“Two.”
“One.”
Rutherford held the binoculars tightly to his face, the magnified image of the water welded in his brain. He braced himself for the shock, either physical or mental.
“Zero.”
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing happened except for a small splash at the margin of his field of vision. Then he blinked and even that was gone. Faintly over the water a strange hissing carried, but that, too, quickly faded.
Rutherford and the captain exchanged amazed looks.
The captain punched a button on a console.
“What have you got?”
“Nothing, Captain, it’s gone,” came the negative reply.
He turned to Rutherford.
“If it’s like the Seamount event, sonar should pick up something going down after some delay.”
Rutherford nodded.
The sonar man had been alerted not to increase the gain on his instrument in the interlude.
Again came the faint hiss. Rutherford raised his glasses too late to see a second rise of spray some distance from the first splash.
“Whup! There it is!” came the report of reacquisition from the sonar room. They listened as the relayed reports followed the acoustic noise to the sea bottom far below.
Rutherford spent the next two hours in the computer room overseeing the analysis of the tapes of the sonar signal. His examination of the previous underwater events suggested to him that the phenomenon did not move along precisely the same line. This data supported that view. There was a certain erratic behavior superposed on the basic fixed direction of motion. They would never be able to tell exactly where and when the surfacing would occur. He thought to himself, so your aim’s not perfect, you bastards, and took some satisfaction in that.
The estimate of the next nearest surfacing was refined on the computer and Rutherford reported that to the captain. After some discussion they agreed that for all the furor underwater, whatever it was seemed to lose potency at the surface. They agreed to get as close as possible to the next event. The destroyer headed for a spot about a hundred and ninety miles west which, in a little more than twenty-four hours, would fall along the right path at the proper phase so that the phenomenon should approach the surface.
They arrived in late afternoon and spent the remainder of the daylight hours cruising the area obtaining comparison data on the sonar background and checking for anything that could represent a precursor to the expected event. There was none.
Rutherford turned in early. He spent a restless night and dropped into sound sleep only shortly before daybreak when a young crewman awakened him.
Two thousand miles west of where the Stinson made slow circles in the mid-Atlantic, Robert Isaacs roused from a troubled sleep, carrying his dreams with him. He was watching the tops of the heads of figures as they roamed the flat terrain of satellite photos. One figure tried to turn its face upward to be recognized. Isaacs could feel the strain of its effort, the head swiveling backward, the forehead tilting upward, upward, upward, but never enough to reveal the face.
Then, there—Not a Russian! Rutherford!
Isaacs jerked awake, staring at the ceiling, his pulse racing. His twitch disturbed Muriel. She snuggled over to him, cupped a bicep in her hand, and pushed her nose into his shoulder.
“You all right, honey?”
“Uumph. Just a dream.” He turned toward her and threw a comforting arm over her hips. Soon she was breathing deeply again. He lay awake, slowly relaxing back toward sleep. Rutherford… Ship… Water… Sonar…
The Novorossiisk!
This time he sat bolt upright. No dream. Dear god! How could he be so dense? The Novorossiisk was so long ago, succeeded in his attention by the attack on FireEye, the shuttle mission, the feverish developments at Tyuratam. But this had to be it! The Novorossiisk had been in the Med, near thirty- three degrees latitude. The Seamount had reported something going up and something going down. Rutherford had radioed the same behavior yesterday. The Novorossiisk had reported something going down. Why not up? Lost in the shuffle? Who knows? Must check that out. Was the Novorossiisk in the right place? Check that out. Oh goddamn, Rutherford said he was going to sit right on it!
He rolled out of bed.
“Bob?”
“I think Av Rutherford is in danger. I’ve got to make some calls.”
“Do you want me to get up?”
“No, that’s crazy; you’ve got to be fresh in court at nine.”
He pulled on some sweatpants in lieu of a robe and fumbled out the door to the stairs. In the kitchen he blinked in the glare as he tripped the light. He punched the familiar number into the phone, missed the next to last digit in his bleariness, swore, and punched it again. He requested the night radio operator to call him on a secure line. As he awaited the call, he grabbed a note pad and tried to figure out if the Novorossiisk had been right on Danielson’s magic trajectory. He was still too befogged and the numbers too cumbersome. But it was plausible. Too plausible! This thing they chased not only moved through the Earth and oceans, it punched holes in ships!
As he stared at his scribbled notes on the pad, he slowly became aware of the smell of fresh coffee permeating his nostrils. He looked up to see Muriel fetching cups and saucers out of the cabinet. She caught his mixed look of guilt and irritation that she should be up tending to him and headed him off.
“I can use an early start, too. I need to polish my strategy.”
Her husband still looked disgruntled.
“Besides,” she continued, “if I beat my minions in to work on a Monday morning it will fire them with such defensive zeal that we’ll just blow the opposition out of court.”
Isaacs smiled wanly at this image and rose to hug her from behind.
“All right, counselor, you win. Let’s have some coffee.”
He broke off his embrace suddenly at the sound of the telephone, whirling to grab it in mid ring. He sat and hunched over the receiver as if to make it part of him.
“Hello? Yes?” He repeated a sequence of code numbers. “Right. I want you to patch a call through the Navy. Top Priority. For Captain Avery Rutherford on the Destroyer USS Stinson. It’s on patrol in the Atlantic. Yes, I know what time it is. What’s a satellite link for? It’s two hours later on that ship. Yes, I understand, but this is extremely urgent.” He glanced at his watch. 4:38. Nine minutes until contact. “Yes, I know you will. Yes, immediately please. Thank you.”
He hung up the phone.
“Problem?”
“Not in principle, it’s just that our vaunted instantaneous satellite communication net is designed to function from various war rooms, not from cozy Georgetown kitchens.”
He lapsed into tense silence, glancing at the coffee pot, his watch, the phone. Time dragged slowly. After an excruciating interval, the coffee maker stopped gurgling, sighed its readiness. He looked at his watch for the tenth time. 4:40. Seven minutes. How long would it take to move the ship if they did get through? Several minutes? When would it be too late? He did not look up when Muriel put the coffee in front of him. He took a few sips and then watched it steam away its heat, its life force. 4:44. Three minutes, probably too late, anyway. He felt ill.
The phone rang. He jerked the receiver to his ear.
“Mr. Isaacs?”
“Yes!”
“I’ve got the Stinson. They’re looking for Captain Rutherford. Will you hold on?”
“Yes, of course. He’ll be on the bridge.”
Isaacs could hear the operator relay this message to the radio man on the Stinson. Then he spoke to Isaacs again.
“Bit of a crunch there, sir. They seem to be in the middle of an operation.”
