Protocol 7 (28 page)

The sheer physical size of the space needed to transport the Spector impressed Simon all over again. The eight-inch-thick cloaking material made it even bigger, but still, the vessel was much larger than the loading hatch above it. At the moment, it crouched on the deck like a dangerous thundercloud being held captive.

The team was close behind him and completely cowed, looking at Spector VI with a mixture of awe and terror. The gigantic vessel looked nothing like what they had seen in the holographic image. In real life it was menacing—harsh, sleek, and mechanical. Donovan shouted from above deck. “Guys, looks like the storm will hit sooner than expected. We have to speed things up.” The roar of the Munro’s engine surged even higher—though Simon hadn’t thought that was possible—and the feeling of speed pulled at them more strongly than ever. The Spector VI, still in its cloak, swayed slightly in response.

“Time to unwrap our present,” Simon told them. “We’ll need everyone’s help.”

This was another process they had discussed and trained for. Each of them carefully moved into position to unlock the connectors that attached the sections of the fabric.

As Max started to open his section of the cover, he got his first good look at the reflective “smart skin” that covered the craft, and his eyes opened up in absolute amazement. Fascinating, he told himself. It was both translucent and metallic at the same time, and absolutely without temperature—not cold, not warm, not even cool. It exactly matched the temperature of the air in general, and of Max’s own fingertips, so it felt rather unusual. Even his time in Special Forces had not exposed him to anything like this.

Hayden grinned as he looked over at Simon, whose contribution to the surface materials used on the Spector was pivotal. Simon shrugged easily and gave him the “go ahead” gesture.

“What you are looking at is an intelligent surface,” Hayden said, “thanks to research that was originally done by Simon. Once we turn this baby on, you will not be able to see it. The surface is charged with super molecules that not only conceal and mimic the environment but they are also intelligent.”

“Intelligent?” asked Samantha.

“Yes,” Simon answered, “but to activate the surface molecules to their maximum potential, the mainframe of the Spector needs to be fully functional, and that means going inside and powering up.” He turned to Hayden and almost bowed to him. “Hayden?” he said. “Would you do the honors?”

Hayden reached into his pocket and took out a device the size of a small cellular phone. He moved his hand across it to reveal the remote console. He spoke into it: “Hayden Sebastian Paulson,” then wrapped the device’s wristband around his right forearm, close to the wrist.

“Hayden Sebastian Paulson acknowledged. Welcome.”

“Welcome to you, Spector VI. Open up, please.” He motioned everyone to step aside, and what felt like a long minute later, the vessel shifted its skin like a recoiling insect. Layers of the exterior shifted, revealing what seemed to be a hybrid of a submarine and a tank. The metallic blue material resembled molded steel but seemed different than that somehow—more like fabric in some places and ceramic in others. The name was etched on the side in letters that glowed slightly and seemed to stand away from the surface itself: Spector VI.

The vessel automatically opened its hatch doors and turned on its interior lights. Hayden climbed up the molded steps to the hatch and entered, barely pausing long enough to motion for everyone to follow. Max, with a look of absolute focus, motioned for everyone to get in. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before. Bring only your life support gear and essentials.”

The Munro started to sway more vigorously than before. Many of the team lurched and grabbed for handholds for support, trying to balance themselves, but the message was clear.

“We need to get this thing out of here sooner rather than later,” Hayden said. “Or something very unpleasant is going to happen.”

Blackburn’s chopper descended in the pitch-black darkness of the early morning sky, completely undetected by radar as it approached the giant iceberg off the coast of Antarctica. The special landing pad floating on the ocean less than two hundred feet from the ice made it especially dangerous for the pilot to navigate the descent. Blackburn knew that this would be his last chance. It would take him eight hours to reach the asset, and if this time he was unsuccessful, he would not have another opportunity. As the chopper descended, he and his team geared up into the special suits that would shield them from radar and satellite detection. They were used to this procedure, and it was necessary for the secrecy of the mission. The chopper contacted the launch pad, magnetically connecting to the moving structure, and they felt the violent surge of the ocean as they exited. Twenty-five seconds later, the four men entered into the launch pad through a special hatch underneath the aircraft. As the door closed behind them, compressing the air to create a watertight seal, the chopper detached, disappearing silently like a ghost. Then, with a deafening hiss, the launch pad submerged into the icy waters in less than a minute.

The Spector had been fully provisioned for a six-week test cruise before it had been concealed in the Munro’s hold. The first thing Samantha and Ryan did was check to make sure the rations—stored in the same space that had been designed to be taken up by military gear—was filled and secure, and that the oxygen tanks were topped off and ready. They were. Then they moved to their second set of objectives even as the rest of the team made their way inside.

Andrew helped Nastasia climb aboard. She was carrying a small satchel. As she entered the first alcove, the satchel she was clutching onto fell from her hands. It hit the deck with a soft exploding sound, and the contents skittered across the floor.

Embarrassed and slightly annoyed, she moved quickly to gather the scattered belongings. Andrew bent to pick up a small white inhaler that had shot halfway across the alcove.

“Give me that!” she said frantically.

He looked up surprised and handed it over immediately. It was a standard, flat white inhaler used by people with asthma or other lung disorders. In fact, a lot of drugs were delivered as aerosols these days; it was simple, cheap, and sanitary.

“Sorry,” he said briefly. “Just trying to help.”

Nastasia colored for an instant, then composed herself. She took the inhaler from him as if she was receiving an offering. “I apologize,” she said, her Russian accent thicker than normal. “I am slightly embarrassed by my…condition.”

“No need to be,” he said. “I—”

“Come on, people,” Simon said sharply. “Let’s get moving!”

All the team members—now the crew—had assigned tasks, and they got to them now with a sense of renewed urgency. There was little conversation and no time for small talk. The pressure was mounting.

It took less time than they had anticipated to convert the experiment monitoring consoles that lined the bridge into actual work stations for team members who were taking over for the sidelined AIs. In less than an hour, Andrew and Ryan had rigged an eighty-inch holo-screen just in front and above the captain’s chair to deliver a direct feed of the visual data that the wireless cameras were receiving from outside the ship—a virtual picture window of the forward view, eighty degrees wide, just as Max had insisted on. He could even pan left and right an additional fifteen degrees each way, for a full one-hundred-twenty degree arc.

“That’s more like it,” he muttered as he ran his forward-facing holo-screen through its paces.

Barely more than an hour after boarding, the new crew of Spector was released to explore their tiny quarters and prepare for entry into the frigid Southern Sea. Simon, Max, Hayden, and Andrew found themselves alone on the bridge.

“Do you think we should tell the crew before we do it?” Andrew asked Simon.

Simon had thought it through. “No. There’s nothing they can do but worry.”

It was time to activate the power source—the incredibly powerful, dangerous energy system that had caused the military and the British government to make the decision to send the Spector halfway around the world for its initial test.

It truly was black-and-white decision, Simon knew. The power plant would either work as planned, or a fraction of a second after activation it would vaporize everything within a quarter-mile sphere of the source-point, leaving absolutely nothing behind—not even hard radiation.

Simon glared at the panel that would do the work. “So?” he said. “Turn it on.”

Hayden looked up at him from the console and said, “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said grimly.

“You’re positive?”

“Hayden, for god’s sake, just do it.”

Hayden smirked. “I activated the damn thing two minutes ago. We’re fine.”

For one instant everyone froze. Then Andrew burst into laughter, and everyone else joined in.

Everyone but Simon. There was nothing to laugh about—not yet. And one ugly task still lay ahead.

He forced a thin smile and said, “Max? We’d better get this done.” Then he turned away and drew Max to a far corner of the bridge while Hayden and Andrew double-checked the power curves.

“You’re sure there’s no other way to do this?” Simon asked his old friend.

“I’ve been over it and over it,” Max said. “And no—there’s not. Look, Donovan seems like a good man; I’m as sorry as you are. But even if the weather were better—and it’s not going to get better, Nastasia says, not for at least a week—we can’t have the Munro operating that winch and powering up those systems in broad daylight, or even in the dead of night.” He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“It’ll work out okay, Simon,” he said. “Everyone will be fine.”

Simon nodded. What was to come was certainly the worst part of their mission so far.

He turned and told the others to finish the prep checklist and to double-check the full operational capabilities of the forward and aft cutting tools. Andrew and Hayden both nodded obligingly. “We’re going to talk with Donovan for a moment,” Simon told them. “Then…we’re off.”

They came back to the floor of the hold and began to cross to the hatch at brisk pace. Simon had rehearsed the speech in his head a hundred times, but now the words were coming to him at a snail’s pace. Everything sounded slow and contrived. How could I have let it come to this? he asked himself.

He brought his hand up to the keypad that would open the door to the corridor—

—and the door slid open all by itself, revealing Dominic Donovan and his nameless lead engineer standing in the hatchway, looking inside, staring at the fully revealed Spector VI as if they were looking at the angel of death.

Shit, Simon told himself silently. Shit! He and Max crowded out of the hold, physically pushing the captain and his lead engineer up the corridor, and keying shut the hold behind them.

“Captain,” Simon said quickly. “You are not seeing this!”

“What the hell is that thing?” Donovan asked, clearly shocked at the site of the massive submersible. He knew he was transporting some type of military machine, but what he was staring at was beyond his wildest imagination.

“I’m telling you: you didn’t see it. It can only cause you a great deal of trouble for the rest of your life.”

Donovan stared at him for a long moment…then nodded slowly. The lead engineer behind him seemed absolutely frozen.

“Look,” Simon said, hating himself, “I’ve come to give you some bad news.”

“Bad…news…” Donovan echoed, losing track of the conversation entirely.

“There’s no easy way to say this. We need to get…the cargo…out of this vessel now.”

“Impossible,” Donovan said, regaining at least some of his composure. “I’ve got a Category 4 storm outside, we can’t possibly operate the winches.”

“I know that,” Simon said. “But the fact remains, we have to release the cargo now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Donovan said, dismissing him. “If we don’t use the winches, you’d have to cut a hole the size of Texas in the bottom of this…”

He stopped himself. He looked at Simon and put all the pieces together.

“You’d have to scuttle this ship,” he said.

“Yes,” Simon answered. “We would. We are.”

“Like hell—”

Max stepped forward, much harder, more aggressive. “Captain!” he barked, and pulled the older man up short. “There isn’t any choice. We’re inside; it’s programmed. And nine minutes from now our cutting lasers are going to peel open the hull of this boat to make a hole wide enough for us to escape, simple as that.”

Donovan was absolutely stunned.

“Get your crew to the lifeboats,” Simon said. “Now. You can activate the beacons—we will activate the beacons—as soon as we’re clear. We’re not far from patrolled territory; you should have a rescue plane homing on the GPS in no time and be home for dinner.”

“Without my ship, you mean,” Donovan said, seething.

“Yes,” Simon answered, calm and smooth as the ice itself. “Without your ship.” He looked at Donovan squarely in his face, “You know the protocol. You’ve sworn secrecy to her majesty’s military, and the last thing you and your crew can do is speak a word about this procedure.”

Donovan opened his mouth—ready to argue, ready to threaten. Simon put up a hand, surprised at his own certainty and calm. “There’s no other way,” he said. “If you care about your life and future—if you care about all the people in there and out here—you won’t waste time fighting with me. You’ll just get everybody to the lifeboats. No one needs to get hurt. Everyone can be safe. But you have to move NOW!”

“But—”

“The damage is done. We will be cutting open the hull in—”

He glanced at Max, who glanced at his chronometer. “Seven minutes now.”

Donovan stared daggers at him for ten more seconds…then tore himself away. “Son of a bitch,” he said, and pushed his lead engineer down the corridor. “Go, go!”

Simon and Max turned away; Max keyed open the door to the hold and Simon stepped in first. Max didn’t like the look on Donovan’s face; he had dealt with too many people in situations like this—situations of life and death that caused people to do irrational things. He was definitely worried.