"Don't know," Remo said. "Maybe toss you at lt."
Another five minutes passed before he spotted the sub sliding up from beneath the sea. The dark, curving shape of a periscope was lost in the darkness. A thin froth of white water broke as it barreled through the waves.
"There it is," Remo said tightly.
Chiun had spied it, too. Petrovina and Vlad Korkusku squinted but could see nothing.
"Where?" Petrovina asked doubtfully.
Remo wasn't paying attention to her. "That way," he hollered up to the bridge. "Angle us that way." The SVR helmsman had twice seen Remo in action. He dared not disobey. Picking up speed, he eased the boat to port. The line of moored scows drew closer.
"I see nothing," Petrovina said. "How do you see it?"
"You got thirty years, I'll show you," Remo said. "Otherwise butt out. Okay, we're good here," he called up to the bridge. "Stay on this course."
Petrovina opened her mouth to express further doubt, but was interrupted by an excited voice. "We have submarine on sonar!" an SVR agent called down from the bridge.
Remo and Chiun had already moved to a break in the rail. Remo kicked off his loafers and Chiun shed his sandals.
Floodlights were sent searching the sea. They found the periscope gliding along forty yards off the port bow.
The fishing boat had no torpedoes of its own. Korkusku had squandered their one depth charge. Petrovina Bulganin threw up her hands, helpless.
"So you have found it. What now?" she demanded.
"This," said Remo.
His toes were curled over the edge of the boat's deck. Remo tightened his leg muscles. He shot up in the air, slicing at an angle that brought him parallel to the waves. Chiun did the same.
Ten yards out, both men cut sharply downward. Without disturbing a single drop of water, the two Masters of Sinanju disappeared beneath the gentle waves of the Caribbean.
IN THE BELLY of the submarine Novgorod, Captain Gennady Zhilnikov watched through his night-vision scope as the two men jumped from the deck of the fishing boat.
For a moment they seemed to soar like birds before they dropped like stones. Together they vanished below the surface.
They certainly couldn't hope to catch the Novgorod. Already they would have fallen behind. Even the boat from which they'd jumped was having trouble keeping pace with the submarine.
"What do they think they are doing?" Zhilnikov asked, puzzled.
"Shall we sink her, sir?" his executive officer asked, thinking Zhilnikov was referring to the fishing boat that had obviously seen their periscope.
"What? No. Target another scow. Any one. It does not matter."
The order went down for another torpedo to be loaded. Another random scow was targeted. Zhilnikov was about to give the order to fire when the sea erupted with a noise so terrible it rattled the captain's molars.
The horrible wrenching noise came from somewhere above his head. It was the sound of tearing metal. The noise reverberated down the length of the Novgorod, trailing off at her giant propellers.
In all his many years at sea Captain Zhilnikov had never heard such a sound. It was as if Poseidon himself were squeezing the submarine in his mighty hand.
"What did we hit?" Zhilnikov snapped.
Frantic men checked instruments, surrendering to frightened confusion. "Nothing, Captain!" Zhilnikov looked up. The ceiling had never seemed so low or fragile. The echo of terrible sound was rolling back up along the metal shell.
"What the hell was that?" the Russian captain whispered.
For some reason his normally logical mind summoned up boyhood images of sea monsters that could drag helpless vessels to a watery grave. He banished the childish thought as soon as it occurred to him. He was on a vessel built by the powerful Soviet Union. There were no ships to match his in the area.
Captain Zhilnikov's confidence returned. He knew in his proud Russian heart that no animal or sea serpent was strong or foolish enough to challenge the mighty Novgorod.
REMO WASN'T QUITE SURE at first the best way to break a submarine. He figured anything that would get the water from the outside inside would do the trick.
He and Chiun had followed the lowering periscope down to the Novgorod. The Russian submarine was a huge dark shape gliding only a dozen yards beneath the waves. At about twenty knots it was easy for the two Sinanju Masters to keep pace.
A wall of displaced water pressed hard against them as they made their way down to the conning tower.
Once inside, the tower protected them from the surging water. They found the hatch-like an oversize manhole. Their fingers searched for a flaw, a lip, anything that could be used for a handhold.
They found what they needed at the front where the hatch hadn't been properly set in the frame. It was just the slightest misalignment in the airtight frame.
Remo jammed his fingers into the opening. Steelhard fingertips jimmied a gap wide enough for his hands.
Remo ripped once, hard.
The reinforced metal screamed in protest as Remo peeled the hatch back like the lid on a can of sardines. Water flooded in through the mangled hatch door.
Both men let the water take them. The water surge drew them down the tower and to the inner hatch. The dark tower interior was like working in a phone booth with the glass painted black. The inner hatch had the kind of handle Remo was used to. A round wheel sat at the center bulge of the hatch.
When Remo grabbed it and tried to give it a spin, the locked wheel stubbornly refused to budge. Remo's exertions thus far had done little to exhaust his oxygen supply. His concern was for his teacher, who, at one-hundred-plus years, would be feeling the effects by now.
He glanced at Chiun. The old man had been studying the hatch for hinges or flaws. When he felt the pressure waves of Remo's stare, Chiun looked up. Through the murky water, Remo saw the look of angry annoyance that creased the old Korean's brow. Beyond that there was no sign of strain on his parchment face.
Chiun raised a hand in impatient warning before returning attention to the hatch. Remo joined him. There were no handholds. There was only one option open to them. It was Chiun who attacked first. A bony fist struck hard steel. Then another. Remo joined in. First right, then left, then repeat. One Sinanju Master built up a rhythm that the other would shatter. The vibrations caused invisible cracks deep in the forged steel. The bowed metal shell dented, then buckled.
When the edge lifted, Remo reached in and yanked up the metal. He felt the pop of a breaking lock. And with a protesting scream, the hatch began to creak up.
CAPTAIN ZHILNIKOV HEARD the rush of seawater from where he stood beside the ladder to the conning tower. A former Russian navy lieutenant had raced with him to the spot from which the first sound of tearing metal had come. A half-dozen sailors formed a nervous line back to the bridge, where the executive officer awaited orders from the captain.
The Novgorod was already coming about. They were heading back out to sea. When the steady drumbeat on metal began to sound directly on the other side of the hatch, Zhilnikov felt his blood run cold.
"What is it, sir?" asked the ashen-faced lieutenant.
"Are we full about?" Zhilnikov snapped.
The question was shouted down the line. The Novgorod was passing beneath moored and burning scows in the long arc that would take them out into deeper water.
The pounding at the hatch intensified. The vibrations felt as if they would rattle the sub apart. "Weapons at the ready!" Zhilnikov shouted, not believing he was giving such an order.