“How else are you going to retrieve it, Mr. Cross? It’s already on there. Actually two of them, in case one is under it, down in the silt. We had to do that for hydrodynamic balance. Won’t change the rate or direction of fall. We think of everything,” said Oliver.
“You’re right. Excellent! See you tomorrow,” he said, wondering what Oliver had planned after he left the service. He could really use a mind like that at MBORC, if they made it through.
With nothing to do but wait for morning, he returned to his quarters expecting to find Briscoe. His bunk was still folded against the wall. Worried about him but thrilled about the morning dive, he sat at the small desk, grabbed the Adam file from the shelf, and thumbed through the pages.
Another of Gruber’s inserts grabbed his attention. A web page copy titled “Effects of underwater nuclear explosions” told him what to do if he found Adam and couldn’t disarm him. He would have to move him to a greater depth, further from land. Two hundred miles out would do it. Two miles deep. Out a quarter-way to Hawaii in deep Pacific waters. The explosion would visible as a large balloon-shaped cloud, possibly a mushroom over it, from the California shoreline, its destructive effects would be absorbed by the first one-hundred miles, leaving only a small three to six foot wave washing ashore as its reminder. There would be a great loss of marine life though from the explosion.
Poring over a table of underwater nuclear test explosions from 1946 up to the last one in 1962, he sat engrossed in the data, taking notes. After 1962, there were no more tests; they were banned in late 1963 by the NTBT, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, under President Kennedy. He focused on “Wigwam,” the deepest and most powerful test on the list. “Betty” a Mark 90-B7 nuclear depth charge, designed for submarine warfare, was exploded in 1955, two thousand feet down, over an ocean floor three miles below her. With a yield of only thirty kilotons, she threw a large seawater spray rising hundreds of feet into the air. Measured surface radiation from the test was negligible, but underwater radiation and fallout effects were unmentioned.
Adam’s yield, according to the W-88 data sheet, would be around five hundred kilotons, over fifteen times that of Betty’s. He made a note to himself warning of this discrepancy. Still, the two-hundred mile drop spot looked good. Now he just had to get him there.
The Osprey! he thought. Bring Adam to the rail dock, drop him there, then pull a line down from the Osprey and hook him on it. A quick hour trip out over the Pacific and they could lay him carefully in a watery grave, away from humanity.
Pleased with his plan, he returned to Broward’s office and explained it.
Broward thought for minutes, looking at Cross’s notes. “Not a bad plan, but it’s contingent on your finding Adam. Think you can do it? My Bluefins have been out searching most of the day and have nothing yet.”
“Can I use the Osprey to relocate Adam? That’s the question?” Ignoring the Captain’s doubt, he was assuring in his query.
“Talk the pilot into it and you’ve got it,” he answered, with a tone of sarcasm.
“I’ll get Briscoe to ride with him. Someone has to drop the line. I’ll be on the rail dock with the Glider, hooking up Adam.”
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling for a moment, then returned upright. “Well, Mr. Cross, it seems you have thought it through, documented it in your notes, and explained it perfectly. I probably couldn’t have done it better myself. I’m also impressed with your self confidence. Reminds me of myself many years ago.”
“Thank you Captain. I’ll go check with the pilot and get things lined up.”
“Carry on, Cross,” he nodded, smiling at his enthusiasm, something he hadn’t see in a while.
The pilot, Lt. Harper, was hesitant but agreeable, not knowing the bomb was timed. He had heard, as everyone else on the ship had heard, that it was a dud warhead lost from a recent submarine training mission. He saw no real danger in the exercise. He agreed to do it. Still, he wondered why he was moving it, rather than retrieving it for safekeeping. That was normal procedure.
Heading back to his quarters, he stepped lighter, knowing his ducks were all in a row. He still needed to tell Briscoe. He wondered if he had been released.
“Ahoy, Marker,” Briscoe said, sitting on his bunk, scanning the Adam folder.
Entering the room, he smiled at Briscoe’s return. “Feelin’ better, Chief? You gave me quite a scare back there.”
“Got a shot and some Pepto and I feel much better. Didn’t know about the tumor, though. Guess I’ve got to lay off poisoned donuts.” He chuckled and laid the folder on the bunk next to him. “Did you see those photos Keller took of those old record albums? The LPs? Weird that he would do that. What was with that Shazam pamphlet? I don’t even know what that is. Do you?”
“Yeah, it’s a cell phone app. Recognizes music and songs like an expert listener. Tells you the title. Don’t know the relevance to the case though. He must have been a music aficionado, as they call it. Me? I just listen to music and don’t need to know the name of a song.”
Nodding, Briscoe said, “Yeah, me too. There were even scribbles out beside the track titles on the Vivaldi LP. Couldn’t read them. Must have been a real cuckoo nut about music”
Cross, thought for moments, then brightened. “What if he added a disabling function to the bomb, based on music recognition. Lullaby it to sleep.”
Briscoe scoffed, “How do you mean, Marker? Why would he do that?”
“Maybe for afterthoughts, a way to retract his threat, an escape from his madness in a moment of lucidity.”
“But maybe a way to trigger it instantly, bypassing the timer. That sounds more like him.”
“Yeah, hadn’t thought of that. Let’s not go there. Bad idea.”
Silence followed until Cross spoke again, detailing his Adam retrieval plan. Ten minutes had passed; Briscoe listening carefully, had said nothing. Finally, he nodded. “Well I’m on board with everything Marker. Sounds like a plan. Want me to stay here on the first dive?”
“And let you miss Adam’s discovery? No way in hell would I leave you behind. Six-thirty on deck. We launch at seven. I’ll need you there early to calibrate the scintillator,” he said, trying to hide a grin.
Briscoe smirked. “It’s good to know I’m still good for something. Lighting up a probe. Not everyone can do that.” He smiled back.
From the hallway, the 1MC interrupted, blaring, “Mess Call. Mess Call. SeaNet Special tonight: Red Snapper Stew.”
Standing, ready to rush the line, Cross asked, “You hungry, Chief?”
“You know? I think I am. Let’s eat.”
Lingering over dinner. they reminisced over their last dive together. It was a crash recovery mission, June 6th, 2007 off the California coast. Tasked with recovering the black box from an F-16 Falcon downed in two thousand feet of water, they went down together, Briscoe in a hard-shell ADS, atmospheric diving suit, Cross in Dipsy, the mini-sub.
“I remember you carried me down in Dipsy’s arms, like a statue. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life. Then when she released me on the bottom, I just wanted to crawl back into her arms. Then I got hung in wires; it was so black. So alone. My breathing air hissed, but I couldn’t breathe. I could see you through the viewport, but you weren’t there.” He began to tremble, tightly closing his eyes.
“I never saw that, Chief. I saw a master diver, standing there in Dipsy’s floods, stepping dauntlessly through coral, mud and silt, into a broken, twisted fuselage. Wires and cables everywhere, you kept going until you found the box. I was never so happy as when I saw you cut it loose and hold it up. But then on your way back out, you got hung on that wiring harness, there must been hundreds of cables around you holding you down, and you signaled me for help. In a cold sweat, I approached you in Dipsy, careful not to ram you. You held that box like it was your baby. When I pulled the harness with the manipulators, you broke free. I thought I was going to lose you.” He choked up, reliving that moment.