Dangerous Ground

18. IN EARNEST

June 11, 2005

Techeniye Guba, Novaya Zemlya

Late that afternoon, Jerry programmed the Manta for the fourth and last sortie. He still wondered about the barge they’d found earlier, but he wasn’t curious enough to go back and take a closer look.

He’d done enough diving to know that going inside a wreck was always hazardous. He’d never done it himself, but had heard plenty of horror stories about wreck divers who had come to grief. It was interesting, and exciting, and he’d try it someday, but not on an unknown vessel in foreign territory. Add the likely risk of radiation poisoning and it became a Very Bad Idea.

As they took stations for launch, Jerry didn’t know what to hope for. If they found nothing, Patterson would become even more frustrated. But he couldn’t feel sorry for someone who was hoping for bad news — especially someone who needed it for political gain. And the practical part of him, a very large part of him, actually, reminded himself that hoping wouldn’t change what was actually there.

Still, as the Manta ran its pattern, he found himself watching the screen as closely as he could. Nothing turned up for over two hours. When they finally detected something, though, it wasn’t the Manta.

“All stations, control, we have a Bear Foxtrot close aboard,” said the control room phone talker with urgency. With Memphis in shallow water, an ASW plane in the neighborhood could become a nightmare.

“Rig ship for ultra-quiet,” announced the IMC. Jerry could hear the ventilation fans being secured as Memphis stove to reduce her acoustic signature.

Hardy’s voice soon came on the sound-powered phone circuit. “Mr. Mitchell, I’m moving Memphis to deeper water immediately. How quickly can you follow with the Manta?” Even as Hardy asked the question, Jerry felt the sub begin a gentle turn to port.

Jerry still had over half the battery on the Manta. “I’ve got about four hours at ten knots. That’s my best quiet speed,” he added, anticipating Hardy’s next question.

“Then do it, mister. My speed will be five knots, course zero seven five.”

“Course zero seven five, U-bay aye.” Jerry killed the search program and sent a command to the Manta to head east. He also sent it as deep as the bottom allowed. Like Hardy with a smaller version of Memphis, he felt exposed and vulnerable in shallow water. At the same time, also like Memphis, he couldn’t use higher speed to escape to deeper water because the wake from the Manta’s passage might be visible on the surface.

“Sonar, U-bay. Where is the Bear now?”

“U-bay, sonar. He’s passing down our starboard side. To the south, passing west to east.”

Hence Hardy’s angling Memphis slightly north. Jerry mimicked the larger sub’s movements and ordered the Manta to the same course. He was more interested in avoiding detection than rejoining Memphis at this point. He had the range and speed to get it home.

The most immediate threat was a MAD detection. The Bear Foxtrot carried a magnetic anomaly detector in a short stinger on its tail. Memphis’ seven thousand tons of steel created a significant bend in the local magnetic field. With her so shallow, if the plane passed within half a mile, it would probably get a MAD hit.

The next biggest threat was sonobuoys. Would the Bear drop a field? Why would it choose this spot to do so? Was it looking for Memphis because someone had detected them? They hadn’t encountered any ASW planes in the nearly two weeks they’d been in the Kara Sea. Was this just a random patroller? Was it on a training flight?

Jerry got that “submariner feeling,” the urge to crouch, an itch between his shoulder blades that could only be scratched by deep water. He mentally plotted an intercept with Memphis and adjusted the Manta’s course accordingly. As it moved away from the shore, the water depth increased and Jerry concentrated on hugging the bottom. It not only reduced the Manta’s detectability, but it gave him something to do.

With the Manta in a tail chase, it took over an hour to reach Memphis, still moving away from the coast and heading for deeper water. Hardy slowed just long enough for Jerry to recover the Manta and then he increased speed, moving farther and farther away from the coastline.

Jerry headed up to control, curious about the Bear. He found Hardy and the XO standing over the plotting table, occasionally staring at the plane’s track on the fire-control display, or at least the portion that Memphis had observed. Several classified documents were open, including one titled Russian Northern Fleet Operational Deployments, 2003–2004.

Bair read from another booklet with a red-striped cover. “The nearest airfield known to have Tu-142 Bear Foxtrots is at Arkhangelsk. That’s about six hundred miles as the seagull files.”

“That’s a long way to come,” Hardy commented darkly.

“Not for a Bear, sir. He’s got great legs. But it’s a good distance for a training mission, about an hour and a half each way.”

“If that was a training mission, they almost hit the jackpot. I don’t like it, XO, it’s too damn coincidental.”

“What would they have done if they’d spotted us?” asked Patterson.

“Reported us. Sent more planes to track us,” ventured Hardy.

“Lined up the Northern Fleet across the north edge of the Kara Sea,” added Bair. “They’d be mad as hornets to find us here, but they’d also do everything possible to keep us from leaving, at least until they had proof of our presence.”

“But we’re in international waters,” protested Patterson.

Hardy answered, “If they detect us, they may or may not get a good fix on our position. We certainly wouldn’t do anything to help them. Skirting the twelve-mile limit like we’ve been, a Russian commander would be reasonable to assume we’re in his waters — or have been — until proven otherwise. We, or more properly, the U.S. Government, would have to provide proof that we weren’t. And along the way explain why we’re there at all.”

“Messy. Embarrassing.” Bair commented.

“And bad for the mission.” Hardy added. “If I had my druthers, Doctor, I’d head north right now and call it a mission.” Seeing the panicked expression on her face, he quickly added, “But I owe you one more Manta sortie.” His expression was grim as he said it and he cautioned, “But we will leave the area the instant we’ve finished searching Techeniye Guba, or if I see another Russian naval unit. I get the feeling we’ve used up our good luck.”

They remained in deep water, well off the coast, for several more hours. There was no point in returning any sooner, because the Manta had to recharge its batteries.

As the UUV neared its full charge, Hardy brought Memphis back in position at little more than creep speed. He picked a spot that put the Manta in range of its search area, but also left Memphis a short distance from deeper water, or as deep as it got in the Kara Sea.

The launch was routine, although as it lifted off, Jerry could feel his nerve endings extending out into the Manta. In the back of his mind, he was calculating how quickly he could recover the vehicle if another Bear appeared.

With Hardy keeping Memphis on the sixty-fathom curve, it took the Manta half an hour to reach the near edge of the planned search area — the last one. Although Jerry paid careful attention to the display, he couldn’t keep from thinking about the end of the mission and marking the time left until the Manta was finished.

Just over an hour into the search, Emily Davis came into the torpedo room. Her manner was anxious and hurried, although she’d walked softly because the sub was at ultra-quiet routine. She came straight over to Jerry. With a dead serious expression, she said, “You have to come with me to control, Jerry.”

Puzzled, Jerry replied, “I can’t leave my station while the Manta is out searching.”

“Yes, you can. You have to. Davidson can watch the display for you, and besides, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

The urgency in her voice combined with her last statement piqued Jerry’s curiosity. Reluctantly, he followed her up to the control room. As they were climbing the ladder, he asked Emily what had changed, but she only shook her head and kept moving.

As they approached the control room, they could hear Patterson arguing with Hardy. Trying to expand the area of the Manta’s sortie, her voice carried out into the passageway. “All I’m asking for is for a couple more Manta runs to expand the search. ”

They walked in to see both Patterson and Hardy bent over one of the plotting tables, his expression one of strained patience, hers desperate.

“Out of the question, Dr. Patterson. We are finishing up the last of twenty-four sorties, and we have nothing to gain by adding more,” Hardy said firmly.

“Even if we managed to find one site that met your criteria, it wouldn’t change your findings significantly. Let’s face it, Doctor, the environmental threat you pitched to the President isn’t here. It might be, in a few decades, but not now. ”

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Emily politely.

“. and I don’t intend to risk being detected,” continued Hardy, “just to bail your political butt out of the sling you put it in!”

Enraged by Hardy’s accusation, Patterson lashed out. “How dare you suggest that I. ”

“Dr. Patterson, please,” pleaded Emily.

“I’m not going to debate this further. We’re leaving as soon as the Manta…”

“As the mission commander, I say when we leave, not you or anyone…”

“Would you two shut up!” Emily yelled angrily.

An abrupt silence formed in control, as everyone was utterly astonished by Emily’s uncharacteristic outburst. All the watchstanders focused intently on their controls and indications; no one dared look back toward the plotting tables, out of fear that they’d meet either the Captain’s or Patterson’s gaze.

“I beg your pardon,” demanded Hardy after the shock wore off.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve had enough of your fighting,” protested Emily. “You two sound just like my parents. You’re just as stubborn, self-centered, and pompous as they are. Well, now you two are going to listen to me.”

Hardy and Patterson briefly looked at each other with confusion, and then back at the mouse that just roared. “Emily, what is the meaning of this?” questioned Patterson defensively.

Before Emily could answer, Hardy finally noticed Jerry standing there. Embarrassed, Hardy demanded, “Mr. Mitchell, why aren’t you at your station?”

Davis answered for him. “We’ve got a problem, Captain, a very big problem. And it involves him as much as the rest of us.” Davis answered urgently. She then handed Patterson a computer printout and waited silently while she scanned the results. Hardy and Jerry both waited as well, the Captain glaring at Jerry, who fervently hoped whatever was on that paper would justify his being here.

Patterson’s face became a mask, so neutral that Jerry guessed she was struggling to control her emotions. She sat down suddenly and then looked around. By now, everyone in control was watching.

She started explaining. “All of the samples we take contain various amounts of radioactive material. Cesium, cobalt, uranium, strontium, whatever might show up in fuel, spent fuel, or other radioactive materials. It’s usually a mix of all of them, and the combination is a good way to identify the kind of waste. With some combinations, we can even identify the type of reactor they came from.”

She held up the printout. “This gamma-ray spectrum analysis doesn’t show any of the elements that we’d expect from any type of nuclear fuel, spent or otherwise. It’s remarkably uniform, too uniform. Emily, have you double-checked the results?”

“I triple-checked it, Doctor. There was no trace of fission products, activation products, uranium or any of the other plutonium isotopes. The readings are consistent with essentially pure plutonium-239-weapons-grade plutonium-239.”

Jerry’s mind raced as Emily delivered the stark conclusion of her analysis. Pu-239 is one of many plutonium isotopes that typically showed up in small amounts in spent nuclear fuel, particularly fuel that had a lot of Uranium-238 in it. They had found trace amounts of Pu-239, along with five other isotopes, on the seabed at many of the sites they had surveyed. But it was impossible for concentrated Pu-239 to exist in spent fuel. It had to be extracted and purified, and this took human effort. He watched Captain Hardy go through the same thought process and saw his expression become a mixture of caution and concern. “What’s the chance of a false reading?”

Patterson answered. “None. The tests are based. ”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He looked around, then asked the group, “Can anyone think of a good reason, no matter how bizarre, for weapons-grade nuclear material to be on a sunken barge in the Kara Sea?” He turned to face Bair. “XO?”

“I can think of a lot of reasons, but none of them are good.” Bair smiled as he said it, but it was a worried smile.

Patterson was pale, but spoke firmly. “Captain, we have to go back and find out every scrap of information about that barge. When it was scuttled, exactly what is in the hold, what’s in those cases. ”

Hardy cut her off. “I agree. I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it, but I agree. Mr. Mitchell, get the Manta back here ASAP Use maximum speed. XO, as soon as the Manta’s recovered, head Memphis toward the barge. Work with Mr. O’Connell to find the closest spot on the forty-fathom curve to the barge’s location. I want a fast approach and a clear exit path.”

Hardy stopped to look at Jerry. “Mister, what are you still doing here?” Jerry took that as a dismissal. As he left, he heard Hardy say, “And get me the COB!”

As soon as the Manta was stowed, Memphis began working her way toward the barge and into shallow water. As nervous as Hardy was about shallow water, the divers would need as short a swim as possible. It would also reduce the time that Memphis was vulnerable, with men outside her hull.

The XO led a hasty planning meeting in the wardroom. Jerry immediately volunteered to be one of the divers, but Bair killed the idea. “We’ll need you here to drive the Manta, Jerry. You are going to carry the swimmers over to the barge and bring them back.”

He turned to Reynolds. “COB, how fast can the Manta go with you and Harris hanging on?” ET2 Harris was the third ship’s diver. “The Manta can do up to twenty.”

The COB smiled and said, “Anything over five knots will require a harness. If we rig harnesses to the attachment points and it tows us, maybe ten knots. But I’d want to work up to that speed slowly,” he added quickly.

One of the quartermasters hurriedly knocked on the wardroom door and leaned in. “XO, the Captain says we’ll be on station in twenty-five minutes.”

The XO looked at Davis. “You’ll need to launch one of the ROVs first. We’ll need its camera and lights for the COB and Harris so they can rig the Manta and attach themselves to it.”

“They can only do that after I’ve launched it,” Jerry reminded him. “The docking skirt is too close to the tie-down points. They’re the same ones they use to hoist the Manta off the boat.”

“Understood,” answered the XO, “just hold it steady for them.”

Reynolds didn’t look happy. “XO, sir, this is a really complicated dive. We’re moving too fast. I can’t build a proper dive plan. What if we leave a tool behind on the sub? What if the Russians show up again? What about the crates?”

Bair nodded. “I agree with you, COB, but the Captain wants this done ASAP. I’m beginning to agree with him that the Bear was no accident. We’re on borrowed time. We do this quickly, then we leave the neighborhood forthwith.”

He sighed. “Dr. Patterson’s rigging a sample container that will be radiation-proof. We’re hoping that whatever’s in those crates will fit inside. You’ll have cameras to take photographs. Dr Davis will monitor the radiation with the ROV and will flash the danger sign if the reading is too high. And the instant you get that signal, you drop everything and hop the Manta for a fast ride home. We’ll stand by with a decontamination team ready, just in case.”

The meeting ended as quickly as it had been held. Davis went to help Patterson and Jerry went aft to help the COB and Harris with their preparations.

Sometimes it is necessary for men to go topside when a submarine is underway. Because of the low freeboard and the chance of being washed over the side, subs carry safety harnesses. Similar to a parachute rig, they could be attached to a special track in the hull. It was simple to adapt two so they could use the lift points on the Manta. What wasn’t simple was fitting the harnesses to Reynolds and Harris on top of all their diving gear.

By the time they arranged the straps so they didn’t interfere with the tanks or tools or the ability to move, Hardy was calling for Jerry to launch the Manta.

“I don’t have a camera, but the passive sonar should pick up taps on the hull,” Jerry reminded them.

“Yessir,” answered the COB. “Just keep the active sonar off while we are in front of the Manta. I hate getting pinged. It feels like someone is hitting you with a two-by-four.” At close range, the pressure wave generated by an active sonar could stun a diver.

Jerry grinned reassuringly. “I’ll pull the breaker and red-tag the switch.” Then more seriously, he added, “I wish I was going with you, Master Chief.”

“In a sense, you will be, since you’ll be flying that UUV that we’ll be riding — and that’s pretty important to Harris and me.” Reynolds then reached over and grasped Jerry by the shoulder. “Actually, I’m glad you’ll be on the boat.” Jerry’s puzzled expression caused Reynolds to grin. “Mr. Mitchell, you’re damn good with that Manta. Not to put you under any undue pressure, mind you, but I’m expecting you to bring us home.”

Reynolds extended his hand; Jerry grasped it firmly and said, “Count on it, COB. Good luck and be safe.”

“Always, sir,” said Reynolds, winking.

Jerry turned and left them by the forward escape trunk with two enlisted men. Between the COB and Harris and net full- of tools, it would take two cycles to get them all outside.

By the time he reached the torpedo room, Emily already had Huey out and trained on the Manta hangar. Jerry started the launch sequence and realized that although he’d watched films of the prototype Manta being launched, he’d actually never seen the launch from Memphis.

The hangar was a raised rectangle halfway back the hull, about where it started narrowing toward the screw at the stern. The Manta nestled in a cutout, half-buried to reduce drag and flow noise when Memphis was underway. As Jerry released the latches, the Manta, slightly buoyant, slowly floated up and away.

The standard launch sequence automatically positioned the Manta five hundred yards off the sub’s port or starboard beam. This was out of the question, so instead Jerry overrode the sequence and just did his best to hold the UUV stationary over the aft hull. He resisted the temptation to bring the Manta forward to the divers. They’d discussed it in the wardroom, but even with the ROV’s camera to help him see, it wasn’t built for close-in maneuvering. He couldn’t guarantee that the Manta wouldn’t strike the sub — or God forbid, one of the divers.

Memphis floated, dead in the water and neutrally buoyant, in forty fathoms of water. Although Hardy would have preferred hugging the bottom, he’d brought her shallow, to a keel depth of eighty feet. Since Memphis stood sixty feet from her keel to the top of the sail, that left precious little water above them, but it made the divers’ job a lot easier. At sixty feet, they had almost an hour to get to the barge, enter, open a crate, retrieve a sample, and then return. At a depth of ninety feet, they would have had only thirty minutes.

It was hard to trim the Manta to neutral buoyancy. Jerry found he had to use a little motion to keep the slightly buoyant UUV from rising. He concentrated on keeping the nose down and moving as slowly as possible. He also had to tell Emily what he was doing, so she could anticipate his movements and keep the lights and camera properly positioned. It was dark enough at this depth so that the lights were essential. Without Huey’s lights, Reynolds and Harris might never find the Manta. Luckily, only Huey had a control cable. If both vehicles had used wires for control and maneuvered so closely, they would constantly risk entangling them.

He waited impatiently for Reynolds and Harris to reach the Manta. It was easy for Jerry to imagine, or remember, what it felt like as the water filled the escape lock — the cold and the pressure. This wasn’t sport diving off some colorful tropical reef. It was hard to move quickly or gracefully, and you couldn’t waste time. It was work. The dry suit mitigated the cold, but it still sucked the energy out of your arms and legs, turning them to wood.

It took five minutes for the two divers to appear in the screen and reach the Manta. There was no way to find out the reason for the delay. They might have tangled a harness or had problems with the tools, but whatever it had been, they were ready to proceed.

There were three lift points on top of the Manta, and Reynolds and Harris dragged the cargo net to the first one, located in the center of the forward part of the vehicle. After hooking up the bag without incident, they swam aft. As the Manta broadened out into a pair of wings, there were two more points, one on each side of the tail. Jerry watched through the ROV’s camera as Reynolds made sure Harris was secure, then attached himself.

“All right, I’m turning to port and I’ll bring up the speed slowly to five knots.”

“Understood,” Emily replied.

Jerry gingerly applied some speed and turned the Manta toward the barge, wanting to hurry but moving slowly because of the divers. Davis managed to keep the Manta in the camera’s lens, even as she turned to follow. The plan was to keep the Manta in front of Huey so they could watch the divers for any sign of trouble.

As he increased speed, ordering the Manta from three to four to five knots, Jerry also carefully watched the Manta as well as the divers. There was no way to predict the effects of the weight and drag on the Manta’s speed or stability — or its battery life, he added, while glancing at the display. There was no perceptible feedback through the controller. The Manta was normally well behaved, but they were outside the design envelope here, and he had no way to tell what it would do.

The Manta’s passive sonar picked up two raps. That was the Master Chief saying everything was all right — if you could call being buffeted by freezing water all right.

“I’m increasing speed to eight knots.”

“Matching,” Davis answered.

Again Jerry slowly picked up the pace, and again the Master Chief signaled that all was well. Finally, the Manta and Huey reached ten knots as they made their way into Russian territorial waters.

The barge lay a mile and half away in ten fathoms of water. The bottom shelved rapidly near the barge, but this was as close as Memphis could get without crossing the twelve-mile limit. At five knots, that meant eighteen minutes just to reach the barge. Ten knots would halve that time, if the two could stand the ride.

Jerry waited to hear three taps on the Manta’s hull. That was the signal to slow down, or for trouble, but he heard nothing.

With the divers on the Manta’s back, he could now safely operate the active sonar to locate the barge. Jerry kept the number of transmissions down, just in case someone might be out there listening, and he only updated the barge’s position so that he wasn’t flying blind.

They found the barge quickly enough, and Jerry gingerly steered the Manta the last few hundred yards. He managed to bring it close alongside and watched in Huey’s camera as Reynolds and Harris detached themselves and then retrieved the tool bag. As soon as they were off, Jerry turned the Manta away from the barge. He began a tight thousand-yard circle, watching the passive display and praying that he wouldn’t detect anything.

The barge looked exactly the same, but the knowledge that two men were about to enter it made it much more menacing. Jerry watched the ROV’s camera as Emily took station above the barge’s open hatchway Her lights gave some general illumination, but both of Memphis divers had their own lights. Jerry could see them now swimming toward the edge of the open hatch. They stopped for a moment, and Jerry wondered if there was a problem. Then he realized they were just looking the situation over, like any prudent diver. They swam down into the hatch, and Jerry tried to remember the layout of the hold. Where were the obstructions? How much had the cargo shifted?

The hatch expanded in the screen, and Davis said, “I’m sending Huey in.” They’d all agreed earlier that she should do it, although there was some risk of complicating the divers’ situation. It would give them more light, as well as the all-important radiation detector and the camera.

As she gingerly navigated the ROV into the hold, the camera picked up Reynolds and Harris over in one corner, well clear and dead ahead. They were studying one of the metal crates. It was almost as long as Reynolds was tall, and at least three feet square. Metal clips ran around one edge. Lifting hooks implied some weight, as did the strips that reinforced the corners and sides.

After shining a light on all exposed sides, Reynolds tried to shift the crate slightly. It budged, but gave the impression of being heavy. He motioned to Harris, pantomiming tools, and swam over to the tool bag. He handed Harris a pair of pliers while the COB took out a large screwdriver.

They started working on the clips, wasting time as they searched in the darkness for the quickest way to open them. Reynolds discovered a way to pop them with the screwdriver and began working his way along the edge. Along with that Christmas-present feeling, Jerry wondered if it was a Pandora’s box. He couldn’t escape a mental image of the lid opening and a cloud of liquid waste escaping, poisoning the two with toxic chemicals and radiation before they could close it again.

As Reynolds finished releasing the clips, Harris moved aside as Emily pointed Huey right at the case. “The radiation count is still very low,” announced Emily. “I’m sending the ‘all safe’ signal.” Reynolds and Harris saw the lights blink once, and Harris held up his free hand, making an exaggerated thumbs-up gesture. So far, so good.

As they’d discussed, Harris swam away, to hover near the ROV. The idea was that if the crate did contain something deadly, only one of the divers would be exposed. Jerry watched the seconds tick by as Harris reached what they hoped was a safe distance, but they’d all agreed it was worth the time.

Reynolds wedged the edge of the screwdriver into the joint between the lid and the rest of the crate. He pounded on one end, and a thin stream of silvery bubbles appeared. He stopped for a moment and made a sweeping motion with his right hand, asking for Emily to take another radiation reading. Again, everything was within limits and she flashed the lights once. Facing the ROV, Reynolds gave the thumbs-up sign and returned his attention to the lid.

Working the screwdriver in, alternately wiggling it, and pounding on the end resulted in successively larger and thicker streams of bubbles until they merged into a solid mass of air that half-lifted the lid off. Jerry could see Reynolds’ surprised reaction and he backed off to give Emily some room to move Huey in a little closer and make yet another pass with the radiation detector. Huey’s lights flashed once and Reynolds waved Harris over. Emily backed the ROV away from the case to give the divers room to work.

This was why Jerry had wanted to make the dive. The COB and Harris could look in the crate. They knew what was in it, but nobody else on Earth did. Except for whoever put it there, Jerry corrected himself.

The two divers knew this, and Reynolds bent down and started heaving on one side, the side away from the camera. Harris quickly realized what the COB was after and started lifting from his end. The two men quickly tilted the crate so that it toppled over onto its side, turning the top toward the camera.

A rush of air bubbles didn’t obscure the view for more than a second. Emily automatically adjusted the lights and zoomed the camera to maximum magnification.

Framed by the rectangular box, a cone-shaped object lay in a cradle. It was about five feet long and two feet wide at the base. The wide end was flat, and narrowed to an almost needle-like point. It was dull green or black and its polished surface was marked by a few patches of white lettering near the base. They were looking at a full-up nuclear warhead, almost certainly a reentry vehicle for a ballistic missile.

Chills ran laps around Jerry’s spine and the sailors in the torpedo room either blasphemed or made improbable sexual suggestions. After a few moments, the phone talker’s voice in Jerry headphones said, “Captain Hardy wants your recommendations.”

I’ll bet he does, thought Jerry. Their mission orders had just changed and the trick was to figure out what they should now be. Jerry’s instant reaction was to grab it and get it back to the boat, but then he forced himself to think, Why?

Nuclear warheads hidden on the sea floor. Who’d hidden them there? Why? He doubted any of the cases carried luggage tags, but if they could examine the warhead, they’d get a lot more information than they had right now.

And they’d have to have proof. Photos or samples could be dismissed or denied. Jerry had a visual flash of that thing being wheeled into a press conference.

“We’ve got to have it,” jerry decided out loud, and realized that he’d spoken into the microphone.

“I’m glad you concur,” said Hardy’s voice acidly as he came onto the circuit. “I meant about how do we get it back to the boat.”

“Oh. Yessir,” Jerry answered. That was a much harder question to answer. The thing must weigh hundreds of pounds. Not even Reynolds could tuck it under one arm for the ride back.

Dr. Patterson was also on the circuit. “What if they disassembled it and just brought back the physics package?”

“Out of the question,” declared Hardy quickly. “It would take way too long to figure out how to get the damn thing out. And the risk of radiation exposure is way too great. No, we grab the whole thing.”

“And they’re running short of time,” added Jerry as he checked his watch. “They can stretch it a little by running shallow on the trip back, but we have to get them out of there in ten or fifteen minutes, tops.”

Patterson asked, “Can you maneuver the Manta in close enough for them to attach it?”

“No, ma’am. I can’t maneuver the Manta in close quarters and it wouldn’t even fit. ”

As Jerry started to explain, the ROV’s camera image shook, first briefly, and then for a full minute. Davis, flustered, almost shouted, “The ROV’s in trouble. Something’s hitting it! I’m taking it out!”

“But the only things in there that are moving are the divers,” Jerry argued. Then he yelled, “Wait!”

Emily nodded, but nervously fingered the controls.

After another moment, the image steadied. They could see one of the divers in the immediate foreground swimming away from the ROV. The other was bent over the warhead with the empty tool bag. As the first diver moved away from the camera, Jerry recognized it as Reynolds. He was trailing a rope behind him.

“Control, U-bay, I think they’ve solved our problem,” Jerry announced happily. “I think that line leads back to one of the brackets on the bottom of the ROV. They’re going to use the ROV to lift the warhead out of the barge.

“Dr. Davis,” Hardy asked. “Can you lift the warhead out?”

“Yes,” she answered cautiously, “but Huey will take forever to get it back here.”

“Then we’ll transfer it to the Manta,” Jerry said. “I’ll come in under you and you lower it down on the top. We can use the same attachment point that we used for the tool bag.” As he spoke, he began steering the Manta back toward the barge. He risked one active sonar pulse at long range before closing. That gave him a good enough picture of the area to approach quickly.

The divers were already rigging the line to the tool bag, and Jerry noted how it angled up off the deck, confirming that it was attached to the ROV.

As Jerry brought the Manta in, he slowed it to a creep, loath to have it arrive too early. He tried to guess how long it would take Reynolds and Harris, tired and half-frozen to finish rigging the bag, then for Davis to carefully lift the load out and away from the barge. Then remembered to check the time. They were cutting it close.

They finished getting the bag around the warhead case, which entailed half-lifting each end to get the material around it. As they finished, Jerry expected the Master Chief to take up the slack and start the lift, but instead he saw Reynolds gesture to Harris. When the other turned to face the COB, he motioned to another nearby crate, and then to the line.

“They’re taking two of them!” Emily exclaimed as the divers passed the line through the lifting hooks.

“The first one will now likely have water damage,” Patterson guessed.

Davis worried out loud. “I’m not sure Huey can lift that much weight.”

“The divers can help with the lift,” Jerry reassured. “And if Huey can’t hack it, we’ll jettison one of the warheads. We can always come back…”

“We’re not doing this twice.” Hardy declared. “Make it work, Dr. Davis.”

“Conn, sonar. Two new contacts bearing two zero zero and two one zero. I’m detecting two medium-frequency active sonars, classified as probable Bull Horn.”