Ultra Deep (10 page)

My
God
!
What
have
you
idiots
done
now
?

*

1803 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 9' NORTH, 92° 32' WEST

Curtis Samuel Aaron was on the flying bridge of the
Justica
. He had kicked his running shoes off and propped his feet on the instrument panel. There was a chill breeze building, and Aaron could feel his skin puckering beneath his grayed white sweatshirt. There was a small rip in the knee of his pants, which had been designer jeans three or four years before.

Aaron stroked the beard he was so proud of — well tended and shaped like that of Kenny Rogers — and sipped from a lukewarm rum-and-Coke, the one drink he allowed himself daily. The cruiser’s ice machine had broken down, a victim of the neglect that had already affected one of the VHF radios and the sonar.

Aaron was fifty-two years old, and he felt good. He felt better about himself physically than he did about the rest of the world, which was deteriorating so rapidly that he sometimes feared he would outlast it.

The airborne crud of cities choked him. He would drown in the sludge coating the coastlines and clotting the rivers. Hiking the byways of America, he would trip over plastic sacks — and six-pack webs, falling to his death on the shrapnel of aluminum cans. His dreams, ever changing were full of such futures.

His disturbing and forbidding dreams prompted him to challenge those who disrupted nature, wherever he found them. It was necessary to clean up that which had already been dirtied, but it was imperative also to deter those who would further rape the planet.

Right then, his ire was directed at the two ships standing off the
Justica
by two hundred feet. George Dawson had stationed a crewman on the stern of the salvage vessel with a shotgun. The signal was clear to Aaron, and he had no intention of challenging a twelve-gauge. His battles had ever been verbal; there would not be a missile exchange of any kind between Oceans Free and those who interfered in the course of history and nature.

The submersible from the MVU research vessel had descended three times that day, and was currently still somewhere on the bottom. Rooting out that which nature and fate had planted, disturbing forces that would have long-term effects on the planet.

Aaron was certain of it.

And angered at his own impotency in preventing it.

Among the nine people of Oceans Free who were with him aboard the
Justica
, there were several who advocated storming the vessels.

The single shotgun, however, was deterrent enough. The most dangerous thing aboard the cruiser was a fishing hook.

Dawn Lengren, a can of Budweiser in one hand, was sitting in the helmsman’s seat, fiddling with the AM radio, trying to get some news. She had already found a broadcast out of Mexico, but no one aboard could speak Spanish.

A couple of the others finished cleaning the galley and joined them on the flying bridge. The several conversations taking place were acrimonious and mostly directed against the
Grade
. From below came the floating aroma of some kind of pie baking. Mimi Ahern was fond of baking and of desserts.

Dawn found a station.

“…independent experts contacted by this station say that the radiation could eventually encompass all of the Pacific Rim. Within hours of the news breaking, protests were being mounted in Japan, in Korea, in the Philippines, and in the Hawaiian Islands. Three persons were injured in Seattle when a so-called ‘Rally of Outrage’ in that city turned to violence.

“City and state governments along the West Coast have urged restraint and the patience to await more information.

“Fishing and shipping companies have tied up telephone lines to Washington in the attempt to learn more about the catastrophe. Fishermen from Alaska to Mexico were rumored to be planning meetings. The citizens of communities which could be affected by the ever-spreading contaminated water are panicky, and…”

Aaron was surprised to find that his feet were on the deck, and he was almost out of his chair, leaning forward, straining to hear the raspy voice on the speaker.

“Dawn, start the engines,” he ordered.

“What! Where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet, but we’ve got to hurry.”

Chapter Six

1845 HOURS LOCAL, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Kaylene Thomas met the
Orion
as she returned to her home port of San Diego. Brande and Dokey had landed hours before, but Brande had only called her from the airport to report that fact, then said that he and Dokey were headed for the San Diego campus of the University of California.

She stood in the open warehouse bay of Marine Visions’ dockside storage facility, wishing she were 600 feet down in the dome of Harbor One, part of which was her own creation. She should be there as the new turbines, which produced electricity from spinning their blades in the undersea currents, were moved into position on their steel mounts and brought on-line.

One of the nine original turbines had broken down irrevocably after two years of use, and fourteen new turbine-generators were scheduled to replace the originals. The new models, designed and fabricated by Dokey, Otsuka, Roskens and Mayberry, were constructed of stainless steel and carbon-fiber plastic and should last a great deal longer than the originals.

That was where she should be, Harbor One, doing the job she was hired to do. Instead, she was delivering food.

Food for which a magnificent bill would arrive within thirty days.

Around her, the MVU staffers she had cajoled into working late lounged on top of crates or on the dusty cement floor. There were seven of them, all males, and they looked slightly beat after unloading the trucks. Doug Vahrencamp, newly hired to work on the mining project, grinned at her. He was in his mid thirties and handsome in a red-haired way, like Van Johnson. He was unmarried and interested in her. She had turned down two of his dinner invitations because, to her way of thinking, anyone who worked for Marine Visions did not have much in the way of a future.

She picked up her cellular phone from the crate beside her and dialed a familiar number and ordered five pizzas and two cases of beer. MVU people thrived on late hours and beer and pizza.

Switching the phone for a walkie-talkie, she depressed the transmit button. “
Orion
, this is Mike Victory.”

“Go ahead, Mike.”

“Did you top off tanks, Mel?”

“Right up to the caps, Kaylene. You have any idea what’s up yet?”

“We’ve got a gang here to load you as soon as you’re alongside, Mel. Full replenishment of pantries and refrigerators.”

“That’s three months’ worth,” Mel Sorenson, captain of the
Orion
, told her.

“We just do what we’re told. Plus, we’re stocking up your replacement parts and batteries. We’ll load SARSCAN, too. Did you run systems checks?”

“Sure did, on the way in. Everything’s in apple pie order, darlin’.”

“Engines?”

“Super good. We’re ten thousand hours away from overhaul. Kaylene, you haven’t answered my question.”

“You did hear the news?”

“I heard,” Sorenson said. “That’s it?”

“I don’t know. You read between your lines, and I’ll read between mine.”

“You sure, darlin’? If that’s it, I don’t like it a damn bit.” Thomas did not like it, either, and she was not yet certain how she would react when Brande broke the news. No, that was wrong. She knew exactly what her response would be, and it disheartened her as much as it relieved her.

Thomas sighed as the research vessel eased into the pier, her cycloidal propellers deployed and stabilizing her. The twin-hulled ship was particularly beautiful to Thomas, who fell in love with practically any marine craft.

She was going to miss it.

*

1656 HOURS LOCAL, 18° 51' NORTH, 165° 44' WEST

Cmdr. Alfred Taylor sat in the wardroom with his executive officer, Neil Garrison. They were both attacking pork chops and slippery green peas, washing them down with tall glasses of milk.

They had eaten silently for ten minutes, each of them digesting the contents of the message broadcast to the
Los
Angeles
from the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet.

“What’s your best estimate, Neil?”

“I had Jorgenson run it, and I haven’t double-checked his numbers, but it looks like another thirty-five hours. Something over eleven hundred nautical miles. We’re tapped out at thirty-three knots, Skipper.”

“And what do we do when we get there?” Taylor asked.

“Find the damned thing, I guess. That’s what CINCPAC wants us to do.”

“Deep, deep,” Taylor said.

“I know. I don’t give us much of a chance, but I told Chief Carter to make sure his sonar equipment was in first-class shape.”

“Knowing Carter, it will be.”

“We could get lucky, maybe. Say it didn’t drop into some ravine that shadows the sonar signal.”

“I won’t count on it,” Taylor told him.

“Me, either.” Garrison chewed silently for a full minute. “What about the crew?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, Neil. I think we should tell them.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Garrison agreed. “It’s not like we had a choice, of course, but I’d want to know the water could be irradiated.”

“Maybe it won’t be,” Taylor suggested. He knew he was grasping at straws.

“That’s something else I don’t think we can count on.”

“How come we run all over the Pacific inside the same can with a D2G reactor and we have to worry about some puny thing the Russians lost?”

“Iʼm a naval engineer, not a philosopher, Skipper.”

“You suppose the guy who lost this thing is a philosopher, Neil?”

*

1815 HOURS LOCAL, GULFSTREAM EN ROUTE TO HAWAII

Avery Hampstead remembered he had promised Adrienne that he would attend a wrestling match she had arranged in New York City. Pulling a pad of Post-it-Notes close, he jotted himself a reminder to call her and cancel.

He hated to do it. He also hated wrestling matches, but he thoroughly enjoyed watching Adrienne making money the old-fashioned way. Conning people out of it, as it were. There were not many Hampsteads with her elan and guts.

It was still light on the other side of the porthole window, but all he could see were the tops of fluffy white clouds. Behind them, night would be creeping up.

Hampstead had been about to see Brande and Dokey off from Belle Chasse in his chartered Gulfstream when he thought about what he would be doing back in Washington. He would be sitting in his office, talking to a select group of people on the phone for the next couple of weeks.

And he had quickly decided that he could talk on the phone from anywhere.

From here, for instance.

He picked up the telephone receiver from the table in front of him and asked the radio operator to connect him with Langley on a secure transmission.

“Will do, sir. Do you need some coffee back there?”

“Any time you have a chance, that would be great,” Hampstead told him.

He felt guilty, all by himself in the main cabin of the C-20B VIP transport. It was operated by the Air Force’s 89th Military Airlift Wing, and it had a crew of three and thirteen empty passenger seats. He wondered which reporter would get hold of the voucher and crucify him in the press.

The phone buzzed softly and he picked it up.

“Your call, sir.”

“Thank you. Carl, are you there?”

“I’m here,” Unruh said. The scrambler made his voice a little tinny.

“I wasn’t sure I’d catch you in.”

“My couch is soft. I know it well. Where in the hell are you, Avery?”

“I’m not sure. But I’d bet most of the way to Hawaii, I think.”

Unruh did not seem surprised that Hampstead would head for the scene of the crime. “Did you talk to Brande?”

“I talked.”

“And?”

“And he’s going to pitch it to his people.”

“Pitch it! He’s going to pitch it!”

“What would you have him do, Carl? They’re civilians. They’re not like you.”

“Shit. When do we get an answer?”

“I don’t know, but you’ll be the second one to know what it is.”

“What if he won’t go?”

“Then, I think Admiral Delecourt will get to use the submersible.”

“Does he know how to use it?”

“I doubt it.”

“You’re probably right, Avery. Okay, look, the Russians are on the way.” Unruh gave him a rundown on the ships steaming toward the site of the crash. 

“I don’t believe any of those that you’ve listed are capable, Carl.”

“It’s mainly a show of force in the area, I suppose. We think they’re moving the
Sea
Lion
in from the Barents Sea. We’ll know more on that in a few hours.”

Avery Hampstead rummaged through his mental file drawers, found the submersible, studied it, and said, “The
Sea
Lion
is designed for seventeen thousand feet. They’re going to be late, and they’re going to be short of capability when they get there, Carl.”

“Maybe they’re optimistic? Hell, at least they’re on the move.”

The communications specialist came back and placed a mug of steaming coffee on the table. Hampstead nodded his thanks and loosened his tie.

“There’s another angle, Carl. They may be operating an acoustically controlled ROV from the submersible. That’s a possible approach.”

“Then they can do it?”

“They can find it, maybe. But I don’t know of any of their non-tethered robots that are big enough to do the job if the wreckage is in a tight place.”

“And we’re back to Brande.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s iffy?”

“Brande’s not, but his coterie of experts may be. You can’t blame them, Carl.”

“Yeah. Well, hell, it may all be academic, Avery.”

“In what way?”

“The nuke people from NRC, DIA, and the New Mexico study group have produced a very short report that says, one, meltdown is a certainty, and two, it could occur at practically any time.”

“Jesus. They don’t have a best estimate?”

“They do, but it looks slippery to me, Avery. No one wants to call it a guess, but they don’t want to have their names attached to a bad guess, either. What it says here, that given their projections of the design evolution from the Topaz Two, and given that there was a malfunction in the automatic controls on impact — they think that’s a certainty — the reactor will reach a critical point anywhere from 0100 hours September ten to 0100 hours September eighteen. That’s local time in the impact zone.”

“Oh, damn. Nine days from now.”

“A little over. That’s what they say. And it’s a hell of a broad range, Avery. I don’t know whether to believe them or not.”

“Does the President believe them?”

“Does he have a choice?” Unruh asked.

“All right. I’ll call Brande.”

“Don’t,” Unruh said.

“But I’ve got to.”

“Let’s not influence his decision with unreliable facts,” Unruh said.

*

2351 HOURS LOCAL, UNITED BOEING 767 OVER INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

Wilson Overton had not fully appreciated the potential reaction to his story until the wire and TV reports began to filter back from the West Coast.

He had spent most of his time, after the special edition hit the street, drinking endless cups of coffee in the city room with his editor, Ned Nelson.

Nelson mentioned a Pulitzer more than once, but Overton did not want to think about it or talk about it, as if either thought or speech might jeopardize his chances.

He was more concerned about what happened next. He had the political beat in the city, but this had gone international. He fretted and ripped increasing numbers of stories from the printer and forced a lighthearted banter with Nelson.

He had tried to run down a guy named Hampstead who worked with oceanographic research at the Department of Commerce, but had been told he was out of town.

Everyone was quickly getting out of town.

At nine-thirty, the AP correspondent out of Seattle reported that ten people were then hospitalized as a result of the mini-riot that had taken place in front of the seamen’s union hall.

Two thousand fishermen in the San Francisco Bay area had surrounded the CIS Consulate. They were making demands, but both demands and responses were somewhat incoherent.

At eight in the morning in Tokyo, the students were beginning to fill the streets. Extra police had been called to duty. Same thing in Seoul. It was going to screw up their balance of riots, Overton thought. The Korean students usually rampaged in the early summer.

The central thread running through all of the reports, Overton thought, was that people were angry and scared, but they did not know where to direct their anger or how to ease their fears.

Get it up! Get it up!

From where? How deep was it? No one seemed to know. Overton did not know.