"Looks like a damn gunboat or something," Seabrooke hissed.
It was. They realized that when the sub suddenly lurched in place. Everyone grabbed for something solid. Men were thrown about the control room.
"Depth charge!" Seabrooke cursed. "Dive, damn it!"
"Dive! Dive! All dive!"
But they were in less than one hundred fifty feet of water over an ocean floor choked with monolithic stones and sandbars. There was no place to hide, and everyone knew it.
A second charge detonated over the stern. The Harlequin bucked like a great horse stung by a hornet. Hull plates groaned and popped. Damage reports began coming in from all quarters. The lights winked out, coming back on only when Seabrooke called for backup generators. The screws refused to respond.
Dead in the water, the Harlequin crew waited, all eyes on the sonar scope operator.
"The contact is coming about, Captain," the sonar officer said nervously.
It was. In a long slow arc.
"They have us dead to rights, no question," Seabrooke whispered.
The battleship, whatever it was, slowed on the approach.
"Looks like they're going to take another whack at us," the exec muttered.
Captain John Paul Seabrooke watched the green blip on the sonar scope, his face like a death mask. He had two options, both grim. Try to run and risk North Korean battleships converging on his small boat, or surface and surrender.
His orders had contained no instructions for that eventuality. Now that he thought about it, that was unusual. It was as if COMSUBPAC had expected no problems.
"Surface," he rasped.
The orders were carried out smoothly and efficiently. The Harlequin groaned anew and, leaking at several seams, clawed for open air. She broke the surface with a gushing hiss of cascading sea water.
"Pop hatches," Seabrooke ordered. "Sparks, alert COMSUBPAC that we are challenged by North Korea battleship and have surfaced to hear terms. XO, you're with me."
The exec followed Commander John Paul Seabrooke to the main bridge hatch. They grabbed their oils on the way and put them on.
"Maybe we can bluff our way out of this," the exec said with a nervous laugh.
"Don't expect miracles," Seabrooke snapped back. They went up the hatch and stepped out onto the slippery deck atop the Harlequin's great sail.
IT WAS A FRIGATE, Najin class. Seabrooke recognized its bulky lines, which closely resembled the old and obsolete Kola-class frigate of the former USSR.
A spotlight sprang to life and blinded Seabrooke and his exec as an amplified voice bellowed, "USS Harlequin, this is Democratic People's Republic of Korea frigate SA-I-GU. You must surrender."
"They know who we are!" the exec exploded Seabrooke decided to bluff it out. "By what right do you attack a United States submarine in open waters?" he shouted through his megaphone.
"You must surrender at once. Do you do this?"
"He isn't buying it, skipper," the exec muttered dispiritedly.
"We offer no resistance," Seabrooke called back. Boats were lowered, and they waited in fist-clenching silence.
The first boatload of flat-faced Korean sailors secured the deck and sail. The second off-loaded the captain of the SA-I-GU, a squat man almost as wide as a Sumo wrestler with eyes that were unnaturally round for a Korean.
"I am Captain Yokang Sako," he announced. "You are Commander John Paul Seabrooke?"
Seabrooke tried to hold back his surprise. He swallowed and said, "I am permitted to give you my name, rank and serial number only."
"I know these things," Captain Yokang growled. "Do not waste my time with them, and this present difficulty will not be prolonged."
"What do you want?"
"Your cargo, Commander," said the North Korean captain.
Seabrooke and his exec looked at one another with stark, sick eyes. Meeting, their gazes said, We've been set up.
"Is that all?" Seabrooke said quietly.
"Once we have possession of your cargo, we will have no further use for you."
"I don't like the sound of that, skipper," the exec undertoned as the circle of rifles closed around them.
"Maybe he doesn't mean it the way it sounds," Seabrooke said with more hope than he felt.
"Do you surrender your vessel, or must it be taken by force?" Yokang demanded.
"If you guarantee no harm will come to my crew," Commander John Paul Seabrooke said, his ears ringing with humiliation. No sub commander in modern memory had ever been forced to hand over his boat to an enemy. His career was finished. Saving his crew was all that mattered now.
THE NORTH KOREAN seamen secured the Harlequin with hard looks and harder rifle barrels. Not a shot was fired. Not a harsh word was spoken by either side. It was very professional, very efficient, very civilized. Neither side wanted the incident to escalate any further than it had.
Commander Seabrooke led the Korean frigate captain to the weapons storage area and unlocked a storage room. He himself did not know what his cargo was. He had watched the crates as they were lowered through the weapons shipping hatch by crane back in San Diego and came away with the idea that very heavy machinery or weapons were housed in the crates.
The Korean captain proved him wrong when he stepped up to one crate and attacked it with a short crowbar he had picked up along the way.
The crate was stout. It took considerable struggle before nails shrieked as they came out of the wood, and the boards themselves cracked and splintered.
"Gold?" Seabrooke said when the shiny ingots tumbled out.
The Korean captain turned, his flat face twisting. "You did not know?"
"No."
"But you know where you were to drop this cargo?"
"No."
"You lie!"