“I don’t think that’s the right one, Curtis. Look at the red star.”
In fact, there was a red star on the sail. It was bold and clear in the glare of the searchlight. Water sluiced from the hull as more of the submarine emerged from the sea.
“It’s moving backward,” Edgeworth said.
“And so it is, Donny. What the hell’re they doing?”
Three minutes later, he knew.
A second conning tower erupted from the surface.
And then that of a tiny submarine, bobbing like a cork on the rough seas.
The big Navy ship started to close in on the second submarine.
“You want me to follow them, Curtis?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“But they’re kind of messing around with fate, aren’t they? With Mother Nature and Lady Destiny?”
“Maybe not, Donny. Maybe this wasn’t meant to be. They hadn’t gone down yet, anyway.”
Lately, Aaron had begun to concern himself as much with fate as he was with nature.
Sometimes, it was difficult to tell which way nature and destiny were headed. It was a struggle to not get confused.
“It’s past nine o’clock here,” Ned Nelson said. “You’re screwing up my whole timetable.”
“This is hot, Ned,” Overton said. Hot enough that he had forgotten about his roiling stomach. “I’m on the scene.”
“Scene of what?”
“This research ship showed up out of the blue and saved the crew of the Los Angeles.ˮ
“Oh, shit! You sure?”
“We’re towing it now, and we’ve taken most of the sailors off the sub. I’ve got interviews. Oh, babe, I’ve got interviews!”
“Let me get somebody from rewrite over here.”
“Hey, Ned! You picking up the tab on my charters?”
“Ah, hell. Did you get good receipts?”
It took over an hour to get DepthFinder aboard and snugged down. While the Orion was stable enough on her cycloidals, she still surged up and down, and the submersible had to make several tries before she successfully approached between the hulls and captured the lift cable.
Thomas was on the fantail, ordering those who were not wearing one into life jackets when Brande, Dokey and Dankelov slid down the ladder of the scaffold.
She felt like throwing her arms around Brande, she was so glad to see him. In addition to the rescue of the submarine crew, of course. That elated her.
She smiled as the three of them approached her. They looked pretty beat.
Brande smiled back.
Dokey asked, “Don’t I get a kiss?”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. It surprised hell out of him.
“Coffee’s waiting in the wardroom,” she told them.
Brande said, “I’d better…”
“We’ll take care of it. Go rest.”
Ship’s crew and team members were swarming over the sub, pulling battery trays, preparing to remove Atlas for servicing, and scooting SARSCAN out of the laboratory. The sonar robot was ready to be attached to the sub.
She turned and walked forward with them. While it was not raining, the wind was gusting and throwing spray over the decks. Thomas kept a grip on the safety lines until they reached the side door and slipped inside.
She pulled off her slicker and hung it on a hook where it dripped.
Brande pointed upward. “Mel?”
“We’re already back on course, Dane. We only lost four-and-a-half hours.”
“What does the Navy say about that?” Dokey asked.
“I don’t know. I gave Dewey Dane’s message, word for word, and I haven’t heard from them since. Well, once. Captain Taylor has bought each of the crew members of the DepthFinder a week’s stay at the MGM Grand in Reno.”
“Damn, I think I’ll go now,” Dokey said.
“Go get coffee, instead,” Brande told him.
Dokey looked at the two of them, then took Dankelov’s arm and led him into the lounge.
“You’d better get some rest, Dane.”
“Right away?”
“Maybe not right away.”
“What have you got, Oren?”
“It gets shitty from here on out, Carl”
“I suspect I don’t want to hear this,” Unruh said.
“No, you don’t. But you have to, and you have to pass it on to your buddies in the room.”
For quite some time, there had been a celebration going, fueled by coffee and Danish, over the salvation of the Los Angeles and her crew. The President had ordered hot roast beef sandwiches for everyone for lunch.
No one mentioned the dereliction from duty and orders of one Dane Brande.
Even the threat of planned protests had been forgotten for the moment. Seven days after the crash of the A2e, rally and protest planners were finally getting organized. Massive demonstrations were planned all around the globe, and most of them had been listed on the charts scattered around the Situation Room.
The plotting display had been refined to the immediate area of the crash zone. Most of the players were on the scene. The Sea Lion had already been deployed by the Russians, and the Eastern Flower was in the vicinity, though she had not yet launched a submersible. Reports from the submarines were being shared with the Japanese and the Russians, but so far, the Russians had not responded in kind.
“Okay, Patterson. Give it to me.”
“The eggheads broke down the computer tape. It’s not an application program, but it lists the data obtained from one run of the computer model.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, the configuration of the rocket when it hit the sea, and then what might have happened afterward. Fins moved one way or another, boosters breaking off, that kind of thing. This particular model shows the rocket hitting at over four hundred kilometers per hour, a booster separating, and the rocket veering to the southeast from the point of impact.”
“Damn. When can I get that data in hard copy?”
“Iʼm sending a courier now. But don’t jump on it, Carl. It’s just one scenario.”
“I understand that,” Unruh said, “but maybe it’ll help somebody.”
“Here’s something that won’t help anyone: the meltdown is scheduled to begin between 1800 hours, eight September, and 2400 hours, nine September.”
“Fuck!”
“That’s local time in the area of operations, and it looks like solid data, Carl. The eggheads say that information was not entered as a variable.”
Unruh felt sick. That hot roast beef sandwich was no longer appetizing.
“Jesus, Oren. What do I do?”
“Take it and run, Carl. Run like a sumbitch.”
September 8
Chapter Fourteen
In the hallway outside the Situation Room, the haze was thick. The smokers had been slipping out there for a quick drag with increasing frequency.
Carl Unruh, who did not smoke anymore, much, was into his second pack of Marlboros. He stubbed his cigarette out in a sand-filled cannister ashtray, rubbed his cheeks to gauge how much longer he could last before finding a place to shave, then went back into the Situation Room.
The State Department was back down to one representative. The negotiation team had gone back to 23rd Street where they were making sweet talk with their counterparts in Moscow. They were pressing for details on the computer crash modeling program and on the Topaz nuclear reactor.