Deep Storm

37

The floor of the hyperbaric therapy suite was thick with debris: empty extinguisher casings, bandage wrappers, disposable gloves. Commander Terrence W. Korolis stepped around it all with the finicky precision of a cat.

Two commandos in black ops fatigues stood outside the doorway, barring entry to what was being treated as an active crime scene. Another stood guard by the control room. Korolis found their chief, Woburn, in the waiting area next to the hyperbaric chamber itself, speaking to a technician. The entrance hatch to the chamber was open; heavy scorch marks ran along its upper edge and across the nearby ceiling, which was caked with soot.

When Woburn caught sight of Korolis he nodded to the technician and stepped away, following Korolis into the control room. The commander waited until Woburn had shut the door behind them.

"Update, please, Chief," Korolis said.

"Sir." Woburn carried his well-muscled body with stiff precision. "The safety circuits were deliberately bypassed."

"And the internal sprinklers?"

"Deactivated."

"What about the fire? Any theories how it started?"

Woburn jerked a thumb in the direction of the observation window. "The compressor, sir. The technician believes it was tampered with."

"How?"

"It seems the step-down transformer was disengaged while the compressor was running at maximum."

Korolis nodded slowly. "Forcing the RPMs to spike."

"And the compressor to overheat, first, then basically explode into flame. Yes, sir."

"Where could this have been performed?"

"There's a support closet beyond the hyperbaric suite, tucked between two of the science labs. All the work could have been done from there."

"Would it have taken long?"

"The technician said if the person knew what he was doing, it might have taken two, maybe three minutes, tops."

Korolis nodded. The person knew what he was doing, all right. Just as he'd known how to score the inside of the dome with a laser cutter. A good saboteur was trained in how to wreck or blow up almost anything.

Korolis knew all about that kind of training.

He turned back to Woburn. "Any cameras tasked on that support closet?"

"Negative, sir."

"Very well."

Korolis paused to glance out the observation window. The technician had ducked inside the hyperbaric chamber and was now out of visual contact. Aside from the operatives in dark fatigues, there were no witnesses.

He turned to Woburn again. "You have it here?" Although the door was closed, he spoke in a tone even softer than before.

Woburn gave a slight nod.

"Nobody saw you take it?"

"Only our own men, sir."

"Excellent."

Woburn knelt beside the control console, reached underneath it, and extracted a slim case of black ballistic nylon. He handed it to Korolis, along with a key.

"Do you want us to conduct a further investigation, sir?" Woburn asked. "Inquire whether any of the scientists saw anything, or anyone, unusual?"

"There's no need for that, Chief. I'll take over from here and relay my findings to the admiral."

"Very good, sir." And Woburn executed a superbly crisp salute.

Korolis regarded him a moment. Then he returned the salute and left the hyperbaric suite.

Korolis's private quarters were in a special section of deck 11 reserved for military officers. He stepped inside, then closed and carefully locked the door before moving toward his desk. The stateroom was dimly lit. Where others might have set framed pictures or light reading, Korolis had security monitors and classified manuals.

He placed the nylon case Woburn had given him on the desk, then unlocked it with the key. Unzipping the case, he reached inside and pulled out a laptop computer, badly scorched along one side.

The stateroom filled with the acrid stench of burnt plastic and electronics.

Korolis turned to his environmental control panel, put its airscrubbing filter on full. Then he took a seat and pulled the terminal keyboard toward him. He entered the password for his private computer, then entered a second, much longer passphrase to enter a secure area of the Facility's military network, accessible only by him. Next, he loaded a forensic audio program of the type used by audio restoration engineers and wiretappers. Then, bringing up a list of files, he paged through the entries until he found the one he wanted. Loading this into the forensic program brought up a complex screen dominated by an audio waveform: a mono sound file captured by a tiny microphone.

Korolis plugged a pair of headphones into the computer. Then he adjusted the program's spectral filter to remove extraneous noise, boosted the gain, and clicked the playback button.

Over the headphones came Crane's voice, remarkably clear given the low fidelity of the surveillance microphone.

"Before he died, Asher discovered something…I know, because he told me so, over the phone. It's all on the laptop, he said. I need to get that laptop, find out what he discovered. Because he was desperate to tell me something, there at the end…"

Then came another voice: a voice the program's soundprint analyzer had identified as Hui Ping's. Korolis's face darkened as he listened.

"The secret to that's on his computer," Crane went on.

With a click of his mouse, Korolis stopped the playback. Another click closed the file and exited the program.

Korolis stood, carrying Asher's damaged laptop over to a far corner of the room, where a gray locker sat on the floor. Kneeling, he unsnapped its clasps, opened it, and pulled out a bulky object: a degaussing magnet.

Once again, he made sure the door to his stateroom was locked. Then-slowly and deliberately, and careful to stay well away from his own computer-he held the magnet close to the laptop, passing it over the hard disk. Even if it had survived the fire, this would certainly scramble its data beyond all recognition.

Crane and Hui Ping were serious security risks-and one couldn't be too sure. This step was a start. And Korolis knew exactly what to do next.