“How do you mean, Colonel?”
“Even before her parents’ deaths, she had fallen in with new acquaintances—a summer vacation, touring the Continent, France, Holland, Germany. I recall her father being quite worried about her new, radical ideas—”
“Anyone in particular?”
“No, there I have no idea.”
“You say France, Holland, Germany” —Sweetman subconsciously touched the copies of the letters still folded in his breast pocket—“were any of these new friends in Amsterdam? Do you think she’s in Amsterdam?”
“I am sure she had been through Amsterdam, Mr. Sweetman. Holland is not that large a country is it? I cannot say for certain where Leslie Renfro is today; not a case of her disappearing. Quite possibly, she is on the Continent. In fact, I heard some time ago from a mutual acquaintance of the Renfros that she had been taken in by John’s brother and his wife in Malta.”
The tip of Shostak’s metal rule reemerged in Sweetman’s mind. He returned to the coupe and encoded a message that would pass from London to Fisker for Pierce.
Chapter 12
“I’ll be damned if I know what the hell blew those cameras!”
“Don’t worry about them. The replacements will be here next week. We will keep meticulous logs; there is really no need for the television monitors, you know.”
Tooms cuffed one of the dead overhead monitors, “You’re right, Princess. Damned near see us from the surface as it is.” He ducked beneath the CO2 scrubbers, flipped open the catches on the face of the charcoal air filter and, satisfied with his inspection, snapped the face back into place. His forearm swiped at the sweat trickling down his face. It was hot and humid in the metal cylinder despite the cold air being blown through the access trunk from the mother ship. He glanced at his partner, Leslie Renfro, running through the habitat’s main electrical board checklist. Cool as a cucumber; how the hell does she do it? Aboard the catamaran she had the reputation of a perfectionist. In Malta, during the crossing, she had driven Tooms and the rest on every phase of the expedition.
On the curving bulkhead over the worktables of the habitat’s laboratory space, she had mounted the charts of the expedition site, the salinity tables, the sediment tables showing the clayey-silt overlaying the fine-grained sand of the bay floor, phytoplankton tables, bar charts summarizing the sources and trends of pollution over the past decade, and depth, tides, and current charts. Her large-scaled chart of the site’s oyster bar, with a clear plastic overlay of the research grid lines to be run during the first days’ underwater work, was taped to the worktable.
With Tooms, she had modified the layout of the habitat, with the storage space previously reserved for scores of oxygen and helium bottles during deeper saturation dives turned over to the equipment of the bay dive: cases of sample bottles, instruments shipped in from the local institutions, a five-drawer file cabinet, tubular steel spools holding thousands of feet of braided buoyant nylon line to be carried underwater, paid out from the work chariots’ cargo decks during the Phase One construction of the grids, and the large white cylindrical canisters marked RENFRO RESEARCH.
This gear was stowed at the end of the habitat furthest from the access trunk. Closer to the trunk, on the right side of the chamber, the laboratory was neatly placed, together with the banks of meters, panel lights, and switches for atmospheric control and treatment, electrical power, illumination, and communications with the surface support ship.
Crew quarters lined the left side of the cylinder, curtained, double-decked bunks, clothes lockers, a compact galley, curtained shower and toilet, and a large open-faced locker for wet suit storage. On the bulkhead beside the heavy rubber diving gear, tables spelled out the number of divers’ decompression stops required from bottom to surface, a safety measure she had taken even though the expedition would be limited to average depths of forty feet or less, with no danger of nitrogen buildup.
Six thick, conical, acrylic plastic viewports dotted the habitat’s steel pressure hull. The steel grid dock for the work chariots was hinged into place on the exterior of the habitat’s base and lashed against the hull for lowering into the bay. When the habitat was below the catamaran, with its footings solidly on the bay floor, the docking deck would be opened at a right angle to the access trunk, permitting efficient transfer of divers and gear between the habitat and the submersibles.
“This freeze-dried food reads right fine in the press kits—”
“Starring feels his press conference was a success?”
“Flawless. We’re sitting pretty, Princess—on location, big splash already on the nets, the glossy weeklies still to come, a month’s breathing space. As I was saying, I don’t know about you, but I’m having steak and trimmings catered from topside.” Tooms surveyed the interior of the freezer, closed the brushed-chrome door. He gave the entire interior another slow look. “She’s in good shape, ready to go.” He stopped at the bulkhead dividing the bunks from the main working spaces. Full-profile line drawings of the Towerpoint Partner and Towerpoint Mayan were mounted above the navigator’s charts of the northern and southern halves of the bay. She had covered every phase, recorded the tankers’ schedules, plotted their projected tracks in the bay’s main channel, the site and timing of the ceremonial links with the big ships, which Starring attached so much importance to . . . what detail had she missed? . . . What detail? Goddammit, not like her to have those cameras out, and what the hell purpose does some of that detail serve?
They troubled him from time to time, these Maltese dolphins. Mixed in with their good work were the hours they remained closeted in her cabin. His cynicism—his envy—had tried to write it off to another generation’s morals, group sex. But not day after day. Jesus . . . a hard trio to fathom . . . her bolts of crusading language, some sort of hybrid Carrie Nation/Joan of Arc . . . goddamned expressions on Tonasi and Head, looked like they both belonged behind bars half the time . . . hard to fathom. They were getting the job done; he suppressed the fleeting dark thoughts.
“Leslie”—Tooms plopped down on one of the stools at the lab table—“what you have going for you is your modest ability to do everything! You’ve got this show under control; it’s a smash hit. Starring’s pleased. I owe you one hell of a lot. Goddamnit it’s hot . . . stun a Finn in this sauna.” He snatched up a towel, blotted his head and neck. “The thing of it is, you’re a throbber, a real throbber. There’s no rest in you, and . . .” His eyes caught the cameras again, the questions returned. “Christ!” He lumbered to his feet, wrestling with the need not to question, not to insult. “You know, I watch those hands of yours; things come alive in them. I swear you could turn lead to gold.”
She received his floundering words with a cool smile of attentive silence. It had taken years, the discipline of the huntress and the hunted. She had learned that discipline, how to lock her emotions away, to pursue her quarry. She had steered Head and Tonasi to the new target. Together, they had allowed Tooms and Starring to create their roles. Now, they were positioned. She listened, and when Tooms had finished his ramble of affection, she smiled. “The habitat is set, Oats. We should be back on deck; it’s much fresher there . . . high time to sink this can, that is what you call it?” She slipped down through the access trunk, back onto the deck of the catamaran.
The swallow-tailed white and blue, signal Alfa/Alpha flag, ‘I have a diver down, keep well clear’ was at the Towerpoint Octagon’s yard when the habitat began its bubbling descent into the translucent green-brown of the bay. The cables of the ship’s crane paid out until the cylinder’s legs settled on the bottom, stirring a cloud of sediment which spread to the surface and carried away on the current.
Four divers in scuba gear—Head, Tonasi, and two members of the ship’s crew—went below in inspect. The legs were squarely on the bottom with the access trunk well clear. Head’s voice came up on the radio from inside the cylinder, reporting the status. If topside agreed, they would set the work chariots’ docking platf
orm.
Tooms gave the go-ahead. In twenty minutes, they were back on the surface and lifted aboard. Tooms scratched out a quick message reporting the first success to Starring, who had already departed for New York with Tina and her coach, having left strict instructions with the chief scientist for detailed status reports on every evolution prior to his return on the evening of July 2.
In the early afternoon, they were on deck again. “Well, my mermaid and two boys on a dolphin, we’re ready to roll, July first, on target, damned proud of you.” The ship’s crew secured the crane slings to the first of the work chariots. Still on deck, Renfro and Tonasi prepared to climb into one submersible, Tooms and Head into the other. The results of weeks of intensive preparation crystallized in the crisp responses to the pre-dive checklist.
“Emergency ballast secure?”
“Secure.”
“Main propulsion clear?”
“Propulsion clear.”
“Rudder clear?”
“Rudder clear.”
“Diving planes clear?”
“Planes clear
“Structural damage?” Their hands and eyes ran along the sixteen-foot hulls, including the bottoms.
“Clean.”
“Marker buoys secure?”
“Secure.”
“Salvage lift padeye?”
“Padeye clear.”
“Cargo deck, clamps, clear?
“Clear.”
The checklist moved to the interior of the open fore-and-aft, two-seater cockpits. In each submersible, the pilot faced forward, the crew aft. A manipulator arm was fitted to the rounded bullet nose of each craft. From the bows, the smooth hulls ran to the cockpits, rising on the upper surfaces in streamlined, hydrodynamic contouring, providing for the instrument panel housing.
The two compartments of each cockpit were divided by a narrow bulkhead, wide enough to house reserve oxygen supply, contoured to receive the back-mounted twin scuba tanks of the divers. By facing aft, the crew had ready access to the cargo deck. A green light, button-activated, on the panel of each compartment provided the visual, intracrew communications, with the numbered sequences of flashes indicating forward, stop, submerge, and surface.
“Batteries?” Tooms boomed out the checklist item. The gauges flicked positive for each of the eight, silver-zinc batteries packed in oil in their compartments at the base of the hulls. “Batteries check.”
The calling of the list and the responses continued: instrument panel illumination, sonar, gyrocompass navigation display, depth gauge, emergency ballast release, diving planes controls, rudder control, throttle, reserve air supply, external light forward, and light aft.
“Manipulator?” The two chariot skippers reached forward, flicked the activator switches. Both of the three-jointed metal claws mounted on the bows went through their exercises. A push forward on the control, and the hydraulic command sent the claw in an outward reach with smooth extension of the finely machined metal wrist, elbow, and shoulder. A retraction of the control, and the arm folded back against the submersible. A turn to the left, and the metal wrist rotated to the left. A thumb pressed on the “pickle” in the center of the control knob, and the claw opened, thumb released, the claw closed. “Manipulator check.”
“Hopleaf?” Tooms stomach was shaking with laughter beneath the wetsuit. They checked one another’s diving gear; they were ready for the water. The slings were secured to the second work chariot. The crane operator tested the double load, raised the submersibles a foot above the deck . . . rigging sound, raised them higher, then up over the railing into the center well. The blue-and-gold hulls grew smaller, seemingly more fragile, as they dropped through the shadows between the hulls. The operator again jockeyed his controls, testing their buoyancy on the surface. They rode well and were rafted either side of the catamaran’s work boat.
“A nice breeze, surface is calm; your expedition is underway, Dr. Tooms.” She and Tonasi stepped easily into the creases of the two slings the crane had returned from the well and rode down to the surface. The slings returned for the other team.
“Taking on ballast, going to operational buoyancy.”
The trim tanks filled with bay water until the submersible rode with only the panel fairing, the tip of the rudder, and the divers’ heads and shoulders above the surface.
“Propulsion.”
“Propulsion.” The work chariots’ propellers responded instantly to the command of the electric motors. They eased forward, clear of the work boat. A Towerpoint photographer worked both still and motion picture cameras recording the official start.
“This ain’t the Mediterranean. Turbid’s an understatement, more like minestrone soup. Use your heads. Stick to the game plan; get used to traveling surfaced”—Tooms bellowed his instructions—“then we’ll take ’em down and run them through their paces.” They slid out into the bay.
Constant shoreline erosion and influx of river sediment combined with the rich marine plant and animal life to create the murk which limited visibility beneath the surface. The low yield of ambient light, the apparent contradiction with the bay’s bountiful yields, were central to Phase One of the expedition. Visibility targets would be arrayed above the nylon grids to be suspended just above the bay floor. The submarine photography would be taken systematically, then shipped to the institutes to be processed and catalogued by date, time, location, and reading. In parallel, during Phase One, the divers would collect subsurface water samples, and measure the dissolved oxygen, salinity, and temperature . . . the ingredients of the minestrone.
The water swirled past Leslie’s shoulders; the submersible felt easy in her hands. She cut away from Head and Tooms, scanning the navigational displays arrayed across the instrument panel. She was running northwest, paralleling the Western Shore, with the luminous, magnified bubble face of the magnetic compass swinging between 330 degrees and 335 degrees. The miniaturized gyrocompass was a showpiece product of Towerpoint ocean engineering, shipped out to Malta during the fitting out for the expedition. The submersible’s heading appeared in the form of a grid display on the center of the panel, with high-intensity yellow-green light beaming the readout across two feet of water to the eyes of the pilot.
To the right of the gyrocompass, a second rectangular display, in high-intensity orange for contrast, gave the submersible’s location in relation to the network of sonar buoys, which had been anchored at the trapezoidal corners of the expedition’s site as soon as the Towerpoint Octagon had steadied on her anchors.
The hard sole of her neoprene boot pressed down on the starboard rudder control. The grid displays flashed the new headings; the compass swung through 355 to 0 to 15 degrees. The motor fed more power, with increased throttle. The pressure and gurgle of the surface water increased. The work chariot was now at four knots, maximum speed. She throttled back, then gave the submersible maximum speed again. The displays held steady. She was satisfied; it was sound.
At the end of the first hour, the two work chariots lay still in the water on either side of the work boat, five hundred yards from the catamaran. Following a conference, the teams were underway again, the first to the north, the second to the south to minimize collision risk.
Tonasi gave his mask a reflex adjustment with the “submerge” signal of the communications light. They were a third of a mile from the main channel in forty feet of water. The light of the subsurface faded rapidly as the submersible dove to twenty-five feet. She held at that depth, steering a course from south to west. The cool pressure of the bay forced past them, the rhythmic inhale/exhale of their regulators, the flickering readouts of the instruments, and the nudging play of the foot and hand controls shaping the submarine world in which they were traveling.
She surfaced, running at three knots, the blue and white catamaran a small dark triangle to the north. Tonasi pushed out of his seat and turned against the flow of the water. He pressed his mouth close to the side of her head. “She’s good! She’s good!”
/> The pilot gave a vigorous nod, swung the work chariot toward the main channel, still running on the surface. Another dark form was on the horizon. Tonasi saw it at the same time she did. She altered course, jerked her thumb down, hit “submerge,” and the chariot dove. She leveled at fifteen feet, the bright green-and-orange displays playing before her as they pushed through the dark-green wall of water. They ran for five minute before she surfaced again.
The loaded black-and-ocher hull of the ladened, oncoming ore carrier lay ahead, off to the right. She altered course, went down to fifteen feet and leveled. The run continued in the blindness. Her pulse thumped against the wetsuit. She bit on the mouthpiece, held her breath steady, eyes locked on the displays, suppressing the urge to surface.
The first faint throbbings of the big ships propeller and machinery cut through the rush of the water. The noise built quickly, steadily, as the submersible pressed ahead. Her left foot punched the rudder control. The compass spun from 30 back to 355 degrees. The water darkened. The thrashing of the propeller crashed in their heads as the first turbulence of the passing hull enveloped the chariot. They rolled sideways, down into the darkness, leveling at forty feet with another fifty feet still beneath them in the main channel. She brought the chariot around to 270 degrees, eased back on the joystick bringing the chariot on a gliding ascent to the surface. The ship’s green-and-black stack spewed a trailing black smoke which half obscured the stern.
“Japanese.” He was again at her shoulder. She spat out her regulator, pushed her mask back on her forehead. The submersible was running surfaced for the catamaran. “Handles better than I had expected, Filippo, sensitive—”
“I was up, on my feet, both hands on the cargo deck from the first sound of the screws . . .”
She twisted against her back tanks to look at him. “And?”
“Okay, okay. Locked my legs against the curve of the cockpit; I can work.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Here the bastards come.” The catamaran crew had spotted them; the work boat was closing rapidly.
A Death in Geneva Page 19
