She smiled at him and dove head first into the bunk, squirming to get under the covers.
He opened the door, slipped into the corridor, and walked forward to the bridge. Suarez came out of the radio shack to give him use of the single chair.
“Hello, Mark. Brande here.”
“Sorry to call you so late, Dane. I started on the back end of my Rolodex.”
“I didn’t realize I was in your Rolodex.”
“Just the important people are. The reason I’m calling, I’m trying to run down a rumor.”
“About what?”
“About some problem — magnitude and characteristics unknown — in the ocean off San Francisco.”
Uh oh.
“Have you heard anything, Dane?”
“You don’t know anything more than that? Where’d you hear about this… problem?”
“That’s all I’ve got. Well, except that it must be subsurface. The Navy is talking about some kind of special sonar.”
“Who told you that?”
“A reporter named Wilson Overton. You know him?”
“Never met the man,” Brande said, “but yes, I know of him.”
“He’s written some complimentary pieces about you.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
Brande wasn’t sure where to go with this. Hampstead had not mentioned anything about a security classification, which might be the reason that Overton had picked up on it. Reporters on a quest, however, rang little alarm bells for him. Additionally, he did not want to be hampered by environmental activists hanging around the Orion on the surface while they were conducting deep submergence operations.
On the other hand, he had always avoided building a reputation for lying.
“Dane, you still there?”
“I’m here, Mark. I was trying to think if I’d heard anything at all that fits your description. You’ve talked to others?”
“Yeah, a dozen people along the West Coast, but the results are zero.”
Good.
“The only thing that comes to mind, Mark, is a story I heard about some kind of seabed disturbances.”
“Where from?”
“I got the filtered version, but I think it originated with a seismic report out of the Earthquake Center.”
“That’s it? An earthquake?”
“As far as I know.”
“Well, hell, I’ll tell Overton to shove off.”
“Do it gently, Mark. You may need a media friend sometime.”
“I’ll be gentle,” Jacobs said and signed off.
Brande replaced the receiver on its cradle. He’d given Jacobs the basics, but hadn’t been absolutely forthright in terms of MVU’s role. The best outcome would be that Jacobs just forget about it, but he wondered how long it would be before Jacobs realized that the Navy didn’t use sonar equipment to go hunting for seabed earthquakes.
The submersible broke the surface forty meters aft of the Phantom Lode. The seawater was still sluicing off the tiny submarine’s hull when Penny Glenn undogged the hatch and pushed it upward and back. It clanged when it reached its stop.
She scrambled up the short ladder into the sail and looked around. Ten billion stars twinkled overhead. Several hundred yards to the south were the running lights of the small freighter Island Hopper. It was an AquaGeo leased ship, and it was carrying supplies, and especially replacement battery packs, to replenish the worn units of the sea station and its vehicles. Batteries could only be recharged so many times before they began to lose their efficiency. The submersible would assist the freighter in lowering the cargo containers to the sea floor as soon as Glenn left the sub.
“Come on, Gary!” she called down to the pilot. “Let’s get a move on.”
“I’ve got her floorboarded,” he called back.
The sub crawled up on the stern of the Phantom Lode, and her captain and his single crewman met her at the stern boarding ladder.
Darryl Metcalf caught her canvas bag when she tossed it to him, and Captain Billy Enders reached down to help her aboard.
“Good to see you again, Miss Glenn.”
“And I’m damned glad to see you, Captain Billy.”
She had not been on her boat for nearly four months, but a single glance told her that everything was ship-shape. The teak decking gleamed under the lights from the cabin, with droplets of seawater beaded on it.
She leaned back over the stern to call a goodbye to Gary, who had his head perched just above the sail.
“When do we see you again, Penny?”
He had a crush on her.
“Eight, nine days. I’ve left enough work to keep everyone busy for at least that long.”
She had plotted the next exploration charges along the test tracks as well as along the course that she thought would prove most viable. And then she had decided to skip off on her own for a few days. Waiting around for test results could become quite boring.
The sub drifted away, and she headed for the cabin.
“Billy, why don’t you get us underway for San Francisco? And Darryl, I’d like to have a Margarita. Make a full pitcher, please.”
Descending the short companionway to the salon, she turned and took the adjoining steps down to her big stern cabin. Despite the saltwater tang, everything smelled fresh. The furniture had been waxed, the carpets cleaned, the bed remade with clean sheets.
It was a complete contrast to her person, she thought. She felt mildewed and pale.
She started stripping, tossing clothing in one corner of the stateroom. She was naked by the time Darryl knocked on her door, and she opened it a crack to take the tray with the pitcher and glass on it.
“Thank you, Darryl.”
The deck slanted as the Cheoy Lee sport cruiser reacted to the power on her propellers.
Glenn poured herself a drink and carried it into the adjacent bath. It also gleamed, and she relished the cleanness. Subsurface living tended to become musty, and when she returned to the surface, she wanted clean.
Skipping the shower, she took a long hot bath in her oversized tub, soaking luxuriously and sipping her Margarita. She shaved her legs, noting several bruises resulting from collisions with chairs and equipment in the sea station. She washed her hair, which brought out the traces of red among the gold. She scrubbed herself down with body lotion.
And she felt renewed.
And not at all tired.
After dressing in slacks and a heavy sweater, Glenn carried her pitcher and glass topside, passed again through the salon, and climbed the ladder to the enclosed flying bridge.
Billy Enders was in the helmsman’s chair.
“Billy, you go ahead and bunk down. I’ll take it for a few hours.”
“You sure you ain’t tired, Miss Penny?”
“I am deliriously awake. Go on, now.”
When she was alone on the bridge, she refilled her glass and set it in a holder next to the helm. Dialing the radio into a Los Angeles station, she found Dean Martin singing “Houston” and decided that someday she must visit Houston.
With her feet propped on the instrument panel, to the left of the helm, she felt completely at ease.
There was nothing on the sea with her. The lights of the freighter behind had disappeared. The starshine reflected off smooth waters which were going to get rougher according the Billy Enders meteorological notes.
Ahead of her was an empty, lonely, and wonderful sea, as well as the beckoning finger of San Francisco.
She almost thought about the plan that she and Paul Deride had formulated, then immediately cast it from her mind.
For the next hours, nothing was going to interfere with her holiday. Penny Glenn stared into the darkness ahead and imagined that there was nothing between her and the American coast.