Ultra Deep

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Sure,” Brande told her, “and you get to drive. It’s about a three-hour trip”

  Now, eight hours later, DepthFinder was back on the bottom. During the crew and battery pack changeover, they had replaced SARSCAN’s fiber-optic tow cable, just to be on the safe side. Rather than switch to Sneaky Pete, Dokey had opted to use Atlas for the visual search, in addition to the sonar. The larger ROV used electrical power at a faster rate than Sneaky, but Dokey did not want to waste time on the surface making the switch.

  Within forty minutes of Brande, Otsuka, and Alvarez-Sorenson crawling out of the pressure hull, SARSCAN had been lowered back into a sea that seemed enraged, followed by the submersible.

  Rae Thomas was at the controls of the sub, Dokey was in the right seat, Bob Mayberry was in the back, and Brande was in the lab, hovering over the operations desk, worried.

  He had not worried much before.

  Not since the tragedy with Janelle.

  Brande knew that his emphasis on safety arose out of the simple accident that had killed Janelle. He and his engineers triple-checked, then triple-checked again, every design and every procedure.

  He was not worried about DepthFinder; Atlas, or SARSCAN.

  Maynard Dokey and Bob Mayberry had over 4,000 dives between them.

  Rae Thomas had probably dived over a thousand times in submersibles.

  But he was worried about her.

  Sitting there between Paco Sanchez at the acoustic telephone and Larry Emry with his search monitor, Brande was dimly aware of the beating of rain against the superstructure and the groan of the diesels as they struggled to maintain position in the worsening seas.

  His eyes were focused on the bulkhead above the workbench, and he was seeing pale blue eyes laughing with him, platinum hair spread against the pillow, remembering his fingers on velvety flesh, the soft cushion of her lips, the pulse of her throat, the heat in her cheeks. He loved the way she talked back to him, spoke her mind.

  Slugging himself mentally, Brande cursed his inability to stay away from her. This was precisely why he had passed his own law to remain aloof from his employees.

  …do you think you could love me, Dane?

  I’m trying my best.

  I’m being serious, damn it.

  Rae…

  I love you.

  And with the firm lips smiling at him from his own shadow and the light blue eyes studying him from the bulkhead above the workbench, Brande kept thinking of the thousands of tons of pressure being exerted on the hull of the sub.

  Threatening.

  “Dane?”

  He shook his head.

  “Dane?”

  He looked up at Polodka. “Yes, Svetlana?”

  “There is a telephone call for you.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Brande grabbed the receiver from the set on the workbench.

  “Yeah?”

  “Dane, this is Avery”

  Glancing up at the logging monitor, Brande noted that the submersible was at 18,650 feet of depth. Forward speed ten knots. All systems green.

  “Yeah, Avery, what’s up?”

  “We’re pretty certain the Sea Lion has located the rocket.”

  “What!”

  “The CIS ships are currently clustered at twenty-six, nineteen, fifty-nine North, one-seventy-six, ten, thirty-three East.”

  Brande spun around in his chair to look at Larry Emr/s monitor.

  “That’s outside our search area.”

  “Yes, just a trifle,” Hampstead said.

  “Shit. We’re on our way.”

  “Hold on. I need to talk to you a minute.”

  “You hold on,” Brande told him. “Larry!”

  Emry looked up from his keyboard.

  Brande repeated the new coordinates to him. “Set up a secondary search zone. Pass the word to Rae and Mel, and change course.”

  “Well head over there without bringing them up?”

  “Right. It’s only what, three miles?”

  “About that,” Emry said, grabbing a phone and hitting the intercom buttons for the bridge. “Okay, Chief, we’re executing now.”

  Brande turned his attention back to Hampstead. “The Russians reported the find?”

  “No. Washington has been interpreting the movement of ships.”

  “Christ! Why can’t those people just talk to us?”

  “Someday, Dane, we may figure that out. Right now, it looks like they’re onto something.”

  “We’re going over there”

  “Good,” Hampstead said.

  “What about the Eastern Flower? Have you talked to her yet?”

  “The Kane reports that her robots are still inoperative. They’re working on them. Cartwright’s en route to the new area, too.”

  “Hell, we gave them the programs.”

  “They’re having trouble adapting them. They’ve requested Otsuka again.”

  Brande wondered if Otsuka had not altered the program a tad before transmitting it to the Japanese ship. Nah… “Anyway, Avery, you had something else to tell me?”

  After a long pause, Haunpstead said, “I talked to my sister.” What the hell? “And?”

  “She said I should be true to myself.”

  “Nice sister.”

  “I think so. I’m going to introduce her to Kaylene”

  “Avery?”

  “I’m probably breaking laws I never heard of, Dame. The reactor is hot.”

  Brande put the phone down, but not on its cradle. He thought about Rae down there. And Okey and Bob.

  He lifted the receiver and pressed it to his ear hard, as if it would help him hear something different when he asked, “You’re sure?”

  Hampstead told him what he knew of the CIS modeling program.

  “Between six o’clock last night and midnight tonight?”

  “Yes, Dane. I’m sorry.”

  “Who’s the sorry son of a bitch that made the decision to not tell us?”

  “There’s a bunch of them”

  “Who’s your contact? The Unruh guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where is he?”

  “The Situation Room.”

  “You happen to have a phone number, Avery?”

  Hampstead gave it to him.

  Cutting the connection, Brande reopened it and told Bucky Sanders, who was on duty in the radio shack, to get the Washington number and ask for Unruh.

  “And Bucky, I want this piped into the ship’s PA system and over the acoustic phone.”

  “Gotcha, Chief.”

  The way Paco Sanchez and Larry Emry were staring at him, Brande realized that his voice had climbed a few octaves as he talked to Hampstead.

  Others in the lab had gathered closer.

  “Let me talk to Mayberry, Paco,” he said, taking the acoustic telephone.

  “Bob, you there?”

  “All bright and happy, Dane. Larry says we’ve got our target spotted.”

  “Yeah, we do. In a minute, Bob, you’ll be hearing a heated conversation. Listen carefully, then well talk.”

  “Okay,” Mayberry said, but his tone was dubious.

  The phone rang.

  Brande picked it up.

  “Dr. Brande? Carl Unruh here”

  “Are you there with all the people who make decisions, Unruh?”

  “Uh, yeah. Something the matter?”

  “Tell me about the state of the reactor,” Brande said.

  “Well, you probably know as much…”

  “What happens at 2400 hours tonight?”

  The hesitation lasted six or seven heartbeats. “Ah, shit. Avery caved in?”

  “In fact, Unruh, the damned thing could already be supercritical, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, that’s right, but listen, Brande…”

  “You’d better dig a hole wherever it is spooks dig holes because, when this is over, I’m coming looking…”

  “Hey, Brande! Think about the goddamned world for…”


  “Just like fucking ‘High Noon.’”

  Brande slammed the phone down. His face felt hot, flushed with the heat of his anger.

  He grabbed the desk mike and the acoustic telephone and used them both simultaneously.

  “Everybody heard that?”

  There was no answer. Despite the pounding of the rain and the whine of the diesel engines, the ship seemed unnaturally quiet.

  “Rae, prepare for ascent.”

  “Do we know for certain guaran-goddamn-teed that the thing has gone to meltdown?” Dokey asked.

  Brande hesitated. “No. What we know is what the CIS modeling program said.”

  “Which is? Tell me, Chief.”

  “It could have happened as early as last night. On the back end, they’re saying midnight tonight.”

  “The max is 2400 hours?” Emry asked from beside him. “Right.”

  “Anybody want to take a vote now?” Thomas said over the phone.

  “No damned vote this time,” Brande said. “We’re turning back”

  “Because you’re pissed as some flaky bureaucrat?” she asked. “Or because you don’t think we can do it?”

  Brande tried to calm down. Rae was right; he was mad as hell at Unruh and his ilk. One does not make decisions based on incomplete information, and he felt betrayed by those he had trusted to give him the right data.

  “Come on, Chief,” she urged.

  Brande took a slow, deep breath. “You’ve got the gavel, Rae.”

  “I forgot,” she said. “All right, new deadline, 2300 hours tonight. All the yeas be quiet. If there’s a nay in the bunch, shout it out so I can hear you over the phone. One nay is all it takes to turn one-eighty.”

  The silence of the ship continued to overwhelm.

  Overwhelmed Brande, at any rate.

  He grabbed the phone, “Bucky, get hold of the Olʼyantsev. I want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

  “You know who that is, Chief?”

  “Some goddamned general. Just get him.”

  *

  0210 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 19' 59" NORTH, 176° 10' 33" EAST

  Dmitri Oberstev was in the combat information center when the radio call came in.

  “I don’t wish to talk to anyone just now,” he said, keeping his eyes on the plotting board.

  “Oh, General,” Talebov said, “this man threatens to ram my ship if he doesn’t talk to you.”

  Oberstev took off his glasses and polished them, studying Captain Talebov. He appeared too earnest.

  “Very well.”

  He got up from his chair and crossed to a console, taking the headset of the man sitting there.

  “This is General Oberstev”

  “My name is Dane Brande, General, and I’m one mad son of a bitch.”

  “Brande?”

  He looked to Talebov, who said, “The American vessel Orion.ˮ

  “Yes, Mr. Brande. We ought to have thanked you for your chart…”

  “Are you really the head honcho?”

  “What?”

  “Are you calling the shots, Oberstev?”

  He finally got a grasp on the idiom. “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m tired of the goddamned games being played in Moscow and Washington,” Brande told him. “Do you want that bastard off the bottom or not?”

  Oberstev expelled his breath in the same amount of time it took him to make his decision. “I want it up, yes.”

  “Is it hot?”

  “Hot?”

  “Is it supercritical?”

  Oberstev mulled over the question. An easy question, a difficult answer.

  This decision was made. To hell with Vladivostok.

  “It may be, Mr. Brande.”

  “Traitor!” yelped Janos Sodur.

  “Just a minute, Mr. Brande.” Oberstev turned around until he found Alexi Cherbykov. “Colonel, would you place Colonel Sodur under arrest and confine him to his cabin? I’m sure Captain Talebov will provide a guard.”

  “At once, General,” Cherbykov said, grinning his approval.

  Leonid Talebov said to the duty officer, “Senior Lieutenant, call the master-at-arms.”

  Sodur made violent protests, accusations, and promises as he was led from the combat information center.

  “I am back, Mr. Brande.”

  “Have you located the rocket, General?”

  Oberstev again looked at the plotting board. “I am afraid not. We have found the left booster.” He read off the coordinates.

  “That’s it?” Brande asked.

  “Also the right booster. It is at five thousand, three hundred and five meters of depth, at coordinates two-six, one-nine, five-seven North, one-seven-six, one-zero, three-one East.”

  “That’s great!” Brande said. “It gives us a track to follow.”

  “Yes, we think so, too. Pyotr Rastonov has been working on it.”

  “In a minute, let’s put him on the air with our Larry Emry and let them work together.”

  “Very well,” Oberstev said, “it is a good idea.”

  “Now, tell me about that modeling program.”

  This Brande seemed very forceful, but Oberstev found himself responding with all he had learned from Piredenko.

  “The majority of the individual trials show the rocket taking an abrupt turn to the right immediately after it entered the water?”

  “That is correct, Mr. Brande. Apparently, to the computer, the odds are in favor of the rocket’s fins locking into a tight right turn.”

  “Damn,” Brande said. “I wish we’d known that sooner.”

  “They are only odds,” Oberstev reminded him.

  “But they’re all we’ve got to play with,” Brande countered.

  And General Oberstev had to agree.

  *

  0325 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 19' 59" NORTH, 176° 10' 33" EAST

  Bent over the radar, her forehead pressed to the hood, Dawn Lengren said, “There’s so many, Curtis. I can’t tell which one is the Orion.”

  Aaron was at the helm, fighting to keep the bow aimed into the oncoming waves. The windshield wiper slapped back and forth with irritating regularity, but it did not help much. The rain sluiced off the glass, making forward vision wavery. He had the foredeck spotlight on, but it only showed him one towering wave after another.

  It was cold. There was no heater on the flying bridge, and both he and Dawn were wrapped in parkas. Dawn had a blanket over her shoulders also.

  Dawn’s stomach did not seem to be affected by the turbulence, as it had been by alcohol, but the rest of his family were all below, sick as dogs. Donny Edgeworth had been heaving his guts for most of the night.

  It had not turned out quite as he had envisioned. For some reason, Aaron had expected a calm fleet of boats, all circled around his own as he spoke over a loud hailer. He had foreseen the culmination of his natural ministry. People listening to his logical discourse with awe. The television cameras recording sound bites for the six o’clock, the eleven o’clock, and posterity.

  His scripts were scattered around the bridge, wet and smudged.

  The reality was mayhem and chaos. There were ships all around, but he could not see them. They zigzagged all over the place. Several times, he had damned nearly run into fishing boats.

  According to the radio, there were a lot of Commonwealth and U.S. ships present, but they had only seen the one. Somehow, in fighting the sea, he had lost track of both Brande and Mark Jacobs.

  Still, he felt fortunate for the contact with the Navy ship. He knew Wilson Overton’s column, and thought that the reporter would give him a fair shake.

  It did not always happen that way. Reporters could be bitchy, especially the television reporters.

  And, too, Aaron thought that his conversation with Over-ton had helped to clarify his thinking.

  He knew what he must do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  0400 HOURS LOCAL, 26° 19' 58" NORTH, 176° 10' 34" EAST

  They had set up their own communicatio
ns net including the Timofey Olʼyantsev, the Kane, the Bartlett, and the Orion.

  And excluding CINCPAC and Washington, after Brande had responded to a radio call from Adm. David Potter.

  “What do you want, Admiral?” Brande snapped at the microphone. His rage was taking a long time to dissipate, mainly because he did not want to let go of it.

  He was in a chair at the workbench operations center in the laboratory with Larry Emry on his right and Mel Sorenson, who had relieved Polodka, on his left. Most of the ship’s crew and expedition team were present, sitting and standing as close as possible to the sources of information.

  Emry was talking on the comm net with Rastonov and Cartwright while Brande listened to Potter.

  “Brande, I’m going to put a dive team from the Kane aboard your ship. They’ll crew the next dive of the DepthFinder.”

  “Like hell they will.”

  “Listen, Brande, you’re a civilian. We’ll let people who are paid for it take the risk.”

  “Tell that tale to the assholes in Washington, Admiral. If your people try to board my ship, I’ll shove them back into the sea.”

  “Brande…”

  Switching off the frequency, Brande picked up the phone.

  “Bucky, get me the asshole.”

  “Chief?”

  “The Unruh guy.”

  Emry tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re getting a data transfer from the Russians right now.”

  “What data, Larry?”

  “All of the modeling scenarios.”

  “We can handle it with these machines?”

  “No,” Emry said. “They’re dumping directly to the mainframe in San Diego. I need to have the satellite channel dedicated to me.”

  “I’ve got one call to make, Larry, then it’s all yours.”

  A minute later, the phone rang.

  “Brande? This is Carl Unruh.”

  “Did you dig that hole yet?”

  “Not yet,” Unruh said.

  “Forget it for now. Do you carry a lot of weight, Unruh?”

  “Physically, yes. Politically, maybe.”

  “I want you to get on someone’s case and round up as many radiation protection suits as you can find in Hawaii. Put them on an airplane and airdrop them to us.”

  “Nothing’s flying low in that weather you’ve got, Brande. It’s too damned risky.”

  “There’s a couple hundred people taking a risk here, Unruh. What’s one more?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”