Black wind

and he regained composure over his senses. Realizing that he wasn’t going to die just yet, he scrambled back into the hatch and down the ladder a few steps, then shouted into the hold at the top of his lungs.
    “The hatch is open! The hatch is open! This way, everybody!”
    Like an army of angry fire ants, the panicked crew swarmed to the ladder, crushing one another to escape. By now, most of the crew were treading water or clinging to the bulkheads, while a few drifted about the hold clinging to the now-floating rubber Zodiac. The small ROV also drifted freely, casting its bright lights in a surreal glow about the hold.
    “Ladies first,” Morgan shouted, deferring to the traditional rule of the sea.
    Ryan, who stood near the ladder on his toes chin high to the water, tried to restore order amid the chaos.
    “You heard the captain. Ladies only. Back off, you,” he growled at a pair of male biologists clamoring to get up the ladder. As the female crew members rapidly scurried up the vent and out the hatch, Ryan succeeded in maintaining some semblance of order with the dozens waiting their turn. Across the hold, Morgan could see that the water level was rising too fast. There was no way everyone was going to get out in time, assuming the ship didn’t suddenly sink from under their feet to begin with.
    “Ryan, get up that ladder. See if you can get the main hatch off,” Morgan ordered.
    Ryan didn’t take time to answer, following a ship’s nurse up the ladder as fast as his legs would carry him. Squirming through the hatch and falling to the deck, he was shocked at what his eyes beheld. In the early dawn light, he could see that the Sea Rover was sinking fast by the stern. Seawater was already washing over the sternpost, while the bow poked up toward the sky at better than a twenty-degree angle. Scrambling to his feet, he saw a young assistant communications officer helping others move to a higher level on the ship.
    “Melissa, get to the radio room and issue a Mayday,” he shouted, running past her.
    He climbed a short stairwell to the rear hatch, his eye catching the sparkle of a light in the far distance to the north, the cable ship heading off over the horizon. Jumping up onto the hatch, he allowed himself a second to let out a brief sigh of relief. The rising waters off the stern had not yet lapped over the edge of the hatch nor had inundated the aft crane. In their haste, the commandos had even left the crane’s hook-and-boom assembly attached to the hatch.
    Sprinting to the crane, he hopped into the cab and fired up its diesel engines, immediately shoving the hand controls to raise the boom. With unbearable slowness, the boom gradually rose into the air, lifting the massive hatch cover up with it. Ryan wasted no time rotating the boom a few feet to starboard before jumping out of the cab, leaving the hatch cover dangling in the air.
    Rushing to the edge of the hold, he found more than thirty men bobbing in the water fighting for their lives. The water level had already risen to within a foot of the hatch. Another two minutes, he figured, and the men would have all drowned. Reaching his arms in, he began tugging and grabbing at the men one by one, yanking them up and out of the hold. With those on deck helping, Ryan had every man out within a matter of seconds. He ensured that he personally eased the final man out of the water, Captain Morgan.
    “Nice work, Tim,” the captain winced as he wobbled to his feet.
    “Sorry that I didn’t personally check the vent hatch in the first place, sir. We could have gotten everyone out sooner had we known it was actually unlocked.”
    “But it wasn’t. Don’t you get it? It was Dirk who unlocked it. He knocked on the door for us but we forgot to answer.”
    A look of enlightenment crossed Ryan’s face. “Thank God for him
    and Summer, the poor devils. But I’m afraid we’re not out of the woods yet, sir. She’s going down fast.”
    “Spread the word to abandon ship. Let’s get some lifeboats in the water, pronto,” Morgan replied, stumbling up the inclining deck toward the bow. “I’ll see about sending a distress.”
    As if on cue, Melissa the communications officer came scrambling across the deck half out of breath.
    “Sir,” she gasped, “they’ve shot up the communications system … and satellite equipment. There’s no way to send a Mayday.”
    “All right,” Morgan replied without surprise. “We’ll deploy our emergency beacons