also had to tell Emily what he was doing, so she could anticipate his movements and keep the lights and camera properly positioned. It was dark enough at this depth so that the lights were essential. Without Huey’s lights, Reynolds and Harris might never find the Manta. Luckily, only Huey had a control cable. If both vehicles had used wires for control and maneuvered so closely, they would constantly risk entangling them.
He waited impatiently for Reynolds and Harris to reach the Manta. It was easy for Jerry to imagine, or remember, what it felt like as the water filled the escape lock — the cold and the pressure. This wasn’t sport diving off some colorful tropical reef. It was hard to move quickly or gracefully, and you couldn’t waste time. It was work. The dry suit mitigated the cold, but it still sucked the energy out of your arms and legs, turning them to wood.
It took five minutes for the two divers to appear in the screen and reach the Manta. There was no way to find out the reason for the delay. They might have tangled a harness or had problems with the tools, but whatever it had been, they were ready to proceed.
There were three lift points on top of the Manta, and Reynolds and Harris dragged the cargo net to the first one, located in the center of the forward part of the vehicle. After hooking up the bag without incident, they swam aft. As the Manta broadened out into a pair of wings, there were two more points, one on each side of the tail. Jerry watched through the ROV’s camera as Reynolds made sure Harris was secure, then attached himself.
“All right, I’m turning to port and I’ll bring up the speed slowly to five knots.”
“Understood,” Emily replied.
Jerry gingerly applied some speed and turned the Manta toward the barge, wanting to hurry but moving slowly because of the divers. Davis managed to keep the Manta in the camera’s lens, even as she turned to follow. The plan was to keep the Manta in front of Huey so they could watch the divers for any sign of trouble.
As he increased speed, ordering the Manta from three to four to five knots, Jerry also carefully watched the Manta as well as the divers. There was no way to predict the effects of the weight and drag on the Manta’s speed or stability — or its battery life, he added, while glancing at the display. There was no perceptible feedback through the controller. The Manta was normally well behaved, but they were outside the design envelope here, and he had no way to tell what it would do.
The Manta’s passive sonar picked up two raps. That was the Master Chief saying everything was all right — if you could call being buffeted by freezing water all right.
“I’m increasing speed to eight knots.”
“Matching,” Davis answered.
Again Jerry slowly picked up the pace, and again the Master Chief signaled that all was well. Finally, the Manta and Huey reached ten knots as they made their way into Russian territorial waters.
The barge lay a mile and half away in ten fathoms of water. The bottom shelved rapidly near the barge, but this was as close as
Jerry waited to hear three taps on the Manta’s hull. That was the signal to slow down, or for trouble, but he heard nothing.
With the divers on the Manta’s back, he could now safely operate the active sonar to locate the barge. Jerry kept the number of transmissions down, just in case someone might be out there listening, and he only updated the barge’s position so that he wasn’t flying blind.
They found the barge quickly enough, and Jerry gingerly steered the Manta the last few hundred yards. He managed to bring it close alongside and watched in Huey’s camera as Reynolds and Harris detached themselves and then retrieved the tool bag. As soon as they were off, Jerry turned the Manta away from the barge. He began a tight thousand-yard circle, watching the passive display and praying that he wouldn’t detect anything.
The barge looked exactly the same, but the knowledge that two men were about to enter it made it much more menacing. Jerry watched the ROV’s camera as Emily took station above the barge’s open hatchway Her lights gave some general illumination, but both of
The hatch expanded in the screen, and Davis said, “I’m sending Huey in.” They’d all agreed earlier that she should do it, although there was some risk of complicating the divers’ situation. It would give them more light, as well as the all-important radiation detector and the camera.
As she gingerly navigated the ROV into the hold, the camera picked up Reynolds and Harris over in one corner, well clear and dead ahead. They were studying one of the metal crates. It was almost as long as Reynolds was tall, and at least three feet square. Metal clips ran around one edge. Lifting hooks implied some weight, as did the strips that reinforced the corners and sides.
After shining a light on all exposed sides, Reynolds tried to shift the crate slightly. It budged, but gave the impression of being heavy. He motioned to Harris, pantomiming tools, and swam over to the tool bag. He handed Harris a pair of pliers while the COB took out a large screwdriver.
They started working on the clips, wasting time as they searched in the darkness for the quickest way to open them. Reynolds discovered a way to pop them with the screwdriver and began working his way along the edge. Along with that Christmas-present feeling, Jerry wondered if it was a Pandora’s box. He couldn’t escape a mental image of the lid opening and a cloud of liquid waste escaping, poisoning the two with toxic chemicals and radiation before they could close it again.
As Reynolds finished releasing the clips, Harris moved aside as Emily pointed Huey right at the case. “The radiation count is still very low,” announced Emily. “I’m sending the ‘all safe’ signal.” Reynolds and Harris saw the lights blink once, and Harris held up his free hand, making an exaggerated thumbs-up gesture. So far, so good.
As they’d discussed, Harris swam away, to hover near the ROV. The idea was that if the crate did contain something deadly, only one of the divers would be exposed. Jerry watched the seconds tick by as Harris reached what they hoped was a safe distance, but they’d all agreed it was worth the time.
Reynolds wedged the edge of the screwdriver into the joint between the lid and the rest of the crate. He pounded on one end, and a thin stream of silvery bubbles appeared. He stopped for a moment and made a sweeping motion with his right hand, asking for Emily to take another radiation reading. Again, everything was within limits and she flashed the lights once. Facing the ROV, Reynolds gave the thumbs-up sign and returned his attention to the lid.
Working the screwdriver in, alternately wiggling it, and pounding on the end resulted in successively larger and thicker streams of bubbles until they merged into a solid mass of air that half-lifted the lid off. Jerry could see Reynolds’ surprised reaction and he backed off to give Emily some room to move Huey in a little closer and make yet another pass with the radiation detector. Huey’s lights flashed once and Reynolds waved Harris over. Emily backed the ROV away from the case to give the divers room to work.
This was why Jerry had wanted to make the dive. The COB and Harris could look in the crate. They knew what was in it, but nobody else on Earth did. Except for whoever put it there, Jerry corrected himself.
The two divers knew this, and Reynolds bent down and started heaving on one side, the side away from the camera. Harris quickly realized what the COB was after and started lifting from his end. The two men quickly tilted the crate so that it toppled over onto its side, turning the top toward the camera.
A rush of air bubbles didn’t obscure the view for more than a second. Emily automatically adjusted the lights and zoomed the camera to maximum magnification.
Framed by the rectangular box, a cone-shaped object lay in a cradle. It was about five feet long and two feet wide at the base. The wide end was flat, and narrowed to an almost needle-like point. It was dull green or black and its polished surface was marked by a few patches of white lettering near the base. They were looking at a full- up nuclear warhead, almost certainly a reentry vehicle for a ballistic missile.
Chills ran laps around Jerry’s spine and the sailors in the torpedo room either blasphemed or made improbable sexual suggestions. After a few moments, the phone talker’s voice in Jerry headphones said, “Captain Hardy wants your recommendations.”
I’ll bet he does, thought Jerry. Their mission orders had just changed and the trick was to figure out what they should now be. Jerry’s instant reaction was to grab it and get it back to the boat, but then he forced himself to think, Why?
