Ultra Deep (18 page)

“Anything, Dawn?”

She sat back in the cushioned seat. “There’s lots out there, Curtis, but I can’t tell what’s what. They may be freighters and tankers.”

“We’re looking for a boat headed west.”

“I know that. I count seven on the thirty-mile scan. Look at it yourself.”

Aaron would not have known the difference himself. “No, I believe you. We’re bound to intersect them somewhere along the line.”

“Maybe Jacobs knows where he’s going,” Lengren said, implying that Aaron did not know.

He turned his head and looked aft on the right side. A half-mile away, the
Arienne
, a Greenpeace boat, was showing her running lights. No matter how Jacobs might snub Aaron from time to time, he had certainly been quick to follow him out of Santa Monica.

“I doubt it, Dawn. He’s keying on us.”

“Yeah, but … ”

Her voice was drowned out by the abrupt high-pitched roar of engines.

Aaron almost ducked.

A four-engined airplane shot overhead, headed west. Aaron would swear that it was less than a thousand feet above the water.

“Dumb bastard,” Dawn said.

*

1941 HOURS LOCAL, 32° 56' NORTH, 128° 40' WEST

The inside of the Navy C-130 Hercules was spartan. Wiring and hydraulic conduits snaked along the ceiling and fuselage walls. There were rattles, metal against metal. The rollers in the floor chittered. The four Alison turboprops roared throatily, dissuading attempts at conversation.

Brande sat in one of the pull-down, canvas seats against the left side of the cavernous cargo bay. He wore a set of headphones that diminished the noise of the engines and let him listen in on the intercom chatter of the crew and the radio dialogue of the pilots.

In front of him, centered in the bay, were Turtle and Gargantua. The smaller robot was aft, and both rested on wooden pallets. The floor and the aft, lowerable ramp were made up of aluminum rollers, and the pallets were locked in place by nylon tie-downs. Since they did not have any windows, the cargo master had lowered the ramp while in flight in order to give them a view, but the view was of an endless blue sea. The twilight had deepened into grayish gloom, and the sea looked like darkened concrete. Brande figured the surface was just about as hard as concrete.

Strapped around the perimeter of both ROVs was a heavy-duty polyvinyl sac which, with any luck at all, would be inflated by C02 cartridges at the proper time.

Brande was dressed in a dark blue wetsuit which had the MVU logo embossed above his left breast. On the canvas seat beside him was a battered white helmet that the Navy apparently did not mind losing since they had lent it to him with no proviso for its return. He was strapped into a deflated Mae West and main and reserve parachutes for which the Navy would probably bill him. His civilian clothes were packed into a small waterproof bag hooked to his belt.

Over the headset, he heard one of the pilots make a call, obviously on the marine band. “
Orion
. This is Baker Two Two.”

“Baker Two Two,
Orion
. I think we see your lights. The voice was female, and Brande thought it belonged to Connie Alvarez-Sorenson.

“I’ll blink them for you, if you do the same for me. We’re at nine-five-zero feet.”

“Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” she said and, after a moment, noted, “I’ve got you.”

“And I’ve got you,” the pilot said. Off the air, and on the intercom, he added, “I wish.”

“She’s married, Lieutenant,” Brande said.

“Always my kind of luck, Mr. Brande. I’m going to make a wide three-sixty, and then we’ll come in directly over the ship. Ejection will be a mile ahead of her. You’ll get greens in about six minutes.”

“Fine by me,” Brande said. “Thanks for the ride, Lieutenant.”

“Good luck, sir.”

Brande released his lap belt and stood up. He exchanged the headset for the helmet, pulled it on, and tightened the chin strap. He bent over and struggled with his flippers, finally slipping the straps behind his heels.

He felt bulky and clumsy in the parachute harness and life vest.

As the plane went into a shallow bank, the cargo master made a trip around each of the ROVs, releasing all but one restraining line.

“Need any help, sir?” he asked Brande.

“I think I can hobble my way out, Chief.”

Lifting his feet high to clear the swim fins, Brande worked his way back to the ramp. When the chief petty officer lowered it to slightly below level, he stepped out onto it, walked halfway out, and waited, hanging onto the hatchway jamb with a firm grip.

The windstream whipped at the mass of his gear and stung his eyes.

Peering out, he could see the lights of several ships behind, to the east. The sea was almost dark now, the altitude deceptive. It was going to be a short fall, and he was not going to have time for sightseeing, anyway.

Looking back, he saw that the cargo master had turned on the white strobe lights attached to the top of each ROV. His eyes had become accustomed to the softly red-lit interior of the bay, and each flash of the strobes felt like fire. Brande checked to make sure his six-celled flashlight was strapped tightly to his harness.

Pulling the Plexiglas visor down, he looked up at the jump lights.

The red was on.

He shifted his head and returned to staring out the back of the aircraft.

The red and green running lights of
Orion
passed directly below.

The jump lights went green.

The cargo master released the restraint on Turtle as the nose of the C-130 tilted upward.

Turtle rolled backward on the floor rollers, hesitated crossing onto the ramp, rolled some more, went past Brande, and dropped off the end of the ramp.

The static line connected to the overhead cable in the cargo compartment went taut, then slackened and streamed out behind the Hercules.

Seconds later, Brande saw the white mushroom bloom in the night, below and behind them. The locator strobe light winked at him. He could not see whether or not the inflatable pods deployed.

He crossed his fingers.

Gargantua began lumbering down the incline. Brande could feel the vibration through his feet as the 3,000-pound monster crossed the ramp, passing within two feet of him.

Plunged off the end.

Static line jerked straight.

Brande gave the sergeant a thumbs-up, and the man signaled an okay with his thumb and forefinger.

Brande released his grip on the doorjamb, took five giant steps, and fell off the end of the ramp.

The windstream flattened him immediately, he counted to two, and pulled the ripcord.

The roar of the aircraft engines diminished as the drogue chute streamed out of the pack with a whistle, then jerked the canopy after it.

He began to come upright with the drag of the drogue chute, and when the canopy popped and filled with air, he was ready for the abrupt slowing in his descent.

Reaching upward, he fumbled in the dark for the steering handles, found them, and got a grip on them with both of his hands.

Ahead, he could see the lights of the vessel, the single parachute supporting Turtle, and the three canopies clustered above Gargantua. Since he was above them, he did not have a direct view of the strobe lights. The canopies illuminated with each pulse of the strobe.

Brande tugged his right steering handle, side-slipped to the right, then added pressure to the left handle, picking up forward speed, closing in on Gargantua.

When he was fifty feet away, and saw that the tubing around the ROV had inflated, he eased up on the handles and tried to determine his altitude.

He could not do it.

The darkness of the sea kept that secret.

Turtle splashed down.

Brande braced himself.

Gargantua tapped a few wave tops before settling into the water, raising spigots of white water.

Brande saw the potential for slamming himself into the ROV, dumped air from the chute, and crashed into the surface a little harder than he had planned.

He went deep under, tumbling a bit as he slowed. The water was mildly cool on his face, and felt saline fresh. He pulled the flashlight loose, slapped the quick-release buckle on the harness, then pulled the cord on the Mae West. He resisted struggling with the harness and methodically worked his way out of it.

As the vest filled, he began to rise, aided by strong kicks with the fins. When his head cleared the surface, he took a deep breath and shook his head. The water drained from his hair. He felt good and was halfway sorry he had not jumped from a higher altitude. Almost three years had passed by since his last parachute jump.

Gargantua was less than twenty feet away, riding low in the water, rising and falling on three-foot seas. His strobe light made him think of ambulances, and he was happy he did not have to call for one.

His own parachute was collapsed behind him, floating on the sea. There were a couple million more stars in the clear sky than in the skies over San Diego. Venus was bright.

Brande rolled onto his stomach and swam until he reached the ROV and got a grip on one of the lines holding the inflation pod in place. Releasing the chin strap, he slipped the helmet off and let it go to the bottom. Someday, some salvage diver might find it and spend two or three weeks looking for the rest of the wreckage.

Reaching under the water, Brande got a thumb under one, then the other, of the fin straps and pushed them off his feet. He tossed the fins on top of the flotation pod, then using the retaining line, pulled himself out of the water. Gargantua heeled sharply as a wave went under her. He stood up and released the parachute rigging, then leaned against the ROV while waiting for the
Orion
to close on him.

She was coming hard, not backing off the throttles until she was a quarter-mile away.

As she slowed and came alongside, searchlights flared. Do-key yelled down at him from the main deck, “Nice of you to drop in, Chief!”

“I had a free weekend,” Brande called back.

The port side of the research vessel eased up against the flotation pod, and Brande caught the crane cable Dokey swung toward him, slipped the hook under Gargantua’s lift ring, and stood back as the winch groaned and the cable tautened.

Turtle’s strobe light was beating about fifty yards away, and Brande shoved the flashlight inside his belt, pulled his fins on, then dove back into the sea, surfaced, and used a strong crawl to swim toward her.

By the time he reached the robot and looked back, Gargantua was in the air, causing the
Orion
to heel a trifle. The vessel came around, heading toward him, as the big ROV was settled slowly to the deck next to
DepthFinder
and tied down.

Brande released the parachute rigging and sat on Turtle’s back as she was raised from the sea and then lowered to the deck to the right of the submersible, behind
Atlas
. When she was in place, Brande released the cable of the starboard crane, then slid off to the deck.

Most of the crew was in attendance, as were Dokey, Otsuka, Emry and Dankelov. Brande released his unweighted weight belt and freed the pouch containing his clothes. He unclipped the Mae West and shrugged out of it.

“Coffee’s on,” Dokey told him. He was wearing a T-shirt depicting an artistic shark with beret and palette and brush and easel, painting a picture of a porpoise. Brande assumed the porpoise was nude. It was difficult to tell the difference between formal and casual porpoise wardrobes.

“Let’s get some of it,” Brande said.

They went forward and entered the superstructure by a side door. Halfway across the cross-corridor, Brande turned into the wardroom.

Sorenson, Mayberry, Roskens, Polodka and Thomas had three tables pulled together, mugs, coffeepots and plates of Danish scattered across them.

The chatter was lively, similar to that on the start of many expeditions they had all undertaken. Underlying the dialogue this time, though, was an undercurrent of tension. Then, too, while there had been many expeditions in seven years, this was the first time all of them had shipped together on a single outing.

Brande went into the galley, stripped out of his wet suit, and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. He carried his running shoes and socks back into the wardroom, sat down, and pulled them on.

“How we doing, Mel?”

The captain said, “We’re five hundred and ninety nautical miles out of San Diego, Dane. On course, and flying.”

That was about 300 nautical miles more — over ten hours — than they would have been if the
Orion
had detoured to Harbor One to retrieve the robots.

The thrum of the diesels could be felt in the steel deck, despite the carpeting.

The television set in one corner of the wardroom was tuned to CNN, with the sound off and Bernard Shaw mute, capturing the signal with a satellite antenna.