Ultra Deep

by William H. Lovejoy

  “What is it that I can do for you, Captain? How is your submarine?” Oberstev had seen the report of the ramming incident.

  “The damage is minimal,” Gurevenich said. “It will not affect our mission.”

  “I am pleased by that,” Oberstev said. “It is the first good news I have had in days.”

  “Thank you, General. We have received the search plan from Fleet Headquarters, along with the information that you will be the on-site commander.”

  “That is true,” Oberstev said.

  “And we have completed the first few legs of the search plan.”

  “Yes?”

  “The results are negative, General.”

  “How deep are your sonars?”

  “One-four-hundred meters,” Gurevenich said.

  “We are running at the same depths,” Verhenski added.

  “You have no feedback at all?”

  “It is negative in terms what we seek,” Gurevenich said. “We cannot get the sonar arrays deep enough to find the bottom, except for several mountaintops.”

  Oberstev looked around the bridge. Captain Talebov studied him, noncommittal. Alexi Cherbykov shook his head, rather sadly. Janos Sodur was offering the wisdom of his most sour look, suggesting that if Oberstev did not provide the right decision, Chairman Vladimir Yevgeni would know of it within seconds and subsequently provide the correct version.

  “I am not a mariner,” Oberstev said into the microphone, “but my recommendation would be that, given the priority of this operation, you operate your craft at the extremes of your depth capability.”

  “Is that a recommendation, General, or an order?”

  Sodur glared at him.

  “An order, Captain. It is an order.”

  *

  1925 HOURS LOCAL, 32° 16' NORTH, 142° 21' WEST

  It was much like swimming in warm crystal, Brande thought. The water slid over his skin like velvet, and he could see so clearly he might have been viewing a television image. Visibility exceeded a hundred feet.

  He swam lazily, barely moving his fins, rocking his shoulders easily as his arms trailed out beside him. The weight of the scuba tank was neutralized. The exhalation bubbles rose behind him in a long arc. Below, the vibrant blue and orange and yellow and red hues of coral and sea flowers and tropical fish made his world come to vivid life.

  The warm waters of the Caribbean were soothing after the tumultuous month behind him. He and Janelle had received their doctorates on June sixth. On June eighth, his MGTD, which he had restored and raced in rallies, was stolen by a fifteen-year-old refugee from high school who thought he was a future Juan Fangio. The teenager and the MG were both totaled in Trabuco Canyon attempting a curve at twice the posted limit.

  On June eleventh, Henning Sven Brande died. Sven died as he had lived, quietly and strongly. Janelle and her mother made around a hundred telephone calls and put off the wedding for two weeks while Brande flew back to Minnesota to help his grandmother with the funeral arrangements. He also helped Bridgette, who suddenly appeared more frail and more dependent than he had expected, move to a duplex in Grand Rapids. The tears streamed down her face when she signed the real-estate agreement to put the wheat farm up for sale. Brande felt as if he had failed two very good people.

  He was not in the best of moods when he and Janelle Kay Forester were married on June thirtieth. His outlook was more up-tempo two days laters, after they had checked into the 18th-century manor house tranformed into the Harbor View Hotel in Charlotte Amalie.

  Brande enjoyed playing the honeymooner, and Janelle, a San Franciscan, loved the romantic setting. They ate lavishly, made love on a whim, slept late and dove on Spanish galleons and more modern disasters from a rented boat in the afternoons. They crossed to the British Virgin Islands to dive on the Rhone, a British steamship that went down in 1867. Encrusted with coral and sponges, it was lush and colorful with marine life.

  And today, near the island of Tortola, they had found a freighter which had probably been a Liberty ship. It was broken in two, and down about sixty feet. Swimming side by side, Brande and his new wife explored the after-section, then swam a hundred yards to the bow section.

  Framed against the blue and yellow of coral gripping the steel plates of the wreck and the orange of tropical fish swimming in a dense school, Janelle was spectacular. Her short, dark hair streamed behind her, and she rolled onto her back, pulled the air-supply mouthpiece from her lips, and smiled at him.

  Brande kicked harder, attempting to close with her. Janelle wrinkled her nose at him, visible through the glass of her face mask, and increased the fluttering kick of her own legs.

  She swam backward, grinning at him, and when he saw that she was aimed directly at a rotted crane mast, he waved frantically at her.

  She waved back.

  Then hit the mast abruptly.

  There was not much momentum to the impact, but the partially decomposed and brittle hardware that supported the crane boom snapped.

  And the boom dropped across her midsection, pinning her to the sharp coral coating the deck, her flesh protected by the scuba tank.

  A flurry of dust.

  Startled fish darted away.

  Brande surged forward quickly, reached the boom, and peered over it.

  Janelle had replaced her mouthpiece and seemed to be breathing normally. Her eyes were wide and frightened behind the mask.

  He tried to reassure her by patting her shoulder, than braced his legs against the deck, gripped the boom near her stomach, and heaved.

  It would not budge.

  He tried several times, but the boom was lodged firmly against the mast on one end and against the deck coaming on the other.

  Brande figured that they each had half-an-hour of oxygen remaining.

  Floating above her, he unsnapped her scuba harness and attempted to push the oxygen tank to one side, to give her room to escape.

  It would not move. The boom was pressing too hard, making a concave gulley across her stomach.

  He tried lifting again.

  Janelle’s eyes followed him, reflecting less panic.

  Believing in him

  He needed a lever.

  Rotating he searched around himself for anything and discovered nothing.

  Signaling with two raised fingers that he would be gone two minutes, Brande pushed off the deck and shot for the surface. Their rented day cruiser was fifty yards away; and he swam for it.

  Pulling himself over the transom, Brande scrambled around in the cockpit, searching lockers and seat cavities, then found an oar for the rubber dinghy. He paused for long enough to radio a mayday message, than went back into the water, stroking for the bottom, tugging the oar with him.

  She smiled when he reappeared.

  Resting the side of the oar blade against the coaming he attempted to lever the boom upward, but he could not get a firm footing. He changed position, going to the other side of the boom and shoving the oar beneath the boom.

  With his legs spread wide and his feet pressed against the deck, he heaved upward.

  And the oar broke.

  He looked to Janelle.

  She raised a thumb.

  He swam to her and tried to explain with gestures that he had radioed for assistance.

  She nodded her understanding.

  Maybe fifteen minutes of air left in each bottle.

  Brande slipped out of his harness and shut down the regulator. Holding his breath, he placed the tank next to her.

  She understood that she was to switch to his bottle when the oxygen ran out in her own.

  He swam for the surface.

  Looked for boats coming but saw none.

  Dove back to the bottom, held her hand, smiled at her, tried to shift the boom, then rose again to the surface as his lungs screamed.

  Brande dove sixteen times.

  On his sixteenth dive, Janelle’s eyes were lifeless.

  *

  The little flashbacks of futility flicker
ed in Brandeʼs mind as he sat at the table in the lounge with Larry Emry and Ingrid Roskens, going over the search plan Emry had laid out on a big chart.

  It was, rather than a circular pattern, a trapezoid, narrow on the west and wide on the east. “Because,” Emry said, “the ocean currents are moving in that direction, and the likely angle of impact, along with the rocket’s aerodynamic shape and fins, will glide it in that direction. Maybe for a hell of a long ways before it hits bottom.”

  It was so damned deep.

  “Tomorrow, Dane,” Emry said, “Fll put this up on the computer, so that we can shift the plan as information comes in on what the subs are finding.”

  “If they find anything,” Roskens said.

  “They’re bound to pinpoint some old wrecks and some terrain features that the charts don’t show,” the exploration director said. He stroked his thick mustache with his thumb. He was wearing a dark blue baseball cap with the MVU logo — protecting his bald head — and the lighter blue jumpsuit favored by team members on expedition.

  Roskens was also dressed in the jumpsuit. She was assisting Emry with the search plan until she got some structural data on the rocket.

  “If we could be assured,” she said, “that the rocket broke up on impact, it would be helpful.”

  Brande knew she was right. A ship that breaks up and spreads debris over a mile-long stretch of the bottom was a great deal more findable than one that sinks in place. Looking for a rocket that was about thirty-one feet wide with the boosters in place and seventy feet long in a thirty-six-square-mile area of an ocean that was four miles deep was far worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “Even if only the boosters broke off, it would be extremely helpful,” Emry said. “It would triple our chances of finding a sonar return.”

  Brande tapped the chart. “Is a search grid spacing of eight hundred meters going to be tight enough, Larry?”

  “I think so, yes. It’ll depend upon the terrain, of course, but flying SARSCAN at an altitude of eight hundred feet above the bottom should give us enough overlap that if we miss it going one way, well get it on the return leg.”

  “We don’t want to use Sneaky Pete simultaneously as a back-up?” Brande asked.

  “I really think our best shot is with sonar. A visual sighting, unless the damned thing broke into a thousand pieces and spread out a couple miles, is going to be very, very unlikely, Dane.”

  “You’re right, naturally.”

  “What about the length of crew shifts, Dane?” Roskens asked. “That worries me.”

  Because each descent and each ascent would require over three hours for DepthFinder, Brande had extended the bottom time for crews to ten hours from their normal maximum of six hours. The six hours required for a crew change took too much away from search time.

  “I think our people can handle it, Ingrid. And it still gives us plenty of safety time on the battery packs.”

  “We’re using up go-juice at a damned scary rate, if we’re going to maximize speed on DepthFinder’s motors,” Emry said.

  “I don’t know of a better compromise,” Brande said.

  In shallower water, SARSCAN or Sneaky Pete would be trailed below the research vessel, almost directly under it because of the weight of the cable. Twelve to fifteen thousand feet of fiber-optic cable was not only extremely heavy, but it also created a lot of drag in the water. The Orion would be slowed to four or five knots, greatly increasing the time required to cover the search area.

  For this search, SARSCAN would be towed behind DepthFinder on no more than two hundred feet of cable. At maximum output on her propellers, with a heavy tow, Depth-Finder could make around twelve knots, about three times the speed the Orion could make towing from the surface.

  The door from the corridor flew open with a bang and Dokey and Otsuka burst in.

  “You tell’em,” Dokey said, headed for the galley.

  “We got arms,” she said.

  Brande grinned. “I knew you’d do it.”

  Dokey emerged from the galley with two cans of Coke. “We could celebrate better if this chicken outfit allowed booze on board.”

  “Talk to the head honcho, don’t talk to me,” Brande said. “Gargantua’s back in condition?”

  “Damned right,” Dokey said. “I practiced by tearing toilet paper squares off a roll, then power-lifting a few fifty-five-gallon oil drums. I wanted to lift Kim, but she wouldn’t cooperate.”

  Otsuka sipped from the Coke Dokey gave her as she sat down. “I’d have felt like Faye Wray.”

  Roskens laughed.

  “Thanks to both of you,” Brande said.

  “Just a program problem,” Dokey said.

  “One that required rewriting nearly seven hundred lines,” Otsuka added.

  “I don’t know how we could have missed that earlier,” Brande said.

  “Nobody thought about Okey not being able to think in metric,” she said.

  Dokey hung his head until his chin was against his chest. “I’m a miserable scientist.”

  Everyone agreed, and Brande excused himself to go up to the bridge, then back to the communications room. Bucky Sanders was manning the console and gave up his seat to Brande.

  He called Hampstead at Pearl Harbor.

  “According to what I see here,” Hampstead said, “you’re moving right along.”

  “Bring me up to date, Avery.”

  “The CIS has two subs working the area, Dane. The sonobuoys have identified them, and we’re recording their search pattern. I don’t think they’re finding anything.”

  “How deep?”

  “Our best guess is around two thousand feet.”

  “I think they’re wasting their time.”

  “Perhaps”

  “Are they going to share their findings with us?”

  “They have not, as yet,” Hampstead said. “I talked to Carl Unruh earlier…”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA. He’s trying to get someone to call Moscow and ask that the search data be released to us.”

  Brande could imagine who ʻsomeoneʼ was. “What about information on the rocket?”

  “There’s nothing new since I talked to you at noon about the computer modeling. We’re pursuing a great many channels on that.”

  “Did you realize that your conversation is beginning to sound as if you’re part of the spy business, Avery?”

  “God in heaven, no! I never thought I’d be sitting in a naval operations room, much less conversing with people who perform clandestine activities.” There was a hesitation as Hampstead covered the phone and spoke with someone. “Admiral Potter would like to speak with you, Dane.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Dr. Brande, this is David Potter.”

  “How are you doing, Admiral?”

  “Dr. Brande, as soon as you reach the area of operations, you are to report to Captain John Cartwright. He is aboard the RV Kane.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because he is coordinating the operation locally. He will make your assignments. “

  “Not mine, Admiral.”

  There was a very long pause. “That is the way it is going to be, Dr. Brande. We can’t have civilians going off half-cocked.”

  “I’ll be glad to keep you abreast of what I find, Admiral, but this is my business, and I’ll conduct it my way. Mr. Hampstead will be my liaison.”

  “No, Dr. Brande. We will conduct this search my way. If you do not agree with that, then I will commandeer your equipment and still do it my way.”

  “Let me talk to Hampstead.”

  When Hampstead came back on the line, Brande said, “Avery, you better get hold of someone in power and get that asshole off my back.”

  “Iʼll try the CNO.”

  *

  2213 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 20' 31" NORTH, 176° 10' 33" EAST

  The Winter Storm was running silent at ten knots of speed. Part of the reason for the slow
speed was to give the three sonar operators — all of them now on watch — a better chance of locating strange signals. One man, Paramanov, was monitoring the deep-tow sonar, while the other two men kept watch on the submarine’s standard sonars — forward-and side-looking, and took turns relieving each other.

  The recorders were running, taping all of the sonar activity, which was very little. One exceptionally strong return had been recorded to the southwest, at 1,000 meters of depth, and dutifully recorded on the chart, but the consensus was that it belonged to a sunken ship, very likely of World War II vintage.

  Mostly, the 116 men aboard the submarine were intensely conscious of the depth, 700 meters currently. It made them nervous and closemouthed. People spoke in whispers, when they spoke and it was not entirely necessary.

  Those who were not on watch sat on their bunks, not playing chess, not playing cards and not talking. The tension was palpable throughout the submarine.

  Lieutenant Kazakov walked the corridors, keeping an eye on the tension. He was acting very self-important today, Gurevenich thought, perhaps in defense against his own taut nerves.

  Kazakov had a bruise on his forehead. He had been on the conning tower ladder the previous night when Mostovets came sliding down the ladder, slapping a boot into his head. Gurevenich had been right behind Mostovets on the ladder, calling out for an emergency dive even as he slammed the hatch shut and dogged it.

  The Winter Storm was already in descent when the keel of the excursion boat struck the forward hull. It had been a sliding, grating contact, but when they surfaced several kilometers away to examine the hull, white paint rubbed into the dark gray paint of the submarine’s forward deck was the only evidence of damage.

  Kazakov had called for an immediate investigation by some international body. Mostovets had suggested the use of a single torpedo to register their complaint. Instead, Mikhail Gurevenich put them to work contacting the Tashkent and initiating the search.

  Now, over a day later, in the Control Center, the captain, Sr. Lt. Mostovets, and two deck officers stayed near the plotting table, watching the indicators and listening to the reports.

  The plot had the search grid ordered by Commander in Chief of the Navy Grigori Orlov imposed upon it. A series of parallel lines, each running north and south, were 1,000 meters apart. The western edge of the grid, the first line, was located one kilometer west of the point of impact of the rocket. Each of the first lines was two kilometers long, but they became longer as the grid moved to the east, allowing for a longer glide path of the rocket, if it had indeed veered north or south and continued to glide.