The Silent Sea (2010) - Cussler Clive - Страница 68
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She fitted the protective half sleeve into place and looped the submersible around the far side of the column.
Good job, Juan said as they slowly backed away. The black towline slid easily over the bundle of PVC pipes. One more stop to go.
She pivoted the Nomad and started back across the bay. The weight of the line and the need now to fight the tide, which had yet to slacken, strained the submersible's engine. The batteries drained almost twice as fast as normal, and their speed was down to a crawl, but they still made headway.
Twenty minutes later, they were under the Admiral Guillermo Brown. Her anchor was paid out and rested on its side on the rocky seabed, its heavy chain rising up to the surface. Less than twenty feet of water separated her keel from the bottom.
Strange name for an Argentine ship. Brown, Eddie said as he handed Juan his helmet.
His name was really William Brown, and he was born in Ireland and then emigrated to Argentina. He's credited with forming their Navy in the early 1800s to fight the Spanish.
How could you possibly know that? Linda asked from the cockpit.
What? I Googled him when we first saw the cruiser. I thought it was an odd choice of name, too.
Juan waddled to the tiny air lock, laden with a belt from which he hung his tools. Strapped to his back like a World War II flame-thrower were two cylinders. Once he was in and the door secure, he jacked his umbilical into a port and checked over his connections, making certain that warm water was flowing through his suit and that he had good airflow and good comms with the sub. Only when Eddie was satisfied did he open the valve that flooded the closet-sized compartment.
Water foamed and hissed as it climbed his body, pressing the rubber suit against his legs when the pressure grew. It was a comfortable temperature, but he wouldn't discount running into icy pockets once he was outside. He could see Eddie watching him through a small window in the air-lock door. Juan gave him the traditional divers signal that everything was okay. Eddie returned it.
Moments later, the water had closed in on the ceiling. Juan reached overhead to open the outer hatch. A few stray bubbles burst free as it swung up. He climbed out of the sub, making sure to keep his head down and his lights pointed away from the surface. He felt reasonably confident that the Argentines didn't have lookouts posted in such freezing conditions, but he hadn't thought he and Linc would run into a guard last night either.
The low vibration in the water came from the cruiser's secondary power plant, which produced enough energy to run the ship's systems and keep the men warm. The main engines were off. He knew this already by observing that only a small amount of smoke escaped the warship's single raked funnel.
He jumped free of the sub, floating down to the bottom in a graceful arc. His boots hit and kicked up a little silt that drifted gently away. One of the six-inch-thick conduits for the bubbler was to his left. Air rose from its length in thin streams of silver.
Juan turned his attention to the Admiral Brown's anchor. It looked to be about eight feet long and would probably weigh in at about four tons more than enough to keep the ship stationary against the tides. A small pile of extra chain lay next to it in a rust-colored heap.
How are you doing out there?
No problem so far. I'm looking at the anchor now.
And?
I should be able to unshackle it from the chain. The lynchpin is held in place with bolts.
Cabrillo bent over the anchor and pulled an adjustable wrench from his belt. He fitted it over the first bolt and used his thumb on the oversized adjusting wheel until it was snug. It fought him the entire way. Tiny bits of paint lifted from the bolt head when it first moved an eighth of a turn, and it would turn no more than that. Juan heaved on it until finally bracing his legs against the anchor and pulling until he though he was going to pass out. The bolt gave another eighth turn. It took ten backbreaking minutes to remove that first bolt, and Juan was bathed in sweat.
Shut down the hot suit, Eddie. I'm dying out here.
It's off.
The next bolt spun out so easily that, once he had it started, he could twist it with his fingers. The third and fourth weren't quite as easy, but nowhere near as bad as the first. He clipped the wrench back to his belt and grabbed a rubber mallet. He used rubber to avoid making any noise.
He swung at the lynchpin, the water hindering his actions, but the blow was enough to knock it an inch out of alignment. Three more shots, and it was almost free of the anchor. It would still hold the ship in position against the normal flow of water into and out of the bay, but any hard jolt would slip the pin entirely, and the Admiral Brown would be left to the vagaries of the sea.
That's it. Oh, man!
What?
I was just hit by a pocket of cold water. Damn, that is brutal.
Want the hot suit back on?
No. It drifted away.
Juan started walking across the seafloor for the minisub, gathering up loops of his umbilical as he went so it wouldn't tangle.
He unclipped the carbon-fiber tow cable from its slot and dragged it back to the anchor. He added a little air to his buoyancy compensator to make his ascent easier and, hand over hand, he climbed the chain. For now, he left the cable on the bottom.
He paused when he reached the underside of the four-hundred-foot warship. Her bottom was coated with red antifouling paint and was remarkably free of marine buildup. His next task was to spot-weld eight metal pad eyes to the bow. That's what the two tanks he carried were for. They were high-capacity batteries for a handheld arc welder. The gear was normally used to make quick repairs to the Oregon.
He adjusted his buoyancy again and slid eye protection over his helmet so he could work comfortably next to an electric spark brighter than the sun. The curvature of the cruiser's hull shielded him from above, and in twenty minutes he had all eight welds completed. There were so many in case one or more of the welds failed. Juan carried no illusions that he was an expert at this particular skill. Ten minutes after that, he had the tow cable threaded though all of them. Over the very tip of the cable he clamped in place a steel box about the size of a paperback book. The box served as the belay point for the cable while inside was an explosive charge. A signal from the Oregon would detonate the small amount of plastique, and the box would disintegrate, freeing the cable so it could be yanked away from the ship. The only evidence left behind was the eight pad eyes. Chances were, they wouldn't survive what Juan had planned.
No sooner had he returned to the Nomad and closed the outer hatch over himself than Linda powered her up and they were under way.
Operation Crack-the-Whip is on, he said when Eddie helped him off with the helmet.
Any problems?
Smooth as silk.
More good news, Linda said. Eric's tracking a storm headed our way. Should hit tomorrow at what passes for dawn in these parts.
Call Eric back and have him pull the ship off beach a bit. Also, tell him to drain the starboard ballast tanks but leave the port side flooded. That should give the old girl a convincing list. Juan had an anticipatory gleam in his eye. I hope the Argentines have enjoyed their time ruling this part of world because it's about to end.
By five that afternoon, the Chinese survey boat had motored past the Oregon where she lay just off the beach. She was still close enough in that an occasional large wave would cause her hardened bows to slam against the bottom. There was little doubt they would report the Norego had unbeached herself and was starting her soulless wanderings once again. An hour later, an exhausted and frozen Max Hanley returned with his team and their grisly cargo.
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