Ultra Deep (4 page)

Irrespective of the professional and nonsocial relationship between them, Dane Brande’s form of leadership was one of her problems. Everybody in MVU had a title, but no one apparently reported to anyone else. There was no hierarchy, no organizational structure. Brande was the chief, and that was it. People working on one project shifted to others without an explained reason. Graduate students from various universities were taken on for short stints to gain credit and experience. People were hired on the spur of the moment for specific projects, then were retained after the project was completed. Job descriptions changed daily.

Thomas was hired as Director of Harbor One. That was still her title, and she was still more or less in charge of the sealab, but over time, she had somehow assumed the responsibilities of chief fiscal officer. It was as if the administrative side of the company existed in a vacuum, and it had sucked her in. In a real company, she would be CFO or executive vice president or something. Any time someone wanted to know how much money they had, or when the federal research funds were due to expire, they asked her.

And, damn it, she always had the information handy. She was too organized for her own good.

She looked again at the computer screen. It displayed a summary of current fund balances, expected expenditures, and anticipated revenues for each of the dozen projects now in an active status.

She shuddered, picked up the phone, and dialed 6 to get into the satellite communications channel that MVU leased at exorbitant monthly rates. That was a luxury that would have to go.

When she got the secondary dial tone, she dialed the number of the
Gemini
.

A gruff voice answered, “
Gemini
, Mason.”

“Greg, this is Kaylene Thomas. Is Dane around?”

“Hey, Kaylene. How you doing?”

“Fine. Dane?”

“Asleep. It’s after midnight here.”

“Get him up.”

“Geez…”

Five or six minutes of expensive satellite time went by before Brande reached the phone.

“I hope we don’t have another crisis, Rae.”

He was the only one in the world who called her “Rae.ˮ “Kaylene” just did not roll off his tongue quite right, he had once told her.

“Not if bankruptcy isn’t considered a crisis.”

“You’re doing the books, huh?”

“Who else would do them?” she asked. “I’m certainly not paid for it.”

“Give yourself a five-thousand-dollar raise,” he offered.

“Be happy to, if we had it. We don’t. Larry Emry wrote a check against the Titanium Exploration Fund, but we haven’t received the federal subsidy yet. I had to borrow from the operating account to cover it.”

“Good girl.”

“Good girl, hell. We’re going to be short of funds on payroll day.”

“I’ll skip my paycheck.”

“And we’ve got a million-two in notes coming due on the fifteenth of November,” she reminded him.

“I’ll bet we’re going to be short.”

“By seven hundred thousand. Damn it, Dane, our monthly outgo is now close to one-point-four million. Something’s got to go.”

“I can’t think of a thing that’s expendable,” he told her.

“I can.ˮ

“How about a garage sale?”

“Dane.”

“My grandma Bridget used to pronounce my name with that same kind of ice in it.”

“After you’d been a bad boy?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Aren’t you worried?” Thomas asked.

“Something will turn up. Maybe what we’ve got on the bottom here.”

Brande told her about the
Grade’s
find.

“There’s really gold? It’s an uncharted wreck?” Treasure

hunters in the Caribbean usually came up empty, having found wrecks that had already been picked clean.

“I think Dawson’s got himself a good one. We’ll know in the morning”

“Be careful,” Thomas said, feeling a dash of renewed hope collide with concern. The conflicting emotions were part of her tenure at MVU.

*

0352 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

The President paced.

The rest of them sat around the table centered in the Situation Room. Unruh and his boss, DCI Mark Stebbins, sat together on one side of the well-worn table. Adm. Harley Wiggins, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, faced Unruh and sat with his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his laced knuckles. The National Security Advisor, Warren Amply, was sprawled back in his chair, on the very edge of putting his heels up on the table, Unruh thought. Robert Balcon, who was the White House chief of staff, had the luster in his eyes dimmed by lack of sleep.

Fortunately, it was still a small group. Decisions would come tougher when it expanded to include necessary agency people and legislative leaders. Necessary to someone other than Carl Unruh.

Unruh had just briefed everyone on the events at Plesetsk, replaying the video and audio tapes.

“The Soviets have placed nuclear reactors in space before,” the President said.

“That’s true, Mr. President,” Admiral Wiggins said. “They’ve got a thirty-year history in the field. Most of them are very tiny and very efficient, with a lifespan of around five years. They produce a great deal more electricity than solar panels.”

“We bought one of their reactors a couple years ago, didn’t we?” Balcon asked.

“Yes,” Wiggins said, “we did, for ten million dollars. It’s a Topaz Two, and we set it up out in Albuquerque to be studied by the university, Sandia, and Los Alamos people. The reports have been good, and NASA wants one of its own for a manned expedition to Mars.”

“What’s the output?” the President asked.

“Of the Topaz Two? I believe it’s close to ten thousand watts, Mr. President. This one, however, is not a Two. It’s much larger.”

Mark Stebbins said, “It’s designated the Topaz Four. We’ve been following the development for some time, and Carl has the details.”

Unruh sat up straight. “The Topaz Two is six feet by twelve feet in size, and it weighs about two thousand pounds. The fourth-generation model is fifteen feet in diameter and twenty-six feet long. It weighs in at two-and-a-half tons, and we think it can generate up to fifteen-point-five megawatts, based on theoretical extensions of the device we have in New Mexico. We are not certain about the fuel load. Because of its size, we’ve been tracking it ever since it left the manufacturing plant.ˮ

Unruh looked around the table. “We are not certain, either, about the sensitivity of the controls.”

“What about cooling?” the President asked. “It seems to me that cooling is a priority with reactors.”

“The small machines use a combination of freon and heat pumps,” Unruh said. “On the dark side of a satellite, it’s extremely cold, and heat exchangers are used. With the Topaz Four, we’re not sure of the technologies involved.”

“It could melt down?” the chief of staff asked.

Unruh shrugged his shoulders.

“Assuming that possibility, what is the consequence for the ocean waters?” the President asked.

“I think, sir, we’ll have to call in the experts on that,” Unruh said.

“We need a great deal of information, it seems to me,” the National Security Advisor said.

“And fast,” the President agreed. “You look like you have an answer, Warren.”

Amply said, “Call the Commonwealth President and ask him.”

It sounded like a good idea to Unruh.

“Well, hell, Warren. Make it simple.”

The chief of staff got up and went to the door, opened it, and asked for a technician to set up the direct telephone connection, which was governed by its own computers. He ordered someone in the hall to locate a translator.

“What time is it in Moscow?” the President asked.

Unruh checked his watch. 3:56.

“It’s a few minutes before eleven in the morning,” he said.

“Good. Heʼll have had his breakfast”

“He probably had it much earlier,” Stebbins said. “They have celebrations planned for the whole day.”

“That’s right. The first of September.”

“The New Order,” Amply said.

“Not everyone will turn out. There’s still a sizable population who would rather remember the Great Patriotic War,” Balcon said.

While they waited for the telephone connection, Unruh doodled on the yellow pad in front of him. He could not get away from drawing rockets.

The President said, “Harley, while we’re waiting, why don’t you call the Chief of Naval Operations and see what we’ve got operating in the area?”

Wiggins nodded. “Subsurface vessels, Mr. President?”

“I think that would be the best idea, don’t you?”

It took forty minutes for someone to track down the Commonwealth President and get him to the right phone. Unruh and the others listened to both sides of the conversation, which was channeled through overhead speakers.

It took ten minutes to get through the protocol, courtesies, and small talk, what with the delay of interpretation. The two leaders had met in person twice before, and knew all about each other’s families.

Finally, the President said, “We understand that you’ve had a mishap in your aerospace program.”

With barely a hesitation, the Commonwealth President responded, “A minor thing, yes. We both experience mechanical losses, do we not?”

“We also understand that the payload was a … Topaz Four,” the President said, giving away a secret and possibly jeopardizing a source or two.

Unruh flinched.

Stebbins cleared his throat.

“Was it?” the Russian asked. “I had not inquired.”

Unruh did not like the way this was going.

“The reason Iʼm calling, we’d like to know something about the reactor. Maybe we can be helpful in the recovery.”

“I believe, Mr. President, that we can take care of it ourselves.”

“But… ”

“Thank you for your concern.”

The speakers in the ceiling buzzed a dial tone.

Chapter Four

1127 HOURS LOCAL, MOSCOW

Janos Sodur, a lieutenant colonel, was the junior officer in the room, but he was the loudest, Dmitri Oberstev thought.

The next loudest, his volume squelched by the frog in his throat, was Vladimir Yevgeni, member of the Parliament and protector of aerospace programs, morality, and history.

If not the loudest, Yevgeni was at least the most persuasive.

He had just persuaded the President to, as the Americans termed it, stonewall the President of the United States.

Oberstev was very tired. He had been up most of the night, and the events of the day were not the kind that made his life easier. He had tried to sleep on Yevgeni’s comfortable Ilyushin 11-76 on the flight to Sheremetevo Airport, but Sodur’s incessant conjecture for Yevgeni’s benefit had denied him that.

They were in a borrowed minister’s office in the Council of Ministersʼ Building inside the Kremlin walls, having left their initial meeting in a conference room when the telephone call from the United States was announced. Almost everyone with sufficient rank had trailed after the President. Sodur did not have sufficient rank, but he had an adequate supply of both naïveté and gall.

Oberstev stood by a corner window, listening to the half-dozen conversations taking place. He gazed upward at the high ceiling. One floor up, on the fourth, Lenin’s apartment and study were preserved for visitors, of which there were none. Outside the windows, a light snow was falling, beginning to coat the ground between the Ministersʼ Building and the tall structure next to it, the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet. From the corner office, Oberstev had a view of the Senate Tower in the wall. On the other side of it was the Lenin Mausoleum, facing Red Square.

Under the weak light of day, the gold and olive and silver onion-shaped domes glistened with the moisture of melting snow. Oberstev was acutely aware that all around him was the work of artists and architects who had flourished as early as the 11th century. The building in which he stood, uncomfortable in the over-heated space, had been built in the 18th century. While he appreciated the history and the accomplishments, it seemed incongruous for him to be there. He was, after all, driving headlong into the 21st century, shaping its history. A ten-century span, a thousand years. He wanted to be the man who completed the massive
Red
Star
space station. If possible, he wanted to be the man who initiated the first manned expedition to Mars.

Besides the President, Yevgeni and Janos Sodur, there were two national parliament members, six generals and two admirals crowding the room. A delegation of two from the Russian parliament had also infiltrated. Oberstev was beginning to smell them.

He leaned back against the windowsill, removed his glasses, and polished the thick lenses with a linen handkerchief.

Sodur was reiterating for the generals his conviction that the disaster was the result of sabotage. Not everyone seemed to agree with Yevgeni’s aide, but they could agree on one thing — it was a disaster.

“And on the first day of the celebration,” Yevgeni lamented, without mentioning that it was the wrong celebration for him.

“The Westerners infiltrate everywhere,” Sodur told him. “All it takes is a screwdriver left in the wrong place. A bolt partially removed. A…”

“The initial indication,” Oberstev interrupted, “is that the primary motor control computer malfunctioned.”

He was not about to reveal to this group, and at this moment, that human logic — his own — had overridden that of the computer.

“Exactly!” shouted Sodur. “A magnet! The agent had only to drop a magnet in the right location.”

“You are certain that foreign agents are in place at Plesetsk?” Yevgeni asked. “The security…?”

“I am certain,” Sodur said very soberly.

Oberstev shook his head. They always looked for someone on whom to place the blame, looking backward, when the moment called for looking forward.

The President apparently thought the same way. He lifted his hand to quiet the room, then said, “The causes may be examined at a later date. The consequences are of immediate concern. Chairman Yevgeni, you convinced me to tell the Americans that we can solve our own problem. How do you suggest we go about it?”

The old man turned to face the younger President. “The navy has recovery apparatus. Send them to it.”

It was always that simple, in the eyes of the blind.

Most of the eyes in the room focused on Adm. Grigori Orlov, who was commander in chief of the Commonwealth navy. A forty-year veteran, Orlov was heavyset as a result of his skeletal structure, but appeared trim in his uniform. He had large bags beneath his brown eyes, giving him a canine appearance. Senior Commonwealth military leaders who had survived imposed retirement or outright ouster were a strong presence in the balance of national power, and Orlov’s soft-spoken voice carried the weight of that authority.

“We do not yet know the location of the rocket,” Admiral Orlov said.

“But we do!” Yevgeni argued, more loudly and more insistently than was necessary.

“We know the coordinates of the impact,” Orlov countered. “We do not know what occurred after impact.”

Oberstev nodded his agreement and said, “Our last telemetry readings suggest that the vehicle was not tumbling and was still in its original configuration. That is to say, that the payload module, the primary rocket, and the booster rockets had not separated. All propulsion systems had ceased operation long before, but the speed at impact was four hundred and sixty kilometers-per-hour. It may have broken up upon contact with the ocean surface, or it may have entered the water cleanly. We do not know.”

“But you know where it struck,” Yevgeni insisted.

“After impact, it could have traveled a great distance under the surface, and in practically any direction,” the admiral said. “I suspect it could have traveled laterally up to five kilometers. In an area to be searched, that is more than fifteen square kilometers,” Orlov said.

“Impossible,” Yevgeni said.

“I am afraid that Admiral Orlov is quite right, Chairman Yevgeni,” Oberstev said. “That region of the Pacific Ocean is over five thousand meters deep. Almost six thousand, if I am not mistaken.”

“You are not,” Orlov said.

“That will present recovery problems, I suspect,” Oberstev said.

“Indeed,” the admiral told the group. “Our submarines cannot, of course, dive that deeply. The ocean bottom is extremely rugged, possibly preventing our ever locating the wreckage. At present, the only deep-diving submersible we have in the Pacific is at Vladivostok, undergoing repair.”

“We should have let the Americans help us,” Dmitri Oberstev said.

“I agree,” General Druzhinin, an air force deputy commander in chief and commander of the Rocket Forces, Oberstev’s superior, said.

“Never!” Yevgeni said.

Pod-Palcovnik
Janos Sodur grinned his agreement. His teeth were stained yellow from his smoking.

The President said, “The Americans referred to the nuclear reactor as Topaz Four.”

Oberstev did not doubt it. Secrecy was the plaything of a bygone era.

“It is as I said!” Sodur claimed. “Their agents are everywhere! Our complacency will lead to our downfall. Only by increasing our vigilance…”

He dribbled off into blessed silence under the stares of a dozen superiors.

The President let the silence linger as he looked around the room, studying each face.

Finally, he said, “Admiral Orlov, do we have submarines in the area?”

Orlov closed his eyes for a moment. “Within forty hours of transit time, I believe.”

“Order them to begin the search. Determine the status of the submersible at Vladivostok. If it cannot be made available immediately, arrange transportation for any other that is available, no matter its location.”

Oberstev thought that Orlov intended to make some kind of protest, then thought better of it. He left the room, shouldering his way through the throng of decision-makers.

“There is another course of action, if I might suggest it,” Janos Sodur said.

“And that is?”

“Leave it there. We need not tell anyone. What will it hurt?”

Oberstev cleared his throat. He thought that his voice might have squeaked a bit when he said, “That course of action is not open to us.”

“Why not, General?” Yevgeni asked.

“This nuclear reactor, Topaz Four, is unlike those that preceded it. I imagine that the automatic controls may have failed upon impact.”

“Meaning?” the President asked.

“Meaning that it will almost certainly achieve a supercritical state.”

“Supercritical state? What supercritical state?”

“The core will eventually become hot enough, then go into meltdown.”

*

0645 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

Avery Hampstead waited in the basement corridor outside the Situation Room.

He waited with a dozen other people, many of them in uniform, and all of them under the careful scrutiny of two resplendent and mean-looking marines. Because of some unspoken sense of dire national concerns, or maybe because of the stern countenance of the marines, no one in the hallway spoke to another. In fact, they barely looked at each other. They seemed embarrassed to be there. Or uncertain of which of them had the greatest stature.

After he had been there an hour, someone somewhere had made a decision about courtesy, and the White House-duty marines wheeled a stack of orange plastic chairs into the corridor and distributed them.

Hampstead had smiled his appreciation for a gunnery sergeant and collapsed on his chair. He was dressed in his own uniform, a dark gray wool suit, pinstriped with silver. His black shoes gleamed with paste and elbow polish. His shirt was so white, it looked boiled. The muted gray and maroon stripes of his tie befitted his party — Republican — and his position — undersecretary of commerce.

Though he was presentable, Hampstead had no illusions about his image. He was not handsome in the Hampsteads of Philadelphia family tradition. His face was elongated, and he had oversized ears, with great, dangling lobes. His square-cut, large teeth put William F. Buckley to shame, in a perverse way. He kept his dark hair cut short, though he would really have preferred styling it in a’60s Beatles fashion, to disguise his ears.

There was Hampstead family money, correctly accumulated in steel and railroads, but other than for his education and a Triumph TR-3 when he was an undergraduate, his father did not spread it lavishly among Hampstead and his four siblings. Hampstead earned his living, and he did it in a Hampstead tradition. Most of his ancestors, and two of his brothers and one of his sisters, devoted themselves to public service. It was an honorable calling.

His youngest sister, Adrienne, lived in New York City and promoted gargantuan professional wrestling matches. He loved her dearly.

From time to time, the door to the Situation Room opened and Chief of Staff Balcon or National Security Advisor Amply stuck his head out and beckoned someone inside. The room should have a revolving door on it, Hampstead thought.

He was called at a quarter of seven.

By Carl Unruh.

He had not even been sure that Unruh was in the room.

Hampstead stood up, stretched, tugged his suit jacket into place, and passed through the doorway. It was similar, he thought, to entering an execution chamber. Same effect on the senses.

There were over twenty people in the secured room — Senate and House leaders, Pentagon people, White House people. Unruh introduced him to the group, but did not bother providing the other side’s names. It would not have mattered, anyway. He knew who the President was, and he recognized the congressional faces, along with that of the Director of Central Intelligence, but he would have immediately forgotten the names of all the generals, admirals, and agency heads.

“Mr. Hampstead,” Unruh said, “is an undersecretary in the Department of Commerce. He is responsible for things oceanworthy, primarily in the areas of exploration and development.”

“Thank you for coming over so quickly, Mr. Hampstead,” the President said.

“Not at all, sir. I’m happy to cooperate.” With what, he was not certain.

Unruh indicated two upholstered chairs at the table, and they both sat.

“General Wiggins, would you brief Mr. Hampstead?” the President asked.

Wiggins stood up, and Hampstead vaguely recalled the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was built like an extremely short fire hydrant, and his voice rumbled around large pieces of gravel.

“Mr. Hampstead, first of all, what you learn here this morning is not for public consumption. All contact with the media, or with anyone else, will be made through the White House spokesman.”

“Certainly, General.”

Wiggins crossed the room to a large screen radiating a map of the northern Pacific Ocean. South of Midway Island, there was a red dot. The general picked up a pointer and pointed out the red dot.