Isaac Bell found himself trapped in a headlock. His left arm was pinned between their bodies. With his right, he tried to reach the knife in his boot. But O’Shay’s thumb gouge was arced toward his eye. Bell surrendered all thoughts of his knife and seized O’Shay’s wrist.

He realized instantly that he had never grappled with a stronger man. Even as he held his wrist with all his might, O’Shay forced the razor-sharp gouge closer and closer to Bell’s face until it pierced the skin and began crawling cross his cheek, plowing a fine red furrow toward his eye. All the while, O’Shay’s right arm was squeezing harder and harder around his throat, cutting off air to his burning lungs and blood to his brain. He heard a roaring in his ears. White flashes stormed before his eyes. His sight began to fade, his grip on O’Shay’s wrist loosened.

He tried to free his left arm. O’Shay shifted slightly to keep it pinned.

Head trapped, bent low, Bell suddenly saw that he was now partially behind O’Shay. He slammed his knee into the back of O’Shay’s knee. It buckled. O’Shay pitched forward. Bell wedged his shoulder under him and rose like a piston.

He flipped O’Shay up and yanked down, slamming the spy to the deck with bone-shaking force. The powerful O’Shay kept hold of Bell’s head, took a deep breath of air, and pulled the detective down with him into the heavier concentration of the suffocating gas. But Bell’s left arm was no longer pinned between them. He slammed his elbow into O’Shay’s nose, cracking bone. Still O’Shay choked him, still the gouge raked at his eye.

Suddenly cold water cascaded down on the fighting men, sending fresh clouds of chlorine up from the massive battery under the deck. The submarine was heeling, the river spilling through the hatch. Bell pushed out with long legs, found a foothold, and forced O’Shay’s head against the bulkhead lined with hot pipes. O’Shay tried to writhe away. Bell held fast. Even sharper than the stench of chlorine was the stink of burning hair, and at last O’Shay’s grip loosened. Bell pulled out of it, dodged a vicious slash of the gouge, and punched out repeatedly as waves poured in.

Bell struggled to stand, kicked free of O’Shay’s grasping hands, and climbed out of the hatch. He saw lights converging. Launches were setting out from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and lowering from the New Hampshire. The submarine was sinking, engine still roaring, propeller still fighting the current. A wave tumbled over the hatch and swept Bell to the back of the submarine. He kicked off from the propeller shield, just missing the blades, and was thrown behind by its wash.