Chapter 79 - The Steel Maelstrom
The water in the well swept me upward as the *Caspian Ghost*'s bow plunged deeper into the Pacific.
I broke the surface gasping for air, grabbing hold of the severed steel ladder dangling from the catwalk. Miller’s strong grip locked onto the shoulder strap of my tactical rig, hauling me out of the boiling maelstrom with a single, violent heave.
"Move! The whole lower deck is under!" Miller roared.
Behind us, outside the gaping maw of the ship’s submerged bow, the ocean lit up with a dull, subterranean flash of orange light.
*BOOM.*
The detonation was felt more than heard—a concussive shockwave that reverberated through the iron hull of the *Caspian Ghost*. Through the churning surface of the water, a massive plume of air and diesel oil erupted from the deep.
The submersible’s ballast system had ruptured instantly. Stripped of its buoyancy controls, the titanium pod didn't escape into the deep trench; it began a rapid, uncontrolled ascent, tumbling violently through the underwater currents until it breached the surface like a dead whale, dead in the water, its thrusters dead and its emergency beacons screaming on all standard naval distress channels.
"Target immobilized," Miller reported into his headset, breathing heavily as we scrambled up the steep incline of the sinking companionway. "Arthur Vance is floating in an unpowered tin can, dead ahead of the Strike Group's forward destroyer."
"He's not getting out until the federal marshals crack that hatch with a cutting torch," I panted, securing the recovered pelican case to my chest harness as we reached the upper boat deck.
The *Caspian Ghost* was on her final plunge.
Her stern was lifted fifty feet out of the water, the massive bronze propellers spinning uselessly in the storm wind. Waves were breaking across the forward bridge windows, smashing the safety glass into shards that washed into the flooded wheelhouse.
"Evacuate! All teams, off the ship now!" the pilot of the MV-22 Osprey shouted through our tactical headsets.
The aircraft hovered thirty feet above the bucking stern deck, its hoist cables swinging wildly in the forty-knot crosswinds.
One by one, the DEVGRU operators clipped into the extraction line and were winched into the sky. I was the last man on the deck. The ship gave a final, sickening shudder beneath my boots as the forward bulkheads collapsed under thousands of tons of sea pressure. The deck tilted at a terrifying forty-five-degree angle.
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I snapped my carabiner into the hoist cable just as the stern began its final slide beneath the waves. The winch operator threw the lever, hauling me upward through the freezing rain as the *Caspian Ghost* was swallowed whole by the Pacific Ocean, disappearing into a massive, foaming vortex of white water and oil.
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