“That’s just your imagination working, Avery”
“Or my optimism. Did you get the maps?”
“We did. Where did you find them?”
“My lovely secretary — or perhaps she’s my boss — Angie and I have been calling every oceanographic outfit in the world. We simply asked if they had ever done exploratory work in the region, and if they had, could we see their maps. Except for the CIS, they’ve been very obliging. The photocopies have been rolling in.”
“Larry Emry’s happy,” Brande said. “He’s busy updating his geologic data base.”
“When he’s done, do you suppose he could transmit copies to us and to the Kane?” Hampstead asked. “We’re all compiling our own, of course, but the comparisons might erase a few glitches.”
There were discrepancies between some of the maps they had received — seamounts, trenches, valleys appearing hundreds of yards off of reported geographic positions. Most of those could be attributed to data collected prior to the more exact navigational positioning provided by the Global Navigation System.
“We’ll send it out as soon as we can.”
“We’ll be eternally grateful,” Hampstead said.
“I doubt it. Now, do you want to talk about the reason I called you?”
“No.”
Brande ignored the negative response and went on. “I have here a copy of an order signed by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Chief of Naval Operations. Under the provisions of an executive order declaring an emergency, they have commandeered my ship for thirty days.”
“I may have seen a copy of the same order,” Hampstead acknowledged.
“Whatʼs going on, Avery?”
“Well, you could have been more diplomatic with Admiral Potter, Dane.”
“To hell with Admiral Potter. It’s my ship.”
“It wouldn’t hurt…”
“But, Avery, thanks to Rae, I also have a prior-dated memorandum from you. I’m under contract to the Department of Commerce.”
“If we line up Commerce on one side of the Potomac and Defense on the other side, Dane, then open up with the weapons available to both sides, I think Commerce will be decimated. I’m talking legal weapons, of course.”
“Go over their heads, Avery.”
“That’s the President.”
“I know.”
“I only say ‘yessir’ to the President,” Hampstead said.
“This isn’t going to work,” Brande said.
“Well, if you just take it easy, go along with…”
“CINCPAC telexed us the search pattern we’re supposed to follow.”
“Yes.”
“You’re at CINCPAC. Why didn’t you bitch about it?”
“I’ve not been asked for input on that, Dane. They have the experts in that field.”
“It’s designed by a guy whose primary objective in life is looking for hostile submarines. We’re not searching for a submarine.”
“I’ll raise your objection with the search committee,” Hampstead said.
“I might have known it was a committee.”
The forward torpedo room had become a museum of the Tashkent. About sixty kilograms of flotsam from the stricken submarine had been recovered on the surface and stowed aboard the Winter Storm.
Gurevenich had ordered it left alone, but he knew that it was on everyone’s mind as they resumed the search pattern. It caused the men of the submarine to maintain even more silence than they had previously.
Rubbing the fatigue from his eyes with the heels of his hands, Gurevenich sat in the wardroom with a cup of tea and a half-eaten sandwich. His appetite had disappeared along with the Tashkent.
He looked up when Mostovets stepped in.
“Something, Ivan Yosipovich?”
“No, Captain. We have analyzed the tapes of a sonar return on a peak at one thousand meters depth. It is to the north about six kilometers. I ordered a magnetometer reading taken on our next pass, but I suspect the mass is much greater than that of a rocket. It wills an old shipwreck.”
It was the second wreck they had located. He could not count the Tashkent. What was left of the submarine had gone down, down, down, off their sonar, and into an abyss of unknown depth.
The analysis of sonar readings was difficult even when they were tracking the bottom. The blotches and smears on the screen — or on tapes of the screen — did not distinguish between artificial, man-made objects and natural debris on the seabed. What promised to be a nose cone could just as well be a rock outcropping.
And this was true only when they could see the bottom, which was infrequent. So far, they had identified four seamounts, the highest to the north, about a kilometer north of the point of impact.
“What of the Houston?” Gurevenich asked.
“Our contacts have been intermittent, but it seems to be following an east-west pattern, Captain, at six hundred meters of depth, and several kilometers to the north.”
“And the surface ships?”
“Still gathered to the west,” Mostovets reported.
The published and broadcast reports of the rocket’s point of impact on the surface of the Pacific Ocean had apparently been generally described as 26 degrees, 20 minutes North, 176 degrees, 10 minutes East, for that was where the gaggle of civilian ships had congregated. The actual impact point was to the northeast of that position by five kilometers, more precisely located eleven seconds further north and twenty-three seconds further east. He hoped that no one further enlightened the sightseers.
“The Kirov,” Mostovets continued, “has stationed itself slightly northwest of the civilian ships.”
“Amazing,” Gurevenich said. “Fleet Command actually followed a recommendation that I made.”
“It would appear so, Captain. If the Kirov maintains its position, it may keep the civilian craft away from the actual search area.”
“At least until the Timofey Olʼyantsev arrives. They will likely have to operate the Sea Lion closer to the crash area.”
“And the civilians will interfere, no doubt,” Mostovets said.
“Probably.”
“And the Kirov will have to demonstrate its firepower.”
“Let us hope not, Ivan Yosipovich.”
“Oh, God, no!” Brande said.
He was seated at the wardroom table with Okey Dokey and Rae Thomas.
Bucky Sanders, who had just come through the door with a seaman named Rivers, grinned at him. “Iʼm afraid so.”
“Mel put you on galley duty again?”
“That’s right.”
“He hasn’t learned much about your prowess with a pan, Bucky.”
“You could always talk to him.”
“What are we having?”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.”
“You’ll find a way to grill the soup and boil the cheese, won’t you?”
“I think I’ve got it figured out this time,” Sanders said as he and Rivers disappeared into the galley.
“Put that on your list of priorities, Madame President,” Dokey said. “We need competent cooks. Trained in France would be all right.”
Dokey was wearing a sweatshirt this morning. It was adorned with two’60s pelicans doing the twist. The’90s version of that shirt had the pelicans doing the Lambada.
“We’re not running a resort,” Thomas said.
“We’re supposed to be running a world-class organization,” Dokey countered.
“That doesn’t extend to catering the food service. Next. Jim Word wants some research done on the ingots and cannon barrel.”