Velikanov looked up. The sail rose more than twenty feet off the deck.
He nodded. “I think so”
“Give me a couple of minutes to check out the boat, then come up” Again the doctor nodded. “A couple of days and you will be on your way to Moscow. “(X dew.
Kurshin nodded. “Yes” he said, and he started up the rope, hand over hand, his nonskid soles adhering easily to the sail’s plating. Near the top he reached up over the coaming and hauled himself the rest of the way into the narrow two-man forward bridge well. The lookout lay crumpled in a heap, most of the side of his head destroyed. There was blood everywhere, but the officer was gone, the hatch down into the boat closed. Kurshin looked down at Velikanov who was staring up at him, and then scanned the length of the submarine. No one else was there. All the hatches remained closed. He had hit the man. He’d seen that clearly in the scope. The officer had been knocked off his feet. He was certain of it. “There is a body up here, Doctor” he called down. “When you come up, bring it aboard”
“Just one” Velikanov asked. “Yes” Kurshin said, and turning back to the job at hand he spun the hatch wheel, counterclockwise all the way to its stops. The wounded officer had somehow managed to get below and close the bridge hatch. If he had had the presence of mind to dog it there would be no easy way to get inside.
There wouldn’t be time. Soon fleet headquarters in Gaeta would be sending out an aircraft to find out what was happening. Time, it always came down to time. And luck. The hatch came open easily, counterbalanced on a hydraulic cylinder, the odor of machine oil and electronics wafting up to him. The interior of the boat was bathed in red light. There were a thousand places for a man to hide himself below. If he was armed, it could take hours to flush him out. Hours they did not have. But the officer was wounded. Kurshin pulled out a flashlight and switched it on.
Blood was nearly invisible in red light, but under his flashlight beam he could see a trail of it down the ladder, and at the bottom a pool of it where the officer had probably fallen and lain for a moment or two.
Replacing the flashlight in a zippered pocket, Kurshin pulled out his gun and started slowly down the ladder into the boat, taking care to make no noise so that he could hear any movement from below. At the bottom he stepped over the pool of blood, swinging his gun left to right. He was in the attack center just forward of the control room.
Numbers and images continued to flash across equipment panels and computer screens, and somewhere aft some sort of an indicator was beeping softly. Two bodies lay on the deck, and a third was slumped forward over an equipment console. He could see through the open hatch into the control room where at least four other bodies either lay on the deck or were crumpled forward against their electronic panels. Taking his flashlight out again, he switched it on for just a second or two, long enough for him to pick out the trail of blood leading aft through the attack center and the control room. He shut it off and started aft, stepping carefully over the bodies.
Third Officer Lieutenant j. g. Ernie Boyle knew that he was bleeding to death and was desperately in need of medical assistance. He had thought he was dreaming when Finney’s head suddenly exploded, and then something slammed into his back between his shoulder blade and neck, shattering his collarbone. But it was nothing by comparison to what he’d felt when he’d managed to get below. So far as he could tell, everyone aboard was dead. How it could have happened he had no idea. There was no blood, no obvious injuries, but they were all down. He had made his way back through the control room into the comms center, but he had not been able to make his eyes focus or his hands to work well enough to operate the emergency communications equipment. The Indianapolis was under attack.
He knew that much. But by whom, or to what purpose, he couldn’t know.
Help, it was the one thought that kept running through his head He would have to contact COMSUBMED and tell them what was happening. But first he had to stop his bleeding, or he would die. He stood just within the tiny dispensary, his breathing erratic, his back and shoulder on fire, spots dancing in front of his eyes, trying to make some sense out of what he was seeing now. Boyle had been born and raised on a farm in northern Minnesota. Like most young men in the upper Midwest, he’d learned to hunt with his father and uncles. He’d shot his first deer when he was fourteen, and his father had made him gut it out himself, getting well bloodied in the process. But he’d never seen anything like this before.
The captain, exec, and their medic lay crumpled in a heap on the deck.
Tony D’Angelo lay on his back on the operating table, a big gash in his belly. A slim metal cylinder jutted half out of his guts. Boyle forced himself to step over the exec’s body and stumble over to the supplies cabinet where he found a big box of gauze pads. With bloody fingers he managed to yank out a huge wad and press it against the massive wound in his shoulder. The bullet had entered his back, and had exited the front, tearing a three-inch hole in his chest above his lungs. Someone moved in the corridor. Boyle spun around, nearly falling down with dizziness because of the sudden motion. For some reason in his semidelirium he thought it was Second Officer Lieutenant jg. Woodman. They were friends.
“Ken” he mumbled, lurching forward to the door. Tripping, he fell up against the bulkhead, a tremendous pain raging through his body, stunning him awake, and he staggered backward. Everyone aboard was dead.
Ken Woodman would be dead as well. The Indianapolis was definitely under attack. Whoever it was, they were aboard now. The exec had a .45 automatic strapped to his hip. Boyle dragged himself to where Layman lay on his side and fumbled the weapon out of its holster. It seemed to take him forever to get back to his feet, lever a round into the chamber, switch the safety off, and turn around. A large man, dressed all in black, stood in the doorway. He held a big pistol in his right hand, a flashlight in his left. “What happened here” Kurshin demanded, his English perfect. Boyle was confused again. The .45 was pointed directly at the big man’s chest, his finger was on the trigger. But the enemy wasn’t supposed to ask what was happening. Suddenly it came to him.
COMSUBMED knew they were in trouble. They had sent help. “Are you a SEAL” Kurshin smiled gently. “Yes. Is your skipper dead”
“I think so Boyle mumbled and he turned away, to look at Captain Webb, when he realized his terrible mistake.
He started to turn back when a tremendous thunderclap burst in his head, and he was falling, falling, and the darkness came.
Dr. Velikanov stood just within the attack center when Kurshin appeared from aft. His face was pasty in the dim red light, and his hair was plastered back with sweat from the exertion of climbing the sail. He heard a gunshot” he said timorously. “it was the officer from the bridge. I’d only wounded him “Now he is dead”
“Yes, Doctor, now he is dead, as is everyone else aboard except for you and me-” Velikanov was looking at the downed crewmen. He was shaking his head. “And now what, Comrade Colonel” There was blood on his hands.
“Begin clearing the bodies out of this space, the control room, the sonar and radio rooms, the officers’ wardroom, and the galley”
“Where shall I put them”
“In their bunks”
“Where will we sleep”
“We won’t” Kurshin said. He brushed past the doctor and hurriedly climbed back up through the interior of the sail to the bridge deck, where he hauled up his equipment bag. The fire aboard the Zenzero was all but out, and the cruiser’s list was becoming more pronounced. She was also down at the bow. Not long now, Kurshin thought. He pulled out a portable radio from his equipment bag, switched it on, and keyed the transmit switch. “Yes” he said in English. “Here” a voice came back.
“Now” Kurshin radioed, and he switched off the set without waiting for a reply, stuffed it and the grappling hook and line into his bag, and lowered himself through the open hatch, closing it behind him and dogging it shut. Velikanov had already removed two of the bodies from the attack center. Kurshin laid down his bag and dragged the third body back through the control room, passing the doctor as he was coming forward. “Most of them are already in their bunks”
“Just the night watch was on duty” Kurshin said. “At any rate we will have help in a few minutes”
“The others are coming now”
“Yes. I’ll be aft, continue with your work” Kurshin said, and he dragged the seaman’s body past the open door to the comms center just as the printer came to life with five bells, indicating a top priority, most urgent message. He ignored it. The message would be from Sixth Fleet Headquarters at Gaeta. They would be anxious to know what
