“If we continue to follow the lawyers’ advice, Ben, we’d better notify the Governor of California to start evacuating the state.”
“Isn’t Justice cracking down on Deride?”
“I talked to a couple FBI supervisors last night,” Unruh said. “Sure, they’re trying to pressure Deride, but both of them told me it would be weeks before they sifted through all of the paperwork. And they both expect Anthony Camden and his legal staff to be filing counterclaims against the government this morning, or at least on Monday. No one’s heard directly from Deride.”
“So what do you suggest, Carl?”
“Me?” Unruh asked as he showed his ID to a guard and pulled into his parking lot. “I’m thinking of taking a couple days vacation.”
“And let Brande go?”
“You told me he’s already gone.”
“The President has told me to uphold the law,” Delecourt said. “I’ve got to order the California to protect AquaGeo’s assets against anything Brande might do.”
“All you can protect are the surface ships, Ben. You haven’t got anything in your inventory that will reach the submersible.”
“If he comes shallow enough, we could put a couple Asrocs into him.”
Unruh didn’t think that two or three anti-submarine rocket torpedoes would deter Brande very much. The man was amazingly resilient.
He pulled into his slot, slapped the gearshift into park, but left the engine running for the heat.
“Tell me something, Admiral. If you were in Deride’s chair, and you saw the whole damned American government mad at you, turning your American assets upside down looking for incriminating evidence, threatening your income, would you persist in blowing a few more test holes?”
“If it were my money, I sure as hell wouldn’t, Carl. What are you saying?”
“I think there’s another motive,” Unruh said. “We were quick to attribute it to Deride’s natural greed, but if that were the case, to protect what he’s already got, he should suspend the Pacific operations. He doesn’t appear to be doing so.”
The Chief of Naval Operations thought that over. “You think maybe he’s looking specifically for an earthquake trigger?”
“I spent last night poring over the papers from his previous lawsuits. A hell of a lot of them involved litigation with California companies. What if he just decided to dump all those bastards in the ocean?”
“That’s weak motivation,” Delecourt said.
“I’m looking for anything beyond greed. Look at that pattern of detonations, Admiral.”
Again Delecourt paused, probably trying to refresh his mind. “No one really knows where a trigger might be, or if there is one, beyond an educated guess. Do you think he’s just walking across the sea bottom, hoping to hit it?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Unruh confessed. “If that’s the case, I don’t think he’s thought out the backlash. If he were successful, accidentally or not, I think he could be banned by the business and industry community. No one would buy from him. He’d be persona non grata in practically every country in the world. He initiates an earthquake along the West Coast, and he’s dead meat.”
“In the meantime, what do we do?”
“I’m beginning to think that, sometimes, no decision is the best decision,” Unruh said. “Let Brande go. Hell, for all we know, Ben, the next nuke sets off the chain reaction.”
Wilson Overton wasn’t sleeping well.
He wasn’t much of a sailor, he knew, and the tossing of the yacht kept him awake as much as did his continual review of the success of his story.
He thoroughly enjoyed writing articles that had impact that inspired people to action. It meant that he had influence in his world. The stuff that Thomas had given him — Paul Deride’s use of nuclear explosives, the alleged attacks against Marine visions, the man’s disregard for ecology and the environment, the possibility of initiating massive earth tremors, and the way he hid behind the law — was the kind of thing that spurred people to action.
And things were happening. People were yelling, especially those who lived along the San Andreas fault. A protest of some sort was scheduled for this afternoon in Sacramento. And while the governments — both federal and California — appeared stalemated, his feedback from Washington had indicated that the Justice Department was at least investigating Deride and AquaGeo. Last night, three boats out of Seattle had joined up with them. A crowd was gathering.
The only drawback, as far as Overton was concerned, was his entrapment. He wasn’t in his normal habitat, and he couldn’t chase down Washington bigwigs for their “no comments.” And though he was on the scene, Brande and Captain Harris on the California had all denied him interviews. Thomas wasn’t going to tell him anything more.
The bunk heaved under him, and he rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow over his head. There was just the smallest inkling that his stomach might rebel.
On second thought, he tossed the pillow aside and sat up. If he kept his stomach lower than his head, he might keep it under control.
He became aware of a light rapping on the louvered door of his small cabin.
“Yes?”
The door eased open, and Debbie Lane poked her head inside.
Well.
His successes were mounting.
“Wilson,” she said, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I was just lying here, thinking about you.”
“Mark wants you to come topside.” She backed away and closed the door.
Oh.
Overton slipped out of his bunk and pulled on his pants and shirt. He had to turn on the overhead light to find his shoes and socks.
The salon was darkened when he went through it to the ladder to the bridge. Climbing quickly, he emerged on the flying bridge to find Jacobs, Freelander, and Lane. They were all scanning the ocean through the windshield.
“Is something wrong, Mark?” he asked.
“The California is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Just disappeared, along with the destroyers.”
“What about the Orion?”
Jacobs pointed to a blob in the night. “Still there. So is the tugboat.”
“You think something’s happened?” Overton asked.
“If not, it’s about to happen.”
“We’ve probably been in their sonar range for about fifteen minutes,” Dokey said.
“They should have the red carpet rolled out soon, then,” Brande told him.
“I’ll give you this,” Dokey said, “you’ve got her down in the carpet.”
Brande and Dokey had switched jobs, and Brande was flying DepthFinder less than twenty-five feet off the seafloor. The forward-looking sonar picture was displayed on the center screen, with Thomas monitoring it closely. The left screen held the imagery captured by the submersible’s video camera, and the right CRT, which Dokey refused to look away from, was the view seen by Gargantua, some two hundred feet ahead of them as an advance guard. Both the sub and the ROV had about fifty feet of visibility under each set of floodlights.
The seabed was relatively level here with only mild rises and falls, probably the reason that Deride had selected the area as his base of operations.
“More tracks,” Dokey said.
Brande glanced at the starboard monitor. A pair of floor crawler tracks had appeared in the robot’s camera-view.
“Busy place,” Brande said.