Ocean Black

CHAPTER FOUR

The station, with the ignominious name of AG 4, rested on three stilt-like legs thirty feet above the uneven seabed. It was a globe, seventy feet in diameter, and it was divided into three decks. For the fifteen people in residence, it was not spacious or luxurious, but then it was not designed to be either. It was a working habitat, and Penny Glenn, who was accustomed to working, did not even notice the lack of amenities.

The station was globular because it was a pressure hull, designed to resist the immense pressure of water three miles below the surface of the sea. All of the vehicles attending AG 4 were based on the same, life preserving design, including two deep submergence submarines for transport to the surface and four tracked crawlers for crossing the sea floor.

The deep diving submersible Sydney accommodated five people, but in an emergency, could cram eight bodies within its cramped interior. The crawlers were composed of twelve foot diameter pressure hulls, manipulator arms, and dual sets of four foot wide, ribbed steel tracks. The normal work team in a crawler was made up of two people, though an additional two passengers could be transported. Passengers, however, created an increased draw on the life-support system, reducing the excursion time. With a relatively level seabed, the crawlers could manage twelve to fifteen miles an hour.

As with all of AquaGeo’s subsurface vessels and vehicles, the designs allowed for the mating of entrance hatches to facilitate the transfer of people from one type of transport to another.

Penelope Glenn had boarded AG 4 from a crawler three hours before, after taking a tour of the manganese test site. She had been less than impressed with the progress made at Site C, but had still been effusive in her praise of the crews working the site. It was difficult to find capable people willing to work in the conditions imposed by the sea, despite the impressive salaries they were paid. Little words of encouragement did much to maintain morale.

Frequently, she had to chastise Deride — as much as he could be chastised — about the terse manner in which he treated his people. Deride was a firm believer in the concept that the large amounts of money he paid his employees entitled him to treat them like stray dogs that were kickable simply because he bothered to feed them.

Some people thought Deride’s demeanor was the direct result of his wealth, but Glenn had known him all her life. Back when he was nearly penniless, his interactions with others had been exactly the same. A few billion dollars did not make a bit of difference in his personality.

She did not think another billion dollars — if this trail she was on developed into the world-class manganese deposit she thought was possible — would change Paul Deride one whit. By her own estimates, he controlled fifty billion dollars worth of resources, and he had at least a two-and-a-half billion dollar net personal worth. A year from now, all going well, he would be personally worth another billion.

Because of her commission arrangement with AquaGeo, Glenn expected to have another ten or twelve million in her own accounts, but then she already had seventeen million dollars invested around the world. It was just another number; it did not mean much to her since she rarely took the time to spend any of it.

Her passions were directed along paths not particularly associated with money or power. She did not care unduly about travel, except that it was necessary in her work and in the occasional holiday she forced on herself just to remain sane. If she wanted, she could call up the transportation necessary to get her to the surface and then to San Francisco, just over a thousand miles away. If she wanted, she could build a ten-thousand square foot house anywhere in the world. What she owned was a modest apartment in a highrise in Melbourne.

She also owned a comparatively modest fifty-foot motor yacht, the Phantom Lode, which was somewhere above, awaiting her. She had ordered the yacht into these waters since, after her inspection of AG-4 and a meeting with Deride, she intended to take a few days off and perhaps visit San Francisco.

With her looks — reddish-tinted blonde hair, high classic cheekbones, smooth and long Egyptian throat, blue eyes with a trace of aquamarine fire in them, and slightly busty well-trimmed figure, she could compete in any jet set society in Europe, America, or Australia.

She preferred being bundled up in a thick jumpsuit, with an additional sweater to combat the cold at depth, hunched over a computer terminal, seeking the solutions to geological jigsaw puzzles.

The earth and its secrets had forever been her challenge.

And her reward.

She was not dismayed by the road she had taken. It would lead her to her most cherished prize.

Which was the passion she left unspoken. It was nameless, and yet, she knew it by many names.

Carl Unruh needed sixteen minutes to find a parking place for his Taurus, and he had only planned for five. A few years earlier, the delay would have elevated his frustration to the upper reaches of tolerance, but now he took it as a matter of course. The Washington gridlock was everywhere: traffic, bureaucracy, minds.

Automatically scanning faces and body language as he weaved his way along the congested sidewalk an operations habit holdover he made his way to the corner of F Street, turned onto it, and then found the entrance to Reeves.

The luncheon crowd was noisy, and much of it was gathered into a mob at the bakery counter at the front of the restaurant, clamoring for pie, pie, pie. The place had a turn of the century feel to it, a nice patina of age on the varnish, a warm hued glow from the Tiffany lamps.

He found Hampstead halfway down one of the long counters, his folded top coat reserving a seat for Unruh. He picked it up and tucked it into his lap as Unruh shrugged out of his own coat and settled down at the counter. All of the coat hooks on the mirrored wall were already in use.

“I might have known you’d go cheap, Avery, when it’s your turn to buy.”

“Nonsense, Carl. The menu is what draws me.”

The elderly waitress paused in front of them for a few seconds.

“I would like,” Hampstead told her, “the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. With mayonnaise, please.”

The waitress didn’t even wince.

“And a tall, tall glass of cold, cold milk.”

“Mayonnaise?” Unruh asked.

“They make their own.”

“I know that, but with peanut butter?”

“It keeps the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of your mouth.”

“I’ll pass.” Unruh ordered a ham sandwich on rye and potato salad.

The waitress slid away, and Hampstead said, “Where else in this town can you order peanut butter?”

“I imagine supply meets demand.”

“You just remember that from economics class.”

“It’s about all I remember,” Uhruh said.

“Did you remember to ask my question?”

“I did. The boys in white uniforms are doing lots of magical things they don’t want to talk about, but they’re not doing them in the area you specified, Avery.”

“Hmmm. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.”

“It would have been nice to have a simple, possibly logical answer without having to go take a look,” Unruh said.

They were having to speak loudly, and somewhat cryptically, because of the raucous diners around them.

“However,” Uhruh went on, “because of our sudden interest, the boys in white are now intrigued.”

“Good. They can go look.”

“Actually, they said they’d pick up part of your cost.”

“Amazing!” Hampstead said. “And how about your shop?”

“Maybe we can spring a few bucks. I’ll have to talk to the elders.”

“Why this display of largesse, Carl?”

“It seems the admirals had already had a report of two anomalies.”

“From whom?”

“Some seismologist at Scripps.”

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography at La Jolla was a unit of the University of California at San Diego, operating on both public and private funds. It was the counterpart to the East Coast’s Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts.

“All right, then” Hampstead said. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

“Use Brande.”

Hampstead raised a bushy eyebrow and revealed his horsey teeth in a grin.

Unruh had never met Brande, and he suspected that Brande didn’t like him much after the decisioning processes that had taken place during the Russian missile fiasco.

In response to the questioning eyebrow, he said, “While we had some differences of opinion, I still respect ability, Avery. However, you might not mention my name.”

“I’ll avoid it like the plague.”

Adrienne Hampstead didn’t in the least mind asking people for money, and lots of it, and if for no other reason, that made Kaylene Thomas appreciate her. Since Adrienne had signed on with MVU as the Director of Development hired personally by Thomas, Brande’s workload on the fund raising circuit had been reduced substantially.

There were still institutional and salvage groups who wanted to meet the boss personally, and Brande accommodated them, but Adrienne did all the preparatory work. And in direct negotiations with units of the Commerce Department, it was Brande who did all the work. They would not taint Avery Hampstead with even the shadow of a conflict of interest.

Adrienne was taller than Thomas by three or four inches and lean in a svelte way. Her coloring was several shades darker, and a mild resemblance to her brother Avery was apparent in the slightly elongated shape of her face. With happy green eyes and a nearly permanent smile, she was an instant friend to nearly everyone she met.

The two of them had taken chairs in a corner of the office, trying to get away from the buzz of technical jargon spouted by fifteen scientists and researchers dotted around the room. One intern from the University of Colorado had commandeered the telephone on Thomas’s desk. Adrienne didn’t have a desk; she worked out of a briefcase.

Enroute to a meeting in Portland, Oregon, Adrienne was wearing a pale green traveling suit with a lacy-cuffed white-on-white blouse. Thomas was in her typical jeans, running shoes, and a blue and gray striped blouse.

“Gerrard has nearly four and a half million invested in the Committee of One,” Hampstead said, leaning against the front of someone’s desk. “He’s willing to put another mil into her half to raise her and half to refit her.”

“Where did you meet him?” Thomas asked.

“Corpus Christi. A charity bash.”

“He could take the insurance and run.”

“I think he loves the boat. I also think he’ll get the insurance people to put up the recovery cash. They’d prefer to take only a partial hit on this one.”

Marine Visions had worked with insurance companies before on recoveries. They had also worked with the Department of Defense in the salvage of downed aircraft and super secret components from aircraft and ships. Their search robots and retrieval robots could operate freely at depth while reducing the risk to human beings.

“The primary factor is speed,” Adrienne said. “The longer she’s down there, the greater the damage to interior fittings. He’d like to have her on the surface tomorrow.”

“Dane says two weeks, minimum, before Orion’s available.”

“I’ll see what I can do with the man.”

“Anything you want, I’m sure,” Thomas told her. “What’s in Portland?”

“A rumor I heard about. There’s a maritime museum teaming up with an environmental group to take on projects to help the coastal environment. There might be some way in which we can contribute.”

“Plus?”

“Plus, Ricky’s going to be in Seattle for a match. I’m going to run up and see him.”

Ricky Kidd was a professional wrestler with whom Adrienne was involved. She had been a wrestling promoter working out of New York prior to joining MVU.

“Do you miss the promotions?” Thomas asked.

“A little. It was all hype and hyperactivity. There was something going on all the time telephones, meetings, negotiations. The money was good.”

“Did Avery talk you out of it?”

“Avery’s my favorite brother don’t you tell him that — and we talk at least once a week. I can’t remember a time that he’s given me advice, but he often asks for advice for himself in such a way that it starts me thinking.”

“And you thought?”

“I thought I could be doing just a little more than making money in, and for, the entertainment business. I like the fact that we’re doing some things that may benefit fellow humans. I feel less selfish.”

“Me, too,” Thomas said.

Paul Deride transferred from the deep submergence vehicle to Sea station AG-4 with the same shortness of breath and the same high anxiety level that he experienced any time the sky and the free atmosphere was out of his reach.

Penny Glenn was waiting for him, leaning in the hatchway of the damp reception chamber. She wore the impish grin that he thought she reserved specifically for him.

Since he had taken on her guardianship — never formalized in any legal sense, when she was twelve years old, he had learned her moods and her motivations almost completely. He thought he knew how much she was devoted to him, and though it was not in him to say as much, he was certain that she knew how deep his love ran.

“Welcome aboard, Uncle Paul.”

He glanced at the steel walls, which appeared to be oozing moisture. “Isn’t it colder than usual, Penny?”

“It’s perfectly normal,” she said. “Come on. I’ve got coffee going, and that’ll help.”

He followed her through the hatchway and up the spiral staircase to the main deck. Someone on the upper bunkhouse deck was snoring loudly. When he looked up through the opening to the top level, Penny said, “Geoffrey takes his sleep periods seriously. You’ll have to ignore him.”

“That might be difficult.”

One half of the main level was devoted to creature comforts in a rustic way. The open lounge contained a small galley and three tables surrounded by chairs. In front of a large sofa and three cushioned chairs, an entertainment center was stacked against the curved wall, its shelves crammed with cassettes, CD’s, and video tapes. Deride could be certain that the X-rated films had been stashed elsewhere for the duration of Penny Glenn’s visit to the sea station.

She poured two mugs of coffee at the galley, handed him one, and then led him into the other half of the deck. Here, the curved wall was fitted with mystifying consoles, and a big worktable dominated the open area. Six castered chairs could be drawn up to the table or scooted over to workstations. The interior wall was fitted with cabinets and bookshelves, and the reading matter was devoted to subjects geological. Deride had read most of the books.

Above the consoles, video monitors and computer screens lit the space with flickering images. Two men wearing headsets were at work, communicating with crews operating crawlers or one of the submersibles. He had just arrived on Sydney, so they must be talking to Melbourne.

Penny pulled two chairs up to the table, and they sat down. Deride sipped at his coffee. It was hot, and the warmth raced through him, but was inadequate. He felt as if he were on the verge of breaking into uncontrolled shivering.

“So,” she said, “you toured Oil Field Twenty-two this morning?”

“How did you know?”

“I tried to reach you earlier.”

“For something important?”

“Important enough. How was Twenty-two?”

“Fine. Production’s holding. What’s important?”

She gave him that special grin again. “The production at Twenty-two is excellent. I was there two weeks ago, and we were hitting seven hundred barrels a day. That’s world-class, Paul.”

“Well, don’t tell anyone,” he said.

“Who would I tell?”

Deride turned his head to look at the two technicians. With their headsets in place, they probably could not hear the conversation at the table. A great deal of AquaGeo’s business data resided only in his head, but he had slowly been doling it out to Penny. As his chief geologist, she roamed the world much as he himself did, keeping an eye on all of the operations. He was sure she had learned more about the company and its subsidiaries than she told him, but that was all right. In fact, it was good. The man — or woman — with the most information held the most power.

He was grooming her to one day assume control of the company. He knew that, and she knew that, and neither of them had ever spoken of it.

“Are you going to tell me about this fabulous discovery you’ve made?” he asked.

“You’re sure it’s a discovery?”

“You said it was important. What else would it be?”

“Over here,” she said, pushing her chair backwards and rolling across the carpeted deck to a console.

Deride stood and followed her. The excitement in her eyes was transferring to him, and he nearly forgot about several thousand pounds of water pressure outside the fragile hull, attempting to reach him.

She spun around in her chair and began tapping at the keyboard. He stood behind her and peered over the top of her head. He was aware that she smelled of gardenias. It was not a normal aroma in his sea stations.

The screen came to life. There was a blue grid overlay on parchment white, scaled to minutes of latitude and longitude. The position of AG-4 at 33° 16’ 50” North, 141° 15’ 19” West was indicated by an orange rectangle. The station was secured to the seabed at a depth of 2.2 miles, resting on top of a flat mountain that would have been called a mesa in New Mexico.

Prominent geologic structures — sea mounts, peaks, canyons, dormant volcanoes — were indicated in shaded grays, the shade representing varying depths. Some canyons were completely flat dark gray, suggesting unexplored and unknown depths in excess of three and a half miles.

To the east, some forty miles away, was a red circle, indicating the site of the drilling rig.

Farther east, over two hundred miles away, were three yellow circles, labeled on the screen as “A,” “B,” and “C.”

Penny tapped the red circle with a clear-polished fingernail. “That’s the fourth drilling site.”

“And you’ve found signs?”

“There are some indications of oil, yes. I’m going to go down another five hundred feet and see if it gets better. If not, we’ll come west a couple miles and try again.”

Her finger slid across the screen toward the east, and her nail click-clicked on the yellow circles.

“That’s manganese, Paul.”

He leaned closer, as if the screen would show him a true picture, or the atomic number—25, of the metallic element. It was used primarily in alloy with steel to increase hardness and wear resistance. With other metals, it formed highly ferromagnetic materials.

“When we drilled the first test well in this region, I found a high concentration of pyrolusite ore, in which manganese occurs, so I sent a crawler north and punched another hole. That’s Site A.”

“It’s a good find?” he asked, his excitement growing. Deride liked nothing better than discovering what others had failed to locate.

“Very good. I’ve got samples in the lab. What’s better, at Sites B and C, the concentrations are even denser. See the dotted lines?”

The A, B, and C positions on the screen formed a short, slight arc aimed to the northwest. From Site C, Glenn had projected three different courses, indicated by lavender, purple, and green dotted lines. All of them continued to the northwest, but followed differing curves.

“I see them.”

“I think the green line is our best bet, but we’ve got to test along the other lines anyway, to define the vein.”

“And you think this is going to be worthwhile? Better than the petroleum?”

“The way it’s taking shape, Paul, there won’t be another vein in the world like it. We’ll have a single source of cheap, readily available manganese.”

“It’s not a particularly precious element,” he said, though he was already forming a strategy.

She pushed back from the console and swung around to face him. “What counts is what we do with it.”

He stepped back and sat on the edge of the table, quite interested in what she had to say.

“And what would you do with it, Penny?”

“You own seventy-five percent of Matsumoto Steel Industries.”

He was amazed that she knew about that, and as a reward, he would not ask her how she had found out.

“Sixty-five percent.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. It’s a controlling interest.”

“What would you control?”

“We could put the manganese on the market and do very well. Or we could channel it all into Matsumoto and flood the world with high-grade hardened steel.”

“That would drive prices down steeply.”

“And drive how many international companies out of business?” she asked.

Deride was happy. She was thinking along the same lines of the strategy he had just formulated.

“Most of them, if not all,” he admitted.

“If we passed on the short-term, low-profit angle,” she said, “in five years, we would control the world market for hardened steel. Providing that governments did not step in and subsidize their steel industries.”

“Yes, we’d have to be careful.”

“You’d give up a billion dollars in assured profit?” she asked.

“For fifty or sixty billion down the road? What would you do, Penny?”

“I’m patient.”

“Do you want to negotiate a new commission structure?” Deride asked.

“I’m not worried about it.”

He looked past her to the colorful symbols on the computer screen. Little dashes of color that defined a fortune surpassing the gross national product of most third world nations.

“Are there any hitches in this scenario?” he asked.

“The vein is fairly deep,” she said.

“How deep?”

“So far, it varies between thirty and seventy feet below the seabed.”

“We’re drilling for it?”

“That takes too long. We’re blasting. In a week or two, once I’ve defined the drift, I’m going to need to start moving in conveyors and separators. I’ll want six submarine freighters in the beginning. You’ll have to start working on the Japanese end, preparing Matsumoto for the influx and securing sources of steel.”

“You’re using conventional explosives?”

“Nuclear. It’s much more cost-efficient, Paul.”

“That’s what counts,” he said.

The red Thunderbird drew admiring glances everywhere it went, and it went everywhere Brande could think of to go. He had removed the hardtop and hung it in the garage, and the soft top was rarely raised. The bright finish gleamed under the Southern California sun, and he parked in the far reaches of parking lots — away from adolescent door swinging, hoping to keep it that way. He had ordered a replica of the original Continental spare tire kit for it.

And he had insisted on giving Rae the proceeds of his insurance payment for the Pontiac. It amounted to $18,000, but she wouldn’t accept more than that. Her nurturing of his obsession for old and expensive automobiles amazed him since she had complained about the Bonneville’s nagging little deficiencies power windows inoperative or hydraulic top cylinders leaking as much as Okey did. It made him love her all the more.

And the decade old vision of Janelle Kay Brande became just a little blurrier, and he allowed it to do so. The memory of her hand squeezing his as she lay pinned beneath the broken boom of a sunken Liberty ship on their honeymoon diving expedition was a little less insistent. As she sipped the last of the air from Brande’s scuba tank, Janelle had known she was going to die that day. And she had smiled at him and mouthed the words, “I love you.”

And the smile had stayed with him for a long, long time.

“Won’t this sucker do better than fifty?” Dokey asked. He was slumped in the passenger seat, completely bored with his day.

Brande levered the accelerator pedal, and the speed picked up, the needle moving to sixty five, which was about what the other Californians were averaging. The breeze whipping around the windshield stirred his hair.

He and Dokey had just left the U.S. Naval Station where they had sat through an interminable briefing on the Navy’s goals for subsurface research in the second half of the fiscal year. These briefings tended to be superficial, dealing with only the non secret stuff. Still, they had to be endured because they frequently led to side room discussions, like today, of how MVU might assist the Navy in some of its remotely operated vehicle development. In a matter of only months or years the way the military operated they might land a development or consulting contract.

He and the ‘Bird flowed with the Interstate 5 traffic through the downtown area, rounded the curve to the west and rolled beneath the series of overpasses carrying the numbered avenues. Departing the freeway for Laurel Street, and then North Harbor Drive, Brande crossed the northern end of the bay. San Francisco International Airport was on his right, and Roseville was dead ahead.

“I think,” Dokey said, “that since the afternoon’s shot anyway, I might as well go home. Uncap a bottle of Dos Equis and see if it helps me absorb the sun. Create a new T shirt or something.”

“You aren’t running out of ideas?”

“I’ll run out of shirts first.”

Brande glanced at his friend, who was, in deference to possible Navy contracts, wearing a nicely tailored blue suit and a Republican tie of blended red and gray stripes. He looked like an MIT grad, which he was. If he were to guess, Brande would guess that beneath the facade was a tee shirt blaring, in big red letters, “The Navy sucks eggs!”

He dodged over a lane to the left as a battered Renault decided at the last possible minute to grab the exit for the east terminal of the airport.

The telephone buzzed, barely heard in the slipstream of wind rushing off the windshield.

“Where in hell is the phone?” Dokey asked.

“The glove compartment?”

Dokey tried it.

“Nope.”

The phone rang again.

“Try under the seat.”

He found the cellular unit, tapped the on button, and said, “T Bird Lounge. I don’t know who you’re looking for, but he went home an hour ago.”

He listened for a moment, said, “Damned sure, Avery,” then handed the phone to Brande. “This guy speaks a foreign language. East coast, I think.”

Brande pressed the set close to his mouth, to overcome the wind noise. “Afternoon, Avery.”

“Are you real busy, Dane?”

“If I say I’m not, the price goes down, right?”

“There’s some people around here who would like to have you take a little trip.”

“Where?”

“North and west a bit. About three miles down.”

“We looking for something interesting?”

Hampstead told him about the little tremors spooking the earthquake people.

It sounded intriguing. All mysteries and all unknowns below the sea intrigued Brande. The fact that Hampsted was passing the data over an unsecured, scannable cellular telephone suggested to Brande that the project, while it was mysterious, wouldn’t carry some of the bureaucratic and mostly unnecessary security classifications he hated.

“There’s a little problem, Avery. Orion’s drydocked for maintenance.”

“Damn. How soon will she be ready?”

“Connie tells me a couple weeks.”

“There’s no chance you could go earlier?”

“Who’s backing this little foray?” Brande asked.

“Navy, CIA, and myself, I guess.”

“That’s quite a crowd you’ve put together. Is someone worried about something?”

“I don’t know that worry is the right word, Dane. We’d like to satisfy some minds.”

“I guess we could hold off on a few of the topsides chores for awhile.”

“It could be worth a nice bonus, on top of your regular fee.”

“Could be?”

“Will be.”

“I’ll have to check with Mel Sorenson and Connie, but we could take off a couple days from now, maybe.”

Dokey sat up tall in his seat, finally showing some interest in his day.

“Plan on it, then,” Hampstead said. “This shouldn’t take you more than a day or two, I shouldn’t think.”