Dangerous Ground

length of the ROV. They had obviously been stacked in two layers in the hold, but had been jostled around somewhat by the sinking.

Risking a short puff of the thruster, Davis pivoted Huey in place, but the rest of the hold simply held more boxes.

“I’m going to approach one,” she announced and lightly touched the controls. The ROV drifted forward, and within a few moments, she was just two yards away from the stacked objects.

“That is not a waste container,” Patterson repeated. “Look at it. It’s a case or a crate. See the latches and the lid? That isn’t how you seal a container of radioactive waste.”

“It is if you’re a Soviet bureaucrat,” answered Hardy. “Especially one who doesn’t give a fig about the consequences. I agree it wasn’t built to hold waste, but that’s doesn’t tell us what’s inside there now.”

“Except that it’s radioactive, but not all that much.” Emily added, looking at the meter.

“How about unspent fuel rods?” Hardy suggested.

Patterson shrugged. “That’s a funny way to store them, and it’s a lot of them to store. See if you can find any markings.”

Emily slowly maneuvered Huey in the hold, bringing the camera to bear on the tops and sides of several boxes. While they may have had markings, they had been sloppily but thoroughly sprayed over with black paint. Only a Cyrillic R, in black, was visible on one of the box ends.

Watching the battery level, Davis finally announced. “I’m bringing Huey out. We need to come home.”

“Wait!” ordered Patterson. “Can we take a sample in here?”

“Of what?” asked Hardy.

“At least get a water sample,” Patterson insisted and Emily complied. First, she stirred up the silt with Huey’s thruster, so that some of the sediment would be included in the sample.

Even as the sample was being collected, Davis carefully positioned the ROV, then ascended through the hatch. This time, with experience and the open water ahead of her, she maneuvered it more surely. She still had to be careful of the thin fiber-optic cable, making sure it did not loop around an obstruction or snag on a jagged surface.

“Take another sample here, right next to the hull,” Patterson directed, although as Davis positioned Huey and started the sequence, Jerry thought she looked unsatisfied.

Davis had barely started the ROV toward Memphis when Patterson said, “Captain, I need to open one of those cases. We have to see what’s inside them.”

Astounded, Hardy firmly replied. “Out of the question, Doctor. We’ve talked about this before. I won’t bring anything radioactive that doesn’t fit in the sample tubes aboard Memphis. And just how did you intend to examine it?”

“With the divers. And they wouldn’t have to bring it aboard if they opened it there, in the hold.”

That suggestion froze Jerry’s blood solid. Send them into there, to open one of those cases?

Hardy was gentler with her idea than Jerry would have expected. “Dr. Patterson, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“It’s shallow enough. And they wouldn’t have to do anything complicated. Just swim in and open a case.”

“Exposing them to whatever’s inside,” Hardy added. “What if it’s toxic or highly radioactive? We don’t know what those cases are made of, so we certainly can’t estimate their shielding qualities. You know that even a small amount of material would constitute a dangerous dose to anyone in close proximity. I won’t risk anyone just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“But this is what we’ve been looking for! We can’t go back with the site unidentified.”

“Doctor, even if I were to agree with you, the barge is miles inside Russian waters. I’d have to bring Memphis in close just so that they could make the swim, and I’m not allowed to enter Russian territory. They’d be unhappy enough about ROVs and the samples if they knew.”

“But we’ve hardly seen any Russian ships or planes. Can’t you just look at the chart?” she wheedled. “If we can get close enough, it’s just a short swim…”

Hardy’s voice showed more irritation. “I will not look at the chart because to do so might imply that there was a chance we’d actually do this. My orders are absolute, and I will remind you that you helped write those orders, and they are orders not just from the Chief of Naval Operations but the President himself.”

Dr. Patterson looked at Davis, as if for support, but Emily’s expression was carefully neutral. The silence in the torpedo room stretched on until, with nothing to say and thunderclouds on her brow, Patterson quickly walked out, almost running, to escape her frustration.

Hardy looked more than concerned, and Jerry wondered how this would read in her mission report — and Hardy’s. Finally the Captain’s features softened. He ordered, “Inform control as soon as you’ve recovered both the vehicles” and then he left.

18. In Earnest

June 11, 2005

Techeniye Guba, Novaya Zemlya

Late that afternoon, Jerry programmed the Manta for the fourth and last sortie. He still wondered about the barge they’d found earlier, but he wasn’t curious enough to go back and take a closer look.

He’d done enough diving to know that going inside a wreck was always hazardous. He’d never done it himself, but had heard plenty of horror stories about wreck divers who had come to grief. It was interesting, and exciting, and he’d try it someday, but not on an unknown vessel in foreign territory. Add the likely risk of radiation poisoning and it became a Very Bad Idea.

As they took stations for launch, Jerry didn’t know what to hope for. If they found nothing, Patterson would become even more frustrated. But he couldn’t feel sorry for someone who was hoping for bad news — especially someone who needed it for political gain. And the practical part of him, a very large part of him, actually, reminded himself that hoping wouldn’t change what was actually there.

Still, as the Manta ran its pattern, he found himself watching the screen as closely as he could. Nothing turned up for over two hours. When they finally detected something, though, it wasn’t the Manta.

“All stations, control, we have a Bear Foxtrot close aboard,” said the control room phone talker with urgency. With Memphis in shallow water, an ASW plane in the neighborhood could become a nightmare.

“Rig ship for ultra-quiet,” announced the IMC. Jerry could hear the ventilation fans being secured as Memphis stove to reduce her acoustic signature.

Hardy’s voice soon came on the sound-powered phone circuit. “Mr. Mitchell, I’m moving Memphis to deeper water immediately. How quickly can you follow with the Manta?” Even as Hardy asked the question, Jerry felt the sub begin a gentle turn to port.

Jerry still had over half the battery on the Manta. “I’ve got about four hours at ten knots. That’s my best quiet speed,” he added, anticipating Hardy’s next question.

“Then do it, mister. My speed will be five knots, course zero seven five.”

“Course zero seven five, U-bay aye.” Jerry killed the search program and sent a command to the Manta to head east. He also sent it as deep as the bottom allowed. Like Hardy with a smaller version of Memphis, he felt exposed and vulnerable in shallow water. At the same time, also like Memphis, he couldn’t use higher speed to escape to deeper water because the wake from the Manta’s passage might be visible on the surface.

“Sonar, U-bay. Where is the Bear now?”

“U-bay, sonar. He’s passing down our starboard side. To the south, passing west to east.”

Hence Hardy’s angling Memphis slightly north. Jerry mimicked the larger sub’s movements and ordered the Manta to the same course. He was more interested in avoiding detection than rejoining Memphis at this point. He had the range and speed to get it home.

The most immediate threat was a MAD detection. The Bear Foxtrot carried a magnetic anomaly detector in a