by Dusty Miller
Chapter Eighteen
Liam got to the bottom first, holding there with his gloved left hand on the bottom. He had to keep up a steady kick to stay in place. There was a half an inch of soft squishy stuff, and below that something hard like clay. In the light, the bottom appeared grey and brown, decomposed leaf litter and decayed aquatic plants. Something glittered a couple of metres off to his right. His heart lifted and then fell when he saw it was one of the ubiquitous beer cans, coated with a thick fuzz of green algae.
His work partner Bryan, spear-gun clipped to his belt, pushed in a fluorescent orange stake and attached a reel and line. There was a simple padded loop for the wrist and he slipped it over Liam’s right hand.
Holding the scanner, metre glowing a dull red with white indicators, Liam began swimming around in small circles, his arc controlled by the reel’s built-in clutch and brake system.
He didn’t get far before the needle wavered. The man on his left, watching closely over Liam’s shoulder, dropped a weighted flag and pulled up to hover two metres above the bottom. Liam turned and came back, criss-crossing the target until they were all sure it was right there. His partner and Ian hung in the background, slowly spinning in place. All three lights were now laying on the bottom, pointing inwards to Liam’s work area. He stowed the meter.
Waving his hand back and forth over the silt and detritus of the riverbed, Kimball got the loose stuff out of the way. He began to probe slowly and carefully with a T-handled probe. He gently pushed the stainless-steel point down into the next layer, the sharp tip scratching at something metal, very small, just under the surface.
It took some digging with his dive knife, and he had gotten down about a foot and a half before they came to the first hard evidence. This one was big and heavy. There were numerous flecks and small bits of metal in the muck, some charred but some showing signs of recent fracture. All of that other stuff might have drifted here on current and wind.
With Ian standing sentry duty, circling way out and watching for any sign of intruders, Liam and Bryan followed the anchor line to the surface. With a few brief words, the suction pump was lowered over the side. With Bryan guiding the pump on its downward descent, Liam accepted a three-metre section of hose and then a shorter discharge hose. The pump was switched on and he went to work clearing their object.
Going by all the charred aluminum, smashed and flattened as those honeycombs of solid-state circuitry were, this was it. This was a part of EMERALD.
It took a good twenty minutes to suck up the silt and blow away the mud, which drifted off in a billowing, impenetrable cloud with the downstream currents. The fragment appeared to be a pretty big section of the communications and control module. This was the brains of the system. When it was mostly exposed in its divot in the riverbed, Liam took a good hold of the charred mass. Kicking hard, he gave it a shove. It rocked easily enough. This one might not weigh much more than twenty or thirty kilograms, going by feel. Bryan came in close with a net bag, neck open. He laid it on the bottom. Holding the mouth open with his left hand, he helped Liam roll and lift the artifact into the bag. Bryan pulled the red tie-rope to close it.
Quickly attaching an inflatable lifting bag to a metal ring on the net, Bryan used his spare regulator to begin filling it. After a quick glance at his gauge, looking around to see if Ian was still out there, Liam did the same. The bag swelled impressively. The line was taut and the cargo shifted slightly on the bottom. Liam waved off Bryan. Bryan unclipped his spear-gun and eased off into the darkness. Liam, holding onto the lifting line, put a little more air into it and then let his spare regulator fall.
They were going up.
***
When the airbag surfaced a few feet from the boats, Edward stood up carefully and shone his light. Seeing the rounded coconut shape of a man’s head in the water, he tossed over a line to a tired and grateful Liam.
It took a couple of minutes for the other divers to bring up the remaining equipment and a handful of smaller pieces that looked like it might go with EMERALD. If that indeed was what they had and not just someone’s old air conditioner. On the way up, a streamer of mud had fallen off, but it still trailed gobs of mud and stringy algae.
Liam climbed aboard. Finding the catch, he wrested the air tanks from his back. Having done the bulk of the physical work on the bottom, the other guys would give it that last shove, from a metre down where it hung on the airbag.
With Liam and Edward hauling on a short line attached from above, they soon had their prize aboard the biggest boat. All men and equipment were accounted for.
“All right. Return to base.”
For all intents and purposes, this was now Cabin Seven.
Edward checked in by radio. All was secure on that end. He grinned, teeth and eyes flashing in the dim light.
The small building was now heavily overpopulated. People were waiting to see what the cat dragged in. As for the neighbours, they hadn’t been seen in a while. Their boat was at the dock, the boat-trailer was in the parking lot and their vehicle sat right out front. A distinct lack of signal on their own snooper-scopes indicated that the opposition had their own suppression technology going. Either that or it was too quiet over there. They had further backup in the form of plainclothes police and people hastily drafted from related services. The camp was under unobtrusive surveillance. The observation post was inside a van with smoked windows. They had been lucky to get a strategic spot in the dockside parking area. Hastily briefed, their role was to provide security for Cabin Seven and to keep an eye out for even more suspicious persons.
***
Somewhere far, far away, on the other side of the world, a technician sat up a little straighter in his chair. He turned to his shift-mate, a middle-aged woman of indeterminate nationality. She was frankly snoozing, left hand across a small pot belly and the right arm dangling straight down off the shoulder.
He gave her chair a push. She woke with a gasp.
“Hey.”
“What?” She swallowed, seeking the cup and its cold dregs of sweet, green tea.
The remains of some black toast and butter lay on a small plate beside it. She lazily stretched and yawned in her seat. It was broad daylight outside. In here, time slipped away along with all external realities, leaving a person with nothing but the data on the screens and the feedback from their own body. In her case, working shifts and raising a four year-old was taking its inevitable toll.
“Argh.” Turning, she gave him a nasty look that was not entirely without humour. “What is your problem?”
There was a certain inflection, a certain tone to it.
“Have a look at this.” He put his cursor on the timeline at the bottom of his real-time video feed.
This, was Barracuda.
Back to point A. He clicked and labeled it for future reference.
The fish, a semi-autonomous submarine reconnaissance machine, had been lying in the low weedy growths a few metres away from enemy activity on the Spanish River. Mottled olive and brown on the upper parts, sky-grey on the underparts, it was almost invisible in its native environment. Other fish, no matter how large, tended to give the thing a wide berth due to electrical and sonic disturbances. It was big, it was ugly, it didn’t look right and it didn’t smell right, not even tempting to the largest muskellunge.
The green dot onscreen was their machine. It sat there still, conserving power and waiting for their inputs. Its observations of enemy craft were analyzed, collated and projected as bright red dots on their screens.
She shook her head to clear the fuzz from the brain, swallowing tea quickly.
“Run that by me again.”
Achmed clicked and the screen went black. The starting frame was instantly rendered. She watched and listened open-mouthed. The Barracuda had audio pickup and direction finding capability. Attuned to its surroundings and locked onto the unique sound of Mister Kimball’s boat motor, the Barracuda had been lying just off the end of the marked chann
el approaches at The Pines.
With an abundance of battery and motor power, it was a simple matter to shadow the small convoy, rising near the surface to send vertical bursts of data to the satellite above. Such small craft as the westerners were using were unequipped to detect a miniature periscope, the antenna, or the signals emitted.
The figures of Kimball, Spencer, and the others were more or less identifiable in certain positions and lighting conditions. Once you’d been watching them a while, you got to know them, their body shapes and the characteristic walk. What human eyeballs were doing now would soon become routine for high-speed, biometric analysis—assuming someone didn’t have it already.
When the boats slowed and stopped, Barracuda One slowed, opened the ballast tank valves and slowly lowered itself to the bottom. Heavily insulated in the motor compartment, the thing was undetectable to hydrophones due to the noise of the subjects’ own engines. If the quarry shut the motors down, divers in the water might stand a small chance of detecting Barracuda. It would almost have to be by accident, and visually at that. They were unlikely to do it by sound alone.
They watched, her almost breathlessly, the male finally skipping past the boring bits and cutting right to the object under lift. This was a dim shape, lit from below in a soft green glow.
“We’d better get the supervisor in here.” The lady lifted a phone and spoke briefly into it.
He hit Point A again, studying the video.
At a metre and a half in length, with a cruising duration un-recharged of twenty-four hours, packed with sensors and a small explosive charge, Achmed enjoyed operating the machine. He would have laughed at anyone who accused him of playing with toys. It was anything but a toy. Meant for stealthy approach, the machine would lay on the bottom, automatically maintaining its assigned position against current and waves until it was activated. It could operate in hunter-killer mode. It could be used as a simple magnetic or acoustic mine, for remotely-piloted reconnaissance, or attacking enemy personnel. That’s what it was right doing now.
Hugging the bottom, weaving back and forth through weeds, skimming past rocks and boulders, Barracuda One followed the little flotilla. They needed to be patient. The three boats cruised upriver for half an hour and then entered the cove. They tied up at the docks. The men all got out. They had a lot of gear with them, and finally they unloaded their precious little package.
Occupied with themselves, not a one looked out to the water. Carrying bags, swim fins, diving tanks and other ancillary equipment, Barracuda followed their progress with its periscope fully extended. The technicians zoomed in, carefully noting the one known as Spencer. He was hefting a large heavy mass that didn’t correspond to anything loaded prior to going out. Through the machine’s eyes, they were trying to get a good look into the back door of Cabin Seven as the men trooped in, clearly tired but bearing glad tidings. They saw other people, other faces in there and then the door slammed shut.
Hmn.
There were squeaking, sliding footsteps in the hall as the supervisor was right there, hand on the knob. He’d come running.
***
“Goodnight, Uncle Dale. I’m coming home late tonight, so don’t wait up.” Feeling slightly guilty about taking a night off when the camp was full to capacity, Lindsey had set out cheese puffs, a box of butter tarts taken from the store and a bowl of pretzels.
Theoretically it was his camp and his house—theoretically, he should be able to look after himself.
He could find other stuff to eat if he put his mind to it.
She leaned in over his armchair and gave him a dry peck on the cheek, trying not to leave too much lip-gloss behind.
Dale grinned.
“Hey! Who’s the lucky guy? You smell fantastic, honey.”
Trust Dale to call a spade a spade. Lindsey, in a kind of defiance, was dressed to the nines. Her legs were polished and teeth whitened and hair curled, and combed, and all puffed out like the picture in the high school yearbook.
She was wearing the same slinky black dress that she had worn to the prom. She went with a guy named Alan. Why, she would never know. Alan had asked in a kind of obvious hopelessness and then just seemed bewildered by his success. At the time, he was kind of cute. Once it became known that they would be going together, he became ever more wooden and ever more sophomorically tongue-tied. It got worse and worse, the closer the great day came. He must have had a horrible crush. He must have thought he was getting laid or something.
That was the hope, anyways.
The funny (perhaps terrible was a better word) thing was that she had barely thought of him since.
Poor guy.
Her heels were high, a circlet of smoky black faux pearls around her neck drew attention and suggested submission, which was what she was pretty sure she wanted.
One or the other.
Someone had to submit or nothing much was ever going to happen.
She and Amy, a friend she hadn’t seen in ages, were going to the pub. Amy had called up out of the blue, as desperate as Lindsey and seeking to rekindle old times or something. As impulses went, this one came at a good time. Or a bad time, or maybe just at the right time. That was how Amy put it after hearing Lindsey’s little tale of woe. They would see if they could spark someone to a little dancing. Maybe even provoke them if that proved necessary.
She had on a short grey coat, knitted wool, with wide shoulders, narrow in the waist. Lindsey had a suede purse in the same colour, matching the stitch pattern quite well. She’d bought that on Yonge Street. Under Dale’s scrutiny, eyebrows a little raised, she slowly rotated in place by the front door.
It didn’t do to dwell on such things, but his niece had some of the finest legs he’d ever seen.
That was one short and clingy skirt. He clamped his mouth firmly shut. She blew him a kiss, which he acknowledged with a wave, face already back to the TV.
Turning, she opened the door and went out.
Chapter Nineteen
“Damn.” Lindsey turned the key again on the six year-old white Ford club-cab pickup truck, with its sunroof, heavy stereo and cold, slippery maroon leather seats.
The sun had gone down and night was falling.
The engine was turning over but it wasn’t firing.
Shit.
It was a warm evening. It was almost airless, the hallmark of a bad mosquito night. She had the driver’s window down. There was the crunch of gravel as she stopped cranking for a moment. She might borrow Mark’s little Subaru, but it was a gear-cruncher, and she probably couldn’t do it in the shoes. These were her special shoes. Lindsey was beginning to get a little cross. God, how good that first drink was going to taste. If only she could get there.
“Excuse me, Lindsey. Hello. Are you having engine troubles?”
It was Anton and Beryl, the Bernsteins. Their little grey-green vehicle was there in front of the store. Beryl was eating a strawberry ice cream cone.
“Ah. Shit. Yes. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Always parked in the far left spot, with a Reserved sign prominently displayed, Lindsey thought Dale had been driving it just that morning, the other day for sure.
“You look lovely, dear.” Those blue eyes barely wavered as Beryl carefully and thoroughly licked her ice cream cone. “Got a hot date, I’ll bet.”
“Yes. I should say so.” Mister Bernstein lifted his chin and peered down, noting the tanned knees and the healthy young skin revealed by cutaway shoulders and a plunging V-neck in front.
Lindsey tried to smile.
“Well. No. Not a date, exactly…”
Beryl gave Anton a hefty slap on the back of his shoulder.
It was a strong hint from the little lady.
“Oh. Ah, say, Lindsey. Maybe we can give you lift. We’re going into town for lobster.”
Upset by the truck not starting, not seeing Mark or his car anywhere about, not quite knowing what to do, Lindsey couldn’t help but stare for a second at Liam’s little red car. It was s
itting out in front of Cabin Seven. She immediately dismissed that impulse. It was a nice thought though.
“Sure. That would be wonderful.” Rolling up the window, Lindsey locked the doors, put the keys in her purse, and followed the Bernsteins to their vehicle, good old Beryl with her tow-head and Dutch or Estonian accent licking ice cream all the way.
Bernstein hit the button on his key-fob and the doors squawked in the usual fashion.
Beryl took an appraising look at the outfit and the girl.
“You’d better take the front seat, honey. I don’t mind sitting in the back.”
Anton held the door for her, indulging himself in another good ogle. The doors were closed and he started the engine. The locks chunked down. The radio was set fairly high in volume to some heavy hip-hop beat. It might seem a little rude, but she was going to ask him to turn it down in a minute. She’d wait until they got going and he attempted to talk, which one of them would no doubt do…sure as shooting.
The car shifted as Beryl moved around in the back seat. There was something odd in the air, a new car smell or something. Lindsey thought it was a Lexus.
“So, where are you-all headed?” Anton looked over from the driver’s seat in friendly fashion, then his eyes dropped to her cleavage or what there was of it.
“Ah—” She was just opened her mouth to tell him the Goat’s Head Pub on the corner of—
“Honey, this is a lovely little scent. What do you think?” Beryl was leaning up close in behind her, the car shifting under them again.