Chiffrey burst out laughing. “And, damn, don’t I know it…I mean, if you think I’m bad…” His laughing grew uncontrollably, and he couldn’t stop. What was worse, she started laughing. She stood facing him, tears rolling down her cheeks, laughing out loud for the first time in many days.
They had been going on at least two minutes, trying to speak, failing, when they both suddenly stopped. In spite of having always cast him as a complete ass, maybe he was more like an exotic species she hadn’t yet found a place for in her scheme of things.
“Okay then,” Chiffrey said, “I’ll start again. I agree, we are not in control here and are still largely in the dark, yet we need to act. But I am not going to pass this assessment up the chain.”
“Because you don’t want to give the impression we’re in over our heads.”
He nodded. “We don’t want to fly that flag, or they’ll just send in their own clowns. So again, given all that, what have you got? Something, I hope. Or, like some folks here, are we supposed to just heave everything we know over the side and stare at the moon till wisdom comes?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t have anything specific yet, but I will.”
“That’s not really helpful.”
“I know, but trust me, as you have asked me to trust you. I absolutely will, and soon.”
“Okay. I owe you,” he said but could not help adding, “Sooner would be much, much better than later.”
She took a breath, let it out, and made a point of keeping direct eye contact before speaking. “For now, we acknowledge that we will never put Humpty Dumpty together again, and move past what we thought we knew. We need to listen and see without editing. That is essential. Trying to put things that don’t fit in our old tattered boxes will be fatal. Coming to conclusions too soon could be fatal.”
“I’m good with that.”
“You may think this strange, coming from me,” she continued, “but we need to let our guard down. Open the gates.”
“Just remember what I’ve been telling you,” he said. “The forces-that-be are standing by and ready. People upstairs are waking up and not liking the smell of the coffee. The new intel means they will begin to look at this as some kind of invasion. I sense a hammer coming down soon. We need to pull up some good news, and pronto. I don’t like to put it this way, but although getting Matthew back safely can be our first priority, it can’t be theirs.”
“I know that,” she said, “and if that is intended to build a fire under us, we already got the message, long ago.”
“I’m just saying how it is, so don’t stiff the messenger. And we will need to give them specifics soon.”
“Well, I need some specifics, too. Those ships hanging on the west horizon, that we saw when we were near the edge of the circle earlier? What kind are they?”
“Sub chasers.” Chiffrey said. “We do need to stay vigilant in case—”
“They’ll just make it worse,” she said. “And you should know that by now.”
Chiffrey put up his hands in submission. “The ships are only there as a contingency. They will only act if we—and that means you—are in danger, being attacked, requesting assistance. That is, if it becomes clear we are dealing with a hostile force.”
“Did you ever stop to consider that the very presence of the sub chasers could be perceived as an attack? I think that’s what happened to your other ships.”
“Excuse me,” he said, stretching up his arms. “Could use a little exercise. It’s odd. Even with fewer people onboard, the ship seems more cramped than ever.”
“Because it’s harder to blend into the crowd. But don’t change the subject. It’s clear now that it doesn’t take much to elicit a response from whatever is down there.”
“That’s a little too delicate a way to put it. If the disabling of warships doesn’t matter to you, what about taking Matthew? Who’s next? We have to face the fact that, for all we know, anyone could be taken from anywhere and at any time. Sure, let’s hope for the best, but we need to be ready for the worst. That’s my job, and if it all does come crashing down, you’ll cry for our help just like everyone does.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s the way the world works.”
“And in that same world, the point I am making is still completely valid.”
“Yes, but it’s a hard sell for me to make. Maybe we already have the right balance. Those ships have not had any trouble lately, so we might conclude that our standoff distance is acceptable to whatever is in that craft down there.
“You still don’t know it’s a ship.”
“I won’t quibble, because we don’t need to settle that yet. The point now is that the Navy isn’t going to leave. They have to be ready. They won’t do anything unless clearly attacked, as I just told you. So far, no one has been physically harmed. Not even Matthew, as far as we know, despite his disappearance. Though as I told you, they don’t really believe me on that one.”
“Then what do they think?”
“That I must have missed something, that maybe you folks pulled one over on me. Well, can you blame them? After all, Matthew being spirited out of a sealed minisub, hundreds of meters below the surface of the sea? Matthew, someone they were intensely interested in, conveniently disappears? They don’t really buy it, I can’t blame them.”
“What about the propellers in their courtyard?”
“I know, but out of sight, out of mind.”
“There must be someone you can reach who is not a complete moron.”
He looked at her with eyelids drawn down. “Listen, they aren’t here. They’re getting everything from reports and satellite images and so on, which really don’t tell them enough. What I’m sending them must sound like the ravings of lunatic.”
“They’re watching us?”
“Of course. I had to tell Becka she would do well to scale back her, ah, sunbathing, in that out-of-the-way nook near the radar mast. The resolution on these things can pick out a flea on a hound.”
“You are disgusting,” she said.
“You’ll just have to bear me, as I am going somewhere with all of this.”
“Couldn’t you just go there now?”
“Okay, no preamble. Our assumption now is that we are being closely scrutinized, in ways that we don’t understand and, therefore, have no idea how to protect against. There may not even be any way.”
“So, are they panicked?”
“Not quite, but it will head in that direction if nothing else changes. And, of course, there is still a strong level of denial as you move up from where I am directly involved to the higher decision-making grids. My point is we have to continue on the basis that there is some directed purpose to everything that has happened so far and especially in Matthew’s abduction. We need a plan soon, and the best way to come up with one is by working together. I think it’s time we spoke to your father. But you need to first.”
“You don’t get to say that.”
He turned away from her and, shaking his head, ran his hand along the rim of the single porthole of the small lab. “Listen, if you want to blame someone, blame me. It’s the truth, after all. Go talk to him. Please.”
CHAPTER 51
Penny left Chiffrey and walked the deck for a while until she came to the Bluedrop in its cradle. After the minisub had surfaced on that terrible day, she had sat with her father until it was clear he would be fine, but then had retreated to the cabin. Since then, she had avoided him completely.
She wasn’t sure about everything Chiffrey had told her, but she did need to speak to her father, even if it was the last thing she wanted right now. After staring at the Bluedrop for a while longer, she just started walking, letting her legs take over until she found herself standing in front of her father’s improvised quarters in a storage room. She knocked.
“Not now, please.”
“Dad, it’s me.”
A brief silence, then he opened the door.
“It’s time we cleared away the
debris,” she said. “Don’t you think?”
He gave her the stern face that he sometimes used, until a rare look of sadness came into his eyes. “Yes, a job that takes two,” he said. “Come in.”
“Dad, I didn’t come here to blame you.”
“As they usually say, there’s plenty of blame to go around. But none for you on this one, and I seem to have taken far more than my fair share. I should have listened, and I didn’t. I am so sorry.”
“Matthew wanted to go, I know that. He might have been taken even if he hadn’t gone down. At this point, there’s no reason to think that’s impossible.”
“I should have considered more, should have been more…careful.”
“Your least favorite word, but that’s not who you are, we both know that, and we know nothing is going to change on that score. So let’s dispense with the contrition.”
“That’s laying it on with a trowel, don’t you think?”
“It’s the truth.”
“And this from the daughter who is always saying, ‘You don’t know me.’”
“I don’t have to know you to accept what you do and will keep doing. And I didn’t come here to spar.”
He paused and considered with that bemused manner that never quite left him, even in dire circumstances. He wasn’t going to answer, so she added, “What’s important is getting Matthew back.”
“Of course.”
“Then if it’s obvious, why aren’t we doing anything? Chiffrey needs us to look like we have a game plan soon, so he can bring a bird back to his handlers. Otherwise they’ll move in and we may lose our only chance to find Matthew.”
“I know, he filled me in,” her father said. “And they’ll likely give us the boot when we get enough results for them to take over, whether we have found Matthew or not. They want to be free to plunder whatever it is down there.”
“There isn’t anyone else we can turn to.”
He nodded. “I’m afraid in this case, the devil you know really is better. So let’s get Chiffrey in here.”
He used the intercom to call the bridge. “Emory, is that you? Good. See if you or someone can locate our lieutenant and have him come to my cabin, please.” He clicked off before Emory had a chance to question him.
She did her best to catch him up on the conversation she had just had with Chiffrey. When he arrived, she was happy to see that he didn’t fake surprise at being called in. Her father motioned him to the stool, but before he even sat down Chiffrey said, “We’re agreed that what we all have in common is seeing Matthew safe again, but I have people to convince that we are doing everything possible to find out what is going on here. I’d like to know what’s your take on this, Doctor Bell. What should we do next?”
“Are you ready to listen?” her father said.
“Always ready.”
“All right then. We’ve seen how easy it is for a warship to be disabled. We’ve now seen what can happen with a submersible—even the disabling of its occupants. Even…well, we still don’t know what really happened down there.”
“I need to give them options.”
“First, send the warships away.”
“Well…”
“That is an option, and a good one. This forward-leaning stance can only be seen as provocative and is only complicating the situation. If need be, you have the means to move in quickly. They have their satellites to keep an eye on us.”
Chiffrey sighed, did his ear scratching routine, and said, “Not a string I can pull, sorry. We need a plan. Options they can accept.”
“Lieutenant, I’m a scientist so I am always looking at the best way to get the most results with the least cost. Not so much because of economics, but simply because it takes so much work and time to get anywhere and there is neither to waste.”
“I trust your judgment on that completely, but the scientific mission is not the only fish frying on the grill. I’m here to serve you and advise you and to see that we stay within the boundaries of acceptable risks.”
“I appreciate that,” her father said.
“Then I hope you can appreciate that in any other situation, the reasonable thing to do now would be to pull back the Valentina. And even in our present circumstance that might make more sense than just sitting here in the crosshairs doing nothing, which we are at the moment. I can’t sell that. If you have any specific strategies in mind, now’s the time to lay them on the table.”
“Lieutenant,” her father said, “Matthew needs our help. If we can find him, he might well be the loose cord to the whole tangle.”
“Penny and I have already agreed on that.”
“And if we can’t crack this soon,” her father said, “what about him?”
Before Chiffrey could answer, Malcolm appeared at the hatchway.
“Sorry to interrupt. Ah, Lieutenant, we just had a call from the Navy, from Admiral Stassen, I think he said. Or maybe Stetson, like the hat.”
“You mean Statsen.”
“Right. He needs you to call him immediately. On your satphone. He specifically requested that.”
Chiffrey’s gaze seemed to fix in space for an extra moment, then he smiled, but barely. He said, “You’ll have to excuse me.”
“Very well,” her father said. “Let me know when we can meet again.
“I certainly will, Doctor. Again, please excuse me.”
Penny watched him make his way out of the cabin, a little too quickly. His people had never before called and left a message like this. They wouldn’t have now unless it were extra important. She turned to her father and let out a breath.
“I hope that’s not more trouble,” her father said. “In any case, your old Dad needs to attend to some business, dear, and it’s a bit of a stroll to the head from here.”
“Afterwards, you can move back into your cabin.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I’m fine in here.”
“No arguments,” she said, raising her eyebrows like swords drawn. “There’s plenty of extra room in the women’s quarters now that Mary’s gone, and that’s where I should be anyway.”
“Well, then. Thank you.”
She gave him a long hug and said, “Let me know when Chiffrey surfaces again, okay?”
“Have a feeling that won’t be necessary.”
After moving out of the cabin and stowing her gear under the first empty bunk she saw in the women’s quarters, Penny ran into Becka on the foredeck. Becka was telling her that she had identified three more known amino acids in the tissue sample when her voice trailed off. Penny turned and saw Chiffrey marching towards them. He looked pale, and when he was almost to them, he froze as if he hadn’t seen them at first. His usual innocent face was gone, and what had replaced it made her chest tighten. Fear. Held in check, but it was there. He did not bother to establish rapport.
“I have some news for Penny, and I’m afraid I need to talk to her alone.”
Becka stiffened a little. “Don’t let me keep you.”
They watched her as she walked away, hurrying a little as she rounded the bulkhead.
“Bad news,” Chiffrey said. “Really bad. I’d like to keep it from the crew for a while longer. I just gave your father and the Captain a quick rundown, and I want to fill you in as well.”
“Matthew?”
“No. Two of our submarines have disappeared.”
“You had submarines in the area?”
“They were standing well off, twenty kilometers at least from the circle’s perimeter.”
“You never mentioned submarines specifically. Were they armed?”
“They are Navy attack submarines, so of course they are armed. But they were not moving any closer and they certainly were not attacking.”
“Then what were they doing?”
“At the exact time of their disappearance, we don’t know. In this present situation, they have been making contact every six hours, which is unusual. Generally, they maintain almost complete radio silence. In any case, the
y both missed their call.”
“How do you know it isn’t just some kind of communication problem?”
“They had specific orders to surface if they had communications or any other kind of problems. We’ve had aircraft on patrol continually searching for hours now, and AI augmented satellite surveillance. Nothing.”
“Couldn’t it be some kind of interference in the communication frequencies, maybe from the dome? Perhaps they—”
“Excuse me. They didn’t find the subs, but they did find something. All these vessels are equipped with an emergency buoy. The system is extremely hard and reliable, like the black boxes aircraft carry.”
He held out a pen as if it were a submarine and motioned the action with his other hand. “If they have an accident—and can’t reach the surface—the buoy can be released on a line, and it rises like this and then begins transmitting a radio signal when it reaches the surface. It will self-release in catastrophic circumstances. They received a brief signal from one of these buoys and they found it. The line was severed, and it was drifting freely. This doesn’t leave much room for doubt. Between the two, there were three hundred and eighteen men onboard. As far as Command is concerned, at best they are trapped on the bottom. At worst, lost. They’re searching the area where they found the buoy but haven’t found any sign of them.”
“Maybe the buoy malfunctioned.”
“Then where are the subs? The odds they both had problems at the same time are not even worth talking about.”
“You push a stick in a hornet nest, and this is what you get.”
“You’re just defending out of habit. You were right, before, to say this thing is dangerous. And I’m sorry, but you do have to hear this now: your idea seems to be we just quarantine this whole section of the Pacific and never come within two-hundred kilometers of it again, hoping, I suppose, that whoever or whatever is down there in that goddamn thing leaves us alone. No effing way.”
She stared him down, but he was not going to back off. She took a few breaths and said, “I never said never. You’re inferring things in a situation where all the rules have been changed. Pulling back for a short time would be wise, and it’s something you should consider. We can’t just be apes, shaking a stick at what we fear.”
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