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The magnetic charge clunked against the hull, and the luxury sub quickly backed away. When they reached a safe zone, Giordino grinned. "Once more with feeling." Then he pushed the detonator switch. Another dull boom raced through the water as the Wanderer shook off the pressure wave.
"There's a mortal blow," said Flett. "With that highly advanced explosive material you brought, she must have a hole bigger than any naval torpedo could have opened."
Pitt entered the control cabin from below. "Jimmy, I assume you have a safety escape chamber."
Flett nodded. "Of course. All commercial undersea craft are required by international maritime law to have them."
"Do you have dive gear on board?"
"I do," acknowledged Flett. "There are four sets of suits and gear for passengers who want to dive from the boat after she's put into charter."
Pitt looked at Giordino. "Al, what say you and I get wet?"
"I was about to suggest the same thing," Giordino said, as though he looked forward to it. "Better we reload the spar underwater than risk a missile down our throats."
They didn't waste a moment putting on wet suits. They decided that every minute counted and they could suffer the cold water wearing only their shorts in the time it would take them to place the third charge on the end of the spar. Going through the airlock, which was large enough for two people, they attached the explosive charge and were back aboard in less than seven minutes, their bodies numb from the sixty-five-degree water.
As soon as they returned inside the airlock, Flett sent the Coral Wanderer on her final attack. Before Pitt and Giordino had come up into the control cabin, he had rammed the charge against the hull and was running astern.
Pitt placed a hand on Flett's shoulder. "Nice work, Jimmy."
Flett smiled. "I'm not one to dillydally."
Giordino toweled his wet body and sat in a chair in his shorts. He picked up the explosive remote before putting on his clothes. At Flett's command, he flicked the little lever, detonating the charge and blowing another huge hole in the stern of the Mongol Invader.
"Dare we risk surfacing to see our handiwork?" Flett asked Pitt.
"Not yet. There's something I'd like to explore first."
The deck in the wheelhouse gave a lurch as the second charge blew a second gaping void in the tanker's hull. The blast seemed to come right beneath Kanai's feet. The stern superstructure shuddered from the blast. To those gazing at the tanker from shore, on the boats and the bridge, her bow was noticeably beginning to lift from the water.
Kanai thought they might survive the first blast and somehow get the ship headed back into the Narrows. It was purely wishful thinking. The next explosion sealed the ship's fate. The Mongol Invader was going to the bottom of the lower bay in two hundred feet of water. He sat in the captain's bridge chair and mopped the blood that was seeping from his forehead into his eyes where a piece of glass from the windshield had gashed the skin to the bone.
The engine's beat had ceased minutes before. He could only wonder if the chief engineer and his men had escaped from the engine room before the two blasts sent tons of water rushing inside. He glanced around the bridge, which looked as if it had been ransacked by a frenzied mob. Holding a towel to his forehead, he walked over to a cabinet, opened the door and stared at a panel of switches. He set the timer for twenty minutes, his mind foggy, without considering the possibility that the ship might sink before the charges laid beneath the gargantuan tanks of propane went off. Then he engaged the detonation switch to the on position.
Harmon Kerry stepped off of the ship's outside stairway. Blood oozed from half a dozen wounds, but he seemed not to notice. His eyes were glassy, and he was gasping for air as if from great exertion. He hung on to a navigation counter to catch his breath.
"Didn't you take the elevator?" asked Kanai, curious as if detached from the disorder around him.
"It was damaged and out of order," Kerry rasped. "I had to climb ten flights. A cable was shot off a pully, but I repaired it. I think it will get us to the bottom deck if we take it slow."
"You should have gone directly to the escape sub."
"I won't desert the ship without you."
"I'm grateful for your loyalty."
"Have you set the charges?"
"They're timed for twenty minutes."
"We'll be lucky to be a safe distance away," said Kerry, seeing the anguish of de
feat on Kanai's profile. He looked like a man who had been cheated in a poker game. "We'd better get a move on."
The ship took a sudden lurch and the deck tilted backwards. "Are the men clear?" Kanai asked.
"As far as I know, they've all left their posts for the sub."
