“So, how much longer do you think, Connie?”
“Back in the water the day after tomorrow, so we can stop paying the slipway charges….”
“You’re getting to be just like Rae.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” she said. “Then, we’re looking at another two weeks for the topsides finish and the systems maintenance.”
“Two weeks.”
“Right. Have you got something lined up for us?”
“Adrienne might have a project, if we can get right on it. A luxury yacht, Committee of One, ninety six feet, went down in fifteen thousand feet of water off Mexico. The owner wants her back.”
“Warm waters,” she said. “I like that. Mel will, too. This guy can afford us?”
“According to Adrienne, he’ll foot the bills up to half a million to get his boat back. As long as we’re idle, we might as well cover the overhead.”
“I’ll stock up on Margarita mix.”
“This isn’t a vacation, my dear.”
“Not for you, maybe. Every day I’m on the job, though, it’s vacation for me.”
She smiled up at him, and Brande smiled back.
He loved it, too, and he was trying to think of an excuse to avoid a trip to Washington in search of government funding. He would rather dive in Mexican waters.
Carl Unruh was Deputy Director for Intelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency. Though six of his twenty eight years with the agency had been devoted to the operations directorate, he felt much more comfortable dealing with the cerebral exercises of analysis and prediction that with the action orientation of field work.
On a personal level, he was relatively comfortable with his mid fifties, the sagginess below his green eyes, and the desire for more sleep. He had given up trying to hide the gray at the temples of his dark brown hair. In the past four years, he had smoked nine packs of cigarettes, all during the Russian missile crisis. In the past year, he hadn’t smoked at all, but he carried a still sealed pack of Marlboros in his jacket pocket where he could caress it from time to time, and where it was available if necessary.
Since the missile problem, when he had re established contact with Avery Hampstead at the Commerce Department, with whom he had attended graduate school in international affairs at Princeton, Unruh and Hampstead had developed a lunch and occasional dinner relationship. He wasn’t surprised when his secretary told him on the intercom that Hampstead was on the line.
He picked up the receiver. “Are you buying dinner?”
“Sure,” Hampstead said. “You want to meet me?”
“Where?”
“Let’s try the Brown Palace.”
“Where in the hell is it?”
“Denver.”
“Christ. You’re not even in town. That means you want something, probably top secret.”
Hampstead told him about his meeting with Dr. Shaefer at the Earthquake Information Center.
“We’re talking anomalies, Avery?”
“You do recognize an anomaly when you see one, don’t you, Carl?”
“At least once a day. Where is this going?”
“Shaefer thinks his problem is rooted in man’s evil design. And he may be right. I’m going to see about running a survey in the area, but something occurred to me.”
“What’s that?” Unruh asked.
“I wondered if our esteemed colleagues across the river in the Department of Defense might be conducting some kind of super secret, arcane experimentation. I would hate to send a submersible down there, only to be attacked by friendly Twenty first Century weaponry.”
“And you want me to ask them?”
“That would be my preference,” Hampstead said. “First of all, DOD doesn’t talk to Commerce about its weapons system development. Secondly, they don’t talk to us about their classified weapons systems. Thirdly, refer to the first two points.”
“I’ll ask,” Unruh said, “but I’ll probably regret getting involved.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The station, with the ignominious name of AG 4, rested on three stilt-like legs thirty feet above the uneven seabed. It was a globe, seventy feet in diameter, and it was divided into three decks. For the fifteen people in residence, it was not spacious or luxurious, but then it was not designed to be either. It was a working habitat, and Penny Glenn, who was accustomed to working, did not even notice the lack of amenities.
The station was globular because it was a pressure hull, designed to resist the immense pressure of water three miles below the surface of the sea. All of the vehicles attending AG 4 were based on the same, life preserving design, including two deep submergence submarines for transport to the surface and four tracked crawlers for crossing the sea floor.
The deep diving submersible Sydney accommodated five people, but in an emergency, could cram eight bodies within its cramped interior. The crawlers were composed of twelve foot diameter pressure hulls, manipulator arms, and dual sets of four foot wide, ribbed steel tracks. The normal work team in a crawler was made up of two people, though an additional two passengers could be transported. Passengers, however, created an increased draw on the life-support system, reducing the excursion time. With a relatively level seabed, the crawlers could manage twelve to fifteen miles an hour.
As with all of AquaGeo’s subsurface vessels and vehicles, the designs allowed for the mating of entrance hatches to facilitate the transfer of people from one type of transport to another.
Penelope Glenn had boarded AG 4 from a crawler three hours before, after taking a tour of the manganese test site. She had been less than impressed with the progress made at Site C, but had still been effusive in her praise of the crews working the site. It was difficult to find capable people willing to work in the conditions imposed by the sea, despite the impressive salaries they were paid. Little words of encouragement did much to maintain morale.
Frequently, she had to chastise Deride — as much as he could be chastised — about the terse manner in which he treated his people. Deride was a firm believer in the concept that the large amounts of money he paid his employees entitled him to treat them like stray dogs that were kickable simply because he bothered to feed them.
Some people thought Deride’s demeanor was the direct result of his wealth, but Glenn had known him all her life. Back when he was nearly penniless, his interactions with others had been exactly the same. A few billion dollars did not make a bit of difference in his personality.
She did not think another billion dollars — if this trail she was on developed into the world-class manganese deposit she thought was possible — would change Paul Deride one whit. By her own estimates, he controlled fifty billion dollars worth of resources, and he had at least a two-and-a-half billion dollar net personal worth. A year from now, all going well, he would be personally worth another billion.
Because of her commission arrangement with AquaGeo, Glenn expected to have another ten or twelve million in her own accounts, but then she already had seventeen million dollars invested around the world. It was just another number; it did not mean much to her since she rarely took the time to spend any of it.
Her passions were directed along paths not particularly associated with money or power. She did not care unduly about travel, except that it was necessary in her work and in the occasional holiday she forced on herself just to remain sane. If she wanted, she could call up the transportation necessary to get her to the surface and then to San Francisco, just over a thousand miles away. If she wanted, she could build a ten-thousand square foot house anywhere in the world. What she owned was a modest apartment in a highrise in Melbourne.