Ultra Deep (20 page)

He waited a few moments, spun the wheel to undog the door, then pushed hard. The hatch swung open, and salty water spilled down, splashing his shoulders, leaving dark, wet patterns on his uniform blouse.

Scrambling up the final rungs of the ladder, Gurevenich emerged into the bridge area of the sail. He stood upright, his head above the sail, breathed deeply of the salty air, and made a full turn as he scanned the seas around him.

“Unbelievable,” Mostovets said as he climbed from the hull and joined the captain.

The skies were dark, with a towering cloud bank blotting out the stars to the northeast. The seas were relatively smooth, with two-to three-foot swells. Wavelets crashed whitely on the hull.

But all around them were the red and green running lights, along with a few white anchor lights, of a mishmash of vessels. The nearest ship, off the port bow, appeared to be an interisland ferry, perhaps seventy meters in length. The porthole lights were lit in neat rows. Dozens of people strolled the side decks and leaned against the railings, staring outward at…what?

Gurevenich had never surfaced his submarine at sea among so many vessels before. It seemed dangerous for a craft that relied on stealth.

“Conning tower lights, Lieutenant.”

“Lights, Captain?”

“As I said.”

Mostovets gave the order, and the exterior conning tower lights came on, clearly illuminating the red star painted on the side of the sail.

Mikhail Gurevenich wanted these stragglers and gawkers to know that there was a CIS presence in the area. He did not quite know how to tell them that he would brook no interference in the performance of his duties.

The people aboard the ferry saw his lights and began pointing, more people running around the decks to gather on the nearest side, the starboard side, of the ship.

They began yelling at him.

Gurevenich’s English was not good, but he could distinguish some of the words, epithets.

“Bastards…planet-rapers…motherfuckers…pigs … assholes…”

Some of the people yelled in languages he could not fathom. Perhaps Oriental.

“What is it? What are they saying, Captain?”

“I believe they do not like us, Lieutenant Mostovets.”

“What? Why is that, Captain?”

Gurevenich knew the reasons, but he was forbidden to tell even his officers.

The ferry’s propellers went into reverse, and it began to back slowly in a wide circle, bringing the bow abeam of the submarine.

Around them, other watercraft, ranging from small cruisers to fishing trawlers and tramp freighters, began to converge on the
Winter
Storm
,

“What are they doing?” Mostovets asked, his alarm clear in his voice. “They would not ram us?”

In a hundred million years, Gurevenich would not have even considered that possibility.

Now, he was not so certain.

September 3

Chapter Nine

0120 HOURS LOCAL, PEARL HARBOR NAVAL BASE, HAWAII

Avery Hampstead was awakened by the night-duty officer’s banging on the door to his borrowed room in the bachelor officers’ quarters.

“Cut it out, goddamn it!”

“Sorry, sir. You’re wanted at the operations center immediately.”

Hampstead sighed. “Coming, coming.”

His schedule of sleep, normally cut-and-dried, had been so disrupted in the past days that, in addition to the time-zone slippage from Washington, his body did not know whether it was up or down, or should be up or down.

He crawled out of the narrow bed and stood naked on the carpet. The window was open, and a stiff, cool breeze puckered his skin.

Not having planned this trip to paradise, Hampstead had arrived without luggage. Admiral Potter’s aide had gone to the base exchange and purchased toiletries, underwear, and white cotton shirts for him. He noted a few wrinkles in his suit pants as he pulled them on, and he was getting damned tired of the striped maroon tie.

Crossing to the attached bathroom, he checked his face in the mirror. He could not remember when he had last shaved, but apparently just before he had crashed into bed. He decided to let it go.

He tied his tie leaving the room, walked the short corridor to the front door, and let himself out into the night. He felt like he was sneaking out of his frat house.

The three-block walk to the operations center was pleasant. The breeze caused the fronds of the palm trees to rustle. The grass bordering the concrete sidewalk had been recently mowed, and the aroma took him back a couple decades. The scent of exotic flowers — frangipani? Hibiscus? — was also riding the zepher.

Inside the operations center, not much had changed since he had left four hours before. Commander Evans was back as the watch commander. Admiral Potter was gone, properly abed, Hampstead assumed.

Four of the nuclear experts who had arrived late yesterday afternoon were drawn into a tight circle at a small table stuck out of the way in one corner. They all appeared sober and serious. Harlan Ackerman, a stocky, unkempt man with wire-rimmed glasses, shaggy beige hair, and sagging jowls, was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission representative, and he seemed to be dominating the conversation.

Hampstead took a quick look at the plotting board which seemed to be moving in slow motion then crossed the room to where Commander Evans was talking to a technician.

As soon as Evans saw him, he broke off his dialogue with the technician.

“Mr. Hampstead, thank you for coming over.”

“What’s up, Commander?”

“We’ve had a bit of a fracas, sir. Over in the area of operations.”

“Fracas?”

“A CIS sub — probably the
Winter
Storm
— surfaced, and several civilian boats tried to ram it.”

“Jesus!” Hampstead thought Evans’s “bit of a fracas” was very British. “Did they succeed?”

“We’ve been trying to straighten out the reports, all of which we’ve picked up from civilian radio transmissions on marine frequencies. The aerial surveillance was dropped as soon as night fell, and our ships patrolling the region were some distance away.”

Hampstead waited, patiently, he thought.

“The sub surfaced sometime after eight o’clock … ”

“Last night!”

“Yes, sir. Eight-twenty, our time, from what we can learn. At that time, an excursion boat and a trawler apparently attempted to ram her. We don’t think they were successful, though several passengers on the excursion boat claim to have felt hull contact.”

“Did they know who they were after, Commander?”

“I believe so, sir. The sub showed her lights. Several witnesses saw a red star on the sail.”

“You’ve notified the CNO?”

“Yes, sir, we have. But … this operation is a bit … chaotic. I don’t know what civilian agencies are involved, or are supposed to be involved, and I thought you’d better be informed.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Hampstead turned back to the large conference table, plopped in a cushioned and castered chair, and picked up one of the telephones available. He told the operator to connect him with the Situation Room at the White House.

A few minutes passed before Unruh picked up on the other end.

“Avery?”

“Yes, Carl.”

“I was in the little boys’ room.”

“It’s allowed. Did you get the information on the CIS sub?”

“Yes. It was channeled here from the Pentagon. I think people are getting very scared, Avery.”

“So what’s happening?”

Unruh coughed. “What else? Committees. The State people are preparing alternative responses in case the CIS lodges a complaint. The Navy is trying to determine what ships were aggressive and whether or not the submarine was heavily damaged. Bob Balcon has asked a bunch of marine legal experts whether or not we could send in some battlewagons and clear out the area. I expect that opinion to come down any month now.”

“Aside from all of that crap,” Hampstead said, “we now know the Russians are on-site.”

“True. The CNO has sent out cautionary messages to ship commanders.”

“Is there any way we can monitor their progress? The Russians?” Hampstead asked.

“As of ten minutes ago, a decision had been reached to sow the area with sonobuoys, probably right after dawn. I don’t know if that decision will hold.”

Sonobuoys dropped from helicopters or aircraft were remote sonars, transmitting their findings to shipboard or aircraft receivers where computers kept track of the readings.

“We might be able to determine their search patterns Hampstead said. “That would help our subs when they reach the area.”

“Maybe. And maybe that reactor is too far down for the subs.”

“I’m inclined to agree with that position,” Hampstead said. “Do the Russians have more than one submarine on the scene?”

“Not that we know about yet. But if they don’t, I’d bet there’s more on the way.”

“No bet.”

“How about the nuclear people? They get there?”

“Yes. Yesterday afternoon.”

“Any insights?”

“None that I saw or heard when I met and talked to them,” Hampstead told him. He shifted his position at the table so he could see the confab in the corner. “They look very serious, though.”

“We might have some additional help for them in a little while.”

“What kind of help?”

“Some…assets inside Plesetsk have gotten a message out to the effect that there’s a computer-modeling program being run on the results of smashing a Topaz nuclear reactor into the ocean.”

“Damn. Details?”

“None yet. We’re trying.”

“Would it be any good, if we did get the information?”

Hampstead asked.

“The man in charge is Pyotr Piredenko. He’s Director of the Flight Data Computer Center, and our dossiers say he’s tops in the field. Anything we could get out of his shop would hold some credibility, I think.”

“All right, good. Is there anything we’ve talked about here that I shouldn’t pass on to Brande?”

“Hell, Avery, I’ve lost track of what’s secret or not. Tell him anything you think he should know.”

“Before, you told me to withhold some information, Carl.”

“Yeah, but it’s all out now, and he’s already made his decision.”

“I hope it wasn’t the decision to die,” Hampstead said.

*

0445 HOURS LOCAL, 32° 33' NORTH, 135° 6' WEST

Kim Otsuka was up early, as usual. Despite the fact that the
Orion
would be losing about an hour a day as she crossed time zones, Otsuka would not give up her discipline of rising at four-thirty. Her best work was done in the early morning.

She had dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a windbreaker, then slipped out of the guest cabin she was sharing with Svetlana Polodka. Kenji Nagasaka was at the helm when she went through the bridge area, and she stopped to talk with him for a few minutes. He was twenty-two years old, with lanky black hair, and had a crush on her. He was a countryman, but other than that, they had nothing in common.

No one was tending the galley at that time of the morning, and she fried an egg for an egg sandwich, then carried it out to the narrow port-side deck to eat it.

Pink tendrils of dawn were creeping up the sky behind the ship. The wind was cold, and she zipped the windbreaker tight against her throat. The rushing whisper of the hull through the water was soothing.

Yellow light splashed on the side deck as the door opened behind her, and irritated at losing her privacy, Otsuka turned to see Dokey standing in the hatchway.

He stepped outside, letting the door close against his foot, so the wind would not slam it shut and wake others. He was wearing an older model sweatshirt featuring a teamster tuna in a “Caterpillar” baseball cap driving a canned people truck. He was holding two steaming mugs, and he handed one to her.

“Mornin’, Kimmie.”

“Thank you, Okey.”

She held the mug up and checked it against the light from the porthole in the door. It read, “Sit on my lap and well talk about…”

She turned the mug around. “… whatever comes up.”

“You have a dirty mind, Okey.”

He leaned against the rail beside her. “My mind’s all right. It’s normal. It’s all these people with subnormal, laundered minds that take the fun out of life.”

“You must build a robot that thinks the way you do.”

“I thought about it, but the trouble is, the damned thing would be programmed with my own fantasies. There’s no surprises there.”

Sipping from the mug, she felt the warmth course through her. It was good coffee, made with eggshells, and from the old-fashioned blue enamel pot that was kept hot twenty-four hours a day. Those who did not like it that way were welcome to decaffeinated instant coffee.

Otsuka leaned forward to put her elbows on the railing next to Dokey. They both stared down at the dark water swishing past the hull.

“I’m glad you came along with us, Kim.”

She laid a hand on his forearm. “It is better to be with my friends.”

“Damned right.”

He did not move his arm, but he did not place his free hand on top of her own, either. Despite Dokey’s aggressive banter and T-shirts and mugs, he was not really all that comfortable with women. She had noticed that about him.

She wondered what that robot, programmed with Dokey’s own fantasies, would actually…

“That’s it!” she cried.

“That’s what?”

“The problem.” She could visualize the thousands of lines of computer instructions, and she scanned them in her mind. “Your fantasies don’t work!”

Dokey stood upright. “They don’t?”

“No. And mine don’t, either. Not for
Celebes
. Come with me. Hurry!”

Otsuka led the way down the side deck, pulled open the door to the laboratory, and rushed inside.

“Okey, I need the S-twelve board.”

He knew what she meant. Stopping to grab a screwdriver and socket set from one of the workbenches, Dokey turned around and went back out to the port-side deck.

Otsuka walked back to the starboard corner of the lab. Five computer terminals were lined up there, each in its own small cubicle. The last machine was used primarily for programming ROMs, read-only-memory chips that were inserted into logic circuits. Some of the programming used with MVU’s robots was inserted into memory, or onto hard disk, after the robot’s computer was activated, particularly programming that was dedicated to a particular task. That was random access memory, and the programming instructions were lost each time the machine was shut down.

With Gargantua, as with the smaller robots, some instructions were permanently entered into chips, governing actions that were repetitive and not expected to change. The closure rate of the pincers, or fingers, for example. Or the degree-range of arc associated with an elbow movement, for another.

Otsuka turned on the last computer terminal and the one next to it. Shoving the extra chair out of the way and pulling the keyboards close together, she sat down and prepared to operate with both computers. Lifting the intercom handset hanging on the partition, she punched two numbers.

“Radio shack. This is Bucky.”

Bucky Sanders traded off watches with Paco Suarez. “Bucky, this is Kim. Please block other accesses to the satellite channel, and hook Terminal Four into it”

“You dialing into the IBM?” he asked. MVU had a leased IBM minicomputer isolated in its own room on the manufacturing floor in San Diego. It was utilized for the more massive programs, or for a higher calculation speed, when the stand alone computers were too small or too slow.

“Yes.”

“How long you going to be?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe hours. Dane will approve it, if you ask him.”