“In you go,” he said, grinning hugely.
Clumsily, Overton stepped into the two holes for his legs. The slack came out of the ferry rope, and he was jerked off his feet. The sailors on the research ship began pulling on the second line, and he had to lever his legs up to clear the gunwale as he went overboard. He grabbed the rope above him with his hands, but nearly got them run over by the pulleys from which the breeches buoy was suspended.
As he had feared, when the ship and the boat passed each other in their up-and-down journeys, the rope slackened, and he went into the water.
Not far. His feet got wet, and his face was splashed by icy droplets.
Then four welcome hands on the ship were grabbing him, helping him out of the contraption.
He stood weakly on the side deck before one of the men said, “I’m Del Rogers. If you’ll follow me, Mr. Overton.”
The sailor walked with a wide stance, absorbing the shocks and sway of the deck with seemingly elastic knees. Overton tried to emulate him, but wasn’t very successful. He lurched about like a drunk.
It was much warmer inside the superstructure, and he shed his foul weather gear in a large corridor, and then went into the wardroom Rogers pointed out for him.
There were half-a-dozen people present, finishing their morning meals. He saw Thomas, whose picture he had seen before, sitting in a booth with an older, bald-headed guy with a big moustache. Also in the booth, unaccountably, like an amiable meal companion, was a computer.
The two of them got up as he entered and came across the deck to meet him.
“Hello, Mr. Overton. I’m Kaylene Thomas, and this is Dr. Lawrence Emry, Director of Exploration. I’m happy you could join us.”
They all shook hands, and Overton kept his suspicions to himself. Brande had denied him an interview three times, but now he was suddenly being welcomed with open, cuddly arms. Everybody wanted something; his boat ride with Jacobs was going to cost him a couple of articles. There were no free lunches. Or breakfasts, either, for that matter.
He shrugged out of his parka and dropped it on the bench seat of the booth.
Thomas led them into the galley, and they loaded plates from a warming rack of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits. With heavy mugs of coffee, the three of them went back to the booth with the computer in it. Thomas scooted a chair over and sat at the end of the table, and Emry sat in front of the computer monitor, turned slightly away from Overton, which displayed a confusing array of numbers. Emry seemed to know what they meant, and every few minutes, he glanced at them. So did Thomas.
They made it through the eggs on small talk, and they all got down to first names. Then Thomas said, “One thing that’s always mystified me about the media, Wilson, is its penchant for trying court cases in print and on the TV screen before the legal system is done with them.”
“The philosophy is that the public has….”
“I know what the rationale is,” she said, “and the more sensational, the better.”
Was this going to be an inquisition of his profession? Overton had a whole list of questions he wanted to ask, and the tape recorder in his parka just itched to be placed in the center of the table. But, he had been invited, and he waited, though perhaps not as patiently as normal.
“Would you like to take notes?” Thomas asked.
Overton dug out his notebook and recorder from the parka beside him.
“What subject am I taking notes about?” he asked.
“Do you know why we’re here, Wilson?”
“I only know about the seabed disturbances.” He told her what he had learned from the Earthquake Information Center.
“I got caught in an earthquake last July,” she said, “the one in Joshua Tree.”
“Cost her a damned good Pontiac,” Emry broke in.
“And I didn’t like it one bit,” she went on. “The property destruction was probably typical, but the effect on people was appalling. I saw people who were injured very badly, some who died, a little girl trying to be brave, administering first aid to her mother.”
Overton jabbed a finger downward. “Do you think that what’s happening down there, something that will affect people?”
He couldn’t help sounding dubious.
“I think it could, yes.”
“That why the Navy’s here?”
“I don’t know why the Navy is here,” she said.
Overton had to smile. “Tell me, why am I here?”
“Because I’ve had a change of heart. I have a case I want to try in the media before it gets to the courts. I thought you’d like that.”
Right after Deride arrived, Penny Glenn spent twenty minutes briefing him on what had taken place at Test Hole H.
They sat in the control room, Deride in his normal safari gear and an additional sweater, and Glenn in a heavy jumpsuit. He was nervous, and trying to not show it, but Glenn had always known he was uneasy subsurface. Her account of the disabling of the floor crawler had made him furious.
Deride got up and began to pace around the table. “That son of a bitch! He’s coming after us, isn’t he?”
“It was a deliberate act, Uncle Paul.”
“He’s mad about the woman.”
“Woman? What woman?”
“The one that drowned.”
“Paul, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was in the papers. The reporter that saw the DepthFinder surface damaged, saw the woman — some Russian name — fall overboard.”
Glenn hadn’t known about that. She was saddened to some extent but reminded herself that there were always casualties in dangerous ventures. Deride certainly knew about casualties in the minerals industry.
“Anthony has heard that Brande is blaming the accident for her death, and all kinds of U.S. agencies are probing into AquaGeo affairs,” Deride said.
That was all right. Glenn didn’t care about that. If the timing were right, it would be helpful.
“It was an accident?” Deride suddenly turned to look directly at her.
“You can talk to McBride, Uncle Paul. He’s here in the station.”
“I’ll do that.”
Glenn had already prepped McBride on what to say to the CEO, and she was about to call him on the intercom when one of the technicians at the bulkhead consoles pulled his headset off and said, “Penny!”
She spun around in her chair to look at him.
“Dorsey wants to talk to you.”
Jim Dorsey headed Team Three, and he was aboard the floor crawler FC-9 at Test Hole I. She scooted her castered chair over to the console, flipped the speaker switch so that the conversation would come over the ceiling speaker, picked up the microphone, and said, “Yes, Jim?”
“We’ve got a glitch.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve got the charge set, and I’m ready to blow it, right? So we take one last look on the sonar, and there’s a sub hanging around. I know it ain’t Munro, ‘cause I just talked to him at Test Hole H.”
She told Deride, “It has to be Brande.”
“Goddamn bloody hell!”
She keyed the mike. “Have they located the charge?”
“Nah, not even close yet. But they’re getting there. What I need to know, Penny, is do I go ahead and blow it, or do I try to warn the sub off? Do you want me to try to raise them on the acoustic?”
“What do you think, Jim?” she asked.
“I don’t really want to get to close to the sub. Look at what happened to Eddie, when they went after him.”
The technician was following the conversation closely, looking back-and-forth between Glenn and Deride. It was important for Glenn that he be aware of the dialogue and who said what.