I looked at the wheel on the door again.

“There has to be an emergency bypass,” I said.

“Only from the bridge,” the lieutenant said.

He was looking at his watch, his face pale.

“We’re slipping lines in five minutes.”

“We have to stop the engines,” Hayes said.

He grabbed the lieutenant by his shirt.

“Where is the reactor control panel?”

“In maneuvering, aft,” the lieutenant stammered.

“But you can’t get in there either. It’s locked down.”

I looked back through the glass port.

The man inside the room turned his head slightly.

The light from the monitor caught the side of his face.

It wasn’t Vance.

It was a face I didn’t recognize, but he was wearing a navy uniform with commander’s shoulder boards.

He looked directly at me through the glass, his expression entirely blank.

Then, he reached down and flipped a heavy toggle switch on the panel.

A loud, metallic clunk echoed through the hull of the submarine.

The floor beneath our feet shuddered as the main shaft began to turn.

“We’re moving,” Hayes said.

“He’s taking the boat,” I said.