Busby thought for a minute, then hauled himself out of his chair. “Guess I’m about as smart as I’m going to get, then. Thanks for the briefing, Jackson. I’ll let the admiral know what’s happening.”
The technician took the hint, and rose to walk out of the office. He turned right at the doorway, heading back to the even chillier operating spaces within CVIC. At the heavy steel cipher lock that shut his spaces off from the rest of the intelligence center, he paused, then turned back to watch Commander Busby’s figure disappear around the far corner.
Lab Rat. The technician chuckled a moment, wondering who had first hung that moniker on the diminutive Commander Busby. Good call, whoever had done it, although he thought the commander might have wished for a more impressive nickname. But with his pale, almost colorless hair, bright blue eyes magnified behind thick Coke-bottle glasses, and generally frail, nervous appearance, Commander Busby hadn’t had a chance in the world of avoiding that one.
Wish all officers were more like him, the technician mused, punching in the numbers that would open the cipher lock to his outer door. Professionally demanding, tough to work for, but he took good care of his troops. And no pussyfooting around when it came to threat signals. The commander had said he’d take this straight to the admiral, and he would, carefully shielding his technicians from the myriad political considerations that would arise once the report went out.
The heavy door swung open, and a slight puff of air caressed his face, the result of the positive pressure gradient between the sensitive crypto spaces and the rest of CVIC. Jackson stepped over the shin-high knee-knocker and shoved the door closed behind him, waiting to make sure he heard the ominous click announcing the door was secure.
Well, it would be up to the admiral to decide what they did now.
“You think this is really something?” Batman asked Commander Busby.
“Define ‘something,’” Busby said. “if you mean, do I think it’s a valid detection, the answer is yes. But what it means — that I don’t know, Admiral.”
Batman sighed. “And you can’t tell me what was said on the circuit, just that somebody was transmitting?”
“That’s about it. It was all encrypted. With enough time, enough resources, NSA might be able to make something of it, but we can’t here. And I’m not even sure that NSA could break it that fast — there are too many good commercial encrypters on the market these days.” Busby shook his head. “I know the U.S. has tried to keep control of digital encryption technology, but other nations aren’t quite so vigorous.”
“So for all we know, this could be that Greenpeace boat communicating with their people back in the States?”
Busby shook his head. “Not at that frequency. You’d see a high frequency — HF — for that. One thing we’re relatively sure of, this was a short-range signal.”
“Satellite?”
“Not enough power. No, Admiral, I was hoping that would be the case, but this signal has no other reasonable explanation. None that I can come up with, anyway.”
“Damn it. And we can’t ignore it.” Batman handed the commander the printout sheet and stood up. “Well, I’ll have our people check it out. You’ll want to debrief them as soon as they return, I imagine.”
“The SEALS?” Busby asked.
Batman smiled grimly. “They’ve spent the last three months running laps in the hangar bays, taking up hours on the Stairmaster machines, and generally chafing at the bit. I imagine their commander is going to be more than eager to jump on this one. And what better way to check out a spurious radio signal from an island than to send in the SEALS?”
The ocean was peculiarly calm, cloaked in an uneasy, expectant hush Rogov had come to associate with the quiet before a williwaw. The covered lifeboat, pressed once again into service as a shuttle between the submarine and the shore, bobbed gently against the hull.
Rogov set one foot on the first rung of the ladder, paused, and turned back to the executive officer, now in command of the boat. “You understand your orders?”
The executive officer nodded. “We remain surfaced until you signal that you are ashore, then maintain the original communications schedule for the next two weeks. If you fail to make four consecutive scheduled contacts, I am to return to base immediately and report the lack of contact to the man you have designated.”
“And?”
“And to no one else,” he added quickly. “My word as an officer, it will be done.”
Rogov studied him for a moment, then let a grim smile of approval cross his face. “Very well. On your word. That will mean as much to you as it does to us.”
“You may depend on it.”
Rogov put his other foot on the first rung and started descending the ladder to the boat. Halfway down, the expression that had lulled the executive officer so easily melted into something that would not have calmed the most junior sailor on board that boat.
Rogov fingered the transmitter in his pocket. Cossacks never left enemies at their back. In this situation, four pounds of high-explosive plastic compound cemented to the wall of their dead skipper’s stateroom would ensure it.
Two thousand meters later, he pressed the button. The Kilo shivered, then the ocean around her fountained up in a gout of metal, machinery, and men.
“Goddamned carrier jocks,” Lieutenant Commander Bill “Ramrod” McAllister grumbled. “Be nice if they could learn to tell the difference between a civilian craft and a tanker.” He put the P-3 into a gentle, left-hand bank, circling the large commercial vessel located below. “Even at this altitude, I can tell what it is.”
“We going in for a closer look?” Lieutenant Commander Frank “Eel” Burns asked.
“Not unless you really think it’s necessary. I can tell what it is from here,” the pilot replied.
“Yeah, well, if we drop down and rig it out, it might be good practice. Not damned much else to play with out here,” Eel replied.
“All right, all right,” the pilot snapped. “If it’ll keep you guys in the backseat from playing with yourselves, we’ll go take a look.” He nosed the P-3 Lockheed Orion over and headed toward the ocean below them.
Eel glanced uneasily at the antisubmarine warfare technician sitting next to him. AW1 Kiley Maroney, an experienced technician with five cruises under his belt, shrugged. He made a small movement with his hand, signifying a continuation of a discussion they’d dropped before boarding the aircraft. Pilots had their moods, and all a decent backseater could do was put up with it. When it came down to tactical command, they both knew that the man sitting in front of them would do what they needed.
“How ‘bout we take a look at the island at the same time?” Eel suggested. “Jefferson claimed she got some strange signals coming off that island last night. Wouldn’t hurt us to take a look.”
“I tell ya, it comes from too many arrested carrier landings,” the pilot said, continuing the diatribe he’d started earlier that day. “Scrambles their brains, it does. Just look at that,” he finished, standing the P-3 on one wing to circle around the massive foreign-flagged tanker below them. “That’s exactly where they reported that Greenpeace ship at. Does that look like a converted fishing vessel to you?”