Night Probe!

by Clive Cussler

  "Projection room B, if you please, Admiral."

  Sandecker acknowledged with a curt nod and stepped into what appeared to be a small movie theater.

  He sank into a soft chair and patiently waited until an image began to focus on the screen.

  A tall, lanky man three thousand miles away stared out of the screen from piercing eyes. His hair was black and he grinned from a face that looked like a rock that dared ocean surf to crash over it.

  Dirk Pitt was sitting tilted back in a chair with his feet planted irreverently on an electronic console. He held up a sandwich that displayed a missing bite and made an open gesture. "Sorry, Admiral, you caught me in the middle of a snack."

  "You've never stood on formality before," Sandecker grumbled goodnaturedly. "Why start now?"

  "It's colder than a polar bear's rectum inside this floating abortion. We burn off a ton of calories just trying to keep warm.

  "The Doodlebug is not a cruise ship."

  Pitt set the sandwich aside. "Maybe so, but next trip the crew would appreciate a little more thought being given to the heating system."

  "How deep are you?"

  Pitt consulted a dial. "Seven hundred and thirty feet. Water temperature is twenty-nine degrees.

  Conditions not exactly conducive to a game of water polo."

  "Any problems?"

  "None," Pitt answered, his grin still in place. "The Doodlebug is performing like a perfect lady."

  "We're running out of time," said Sandecker evenly. "I expect a call from the new president at any moment, demanding to know what we're up to."

  "The crew and I will stick around until the fuel is gone, Admiral. I can promise you no more."

  "Any mineral contacts?"

  "We've passed over large iron deposits, commercially obtainable uranium, thorium, gold and manganese.

  Almost every mineral except our primary target."

  "Does the geology still look promising?"

  "Strengthening indications, but nothing that looks like a structural uplift, anticline or salt dome."

  "I'm hoping for a stratigraphic trap. It's got the greatest potential."

  "The Doodlebug can't produce a paying sandbar, Admiral, only find one."

  "Not to change the subject, but keep a sharp eye in your rearview mirror. I can't bail you out if you're caught trespassing on the wrong side of the street."

  "I've been meaning to ask you, what's to stop an audience from triangulating my video transmissions?"

  "One shot in forty."

  "Sir?"

  "NUMA's satellite communications network has a direct link with forty other stations. They all receive and instantaneously relay your transmissions. The lag is less than a millisecond. To anyone tuned into this sending frequency your voice and image come from forty different locations around the globe. There is no way they can single out the original."

  "I think I can live with those odds."

  "I'll leave you to your sandwich."

  If Pitt felt pessimistic he didn't show it. He put on a confident face and threw a lazy wave. "Hang loose, Admiral. The law of averages is bound to catch up."

  Sandecker watched as Pitt's figure faded from the screen. Then he rose from his chair and left the projection room. He walked up two flights of stairs to the computer section and passed through security.

  In a glass-enclosed room set away from the rest of the humming machines a man in a white lab coat studied a stack of computer printout sheets. He peered over the rims of his glasses as the admiral approached.

  "Good afternoon, doc," greeted Sandecker.

  Dr. Ramon King indolently replied by holding up a pencil. He had a light-skinned narrow, gloomy face, with jutting jaw and barbed-wire eyebrows-the kind of face that mirrors nothing and rarely displays a change of expression.

  Doc King could afford a sour countenance. He was the creative genius behind the development of the Doodlebug.

  "Everything functioning smoothly?" asked Sandecker, trying to make conversation.

  "The probe is functioning perfectly," answered King. "Just as it did yesterday, the day before that and the previous two weeks. If our baby develops teething problems, you'll be the first to be notified."

  "I'd prefer good news to no news."

  King laid aside the printout sheets and faced Sandecker. "You're not only demanding the moon but the stars as well. Why continue this risky expedition? The Doodlebug is a qualified success. It penetrates deeper than we had any right to expect. The doors of discovery it throws open stagger the mind. For God's sake, cut the subterfuge and make its existence known."

  "No!" Sandecker snapped back. "Not until I damn well have to."

  "What are you trying to prove?" King persisted.

  "I want to prove that it's more than a highfalutin dowser."

  King readjusted his glasses and went back to scanning the computer data. "I'm not a gambling man, Admiral, but since you're carrying the bulk of the risk on your shoulders, I'll tag along for the ride, knowing full well I'll go on the Justice Department shit list as an accomplice." He paused and peered at Sandecker. "I have a vested interest in the Doodlebug. I'd like to see it make a score as much as anyone.

  But if something fouls up and those guys out there in the ocean are caught like thieves in the night, then the best you and I can hope for is to be tarred and feathered and exiled to Antarctica. The worst, I don't want to think about."

  The Washington athletic community looked askance at Sandecker's running habits. He was the only jogger anyone had ever seen pounding along the sidewalk with an ever-present Churchill-style cigar stub protruding from his mouth.

  He was puffing along toward the NUMA building under an early morning overcast sky when a rotund man in a rumpled suit, sitting on a bus bench, looked up over a newspaper.

  "Admiral Sandecker, may I have a word with you?"

  Sandecker turned out of curiosity, but not recognizing the President's security adviser, he kept his stride.

  "Call me for an appointment," he panted indifferently. "I don't like to break my pace."

  "Please, Admiral, I'm Alan Mercier."

  Sandecker stopped, his eyes narrowing. "Mercier?"

  Mercier folded the newspaper and stood. "My apologies for interrupting your morning exercise, but I understand you're a hard man to trap for conversation."

  "Your office supersedes mine. You could have simply ordered me to come to the White House."

  "I'm not fanatical on official protocol," Mercier replied. "An informal meeting such as this has its advantages."

  "Like catching your quarry off his home ground," said Sandecker, cannily sizing up Mercier. "A sneaky tactic. I use it myself on occasion."

  "According to rumors, you're a master of sneaky tactics."

  Sandecker's expression went blank for an instant. Then he burst into a laugh, pulled a lighter from a pocket of his sweat suit and lit the cigar stub. "I know when I'm licked. You didn't ambush me for my wallet, Mr. Mercier. What's on your mind?"

  "Very well, suppose you tell me about the doodlebug."

  "Doodlebug?" The admiral gave a faint tilt to his head-a movement equivalent to stunned surprise in any other man. "A fascinating instrument. I assume you're familiar with its purpose."

  "Why don't you tell me?"

  Sandecker shrugged. "I guess you could say it's a kind of water dowser."

  "Water dowsers don't cost six hundred and eighty million taxpayer dollars."

  "What exactly do you want to know?""

  "Does such an exotic instrument exist?"

  "The Doodlebug Project is a reality, and a damned successful one, I might add."

  "Are you prepared to explain its operation and account for the money spent on its development?"

  "When?"

  "At the earliest opportunity."

  "Give me two weeks and I'll lay the doodlebug in your lap neatly wrapped and packaged."

  Mercier was not to be taken in. "Two days."

  "I know what you'
re thinking," said Sandecker earnestly. "But I promise you there is no fear of scandal, far from it. Trust me for at least a week. I simply can't put it together in less."

  "I'm beginning to feel like an accomplice in a con game."

  "Please, one week."

  Mercier looked into Sandecker's eyes. My God, he thought, the man is actually begging. It was hardly what he expected. He motioned to his driver who was parked a short distance away and nodded.

  "Okay, Admiral, you've got your week."

  "You drive a tough bargain," said Sandecker, with a sly grin.

  Without another word the admiral turned and resumed his morning jog to NUMA headquarters.

  Mercier watched the little man grow even smaller in the distance. He seemed not to notice his driver standing patiently beside the car, holding the door open.

  Mercier stood rooted, a maddening certainty growing within him that he'd been had.

  It had been an exhausting day for Sandecker. After his unexpected meeting with Mercier he fenced with a congressional budget committee until eight in the evening, hawking the goals and accomplishments of NUMA, appealing for, and in a few cases, demanding additional funding for his agency's operations. It was a bureaucratic chore he detested.

  After a light dinner at the Army and Navy Club, he entered his apartment at the Watergate and poured himself a glass of buttermilk.

  He took off his shoes and was beginning to unwind when the phone rang. He would have ignored it if he hadn't turned to see which line held the incoming call. The red light on the direct circuit to NUMA blinked ominously. "Sandecker."

  "Ramon King here, Admiral. We've got a problem on the Doodlebug."

  "A malfunction?"

  "No such luck," replied King. "Our sweep systems have picked up an intruder."

  "Is he closing with our vessel?"

  "Negative."

  "A chance passing by one of our own subs then," Sandecker suggested optimistically.

  King sounded concerned. "The contact is maintaining a parallel course, distance four thousand meters. It appears to be shadowing the Doodlebug.

  "Not good."

  "I'll have a firmer grasp on the situation when the computers spit out a more detailed analysis of our unknown caller."

  Sandecker went silent. He sipped at the buttermilk, his mind meditative. Finally, he said, "Call the security desk and tell them to track down Al Giordino. I want him in on this."

  King spoke hesitantly. "Is Giordino acquainted with . . . ah, does he . . .?"

  "He knows," Sandecker assured King. "I personally briefed him on the project during its inception in the event he had to substitute for Pitt. You'd better get on with it. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

  The admiral hung up. His worst fear had put in its appearance. He stared at the white liquid within the glass as if he could visualize the mysterious craft stalking the defenseless Doodlebug.

  Then he set the glass aside and hurried out the door, unaware that he was still in his stocking feet.

  Deep beneath the surface of the Labrador Sea not far from the northern tip of Newfoundland, Pitt stood in stony silence, studying the electronic readout across the display screen as the unidentified submarine skirted the outer fringes of the Doodlebug's instrument range. He leaned forward as a line of data flashed on. Then, suddenly, the display screen blinked out as contact was lost.

  Bill Lasky, the panel operator, turned to Pitt and shook his head. "Sorry, Dirk, our visitor is a shy one.

  He won't sit still for a scan."

  Pitt put his hand on Lasky's shoulder. "Keep trying. Sooner or later he's bound to step on our side of the fence."

  He moved across the control room through the maze of complex electronic gear, his feet silent on the rubber deck covering. Dropping down a ladder to a lower deck, he entered a small room not much bigger than a pair of adjoining phone booths.

  Pitt sat on the edge of a folding bunk, spread a blueprint on a small writing desk and studied the guts of the Doodlebug.

  A diving deformity was the less than endearing term that ran through his mind when he first laid eyes on the world's most sophisticated research vessel. It looked like nothing previously built to prowl beneath the seas.

  The Doodlebug's compact form lay somewhere south of ludicrous. The best descriptions anybody had come up with were "the inner half of an aircraft wing standing on end" and "the conning tower of a submarine that has lost its hull." In short, it was a slab of metal that traveled in a vertical position.

  There was a reason for the unorthodox lines of the Doodlebug. The concept was a considerable leap in submersible technology. In the past, all mechanical and electronic systems had been built to conform within the space limitations of a standard cigar-shaped hull. The Doodlebug's aluminum shell, on the other hand, had been built around its instrument package.

  There were few creature comforts for the three-man crew. Humans were essential only for emergency operation or repairs. The craft was automatically operated and piloted by the computer brain center at NUMA headquarters in Washington, almost three thousand miles away.

  "How about a little medicine to clear the cobwebs?"

  Pitt lifted his head and looked into the mournful bloodhound eyes of Sam Quayle, the electronics wizard of the expedition. Quayle held up a pair of plastic cups and a half pint of brandy, whose remaining contents hardly coated the floor of the bottle.

  "For shame," said Pitt, unable to suppress a grin. "You know NUMA regulations forbid alcohol on board research vessels."

  "Don't look at me," Quayle replied with mock innocence. "I found this work of the devil, or what's left of it, in my bunk. Must have been forgotten by an itinerant construction worker."

  "That's odd," said Pitt.

  Quayle looked at him questioningly. "How so?"

  "The coincidence." Pitt reached under his pillow and pulled out a fifth of Bell's Scotch and held it up. The interior was half full. "An itinerant construction worker left one in my bunk too."

  Quayle smiled and handed the cups to Pitt. "If it's all the same to you, I'll save mine for snakebite."

  Pitt poured and handed a cup to Quayle. Then he sat back on the bunk and spoke slowly: "What do you make of it, Sam?"

  "Our evasive caller?"

  "The same," answered Pitt. "What's stopping him from dropping in and giving us the once-over? Why the cat-and mouse game?"

  Quayle took a healthy belt of the Scotch and shrugged. "The Doodlebug's configuration probably won't complete on the sub's detection system. The skipper is no doubt contacting his command headquarters for a rundown on underwater craft in his patrol area before he pulls us over to the curb and cites us for trespassing." Quayle finished his drink and gazed longingly at the bottle. "Mind if I have seconds?"

  "Help yourself."

  Quayle poured himself a generous shot. "I'd feel much safer if we could pin a name tag on those guys.,"

  "They won't come within range of our scan. What beats me is how they can walk such a fine line. They seem to dip in and out as if they were taunting us."

  "No miracle," said Quayle, making a face as the Scotch seared his throat. "Their transducers are measuring our probes. They know within a few meters of where our signals die out."

  Pitt sat up, his eyes narrowed. "Suppose . . . just suppose ?"

  He didn't finish. He left his quarters at a half run, clawing his way up the ladder to the control room.

  Quayle took another swallow and followed. Only he didn't run. "Any change?" Pitt asked.

  Lasky shook his head. "The uninvited are still playing cagey."

  "Gradually fade the probes. Maybe we can draw them closer. When they step into our yard, hit them with every sensing device we've got."

  "You expect to sucker a nuclear sub, manned by a first-rate professional crew, with a kindergarten trick like that?" Quayle asked incredulously.

  "Why not?" Pitt grinned fiendishly. "I'll bet my snake medicine against yours they'll fall for it."

  Quayle
looked like a salesman who had just sold a waterfront lot in the Gobi Desert. "You're on."

  For the next hour it was business as usual. The men went about their chores of monitoring the instruments and checking the equipment. At last Pitt looked at his watch and gestured in Lasky's direction. "Systems standby," he directed. "Ready systems," Lasky acknowledged. "Okay, nail the bastard!"

  The data unit in front of them burst into life and the remote display swept across the screen.

  Contact:3480 meters.

  Course:Bearing one zero eight.

  Speed:Ten knots.

  "He bit the hook!" Quayle couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. "We've got him!"

  Overall length:76 meters.

  Beam (approximate):10.7 meters.

  Probable submerged displacement:3650 tons.

  Power:One water-cooled nuclear reactor.

  Design:Hunter-killer.

  Class:Amberjack.

  Flag:U.S.A.

  "It's one of ours," Lasky said with obvious relief "At least we're among friends," Quayle muttered. Pitt's eyes were intent. "We're not out of the woods yet."

  "Our snoopy friend has altered his course to zero seven six. Speed increasing," Lasky read aloud from the screen. "He's moving away from us now."

  "If I didn't know better," Quayle said thoughtfully, "I'd say he was setting for an attack."

  Pitt looked at him. "Explain."

  "Several years ago, I was a member of a design team that developed underwater weapons systems for the navy. I came to learn that a hunter-killer sub will come to flank speed and break away from the target prior to a torpedo launch."