“Yes. And there’s now a change in the pattern,” Unruh told him.
“What kind of change?” Anstett wanted to know.
“They’re still following the same trend line, Miss Anstett, but where the first six events took place about thirty to forty miles apart, the last two have been eighty to ninety miles apart.”
“So they’re moving faster,” Delecourt said.
“It looks that way, Ben, yes. From our perspective, it looks more ominous. The Earthquake Center, without wanting attribution, just in case they’re wrong, suggests that a likely trigger area would be in the vicinity of thirty-six degrees, fifty-eight minutes north, one hundred-forty-one degrees, twenty-eight minutes west.”
“Is the energy output for the devices still the same?” Gilliland asked.
“They seem to be larger, perhaps in the ten kiloton range,” Delecourt said. “The Navy intelligence analysts think that they might be going deeper. Whatever they’re looking for may be further down that they expected.”
“Are they actually drilling wells or are they mining?” Porter asked.
“Not on any of the sites Brande has explored,” Unruh said, “beyond the hole they drill for the explosive. He does think they might be going after manganese since the samples he took off the bottom show a strong concentration. If that’s the case, Brande thinks they’ll start with the earlier sites, maybe Site Number Four, bring in their equipment and set up shop. They’ll then continue moving the equipment northeast as they follow the vein.”
“What’s the likelihood of that, Carl?” Delecourt asked.
“One of my people did a world-wide search on AquaGeo ships,” Unruh said. “There are three freighters at sea, out of New Zealand, headed in the right direction. We’re trying to find out if their cargoes might be mining equipment.”
“And this pattern you see,” Anstett said. “What if it continues?”
Unruh looked at his watch. “Let’s see. Today is Wednesday, the nineteenth. On Monday, November twenty-fourth, California goes into the sea.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The research vessel had her cycloidal propellers extended and was gripping her place on the watery earth with dedicated tenacity. In the cloudy, cold, and damp mist that swirled over the stern deck, Brande and Dokey toured the exterior of the submersible.
DepthFinder wasn’t as pretty as she used to be. The gaping hole in her right side, which had been nearly nine feet wide and six feet high, had been covered, but it had been covered with what they had on hand, which were clear plastic panels. The panels were only 30 mils thick, so they had bonded four layers in place, butting the 3 x 4-foot panels to each other and over-lapping them for strength. The thickness of four sheets created an opacity that prevented a clear view into the hull, though the ragged edges of the covered hole were apparent
Additionally, three twelve-foot-long, three-inch angle irons had been bolted and bonded in place horizontally across the damaged region to provide additional rigidity to the outer hull. The sub’s original sleekness had disappeared in a matter of hours.
Checking to make certain that Thomas wasn’t within earshot of them, Brande told Dokey, “Ingrid wouldn’t approve of this, would she?”
“Hey, Chief, she goes about these things like a damned structural engineer. You and me, we’re from the duct tape generation. Can you imagine a NASCAR stock car race being completed without forty rolls of duct tape?”
They ducked under the bow line and walked around to check the port side.
“If we’re photographed,” Dokey said, “make certain you present your good side to the camera.”
“Will do, Okey.”
The comment made him take a glance at the Arienne. She was still trailing along, though as soon as they had stopped, she had moved closer and was now standing off the stern by about two hundred yards. With the low visibility, he couldn’t identify any of the figures aboard, but he saw shadows moving in the cabin and on the flying bridge. Overton had radioed them half-an-hour earlier, seeking another interview.
Again making sure that Thomas wasn’t close by, Brande asked, “You comfortable with the systems check?”
“Ah, hell yes. Sometimes the technology just gets in the way, Dane. You have to remember what we first started diving with. That was a Model T, compared to the Saturn.”
On the decision to proceed with the dive, he and Dokey had voted Thomas down. They had felt they could get by quite easily without a few of the backup systems and still-cameras they had been unable to repair. The important life-support, control, and propulsion systems were, if not in A-1, at least A-2 condition. Dokey called them A-1b.
With their physical inspection completed, Brande ordered all of the access hatches closed, and the deck crew rushed in to batten them down. They stepped back into the lab to doff their slickers and pull on sweaters.
Otsuka was waiting in the crowd gathered there, already dressed for the dive. Mayberry had wanted the third seat, but Otsuka had forced a coin flip and won.
“Ready, Kim?” Brande asked.
“I still think I got screwed,” Mayberry said. “We’d better flip again.”
“No,” she said. “It is my turn.”
Thomas stood to one side, watching him with disapproval. Brande thought she was going to protest again, but she kept her disenchantment to herself.
He moved over in front of her. “We’ll be back in a few hours, Rae.”
“This isn’t a run to the grocery store.”
“Think of it that way,” he said.
Reluctantly, almost, she took his hand. “If anything at all looks bad, you’ll abort the dive?”
“Of course.”
She squeezed his hand once, and then Brande, Dokey, and Otsuka trotted through the stern doors out into the mist and scampered carefully up the rain-slickened scaffolding, reaching for the submersible’s sail.
Jacobs, along with Overton and everyone else on board, watched from the stern well deck as the submersible was lifted from the deck of the Orion and lowered into the sea. Jacobs held a pair of 7x50 binoculars to his eyes, and when DepthFinder twisted on her suspension line toward him, noted the repairs made to the right side. Even in the dim light of the overcast evening, the sheen of the patch appeared inadequate. Spray quickly coated the lenses and blurred his view.
Debbie Lane noticed the repair, also. “That doesn’t look very professional to me.”
“What? What?” Overton asked.
Jacobs handed him the binoculars, but the sub had already settled into the sea.
He wondered if Lane was thinking along the same lines that he was. He asked, “Debbie?”
“I think it’s strange that they’re diving with an obviously badly damaged submersible,” she said. “We’re pretty sure the depths here are extreme, and therefore, the risks greater. Wilson made a good point, first of all, about diving in this region at this time of year. If, as he suspects, the Navy is involved with this, then someone, somewhere, is worried about something.”
“What would it be?” he asked.
“A nuclear submarine that’s been lost?” she said. “Brande rescued one of those a couple years ago, didn’t he?”
“That was the Los Angeles,” Overton said. “But here, we’ve got all these seismic disturbances. I don’t think it has to do with a sub.”
Overton’s source at the Earthquake Center had given him the coordinates of two more disturbances, but according to the Loran readings, the Marine Visions people were diving in a new location right now. Jacobs felt certain, however, that when they checked Colorado again, they would find that a new disturbance had been recorded.