“There is a ship, a very large ship, the R/VX Trident Tine, sitting out in the Pacific, two miles off your coast, directly over the Monterey Submarine Canyon. Out with the humpbacks. Looks like a research vessel from MBARI. It’s waiting for you and the Canyon Glider. Pull up beside her and she’ll hoist you aboard. Now get a pencil and paper and write this down. Your coordinates are 36° 47’ North, 121° 50’ West. Pack a bag or two, load them into the Canyon Glider, and meet the ship there in three hours. I have no other information, but you can tell your wife that you’ll return no later than March 15. Oh, I can also tell you that the Department of Homeland Security has authorized a payment of two million dollars to MBORC. You’re to get eighty percent of that for your successful completion of our task.”
As he mulled over the offer, Lindy poked her head out from the covers and whispered, “Do it Matt! It’s less than three weeks and the pay is phenomenaclass="underline" one point six million dollars! Do it.” She jumped out of bed, grabbed Matt’s duffel bag, and started packing.
Chuckling quietly, he answered, “Yes, Commander Norton, I’ll do it, but only if Carlos approves. I’ll give him a quick call and be on my way.”
“You’re welcome to do that, Mr. Cross, but I guarantee you that he’ll have the sub waiting for you when you arrive. Take care. I’ll meet with you later today and bring you up to date. Remember, not a word about this to the media from you or your wife. Our nation is depending on you. Goodbye.”
He sat on the side of the bed, trying to absorb the conversation. It made little sense to him other than he was needed. He had been on secretive missions like this before. They usually required finding and retrieving overboard cargo crates, downed unmanned drones and missing experimental aircraft. Nothing worth two million dollars and certainly nothing involving national security.
“Who’s making coffee?” he asked.
Lindy, stuffing three weeks of shirts, pants, underwear, and socks into his bag, turned back and said, “I vote you.” She backed off, surveyed her packing, and said, “All you need to pack is shoes, your Dopp kit, and your personals.”
The coffee pot clattered, then perked, gurgling loudly. “No problem. Thanks, hon.”
Minutes later, he returned with two steaming mugs. “You know honey, as usual, this mission is very sensitive. Not to be disclosed to anybody, your family, your friends, and especially your news team. Just tell them that I’m out saving the world again, as you usually do.
“I suppose you can’t contact me either. That sucks.”
“Probably not. When I’m not underwater, I’ll probably be out at sea. Cells just don’t work out there.”
“Is it okay if I call and leave a message? You can pick it up when you’re near land,”
“Of course honey. I’d love that.”
Lindy blew across her mug then sipped the coffee. “Are you afraid? You’ve never made this much money on any of your missions. Any idea what you’ll be doing?”
“No honey, and if I did I couldn’t tell you. You know that.” He sat thinking, sipping coffee for a minute, then looked at her. “Yes, I am a little afraid of what’s coming. I just can’t think of anything I could do that would be worth two million dollars. That much money accompanies big risks. I just hope I’m up to it.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you’re up to it. You’ve never failed before.” Looking tenderly into his eyes, she said, “I love you Matt Cross. You’re my world. Take care of yourself for me.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“I love you too, bear. Now stop that or you’re going to make me cry, too. It’s only three weeks. How hard could it be? I’ll be back before you know it.”
He stood, went into the bathroom for minutes, returned, and tossed his Dopp kit into his bag. Then, taking his cell phone from the dresser, he speed-dialed Carlos, his boss and owner of MBORC.
“Hello Matt. Where the hell are you? We’ve got your sub fired up and ready to drop.”
“So this is real? I’m still not sure if I’m dreaming all this. Did you get a call, too?
“Hell yes. At oh-dark-thirty this morning. Some commander called in a frenzy, needing your services. When I questioned his identity, he put me on a conference call with the Admiral of the Navy. Hell yeah, it’s real. Your reputation is obviously preceding you. Now get your ass in here and do whatever you’re supposed to do. He wouldn’t tell me, but our two-million dollar fee buys a lot of secrecy.”
“Yes, boss. I’m on my way.” He stood in the living room, like a soldier on deployment, hugging Lindy for the longest time. He never knew if he would really return, but he always played tough, assuring her he would.
He kissed her, threw the duffel bag over his shoulder, and in a flash was out the door, gone.
Lindy stood in the doorway, as always, and blew him a kiss as he drove away.
Thirty minutes had passed; he pulled into the nearly empty MBORC parking lot. The dawn lit the landscape with an eerie pink glow. The cars, he recognized, belonged to his launch team. They were all there. He smiled, unlocked the front door, and passed down the long hallway leading to the High Bay Room, the Canyon Glider’s home. It was brightly lit by blazing xenon overhead lights.
At the back of the room, he saw a small cadre of yellow-suited launch preppers moving methodically over the small submarine’s hull. The color of their suits matched its yellow perfectly. On their backs were large Canyon Glider logos, resembling the colorful NASA patches from the old Apollo missions.
The Glider’s hatch was open. A prepper poked out his head yelling instructions to another. Cross knew he was only minutes from launch. Then a one-hour trip out to the mother ship, two miles by water, would put him there an hour early. One by one, the preppers dropped off and surrounded the sub, waiting for his entry. All in a circle, they individually called out their prep duty, followed by “Ready.”
Carlos entered the High Bay, just as Cross threw his duffel bag into the cockpit. His approach brought the waiting staff to attention. “Good luck in your endeavor, Matt. Give ‘em hell, whatever it is. I’ll expect you back shortly after March 15, according to Norton. We’ll be waiting.” He shook Cross’s hand and left the High Bay. He had always considered it bad luck be present during the launch. He kept the tradition going.
He checked around the sub one last time, stepped up onto the hatch platform, and thanked his crew. Dropping into the small cockpit, he pulled the hatch closed, twirled the lock and settled into his seat. Amid clanging locks, jerks, whines and grinding winch motors the Canyon Glider slid smoothly out from the High Bay underwater port into Monterey Bay.
This was the part he loved. He straightened the horizontal rudders, pushed gently on the throttle lever and smiled as he heard the hum of the large electric motors, felt the forward motion.
Thinking through his plan, he had to first program the destination point, the location of the Trident Tine, into the GPS computer. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, keyed in the coordinates given him by Norton, then flipped the switch to Autopilot. The propulsion motors’ whine increased in volume and pitch, the vertical rudder drove the sub fifty feet under the surface and then leveled it out on the way to the meeting point. He knew that he was entering a popular whale migration path, that there would be humpback, orca and even blue whales randomly shooting across his path, so he kept the wide-angle sonar pointed directly ahead and his hand on the throttle, feet on the rudders, ready to pull back or steer clear before a possible collision.