the auxiliary tanks. We’ll blow them all at once and hope for the best. If we make it to the surface, I’ll crack the hatch-we might only have five or ten seconds to get clear before the boat sinks again. You ready?”

Tasha tightly gripped the control valves for the auxiliary tanks while I held on the valves for the main tanks. “I’m ready,” she said with only a slight edge to her voice to betray her nervousness.

I smiled encouragingly at her. “OK vent tanks on 3..2..1…vent tanks!” I said pushing the levers forward and holding them open while Tasha did the same.

The sound of all the high pressure tanks discharging at once was like the wailing of a thousand banshees as the air rushed in displacing the heavy seawater in the tanks. I could feel the bow of the submarine break free of the sandy bottom followed seconds later by the mid section. The deck was inclined at a sixty-degree angle as the stern continued to hold us captive on the ocean floor.

I glanced at the gauges-the tanks were eighty percent empty and I could feel the stern starting to break loose. Suddenly, we were free! The submarine was drifting slowly upward as the remaining seawater was pumped out. …And then a horrendous cracking sound as the overstressed main ballast tank in the stern ruptured.

“Hold on, I yelled as the rear tank flooded and the submarine tilted to an almost vertical position. Tasha, hanging by her arms from the valves, landed lightly on her feet on the bulkhead as she suddenly lost her grip. I slapped the valves forward to reflood the forward tanks.

“Tasha, adjust your position-the bow will be coming down now,” I said as the buoyant bow filled with water once again and slowly settled to the bottom.

“Son of a bitch!” I swore. “We almost had it.”

I took a couple of deep breaths-so damn close-might as well have been a million miles.

“OK, Tasha-on to the next plan. According to this, we have enough breathing air for maybe two days,” I said tapping on the gauges above the helm station. “I’m not sure can expect a rescue. We’re going to have to try something else-fairly risky, but we’re running out of options.”

She perked up at that news. “What are you thinking? I’m not too excited about the idea of just waiting around for rescue either. I’d rather die trying than sit around doing nothing.”

“Keep that attitude-we’ll need it. The problem is that the rear compartment is flooded and we have no way of opening the forward hatch because the pressure from the outside ocean is pushing it closed. The only way out is to open the rear bulkhead and flood the forward compartment.”

She looked at me aghast. “You call that an idea? Sounds like drowning sooner rather than later.”

“It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The pressure from the water in the stern will compress the air in the bow as it floods in-we’ll still have a bubble to breathe in. As soon as the pressure equalizes, we open the rear hatch and swim out. Can’t be more than eighty feet to the surface.”

“Did I mention I’m a terrible swimmer?”

Our conversation was interrupted by a low-pitched thrumming noise vibrating through the hull. Tasha and I listened intently as the sound seemed to intensify and then stop suddenly.

“That sounds like a boat overhead. I’m going to make a wild guess and assume those are the same ones who put us on the bottom a few hours ago. I think our idea of waiting for rescue just went out the window.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We’ll to start, I think it’s time for me to take a little swim. Seems a shame not to drop in for a visit on our friends up top.”

A moment of rummaging near the helm station produced a couple of flashlights. They looked waterproof, but I couldn’t count on that. “Tasha, you keep this one. When I flood the compartment, the forward battery bank will be the first thing submerged-probably no more than a couple of minutes before we lose the lights. It might be an hour before I’m back. Just stay as dry as you can and concentrate on keeping your breathing slow to save your oxygen.”

A quick hug and I turned my attention to the rear bulkhead. This had to be done carefully. I knew that the aft compartment was almost completely flooded and that the door would explode inward from the pressure of the water in the compartment. There were four dogs on the hatch. I carefully opened two of them. Water began to jet from the seal to the compartment. Not enough-it would take hours to fill at this rate. I eased off the other two a turn at a time. The water became a torrent-like standing in front of several firehouses at once. I held my breath and tried to avoid the brunt of the high-pressure jet.

After a few minutes, the flow of water began to slow as the pressure began to equalize. Glancing toward the bow, Tasha was standing in water up to her chest, looking a little scared, but being careful to hold her flashlight clear of the water. I gave her a quick thumbs up and opened the bulkhead hatch completely. Thirty seconds to hyperventilate and flush the CO2 from my lungs and then I ducked into the water leading to the stern with my flashlight.

Thirty feet to the rear, I could see the outline of the hatch just over the diesel engine. It looked like four dogs to hold the hatch in place. Maybe twenty seconds to loosen each dog. First three-opened in record time. The fourth-stuck- maybe from the concussion of the outside blast. I had been down for a little over a minute. The first strident voices of panic began sounding in my brain. No time for thinking-I needed air now as the building CO2 in my lungs increased my need to take a breath. Reversed direction heading back to the bow of the boat when my flashlight failed me. Still OK-just head for the faint pool of light that glowed faintly through the water.

Two more kicks and upwards toward to where I thought the surface of the water in the compartment should be. My mistake-banged the hell out of my head on an overhanging valve and felt darkness closing in around the edges of consciousness. The best feeling in the world was Tasha’s hand reaching out and dragging me to the surface for that first breath of air.

“You OK?” she asked with a look of concern mixed with fear.

“Sure, just fine. Let me catch my breath and I’ll try it again,” I said laying half in the water trying to keep my head from spinning while I sucked in lungfuls of the stale air. “I need some kind of lever, maybe two feet long. Feel around and let’s see if there’s anything we can use.” After a few fruitless tries, Tasha finally came up with a piece of stainless steel pipe that had probably been left over during the construction of the submarine.

“How’s this?” she asked.

“As good as I could hope for,” I said mustering a smile that didn’t convey my fears at taking the long swim back to the hatch. “The other problem is I need your light-it’s pitch black back there and I can’t find the hatch without it.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “Just don’t waste anytime up top sipping a mai tai. I’m really ready to get out of here…”. Her voice trailed off when the lighting in the cabin flickered and died as the batteries succumbed to the effects of the saltwater.

“I’ll make it quick,” I said turning back to the dark hole in the stern. Three quick breaths and ducked under water swimming hard for the hatch. If this light went out, we were done-no chance of finding the hatch in the darkness much less figuring out how to open it. Hatch just overhead.

Slipped the pipe over the end of the hatch dog, braced both feet and pulled. No movement-and the flashlight chose that moment to go out leaving me in the dark once again. Panic this time-the adrenaline flowing through every cell as I yanked the pipe like a man possessed. Felt the pipe bending, but the hatch dog turned at the same time. A couple of bubbles as the hatch opened to the Caribbean. I wasted no time-still had eighty feet to swim to the surface.

Control the fear. Remember that the compressed air I had been breathing in the sub would explode my lungs if I didn’t exhale on the way up. Released a steady stream of bubbles and saw the surface tantalizingly close as I moved upward. Two more strokes and I broke through the surface. Big shuddering breaths as I sucked in the clean salt air.

I was about ten feet behind the stern of the lobster boat I had explored the night before. My good fortune for a change-there was a permanently mounted dive ladder on the stern of the boat. Hand over hand, I cautiously climbed until I could peek over the rail. The first sight was blood running down the walkway on the starboard side and the feet of what I presumed to be a body just visible near the bow. The boat was a mess-splintered wood and glass scattered over the deck attested to one hell of a fight. No way for me to know who the winners and losers were and how they would react to my sudden appearance.

Slowly edged my way forward until I could hear the sound of voices coming from the wheelhouse. The body lying beside the door was clearly the source of the blood covering the deck. He still had an AK47 lying beside his body. His loss-my gain. I picked it up, racked the slide back and saw a round chambered and more in the magazine.

I liked surprise. You can have all the firepower in the world, but if someone sees you coming, they’ll often fight you anyway. In one smooth flow of motion I jerked open the door, took one step inside, leveled my weapon, and waited. It was almost an omniscient view with a piece of my mind watching the scene unfold. The room was a slaughterhouse, with four or five bodies scattered where they had met their violent end. There was one man across the room with a pistol leveled at a small group of three other men. The only sound was the buzzing of the flies feeding on their newfound feast. The man with the gun turned his head toward me, smiled and exclaimed, “Kyle, Thank God you’re here!” Then he shot me.

I had no conscious memories of being shot during other times in my life, but from the dimpled scars I saw every morning in the mirror, assumed it wasn’t the first time it had occurred. I’ll never know if he rushed the shot or lost his footing in the bloody mess that was covering the floor, but instead of the center mass shot he had planned, the round drilled through the fleshy part of my shoulder.

My reaction was instinctive. I squeezed the trigger and watched as the remaining rounds in the AK stitched through his body. The four or five rounds in the magazine discharged, I stood swaying in the wheelhouse holding an empty weapon looking at the shocked expressions of the three survivors. “I sure hope you guys are friendly, because I’m really not in the mood to beat the hell out of all three of you.”

With that the rifle slipped from my bloodied fingers and I briefly slumped to the floor. When I woke, I was surrounded by two of the men while Renaldo, my friend from the night before worked on bandaging the wound in my shoulder.

“Es not bad,” Renaldo said. “Clean wound. Just be sore for few days.”

“How long was I out?”

“No more than a minute,” answered the tall guy who seemed to be in charge. “Probably just fainted from the shock. You look like you’ve been through it. By the way-I’m Miller.”

“I figured as much.” I nodded my head toward the guy I had just killed. “Lousy shot-he work for you guys?”

“Yeah. Name’s Davis. We’ve been looking for the guy who was the pipeline to Popov. Had no idea until he pulled a gun on us a few minutes ago. Oh, and this guy’s been chasing you all over Miami-name’s Rivera.”