“Wow, that was so brave,” Catie said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“It’s a painful memory,” Blake said with a shrug.
“Did you get a medal?” Sally asked.
“He got the Navy Cross,” Faye said, “and the undying gratitude of twenty-five men and women who were on that AWAC.”
“Okay, enough ancient history,” Blake said. “We’re on course for Kahe Point. It’s relatively secluded, so it’ll be perfect for your first dive. We should get there in about two-and-a-half hours. So have breakfast and relax. Catie, did you get everyone squared away?”
“Aye, Captain.”
Datu came down and said hello to everyone. He told them that he’d have the breakfast buffet out in twenty minutes.
“Who’s driving the boat?” Jackie asked.
“It’s on autopilot,” Marc said, “but I’m heading up to babysit it now. Too much traffic here to leave it alone for long, but Datu would have made sure the radar was clear before coming down.”
“That’s nice to know,” Jackie said a bit nervously.
“Catie, would you bring me a plate when Datu puts it all out?” Marc asked over his shoulder.
“Aye, Aye, Daddy,” Catie said with a grin.
◆ ◆ ◆
When they got to the reef, Blake stayed on board while Marc and Faye acted as scuba instructors and lifeguards. Catie, with her snorkeling experience and natural quick learning ability, helped Sally out. The two girls were on the reef and chasing fish before Melinda and Jackie were even willing to leave the safety of a few strokes from Mea Huli’s dive platform.
Marc finally got Jackie to dive down around the reef while it was looking like Melinda was not going to go down more than six feet. When Marc finally got Jackie to dive down close to the bottom, her air was so low they had to head back.
“Hey, Daddy,” Catie said as he and Melinda made it back onto the boat. “Can we put Willie into the water?”
“Sure,” Marc said. “Just give me a few minutes to rinse off.”
Marc used the hose on the dive platform to rinse the saltwater off Melinda and himself. Once he finished that, he took the pin out of Willie’s cage and hooked up the tether that Catie eagerly handed him.
“Have you checked everything out?” Marc asked.
“Yes,” Catie said. “Uncle Blake went through it all with me while you were still down there. We ran out of air lots faster than you did since we were diving close to the bottom most of the time.”
“Okay, here he goes,” Marc said as he pushed on Willie. The cage tilted, and Willie slid off into the water.
Catie and Sally started to drive Willie around. Marc was happy to see that Catie actually let Sally drive the underwater vehicle once in a while. They drove Willie around the reef for an hour before Marc had them bring him back in.
“You can do one more dive before lunch,” Blake said.
Sally and Catie immediately started putting their gear back on. “If you want, I’ll go with them,” Faye said. “I can use the practice.”
“Thanks,” Marc replied. “I’ll get things ready for the survey we’ll be doing before we head back in.”
Marc started to reset the controls on Willie and set up the sonar dish. Blake came back and started to help.
“Anything I can do?” Jackie asked.
“We’ve got it,” Marc said. “We’ve had lots of practice.”
“How did you two wind up with such a nice boat?” Jackie asked.
“You mean, how did two normal guys wind up with a ten-million-dollar yacht?” Blake said.
“I guess that’s what I’m asking,” Jackie said.
“It’s a long story,” Marc said.
“Sorry,” Jackie said.
“I’ll give you the short version,” Blake said. “Marc is a math genius, almost as smart as his daughter. The DEA hired him to develop an algorithm that would identify boats that were smuggling drugs and other contraband into the U.S.. The government being cheap, didn’t want to pay his outrageous consulting fees, so they offered him ten percent of whatever they seized or recovered in the first six months that they used his algorithm. To everyone’s surprise, they seized ten big boats and yachts in the first six months and one hundred million in drugs. They negotiated Marc down to the Mea Huli, a few million, and paid the taxes.”
“Wow, that worked out nice,” Jackie said.
“Pretty much,” Marc replied. “But now Blake seems to think we should use it as a chick magnet.”
“No, I said, I should use it as a chick magnet,” Blake said. “You have family obligations, and need to be more conservative in your dating.”
Marc laughed. “You always thought you should have all the girls when we were kids.”
“What do you mean tried,” Blake said as he slugged Marc on the shoulder.
◆ ◆ ◆
After the girls finished their dive, Blake started the Mea Huli toward the survey location they had used for the first Hyperion survey. Marc had brought out the map showing the approximate location where they had placed the various objects when they’d done the first survey. He did the prep work while Jackie and Melinda made lunch for everyone.
When they reached the survey site, Faye helped Marc get the objects over the side so Willie could place them on the ocean floor. She was interested in how the sonar worked and helped Marc throughout the survey. Jackie spent her time with Blake learning how to sail the Mea Huli. Once the survey was complete, Faye helped Marc retrieve the objects, pulling each one onto the dive platform, so he could send Willie back for the next one right away. With Blake sailing, Marc driving Willie, and Faye grabbing the objects, they managed to pick everything up in half the time it usually took Marc and Blake.
“Okay, that was quick,” Marc said. “What do you want to do now? We could go to Kahuna Canyon and get one dive in, or we can just sail around.”
After much debate, they decide that they would let Catie and Faye dive Kahuna Canyon, then they would finish up with an evening sail back to Honolulu. The fact that Sally and Catie could watch a movie on the way back tipped the scales.
Chapter 5
Hyperion
“Welcome to my presentation,” Marc said as his guests entered the conference room. “I’m Dr. Marc McCormack.”
“Admiral Michaels,” the admiral said, extending his hand to Marc. He was about the same a bit shorter than Marc’s six feet two inches, but he probably outweighed Marc by twenty pounds. “My Aide, Lieutenant Roberts,” the admiral added after he shook Marc’s hand.
“Paul Grierson,” the third man said. He was wearing a suit almost identical to the ones worn by the two men behind him. “I’m with Boeing.”
“James Murray, with Northrop Grumman,” the next man said.
“David Laughton, with Raytheon,” the last man said.
“Welcome all of you to Hyperion,” Marc said. “We have developed what we believe to be the next generation of sonar technology. We expect that in the near future all commercial ventures will deploy our Hyperion I technology, and the military will be deploying our Hyperion II technology.”
“You’re pretty confident,” Admiral Michaels said.
“As you watch the presentation, you’ll understand my confidence. I’m going to start by showing the capabilities of Hyperion I. Then I’ll show you what Hyperion II will do. After that, we’ll discuss signal quality and variability that occurred in our four studies for Hyperion I. We only accomplished one study for Hyperion II since we were rushing to finish its development before this presentation.
“We dropped a few items on the ocean floor at a depth of approximately five hundred meters. Of course, we picked them up after the test. Here is what you see with standard sonar.” Marc clicked his mouse, and an image came up on the 64-inch TV screen. It looks like empty ocean floor; extra processing didn’t add any resolution.”
“That’s too deep to see anything.”
“Now with the enhanced sonar technology of Hyp
erion I, here is what you see.”
Marc clicked to the next slide.
“You can see there is something there, so it’s worth secondary processing. Now, this is what you see after that,” he said, moving on to the next slide. “You can make out some type of statue, a toilet, and a few amorphous objects.”
“That is worth something; definitely will help with locating debris from a shipwreck or a plane crash.”
“Now here is what you see with our Hyperion II,” Marc forwarded to the next slide.
The screen clearly showed the statue as Caesar’s torso and also a medicine ball sitting down on the bottom.
Admiral Michaels reached over and pulled the HDMI cable from the projector. “I’m sorry folks, this technology is classified. Please give Lieutenant Roberts all the documentation you have received. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you to keep everything you’ve seen here to yourselves.”
The three other men handed their packets to Lieutenant Roberts as they filed out of the room.
“You can’t do this,” Marc hissed.
“I have done this,” Admiral Michaels replied.
“I’ll just publish.”
“That would be foolish. I’m sure we would be able to show that you’ve infringed on some of our top-secret technology.”
“So, what! If it’s not patented, then it’s fair game.”
“But we could suggest that you might have come about that technology through dubious means,” the admiral said. “Rest assured that we will compensate you for your work, but we will not allow this technology to be shared with anyone, not even our allies.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“How did the meeting go?” Blake asked as Marc climbed aboard the Mea Huli.
Marc was scowling as he stomped over to the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of beers.
“That good,” Blake said.
“The Navy declared Hyperion classified and closed the meeting.”
“Really well, then.”
“Perfect,” Marc said as he smiled and handed Blake a beer.
“You knew they would classify it.”
“Sure, too big a leap for them not to.”
“So, what’s the play here?”
“They’re going to want to keep me happy,” Marc said. “They won’t go for a licensing deal, too much documentation; so, they’re going to have to buy me out.”
“Sounds good, more money upfront.”
“Right. I’m hoping for twenty-five million.”
“Well, if we’re hoping, why not thirty,” Blake quipped.
“Realistically, they won’t want to spring for any more than they have to. But I’ve got an analysis that shows that the cash flow from licensing it should be worth twenty to thirty million. I was generous with my assumptions so they’ll shoot lower.”
“When will you know?”
“The admiral says they’ll get back to me next week.”
“So, storming in here was what, left over from the act at the hotel?”
“No, but they might be following me,” Marc said. “I don’t want to give them any hints.”
“What are you going to tell Catie?”
“I’ll just tell her that the Navy’s trying to hog all the action, and we’ll have to wait and see. How was your day?”
“Well, I said goodbye to Jackie. She has to go back to work.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, can you believe Catie would set me up with someone who lives in San Diego?”
“I have a hard time believing Catie set you up with someone. But maybe she wants you to move to San Diego.”
“I’m not so sure, she looks like she’s liking Hawaii a lot. I saw her checking out schools and the homeschooling options.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Marc groaned. “Just what I need, another reason for Linda and me to fight.”
“Just saying.”
“Thanks, Brother. I can always count on you to darken my day.”
“What are brothers for?”
“You don’t have to work at it so hard,” Marc laughed.
“So, what’s your next move as regards the Sakira?”
“Where’s Catie?” Marc asked, giving Blake the eye for mentioning Sakira.
“She’s doing a little shopping with the money she’s earned,” Blake said.
What’s she shopping for? She’s usually reluctant to spend any money, she must have picked that up from Mom.”
“I’m sure she got it from the same place you did,” Blake said. “She just said something about checking things out at the Apple store. So while she’s gone, back to the Sakira.”
“I’ve been doing an economic and technology assessment with ADI over the last week. I think we should start out with energy storage and generation.”
“Duh, nuclear fusion.”
“We can’t start there. Way too advanced, and we need to have a plausible explanation of how we invented it. Plus, we’d wind up fighting off every major world power. We need to start smaller until we have the resources to defend ourselves.”
“Okay, so what?”
“Batteries and fuel cells.”
“What, how is that going to make us rich?”
“Well, lithium-ion batteries are a twenty-five-billion-dollar per-year industry now; if we can introduce a more efficient battery, it will grow even bigger and we’ll be able to garner a major share of the market. And diesel engines are over three hundred billion dollars a year,” Marc said.
“Just imagine a diesel fuel cell combined with super-efficient batteries. It would revolutionize the trucking industry. Diesel engines are about forty-five percent efficient, but an electrical system can be ninety percent efficient, and the fuel cell can be eighty-five to ninety percent efficient,” Marc added, his excitement growing. “Couple that with the ability to convert all that energy from braking and route it to the batteries, and you have a super clean, quiet truck that gets twice the mileage or better. And the same for cars; not everyone can park their car where they can plug it in at night.”
“Yeah, you’re talking worldwide market, but what’s to stop the Chinese from stealing your design and undercutting you, or at least isolating you from their market and their partners?” Blake asked.
“That’s the beauty of it. The designs we’re settling on are almost impossible to reverse engineer. You can figure out what they’re made of, but not how to make them. So, we just have to protect the process.”
“That’s some serious security you’re talking about.”
“I know. We’ll have to be very cautious. And we need to worry about our government stealing the technology under the guise of national security.”
“Like they’re doing with Hyperion,” Blake said. “Gotta love the government.” Blake laughed and handed Marc another beer.
◆ ◆ ◆
That night after Catie went to bed, Marc poured himself a scotch and thought about what Blake had said about Catie. She had been very inquisitive about Hyperion and what the Navy was doing, far more than he had expected. She had quizzed him on how it would impact his business plans and even asked if he would have enough money to keep living in Hawaii.
He’d assured her that he would and that things were going to work out just fine. He worried that his little girl was growing up too fast and wondered if it was because of the divorce, or if she was just that way. She’d always been a studious child and had always done well in school, excelling in academics. But she never had very many close friends. She had started the first grade when she was five years old. Then they had her skip the fourth grade. Even then, they had to put her in special classes for math because she was so much more advanced than the rest of her grade level.
“Daddy,” Catie said as she walked into the family room where he was sitting.
“Hi, Sweetie,” Marc replied. “Couldn’t you sleep?”
“Not really. Uncle Blake told me that Jackie went back to San Diego.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that t
o me, too.”
“I guess it wasn’t so smart setting him up with someone who didn’t live here.”
“Not your job, but he had a good time with her. That always helps. Maybe she’ll come back for her next vacation. Her girlfriend, Melinda, lives here.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Catie said. “Hey, can you show me where Kahe Point is. I wanted to tell Mommy about it, and I don’t know where it is relative to Honolulu.”
“Sure.” Marc turned around and logged onto his computer. He typed Kahe Point into Google Maps, and it zoomed in on the bay. Marc zoomed it out so Catie could see all of Oahu and get a perspective of the bay in relationship to Honolulu.
“See, we sailed this way,” Marc said. “It’s about sixty miles.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” Catie said as she gave him a kiss and headed back to bed.
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie’s alarm went off at 2:30 a.m. She’d set her phone to vibrate and stuck it inside her pillowcase so it would be sure to wake her. She figured her father would work until 1:00 at the latest, so he should be deep asleep now. She quietly got out of bed and snuck into the family room. Her father’s computer was sitting on the desk. She sat down and turned it on. She typed the password that she’d watch him enter earlier and started browsing around the file system.
When she got to a folder labeled ADI_Data, she got excited. She’d heard her father say that name a few times when she had noticed him talking while working at night. She opened the folder. It only had three items, message-1, message-2, and message-3.
“Well, I guess I should start with message-1,” she thought to herself. She plugged her ear-buds into the front port so the sound wouldn’t wake her father. She got excited when she listened to the first message. But the second message blew her away.
“Oh MY GOD!” Catie gasped.
“Yes, OH MY GOD,” Marc scolded. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Me! You found a spaceship!” Catie squealed.
“And you broke into my computer.”
“Well yeah, I knew you were hiding something from me.”
“I was, and as an adult and your father, I’m allowed to hide things from you. While as a child and my daughter, you are not allowed to break into my computer,” Marc chided.
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