She leaned over and grabbed the mike, then depressed the transmit stud. “Okey?”
A few seconds went by before he replied, “Kim?”
“Don’t use six, nine, sixteen, or nineteen.”
“Got ya, babe.”
Paul Deride felt steel bands clutching his heart, slowly squeezing it. The sweating dampness of the interior was stifling him. His forehead felt as if it were caressed by frozen ice one moment, burning heat the next.
He and Penny Glenn, along with Bert Conroy and the four others currently aboard the station had watched in almost rapt fascination as Brande’s submersible ripped out their communications and sonar antennas.
A panicky Conroy had grabbed the controls of the overhead video camera and kept it trained on the robot — Gargantua, as Deride had recognized it — while the remote-controlled machine destroyed the antennas.
Several attempts had failed to produce any contact with the surface ships or with the subsea vehicles. He had tried to phone Anthony Camden to tell him to get the Navy, get somebody, in here to stop Brande.
Almost unbelievably, Deride had found himself unable to talk to his trusted advisor, to reach out to the world.
The station had closed in on him immediately.
He was pacing in a continuous circle around the work table in the center of the control room.
Trying to keep his voice level, Deride said, “All right, give that one to Brande. Penny, get the subs in here to take us off.”
“We can’t talk to them, Uncle Paul.”
“Use the goddamned floodlights. Blink Morse code at them, for Christ’s sake!”
Conroy appeared immediately relieved at that suggestion, as did the others milling around in the room
“It would depend on whether they’re close enough to see the lights,” she said.
The relief on Conroy’s face was short-lived.
“Besides,” she went on, “you heard Gary Munro before we lost the acoustic. Sydney’s out of the picture. She’s lost all propulsion, and he’s dropped weights. She’s already on her way to the surface.”
“Son of a bitch!” Deride yelped.
He thought he was yelping. He couldn’t help it.
“It’ll be all right, Uncle Paul. Brande’s just trying to scare us, and damn it, I won’t be scared off.”
“Fine, Penny, that’s just fine. You all can stay here. In the meantime, get that other sub in here. I’m going to the Outer Islands Lady so I can use a bloody damned telephone. I’ll have Anthony screaming so loudly at them, the whole bloody damned world will hear.”
“Bert,” she said, “blink the exterior lights and see if you can catch the attention of someone on the Brisbane.”
Conroy went to do that, and Deride felt better. He decided right then that, after he reached the surface, he was never again leaving it.
Jesus. These calls always came in the early morning.
Unruh had planned to sleep in, something he hadn’t done in months, but Ben Delecourt got him out of bed.
“The California says what, Ben?”
“They think there’s maybe a mini-war taking place on the bottom, Carl. Harris talked to the captain of the Outer Islands Lady, but the captain says he can’t reach the station on the seabed. Captain Harris is a little miffed at us. CINCPAC forgot to tell him there was a habitat on the bottom. Harris also tried the Orion, but somebody named Alvarez-Sorenson told him that communication with the submersible was sporadic. Also, Harris has requested permission from the Joint Chiefs to seize the Orion.”
“Whatever for?” Unruh asked.
“Violation of the injunction.”
“Is that legal?”
“Hell, who knows? I’ve got the Navy legal department looking into it, but the first question the guy asked me was, ‘did the Orion, or did the Depthfinder make the violation?’ He thinks we could seize the sub, but not the research vessel. Only we can’t find the damned sub.”
“Let’s get back to this mini-war of yours, Admiral. What’s that about?”
“California has heard explosions. They think someone is attacking someone else.”
“All those billions we’ve spent on satellites and high-tech intelligence gathering don’t seem to add up to much, do they, Ben?”
“Carl, we’d better get the task force together, and damned fast.”
“What will we ask them to do, Ben? And, better yet, what will they do?”
Delecourt thought about that for a second, then said, “Go back to bed, Carl.”
The Orion had startled him when she heeled to the right and added power. By the time Overton voiced his observation, Mark Jacobs had already replaced Mickey Freelander at the helm and shoved his throttles in.
Behind them, in a dismal gray night and high waves, eight boats of varying description fell into line and picked up speed. Behind the research vessel, the white and yellow tugboat was struggling to keep up.
“Where in hell do you suppose she’s headed, Mark?”
Jacobs shook his head. “As a guess, I’d think they’re about to recover their submersible again.”
“Well, damn it! This time, Brande’s going to tell me what he’s been up to.”
“Good luck, Wilson.”
Overton grabbed their coffee mugs and took the ladder down to the salon.
Freelander was there, frying himself an egg.
In the back corner, the fax machine was chattering, so Overton went to check on it.
It was directed to him, from Ned Nelson, and he read it as it came off the machine. When he could rip the page off, he refilled the mugs and carried them back upstairs.
Excuse me. Topsides.
When he handed Jabobs his mug, the Greenpeace leader said, “What do you have there?”
“Bios on the execs at AquaGeo.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Not much on first reading, except for the Glenn woman.”
“Who’s she?”
“A geologist and, according to this, the heir apparent of the corporation. Hold on.”
Overton read through Glenn’s report a second time.
“This is kind of strange, Mark.”
Jacobs rode the slight bounce of the helmsman’s chair and just looked at him.
“Glenn’s more-or-less an adopted daughter of Deride. He put her through some good schools, took care of her from age twelve on. Made her a honcho in his company, and according to rumor, pays her millions.”
“The man may have the hots for her, Wilson. Nothing strange about that.”
“Yeah, but back in ‘71, it was Deride that aced her parents out of their mining company. Practically stole it from them, and made his first million with it.”
“What happened to the parents?” Jacobs asked.
“They died. Double-suicide, it says here.”
They rested on the bottom for nearly an hour, not only to relax themselves, but to hopefully build anxiety and fearful anticipation in their foes. The Beta sub passed close to them a couple times, but didn’t locate them.
“According to my trusty checklist,” Dokey said, “it’s time to go.”
“Let’s go, then,” Brande said.
He hadn’t relaxed much. He was keyed up, eager to get it over with, and that wasn’t good. That was when mistakes happened.
Rae Thomas had actually slept for forty minutes.
Dokey had eaten two of his meals. No doubt, he’d be bargaining with Brande and Thomas later for the eating rights to their desserts.