A small handful of technicians and mechanics in coveralls moved about the bunker’s outer bay. Some were on the dock tapping on handheld devices. Others stood on the gangways extending out to the sub. A few with lighted helmets were doing their final inspections atop its narrow upper deck.
The vessel was sleek and tubular. It had no conning tower but a communications mast that could fully retract into the hull when not in use. The titanium alloy hull had been shaped while the metal was still ductile and then strengthened by heat treatment. Its outer skin was jet-black and smooth as silk, like the wings of a bat. There were no external markings.
“When I was young the boats traveled in slow motion,” Koschei said. “In the water they made a racket like cement trucks. Their compartments stank of sweat and diesel fumes.”
Drajan was quiet. The air was heavy and moist. He heard water sloshing beneath the lip of the dock.
“Those were the days,” he said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Koschei grinned. “I should bottle my sentimentalism around you,” he said. “But I tell you sincerely...give me the rest of the night to admire our miracle, and I wouldn’t budge.”
Drajan turned to him. “I define my own miracles. No one else.”
“And you don’t think we’re looking at one? A submarine that can travel like this beauty?”
“Ask again in a few days, and I’ll tell you.”
Koschei was silent. He had noticed some workers hoisting in a gangway to his right, then glanced beyond them to the hinged carbon-steel floodgates at the mouth of the bunker. They were presently sealed and watertight. In a few short minutes they would swing wide open to fill the submarine bay with water.
“Well, then, let’s go,” he said. “We should get out of here before the dock is submerged.”
Drajan nodded, slid his hands into the pockets of his trench coat.
“On that,” he said, “we can agree.”
They walked deeper into the mountain, turned from the dock into a corridor blasted out of solid rock, walked through into a second corridor, and then entered the control room. It was lighted and filled with monitors.
Half an hour later, they watched the massive floodgates open, the boat stealing out of the bunker into the dark channel water. At the console next to Koschei, Drajan brushed a glance over the other man’s face. What had the Chinese poet written? Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river. Startle the forest and make the heights tremble.
Koschei seemed enthralled, lost in his old dream.
Which was right where Drajan wanted him.