“Have you mentioned this to Dr. Newell?” Perry asked. Dr. Suzanne Newell was the senior oceanographer on the Benthic Explorer. “Has she seen this radar data you’re talking about?”
“Nobody’s seen it,” Mark said. “I just happened to notice the shadow on my computer screen yesterday when I was preparing for your arrival. I was thinking about bringing it up at your briefing last night but decided to wait to talk to you in private. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a bit of a morale problem out here with certain members of the crew. A lot of people have begun to think that drilling into this guyot’s a bit like tilting at windmills. People are starting to talk about calling it quits and getting home to their families before the summer’s over. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.”
Perry felt weak-kneed. He pulled Mark’s chair out from his desk and sat down heavily. He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, hungry, and discouraged. He could kick himself for betting so much of his company’s future based on so little reliable data, but the discovery had seemed so fortuitous. He’d felt compelled to act.
“Hey, I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news,” Mark said. “We’ll do what you suggested. We’ll try to get a better idea of the rock we’re drilling. Let’s not get overly discouraged.”
“It’s kind of hard not to,” Perry said, “considering how much it is costing Benthic Marine to keep the ship out here. Maybe we should just cut our losses.”
“Why don’t you get yourself something to eat?” Mark suggested. “No sense making any snap decisions on an empty stomach. In fact, I’ll join you if you can wait for me to shower. Hell! Before you know it we’ll have some more information about this crap we’ve hit up against. Maybe then it will be clear what we ought to do.”
“How long will it take to change the bit?” Perry asked.
“The submersible can be in the water in an hour,” Mark said. “They’ll take the bit and the tools down to the well head. Getting the divers down there takes longer because they have to be compressed before we lower the bell. That’ll take a couple of hours, more if they get any compression pains. Changing the bit is not hard. The whole operation should take three or four hours, maybe less.”
Perry got to his feet with effort. “Give me a call in my compartment when you’re ready to eat.” He reached for the door.
“Hey, wait a sec!” Mark said with sudden enthusiasm. “I got an idea that might give you a boost. Why don’t you go down with the submersible? It’s reputed to be beautiful down there on the guyot at least according to Suzanne. Even the submersible pilot, Donald Fuller, the ex-naval line officer, who’s usually a tight-lipped, straight-arrow kind of guy, says the scenery is outstanding.”
“What can be so great about a flat-topped, submerged mountain?” Perry asked.
“I haven’t gone down myself,” Mark admitted. “But it has something to do with the geology of the area. You know, being part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and all. But ask Newell or Fuller! I tell you, they’re going to be ecstatic about being asked to go back down. With the halogen lights on the submersible and the clarity of the deep sea water, they said the visibility is between two and three hundred feet.”
Perry nodded. Taking a dive wasn’t a bad idea since it would undoubtedly take his mind off the current situation and make him feel like he was doing something. Besides, he’d only been in the submersible once, off Santa Catalina Island when Benthic Marine took delivery of the sub, and that had been a memorable experience. At least he’d get a chance to see this mountain that was causing him so much aggravation.
“Who should I tell that I’ll be part of the crew?” Perry asked.
“I’ll take care of it,” Mark said. He stood up and pulled off his T-shirt. “I’ll just let Larry Nelson know.”
CHAPTER TWO
Richard Adams pulled a pair of baggy long johns from his ship’s locker and kicked the door closed. Once he had the underwear on he donned his black knit watch stander’s hat. Thus attired he left his compartment and banged on Louis Mazzola’s and Michael Donaghue’s doors. Both responded with a slurry of expletives. The curses had lost their sting since they constituted such a large percentage of these crew members’ vocabularies. Richard, Louis, and Michael, professional divers, were the hard drinking, hard living sort who regularly risked their lives by welding underwater if that were required, or blowing things up like reefs, or changing bits during submarine drilling operations. They were underwater hard-laborers and proud of it.
The three had trained together in the U.S. Navy, becoming fast friends as well as accomplished members of the Navy’s UDT force. All had aspired to become Navy Seals, but that turned out not to be in the cards. Their predilection for beer and fistfights far exceeded that of their fellows. That the three had grown up with alcoholic, brutish, abusive, bigoted, blue-collar, wife-beating fathers was an explanation for their behavior, but not an excuse. Far from being embarrassed by their patriarchal examples, the three looked upon their harsh childhoods as a natural progression to true manhood. None of them ever gave even a passing thought to the old adage: Like father like son.
Manliness was a critical virtue for all three men. They were ruthless in punishing anyone they perceived as being less manly than they who had the nerve to enter a bar in which they were drinking. Their judgment fell heavily on “shyster” lawyers and fat-assed Army personnel. They also condemned anyone they deemed a dork, a nerd, or a queer. Homosexuality bothered them the most, and as far as they were concerned, the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy was ridiculous and a personal affront.
Although the Navy tended to be lenient with divers and tolerated behavior it wouldn’t brook with other personnel, Richard Adams and his buddies pushed the envelope too far. One hot August afternoon the men retreated to their favorite hole-in-the-wall diver’s bar on San Diego ’s Point Loma. It had been an exhausting day of difficult diving. After numerous rounds of boilermakers and an equal number of arguments about the current baseball season, they were shocked and dismayed to see a couple of Army guys jauntily walk in. According to the divers at their court-martial, these men proceeded to “love it up” in one of the back booths.
The fact that the soldiers were officers only made the divers’ outrage all the more impassioned. They never asked themselves why a couple of Army officers might be in San Diego, a known Navy and Marine town. Richard, their perennial ringleader, was the first to approach the booth. He asked-sarcastically-if he could join the orgy. The Army men, mistaking Richard’s meaning-which was for them to get the hell out-laughed, denied any orgy of any sort, and offered to buy him and his friends a round of celebratory drinks. The result was a one-sided brawl that put both Army officers into Balboa Naval Hospital. It also put Richard and his friends into the brig and eventually out of the Navy. The Army men happened to have been members of JAG, the Army’s Judge Advocate General corps.
“Come on, you assholes!” Richard yelled when the others still hadn’t appeared. He glanced at his diving watch. He knew Nelson would be pissed. His orders on the phone had been to get to the diving command center ASAP.
The first to appear was Louis Mazzola. He was almost a head shorter than Richard, who stood six feet. Richard thought of Louis as a bowling ball kind of guy. He had meaty features, an omnipresent five o’ clock shadow, and short dark hair that lay flat on his round head. He appeared to have no neck; his trapezius angled out from his skull without any indentation.
“What’s the hurry?” Louis whined.
“We’re going on a dive!” Richard said.
“So what else is new?” Louis complained.