Without remorse - Tom Clancy [246]
'Unfortunately, we don't have any wheels on the bottom or I might just try.' Esteves gestured him forward. 'What's this one about? I usually know.'
'Sir, I can't say. Tell you this, though: if it works, you'll find out.' That would have to do, and Esteves understood.
'Then you better get ready.'
As warm as the waters were, Kelly still had to worry about the cold. Eight hours in water with only a small temperature differential could sap the energy from his body like a short-circuited battery. He worked his way into a green-and-black neophrene wet suit, adding double the normal amount of weight belts. Alone in the executive officer's stateroom, he had his last sober pause, beseeching God to help not himself, but the men whom he was trying to rescue. It seemed a strange thing to pray, Kelly thought, after what he'd done so recently yet so far away, and he took the time to ask forgiveness for anything wrong he might have done, still wondering if he had transgressed or not. It was a time for that sort of reflection, but only briefly. He had to look forward now. Maybe God would help him to rescue Colonel Zacharias, but he had to do his part, too. Kelly's last thought beforе leaving the stateroom was of the photo of a lonely American about to be clubbed from behind by some little NVA fuck. It was time to put an end to that, he told himself, opening the door.
'Escape trunk's this way,' Esteves said.
Kelly climbed up the ladder, watched by Esteves and perhaps six or seven other men of Skate.
'Make sure we find out,' the Captain said, levering the hatch shut himself.
'I'll sure as hell try,' Kelly replied, just as the metal fitting locked into place. There was an aqualung waiting for him. The gauge read full, Kelly saw, checking it again himself. He lifted the waterproof phone.
'Clark here. In the trunk, ready to go.'
'Sonar reports nothing except heavy rain on the surface. Visual search is negative. Vaya con dios, Senor Clark.'
'Gracias,' Kelly chuckled his reply. He replaced the phone and opened the flooding valve. Water entered the bottom of the compartment, the air pressure changing suddenly in the cramped space.
Kelly checked his watch. It was eight-sixteen when he cracked the hatch and pulled himself to the submerged foredeck of USS Skate. He used a light to illuminate the sea sled. It was tied down at four points, but before loosing it he clipped a safety line to his belt. It wouldn't do to have the thing motor off without him. The depth gauge read forty-nine feet. The submarine was in dangerously shallow water, and the sooner he got away the sooner her crew would be safe again. Unclipping the sled, he flipped the power switch, and two shrouded propellers started slowly. Good. Kelly pulled the knife from his belt and banged it twice on the deck, then adjusted the flippers on the sled and headed off, on a compass course of three-zero-eight.
There was now no turning back, Kelly told himself. But for him there rarely was.
CHAPTER 28
First In
It was just as well that he couldn't smell the water. At least not at first. Few things can be as unnerving or disorienting as swimming underwater at night. Fortunately the people who'd designed the sled were divers themselves, and knew that. The sled was slightly longer than Kelly was tall. It was, in fact, a modified torpedo with attachments allowing a man to steer it and control its speed, essentially making it a minisubmarine, though in appearance it was more like an aircraft drawn by a child. The 'wings' - actually referred to as flippers - were controlled by hand. There was a depth gauge and an up/down-angle indicator, along with a battery-strength gauge and the vital magnetic compass. The electric motor and batteries had originally been designed to drive the shape through the water at high speed for over ten thousand yards. At lower speeds it could go much farther. In this case, it had five-to-six-hour endurance at five knots - more if the craftsmen aboard Ogden were right.
It was strangely like flying over