Ultra Deep

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Come with me a little, Dane,” Dokey said, “This son of a bitch is heavy.”

  Brande glanced over and saw that Dokey was using full thrust on the robot’s lift motors.

  He tapped in forward power and the submersible slid forward, the towing cable draped downward, and the ROV reached the hull of the submarine.

  It took almost ten minutes to maneuver the ROV around the bitt, pulling the cable around with it. It slipped off twice, and got hung up on the crossbar once. Finally, the claw worked the hook downward and snapped it on the cable.

  “That bastard better not come loose,” Dokey said.

  “It will not,” Dankelov said. “There is too much weight on it.”

  “Give everyone a progress report, Valeri.”

  Dankelov lifted the telephone and said, “Atlas has secured one end of the cable to the Los Angeles.”

  No one replied, perhaps in fear of interrupting the concentration of the crew in the submersible.

  “Dane, I don’t think we want to cut loose all of the coils,” Dokey said. “Atlas won’t take all of the weight.ˮ

  “All right. Just get one coil and the hook. I’ll carry the weight until we’re done. Valeri, tell Gurevenich we need to have him move in closer.”

  “She is down another seven feet, Dane. The Winter Storm also should come in lower.”

  He checked the sonar readout, which had been changed to the port-side screen. “Good idea, Valeri. Tell him to lose about three hundred feet and come ahead a hundred yards.”

  Brande could not understand much Russian, but he heard where Dankelov converted the measurements to meters.

  Valeri Dankelov had never liked the English measurement system.

  After Dokey had cut a plastic tie and had the other hook gripped firmly in the ROVʼs claw, Brande advanced toward the sub, then turned ahead of it, toward the west.

  The tow cable only allowed him to move fifteen or twenty feet before it slowed him to a stop.

  He pumped water ballast aboard, and the submersible began to descend.

  The snout of the CIS submarine slowly appeared on the screen.

  “Tell him another fifty feet, Valeri.”

  Dankelov translated the direction.

  The sub moved slowly, but Brande kept a firm grip on his controls, ready to dart sideways if necessary. He did not want any collisions.

  Dokey advanced Atlas toward the foreign bow even before Gurevenich slowed it to a stop.

  The towing bitt appeared on the ROV screen, and this time, Dokey had the cable secured in eight minutes.

  “Getting pretty damned good,” Brande told him.

  “I was always good, Chief”

  Twelve minutes later, with the rest of the loops cut away from beneath the submersible and the ROV back in its sheath, Brande told Dankelov, ‘Tell Captain Gurevenich that the towline is secure. I would like to have him come slowly up by two hundred feet, as well as move dead slow astern”

  Brande backed DepthFinder away as the Soviet submarine began to move. He trained the video camera on the space between the two vessels and watched as the towline rose out of the depths then began to tauten.

  “Tell him to go easy, Valeri. It may not be the strongest cable in the world.”

  Brande rotated the sub until the Los Angelesʼs bow came into view.

  As they watched, the towline straightened, seemed to hum. Brande held his breath, waiting for the cable to snap.

  The Los Angeles began to move.

  “We feel movement, DepthFinderTaylor reported. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” Dankelov said over the transceiver.

  “Good work,” Sorenson told them from the RV.

  “Valeri, tell Gurevenich we want to hold the tow to less than three knots. Let’s not let speed overcome caution.”

  Brande kept pace with the American sub, rising slowly as the forward movement on the diving planes forced it upward.

  He took the phone from Dankelov. “Rae, you there?”

  “Here, Dane.”

  “It’s going to take about an hour. When she surfaces, I want the Bronstein to take over the tow. They’re going to have to keep her moving to keep her on the surface until they can get some pumps going.”

  “Captain Dewey will probably have to get orders from twelve different places,” she said.

  “He’s got an hour to do that. Or when I meet him, I’ll shove his ship up his ass.”

  “I’ll be happy to pass that word,” she said.

  *

  0304 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 20' 38" NORTH, 176° 10' 47" EAST

  The seas were rough. Long, deep swells with tall, white-capping waves threatened to wash over the bow of the Queen of Liberty.

  The weather canvas had been installed around the sides and back of the flying bridge, but briny spray occasionally breached a gap in the old canvas, and the deck was wet and sloppy.

  A white-faced Donny Edgeworth sat in the helmsman’s seat and tried to keep the bow headed into the oncoming breakers. He was mostly successful.

  Dawn Lengren and Julie Mecom had gone below long before and taken to their bunks. Both of them looked green, but Aaron thought that Dawn’s illness was related more to the beer she had been drinking. She was usually pretty seaworthy.

  Curtis Aaron stood near the forward windshield, his hand wrapped around a grab bar. He was not particularly worried about the weather. It would probably pass over soon.

  The Queen and Jacobs’ Arienne had both caught up with Brande’s research vessel shortly after it had stopped near the Navy ship. At first, when the submersible was lowered into the sea, Aaron had thought they had arrived on the scene of the crashed rocket, but Dawn, who had been checking the navigation positions, said it was probably the submarine that was sinking. Those reports had been on the radio for a couple hours by that time.

  The flotilla of Navy ship, research ship, Queen and Arienne had been drifting westward for over an hour, making just enough headway to keep from broaching in the seas. There was no radio traffic on any of the channels Aaron could monitor, and in the darkness, not much to be seen.

  “There!” Edgeworth yelled, pointing with a skinny finger.

  “Where?”

  Searchlights from the Navy ship suddenly came to life, and the ocean was bathed in bluish white. In the path of one light, Aaron saw a conning tower breaking the surface.

  “Damn,” he said, “they got her.”

  “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.

  *

  0325 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 20' 38" NORTH, 176° 10' 51" EAST

  “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?”

  *

  0543 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 20' 37" NORTH, 176° 10' 41" EAST

  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.”

  *

  2115 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

  “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

  0915 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

  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.

  The CIS foreign ministry negotiators, on the other hand, were pressing for charges against the excursion ship that had attacked the Winter Storm and for removal of the civilian ships that were hampering the search efforts.

  They had yet to settle on mutual topics which might be negotiable.

  The Defense Department was well represented this morning. Benjamin Delecourt and Harley Wiggins had been buttressed by the Secretary of Defense, three service secretaries, and generals from Navy, Marines and Air Force.

  They had shown up last night, as soon as Unruh had reported the new meltdown data to the DCI, the National Security Advisor and the President.

  The Senate and House attendees had not been advised of the foreshortened timetable.

  No decisions had been reached, more than twelve hours after the National Security Agency had finished interpreting the computer tape.

  Unruh’s nerves grated from the inaction.

  The plotting board appeared to be suffering from the same inaction. The movement of ships seemed infinitesimal. To the west of the impact zone, the Kirov and Kynda task forces had not moved. To the east, the Navy task force out of Hawaii was still en route, but had slowed down by order of the President, who had finally come to his senses, in Unruh’s perception.

  Within the zone were the four research vessels — Kane, Bartlett, Orion and Eastern Flower — and the converted Timofey Olʼyantsev. Their movements were sluggish on the chart as they inched along after their deep-diving submersibles and towed sonar gear. All of them were being dogged by civilian ships that had sailed northeastward from the media-broadcast impact point as soon as the research vessels began to follow their search patterns in the true impact zone. Kane had reported that a large yacht loaded with media people was staying close by.

  The Navy’s DSRV had finally been repaired, and
along with its cable, was en route to Hawaii from San Diego. Current forecasts, however, predicted that the weather would not permit a parachute drop of the robot to the Kane.

  The actual area of the search had been tinted blue on the electronic display. It formed a trapezoid with the parallel sides running north and south, two miles long on the western edge — longitude 176° 10' 6". The eastern boundary had been set along longitude 176° 10' 50", about thirteen miles east of the point of impact. That side of the trapezoid was twelve miles long, extending as far south as latitude 26° 19' 55".

  After discussions with the oceanographers aboard the Orion and an apparent argument with CINCPAC, the Navy people aboard the Kane had refined the area, based on what they knew about the angle of the rocket as it hit the sea. If it had not broken up immediately, they estimated that, with its fins for stabilization, it could glide up to twelve miles.

  Based on information recorded from the sonobuoys, the CIS submarines had been covering a much larger area, and Unruh hoped the Russians did not know something the American experts did not know.

  A few subsurface geologic formations had also been indicated on the display, resulting from information forwarded by the Los Angeles before her accident and from the Houston. The site of a shipwreck, probably dating from World War II, had been identified, but it was southwest of the search area.

  As reports came in from the research vessels, channeled through the Kane and CINCPAC, the technicians were beginning to display a few negative numbers. Depths of 17,000, 18,000, and 19,000 feet were starting to be shown. Just from the spacing of the numbers, Unruh could picture an exceptionally rugged sea bottom.

  To the south of the search area, with the bottom right corner of the search area extending over it, was the suggestion of a deeper canyon.

  Unruh remembered standing in downtown Colorado Springs once, looking up at Pikes Peak. The tip of the peak was 8,000 feet above the city, 14,000 feet above sea level. That view had been awesome. Thinking about the reverse, depths of 20,000 feet, stretched the imagination to the breaking point.

  Picking up a sugared donut from the stainless steel cart, Unruh carried it over to the table and sat down next to Mark Stebbins. His dietary regimen had gone to hell, and he was afraid to face a scale.