Page 150 of Enemy Within

His eyes slipped closed.

66

USS Honolulu

ON THE SONAR SCOPE, the Russian sub appeared dead center, a growing tower of endless red that filled the screen.

“Distance, two hundred feet, Captain.” Boomer’s voice had stopped shaking. Steel filled his words instead.

Anderson leaned into Faisal, gripping the younger man’s shoulder. The collision alarm wailed, a deep klaxon blaring through his boat. His crew were at their best in this moment, facing their end, plowing toward this Russian sub of Madigan’s intent on destroying their world. They were the last line, the very last line of defense.

To their side, Doc had hauled Coleman into his arms, and he sat leaning against the shot-up remnants of Lieutenant Munoz’s weapons station. Coleman still dragged in shaky breaths, his head resting on Doc’s shoulder.

“Distance, one hundred feet, Captain.”

“It’s been an honor,” Anderson said, his voice catching. “Every last one of you are heroes.” He met each sailor’s gaze, nodding to the men under his command.

And then—

Impact.

Time snapped, racing from too slow, the waiting that came before their collision, to too fast, the gut-punch crash ofHonoluluslamming into the belly of the Russian sub.

Honolulucrunched, the sound of a heavy battering ram slamming into the side of a car. Rivets popped along her hull, and then steel bent and tore, her frame twisting and tearing into ragged pieces. Sonar winked off, the sensors in the nose of the ship pulverized on impact.

They held fast to whatever they could, grasping railings and handholds and gritting their teeth. Anything not bolted down flew across the Conn and slammed into the bulkhead. The plotting table wrenched free from its bolts, toppling over. Wax pencils whizzed through the air.

The explosions started.

He’d evacuated the forward compartment, moving his crew to the middle of the boat. The torpedoes in their tubes were still armed, still hot and ready to ignite. There was no way to fire them, not with a busted ship and a destroyed weapons console, not in time for them to have mattered. But ramming the torpedoes into the belly of the Russian sub was enough to set them all off.

Chain reactions ignited, booming explosions roaring fromHonolulu’s bow. He felt the shudder of the torpedoes bursting apart. If his closed his eyes, he could feel the flames. Alerts flashed across the control boards, but his crew silently turned them off.Flooding in the forward compartments. Reactor scram. Hull integrity compromised. Collision.

Hissing followed, the rush and swirl of water pouring intoHonolulu. The lights winked out, plunging the Conn into pitch-black darkness. Emergency lighting struggled online, fading fast. Only a few lights stayed on, flickering like mosquito traps buzzing in the night.

Water foamed over the deck, sloshing around Anderson’s shoes. The sea was invading, roaring into their home, their sanctuary. In his whole career, he’d never lost a boat. Never even sprang a leak. Now, they were going to sink to the bottom, entombed forever in the Arctic.

Collapsing steel roared, metal shredding metal. It sounded like they were flying right through the sub, like the crunching, crushing metal was right outside the Conn. He heard the final sound, every submariner’s worst nightmare, the hiss and fizz of a hundred balloons leaking air. The sound of a sub venting oxygen into the sea.

Honoluluwas dead.

Anderson closed his eyes.

A jerk wrenched him sideways. He stumbled and nearly fell, but Faisal held him up. Another jerk, and then a bone-rattling shudder, likeHonoluluhad been dropped in a cement mixer. “What’s going on?”

His crew was blind and deaf to the outside world, sitting in front of dark consoles, but still, they scrambled to answer. Boomer struggled to listen to his headset, still plugged into the small rear sonar array. He’d spun the array as far as it could go, pointing it down and forward, trying to get any eyes and ears on what was happening.

“Captain, something is sinking to the bottom. Something big.”

Half ofHonolulu, most likely. He swallowed. “Anything on the Russians?”

Silence, for a beat. “Captain… itisthem. The Russian sub, she’s what is plunging to the bottom. She’s snapped in half, all the way to her sail.”

“What’s our depth?” He wasn’t feeling the crush of the sea, the rise in pressure that came with the dead man’s drop to the bottom.

“We’re… holding steady. No, dropping. Dropping eight degrees, Captain.” Boomer spun in his chair and stared at Anderson. Through the darkness, his eyes gleamed like stars, like planets lit up in the night sky. “Sir, we’re free from the sub. That shaking, that was her tearing free.”

Free from the sub. Anderson rocketed forward, pulling out of Faisal’s hold. He gripped the railing. “Blow the ballast!” he roared. “Blow it now! Now! Now!”