At the far end of the yard, at the top of a slipway, was the submersible, Helena. Batista could see someone working on the ‘neck’ of the submersible. It was the section that connected the pilot’s cockpit; a large, bubble shaped orb of tough acrylic polymer, to the forward section of the sub’s pressure hull. The cockpit gave the pilot of the submersible almost perfect, all round vision.
Batista could see no-one else in the yard. He had checked the office which was locked. He walked down to the slipway towards the submersible looking round as he covered the short distance, taking in all the sights and sound. He reached the submersible and called up to the mechanic.
The man stopped working and glanced up to see who was calling. When he saw Batista he acknowledged him. “Couple of minutes,” he said, “and I’ll be with you.”
The mechanic was actually working on the explosive collar. This was a steel ring, hinged so that it opened in order to clamp it round the neck of the submersible that separated the cockpit from the main body. It had a watertight connector that located firmly into a connecting socket when the ring was locked in place. The collar contained explosive charges. It was fitted around the ‘neck’ or thorax as Marsh often called it, and was designed to explode and sever the neck and allow the polymer cockpit to detach itself from the sub and rise to the surface in the event of an emergency.
The collar was always removed after two years, replaced with another, and returned to the manufacturer for inspection and verification. Batista waited until the mechanic had completed the refit and then told him why he was there. The man told him his boss wasn’t there but would phone the house. Would he wait? Batista said yes, he would.
It was about thirty minutes later when Batista heard the Chevrolet pick-up drive in to the yard. He had been waiting in the small reception area of the office then, reading a diving magazine. He put it down and stood up as Helen and Marsh walked in.
Helen introduced herself and Marsh, shaking hands with Batista. She thought how young and good looking he was. He was casually dressed in clothes that showed a taste for designer fashion. His hair was blond, with natural curls. He was tanned from long exposure to the sun and not from a sun bed. The overall effect was of someone of unaffected charm and warmth.
“Hallo Julio,” Marsh said, extending his hand. “Long time no see. I remember you now.”
Batista smiled and shook Marsh by the hand. “I was a lot younger then. And the weather was worse than this.”
“You don’t look much older now,” Marsh told him with a chuckle.
Batista acknowledged that, and then offered his condolences to Helen. “Your mechanic has told me what happened; such a terrible loss. I am so sorry.”
Helen thanked him and offered him a drink which he declined.
“So, what is it you want to see us about?” she asked.
“Well its Marsh I want to talk to,” he told her.
Helen glanced at Marsh who immediately saw an opportunity to cut Helen out of the conversation on the pretext that it might be something confidential. The truth was that Marsh had a bad feeling about this and didn’t want Helen to learn too much. He suggested to Batista that they talk in the office. Helen seemed to pick up on this and said she would talk to Mac about the work on the Helena, while the two men got down to the reason for Batista’s visit.
Ten minutes later, Helen saw Batista leave the office and walk out of the yard. He waved at her and disappeared through the open gates. Marsh came out of the office and walked down the yard to the slipway where Helen and Mac were in deep conversation.
“Well,” she asked when he reached her. “Do I get to know what he wanted?”
“He offered me a job,” he told her.
“And?”
He shook his head. “I turned it down.”
Francesini looked across his desk at James Starling. His boss stared back from beneath a deep frown, the mechanics of what Francesini had put to him slowly locking into place. The sunlight filtered through the Venetian blinds, and the sounds of everyday normality could just be heard penetrating the double glazed windows.
The reality outside the glass was what the CIA swore to protect. The reality inside the room was the truth of how hard and dangerous that protection was to come by. While lunatics and terrorists, mad-hats and wicked regimes threatened the freedoms America had fought for so often in the past, men like Starling and Francesini, and their subordinates, toiled ceaselessly to keep the American dream safe and alive.
And Starling was still trying to come to terms not so much with what Francesini had said, but with what he hadn’t said.
“Let me get this straight, Remo,” Starling said, shifting his position in the chair. His finger jabbed the air as he mentally ticked off the step by step account of Francesini’s dissertation.
“This guy Greg Walsh, who you never knew and who came your way through the retired CIA agent, Mancini in the Bahamas, gets worried about some survey details he has been commissioned to provide, but has nothing to back it up except something based on his own knowledge, gut feeling and hearsay.” Francesini nodded; it was about right. Starling continued. “He was commissioned by someone he wouldn’t name at first because of client confidentiality, although he would have done if you’d taken it further at the time. Correct?” Francesini nodded again.
“Walsh is talking about oil exploration in the Florida Narrows, right?” Again the nod from the other side of the desk. “And he talks about explosive drilling? Like drilling through bedrock, shoving in some sticks of dynamite and blowing the rock up. Makes it easier to drill, right?”
“Something like that,” Francesini said at last.
“But we’re not talking about the side of a mountain, are we? We’re talking about the sea bed. So why are we worried? We know it happens; these are new drilling techniques.” He leaned forward, putting his elbow on the desk and held his hand up, like he was offering a bowl to Francesini. “But you’re worried, aren’t you Remo? Not because of Greg Walsh’s figures, the gut feeling and the hearsay bit, but because of that guy who ended up in hospital dying of radiation sickness.” Francesini said nothing this time, so Starling encouraged him. “Don’t leave me in limbo Remo, remind me.”
Francesini had been smoking a cigar, but for a while it had burned quietly in the ashtray on his desk. He picked it up and drew heavily on it. Starling frowned, he disapproved of smoking but believed Francesini could do what he wanted in his own office. Although he had to admit to himself that the cigars his subordinate chose to smoke had quite a pleasant smell to them.
“We understand Walsh’s concerns,” Francesini began, “more now than we did when he first came to us. He had nothing to substantiate his worries really. His logic was sound but difficult to accept. Sticks of dynamite didn’t come into his reckoning at all, but something bigger and more deadly.” He lifted his hands in a throw away motion. “But what could we do? He wouldn’t tell us who his client was until we agreed to get heavily involved and to keep his name out of it, which we couldn’t. Then we found that guy dying of radiation sickness, and the only word he spoke was ‘Taliba’.”
“The name of the yacht belonging to Hakeem Khan,” Starling added for him.
Francesini nodded. “Quite. We know two nukes have already disappeared and now a third one has been spirited out of the Ukraine. I’ve been putting two and two together and I don’t like what I’m coming up with.”
“Have you run a check on Khan?”
“I did. He appears to be beyond corruption. He’s a well-respected oceanographer among his peer group and apparently very good at his job. He doesn’t come across as a political extremist, quite the opposite in fact; he’s as clean as a whistle.”