The Titanic Enigma (23 page)

‘Minister?’ Zhu said.

Ling turned back to face the Minister for Scientific and Technological Information, reading a flash of superiority in his tiny black eyes. ‘There’s more, isn’t
there?’

‘The material from my contact in Virginia is incomplete.’ Zhu saw Ling glare at him. ‘That was, of course, made clear to us right from the start. My contact is as frustrated
and confused by it as you would expect. The point is, the rest of the mathematical material, theoretical work of Egbert Fortescue and perhaps other wonders might still be down there on the ocean
floor.’

‘After a century?’

‘The radioactive isotope and the first batch of theoretical materials survived.’

Ling took a deep breath. ‘Go on.’

‘It is not beyond reasonable doubt that there is more to be found down there.’

‘And the Americans will be going down again . . . perhaps many times. Yes, I see.’ Ling fixed his colleague with a hard, unflinching look. ‘We must act,’ he said.

Richmond, Virginia. Present day.

The team of six had been trained personally by Van Lee himself. They were professional mercenaries unhappy with their former employers and covetous of some serious cash.
Two were ex-SEALs; two others former SAS; a fifth had been a KGB operative; the sixth had served as a commander in the Israeli army.

Now entering their twenty-fourth hour of confinement holed up in a disused one-bed flat on the edge of Richmond, they had learned everything there was to know about their target. At the same
time they had got to know each other pretty well too. That’s what happens when you keep seven guys in a space the size of a truck.

They shared a mutual respect based on experience, and each of the men had proved themselves on successful jobs. They were Van Lee’s best men and they each knew the number one lesson for
any clandestine operation was that you had to watch each other’s backs or else you all failed . . . you all wound up dead.

Through his network, Van Lee had obtained plans, operational details and codes for every aspect of the NATO mission to maintain the Exclusion Zone around REZ375. He also had encryption matrices
and hundreds of hacked comms between the vessels and Operations HQ in Virginia.

After five stretches of four-hour intensive research programmes and protocol simulations, with an hour break between each one, the team knew every nut and bolt of the target, every name linked
with the target, every procedure and routine undertaken inside the target. They were ready to move.

They drove away separately from the tiny one-bedder five minutes apart and took slightly different routes south-east, seventy-five miles to the prearranged meeting point close to the west-bound
intersection of the 64 and Highway 17 near Hampton. Along a quiet track they found uniforms, kit bags, weapons, comms and official photo-IDs. They then boarded a registered naval bus, reference
number 2989 Omega.

Van Lee took the wheel of the bus and pulled on to the freeway that took them to Interstate 64, the Hampton Roads Beltway across to Willoughby Bay. Reaching the north shore, they followed the
curved five-mile stretch to Norfolk Naval Base.

The bus stopped at the main gate. The uniformed guard left his cabin and walked over. The hydraulics of the bus door hissed as it concertinaed. The guard stepped up.

‘Small team over from Annapolis,’ Van Lee said confidently. ‘Seconded for Operation Northerner.’ He showed his ID.

‘Where’re you headed?’ the guard asked, flicking a glance through the window.

‘I wanna park this tank,’ Van Lee laughed. ‘Then I want a shower, and a meal. Then I’m off duty and you’ll see me go thata way –’ he jerked his thumb
towards the road behind the bus ‘– and the nearest bar. Been in this fucking crate all day.’

The guard chuckled, saluted, stepped down to the road and paced back to his cabin. Van Lee drove on.

Two and half minutes later, the bus was drawing up on the dock. Six men jumped out; Van Lee parked then ran back to join the others. No one paid any of them the slightest attention as they
ascended the stern boarding ramp onto a small ship.

They knew the layout of the vessel down to the last rivet. Fanning out in pairs, they followed three separate routes along the corridors and down through the decks, converging with precision
timing at the end of Corridor F, Deck 3C, close to the bow. Van Lee stood at a locked door, ‘Storage Area 45’ written at head height. Using a forged magnetic pass card, he opened it and
they piled in, the last man pulling the door shut.

The space was smaller than the tiny apartment in Richmond and they each knew that now they were here, they would have to sit quietly in the ship’s hold for twenty-six hours, give or take
five minutes. Soon Derham and the marine biologists would be walking the decks above them, unaware of the danger beneath their feet.

The eastern sky had only just begun to lighten as USS
Armstrong
left Norfolk Naval Base and slipped out into the open waters of the eastern seaboard.

The ship was abuzz with activity, the crew of twelve working together like a well-oiled machine. Lou and Kate had nothing to do but prepare mentally for their second trip down to the wreck of
the
Titanic.

At 16.00 hours the mess hall was empty except for the ship’s cook, a stocky man with a white apron over his naval uniform. Kate and Lou pulled up a couple of chairs at a table. The chef
brought over two cups of strong coffee and was about to start chatting to them when Captain Derham appeared, asked for a coffee for himself and settled at the same table as the two scientists.

‘You seen the news?’ he said, nodding towards a TV on a shelf high up on the opposite wall. Neither of them had noticed it. It was switched on but the sound was muted. Derham picked
up a remote lying on a neighbouring table and flicked on the sound.

‘What’s up?’ Lou asked.

‘Watch.’

They could see a blue band stretched across the bottom of the monitor and the words ‘CHINESE FURY: EMERGENCY UN SECURITY MEETING’. It was CNN; a reporter was standing in a studio.
Behind her a vast image of Chinese warships cutting through fierce waves was projected onto the wall. Along the side of the picture ran a set of stats.

‘. . . but the position of the People’s Republic of China is clear,’ the presenter said. ‘In its statement to the UN, it demanded the immediate withdrawal of NATO forces
and the removal of the Exclusion Zone at REZ375. This has been categorically refused, thus prompting this extraordinary Security Council meeting.’ She turned to the image behind her and the
ships started to move. ‘The Chinese navy, known as the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, is a formidable force which includes ten nuclear subs armed with ballistic missiles. It
also has a newly built aircraft carrier,
Qu Yuan,
currently in the South China Sea.’

‘It was inevitable, I guess,’ Kate said as Derham pushed the mute button.

‘What they didn’t say, though,’ the captain replied, ‘was something no one outside the military knows. There are already two Chinese subs heading at top speed towards the
Exclusion Zone. They will reach it within sixteen hours.’

‘Oh . . .’ Lou grimaced.

‘And NATO has launched three nuclear subs that should get there about the same time.’

‘And this UN meeting?’

‘Typical panic diplomacy,’ Derham said. ‘They’re in session right now.’

‘And it will probably reach a typical Security Council stalemate.’ Kate looked from Lou to Derham, her jaw set hard. ‘The Brits and Americans on one side, the Russians and the
Chinese on the other and the French sitting on the fence.’

‘Possibly.’ Derham nodded towards the silent TV. ‘Whatever happens, I want us to be in and out of there before the shooting starts.’

‘You really think it’ll come to that?’ Lou looked startled.

‘I would like to think it won’t, Lou. But you can understand why the Chinese are annoyed, can’t you? It’s quite possible the Russians are on their way too. There’ll
also be a lot of satellite activity. The latest spy probes can be moved out of their orbits to get a better view.’

‘We’re due at the edge of the Exclusion Zone at 19.00 hours, is that right?’ Kate asked.

‘All being well. I suggest you get some rest. There’s nothing for you to do aboard ship and you’ll be starting a very tough shift from 21.30 when we run final checks on
JV1.
Meanwhile, we have a meeting at 17.00.’

At 16.58 they found the
JV1
pilot, Commander Jane Milford, already seated with notebooks and her iPad in front of her on a small conference table. She was dressed in a submarine
pilot’s jumpsuit and navy cap, wisps of short auburn hair just visible beneath the edge. She rose and saluted Derham before shaking hands with Kate and Lou.

The captain seated himself next to Milford and across from the two scientists.

‘So, sir, we have your resident geek to thank for this second trip down,’ Milford said, turning to Derham.

‘Kevin Grant? An arrogant sonofabitch, but a smart kid.’

‘Sure is . . . And you guys.’ She looked from Kate to Lou. ‘You OK about going down again?’

‘You kidding?’ Lou responded immediately. ‘Just get me in the fat suit and I’m there!’

‘OK then . . . down to business,’ Derham said seriously. ‘This trip is a little different to your first. As you know, of course, the
Titanic
snapped in two as it sank.
The two chunks dropped in opposite directions, which resulted in them ending up some 700 yards apart on the ocean floor. The bow section is at coordinates 49º 56' 49" W, 41º 43' 57" N;
the stern is at 49º 56' 54" W, 41º 43' 35" N. The tangled piece of ship that contains cargo hold 4 lies to the north-east of the bow section at 49º 56' 47" W, 41º 43' 66" N,
about 300 yards from where we landed on our earlier trip.’

‘It should actually be easier to get to than Fortescue’s cabin, though, right?’ Kate asked. ‘We won’t have to get into the ship and negotiate the
hazards.’

‘You’d have thought so,’ Milford replied. ‘Trouble is, the ocean floor around where the cargo hold is positioned is pretty unstable. You won’t have the problems you
had before with the risk of the ship crumbling around you, but the seabed itself is a mess. Annoyingly, cargo hold 4 landed on a nasty cracked-up patch.’

‘That’s bad luck,’ Lou commented.

‘The job is still doable, though,’ Derham responded. ‘But it will be a very dangerous mission, especially because of the suits.’

‘What about the suits?’ Lou asked.

‘We haven’t been able to get the integrity up,’ Milford said. ‘And because of seismic instability, we can’t land the
JV
as close to the hold as we would
like. That means the timeline for an EVA will be tight. We’ll have to park the
JV
some distance from the target and walk at least a couple of hundred yards, get into the hold, find
the materials, and get back to the
JV
within sixty-two minutes plus small change.’

‘Well, that’s what we have to do then, isn’t it?’ Lou said and swept his gaze around the table.

Milford stood up and walked over to a Smart Board at the end of the room close to a porthole. She clicked a remote and a detailed image of the ocean floor appeared. It showed an area of about
three square miles. In the centre lay the two main chunks of the wrecked ship. The larger piece, the bow section, which they had entered on the last mission, was positioned north-east of the stern
portion.

‘Hold 4 is here,’ Jane Milford said and tapped the Smart Board with a pointer. Using the remote, she expanded the image on the screen, closing in so that the two major parts of the
massive ship slipped away over the edge. About three hundred feet south-west of the hold, a narrow line snaked west then turned sharply north. It was a fissure in the ocean floor.

‘We can’t put down anywhere within a mile west of this crevasse. If we do, we run the risk of the hold going through the ocean floor, and if that doesn’t happen, the fissure
could fracture and send out smaller cracks in all directions. That, as you appreciate, would be catastrophic.’

‘Like being close to a magnitude seven earthquake, I reckon,’ Lou commented, staring fixedly at the image on the screen.

‘Correct,’ Milford replied.

‘OK,’ Kate said, shifting in her seat. ‘We obviously have to land to the east of the fissure, but as close to the hold as possible.’

‘That’s right. However, that presents us with two further problems. First, we estimate we can set down no closer than 300 yards east of the crack. Second, we have to cross the
fissure to get to the hold.’

‘How on earth do we do that?’ Kate asked, turning to Derham, then back to the commander.

‘We have to thank the science guys back at Norfolk Base,’ Derham replied. ‘The team who devised the LMC suits have made a super lightweight telescopic bridge.’

‘How wide is that?’ Lou pointed to the crack in the ocean floor.

‘About a hundred feet.’

‘What!’

‘The bridge is made from nano-carbon,’ Milford explained. ‘It’s about a thousand times stronger than steel but it weighs less than ten thousandths of a steel equivalent.
The bridge collapses down into a unit that can fit into a rucksack-sized container one of us will carry on our back.’

‘But the time factor is still a problem,’ Kate responded.

‘Yes, it is,’ Derham replied. ‘A serious problem.’

‘What about the hold itself?’ Lou asked. ‘It strikes me we could lose precious time if we have problems getting into it.’

‘That’s also correct.’ Milford pressed the remote and a schematic appeared. ‘This was lifted from the original plans and remodelled into a 3-D graphic.’ They
watched as the CGI rotated slowly showing the hold from every direction.

‘The lock is a very simple mechanism, as you’d expect. There’s an outer door, an airlock and an inner door. The lock itself looks pretty heavy-duty; again, you’d expect
that.’

‘Too right. There were plenty of valuable items on the
Titanic,’
Kate commented. ‘Some of the wealthiest people of the day went down with her; they had cash, bonds,
jewels.’