Korea Strait (5 page)

The other diver hung on what looked like a hatch-rim. Dan caught dark eyes studying him. A finger pointed up.

He nodded, and the Korean turtled his head and chinned himself up into what must be a lockout chamber. Fins kicked, then disappeared.

Dreading the mass looming above him, Dan herded himself farther
under it. When he looked up he saw only a vibrating green-golden gleam, trickling and twisting like melted light.

He checked his watch. Three minutes. He got a grip on his breathing and finned slowly upward, arms raised, fingering along smooth cold metal for some handhold.

His head burst through into an echoing ullage crammed with darkness, splashing, a deafening hiss of releasing gas, hollow shouts. A flashlight strobed across a circular emptiness above that mirrored that below.

“You come up,” a voice gonged. A pudgy figure filled his sky. A gloved hand grabbed his wet suit. “Set tank in rack. Give me hand.”

THEY were in what seemed to be the control compartment—or more accurately, a combined control, berthing, and torpedo area. The upper hemisphere of the lockout module took up most of the space. It left a short, extremely cramped tube twelve feet across, so crammed with equipment they had to worm their way through an aisle that touched Dan's shoulders on either side. Dive lights beamed glares that left most of it in shadow. A discarded glove huddled like a small dead animal. The cold air was thick, dense, humid. It stank of the heavy oil that coated every surface and a bleachy sting he realized must be chlorine from the flooded batteries. The incoming air hissed so loudly from its hose fitting, vised to one of the hull ribs with a red C clamp, that communication had to be in shouts.

Compressed air, he reminded himself. He looked at his Seiko again. So they were still building up bottom time, taking on nitrogen, though he was out of the water. Seven minutes gone; eight remained.

The Koreans glanced at him as they worked. Four occupied the space, three hose divers and the guy who'd come down with him on tanks. The chubby diver belted out aggressive-sounding Korean, gesturing at Dan. They reached through piping to shake hands, grinning and nodding. “Welcome,” one said. “Thank you,” another. He waved and smiled, feeling he was intruding.

He stepped on something soft, and instinctively lifted his bootied foot. An oil-smeared, startled, wide-cheekboned face appeared. Its features were delicate. It looked up at the curved ribs of the inner hull. The left side of its skull was missing. Brain was visible, but no
blood. Dan stared. Then made out a shoe nearby. It was oil-stained dark, but bore a familiar boomerang-shaped logo.

“Nikes.”

“
Muarago?
What did you say?”

“I didn't know they had Nikes in North Korea.”

He followed a flaccid leg to another corpse wedged facedown behind a motor-generator. The barrel of an AK-type rifle poked out. He couldn't tell what had killed this second man. He had on a red Wind-breaker with a red-and-white patch. The Marlboro logo.

“Three dead,” the pudgy diver said at his elbow.

“I only see two.”

“Another there.” He pointed into the shadows forward.

“Who are they?”

“North Korea, like commando. Like SEAL.”

“Who shot them?”

“They shoot each other. Do not give up.”

“Huh.”

“
Yichoyero!
You come, see this,” called one of the others. “See what we find.”

He gave the bodies a last glance, and followed the beams of their lights.

A few feet aft the diver slapped what Dan recognized as a fairly unsophisticated-looking periscope stand, then pulled him to a little fold-down wooden table. Either a captain's station or a navigator's chart table. Dan blinked at it: cheap plywood, complete with knot holes. Everything in the space was crude, hastily finished and covered, where it was shielded at all, with flimsy metal banged together with machine screws. He bent closer as a paper caught his eye. Someone had unfolded it carefully, so as not to tear the sodden, oil-stained fibers.

It was a chart. Shivering as the cold crept deeper, he stripped off a glove and traced a coastline by the beam of a flash. Curving away, small islands…a larger island offshore. The Hangul characters conveyed nothing, but he gradually made out the Korea Strait, if the long island was Tsushima.

He dug in with the spot of light till the lens touched the cheap shoddy paper. Was that a pencil trace? A dead-reckoning line, an advanced course? He let the chart sag where it lay. Fished in what looked like a wire wine-rack and came out with another. This was in
English.
Approaches to Pusan,
it read. Next came a small book that hefted astonishingly massive. When he opened the lead covers each soaking page was filled with tiny handwritten characters.

An exclamation from the far end of the compartment brought him back. He squinted at his watch. Twelve minutes gone, out of fifteen. He had to get out. It'd take a few minutes to get back to the bow, no, the stern—anyway, back to the ascent line.

A louder gabble from the divers. He glanced their way, then back toward the black toothless maw of the chamber. A hatch at the top, another at the bottom. The inner hatch opened upward, the lower, downward. Obviously to lock out divers while still submerged.

Since it left no room for torpedo stowage, this must be the infiltration version of the sub. But what were they doing here? Trying to tap submerged cables? The U.S. Navy had pioneered it, but that didn't mean nobody else could try.

And they were almost to the DMZ. Why charts for Pusan, the southernmost port on the Eastern Sea? And why was the crew wearing clothes that must have been purchased in South Korea?

Maybe the logbook held an answer. He unzipped the top of his suit and tucked it inside, against his chest, figuring he'd turn it over to Dr. Kim when they surfaced.

The unmistakable clack of a pistol slide slamming forward snapped his attention up. He wriggled toward the others. As he reached them his pudgy friend held up a hand. His mouth hung open. They were as far aft in the compartment as they could get. His ear was pressed to the steel bulkhead beside a heavy watertight door.

“What is it?” Dan murmured.

The diver made walking legs with his fingers. Jerked his head at the bulkhead. At the closed door.

He sucked an astonished breath. Someone still alive? A flooded forward compartment this big would take them to the bottom. But if they'd sealed off the boat in time, they could still have a bubble in there. It was just barely possible.

Only… weren't they supposed to commit suicide?

One of the divers lifted a pistol. It gleamed darkly with grease. They'd come armed. Apparently not as paranoid a precaution as one might think. But now what?

He looked at his watch again and felt fear crawl over his skin like
ticks. He was into decompression time. But he wasn't sure he had enough air in his tank to get through it.

His pudgy friend slammed a wrench on the bulkhead.
“Kechokye itneonjadeol. Tohanghameon sal su yitda!”

The only answer was silence. His guy, who apparently had rank, pointed to the dogging wheel. Two divers seized it, one on either side. They braced themselves and threw it over.

“Shit,” Dan muttered. He scrambled to where the corpses lay and fumbled the AK out from under a thin arm. Oily water pissed out of the action, draining from the barrel as he pointed it down and jerked the bolt back. A cartridge flipped out and pinged away. He let go and the bolt slammed closed. But he couldn't remember which way the safety lever worked, and it was too dark to see any markings.

“
Yeolligoit seom ni da!
” Pudgy shouted. He aimed at the door. The others were straining at the wheel, faces going dark. The dogs crept back from their locking lugs, screeching, as if under terrific strain.

He realized with horror that the reason might be a pressure differential. “Goddamn it, you're going to bend us,” he shouted. “Or flood us, if that's water on the other side.”

They didn't even turn their heads.

The door slammed open with a bang like a bank vault being dynamited. His ears popped violently.

An object flew in through the opening, trailing smoke. Before his stunned mind had time even to register what it was, Pudgy scooped the grenade up and threw it back in. It exploded almost as it left his hand. The blast was deafening in the steel-walled tunnel. Fragments clanged into equipment cabinets. Explosive fumes filled the air, then thinned, pushed by the steadily inrushing compressed air toward where the air bubbled out through the open lock.

Leaning into the hatchway, Pudgy emptied the pistol through it, firing as rapidly as he could, then dove in after the bullets.

A rapid, roaring clatter from the far side of the bulkhead. He had a bad feeling his stocky friend was history. The others cursed frantically. One pulled a dive knife from a thigh sheath. The other spun and jerked the AK out of Dan's hands.

A wiry, black-haired, lithe little figure in black shorts flew through the door headfirst, as if bounced off a trampoline on the far side. It hit the deck and rolled, agile as a gymnast, and came up holding a commando-type knife that it instantly backhanded across one diver's face. The
South Korean staggered back, shouting and pawing at his eyes. The enemy crew member whipped the blade back to guard and faced Dan, not four feet distant. Dan's instinctive hesitation at what he saw was almost fatal. Held at arm's length and lunged with incredible quickness, the blade drove in straight as an arrow and slammed into his chest.

The North Korean gaped as the point slid off, gouging black rubber with a tearing sound. Deflected by the soft lead cover of the log-book tucked against Dan's chest under the wet suit top.

Dark eyes dropped to the AK's muzzle just as the other diver pulled the trigger.

The rifle blasted twice, then stopped, either jammed or out of ammunition. Both bullets struck the North Korean in the chest. The knife went flying. The small face contracted in pain and shock. An arm clutched small nude breasts, welling now with dark blood. She gasped, struggled to speak; then crumpled.

The diver worked the bolt frantically, watching the open hatch. He aimed the rifle at it and pulled the trigger again, but got only a dry click. No light on the other side. But when Dan aimed a flashlight, something fluid gleamed back.

The water licked at the lip of the hatch like a black cat tasting a treat. Then edged forward, elongated, and began pouring in. They must have cracked a valve, yielded their one unflooded compartment to the sea, when they realized someone was aboard who shouldn't be, on the far side, in the control compartment.

He couldn't fault them for guts. Or was it something darker, not heroism, but the unconscious reactions of automatons? He started to shake. The wounded diver moaned, holding his gory face in one piece with the pressure of both hands. His buddy threw the rifle aside and grabbed him by the shoulders, asking something in a concerned tone.

That was when the last North Korean slid through.

She was larger than the others, more muscular than wiry. Short hair, matted with oil and sweat. Pistol in one hand, knife in the other. Smooth thick arms. Panting, with a craving for death lighting black eyes. She squinted past the flashlights. They must have dazzled her after the utter dark. Maybe that was why she didn't see Dan, standing to the side of the access. Why she focused on the South Korean bending over his wounded buddy.

Barking something hoarsely, she brought the pistol around.

Dan tripped the buckle on his weight belt. The heavy nylon strap
studded with cast lead slid off his hips, and he continued and altered the motion and whipped it around into the side of her head. Lead impacted bone like a sledgehammer hitting a hollow log. She went down at once. The gun hit the deck with a clattering splash. The others were on her in a moment, kneeing, shouting, kicking, punching, until he screamed at them over and over to stop.

HE hung on the line, checking his watch only when he couldn't help it. Decomp time passed so slowly. Shudders writhed through him. His suit leaked cold water through the knife-rip. He yearned up at the surface. Only fifteen feet away now, a silvery rolling through which now and then bled a hot golden vein of sun. He'd spent an hour hanging on the line. Two safety divers hovered near. They'd brought down the extra air he needed.

They'd found eleven more bodies in the after compartment, all shot in the head at close range.

He twisted to look behind him. The last alive, the woman he'd knocked out. Her hands were wired behind her. The South Koreans gripped her by the arms. They'd bundled her into the suit Dan's buddy, the dead diver, didn't need anymore, and wired her ankles and wrists together. She'd regained consciousness dangling on the ascent line. Struggled, glaring at them through the helmet port, before accepting captivity. Now she sagged in the water, slowly turning in the tidal current.

What had the Sang-o been doing? Why were they carrying charts for the Strait? Why had they surfaced? According to Dr. Kim, they'd been almost to the DMZ and safety when it had broached.

Lots of questions. Maybe she'd have some answers. Which was part, at least, of why he'd stopped them from killing her.

He checked his watch one last time. Gave it a few more seconds, just to be sure. Then valved air into his vest.

Shivering, he lofted toward the shivering light. Contemplating the fact that had startled him so much, there in the sunken pressure hull, that it had almost cost him his life. That he'd only belatedly recognized, so strange it seemed to a Western eye.

Every one of the submarine's crew had been a woman.

Y
OU open wide now,” his feeder giggled. He grinned uncomfortably and obeyed. The morsel approached on chopsticks, hovered, teasing him, then was plopped in with another musical laugh. Stir-fried pork, he guessed. But he'd decided early in the endless progression of spicy dishes, noodle dishes, kimchi, not to ask. Across the table, the others were laughing at him.