ship in quick order. If a biological bomb is being smuggled in on a
containership, there's a good chance those boys could sniff out the
explosives component of it."
"That's what we're looking for," Dirk said. "So, we'll be working off
of San Diego?"
"No," Aimes replied, shaking his head. "There's only minimal
commercial traffic that moves through San Diego and the regional Coast
Guard vessels are more than adequate to handle the volume. We've
been ordered to patrol a quadrant southwest of the Port of Los Angeles
in support of the L.A.-Long Beach Coast Guard Marine Safety Group. Once
on site, we'll coordinate local positioning and boarding through
Icarus!"
"Icarus?" Dahlgren asked.
"Our all-seeing eye in the sky on the project," Dirk said with a
knowing smile.
As the Deep Endeavor chugged toward the Pacific, cruising past Coronado
Island and a Navy aircraft carrier inbound from the Indian Ocean, Dirk
and Summer went aft and studied the strange submersible that faintly
resembled a steroid-augmented earthworm. The bullet-shaped vessel was
dotted with a series of bladed propulsion units mounted irregularly
about the main body like glued-on heat pumps. Strutted beneath the
front of its bullet nose stood a giant coring device that stood ten
feet long, protruding upward like a unicorn's horn. Bathed in its
garish orange red metallic hue, the submersible reminded them of a
giant insect from a fifties horror film.
"What's the story on this contraption?" Summer asked of Dahlgren.
"Your father didn't tell you about the Badger? It's a prototype that
he authorized. That's why we were here in San Diego. Some of our
engineers have been working on a joint venture with Scripps Institute
to develop this hot rod. It's a deep-water corer designed to gather
sediment samples from the seabed. The scientific community is anxious
to gather sediment and organism samples around volcanic hydrothermal
vents, many of which are located ten thousand feet or deeper."
"What's with all the propulsion units?" Dirk asked. "To get to the
bottom in a hurry. She's a real speed buggy. Rather than waiting for
gravity to pull her to the seafloor, she has a hydrogen fuel cell power
plant that allows her to submerge at speed to the bottom. She allows
you to descend, take a core sample, and then pop back to the surface
without twiddling your thumbs all day. Less time spent diving and
surfacing means more core samples for the geologists to pick
through."
"And the boys at Scripps were actually willing to trust you behind the
wheel?" Summer asked with a laugh.
"They didn't ask how many speeding tickets I have on land so I didn't
feel compelled to tell them," Dahlgren replied with mock innocence.
"Little do they know," Dirk grinned, "that they just loaned their new
Harley-Davidson to Evel Knievel."
The Deep Endea vor steamed up the California coast for three hours
before turning out to sea just before darkness. Dirk stood on the
bridge watching the ship's progress on a colored navigation map
displayed on an overhead monitor. As the coastline fell away behind
them, he observed the island of San Clemente scroll up on the map to
the west of their aligned path. He studied the map for a moment, then
turned to Aimes, who stood nearby examining a radarscope.
"I thought your interdictions were restricted to no more than twelve
miles from the coast? We're headed by San Clemente Island, which is
over fifty miles from the mainland."
"For normal coastal duty, we recognize the twelve-mile limit from the
mainland. The Channel Islands are technically a part of California,
however, so, legally, we can operate from the islands as an origination
point. For this mission, we have been given temporary authorization to
expand our normal interdiction zone, with the Channel Islands as a
baseline. We'll set up position about ten miles west of Santa Catalina
as our base monitoring position."
Two hours later, they cruised beyond the large island of Catalina
and the engines slowed as they neared their station point. At a slow
crawl, the Deep Endeavor began patrolling a large north-to-south loop
west of the island, using the ship's radar as surveillance eyes. A
sprinkling of pleasure craft and fishing boats was all the radar
detected, along with a Coast Guard cutter on patrol nearby to the
north.
"We are positioned well south of the main shipping lane to L.A. and not
likely to catch much night traffic in this quadrant," Aimes said.
"We'll get tossed into the fray in the morning when Icarus shows up for
work. In the meantime, I suggest we take shifts and get some sleep."
Dirk took the hint and walked out onto the bridge wing, inhaling a deep
breath of sea air. The night was still and damp and the seas almost as
flat as a pancake. As he stood in the darkness, his mind tumbled over
his meeting with Kang and the less-than-implicit threat that the mogul
had delivered to Summer and him. Another week and the South Korean
Assembly vote would be history and the legal authorities could pursue
Kang with full fury. That's all they needed. A week without incident.
As he stared at the sea, a chilled gust of wind suddenly whisked his
face, then fell away again just as suddenly, leaving a tranquil and
seeming calm.
By 9 p.m." the Odyssey had backtracked some three hundred miles and
was now approaching the designated launch position calibrated in
Inchon. Tongju, catching up on some lost sleep in Captain Hennessey's
cabin, was startled awake by a rapid pounding at the door. An armed
commando entered the room and bowed as Tongju sat up and began pulling
on his boots.
"So sorry to intrude," the commando said apologetically. "It's Captain
Lee. He has requested that you return to the Koguryo at once. There
is some sort of dispute with the Russian launch engineers."
Tongju nodded, then shook off the cobwebs and made his way to the
pilothouse, where he verified that the platform was still cruising
north-northeast at 12 knots. Radioing for the Koguryo's tender, he
made his way down the long flight of stairs on the forward piling and
hopped into the idling boat that awaited him. A short ride took him to
the nearby support ship, where Captain Lee was waiting for him.
"Come with me to the Launch Control Center. It's those damn
Ukrainians," the captain cursed. "They can't agree on where to
position the platform for launch. I think they're going to kill one
another." The two men made their way down a flight of stairs and along
an interior passageway to the expansive Launch Control Center. As Lee
opened a side entry door, a loud staccato of foreign swearing burst
upon their ears. At the center of the room, a group of launch
engineers were huddled loosely around the two Ukrainian launch
specialists, who stood toe-to-toe with their arms in the air arguing
violently with each other. The crowd of engineers parted as Tongju and
Lee approached, but the Ukrainians didn't ski
p a beat. Looking on in
disgust, Tongju turned and grabbed a padded console chair, then lifted
it over his head and hurled it at the two jabbering engineers. The
gathered spectators gasped as the chair flew into the two men, smashing
into their heads and chests before ricocheting to the floor with a
crash. The stunned Ukrainians finally fell silent as they shook off
the blow from the flying chair and turned toward the two men. "What is
the issue here?" Tongju growled.
One of the Ukrainians, a goateed man with shaggy brown hair, cleared
his throat before speaking.
"It is the weather. The high-pressure front over the eastern Pacific,
specifically off North America, has stalled due to the push from a
low-pressure system in the south." "And what does this mean?"
"The normally prevailing high-altitude easterly winds have, in fact,
reversed and we are instead facing a strong headwind at the moment.
This has thrown off our planned mission flight profile by a
considerable margin." Shuffling through a file of papers, he pulled
out a sheaf of algorithmic paper containing numerous calculations and
trajectory profiles handwritten in pencil.
"Our base mission plan has been to fuel the Zenit rocket first stage at
fifty percent of capacity, which will produce an estimated down-range
flight trajectory of 350 kilometers. Approximately fifty kilometers
of this distance is over the target region, where the payload system
will be activated. Thus, our planned launch position was three hundred
kilometers west of Los Angeles, assuming normal local weather patterns.
Given the present weather scenario, we have two options: either wait
for the low-pressure front to yield to the prevailing winds or
reposition the launch platform closer to the target."
"There's a third option," the other Ukrainian grumbled irritably. "We
can increase the fuel load in the Zenit to reach the target from the
original launch position." As he spoke, his counterpart stood shaking
his head silently.
"What is the risk of that?" Tongju asked the doubter.
"Sergei is correct in that we can adjust the fuel load to reach the
target from the original launch position. However, I have grave doubts
about the accuracy that we would achieve. We do not know the wind
conditions for the entire flight trajectory. Given the current unusual
weather pattern, the wind conditions along the entire flight path might
vary significantly from what we can measure directly above us. The
launch vehicle could easily be diverted north or south of the intended
target by a large deviation. We could also overshoot the target by
tens of kilometers or, alternatively, undershoot the target by a
similar degree. There is just too much potential variability in the
flight path from this distance."
"A minor risk, compounded by speculation," countered Sergei.
"How long before normal weather patterns return to the area?" asked
Tongju.
"The low-pressure front has already showed signs of weakening. We
expect it to collapse over the next day and a half, with the dominant
high-pressure system prevailing in approximately seventy-two hours."
Tongju silently contemplated the arguments for a moment, then made his
decision without debate.
"We have a timetable to meet. We can ill afford to sit and wait for
the weather to change, nor can we risk diluting the target strike. We
shall move the platform closer to the target and initiate countdown as
soon as possible. How far must we move to mitigate the atmospheric
uncertainty?"
"To minimize the impact of the adverse winds, we must shorten the
trajectory. Based on our latest wind measurements, we must position
ourselves here," the goateed Ukrainian said, pointing to a map of the
North American seaboard. "One hundred and five kilometers from the
coast."
Tongju studied the position silently for a minute, calculating the
added distance to cover. The proposed position was dangerously near
the coastline, he observed, noting a pair of offshore islands in close
proximity. But they could reach the spot and still launch within
Kang's desired time schedule. As all eyes in the room waited for his
command, he finally turned and nodded toward Lee. "Alter course at
once. We will position both vessels at the new position before dawn
and initiate launch countdown at daybreak."
You've got to be kidding me. A blimp?" Giordino scratched his chin,
then shook his head at Pitt. "You dragged me all the way across
country to go for a ride in a blimp?"
"I believe the preferred term is airship" Pitt said, throwing his
partner a mock look of indignation.
"A gasbag, by any other name."
Giordino had wondered what Pitt had up his sleeve after the two arrived
at LAX on an overnight flight from Washington. Rather than heading
south from the airport, toward the Port of Los Angeles and adjacent
Coast Guard Marine Safety regional command, Pitt had turned their
rental car north. Giordino promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat
as the head of NUMA drove them out of the Los Angeles metro area.
Awakening later to find the specter of strawberry fields rushing past
the window, he rubbed his eyes as the car entered the tiny Oxnard
Airport and Pitt parked the vehicle near a large blimp moored to a
truck-mounted vertical boom.
Peering at the blimp, Giordino cracked, "I didn't think the Super Bowl
was scheduled for another couple of months."
The 222-foot long Airship Management Services Sentinel 1000 was, in
fact, much larger than the usual advertising blimps seen hovering over
football games and golf tournaments. An enlarged version of the
company's popular Skyship 600 series of blimps, the Sentinel 1000 was
designed to lift a useful load of nearly six thousand pounds by way of
an envelope that held ten thousand cubic meters of gas. Unlike the
rigidly framed dirigibles of the twenties and thirties that relied on
highly flammable hydrogen for lift, the Sentinel 1000 was a true
non-rigid blimp that utilized the safer element of helium to rise off
the ground.
"Looks like a runt nephew of the Hindenburg" Giordino moaned, eyeing
the silver-skinned airship warily.
"You happen to be looking at the latest in surveillance and tracking
technology," Pitt said. "She's fitted with a LASH optical system. NUMA
is testing her out for possible survey use on coral reef and tide
studies. The system has already been used successfully to track
migrating whales."
"What is a "LASH system?"
"Stands for "Littoral Airborne Sensor-Hyperspectral." It's an optical
imaging system that uses a breakdown in the color band to detect and
track targets that the eye cannot see. Homeland Security is
considering using it for border security and the Navy for antisubmarine
warfare."
"If we can give it a test run over Malibu Beach, then I'm all for it."
A ground crewman wearing a NUMA identification badge climbed out of the
gondola as Pitt and Giordino approached
the airship.
"Mr. Pitt? We've installed the radio set that the Coast Guard sent
up, so you'll be able to conduct secure communications with their
vessels. The Icarus has been weighed off for a landing equilibrium of
plus-one hundred kilograms when your fuel supply runs down to five
percent, so just don't run the tanks dry. The airship is also fitted
with both a water ballast system and an experimental fuel dump release,
should you need emergency lift."
"How long can we stay aloft?" Giordino asked, eyeing a pair of ducted
propellers jutting from either side of the gondola's aft section.
"Eight to ten hours, if you go easy on the throttles. Enjoy your
flight, she's a joy to fly," he said, bowing slightly.
Pitt and Giordino climbed through the gondola door and into a spacious
cabin that was comfortably outfitted to seat eight passengers.
Squirming through a forward opening into the flight compartment, Pitt
took up the pilot's controls while Giordino plopped into the copilot's
seat. With a muffled roar, Pitt started the pair of turbocharged
Porsche 930 air-cooled engines mounted on the rear flanks of the
gondola, which served as propulsion. With the engines idling, Pitt
obtained clearance to take off from the airport control tower, then
turned to Giordino.
"Ready for takeoff, Wilbur?"
"Ready when you are, Orville."
Launching the blimp was not a simple action handled solely by the
pilots but rather a carefully orchestrated maneuver assisted by a large
ground crew. Outside the gondola, the Icaruis support crew, all
attired in bright red shirts, took up positions around the airship. A
Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind Page 44