Jack is swimming furiously back toward Jammer's position. The strange radiance is gone. His dive light flare back to full brightness.
"Jammer? Answer me, buddy, JAMMER?!"
He reaches Jammer only to find him thrashing violently in place. A seizure. Jack grapples with him.
"Hang on, big guy. Hand on!"
John, Sonny, and Eugene arrive from the corridor a moment later. They leap into the fray.
"He's convulsing!" Jack cries out with horror.
John checks him feverishly "It's his mixture! Too much oxygen!"
Then they're all yelling at once, grappling with the big man, struggling with the valves on his breathing gear.
Eugene cries "Crank it down, man! We're gonna losing him..."
"SHIT, it's stuck... goddamnit!" Jack struggles.
"You got it?! You got it?" John pleads with fear.
"Yeah, yeah... yeah. It's turning." Jack yells. Jammer's convulsion ends. He goes limp. "We gotta get him out of here. Come on! (to Jammer) Hang on, buddy."
They drag Jammer's slack form into the corridor, hauling their way rapidly back along the lifeline.
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.
.
Ianto is approaching the monolith of the sail, manoeuvring to clear the horizontal diving plane. Then his lights go dim and his thrusters loose power.
Suddenly a bright corona breaks around the bulk of the sail and something appears right in front of him, a glowing object moving like a bat out of hell right at him!
It is slightly smaller than submersible and we only get a glimpse. What we think we see in the diffuse glow is a translucent ovoid, open at the front with a spinning vortex of light inside... like some hallucinatory jet engine. And it's hauling ass.
Ianto jinks left. The object jogs right. He fights the control as his sub slews around, slamming broadside into the sail. K-BAM! His power comes back up. Righting Can One, he spins to look through the aft viewport in time to see the object racing away in a broad arc. It pulls a high-G turn and dives straight down.
We see the object zip behind Flatbed. Toshiko can't see it. The thing spirals down into the darkness like a hit-and-run drunk, diving along the wall into the abyss until it is lost to view.
Ianto is excited, amazed... dazed. His hands are shaking. Suddenly Jack's voice blares out over the open frequency. "CAB ONE! CAB ONE! Meet me at Flatbed! This is a diver emergency! Do you copy? Ianto?!"
He has a hard time focusing on what he's saying. Finally "Copy you, Jack. On my way."
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.
AN HOUR LATER
Jammer is unconscious on a folding cot set up in the tiny cubicle of the infirmary. Monk, who is cross-trained as a medic as well as a demolitions man, has hung an IV of something. Jack and the SEAL are in the room, the others hovering outside.
"What ya think?" Jack asks.
"I'm a medic, which is mostly about patching holes. This type of thing... there's not much I can do. The coma could last hours or days." Monk sighs with a shrug.
Jack, torn by guilt, gazes at the big man lying pathetically on the cot.
The SEALs, minus Monk, are all gathered inside, debriefing with DeMarco via closed-circuit video.
"Did any of you see it?" DeMarco was asking.
"Negative. But there was definitely a Russian bogey. The Harkness boy saw it"
"Head's gonna go apeshit. Two Russian attack subs, a Tango and Victor, have been tracked within fifty miles of here... and now we don't know what the hell they are. Okay, I don't have any choice. I'm confirming you to go to Phase Two."
Davison and Schoenick glance uneasily at each other.
Saxon is silent. He is vibrating with tension... his fists clenched to prevent the shaking. He is wrestling with the moment, knowing it is, in a way, a point of no return.
"Is there any problem?" DeMarco demands.
"Yes... I mean no. Negative, sir." Saxon takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Phase Two is clearly a big deal.
.
.
The maintenance room doubles as a camera workstation. An adjoining head serves as darkroom. Ianto is glumly reassembling Cab One's camera housings.
"Did you get anything on the cameras. Video or anything?" Jack demands.
Ianto can see that he isn't being believed, he knows Jack well enough to know when mocking isn't far off "No. Look, forget it. I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine. Be that way."
"I don't know what I saw. Okay? Saxon wants to call it a Russian submersible, fine. It's a Russian submersible. No problem."
"But you think it's something else." Jack can see Ianto's exasperation, a rarity for him to show emotion like this "What? One of ours?"
"No."
"Whose then? Ianto? Talk to me..."
Ianto is wrestling with a feeling which is somehow also certain knowledge.
He tries to defend himself "Jammer saw something in there, something that scared the hell out him…"
"His mixture got screwed up. He panicked and pranged his regulator." Jack snorts, still not able to believe.
"But what did he see that made him panic?"
"What do you think he saw?"
"I don't know." Ianto groans then shouts it "I DON'T KNOW!"
Owen comes pounding up, sticks his head in, gesturing animatedly. "Hey, you guys... hurry up, check this out! They're announcing it."
They follow him into the corridor, trotting down to the mess hall.
General melee as they rush in, everybody focused on the TV.
"Quiet! Quiet!" John barks.
"Turn it up, bozo." Owen shouts at him.
... the Kremlin continues to deny Russian involvement in the sinking of the Trident sub USS Montana. The Navy has not released the names of the 156 crewmembers, who are all presumed dead at this time. Civilian employees of a Benthic Petroleum offshore drilling rig-
"Hey that's us!" Owen crows.
John slaps at him "SSSSHHH!"
"-are apparently participating in the recovery operation but we have little information about their involvement. On the scene now is…"
"BOOOOH! We want names!" Eugene pouts.
"Hey, hey! There's the Explorer." Sonny shouts with glee.
A Long lens video shot of the Benthic Explorer and the other vessels in a stormy sea CUTS TO a shot of Pete Tyler, the on-scene reporter, in rain gear, clutching his microphone. He is on the deck of a Navy support ship, being used as a staging area from the press, well away from the centre of the operation.
Pete is reporting "-there is a tremendous amount of activity. With Cuba only 80 miles away, the massive build-up of US ships and aircraft in the area has drawn official protest from Havana and Moscow and has led to a redirection of Soviet warships into the Caribbean theatre."
"How would you describe the mood there?" the anchorman asks.
Pete replies calmly "The mood is one of suspicion, even confrontation. A number of Russian and Cuban trawlers,
undoubtedly surveillance vessels, have been circling within a few miles throughout the day, and Soviet aircraft have repeatedly been warned away from the area..."
"This sucks." Owen grumbles.
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.
Jack, Ianto, and Owen walking along the corridor, Owen in a black mood of incipient paranoia.
"What's the matter with you?" Jack demands.
"Now we're right in the middle of this big-time international incident." Owen hisses like the walls have ears "Like the Cuban Missile Crisis or something."
"Figured that out for yourself, did you?" Ianto shakes his head with wonder at Owen's weirdness sometimes.
"We got Russian subs creeping around. Shit!" Owen stops walking, his mouth hanging open as he stare at them with wide eyes "Something goes wrong they could say anything happened down here, man. Give our folks medals, know what I mean?"
"Owen, just relax. You're making the women nervous." Jack sighs.
"Cute, Jax." Ianto is annoyed now, starting to move around them. Fuck this. Jack glances a him and turns to follow.
"No, I mean it. Those SEALs aren't telling us diddly. Something's going on." Owen warns as he starts to run after them.
"Owen, you think everything's a conspiracy."
"Everything is."
Toshiko is pounding down the corridor from the sub bay. "Hurry up! Saxon's splitting with Flatbed! He got me to show him the controls, then his guys suited up and they're rolling."
Jack breaks into a run, passing her.
"Goddamnit! D'you tell him we need it right now?" Jack roars with anger.
Toshiko defends herself "I told him we had to get the umbilical unhooked ASAP."
Jack clears the door in time to see an empty moonpool, roiling with turbulence.
He runs to the edge and looks down. Flatbed is a vague shape moving off.
"Unbelievable."
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EXPLORER BRIDGE - DAY
The sky is charcoal, the sea is a mountain range of gray slopes. Waves thunder over the foredeck, whipped by eighty-know winds. Men in life jackets scurry like insects. Off the port bow, the ASW destroyer ALBANY vanishes and reappears among waves sixty feet tall. McBride scream orders that can't be heard to the crewmen on deck. He staggers back along the bridge railing.
McBride steps into the quiet of the control room. He turns on De Marco. "We're trying to get unhooked and get out of here... and your boys go sightseeing!"
De Marco sniffs with that superior bastardry of someone used to getting their own way "They'll be back in two hours."
"Two hours?!" McBride roars "We're gonna be getting the shit
kicked out of us by our friend Fred in two hours!"
De Marco's expression is infuriatingly calm... icy. McBride looks at his watch and swears under his breath.
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USS MONTANA WRECK SITE
For a second time the black hull of the ballistic missile sub is illuminated by diver's lights. Tiny figures, the divers move like moths around a distant streetlight. Davison, Monk and Schoenick are clustered around an open missile hatch. Using a large lift bag, they are removing the frangible fiberglass, or 'diaphragm'. Saxon pilots Flatbed with increasing deftness, deploying the big arm to aid in the work.
The diaphragm lifts away... revealing the blunt nose of the
TRIDENT C-4 MISSLE. Like looking down the barrel of a gun at the bullet aimed right at you.
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.
..
TORCHWOOD/MESS HALL
THY ARE WATCHING A VIDEO SCREEN:
A HELICOPTER SHOT of a warship burning, rolling ponderously as it sinks in stormy seas.
The News Anchor is droning on "Little is known at this hour about the events leading up to the collision. The US Navy guided missile cruiser Appleton apparently struck the Soviet 'Udaloy' class destroyer in low visibility conditions..."
Men in life jackets among huge waves... Rescue helicopters hovering. Shaky camera work. Wind blasting.
"In violent seas little hope remains for over a hundred Russian crewmen still missing after the sinking an hour ago."
SHOT OF AMERICAN CRUISER, burning, listing to one side in heavy seas. Replaced by SHOT OF NETWORK ANCHORMAN.
"Soviet military spokesmen have claimed that the collision constituted an unprovoked attack. This was denied…"
It continues. Jack looks at Ianto. Ianto turns to him, expression grim. "Jack, this is big time."
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MONTANA WRECKSITE
The divers are working head-first in the missile's launch tube. Monk reads from a plasticized card, directing the other two step by step. The arcane litany is punctuated by the hissing rasp of their breathing.
Davison asks "Separation sequencer disconnected. Next?"
Monk reads their card "Remove explosive bolts one through six in counter clock-wise sequence."
He compiles "Check... removing bolt one."
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TORCHWOOD
The crew are still watching. Bathed in the light of the video screen.
"... just learned that Soviet negotiators have walked out of the strategic arms limitation summit in protest over the incident this morning."
Jack switches the channel.
"... US and NATO military forces have been put on full alert worldwide this morning in the wake of..."
"It's on every channel." Jack switches again. Reception is getting worse as the storm affect the satellite down-link to Explorer. The screen shows a reporter on a city street, stopping people at random.
Their answers are edited together:
A young woman is telling the camera "You just feel so hopeless. You can see it coming, but what can you do? What can anyone do?"
A construction worker growls "Hey, they don't want war any more than we do. You think about it, you say... hey, they love their kids too. So why are we doing this?"
He is replaced by a self-righteous, middle-aged woman. "If the Russians sank that submarine, they deserve what they got and a lot more, if you ask me, and you did. I think we've been pussyfooting around with them long enough."
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USS MONTANA
It is now clear what the SEALs are doing. Using large lift bags and Flatbed's big arm, they have pulled one of the Trident C-4 missiles partway out of its launch tube, and have partially disassembled the nose-shroud, exposing several of the MIRV warheads within.
Moving very carefully, Davison and Schoenick ease one of the individual MIRVs out of its bracket. Hanging under a lift-bag in a jerry-rigged harness, the three-foot long warhead is move gently by the divers to the back of Flatbed.
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TORCHWOOD/VIDEO SCREEN
Another man in the street interview, tortured by static. "Scared? I'm scared shitless. But if it happens it happens, nothing I can do about it. Right? So why think about it?"
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SUB-BAY
Flatbed surfaces in boiling foam. The rig crew are all waiting. Like a crack pit-crew Jack's people leap onto Flatbed while its deck is still awash and start to work on to Navy divers, unsealing their helmets and uncoupling their umbilicals. Owen and Jack start to untie a cylindrical object wrapped in one of the SEAL's gear bags. Saxon emerges from the hatch.
"Don't touch that. Just step away. Now!" Saxon roars.
"Excusez moi." Owen raises his hands.
"Saxon, we're a little pressed for time." Jack yells, ignoring him.
"Monk, Schoenick... secure the package."
The two SEALs unlash the object in the black bag. Jack an Ianto exchange a glance. He glares at Saxon as they pass each other. Toshiko nimbly climbs the hatch-tower and drops in. Jack swings the heavy hatch up, balancing it, and grins down at Toshiko.
"This ain't no drill, slick. Make me proud." Jack tells her affectionately.
"Piece of cake, baby" she grins back.
He swings the hatch closed with a CLANG.
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The big A-frame, massive as a railroad bridge, to which the umbilical from the Explorer is attached. Flatbed rises arcing around the coupling mechanism F.G. Toshiko deploys the big hydraulic arm.
It unfolds from Flay bed like a huge steel spider leg, its claw-like 'gripper' opening.
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BENTHIC EXPLORER BRIDGE
An ALARM sounds stridently on the dynamic-positioning console.
BENDIX
Bendix cries with alarm "We're losing number two thruster. Bearing's going."
Deep in one of the catamaran hulls, the positioning thruster motor is SCREAMING like a steel banshee above its usual roar. It EXPLODES with smoke and shrapnel. A roaring fire erupts. Crewmen run shouting in the smoke.
Now a KLAXON is going off on the Bridge as the ship begins to slew in the high winds.
"It's not holding." Bendix yells "We're swinging out of position!"
As the ship slews, the umbilical is drawn off vertical. It goes tight as a bowstring. Pulled to the edge of the launch well, it rips down the side with a godawful screech, tearing loose ladders and floats.
.
.
Flatbed's manipulator has gripped the de-coupling mechanism when the cable suddenly pulls taut. The sub is jerked sideways, its grip dislodged. Toshiko gets tossed around inside.
Ianto is in the corridor with a cup of tea when the whole rig BOOMS LIKE A GONG and lurches sideways. He's wearing his tea when Jack tears through a doorway and goes pounding past him. The intercom blares as Owen yells "Jack to control! Emergency! Jack to Control!"
Jack claws his way up the ladder to level two. The rig BOOMS and shudders as...
The rig begins to move. The enormous skid breaks loose. Start to slide, plowing furrows in the bottom. Toshiko junks the controls, pivoting her submersible as the A-frame looms toward her.
Jack runs in, past Owen, and grabs the mike. "Topside, topside... pay out some slack, we're getting dragged!"
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EXPLORER DECK
The winch man staggers along the railing, blasted by 80-knot winds. He sprints for the base of the enormous crane which supports the umbilical winch. A wave blasts him into the bulkhead. He half-crawls to the ladder going up to the winch-house. As he climbs the winch's heave-compensator slides up and down behind him.
It is bottoming-out with a sound like a piledriver, overloaded by the strain on the cable. It chooses that moment to fail.
GRINDING CRASH OF METAL.
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TORCHWOOD CONTROL MODULE
Ianto has joined Jack, looking out the front viewport.
"Jack … We're heading right for the drop off!"