< previous page page_414 next page >

Page 414
put to sea, let alone make its long voyage. If the submarine had not been scuttled, it might very well have succumbed to the wounds inflicted on it by the idiotic architects of the Kola naval base.
Some fifty meters away, almost lost in the murk, a small, moored, antipersonnel mine swayed in the current. He ignored it. A light patch ahead captured his attention. As he swam toward it, the sonar phone burred the note agreed upon to mark the first ten minutes. Twenty minutes left now. The divemaster would now sound the sonar phone every five minutes, then in the last five, every minute, and finally, every second. Countdown to oblivion, Morgan thought.
The bitter cold of the water seeped through his heavy cold-water gear and the metallic weave of the Waymer suit. His legs felt leaden. The watch on his wrist stood at 0811, local time. Only Arkady Karmann had any practical knowledge of the nuclear weapon down here in the murk. Without him, the operation was a pure gamble.
Morgan made his way along the side. Just ahead, the missile's skin had crush-ripples in the thin metal. The collapse had bent the head of the missile to one side.
"Divemaster," he said into the sonar phone. "I have reached the warhead. I see the access plate."
The blurry voice in his ears said, "Four-oh, Colonel. Understand, you are at the warhead."
Morgan snapped on his second helmet light and detached the tool he needed. Bits of debris floated through the beam.
He began to work on the fasteners with the dzus wrench, which ordinarily was a simple matter of inserting a broad blade into a slot and twisting the spring-loaded fasteners. But they resisted his efforts. The American tool did not fit the Russian slots exactly.
He controlled his breathing with an effort and applied pressure more carefully, this time with more success.
The radiation card taped to his forearm was darkening all too quickly, moving though the dangerous to the lethal hue.

 
< previous page page_414 next page >