“I don’t think so, Chief. We’ve been holding ten knots for the last three hours, so we don’t scare the navy types. I don’t like launching you at speed, but I think you’re right. We go any slower, they’re going to get suspicious.”
“Kim, how about you?”
“None, Dane. I gave Dokey the black box, and he’s already installed it in Depthfinder.”
She had designed, and encased in black plastic, a remote detonator utilizing an acoustic signal generator that would utilize some existing telemetry circuits. This was in addition to the twenty-five receivers she had built for the acoustic signals. Her hands were stained with etching acid, and she had a burn from a soldering iron on one wrist.
Mayberry said, “No more that eighty hours, Dane. I’m going to be firm about that.”
“That’s a promise, Bob.”
“Anyone else? Okay, then, let’s get suited up.”
They were, in fact, already suited up. As a group, they quickly finished the remnants of their meals, Dokey grabbed four boxes of foodstuffs he had prepared for the trip, and they walked aft.
The lab was in semi-darkness, with light spilling from the computer monitors. A blackout curtain had been rigged across the stern doorway, so that light wouldn’t spill out when the door was opened.
Brande, Thomas, and Dokey gathered up their spare clothing, slipped into ponchos, and slid through the hatchway.
The designated deck crew members went with them, everyone feeling their way carefully in the darkness and hard, slanted rain of the stern deck. As Brande had ordered, the deck crewmen clipped on lifelines as soon as they left the safety of the superstructure.
Brande took Thomas’s hand and led her through the blackness until his left elbow bumped into the scaffold. Cautiously, he urged her upward, and she climbed swiftly to the top, then over the sail.
As soon as Brande and Dokey reached her, she opened the hatch, and one after the other, they slipped aboard. Dokey closed the hatch and dogged it, but not before they had shipped a fair amount of rainwater.
There would be no UHF transmissions, for fear of the Navy overhearing, and the acoustic system didn’t operate until they were in the water.
They had timed the launch, instead.
Dokey flopped in the right-hand seat, saying “Zero plus ten seconds.”
Zero hour began with the closing of the hatch.
Brande took the left seat, and Thomas settled in the back position and began flipping switches.
At zero plus fifteen seconds, Dokey powered up the instrument panels.
By four minutes after the hatch closed, all of their systems were up and operating. At five minutes, Brande had the option of opening the hatch to abort the dive.
He didn’t.
At six minutes, he felt the submersible lift from her deck rails.
“Here we go,” he said.
“Betcha this is a rough bounce, Chief,” Dokey said.
“Rae?” he asked.
“I’m ready.”
With no deck lights, it was difficult to tell when they dropped below deck level. He thought he saw a paleness through the driving rain that was the port hull.
When the sub hit the water, she immediately skewed to the right, throwing Dokey toward him.
Then she surged upward, riding a wave.
Then the winch line was released, and they bobbed in the wake of the research vessel.
“I suggest we head for the bottom,” Dokey said.
“Execute your suggestion, Okey.”
A few seconds later, they were stable, and the fury of the storm was behind them.
Dokey worked his control sticks, finding the direction he wanted.
“I’m on two-five-five, descent rate eighty per minute. All right with everyone?”
“Sounds good to me,” Brande said.
“Kaylene, honey,” Dokey said, “if you look in the top box there, you’ll find a burrito. I’m hungry.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Two hours before, they had received a coded one-word signal from Emry on the Loudspeaker acoustic voice system. They were not transmitting telemetry data on the system since AquaGeo or even the Navy might pick up on the transmission and because Dokey and Otsuka had requisitioned some of the circuits. It left the command center aboard the ship in the dark as to their condition, and they had agreed to send an hourly report via an oral code word.
Only Thomas, who was wearing a headset, heard the signal from the surface.
She tapped Brande hard on the shoulder. “Larry says ‘barbeque.”
“Barbeque? That means they set off another nuke.”
“Three to go,” Dokey said. “I hope to hell the Navy is keeping track.”
“They can have the U.S. lawyers complain to the AquaGeo lawyers,” Brande had said. “That should stop it.”
Other than that information from the surface, the descent had been uneventful. She was wearing three sweaters and feeling as bulky as a kid about to head out into a wonderful snowstorm. Dokey kept the submersible in a steep glide, aimed in the direction of the sea station. Brande’s Nana Mouskouri cassettes played on the tape deck. Thomas could tell he was in a melancholy mood because he had played “Even Now” three times.
She thought he was thinking of Svetlana, much as she had been. So much potential lost. Thomas knew that Brande had personally called Valeri Dankelov with a private obituary, and she knew that would have been difficult for Brande.
“Position check,” Brande said.
They were relying on the internal INS (Inertial Navigation System) since they had foregone, in favor of stealth and ordnance, the data link to Orion’s connection with the NavStar satellite constellation.
Dokey said, “I’ve got us eighteen nautical miles out, Dane. Still on a heading of two-five-five. Forward momentum reads out at eleven knots.”
Brande had the mapping program up on his monitor, and he keyed the new data in.
“We’re on track,” he said, “but you know we still have some time to change our minds.”
“Second-guessing yourself, Chief?”
“If I don’t do it for myself, someone else will do it for me, Okey.”
“If you’re worrying about me, Dane,” Thomas said, “don’t do it.”
“Kaylene,” Dokey said, “before I forget, I appreciate the position you took back on the ship.”
“You do?” She was halfway surprised.
“Sure. You’re president of the company. You couldn’t do any less.”
In the semi-darkness, she saw Brande turn his head back toward her and smile. He snaked his hand between the seats, found her knee, and squeezed it lightly.
Her residual anger at him dissipated, though her anxiety level didn’t lessen a bit.
Five minutes later, after Nana got through “Danny Boy,” Dokey said, “Chief, I suspect we ought to unleash Gargantua, and make sure we’re talking on the same line.”
“I’m greatly reassured by your confidence in your ROVs, Okey.”
Brande activated his panel, switched the controls to the robot, and flipped on the exterior lights. Through the portholes, Thomas saw the ultra blackness at the end of the visibility range. She had become inured to that nothingness over time.
Brande gripped the joysticks lightly, eased in power, and Gargantua, who was too large for the sheath, and who had been in tow, slowly emerged from under the bow into their field of view. Dokey flicked a switch and put the robot’s camera view on the center monitor.
Trailing the fiber optic tether like a lazy eel, the ROV moved out ahead of them, then turned to face the sub. Brande slipped it into reverse power to keep it backing in position. Retarding the throttle momentarily, he let Gargantua close in on the center port, until they were staring at it from about five feet away. The view under the halogen lights was stark and bright, as if the brightness control on a television set was out of adjustment.