they'd stopped at, the eleven explosions that had followed had still been unpleasant, but not at quite the kicked-in- the-balls level of pain the first one had been.
'Yeah,' Eeyore agreed. 'Hey, look, they're moving off. Let's give them a few minutes and we'll see what we can do, if anything, about Simmons and the sub.'
Namu hadn't been all that impressed by the explosions, even though they could be felt. Simmons, on the other hand, had been.
If whoever it was hit me had taken off, I'd have hyperventilated, cracked the hatch, let the sub fill, and then swum out. But I can't swim in an area being depth charged. Shit.
Already the air was noticeably stale.
This is not how I intended to die, Simmons thought. Not at all. Shit.
'This is about where Simmons surfaced,' Eeyore said. 'He's not going to stop short of the bottom, so head straight down and then north, then east. I'll do the same and head south then west.'
'What do we do if we find him?' Morales asked.
'Assuming he's alive but that the sub is fucked, one of us can share a tank until we get him to the surface.'
'Yeah.'
'Okay, then. Monoculars on. We'll come up every twenty minutes to coordinate.'
'Roger,' Morales agreed, then headed for the bottom. Antoniewicz followed.
It took three more dives and as many different search patterns before Eeyore's monocular caught the faint glow emanating from the viewport of the Namu. He swam over to investigate. Namu was lying upright. He could see by the dim glow that the lights inside were still on. Through the viewport he saw Simmons slumped against one side of the tower. He thought, but couldn't be sure, that the sub driver was still breathing.
A series on knocks on the viewport failed to rouse the man. Antoniewicz thought, Well, he's in for a sudden, unexpected shower.
Eeyore swam upward a bit, then put his legs to either side of the tower to brace himself. For a few moments he hyperventilated to ensure he'd have enough oxygen when his put his mouthpiece into Simmons's mouth. Satisfied with that, he put his hands in different positions on the smaller, exterior wheel for the sub's hatch, being careful to take positions that wouldn't break his wrists when the hatch shot open, as he expected it to. He twisted, or tried to. Nothing. Again, he sucked air, then put everything he had into twisting the wheel.
Come on, you son of a bitch.
He was rewarded with the sudden springing open of the hatch, followed by a massive air bubble that shot to the surface. He waited a couple of seconds for the bubble to clear, then lunged to a point above the now open hatch. Simmons' head was there, clear of the hatch. He wasn't moving.
Eeyore reached down and grabbed his teammate by the nearest things he could get a grip on, the ears. Again he pulled, this time putting his back into it. Simmons' torso cleared the hatch. Now Antoniewicz could reposition to get a one-armed grip under the arms. With that grip secured, he used his other hand to remove his own mouthpiece and force it into Simmons' mouth. He squeezed once, and then again, to get Simmons' lungs to pump air. Then, legs kicking for all he was worth, Eeyore shot the two of them upward. It wasn't really deep enough to have to worry about the bends.
Simmons was still out of it once they reached the surface. Antoniewicz took some comfort that he was still breathing. He held the unconscious man's head above water while waiting for Morales to show up to spell him.
'Thank God,' were Morales's first words once his head broke the surface. 'Now what?'
'Remember those few fishing boats that were floating away from the dock in the outer harbor?' Eeyore asked.
'Yeah. So?'
'Well, we're going to take him there. Then we're going to steal a boat.'
'You mean a rowboat? I don't think that will work.'
'No,' Eeyore shook his head. 'We're going to rest a bit then steal a power boat.'
'But they're all mined, bubba,' Morales objected.
'Nope,' Antoniewicz countered. 'One of them isn't.'
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Myself, I don't take any chances.
I talk to Mohammad, to Buddha, to Mr. Jesus H.Christ,
or any other religious honchos I can come up with.
-R. Lee Ermey speaking, The Siege of Firebase Gloria
D-Day, MV
north of Bandar Cisman, Ophir
Phillie showered mechanically, on autopilot, washing away the speckled gore from her assistance in the operating room. She didn't want to think about the emergency surgery, the spraying arterial blood, the desperate and frantic work of the surgeons as they tried, desperately but vainly, to save the life of the injured pilot. She just wanted to be clean, to eliminate any traces of the death, and then go to her cot and cry herself to sleep.
Stauer was waiting for her as she robotted her towel-wrapped way from the showers. His arms were folded and he was leaning against a bulkhead.
'Sorry it took so long to find you,' Stauer said. 'I had to go over some hymns with the chaplain. That ran overtime. Then after someone from medical found me and told me, I stopped by the girls' medical barracks container. It was hard to get a word in edgewise, what with all the Romanian weeping. Eventually one of your girls told me I'd find you here.'
She stopped in surprise as soon as she saw and heard him. He seemed so calm and, frankly, unconcerned that she felt a momentary flash of anger. 'It doesn't bother you that one of your people was killed?' she snapped.
