Chapter 52 - The Hull Breaker: He Drove the Armored Crane Straight Into the Nuclear Submarine
The impact sounded like a lightning bolt striking an iron anvil.
A deafening shockwave shattered every window across the Brooklyn Navy Yard. A fountain of pressurized water, hydraulic fluid, and crushed titanium shot sixty feet into the night air. The heavy tungsten block smashed squarely into the upper sail of the *Leviathan*, tearing through the composite radar mast, shearing off the satellite fairings, and jamming itself into the primary conning tower hatch with catastrophic force.
The submarine groaned—a dying, metallic shriek that reverberated through the riverbed. The vessel tilted violently to its port side, thirty degrees off-axis, its diving planes grinding uselessly against the concrete walls of the flooded dock.
`HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED: SAIL SECTOR THREE.`
`EMERGENCY BALLAST BLOW INITIATED.`
High-pressure air hissed violently, forcing thousands of gallons of water from the ballast tanks. The dying submarine, unable to submerge, was hurled back toward the surface like a wounded whale, rolling onto the flooded concrete apron.
"Hold on to him!" Dante bellowed, leaping from the crane cabin just as the recoil cracked the operator platform in half.
He landed heavily on the steel grating beside Claire, catching her as a tidal wave of river water surged over the catwalk. Dante’s hand locked around her waist, shielding her and Leo from the flying debris of sheared bolts and twisted aluminum.
Through the mist and smoke, the crushed conning tower lay exposed, resting barely three feet below their catwalk. The auxiliary pressure hatch—warped by the impact—had cracked open, venting hot white steam and toxic battery fumes into the cold midnight air.
From inside the ruptured hull, a scream echoed through the hiss of escaping steam.
"Claire! Help me!"
It was Jonathan Ellison’s voice, but it lacked the arrogant chill of an admiral. It was the desperate, choked shriek of a man burning alive in electrical fire.
Claire racked the slide of her Kimber .45, her combat instincts taking over entirely. "Dante, secure Leo on the upper landing! The telemetry guidance unit is in the forward torpedo room. If the launch signal isn't manually scrubbed before the booster stage fires, the missiles will launch on internal compass alone!"
"You're not going down into that tomb alone," Dante countered, drawing a spare magazine from his vest and slamming it into his tactical rifle.
"I have the clearance, Dante! You heard the computer—my voiceprint, Leo’s DNA... this monstrosity was built using our family's stolen project blueprints. It won't accept an abort command from you!"
Dante stared into her fierce, unyielding eyes. In that instant, he didn't see the frightened nanny who had walked into his Manhattan brownstone with an enigmatic name tag and gentle hands. He saw the elite naval operative, the survivor of black-budget military horrors, the woman who had conquered his heart by standing fearlessly in front of his enemies.
"Sixty seconds," Dante commanded, his voice dark and absolute. He unclipped Leo’s tactical infant carrier, wrapping his own bulletproof coat around the baby and holding him against his broad chest. "If you are not back out of that hatch in sixty seconds, Claire, I am coming down there with a thermite grenade, and we burn this river together."
"Fifty will do," Claire said.
Without a second thought, she vaulted over the catwalk railing, hitting the slick, curved titanium hull of the submarine with perfect military balance. She ducked through the billowing white steam and slid into the ruptured emergency trunk of the *Leviathan*.
Inside, the submarine was a circle of Hell. Red battle lights spun crazily, painting the flooded corridors in blood-red hues. Sparks rained from the severed electrical trunks, and the air was thick with ozone and burning insulation.
At the bottom of the ladder, pinned beneath a fallen steel support beam and a bank of shattered navigational screens, lay Jonathan Ellison.
His pristine white dress uniform was blackened, scorched against his skin. His legs were crushed beneath the titanium beam, blood pooling around his waist in the dark water rising across the deck. Yet, his right hand still clutched a glowing biometric terminal.
"You... you're too late, Claire," Jonathan wheezed, spitting crimson onto the metal deck. His eyes bulged with madness. "The launch coordinates were relayed to the entire fleet... Leviathan doesn't answer to humans anymore... it answers to the Council!"
Claire raised her weapon, aiming the barrel directly between his bloodshot eyes. "Input the scrub code, Jonathan. Right now."
Jonathan laughed—a wet, rattling sound. "The code is dead! The moment your little bastard spoke, he triggered the absolute purge! Look at the terminal, Commander! The only way to stop the missile... is to erase the commander's voiceprint forever!"
Claire’s eyes darted to the master tactical monitor.
The screen blinked in harsh amber:
`SUPREME COMMANDER BIOMETRIC RECORD: ACTIVE.`
`TO ABORT MISSION: TERMINATE REGISTERED BIOMETRIC SOURCE [SUBJECT: LEO MORETTI].`
`FAILSAFE TIMER: 42 SECONDS.`
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Claire’s blood ran cold. The monster who designed this submarine hadn't built a simple fail-safe. They had designed a suicide pact. The only way to stop the missile from annihilating Washington was to kill the child who authorized it.
***
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