Pi Day Doomsday

R/VX TRIDENT TINE

Unexpected, it came early waking him from a sound sleep. He reached out for the phone, then fumbled it. In an instant, he held it to his ear and muttered, “Matt Cross here.” Rubbing his eyes, he yawned and looked at the clock. It told him, as did the still darkened windows, that it was too damn early for a call.

“Mr. Matt Cross, this is Commander Norton, U.S. Navy, NWS Seal Beach.”

His schedule flashed in front of his eyes. Wondering if he’d forgotten an appointment or scheduled dive, he cautiously answered, “Yes sir. That’s me. What can I do for you?”

Cross, a six-foot athletic twenty-nine year old with blue eyes, blond hair and the features of Gerard Butler, had become a master DSV pilot at the Mid-Bay Ocean Research Corporation, a small but well respected diving contractor on the Monterey Bay coast, some three hundred miles north.

“I just got off the line with Carlos, your boss. He wasn’t happy with the hour of my call either, but he listened, as will you.”

Cross didn’t like his tone, but at least he had cleared the call with his boss before calling.

“Yes sir, go on.”

We have a severe state of emergency on one of our national coastlines. I’m not at liberty to tell you more, but we need your diving expertise--with your Canyon Glider.”

“Well, it’s not really mine, it belongs to MBORC, but we have grown together over the years. It’s become an extension of my body.”

“So I understand, Mr. Cross. That’s what we’re looking for.”

The awkward silence after Norton’s comment tweaked his curiosity. “So what exactly can I do for you, Commander?”

Lindy, his gorgeous Jennifer Lawrence-esque wife of two months, who stood 5’10” with blue eyes and streaked golden-blonde hair, began to rouse at key words in the conversation, suspecting another clandestine mission. She had experienced them before, not knowing where he was going or when he would return; she dreaded the lonely days and nights. Offsetting her loneliness, he usually pulled in big money, well exceeding her small-station TV reporter’s pay. She closed her eyes and listened.

“There is a ship, a very large ship, the R/VX Trident Tine, sitting out in the Pacific, two miles off your coast, directly over the Monterey Submarine Canyon. Out with the humpbacks. Looks like a research vessel from MBARI. It’s waiting for you and the Canyon Glider. Pull up beside her and she’ll hoist you aboard. Now get a pencil and paper and write this down. Your coordinates are 36° 47’ North, 121° 50’ West. Pack a bag or two, load them into the Canyon Glider, and meet the ship there in three hours. I have no other information, but you can tell your wife that you’ll return no later than March 15. Oh, I can also tell you that the Department of Homeland Security has authorized a payment of two million dollars to MBORC. You’re to get eighty percent of that for your successful completion of our task.”

As he mulled over the offer, Lindy poked her head out from the covers and whispered, “Do it Matt! It’s less than three weeks and the pay is phenomenal: one point six million dollars! Do it.” She jumped out of bed, grabbed Matt’s duffel bag, and started packing.

Chuckling quietly, he answered, “Yes, Commander Norton, I’ll do it, but only if Carlos approves. I’ll give him a quick call and be on my way.”

“You’re welcome to do that, Mr. Cross, but I guarantee you that he’ll have the sub waiting for you when you arrive. Take care. I’ll meet with you later today and bring you up to date. Remember, not a word about this to the media from you or your wife. Our nation is depending on you. Goodbye.”

He sat on the side of the bed, trying to absorb the conversation. It made little sense to him other than he was needed. He had been on secretive missions like this before. They usually required finding and retrieving overboard cargo crates, downed unmanned drones and missing experimental aircraft. Nothing worth two million dollars and certainly nothing involving national security.

“Who’s making coffee?” he asked.

Lindy, stuffing three weeks of shirts, pants, underwear, and socks into his bag, turned back and said, “I vote you.” She backed off, surveyed her packing, and said, “All you need to pack is shoes, your Dopp kit, and your personals.”

The coffee pot clattered, then perked, gurgling loudly. “No problem. Thanks, hon.”

Minutes later, he returned with two steaming mugs. “You know honey, as usual, this mission is very sensitive. Not to be disclosed to anybody, your family, your friends, and especially your news team. Just tell them that I’m out saving the world again, as you usually do.

“I suppose you can’t contact me either. That sucks.”

“Probably not. When I’m not underwater, I’ll probably be out at sea. Cells just don’t work out there.”

“Is it okay if I call and leave a message? You can pick it up when you’re near land,”

“Of course honey. I’d love that.”

Lindy blew across her mug then sipped the coffee. “Are you afraid? You’ve never made this much money on any of your missions. Any idea what you’ll be doing?”

“No honey, and if I did I couldn’t tell you. You know that.” He sat thinking, sipping coffee for a minute, then looked at her. “Yes, I am a little afraid of what’s coming. I just can’t think of anything I could do that would be worth two million dollars. That much money accompanies big risks. I just hope I’m up to it.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you’re up to it. You’ve never failed before.” Looking tenderly into his eyes, she said, “I love you Matt Cross. You’re my world. Take care of yourself for me.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“I love you too, bear. Now stop that or you’re going to make me cry, too. It’s only three weeks. How hard could it be? I’ll be back before you know it.”

He stood, went into the bathroom for minutes, returned, and tossed his Dopp kit into his bag. Then, taking his cell phone from the dresser, he speed-dialed Carlos, his boss and owner of MBORC.

“Hello Matt. Where the hell are you? We’ve got your sub fired up and ready to drop.”

“So this is real? I’m still not sure if I’m dreaming all this. Did you get a call, too?

“Hell yes. At oh-dark-thirty this morning. Some commander called in a frenzy, needing your services. When I questioned his identity, he put me on a conference call with the Admiral of the Navy. Hell yeah, it’s real. Your reputation is obviously preceding you. Now get your ass in here and do whatever you’re supposed to do. He wouldn’t tell me, but our two-million dollar fee buys a lot of secrecy.”

“Yes, boss. I’m on my way.” He stood in the living room, like a soldier on deployment, hugging Lindy for the longest time. He never knew if he would really return, but he always played tough, assuring her he would.

He kissed her, threw the duffel bag over his shoulder, and in a flash was out the door, gone.

Lindy stood in the doorway, as always, and blew him a kiss as he drove away.

Thirty minutes had passed; he pulled into the nearly empty MBORC parking lot. The dawn lit the landscape with an eerie pink glow. The cars, he recognized, belonged to his launch team. They were all there. He smiled, unlocked the front door, and passed down the long hallway leading to the High Bay Room, the Canyon Glider’s home. It was brightly lit by blazing xenon overhead lights.

At the back of the room, he saw a small cadre of yellow-suited launch preppers moving methodically over the small submarine’s hull. The color of their suits matched its yellow perfectly. On their backs were large Canyon Glider logos, resembling the colorful NASA patches from the old Apollo missions.

The Glider’s hatch was open. A prepper poked out his head yelling instructions to another. Cross knew he was only minutes from launch. Then a one-hour trip out to the mother ship, two miles by water, would put him there an hour early. One by one, the preppers dropped off and surrounded the sub, waiting for his entry. All in a circle, they individually called out their prep duty, followed by “Ready.”

Carlos entered the High Bay, just as Cross threw his duffel bag into the cockpit. His approach brought the waiting staff to attention. “Good luck in your endeavor, Matt. Give ‘em hell, whatever it is. I’ll expect you back shortly after March 15, according to Norton. We’ll be waiting.” He shook Cross’s hand and left the High Bay. He had always considered it bad luck be present during the launch. He kept the tradition going.

He checked around the sub one last time, stepped up onto the hatch platform, and thanked his crew. Dropping into the small cockpit, he pulled the hatch closed, twirled the lock and settled into his seat. Amid clanging locks, jerks, whines and grinding winch motors the Canyon Glider slid smoothly out from the High Bay underwater port into Monterey Bay.

This was the part he loved. He straightened the horizontal rudders, pushed gently on the throttle lever and smiled as he heard the hum of the large electric motors, felt the forward motion.

Thinking through his plan, he had to first program the destination point, the location of the Trident Tine, into the GPS computer. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, keyed in the coordinates given him by Norton, then flipped the switch to Autopilot. The propulsion motors’ whine increased in volume and pitch, the vertical rudder drove the sub fifty feet under the surface and then leveled it out on the way to the meeting point. He knew that he was entering a popular whale migration path, that there would be humpback, orca and even blue whales randomly shooting across his path, so he kept the wide-angle sonar pointed directly ahead and his hand on the throttle, feet on the rudders, ready to pull back or steer clear before a possible collision.

His watch read seven-fifty-five a.m. He should arrive at the mother ship by nine, barring any whale mishaps. It was too damn early by his book, but the pay and mystery of his mission drove him forward, one adrenaline shot at a time.

Fifty minutes later, without incident, he heard the motors slow, felt the Glider tilt upward; he was approaching the Trident Tine. His heart raced, anticipating the docking. He reached to the surface camera switch and turned it on. The screen flared in the early morning sun. He was floating on the surface in four-foot waves, rocking and pitching as they passed by. Ahead he could see the enormous mother ship, the Trident Tine; he estimated its length at nearly a hundred yards, a football field long. It resembled an aircraft carrier but it had only a small raised platform on its aft deck; a strange double rotor helicopter was parked there. “My God,” he mumbled, “where do I load this thing?” He searched around the ship for the docking platform, usually hanging from cranes on thick visible cables, but he saw nothing. Then he noticed a uniformed figure on the deck high above waving two colored flags. It’s semaphore! He flew through his memory back to his Navy days, and started to decode the flag sequence. P — O — R — T — S — I — D — E — D — O — C — K. Amazed that he remembered so quickly and accurately, he steered the sub around to the port side and saw the suspended dock he expected should be there. He had seen pictures of them, but had never used one. As he motored slowly toward the cradling rail dock, it submerged so that he could float over it. He moved over it, between the four huge cables hanging from above, and stopped. Then it lifted slightly, locking the Canyon Glider in its rails.

Seconds later, he was airborne, watching the ship’s almost vertical white hull pass him by, as he rose to the deck. He took the opportunity to unlock the overhead hatch and throw it back. Through the opening, he looked up and watched one of the two massive cranes hovering above, lift his twenty-ton submersible. Dizzy, he looked down. Soon he felt a bump, a shaking in the cockpit, signaling his arrival on deck. Before he could release his harness, a head popped through the open hatch, looking in.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Cross. How was your trip? Short and sweet I hope.”

He squinted up into the light, his eyes still adjusting, and saw a uniformed man peering in. His hand was out, offering assistance. He could see four gold stripes on the sleeve. Only a Naval officer, a Captain, would wear them.

“Thank you, Captain. My trip was uneventful, as usual. That is, until I arrived here. I couldn’t find the floating dock. I knew there had to be one. Then I read the semaphore message and it brought me right in. Thanks for that.” He grasped the hand and rose from the cockpit into the morning sunlight. It felt warm, refreshing to him, countering the cool sea air.

“Good. We took a chance that you knew the flag code. Grab your gear and follow me.”

He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, climbed from the Glider and followed the uniformed man, wearing a sparkling white coat and pants with razor-sharp seams, across the spacious deck. His shoes reflected the passing deck features like mirrors.

There were several two-man bathyspheres, hard diving suits, and reels of long breathing hoses to the side of their path. He wanted to stop and examine them, but the captain sped onward to a stairwell, surrounded by a small shelter.

“We go down here.”

Double stepping behind him to keep up, he followed the captain down the stairs into a long hallway. Armored lights hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, lighting their way.

“There’s the head, if you feel the need,” said the captain, pointing to a passing room.

“No, I’m okay. Thank you anyway.”

They moved on, passing a long row of closed doors until the captain stopped and ushered him into an open door. It was the mess hall. It smelled of coffee, eggs, frying bacon, and pancakes. It was what he wanted to see. He had spent the last half-hour of his trip listening to his stomach growl.

The Captain led him past tables of uniformed men, eating breakfast, to the serving line. He grabbed the tray offered him, and shuffled down the long row of steaming food pans. They looked surprisingly good. He ordered one of everything until his plate was full, then filled a coffee mug and followed the captain to a private table, off to the side of the room.

Before sitting, the captain said, “I’m Captain Tim Broward, commander of this ship. You’ll be seeing a lot of me in the next few weeks, so get used to my face. My crew says that I’m a grisly bear on the outside and a teddy bear on the inside. I’ll let you be the judge of that. Sit.”

Cross nodded, smiled and ate. It was the best shipboard meal he’d tasted in a long time, and that included his four-year stint aboard Naval ships of all kinds and sizes.

As they finished their plates, he stretched and yawned. “I can get used to this. You run a tight ship here, Captain.”

“Well don’t get too used to it. Your trip is just starting,” said Broward.

“Wh-what do you mean sir?”

“Did you see the aircraft on our aft landing pad?”

“The helicopter? Twin rotor?”

“No, it’s an Osprey V22A tilt-rotor VTOL. Takes off and lands like a helicopter, but once it’s in the air the rotors tilt forward and it becomes a twin turboprop. Forward speed up to three-hundred knots. Should get you to your final destination in a little over an hour.”

He shook his head. “Boy, the Navy’s really changed since I served, apparently for the better.”

“Yes, Matt, if I may call you that, you’ll see quite a few advances in our air and sea technologies. This ship is one, designed to support all kinds of submersibles: bathyspheres, mini-subs, UUVs and even UAVs. We also carry a few hard-shell diving suits for those difficult-to-reach places. Most of our equipment is passive, unarmed. We let the fighting ships take care of that end of the business.”

“Yes, please call me Matt; I’m used to that.” He sipped his coffee. “So where am I going next?”

“You’ll be taken three-hundred miles south to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, near Los Angeles. That’s all I can tell you. We’ll follow you down. Be there tomorrow morning, anchored off the coast, about five miles out. Then, I guess, we’re all going to search for something pretty important. That’s all I know.”

He downed his last sip of coffee, pondering his unknown mission. Funny that a Navy Captain had not yet been informed of the search task.

“So, when do I leave?”

“They’re warming the engines now. Are you ready?”

“Yep, as ready as I’ll be.”

“Grab your kit bag and follow me.”

Walking toward the stern and the helipad, they passed rows of small submersibles ranging from three to sixteen feet in length, all resting in locked cradles on the open deck. Broward stopped and pointed them out in passing, “Those are our submersible search vessels: ROVs, UUVs and AUVs. We deploy them when needed. The long yellow ones are Bluefin-21 AUVs, the shorter multicolor UUVs are the Remus 600 series drones and the boxy ones are ROVs from various subcontractors. The ROVs and UUVs are mostly tethered, controlled from our SCC, submersible control center; the UAVs are preprogrammed for a task, similar to a torpedo, but they don’t explode or self destruct. They simply do an assigned task without human control and return. But they can be externally controlled if needed; aborting missions, returning them to base, etcetera.”

He cocked his head. “I’m not sure why you need me with all those drones. I’m sure they can run circles around me.”

“But they don’t think, Matt. You do. Your human perception and real-time decisions can leave them stuck on the reefs like the drones they are.”

In the distance, the twin wingtip rotors on the Osprey began to rotate, the whine of the turbines changed, signaling departure time. Their leisurely pace across the deck changed to a run. Hopping over ropes, hatch covers and deck latches, Cross raced up the ramp to the helipad. The Captain saluted him from the deck; he looked smaller now, surrounded by large gooseneck pipes, flared vents, and tethered reels of cabling. Cross returned the salute and climbed the stairs. The Osprey was huge, over fifty feet in length with a thirty-eight wingspan. The prop wash from the idling rotors fought him up the stairs. He leaned forward struggling to stand as he neared the door.

“Bag sir?” The crewmember reached out, hefted the duffel bag into the cabin, and grabbed his hand pulling him in.

“Thank you, officer, I’m still stiff from the ride in,” Cross said.

He sat in a narrow jump seat, one of twenty-four lining the sides of the cavernous interior, buckled his harness and sat back.

“How’d you come in? Live around here?” the crewman asked, pulling the stairs, slamming and locking the door.

“Drove a DSV. Docked on the ship’s floating rail dock. Came from a few miles east in Marina. I live there.”

“You live in a marina? Now that’s true dedication.”

“No, in Marina, a small city just north of Monterey. I live in a house, like everyone else,” said Cross smiling.

“Oh. Well I live on this ship. I guess that leaves me out.” The crewman chuckled.

“Where’s your home port?” asked Cross.

“We dock in San Diego, Naval Base San Diego. We’re one of fifty-three ships that call it home. Big place. Thirty-thousand employees on base. It’s the home port of the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet.”

“So you travel with the ship.”

“Always.”

Rotors roaring upward, the Osprey shook violently lifting from the pad. Cross darted his attention to the crewman, watching for signs of distress; instead he leaned over and pointed down to the Trident Tine, shrinking below them. That’s our home port. Unless we’re flying a mission, then the pad stands empty, until we get visitors.”

“Oh, what kind of visitors?” asked Cross, still staring out. The ship below began to drift off to the north as the rotors rotated to horizontal, driving them forward.

“Well, I’m not usually there since they use our pad, but I hear mostly pompous black-suited men from the D.C. area. They seem to lose a lot of crap under the ocean from up there; we’re always looking for their screw-ups. It’s all on the Q.T.”

Laughing, Cross asked, “Think this is another one of those incidents?”

“Nah. This one is different. We’ve never had a visiting DSV pilot before. You must be something really special. I mean we’ve got thirty-odd UUVs, AUVs, and ROV’s aboard, and they’re all pretty good.”

“No it’s not me, it’s Gilda. She’s got moves like nothing else.”

“Ooh, she sounds exciting. Do I get to meet her?”

“Only if you dive with me. Gilda’s my nickname for the mini-sub. She’s on the deck of your ship right now. I piloted her in early this morning, about sunrise. Her real name is the Canyon Glider, but Gilda evolved from an accidental misspelling long ago.”

“Anyway, do you know what we’ll be searching for this time?” asked the crewman.

“No idea, other that it’s very sensitive and hush-hush. I guess I’ll find out when I get wherever I’m going.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Cross saw the pilot motion through the open cockpit door. Pointing forward, he said, “I think the pilot needs you. I see him looking your way.”

“Oh yeah, he probably wants coffee or something. Would you like a cup?”

“No. Thanks anyway. I just had a fine breakfast in your mess hall. What a cook.”

“Good, wasn’t it? We love Cookie. He keeps us healthy and full.” The pilot was still motioning. “Good talking to you. We’ll soon be landing, better fasten your seatbelt.” He turned and walked through the cockpit door, closing it behind him.

Out the small window by his jump seat, he watched the majestic cliffs and lighthouse of Point Concepcion pass below, then the Channel Islands, smears of green on a deep blue background. He was nearing the Point Mugu NAS, once his home as a young Naval DSV pilot. He had learned the ins and outs of diving and mini-subs there, exploring the ocean floor almost every day. He was coming back; he wondered how it had changed. Then he was out over the ocean again and suddenly back over land. The claw shape of the Long Beach harbor told him he was nearing Seal Beach.

Startling him, the intercom blasted, “This is your pilot, Lieutenant Bill Harper speaking. Please tighten your harness, Mr. Cross; we land in three minutes.” He had never heard a personal seat belt announcement before; it sounded strange.

The rotors began to pivot to vertical. He felt a braking force, shifting him sideways in his seat. The ground was coming up at an alarming speed even though he estimated his height at a thousand feet. Then the turbines roared, the rotors flared, dropping his descent rate to an comfortable speed. He eased back in his seat awaiting the bump. He had ridden in many helicopters to and from his DSV, but the Osprey was a different animal. He had no idea what to expect.

Dust flying around him, he could see rows of large metal buildings without doors. The landing was smooth; there was no bump. He scanned his surroundings, a barren open field. Outside, on the tarmac, a Navy fleet car awaited him. As the rotors slowed, the crewman left the cockpit and opened the door, dropping the stairs to the ground.

“Here’s your stop, sir.” The crewman handed him his bag as he started out the door. “Enjoy Seal Beach. See you later.”

Cross nodded, descended the steps, and tossed his kit bag into the open trunk. The driver slammed it; they entered the black sedan together. Sitting there, across from him, three gold stripes on his uniform sleeve, scrambled eggs on his wheel cap, a distinguished gentleman, reminding him of an older Top-Gun’s Tom Cruise, waited.

The Osprey’s turbines whined loudly, lifting it slowly from the tarmac.

“You must be Commander Norton. Pleased to meet you. I’m Matt Cross.” He held out his hand, shouting over the roaring rotors.

Returning the gesture, the commander raised his voice and replied, “That I am, Mr. Cross. Thank you for coming on such short notice. We’re on our way to the Adam taskforce meeting in Santa Ana. You’ll learn more there.” He covered his ears briefly, then pointed upward toward the receding aircraft.

Understanding that details were still being withheld, he eagerly awaited the meeting, learning of his mysterious mission.

On the trip to Santa Ana, Norton sat quietly writing in a notebook. Occasionally looking up and then back to the paper, he wrote more.

“Is your Naval Weapons Station involved in this operation?” he asked casually.

“No. I’m just one of the Naval liaisons, as are you, now. My home base is Seal Beach.” Norton looked back at his writing and continued.

Shortly, the black sedan pulled onto North Flower Street and into a loading space in front of the Crime Lab.

“Here we are,” Norton said.

“The Orange County Crime Lab?” he asked reading the big metallic letters on the wall.

“Yes, it’s been my home office for quite a few days now. Home of the Adam taskforce, too. Follow me. Leave your duffel bag in the trunk.”

After passing the front desk, he trailed steps behind Norton through the lobby, up the stairs, onto the third floor landing, and down the long hallway into the S.I.D. Lab. Breathing heavily, he looked around, catching his breath. “Do you always go that fast, Commander?”

Winking, Norton said, “Only when I know where I’m going.”

At the rear of the lab, filled with equipment foreign to him, Cross saw a table; a khaki uniformed woman sat at its head.

On the way back, Norton motioned toward it. That’s our taskforce leader, Lieutenant Sherry Poole with the Orange County’s Sheriff’s Office.”

“Oh, is this a civil matter?” he asked, again questioning his involvement.

“You’ll soon see.”