Díaz wanted to see the detonator tube being inserted and he voiced his wishes from his command seat. Pitt began distorting the picture quality. In frustration, Díaz ordered another ROV to take over and dropped Pitt’s ROV from the big screen.
He readjusted the picture and was relieved to see that the bulk cutter was retracing its tracks toward the Starfish. Pitt quelled the urge to peek in on Summer and studied the flank of the bulk cutter and its trailing explosives.
The cutter crept slowly past the Starfish and proceeded another twenty feet before stopping. Its manipulator reached out to its full lateral extension, swinging the detonator tube from its side.
At Díaz’s command, the tube was released. The forward section coiled into the drill hole, disappearing several feet beneath the base of the trench. The remaining section of tube, with its firing line attached, fell at an angle atop the trench filled with ANFO. Once detonated, the TNT in the tube would initiate a concentrated blast at the heart of the thermal vent’s fissure — and set off the ANFO in a broad eruption.
Pitt followed the drop with the ROV, turning it to face the trench. He eased the ROV back from the fissure to provide a panoramic view of the trench. Careful to avoid passing the second ROV’s camera, he drove the ROV toward the Starfish.
As the yellow submersible loomed up, he spotted Summer in the pilot’s seat. He feverishly hoped she would help him save her life.
70
The rattling sound on the exterior lock signaled everyone in the Sargasso Sea’s lab that the door was about to open. All the occupants scurried to the back of the bay, where they ducked beneath a large desk. Everyone except Dirk and Giordino, who stood at separate angles to the door shielded by a pair of lab benches.
The door flung open and the helmsman Ross was again shoved into the lab at the point of a muzzle. A commando followed him in and looked about. His eyes squinted in puzzlement. It wasn’t the concealed crew at the back of the lab that baffled him as much as the attire of Dirk and Giordino.
Each had a shop towel wrapped around his nose and mouth while wearing crude goggles cut from plastic water bottles. Before the commando could respond, Giordino sidearmed a glass beaker in his direction. The gunman ducked as the beaker struck the door above his head, releasing upon him a shower of glass and liquid.
“Ross, get down!” Dirk yelled.
The helmsman dove to the floor as the commando sprayed the room with gunfire. Anticipating the move, Dirk and Giordino dropped beneath the lab benches. The firing soon stopped as the gunman dropped his weapon and began rubbing his eyes, which were flooding with tears.
At the sound of the shooting, a second commando came rushing through the door. Dirk popped from behind the bench and let his weapon fly. Another sealed glass beaker, it smashed into the doorframe inches above the man. He, too, was instantly overcome, choking and hacking as his eyes swelled.
The pain-inducing liquid was a homemade batch of tear gas concocted from chemicals in the lab. Aided by the ship’s biologist Kamala Bhatt, Dirk had mixed iodine with portions of nitric acid and an acetone solvent and heated it in a sealed container with a match. The mixture was a crude facsimile of riot-control tear gas.
They had tested a small sample on a volunteer crewman, whose red, watery eyes an hour later vouched for its efficacy. Giordino had found a pair of empty beakers in a cabinet, which proved the perfect delivery vehicle.
Dirk and Giordino waited briefly for the gas to disperse, then sprang from their cover. The first commando was crawling toward the door while the second staggered after him. Dirk ran over and scooped up the first commando’s weapon. Giordino in turn launched himself at the second commando with his elbows flying. He struck the man hard in the side, propelling them both out the doorway.
Dirk sprinted out after them, finding the two commandos writhing on the deck with Giordino on top. Giordino had already wrestled the AK-47 from his victim as the man clawed at his eyes. Dirk was reaching down to help Giordino to his feet when a burst of gunfire tore into the bulkhead just above their heads.
“Drop your weapons!” Calzado shouted from twenty feet away. Alerted by the gunfire, he had rushed to the scene accompanied by two more commandos. All three stepped closer, each with an assault rifle aimed at Dirk and Giordino. The NUMA men had no choice but to drop their weapons and stand empty-handed.
With considerable effort, the two tear-gassed guards rose to their feet, their eyes red and burning.
“Close and lock the door to the lab,” Calzado ordered.
The guards nodded and did as instructed. After the door was sealed, one of the commandos motioned toward Dirk and Giordino. “What about them?”
“I have no time for further hindrances,” Calzado said. “Stand out of the way. I will take care of them right now.”
Raising his rifle, the commando leader took aim at the two captives and tightened his finger on the trigger.
71
Absent the normal humming of its heat-producing electronics, the Starfish felt like an icebox. Summer sat with her teeth chattering as the bulk cutter made a return appearance, inching past the submersible while dragging the long detonator tube. She tried to watch the cutter insert the end of the tube in the trench, but her view was blocked by one of the ROVs.
The boxy device approached the submersible and hovered outside its viewport. Summer resisted the urge to extend her middle finger at it, instead shielding her eyes from its glaring lights.
Then an odd thing happened. The ROV flashed its lights.
This time, she didn’t hesitate, letting loose with her finger while cursing Díaz for his taunting gesture.
Though clearly observing Summer’s response, the ROV didn’t waver. Instead, it flashed its lights again, in a short-long-short sequence, as if sending a modified SOS signal.
Intrigued, Summer watched the ROV repeat the flashing twice more. She then reached up and toggled a switch, flashing the submersible’s forward external lights.
Her mouth dropped when the ROV responded by tilting up and down as if nodding. Somewhere, someone at the other end of the controls was trying to help.
She leaned forward and watched the ROV as it eased closer. It turned slightly to angle its bright lights away from the cockpit and brushed against the submersible’s low-mounted manipulator arm. Again, the ROV flashed its lights.
Summer activated the controls, raising the robotic arm from its cradle.
Again the ROV nodded approval. When Summer continued to raise the manipulator, the ROV pivoted side to side, expressing its disapproval.
Through trial and error under the ROV’s guidance, Summer extended the manipulator laterally to its full reach and opened its claw grip.
Ahead of the submersible, the bulk cutter had completed its task and was retracing its tracks to the drop point. Those tracks would bring it alongside the Starfish in another minute or two.
Summer watched as the ROV seemed to consider the cutter for a moment, then darted to the submersible’s side. Summer had to press her face against the viewport to see its next move.
The ROV pivoted and dropped to the seabed. It thrust toward the Starfish, shoving a thin layer of sand in front of it like a snowplow. At first baffled, Summer saw the intent. The ROV had begun its push on the opposite side of the detonator tube’s firing cable. It was shoving it toward the Starfish. Or more specifically, toward the submersible’s manipulator arm.