Deep Fathom

12 A Line in the Sand

Wrapped in a leather flight jacket, David Spangler stood at the bow of the Navy’s salvage ship, the Maggie Chouest. It was an ugly ship, painted bright red and festooned with antennas, booms, and satellite dishes. A two-hundred-foot homely bitch, David thought. Manned by a crew of thirty, the salvage ship was the temporary home of the Navy’s Deep Submergence Unit and the unit’s newest rescue vessel, the submersible Perseus. Currently, the large sub still rested in the ship’s dry dock at the stern, awaiting its first deployment later this day.

Alone at the bow, David sucked a long draw from his cigarette. Morning was still hours away, but he knew any attempt at sleep would fail him this night. Two hours ago he had gotten off the scrambled line with his boss, Nicolas Ruzickov. They had talked at length concerning David’s revised assignment.

His primary goal of implicating the Chinese in the crash of Air Force One had been accomplished. With the country still struggling to recover from the disaster on the West Coast, and with paranoia sky high across the country, the public was ready to accept any explanation. It was an easy sell. David had received the thanks of a grateful President. In fact, Lawrence Nafe would be making a formal announcement in only a couple more hours, confronting the Chinese aloud, drawing a line in the sand between their two countries.

But now David had a new assignment: to oversee a clandestine research project into an unknown power source. Something to do with the quakes from nine days ago.

He did not understand half the details Ruzickov related, but it was not important. All he had to do was maintain a blanket over the site. To the world abroad, the activity here had to look like the continuing salvage ops.

Staring out at the dark seas, David exhaled slowly, a circle of smoke curling up from his lips. Half a day ago the USS Gibraltar had left with the setting sun, steaming toward the Philippine Sea. Without the giant ship here, the seas seemed empty. Besides the Maggie Chouest, only three other ships still circled the region — destroyers with enough firepower to maintain their privacy.

Behind David a hatch clanged closed.

“Sir.”

David glanced over a shoulder. “What is it, Mr. Rolfe?”

“Sir, I just wanted to let you know that the research site in Hawaii has been locked down. They’re dismantling the sea lab for shipment.”

“Any problems?”

“No, sir. The head of the project has been informed and signed a confidentiality agreement. The only concession was to let him oversee the research here. Our scientific liaison at Los Alamos vouched for the man. And the CIA director signed off on it.”

David nodded, wearing a grim smile. It seemed Ruzickov was getting as little sleep as he. “When are they due to be under way?”

“Less than two days.”

Two days. Ruzickov was moving fast. Good. David studied the sea.

Later today he planned to dive in the Navy’s submersible, to give the Perseus its first trial run here. He had watched the video recordings from Kirkland’s other dives, but David wanted to see the crash site for himself. Once this mission was under way, Omega team would oversee topside, while he would remain below at the sea lab.

“Sir, the…um, other objective…Are we to continue…?”

David took a drag on his cigarette. “Yes. There’ll be no change. If anything, we now have a stronger mandate to proceed. No outsider must know what lies below. Those are the standing orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are we still tracking the Deep Fathom?”

“Of course, sir. But when do you expect to proceed with—”

“I’ll let you know. We can’t move too soon. I want him well away from here before we proceed.” David flicked the dying butt of his cigarette into the sea, angered that his moment of peace had been shattered by the intrusion.

After waiting for over a decade, he told himself, he could be patient a bit longer. Three days, he decided. No more.