A Death in Geneva (28 page)

Fisker had done his advance work well. The Royal Marine colonel knew who was calling and why. His account of the TOPIC rig disaster meshed with all the other pieces Sweetman had assembled—a different slant, more authoritative and less sudsy than that of Harry Jones, and as Harry had predicted, there was more to be learned about the tragedy of the diver's family.

“I was told last night, out in Yarmouth, that Mrs. Renfro killed herself?”

“That is correct, unfortunately.”

“And, I was told that there was only one kid, a girl, and that she's disappeared?”

“No, I think I can help you there. Again, unfortunately, your information is not quite right. There was one surviving member of the family, Leslie. But, she is not a girl, very much a grown woman. I am not so sure that she has disappeared, but, given my affection for John and his wife, it does trouble me to think what may have become of her.”

“How do you mean, Colonel?”

“Even before her parents' deaths, she had fallen in with new acquaintances—a summer vacation, touring the Continent, France, Holland, Germany. I recall her father being quite worried about her new, radical ideas—”

“Anyone in particular?”

“No, there I have no idea.”

“You say France, Holland, Germany” —Sweetman subconsciously touched the copies of the letters still folded in his breast pocket—“were any of these new friends in Amsterdam? Do you think she's in Amsterdam?”

“I am sure she had been through Amsterdam, Mr. Sweetman. Holland is not that large a country is it? I cannot say for certain where Leslie Renfro is today; not a case of her disappearing. Quite possibly, she is on the Continent. In fact, I heard some time ago from a mutual acquaintance of the Renfros that she had been taken in by John's brother and his wife in Malta.”

The tip of Shostak's metal rule reemerged in Sweetman's mind. He returned to the coupe and encoded a message that would pass from London to Fisker for Pierce.

Chapter 12

“I
'll be damned if I know what the hell blew those cameras!”

“Don't worry about them. The replacements will be here next week. We will keep meticulous logs; there is really no need for the television monitors, you know.”

Tooms cuffed one of the dead overhead monitors, “You're right, Princess. Damned near see us from the surface as it is.” He ducked beneath the CO
₂
scrubbers, flipped open the catches on the face of the charcoal air filter and, satisfied with his inspection, snapped the face back into place. His forearm swiped at the sweat trickling down his face. It was hot and humid in the metal cylinder despite the cold air being blown through the access trunk from the mother ship. He glanced at his partner, Leslie Renfro, running through the habitat's main electrical board checklist. Cool as a cucumber; how the hell does she do it? Aboard the catamaran she had the reputation of a perfectionist. In Malta, during the crossing, she had driven Tooms and the rest on every phase of the expedition.

On the curving bulkhead over the worktables of the habitat's laboratory space, she had mounted the charts of the expedition site, the salinity tables, the sediment tables showing the clayey-silt overlaying the fine-grained sand of the bay floor, phytoplankton tables, bar charts summarizing the sources and trends of pollution over the past decade, and depth,
tides, and current charts. Her large-scaled chart of the site's oyster bar, with a clear plastic overlay of the research grid lines to be run during the first days' underwater work, was taped to the worktable.

With Tooms, she had modified the layout of the habitat, with the storage space previously reserved for scores of oxygen and helium bottles during deeper saturation dives turned over to the equipment of the bay dive: cases of sample bottles, instruments shipped in from the local institutions, a five-drawer file cabinet, tubular steel spools holding thousands of feet of braided buoyant nylon line to be carried underwater, paid out from the work chariots' cargo decks during the Phase One construction of the grids, and the large white cylindrical canisters marked
RENFRO RESEARCH
.

This gear was stowed at the end of the habitat furthest from the access trunk. Closer to the trunk, on the right side of the chamber, the laboratory was neatly placed, together with the banks of meters, panel lights, and switches for atmospheric control and treatment, electrical power, illumination, and communications with the surface support ship.

Crew quarters lined the left side of the cylinder, curtained, double-decked bunks, clothes lockers, a compact galley, curtained shower and toilet, and a large open-faced locker for wet suit storage. On the bulkhead beside the heavy rubber diving gear, tables spelled out the number of divers' decompression stops required from bottom to surface, a safety measure she had taken even though the expedition would be limited to average depths of forty feet or less, with no danger of nitrogen buildup.

Six thick, conical, acrylic plastic viewports dotted the habitat's steel pressure hull. The steel grid dock for the work chariots was hinged into place on the exterior of the habitat's base and lashed against the hull for lowering into the bay. When the habitat was below the catamaran, with its footings solidly on the bay floor, the docking deck would be opened at a right angle to the access trunk, permitting efficient transfer of divers and gear between the habitat and the submersibles.

“This freeze-dried food reads right fine in the press kits—”

“Starring feels his press conference was a success?”

“Flawless. We're sitting pretty, Princess—on location, big splash already on the nets, the glossy weeklies still to come, a month's breathing space. As I was saying, I don't know about you, but I'm having steak and trimmings catered from topside.” Tooms surveyed the interior of
the freezer, closed the brushed-chrome door. He gave the entire interior another slow look. “She's in good shape, ready to go.” He stopped at the bulkhead dividing the bunks from the main working spaces. Full-profile line drawings of the
Towerpoint Partner
and
Towerpoint Mayan
were mounted above the navigator's charts of the northern and southern halves of the bay. She had covered every phase, recorded the tankers' schedules, plotted their projected tracks in the bay's main channel, the site and timing of the ceremonial links with the big ships, which Starring attached so much importance to . . . what detail had she missed? . . . What detail? Goddammit, not like her to have those cameras out, and what the hell purpose does some of that detail serve?

They troubled him from time to time, these Maltese dolphins. Mixed in with their good work were the hours they remained closeted in her cabin. His cynicism—his envy—had tried to write it off to another generation's morals, group sex. But not day after day. Jesus . . . a hard trio to fathom . . . her bolts of crusading language, some sort of hybrid Carrie Nation/Joan of Arc . . . goddamned expressions on Tonasi and Head, looked like they both belonged behind bars half the time . . . hard to fathom. They were getting the job done; he suppressed the fleeting dark thoughts.

“Leslie”—Tooms plopped down on one of the stools at the lab table—“what you have going for you is your modest ability to do everything! You've got this show under control; it's a smash hit. Starring's pleased. I owe you one hell of a lot. Goddamnit it's hot . . . stun a Finn in this sauna.” He snatched up a towel, blotted his head and neck. “The thing of it is, you're a throbber, a real throbber. There's no rest in you, and . . .” His eyes caught the cameras again, the questions returned. “Christ!” He lumbered to his feet, wrestling with the need not to question, not to insult. “You know, I watch those hands of yours; things come alive in them. I swear you could turn lead to gold.”

She received his floundering words with a cool smile of attentive silence. It had taken years, the discipline of the huntress and the hunted. She had learned that discipline, how to lock her emotions away, to pursue her quarry. She had steered Head and Tonasi to the new target. Together, they had allowed Tooms and Starring to create their roles. Now, they were positioned. She listened, and when Tooms had finished his ramble of affection, she smiled. “The habitat
is
set, Oats. We should be back on deck; it's much fresher there . . .
high time to sink this can, that is what you call it?” She slipped down through the access trunk, back onto the deck of the catamaran.

The swallow-tailed white and blue, signal Alfa/Alpha flag, ‘I have a diver down, keep well clear' was at the
Towerpoint Octagon
's yard when the habitat began its bubbling descent into the translucent green-brown of the bay. The cables of the ship's crane paid out until the cylinder's legs settled on the bottom, stirring a cloud of sediment which spread to the surface and carried away on the current.

Four divers in scuba gear—Head, Tonasi, and two members of the ship's crew—went below in inspect. The legs were squarely on the bottom with the access trunk well clear. Head's voice came up on the radio from inside the cylinder, reporting the status. If topside agreed, they would set the work chariots' docking platform.

Tooms gave the go-ahead. In twenty minutes, they were back on the surface and lifted aboard. Tooms scratched out a quick message reporting the first success to Starring, who had already departed for New York with Tina and her coach, having left strict instructions with the chief scientist for detailed status reports on every evolution prior to his return on the evening of July 2.

In the early afternoon, they were on deck again. “Well, my mermaid and two boys on a dolphin, we're ready to roll, July first, on target, damned proud of you.” The ship's crew secured the crane slings to the first of the work chariots. Still on deck, Renfro and Tonasi prepared to climb into one submersible, Tooms and Head into the other. The results of weeks of intensive preparation crystallized in the crisp responses to the pre-dive checklist.

“Emergency ballast secure?”

“Secure.”

“Main propulsion clear?”

“Propulsion clear.”

“Rudder clear?”

“Rudder clear.”

“Diving planes clear?”

“Planes clear

“Structural damage?” Their hands and eyes ran along the sixteen-foot hulls, including the bottoms.

“Clean.”

“Marker buoys secure?”

“Secure.”

“Salvage lift padeye?”

“Padeye clear.”

“Cargo deck, clamps, clear?

“Clear.”

The checklist moved to the interior of the open fore-and-aft, two-seater cockpits. In each submersible, the pilot faced forward, the crew aft. A manipulator arm was fitted to the rounded bullet nose of each craft. From the bows, the smooth hulls ran to the cockpits, rising on the upper surfaces in streamlined, hydrodynamic contouring, providing for the instrument panel housing.

The two compartments of each cockpit were divided by a narrow bulkhead, wide enough to house reserve oxygen supply, contoured to receive the back-mounted twin scuba tanks of the divers. By facing aft, the crew had ready access to the cargo deck. A green light, button-activated, on the panel of each compartment provided the visual, intracrew communications, with the numbered sequences of flashes indicating forward, stop, submerge, and surface.

“Batteries?” Tooms boomed out the checklist item. The gauges flicked positive for each of the eight, silver-zinc batteries packed in oil in their compartments at the base of the hulls. “Batteries check.”

The calling of the list and the responses continued: instrument panel illumination, sonar, gyrocompass navigation display, depth gauge, emergency ballast release, diving planes controls, rudder control, throttle, reserve air supply, external light forward, and light aft.

“Manipulator?” The two chariot skippers reached forward, flicked the activator switches. Both of the three-jointed metal claws mounted on the bows went through their exercises. A push forward on the control, and the hydraulic command sent the claw in an outward reach with smooth extension of the finely machined metal wrist, elbow, and shoulder. A retraction of the control, and the arm folded back against the submersible. A turn to the left, and the metal wrist rotated to the left. A thumb pressed on the “pickle” in the center of the control knob, and the claw opened, thumb released, the claw closed. “Manipulator check.”