The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran (20 page)

“Faster, Bao. Depth is at 100 meters now and moving quickly.”

“Y…Yes, Sir,” Bao said, struggling to speak as he fruitlessly tried one last time to move the valve, and not aware that Boutrous, who was out of view, had passed out from smoke inhalation. Bao tried to get the wrench that had been in the lower pocket of his right pant leg, and saw that it had fallen into a hard-to-reach crevice nearby, under the water. He figured that it could easily take him a minute or two to get out of his convoluted and cramped position, retrieve the wrench in the water, and climb back into his current position from which he could shut the valve with the wrench.

“Boutrous get me a wrench!” he yelled, sticking his hand out, with his head still half buried between machines near the wall. The time it would take Bao to remove himself from the awkward position required to access the secondary valve, splash through the water to Boutrous, get the wrench, and then go back through the water and into the same position could easily cost him 30 to 60 seconds. Boutrous had to bring him the wrench, or they wouldn’t make it. But there was no response, so he stuck his head out and tried again, screaming as loudly and desperately as he could, not realizing that Boutrous was unconscious: “Boutrous, get me a fucking wrench, God damn it!”

Daniel noticed on the video monitor that Boutrous was about a meter away from Bao, slumped on the floor with the water level up to his chin. His insensible head was propped up against some vertical pipes and machines as the water level from the flooded room worked its way past his chin and up towards his mouth. The rising flood in the weapons room had now risen to 40 centimeters, just above the bottom of the door. Daniel addressed the additional manpower that had just arrived, fully equipped, outside the sealed weapons room door: “Send in two men to rescue Boutrous, one to help Bao, and three to help fight the fire!”

Because the water level had risen above the bottom of the door, it took the collective force of three sailors to push the door open against the water – an act that unintentionally saved Boutrous’ life. Just as water was about to enter the unconscious sailor’s mouth, the water level of the mini lake in the weapons room gradually dropped from 40 centimeters back down to 35 centimeters, as water rushed out of the room after the additional submariners opened the door and entered. They waded through the water as fast as they could to get to Boutrous.

“I need a fucking wrench!” Bao called out desperately to the two seamen who had just arrived to extract Boutrous. One of them rushed over to him and put the metal tool in his hand. Never before had a simple wrench felt like such a windfall. The submariner who gave him the tool rejoined the other who had just entered and the two of them turned Boutrous so that his back was facing them; they hooked their hands under his armpits and dragged him through the water and out of the danger zone.

“110 meters,” Daniel warned the crew. About five tons of water had entered the submarine since the emergency deballasting maneuver, and there was about a minute and ten meters left to stop the flood before irreversible problems could start afflicting the Dolphin, even if all the pumps started working properly at that moment. The three new firefighting sailors who had entered waded towards the fire, ready to help Zvi and Jacob however and wherever space permitted. Another seaman stood near Bao, ready to help in whatever way he might request.

“115 meters,” Daniel warned, with under a minute left for the leak to stop. Moments later, after wielding the wrench with all of his remaining strength, Bao had finally closed the valve and stopped the incoming water. He collapsed from smoke inhalation and exhaustion, and the nearby crewmember hurriedly helped him to exit from the cramped space and out of the room.

For the submariners on the upper deck who were relatively removed from the immediate danger, the anxiety about the peril at hand diminished as soon as they felt the Dolphin’s descent slow down a little because water weight was no longer being added. But they knew that any celebration at that moment would be premature, with parts of the weapons room still burning and with the pumps still not fully working. If the conflagration wasn’t contained in the next few minutes, one of the powerful explosives secured in that area could detonate and kill everyone instantly. And even if the fire was extinguished in time, they would still all perish if the pumps failed to remove the five tons of water that entered since the emergency deballasting had temporarily lifted the Dolphin to 80 meters.

“120 meters. Status of the fire by the hull valve?” Daniel asked.

“We just extinguished it, Sir…But there’s another fire nearby,” Jacob reported. A few meters to his right, smaller flames were still raging in a cramped area past some crisscrossing pipes that formed a narrow opening just large enough for a crewmember to squeeze through. As Jacob started to move in that direction, Zvi grabbed his arm. “W…Watch out for those wires!” There were some exposed, dangling circuits that posed an electrocution risk with so much water in the area.

To avoid the wires, Jacob and Zvi took a circuitous path to the smaller fire. Jacob reached the hot zone first and realized that there was no way to squeeze through the narrow opening and access the blaze while wearing the bulky oxygen tank. He took a deep breath, removed his air supply, and crawled through the water into the small space inside the crisscrossing pipes, until he was close enough to the flames to spray them with his fire extinguisher while holding his breath. He snuffed out about 60% of the blaze but eventually his breath ran out and he ended up inhaling enough smoke to cause him to cough violently. Zvi pulled him out to safety, put his air mask back on, and passed him to the other submariners behind him, who then evacuated him from the room. Zvi also couldn’t approach the fire with his oxygen tank on. So, like Jacob, he removed it after taking a very deep breath, and crawled through the water and into the cramped area inside the crisscrossing pipes to finish the job. About a minute later, the blaze was vanquished and Zvi, too, was left severely coughing, as other crewmembers pulled him out and put the air mask back on him.

“140 meters. Status of the pumps?” Daniel called out to Samir.

“Still swapping the pumps’ defective starter card with a spare new one, Sir.”

A little later: “180 meters. Status of the pumps?”

“Running tests on the new starter card for the pumps, Sir.”

The rest of the crew watched anxiously as Samir ran the tests needed to ensure that the new starter card configured properly. At this point, everyone’s life was in Samir’s hands.

“220 meters. We need to start the pumps, Samir. Even if they’re not configured right. If we wait much longer it won’t matter how they’re configured.”

“Pumps configured correctly, Sir! Activating pumps.”

At a depth of a little under 250 meters, about four minutes since the flood emergency first began, all of the pumps were properly working again. But the ship’s dangerously rapid descent did not stop completely – it only slowed down. To stop descending any deeper, all 5,000 liters of water that had entered first had to be expelled, and the pumps could remove only 800 liters of water per minute. Had the flood not been stopped, the submarine would have certainly been doomed, because more water would now be entering than the pumps could possibly suck out each minute. But with the pumps working at full capacity, and no more water entering the Dolphin, there was a chance that it might stop sinking before a depth of 400 meters – a lethal profundity at which additional pipes could start bursting unexpectedly or, even worse, the integrity of the pressure hull itself could be compromised, killing everyone almost instantly.

Thus, as the vessel continued to descend, albeit more slowly, down to 350 meters, all eyes were on the submarine’s depth gauge and pump performance indicators. Nothing more could be done to improve the crew’s odds of survival. If the pumps suddenly stopped working, or if they even slowed down a little, the crew would end up crushed at the bottom of the sea. At 375 meters, the Dolphin’s sinking had slowed considerably, but – as it continued to creep towards 385 meters – some crewmembers began to think dark and final thoughts. The religious seamen prayed for a miracle or help from God, as the depth meter reached 395 meters. In the end, the faithful would have their prayers answered. The submarine came to a full stop at 398 meters.

Daniel, his face sweating from the massive tension, exhaled a deep breath. The crew felt as if it had just knocked on death’s door and then fled, seconds before the Grim Reaper could answer. The Dolphin and its crew would live to see another day.

Chapter 24: A Brief Respite

The weapons and engineering teams would have their hands full with repairs over the next 24 hours. They had to fix the defective sensors and burned out fuses of the fire-fighting system in the weapons storage room. They also needed to replace the damaged pipe, substitute burned-out fuses and circuits with new ones, and repair the various machines that were damaged by the fire and the flood. The other departments were also busy, conducting a battery of thorough checks under Daniel’s watchful supervision.

Minutes after the ordeal had ended, Boutrous, Zvi, Jacob, and Bao were all lying down in the crew’s quarters being treated by the medic. All of them had suffered from minor smoke inhalation injuries and were treated with humidified oxygen and bronchodilators. Boutrous, Zvi, and Jacob also had minor burns on their arms.

Still weak and sick, Eitan showed up to see how the sailor under his command was doing but Boutrous spoke first, just as Yisrael was tending to his burn wound: “Hey Eitan, how’s your stomach feeling?”

“As if I swallowed a few mousetraps…But that’s nothing compared to what you went through…How are you feeling?”

“My lungs are still sore, and I have some burns on my arms, but the doctor says I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling at Yisrael.

“He’s a tough kid, this one,” Yisrael said, winking at him.

“Maybe the scar will come out so cool that I won’t need to get any tattoos on my arms.”

Daniel stopped by to check up on the injured crewmembers. “How’s everyone doing here?”

“We should rename this part of the sub ‘Hero’s Corner,’” Yisrael said with a smile, as he moved over to Zvi so that he could take care of his burns.

“Aaff…After so many drills, it was time…f…for some action, right Sir?” Zvi joked lightly.

“Drills are usually safer. But action is when your character shows the most. And each of you will receive a commendation for bravery when we get back to the base.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Bao replied.

“I can’t stop thinking about how the whole disaster was my fault,” Boutrous said. “How did I see a six instead of a five?”

“We all get tired,” Daniel said, sympathetically. “You just need to get into the coffee habit when you feel yourself slipping.”

“Yeah, you did great out there, Boutrous,” Eitan reassured him. “In fact, you could say that the whole thing is actually my fault – because I got sick and left you with so little sleep that fives became sixes.”

“In that case, maybe it’s the cook’s fault, because he made the food that made you sick,” Yisrael added, in a bantering tone. “Although no one else got sick so maybe we should blame your parents for passing genes on to you that gave you the particular stomach chemistry that rejected what the cook fed us.”

“Uh oh, the philosopher has struck again at the bottom of the sea!” Bao said.

Daniel would have liked to stay for the relaxed and friendly conversation, all of which would have provided some much-needed relief from the immense stress he had just experienced. But he had to maintain a certain distance from those under his command, a concern that Yisrael as deputy captain didn’t yet have – particularly when acting in the role of the crew’s comforting healer. There were also countless post-accident duties waiting for Daniel. “Gentlemen, I wish you a full and speedy recovery. I’m proud and grateful to have each of you on my crew. I’ll see you on deck later.”

“Thank you, Sir,” each of the wounded sailors replied in turn. Daniel left the area.

“Wait a sec,” Jacob began. “I thought Yisrael’s nickname is the ‘Professor,’ not the ‘Philosopher.’”

“I guess it depends if I’m being professorial or philosophical,” Yisrael retorted ironically.

“Don’t you all think it’s time that I gave Boutrous the crew nicknames?” Eitan asked.

“H…He certainly deserves them,” Zvi affirmed.

“Actually, I think I just thought of a good nickname for him,” Yisrael said.

“What is it?” Boutrous asked, blushing a little and bracing for something embarrassing.

“One hundred sixty-four.”

Everyone burst into laughs.

“I guess that’s a good one…It’ll certainly remind me to drink coffee whenever I’m getting sleepy,” Boutrous replied with his good-natured smile. “So what about some of the stories now?” he asked, turning to Eitan.

“OK. But there are a lot,” Eitan replied. “So I won’t give them all to you now, but we’ll get started. As you know, we sometimes call Bao ‘Moonwalk’ because – ”

“It’s always so embarrassing to hear this story told to the new submariners,” Bao interrupted. “Can’t you at least do this when I’m not around?”

“No, tell him,” Jacob insisted. “He earned it!”

“Well, one day,” continued Eitan, “we were at the pier performing maintenance on the Dolphin with the radio blasting, and the song ‘Billy Jean’ came on and Bao just stopped what he was doing and started singing the song out loud while moon-walking all the way across the upper deck of the Dolphin.”

“And we were all so impressed by how well he did it, that he had to perform it a few more times later that week and over the years,” Yisrael added.

“And we would soon discover that he knew the lyrics to just about every Michael Jackson song in existence, so ‘Moonwalk’ was the perfect nickname for him,” Eitan concluded.

“Funny. So how did Samir get the name ‘Blitz?’”

“Oh that one’s even funnier,” Eitan said. “One time Samir had just left the engine room before one of the other engineers had come by to inspect something. Minutes later, the poor guy sounded the evacuation alarm, thinking that there was some kind of dangerous chemical leak in the room. But after a quick investigation, and because the smell seemed to follow Samir around, the crew realized that the toxic chemical leak reported in the engine room was just Samir’s fart. It was the ultimate stealth blitz.” Everyone in the medic room burst into laughs.