The receipt of this signal caused a shout of relieved joy to spread throughout the engineering station.
Patting each other on the backs like new fathers, the white-smocked scientists celebrated for a full minute before returning to their consoles.
A bare sigh of relief passed Dr. Richard Fuller’s lips. If all continued well, the Marlin could have the Providence completely evacuated by midnight. Only then could he totally relax.
Of course, their real work would come in the days that followed. Hopefully, a repair team could be sent down to somehow patch up the hydraulic damage and get the Providence topside. Then they could better initiate the comprehensive examination that would be needed to find out just what had caused the explosion in the first place.
Though Richard had his own ideas as to what caused the cruise missile to blow up as it had, the way things looked he would not be an immediate part of the Nose investigation. Less than a quarter of an hour ago, a sealed envelope had arrived that was to drastically change the direction of his thoughts.
The orders were from the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. Fuller had met Admiral Carrington during a Submarine League symposium only the previous year, yet he had never dreamed of hearing from the white-haired senior officer officially again.
The directive was tersely written. Addressed to his eyes only, the orders instructed Fuller to join the crew of the Marlin immediately after the transfer of the Providence’s complement had been completed. At that time they were to proceed to the airfield at Barking Sands, where a C-5A transport plane would be waiting to fly them to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. There they were to assist the base commander in coordinating the salvage of a Titan 34D rocket that had failed over the Pacific earlier that same morning.
Confused by these instructions, Fuller had to read them several more times before they finally sank in.
He had been exclusively involved with the submarine borne vertical-launch missile system for over a year now. Why they would want to abruptly change the direction of his study now was beyond him. The only thing that he could think of was that something awfully important must have been on top of that Titan when it went down. And now the military was desperately depending upon them to get it back.
He had worked with the Air Force on a single past occasion. As it turned out, this had also been the last time he had worked with a DSRV. The incident had involved the crash of one of the Air Force’s most sophisticated jet fighters. The F-15 Eagle had gone down in the ocean off the coast of southern California, near the beach town of Carlsbad. It must have been packed with top-secret hardware, for no sooner had the aircraft settled into the sand of the continental shelf than the orders asking for his assistance had arrived at Nose headquarters in San Diego. An hour later, he had been on his way to the crash site by helicopter.
It had apparently been his expertise in the field of ocean currents and seafloor topography that had attracted the Air Force to him in the first place. The F-15 had been subsequently recovered, and Fuller had soon been back in San Diego resuming his work in advanced naval weaponry.
Since then, this study had been his exclusive domain.
But now the orders from the CNO would once again abruptly divert him. Somewhat disappointed that he wouldn’t be present to examine the initial evidence regarding the failure of the Tomahawk launch, Fuller knew that he was powerless to express his displeasure. His country needed his expertise elsewhere. As in the past, he would not let it down.
Even as his eyes strayed to the lucite chart of the channel of water between the islands of Kauai and Niihau, his mind was already searching for any information that he might have picked up regarding the ocean off Vandenberg. Most aware that those waters sported dangerous reefs and treacherous currents, he knew that he would need the special bathymetric chart book that sat in his library back in San Diego. He was already visualizing the main currents influencing central California’s coastline when word arrived that the first load of the Providence’s crew had safely made it back to the Sea Devil.
Chapter Five
General Vadim Sobolev’s day had started off splendidly. Not only was the Central Asian weather perfect, but the news from Moscow was equally as agreeable. In fact, at this very moment, the Premier’s personal aide, Valentin Radchenko, was already flying down from the capital to meet with him privately.
This was quite an accomplishment for Vadim, considering he had only asked for this audience late the previous afternoon. To properly prepare for this allimportant meeting of minds, he decided to awaken himself thoroughly with a long, brisk walk.
Though he had been brought up in the thick pine forests of northern Russia, the sixty-eight tear-old general was finally getting used to the rather bare plains of Turkestan. He supposed that, after two decades of service there, this had better be the case.
Of all the hikes he presently had to chose from, his favorite was an earthen footpath that brought him to the banks of the Syrdar River. He particularly enjoyed this route because it crossed through a rather dense stand of gnarled oaks, before ending at the Syrdar’s banks.
So far this morning, his travels had taken him from his quarters located outside of Tyuratam’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. The dawn broke clear, mild and full of promise, as the white-haired officer drank down his tea, threw on his clothes, and, with walking stick in hand, began his way across the base itself. The new recruits were already well into their exercise routine when he passed by the airfield’s barracks area and reached Tyuratam’s western gate. A look of genuine surprise flashed across the guard’s previously bored face upon identifying the broad-shouldered figure of his commanding officer. Even with his rank, Vadim was forced to sign the registry that indicated his precise destination.
The path he was soon trod ding upon began only a quarter of a kilometer from the guard shack. For a good hour, this trail led over a sparse, rolling plain, bare of any noticeable vegetation but a dull variety of low-growing shrubbery. The air was fresh and invigorating, though, and he soon spotted his beloved woods another kilometer distant.
To pass the time more quickly, he lengthened his stride and focused his thoughts on the long career that had precipitated this fated day. It had all begun almost five decades before, when he was but an innocent, long-legged teenager. How anxious he had been at that time to enlist in the Army. After all, the Motherland’s borders had needed to be protected from the demonic Nazi hordes gathering to the west.
After participating in his share of bloodshed, the young private had come under the scrutiny of General Pavel Yagoda, a man who was destined to change his life.
It was Yagoda who had noticed the glimmering spark of intellect that simmered in Vadim’s mind.
Invited to join the illustrious general’s personal staff, Vadim had blossomed into manhood. A quick learner who knew how to command the respect of those beneath him in rank, he was to spend hours under the general’s direct tutelage. Eventually, as the fates would have it, their division had captured an entire warehouse of German V-2 rockets. Equally as important had been the Nazi scientists that they had come upon, hiding in the structure’s basement.
With Vadim at his side, General Yagoda had soon gone off to Moscow to personally brief Stalin of their great find. Faced with the imminent conclusion of the Great War, the Motherland had been attempting to determine its future ranking in the new world order to follow. Pavel Yagoda had been one of the visionaries who realized that strategic nuclear forces would be the keys to power in the new age. He had argued that only by developing a new generation of nuclear weapons could the Soviet Union challenge the might of American Imperialism.