Vitaliy’s eyes. “Vanya, go below and give our guests a refresher course on the immersion suits.”
Vanya turned toward the ladder.
“And make sure they pay attention this time,” Vitaliy added.
As a captain, he had a professional responsibility to ensure the safety of his passengers, but more important, he doubted whoever his party worked for would be forgiving, should he get them all killed.
An idiotic exercise, Musa Merdasan thought, watching the gnomelike Russian man unfold the orange survival suit on the deck. First, no rescue ships would reach them in time, suit or no suit; second, none of his men would be donning the suits in any event. If Allah saw fit to give them over to the sea, they would accept their fate. Moreover, Merdasan didn’t want any of them being fished from the sea at all; if they were, he prayed it would be in an unidentifiable state. That was something to consider, how to ensure neither the captain and his deckhand survived any such catastrophe, lest the nature of the trip and their passengers be scrutinized. He couldn’t count on a gun if they went into the water. Knife, then, preferably before they abandoned ship. And perhaps slit open their bellies to make sure they sank.
“First you lay the suit flat on the deck, unzipped, and then you sit down with your rear end just above the lowermost point of the zipper,” the Russian was saying.
Merdasan and his men were, of course, following along, doing their best to appear attentive. None of them appeared well, though, the building seas having leached the color from their faces. The cabin stank of vomit and sweat and overcooked vegetables.
“Legs go in first, followed by each arm in turn, followed by the hood. Once that’s done, you roll to your knees, pull the zipper fully closed, and close the Velcro flaps over the lower half of your face.”
The Russian went from man to man, making sure each one of them was following his instructions. Satisfied, he looked around and said, “Any questions?”
There were none.
“If you go overboard, your EPIRB-”
“Our what?” asked one of the men.
“Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon-the thing attached to your collar-will activate automatically as soon as it is submerged.”
“Any questions about that part?”
There were none.
“Okay, I suggest you get in your bunks and hold on.”
Though Vitaliy knew what to expect, the speed and ferocity with which the storm hit was jarring nevertheless. The sky went night-black around them, and within five minutes the sea went from relative calmness, with six- to eight-foot swells, to a roiling surface and twenty-foot waves that crashed into the bow ramp like the hand of God itself.
Great plumes of spray and foam billowed over the slab sides and pelted the wheelhouse windows like handfuls of hurled gravel, obliterating Vitaliy’s vision for ten seconds before the wipers could compensate, only to clear in time to give him a glimpse of the next wave. Every few seconds, tons of seawater broke over the starboard rail and surged knee-deep across the deck, overloading the scuppers, which couldn’t keep up with the volume. Hands clenched tightly around the wheel, Vitaliy could feel the helm growing sluggish as the trapped water crashed from beam to beam against the gunwales.
“Get below and mind the engines and the pumps,” Vitaliy told Vanya, who lurched to the ladder.
Joggling the dual throttles, Vitaliy struggled to keep the bow pointed into the oncoming waves. To let the boat swing broadside into the surge was to invite a fatal roll that would capsize them. The flat-bottomed T-4 had virtually no ability to snap itself upright beyond anything more than a fifteen-degree roll. Capsized in a trough, the boat would go under within a minute or two.
On the other hand, Vitaliy was too aware of the bow ramp’s structural limitations. Though he and Vanya had worked hard to ensure that the ramp was secure and water-resistant, there was no way around its design: It was meant to drop flat on a beach to disgorge soldiers. With each crashing wave, the ramp shuddered, and even over the roar of the storm, Vitaliy could hear the metal-on-metal hammering of the inch-thick securing pins.
Another wave loomed over the rail and broke, half of it shearing off and cascading over the deck, the other half slamming into the wheelhouse windows. The boat lurched to port. Vitaliy lost his footing and pitched forward, his forehead slamming into the console. He regained his feet and blinked rapidly, vaguely aware of something wet and warm running down his temple. He took his hand from the wheel and touched his forehead; his fingers came back bloody. Not too bad, though, he decided. A couple stitches.
From the intercom, Vanya’s muffled voice: “Pump… failed… trying restart…”
Sixty seconds passed, then Vanya again: “Pump restarted!”
“Understood!” Vitaliy replied.
From below he heard a voice shout, “No, don’t! Come back!”
Vitaliy scooted to his right and pressed his face to the side window. Aft he saw a figure stumble through the cabin door and onto the pitching deck. It was one of Fred’s men.
“What the devil…”
The man stumbled, fell to his knees. Vomit spewed from his mouth. He was panicked, Vitaliy now saw. Trapped belowdecks, the man’s instinct to escape had overwhelmed the logical part of his brain.
Vitaliy reached for the engine-room intercom. “Vanya, there’s a man on the afterdeck-”
The boat’s stern was tossed up in the air. As it dropped back down, a rogue wave struck the starboard quarter. The man, already airborne, was tossed sideways and slammed into the gunwale. He hung there for a moment, draped over the side like a rag doll, legs on deck, torso hanging in space, then tipped over and disappeared.
“Man overboard, man overboard!” Vitaliy shouted over the boatwide intercom. He peered through the windows, looking for a gap in the crests so he could come about.
“Don’t,” he heard a voice say behind him.
He turned to see Fred standing at the top of the ladder, both hands clenching the safety railing. The front of his shirt was vomit-stained.
“What?” Vitaliy asked.
“He’s gone; forget him.”
“Are you insane? We can’t-”
“If you turn the boat around, we risk being capsized, yes?”
“Yes, but-”
“He knew the risks, Captain. I’m not going to let his mistake jeopardize the rest of us.”
Vitaliy knew Fred was logically correct, but to abandon a man to the sea without even trying to recover him seemed inhuman. And to do it without the slightest trace of emotion on one’s face…
As if sensing Vitaliy’s indecision, the man known as Fred said, “My men are my responsibility; yours is the safety of the boat and its passengers, true?”
“True.”
“Then we continue.”
39
HELLO?” former President Jack Ryan said. He still liked to answer his own phone, at least this one.
“Mr. President?”
