Ultra Deep

by William H. Lovejoy

  “I just talked to CINCPAC. The first transponder is in place. Dropped by the Houston.”

  In keeping with the Navy’s search scheme, the submarines were going to plant transponders — emitting a recorded signal on four different frequencies — at each corner of the search area. Not only would they define the search region, they could be used to triangulate the position of each search vessel. Supplementing the Global Navigation System, the accuracy of the search would be enhanced.

  “Did you get the frequencies?” Brande asked.

  “Damn betcha. And I’ve got my final chart prepared. Do I ship it to the Kane?”

  “I suppose so. Otherwise, I get court-martialed.”

  “Can they court-martial a civilian?” Thomas asked.

  “I doubt it, but I don’t put them above trying.” Dane called over the back of the booth, “And Larry, send it to CINCPAC, too.”

  “How about the subs?”

  “Yeah. Ask Pearl Harbor for contact frequencies, and when the subs come up for air or something, we’ll zip them some charts.”

  “If we’re going that far,” Thomas asked, “should we include the Russians in our mailing list? And the Japanese?”

  “Let’s hold off for now. Maybe we’ll need a bargaining chip later.”

  Thomas had reached the last page of her notes.

  “Anything else, Rae? I want to put everyone on sleep duty. They’ll need to get as much as they can before we go into action.”

  “One item, Dane. On the workboats, Iʼm going to sell off Priscilla. We’ll use the proceeds to overhaul and retrofit Cockamamie and Mighty Moose *

  “Is that your final decision?” he asked.

  “What?” Defensively.

  “I think it’s great. Can we paint them white, with the yellow diagonal?”

  “If we get enough money out of Priscilla.ˮ

  “Not firing Bull Kontas?”

  “He’ll retire soon, I suppose.” She gave him a lopsided grin.

  Brande slid out of the booth. “If that’s it, Rae, Iʼm going to go tuck people in.”

  “They won’t tuck very well in broad daylight,” she said. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  “Out on deck.”

  Thomas rose from the bench seat, and he followed her out of the wardroom. She was wearing white deck shoes, white slacks, and a blue-and-white striped, bow-necked polo shirt. Her stride was very deliberate, countering the slight rise and fall of the deck. He found himself appreciating the taut fabric of her slacks.

  Brande reached around her to open the door to the side deck, and they stepped out. The sun was bright, and the wind created by the speed of the ship was warm. It tousled her hair. Somewhat sensuously, Brande thought. To the west, the view was more dismal. Tall stratocumulus clouds reached for the sky, and their bases were dark and threatening.

  Thomas turned and leaned against the railing.

  He stepped close to her, so they did not have to shout over the breeze and the loud whisper of water passing the hull.

  “About last night … ” she started.

  “All right. What about last night?”

  “Iʼm sorry I fell apart like that.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Rae. All of us are frightened from time to time, and right now is a damned good time to be scared.”

  “It’s certainly not the image I want to project as a manager.”

  “Who’s to know?”

  “Well, Okey…”

  “In spite of popular belief, Okey is very tight-mouthed about the important things.”

  Her mouth was barely touched with cinnamon lipstick. It suddenly looked inviting to Brande.

  “Can I ask you a question? One that Iʼve always wanted to ask?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why won’t you call me Kaylene?”

  Flash of blue-green water, so clear that he could see for a hundred feet. Yellow and orange and red streaking the seabed. Her eyes closing so slowly.

  “My wife’s name was Kay. Janelle Kay. I guess I shy away from it.”

  “Oh, my God!” Thomas’s hand went to her mouth. “I didn’t even know you were married, Dane.”

  “She died on a dive in the Caribbean,” he said, trying to not relive it.

  Her hand left her mouth and gripped his left forearm. “I’m so sorry, Dane. Sorry I brought it up, too.”

  “I guess I assume that people know my history,” he said. “But Okey’s probably the only one who does. He doesn’t talk about it, and I’ve never felt a need to do so.”

  The ship heeled to port a few degrees, and Brande took one step closer to her before he regained his balance.

  “If I can be candid,” Thomas said, “that’s one thing that’s bothered me about you. About MVU.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You seem so open with everybody, and you’re usually in good humor. Everyone adores you. And yet, no one here really knows you. It makes you less…human, somehow. To me, anyway.”

  Brande had to think about that for a little bit. It was probably true.

  “I’m not trying to be critical,” she said.

  He detected a whiff of her perfume. A trace of bougainvillea.

  “Maybe Iʼm just programmed?” he told her. “Like Atlas?ˮ

  “You’re sloughing it off.” Her other hand came up to grasp his upper arm. “But, Iʼll give up prying. I don’t want to be a snoop, and I don’t mean to be overly critical.”

  “That’s okay. The president should know her people.”

  “Even the boss?”

  “Why not?”

  Brande freed his arm, put it around her shoulders, and gave her a hug. He felt a trifle awkward doing it. He had never been the touchy type.

  Then he turned back toward the door and reached out for the handle.

  Looked up.

  Connie Alvarez-Sorenson was standing on the port wing, looking down at them. She winked.

  “Well,” Thomas said, “I can forget about Okey. There’s one mouth that’s difficult to control.”

  *

  1210 HOURS LOCAL, 29° 50' NORTH, 163° 28' WEST

  “Your government fully expects that you will provide them with the latest data as it becomes available to you,” Mr. Sato said.

  “That decision is not up to me,” Kim Otsuka said.

  “You must make it so,” the consulate representative said. “Also, we will require a copy of the robot computer application program.”

  “For which robot?” Otsuka asked.

  After a moment’s hesitation, in which she was certain Mr. Sato was digesting the unexpected information that there was more than one robot, he said, “I will inquire further and then call you again.”

  He hung up, and Otsuka slowly replaced her receiver in its cradle on the bulkhead intercom panel next to the booth in which she sat. It was the fourth of four booths, and it used to be the only one with a phone.

  From the galley came the clank of pans as the two seamen on galley duty prepared lunch. Larry Emry was at his computer terminal, updating charts. Dane and Kaylene were in the booth behind her, after having been absent for a while, going over the accounts or something. Every once in a while, Dane protested something Kaylene wanted to do, but he seemed to make his protests lightheartedly.

  Otsuka twisted around onto her knees and peered over the back of the bench seat. Kaylene was right below her, with a yellow notepad, pages of numbers, and a calculator spread around her. Dane was across the table, slumped back, with his feet up on the end of the U-shaped bench. His expression was one of half amusement, and Otsuka guessed that he was not taking this meeting with Kaylene seriously.

  “May I interrupt?” Otsuka asked.

  “God, yes!” Dane told her.

  “I just talked to my consulate.”

  Kaylene leaned over and looked back over her shoulder. “What’d they want?”

  “They want me to provide them — actually, the Eastern Flower — With any pertinent expl
oration data that we might develop.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Brande said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get, and it’s a hell of a lot better if we’re all working with the same information. Send them the updated charts, for a start.”

  “They also want a copy of the operating program for a robot. They don’t know which one, but it’s probably Gargantua.”

  “Hmmm,” Brande said.

  “Bullshit!” Thomas added.

  Various patents and copyrights within Marine Visions were shared in different ways. Gargantua’s structural design was shared by the company, Brande, Dokey and Dankelov. The electronics designs belonged to the company, to Dokey and to Mayberry. His programming belonged to the company, Otsuka and Polodka — twenty-five percent, fifty-five percent, and twenty percent, respectively. The company retained control of merchandising and production rights. Otsuka had thought the distribution policy a fair one since the company provided the research facilities and her salary.

  “Why do you suppose they need the program?” Dane asked.

  She had given it a speedy consideration. “I suspect that whatever robot they plan to use with their submersible is not yet operational. They’re trying to complete it en route.”

  “And yet they’ve jumped right into this search?”

  “Of course,” she said. “The publicity that will attach to anyone successful in the recovery is worth millions of dollars, Dane.”

  “Would they take the risk of using an untested submersible and robot?” Kaylene asked.

  “I do not know anyone at Hokkaido Marine Industries, but I imagine the answer is yes. They would view this disaster as an opportunity.”

  Brande was watching her face closely, and Otsuka felt as if his gray eyes could see behind her own, could probe within her mind.

  “Have you been threatened, Kim?” he asked.

  She was glad that the relationships at MVU were so candid. Very little was ever hidden from another.

  “Not directly,” she said. “It was implied that my passport could be revoked.”

  “Give them the program,” he said.

  “I’ll be damned if we will,” Thomas said. “Grab that phone and call Hampstead, Kim.”

  *

  1915 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

  “My plotting board looks like a live jigsaw puzzle,” Unruh said.

  “Bet it looks just like mine,” Hampstead responded. “We’ve enlarged the display to show just the area of operations. I think it looks like a tag-team match, with about ten people on each team, and about ten teams.”

  “I didn’t know you liked wrestling, Avery.”

  “I don’t. Hate it.”

  Unruh did not think he would pursue that line.

  “Do you have any close friends in the State Department, Carl?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Just one?”

  “Maybe. What’d you need?”

  Hampstead told him about a problem with one of Brande’s scientists and her consulate.

  “Wouldn’t you know someone would be trying to commercialize this thing, Avery?”

  “I see it more as blackmail and industrial espionage.” “Well, let me make a few phone calls. Is that your only problem?”

  “No,” Hampstead said, “but it’ll do for now.”

  “You’ve got the Kirov identified?”

  “Yes. She’s staying on the perimeter. CINCPAC says there’s fifty-seven civilian boats cluttering up the screen now. Several of them, according to one of the aircraft pilots, have approached the Russians. Right now, they’re sitting in place, about a quarter of a mile away, trying to stare down four big damned warships, Carl.”

  “Waving banners?” Unruh asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe just fingers.”

  “It’s worse elsewhere,” Unruh said, eyeing the status boards on easels that were lined up on one side of the Situation Room. “The Commonwealth naval base at Cam Ranh Bay is under siege by a horde of Vietnamese protestors.”

  “Good,” was Hampstead’s response.

  “A CIS Air Force attache at the United Nations was slugged in the face by a staffer from the Philippines delegation.”

  “In the U.N. building?”

  “Right. The CIS delegation is demanding that they be allowed to increase their security detachment.”

  “Will they? Be allowed, I mean?”

  “I can’t imagine that it will happen. Bob Balcon has asked the NYPD to give them a few extra cops.”

  “There’s a major rally taking place at Waikiki Beach right now,” Hampstead said.

  “The FBI has it listed here.”

  “They want the Commonwealth expelled from the United Nations for endangering the world.”

  “Is that right? That’ll really help improve communications,” Unruh said.

  “Are we having any? Communications?”

  “We might have, Avery. The President has called in the CIS ambassador. The ambassador asked for a delay in order to accumulate information. You can bet your ass he’s on the hot line to Moscow.”

  “We wouldn’t happen to be listening in on his conversation, would we?”

  “Avery.”

  “Well?”

  “Of course we are. But it’s scrambled and in code, naturally.”

  “Naturally. How about data on the reactor?”

  “We’re asking around.”

  “You’ve been doing that for four days.”

  “These things take time,” Unruh said. He had been on the line to Oren Patterson a dozen times, anxious, but not trying to pressure the DDO any more than he already was.

  “You’re not giving us very much with which to work,” Hampstead complained.

  “Well, there is one more thing.”

  “I’m waiting with delicious anticipation.”

  “The Navy people convinced the President that, with the CIS task force on-site and more coming, we should have more of a presence.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “An aircraft carrier and two cruisers, with appropriate support craft, will be ordered out of Pearl Harbor within the next hour or so.”

  “Jesus Christ, Carl! I’d rather have the committees and the summit talk.”

  *

  1436 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 20' 42" NORTH, 176° 11' 4" EAST

  “Surface!”

  Neil Garrison echoed Taylor’s order. “Surface. Full up, planesman.”

  “Aye aye, sir, full up.”

  “Sound General Quarters,” Taylor said.

  The klaxon went off, feet began to thud along the corridors of the Los Angeles as men ran for their duty stations, and all interior lighting went to red.

  “Control Center, Sonar. Hostile’s stopped engines. Bearing still oh-one-four, range now twelve hundred yards.”

  “All stop,” Taylor said.

  “Aye aye, Skipper, all stop,” Garrison said.

  As the sub slowed, Taylor visualized the position of the Winter Storm, which they had identified and had been tracking for the past hour. The CIS submarine had ignored them, maintaining its deep search pattern northeast of the impact point, until they closed within 2,000 yards.

  Then it had made a climbing, evasive turn, and abruptly shut down all its systems.

  Sitting silent.

  Waiting.

  Waiting for the American submarine to demonstrate its intentions.

  Taylor showed his intentions by surfacing.

  He could not imagine ever taking such an action, based on his training, but he also could not think of a clearer way to express his desire to talk.

  The Los Angeles broke the surface, and Garrison unbuttoned the hatch into the conning tower. Taylor scrambled up the ladder behind him.

  The early-afternoon sun was blotchy, struggling to get its rays through a thin overcast. To the west, the cloud bank was heavier, thicker, darker. The seas were running long, high swells. There was a wind out of the northwest that Taylor gauged fairly steady at ten miles
per hour.

  They waited.

  Taylor felt vulnerable.

  Garrison had donned a headset and plugged into one of the sail’s extensions.

  “Sonar reports they’re coming up, Skipper.”

  “Good. But let’s keep everyone alert.”

  The CIS submarine cleared the surface about a half mile away to the northwest. It was clearly a Sierra-class boat, larger than the Victor IIIs, and equipped with the bullet on top of the vertical rudder. That strange-looking cylinder had been attributed to anything from a towed sonar array to a supersecret, ultrasilent propulsion system.

  “Ahead one-third,” Taylor said.

  Garrison repeated the order, and the Los Angeles gained headway and began to move.

  The Russian waited for them.

  Taylor raised his binoculars to his eyes, adjusted the focus, and found the heads of three men peering over the top edge of the sail. All three were staring back at him with their own field glasses.

  He lowered the binoculars. “They’re suspicious of us, Neil.”

  “Hell, Skipper, I’m suspicious of us. You want me to get a photograph of that fin housing?”

  “No. Let’s not play naval intelligence this time.”

  The bow of the Winter Storm came slowly around to the west as they approached, allowing the Los Angeles to come directly alongside.

  When they were ten yards apart, Taylor ordered reverse to stop their forward movement, then minimal forward power to maintain their heading.

  The Russian did the same, and the two subs crawled through the sea side by side, but rising and falling by as much as eight feet in relation to one smother in the heavy seas.

  “You didn’t manage to learn any Russian last night, did you, Neil?”

  “I tried, Skipper. No luck.”

  Taylor raised his loud hailer. “I am Commander Alfred Taylor, captain of the United States submarine Los Angeles.”

  The response was made a trifle ragged by the wind, and the English was stilted, but Taylor heard, “Captain Mikhail Gurevenich … Storm.”

  So far, so good.

  They had not lied to each other yet.

  “Captain Gurevenich, I invite you aboard my boat for a short meeting.” Taylor spaced out the words, hoping he was understood above the wind and the translation problems.

  There was a hurried confab among the three officers, then a dinghy was brought up onto the afterdeck.