Next came Eric with Juan’s dive gear. This time, he wouldn’t bother with a bulky dry suit since he wouldn’t need to dive very deeply to access the ship’s interior. Hux arrived with a case of emergency medical supplies. She loaded the box into the chopper’s external storage locker as Cabrillo finished suiting up. He wedged his back against the chopper’s side so he could pull on his dive boots and then helped Eric load the rest of his gear on the chopper’s rear bench seat. Linc had already stowed the capsule behind the pilot’s seat.

“Gomez?” Juan questioned.

“One more minute. Might as well slow the ship now.”

“All right.”

There was an intercom mounted on the hangar wall. Cabrillo called the bridge, and almost immediately the sound of water gushing through her drive tubes changed as she went into full reverse.

Max is going to kill me for that, he thought to himself, not knowing that Hanley had meted out the exact same type of punishment when he was hunting the Russian Akula. As much as Cabrillo thought the Oregon indefatigable, she had her limits, and these sudden starts and stops wreaked havoc on her impeller blades and the motors that controlled their fine pitch.

“Saddle up,” Gomez Adams announced. He tossed a bag of hand tools to one of his hangar apes—the nickname for the men who serviced the helo—and settled himself into the pilot’s seat. A hum grew from the equipment when he hit the master switch and started the takeoff procedure.

While Juan and Linc jumped aboard, the pilot jacked his helmet into the chopper’s radios and did a communications check. “Max, you in the op center yet?”

“I’m here. Talk about your rude awakenings.”

Cabrillo had his own helmet on and spoke. “Have you seen the video?”

“Hali just showed it to me. You go get her, Juan.”

They would have reacted just the same had Linda not been on the Sakir, but her presence there made this rescue especially poignant.

“Don’t you worry about that. Anything on the radar plot?”

“Nothing to be concerned with.”

“Keep an eye out. Kenin had to use either a ship or another submarine to pull that off. Ping active as you follow us, and watch for surface contacts. You know about L’Enfant?” Juan asked.

“Hali told me the little rat sold us out.”

“True, but he didn’t spill that we could track Kenin’s sub and had the capability to sink it. I don’t think Kenin knows we have a chopper or that the Oregon’s the fastest ship in the world for her size.”

“Good point.”

“Kenin underestimated us once. Let’s pray he does it again.”

“Understood. We’ll keep an eye out.”

“We’ll do the same.”

The crew never wished one another luck before a mission, so Max repeated his earlier plaint. “You bring her back.”