Pi Day Doomsday

SEANET II

The R/VS Trident Tine had shifted four miles to northwest, dropped anchor over the Santa Catalina canyon, and was buzzing with activity. According to GPS, it bulls-eyed the new coordinates. Adam should be within reach. By noon, all Bluefins were out, recharged and searching. In the Captain’s office, Cross stood arguing.

“… but it had over a thousand feet to drift with the current. It will not be under us. It could be a half-mile away, in any direction. You know that as well as I do. It’s still too large a search area with the time remaining.” He was animated, trying to convey his idea.

“So, you want to build a full scale model, a clone, drop it overboard, and track it to the floor. Is that right?” he asked, sarcastically.

“Yes, Captain. I’ve done it before. It works. The ocean currents don’t change much, this far out. If we put a sonar beacon in the clone, I can follow it down. Should land near the warhead. Hopefully not on it.”

“Fat chance of that, Mr. Cross.” Rubbing his chin, staring down, thinking, Broward spoke, “Hmm. Tell you what. Maybe it’s worth a try. Our Maintenance Bay crew is idle, except for an occasional Bluefin repair. I’ll give you a day with them. Go down, draw up your model, have them build it. Then we’ll drop it over and you can do your thing. Still not gonna beat our robots, though.”

Recharged from the idle days spent waiting, doing little, he smiled, remembering he had a drawing of the W-88 that Gruber had downloaded from the web, included in his Adam folder.

“Permission to leave sir?”

“Of course, Cross. Go have fun with your model.”

On the way back from his quarters, the W-88 drawing in hand, he poked his head into the Mess Hall. Briscoe was drinking coffee and nibbling on a donut. Miraculously, a few were left over from breakfast; he assumed the ship’s busy schedule of moving and starting SeaNet II kept the crew away. The Mess was always secured, closed, during maneuvers.

“C’mon Chief. We’ve got a mission. Captain’s cleared us on a dive to find Adam. Gotta build a warhead and drop it.”

“Wait… What? Another one? Why?” he asked, squinting in confusion.

“Not a real warhead. A duplicate, a clone.”

“But why?”

“Have you ever been hot-air ballooning?”

“Can’t say that I have, Marker.”

“Well, the pilot sends up a helium-filled balloon, called a pi-ball, a pilot’s balloon, before liftoff to see which way the winds will carry him. He watches it disappear from view, noting crosswinds and their directions at different elevations, then plots a course through the elevations, taking him where he wants to go.”

“Okay, but what does that have…? Oh, I get it. You plan to drop an inverted pi-ball, and watch it sink to the bottom.”

“Close. I drop a pi-ball then chase it to the bottom, since it will disappear a few meters down.”

“That may work,” Briscoe said. “And you’re building a replica so it will have the same hydrodynamics, and hopefully take the same course as the real warhead. Right?”

“Yeah, hopefully.”

Swallowing the last bite, gulping a slug of coffee, he stood. “Genius, Marker! Mind if I tag along?”

The Maintenance Bay was still, a radio loudly announced a basketball game at the far end. Six crewmen sat at a makeshift table, a bright work light overhead, playing cards.

Seeing their entrance, a seaman jumped up and met them. “What can I do for you guys today? Gilda rusted out yet? She sure seems lonely out on that big deck all by herself.” He snickered, looking back at the table.

“No Seaman…” A glance at his name patch yielded, “Oliver.” He continued, “The Captain’s okayed the construction of a model. A model of this.” He held up the drawing, turning it into the light to better show it.

Oliver frowned, impatiently inspecting the image, then said, “You want us to build a full-scale model of a warhead used on Trident missiles? Really?”

Ready for more sarcasm, he responded quietly, “Yes, if that would be okay with you guys.”

Suddenly, Oliver yelled to the back of the room, “Up and at ‘em boys. We got a job to do.” He winked at Cross and, aside, said, “Just pranking you, Mr. Cross. Captain called us a few minutes ago. We got his orders. Is tomorrow morning all right? We’ll have it on deck at Reveille, ready to be winched down with Gilda. Oh, do you want a beacon or a squawker aboard?”

“Yes, both.”

“Well that’s gonna cost you. Several hours at the most. How about daybreak? 0700 hours? Is that all right?”

“Better, actually. I like to give Gilda a visual checkout before I dive. And Briscoe’s diving with me, too. Make sure the scintillation probe’s working. We expect to find our target tomorrow. We’ll need it in tip-top shape.”

“Oh, well then you can just ask Briscoe to walk by it. If it blinks it’s working.”

Briscoe and Cross laughed at his joke, then realized he was right. They could test it themselves.

“What about weight?” Oliver asked. “Same as the real one?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Great, we’ve got tons of scrap metal down here. Wouldn’t hurt to lose a few hundred pounds.” Oliver saluted, turned, walked back, and took the drawing to his crew.

Briscoe cocked his head, “Do you think his last statement was directed at me? I feel fine with my weight.”

Cross thought on it for a moment, then cracked up laughing, finally catching Briscoe’s joke. “Come on Chief, let’s go prime the Glider. I have a feeling we’re going to get lucky tomorrow.”

“Hope so, Marker. It’s not impossible; my brains and your brawn, we can do it.”

Laughing their way down the hall, Briscoe wavered, looking ill.

“What’s up Chief? You don’t look well.”

“Nauseated, sick at my stomach. Probable too much coffee.” He stopped, leaned against a wall, then slowly slid to the floor, eyes closed but still breathing.

“Medic! Medic!” Cross screamed, placing his fingers over the Chief’s carotid; his plea echoed down the hall. Briscoe still had a pulse, weak but stable.

Minutes later, two white-clad medics rushed toward him, took a few vitals, then loaded Briscoe onto a stretcher. “Catch him in the infirmary,” a medic said, “Just being cautious.”

Stunned, Cross followed them to sickbay, sat in a one-chair waiting room, bowed his head and prayed. He felt Briscoe looked a little off since their reunion aboard the Osprey, but it had been nine years since they had last seen each other. Only recently, first in the Osprey, then from the Adam folder, did he learn details of his encounter with radiation during the Sea Ray incident. That gave him reason to be concerned.

“His X-rays show he has a small stomach tumor. According to him, it may be from a radioactive donut.” The doctor, standing over Cross, shaking his head, eyes questioning, asked, “Could that be possible? Or is he having delusions, too.”

“No, doc. It’s true. It’s a very long story but it is true. Is he already talking?”

“Yes, he’s up and doing better. I’ll release him in a few hours after an observation period. He said he’s got a morning dive.”

“Can he do it? Is he able?”

“The tumor should be biopsied, probably removed, but not while he’s aboard this ship. He’s good to go for normal activities, including diving.”

“Thanks, doc. I’ll treat him with kid gloves; he’s like a father to me.”

“Good for him. Now you take care with that dive. Don’t want a nitrogen narcosis case coming in. Can’t handle it. No hyperbaric chamber aboard.”

“My word, doc. Promise.”

Back on the Main Deck, without Briscoe, he circled the Glider. Wondering how he would grasp Adam if he found him, he tugged at the probe, checking for movement. It was locked, immovable. He would have to leave a buoy marker on him, surface, drop the scintillator probe, then return. He needed another set of hands. Then he remembered. The clone would have a beacon and squawker. He could move it near Adam, then easily return to both using passive sonar. It had to have a pickup loop, though, to mesh with the small catch hook on the Glider’s undercarriage.

He ran back down to Maintenance, and amid yelling, welding, hammering, and other distractions, told them to install a strong eye bolt, a pickup loop, something to grab onto, on the clone.

“How else are you going to retrieve it, Mr. Cross? It’s already on there. Actually two of them, in case one is under it, down in the silt. We had to do that for hydrodynamic balance. Won’t change the rate or direction of fall. We think of everything,” said Oliver.

“You’re right. Excellent! See you tomorrow,” he said, wondering what Oliver had planned after he left the service. He could really use a mind like that at MBORC, if they made it through.

With nothing to do but wait for morning, he returned to his quarters expecting to find Briscoe. His bunk was still folded against the wall. Worried about him but thrilled about the morning dive, he sat at the small desk, grabbed the Adam file from the shelf, and thumbed through the pages.

Another of Gruber’s inserts grabbed his attention. A web page copy titled “Effects of underwater nuclear explosions” told him what to do if he found Adam and couldn’t disarm him. He would have to move him to a greater depth, further from land. Two hundred miles out would do it. Two miles deep. Out a quarter-way to Hawaii in deep Pacific waters. The explosion would visible as a large balloon-shaped cloud, possibly a mushroom over it, from the California shoreline, its destructive effects would be absorbed by the first one-hundred miles, leaving only a small three to six foot wave washing ashore as its reminder. There would be a great loss of marine life though from the explosion.

Poring over a table of underwater nuclear test explosions from 1946 up to the last one in 1962, he sat engrossed in the data, taking notes. After 1962, there were no more tests; they were banned in late 1963 by the NTBT, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, under President Kennedy. He focused on “Wigwam,” the deepest and most powerful test on the list. “Betty” a Mark 90-B7 nuclear depth charge, designed for submarine warfare, was exploded in 1955, two thousand feet down, over an ocean floor three miles below her. With a yield of only thirty kilotons, she threw a large seawater spray rising hundreds of feet into the air. Measured surface radiation from the test was negligible, but underwater radiation and fallout effects were unmentioned.

Adam’s yield, according to the W-88 data sheet, would be around five hundred kilotons, over fifteen times that of Betty’s. He made a note to himself warning of this discrepancy. Still, the two-hundred mile drop spot looked good. Now he just had to get him there.

The Osprey! he thought. Bring Adam to the rail dock, drop him there, then pull a line down from the Osprey and hook him on it. A quick hour trip out over the Pacific and they could lay him carefully in a watery grave, away from humanity.

Pleased with his plan, he returned to Broward’s office and explained it.

Broward thought for minutes, looking at Cross’s notes. “Not a bad plan, but it’s contingent on your finding Adam. Think you can do it? My Bluefins have been out searching most of the day and have nothing yet.”

“Can I use the Osprey to relocate Adam? That’s the question?” Ignoring the Captain’s doubt, he was assuring in his query.

“Talk the pilot into it and you’ve got it,” he answered, with a tone of sarcasm.

“I’ll get Briscoe to ride with him. Someone has to drop the line. I’ll be on the rail dock with the Glider, hooking up Adam.”

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling for a moment, then returned upright. “Well, Mr. Cross, it seems you have thought it through, documented it in your notes, and explained it perfectly. I probably couldn’t have done it better myself. I’m also impressed with your self confidence. Reminds me of myself many years ago.”

“Thank you Captain. I’ll go check with the pilot and get things lined up.”

“Carry on, Cross,” he nodded, smiling at his enthusiasm, something he hadn’t see in a while.

The pilot, Lt. Harper, was hesitant but agreeable, not knowing the bomb was timed. He had heard, as everyone else on the ship had heard, that it was a dud warhead lost from a recent submarine training mission. He saw no real danger in the exercise. He agreed to do it. Still, he wondered why he was moving it, rather than retrieving it for safekeeping. That was normal procedure.

Heading back to his quarters, he stepped lighter, knowing his ducks were all in a row. He still needed to tell Briscoe. He wondered if he had been released.

“Ahoy, Marker,” Briscoe said, sitting on his bunk, scanning the Adam folder.

Entering the room, he smiled at Briscoe’s return. “Feelin’ better, Chief? You gave me quite a scare back there.”

“Got a shot and some Pepto and I feel much better. Didn’t know about the tumor, though. Guess I’ve got to lay off poisoned donuts.” He chuckled and laid the folder on the bunk next to him. “Did you see those photos Keller took of those old record albums? The LPs? Weird that he would do that. What was with that Shazam pamphlet? I don’t even know what that is. Do you?”

“Yeah, it’s a cell phone app. Recognizes music and songs like an expert listener. Tells you the title. Don’t know the relevance to the case though. He must have been a music aficionado, as they call it. Me? I just listen to music and don’t need to know the name of a song.”

Nodding, Briscoe said, “Yeah, me too. There were even scribbles out beside the track titles on the Vivaldi LP. Couldn’t read them. Must have been a real cuckoo nut about music”

Cross, thought for moments, then brightened. “What if he added a disabling function to the bomb, based on music recognition. Lullaby it to sleep.”

Briscoe scoffed, “How do you mean, Marker? Why would he do that?”

“Maybe for afterthoughts, a way to retract his threat, an escape from his madness in a moment of lucidity.”

“But maybe a way to trigger it instantly, bypassing the timer. That sounds more like him.”

“Yeah, hadn’t thought of that. Let’s not go there. Bad idea.”

Silence followed until Cross spoke again, detailing his Adam retrieval plan. Ten minutes had passed; Briscoe listening carefully, had said nothing. Finally, he nodded. “Well I’m on board with everything Marker. Sounds like a plan. Want me to stay here on the first dive?”

“And let you miss Adam’s discovery? No way in hell would I leave you behind. Six-thirty on deck. We launch at seven. I’ll need you there early to calibrate the scintillator,” he said, trying to hide a grin.

Briscoe smirked. “It’s good to know I’m still good for something. Lighting up a probe. Not everyone can do that.” He smiled back.

From the hallway, the 1MC interrupted, blaring, “Mess Call. Mess Call. SeaNet Special tonight: Red Snapper Stew.”

Standing, ready to rush the line, Cross asked, “You hungry, Chief?”

“You know? I think I am. Let’s eat.”

Lingering over dinner. they reminisced over their last dive together. It was a crash recovery mission, June 6^th, 2007 off the California coast. Tasked with recovering the black box from an F-16 Falcon downed in two thousand feet of water, they went down together, Briscoe in a hard-shell ADS, atmospheric diving suit, Cross in Dipsy, the mini-sub.

“I remember you carried me down in Dipsy’s arms, like a statue. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life. Then when she released me on the bottom, I just wanted to crawl back into her arms. Then I got hung in wires; it was so black. So alone. My breathing air hissed, but I couldn’t breathe. I could see you through the viewport, but you weren’t there.” He began to tremble, tightly closing his eyes.

“I never saw that, Chief. I saw a master diver, standing there in Dipsy’s floods, stepping dauntlessly through coral, mud and silt, into a broken, twisted fuselage. Wires and cables everywhere, you kept going until you found the box. I was never so happy as when I saw you cut it loose and hold it up. But then on your way back out, you got hung on that wiring harness, there must been hundreds of cables around you holding you down, and you signaled me for help. In a cold sweat, I approached you in Dipsy, careful not to ram you. You held that box like it was your baby. When I pulled the harness with the manipulators, you broke free. I thought I was going to lose you.” He choked up, reliving that moment.

“Hey,” Briscoe said, “don’t be so morose. We’re here, living our dream, getting ready to do it again. What could be better?”

Cross chuckled, slapped him on the shoulder, and said. “Yeah. But let’s do it right this time.”

“Well, we didn’t die did we?”

“No, but we’re going to do it righter. That was just too close,”

“Righter?” asked Briscoe, squinting.

“Yep. That’s how we’re going to do it. Now let’s hit the sack. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Ten minutes later, they were in their bunks, lights out. Cross lay there thinking, praying about tomorrow’s search. He had a feeling. It was good.