Trident Force (19 page)

“Okay, People,” shouted Wendell Gardner as a forty-foot hard bottom inflatable boat bounced over the chop and surged up next to the landing stage built into the ship's port side. “Before we board the HBI, I want you all to note that there is no pack ice in sight. None. This is what we've done to ourselves. Take a good look! Now let's board the boats.

“Hi, Pete,” said Wendell to Peter Evans as the first group of twenty passengers emerged from the big cargo door in the ship's side and out onto the landing. “Hi, Penny.”

“Good to see you, Wendell,” responded Evans with an extra large smile pasted on his face, just in case one of the camera crews had him in their sights.

“Hi, Wendell,” said Penny cheerfully. And Penny was cheerful, anticipating the adventure almost as much as Katie. “I can't wait to get ashore and see the sights.” The fact that her husband didn't share her enthusiasm didn't bother her a bit. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy his hidden discomfort. She'd long known he disliked water almost as much as he feared making a fool of himself in public. Or his wife's making a fool of him.

Thanks to the chop, the boat was rising and falling despite Arthur Covington's best efforts. And the stage was a little slick and the water looked terribly cold. Much to Evans's relief, however, both Wendell and the stony-faced Ecuadorian deckhand working with him were well practiced at getting passengers, including Penny, off the landing and into the boat with surprising grace.

Once aboard, Pete Evans still didn't feel comfortable. In addition to pitching and rolling, the damn inflatable twisted, buckled and sagged. And nothing felt truly solid. It was as if the damn thing were made of Jell-O.

While the first boat pulled away and the second approached, the Ecuadorian deckhand scanned the next batch of passengers. His eyes settled for a moment on the Sanders. They struck him as unusually close, yet the adults also emitted the faintest hint of deep pain. The condition was all-too-familiar to him—the mixture of happiness and intense pain. He'd seen it in countless friends, relatives and neighbors over the years. He'd felt it himself.

The man who was obviously the father nodded at him and smiled. He nodded back. Then his eyes returned to the little girl in the purple coat who was occupied blowing puffs of steam into the thin, icy air. His own daughter would adore a purple coat like that. He'd have to get her one just as soon as he got home.

“Okay, Chris, you're number one,” said Wendell as the second HBI pulled alongside. Chrissie, who'd been talking with Dana Sanders, turned and nodded. With her, but not really with her, was Brad. He was standing to one side with the expression of a whipped dog on his face.

After Wendell had taken great care to ensure Chrissie's comfortable transfer—and considerably less care with Brad—Tim was boarded with almost mechanical efficiency.

When Katie stepped forward, Wendell paused ever so slightly. He really didn't like kids, especially this screaming advertisement for mandatory Ritalin therapy. Leaving personalities aside, he was of the opinion that educating children was a waste of time when what was really needed was a massive reduction in their numbers. Children humans grew up to be adult humans, and it was humans who were trashing the world.

The Ecuadorian deckhand didn't pause in the slightest. Replacing his chronic expression of Andean angst with a glowing smile, he reached down to Katie and swung her up and over the side. “
Arriba, niña,
” he said, half to himself, as he transferred her safely to her father's custody. And the smile remained as he and Wendell helped the mother, after which it immediately disappeared. He had learned early that smiles, like every other valuable commodity, are not to be wasted. As for the missing engineman, about whom he'd been thinking for no particular reason, good riddance! Either he had enemies or he had a competitor even more vicious than he was.

 

“Damn it, Mike, this thing is getting out of hand and nothing's even happened yet,” snapped Alan Parker. “It's those continuous news broadcasts—they're already tired of talking about global warming, so now they're pushing the terror bit. I'm getting calls from members of Congress demanding to know why you're really there and when you plan to get some results. We need closure on this and we need it damn fast!”

Mike, dressed in a layer of thermal diving underwear below a dry suit, stood at the open cargo door in the side of the ship. He listened to Parker on the satellite phone as he watched the last of the HBIs head ashore with its load of passengers. “I'm going to say it again, Alan, we're doing everything we can. Jerry and I are about to perform a hull inspection. We've got to get going now before the passengers return.”

“You trying to hide it from them?”

“No, there're technical reasons that I don't have time to go into. I'll call you in two hours.”

As soon as the last HBI was well clear of the ship, Captain Covington stopped the shafts. The ship swung back to a heading somewhere between the wind and the wind-generated current along the peninsula shore.

“You ready, Chief?” called Mike across the bay.

“I'm ready, Captain,” replied Andrews as he stuffed his head into the wet suit hood and then let Kim Ackerman, who was also in a dry suit, lift the air bottle assembly up and strap it on his back.

They were, thought Kim, a real Mutt and Jeff team. The tall captain and the stocky chief, both dressed in black.

Andrews looked out at the cold, dark water with distaste. Because of his age, he'd needed a special dispensation to continue active-duty diving. He was beginning to wonder why he'd bothered to get it.

“This your first polar dive, Captain?”

“Yes. Yours?”

“Up till now I've always managed to avoid them.”

 

Congressman Peter Evans stood alone on the slippery, rocky shore of the Antarctic Peninsula and looked around him at the utter bleakness. Gray sky, gray rocks, gray-blue sea—all highlighted by icy, off-white snow. The only color he could find, besides the clothes of his fellow passengers, were the here-and-there orange blobs on the flightless birds. At least, he comforted himself, he wasn't in that damn rubber boat. Not at the moment, anyway.

Most of the other passengers—including his wife, the Sanders and that singer—were still with the birds, seemingly mesmerized by them. He'd taken one quick look and decided that was enough wildlife for him.

Although he could still hear Wendell Gardner explaining the life cycle of penguins and their role in the environmental chain of life, he tried to concentrate on more important matters. His image, specifically. To clear his head, Evans turned and looked out into the Bellinghausen Sea, at the dark water and the white hints of ice far off to the left.

“Desolate, isn't it, Congressman? Off the record, the attraction this place holds for some people mystifies me.”

Evans turned to find James Ives, CEO of Universal Solutions and Systems, standing beside him. “Yes, it gives us all a taste of what our Planet Earth will be like if these abuses aren't brought under control.”

Evans knew Ives slightly. Both were from Connecticut, although Ives had backed Evans's opponent in the last election. But, Evans reminded himself, there was always the chance, if he handled it right, that he might get Ives aboard for next year.

“Pick that up right now!” Wendell's bark cut through Evans's calculations. “The rule is that you carry out everything you carry in.”

Both the congressman and the businessman turned to see a startled, and undoubtedly remorseful, Katie bend down and pick up a Kleenex that had fallen out of her jacket pocket. Had they been closer, they might have noticed the near-murderous fury that erupted from Dana's eyes as she put her arm around her wayward daughter's shoulders.

The two men watched the scene for a second in silence then turned and resumed looking out over the Bellinghausen Sea, which at the moment looked as dead as any body of water can possibly look.

“Pete,” said Ives finally, “I'm very concerned about how this expedition is being handled.”

“Yes, Jim?”

“From the very start I've had my doubts about the captain and crew—Covington strikes me as a bungler, and the crew, as far as I can tell, is almost entirely made up of poorly educated foreigners

“Don't get me wrong! Some of the best minds at Universal are foreigners, but these people . . . Then, all of a sudden, a pack of armed navy types appear in the middle of the night and wander around cross-examining people. I—we, all the passengers—are very concerned. Is there a bomb aboard? Or terrorists? I know what Covington has said, but I have no confidence in the man. What's the real story?”

Evans took a moment to formulate his answer. He had to be careful what he said. He started to open his mouth then realized they were surrounded—two video camera-men, a sound girl and a reporter had appeared from nowhere. They must have also tired of learning more about the penguin's life cycle. “It's a very delicate situation, Jim, but let me assure you I'm doing my very best to keep on top of it.”

“Does the government have reason to believe there's a bomb aboard
Aurora Australis
or not, Congressman?” demanded the reporter, breathlessly. “These military people won't tell us anything.”

“I'm afraid I can't say any more about it at this time,” said Evans as he took Ives by the arm and started to walk away. “I'm sorry I can't do more to relieve your concerns at the moment, Jim, but would you join me for a drink after we get back to the ship? We have a number of things we might fruitfully discuss. I, for one, feel strongly that Washington isn't directing enough resources to Connecticut, specifically to cutting-edge organizations like yours that can make a real contribution to solving the nation's many problems.”

As he pitched himself, Pete struggled to hide his own growing discomfort. He was uncomfortable enough just being aboard the ship, and now the low-level contagion of unease about the navy's presence that was spreading slowly and insidiously through the passengers was making his edginess all the sharper.

 

By the time Mike and Jerry had completed suiting up, the ship was lying at an unfortunate angle across both current and waves, the seas were beginning to break over the landing, and the wind was starting to howl again. “I'll tell you, Captain,” said Jerry before stuffing his mouthpiece in, “I've never envied those guys who dive into holes in the ice, but at least the water's calm for them. This is a mess!”

“Lets move our butts, then. We don't have that much time.” With that, Mike led the way to the mid-sized HBI that was tied to the stage with its engines running and two men seated in it.

“Hit it, Chief,” said Mike when the HBI was alongside
Aurora
's bow. Each diver grabbed a bundle of two lines, one of which led down from a boat boom rigged out from one of the ship's bows and the other from a boat boom rigged out from the other bow. Clutching the lines, they rolled over the HBI's side into the heaving mess. After the briefest of surface checks, they disappeared into the rolling gray waters.

Once they were all the way under the ship, where the surface waves were barely noticeable, the current—and the need for the two lines—became much more obvious.

No matter how different they may look above the waterline, there is a basic sameness to ships when viewed from below. They are, in general, a reddish black mass that hangs over you and, even if not moving in the slightest, gives the impression of preparing to crush you any second. They are also essentially smooth, except for a few easy-to-identify features such as water intakes and outlets and domes for the depth sounder transducers. In
Aurora
's case, thanks to just having come out of overhaul, the bottom was also squeaky clean. The search should have been a piece of cake.

Under more civilized circumstances Mike would have inspected by swimming from bow to stern, along the keel, then moved outboard about twenty feet and reversed direction. After two or three trips fore and aft on each side, the inspection would have been completed in an hour. Unless, of course, they found something. With the current running as it was, they had to do it the hard way—using the lines, and their legs, to move back and forth sideways across the ship from waterline to waterline, then dropping back and repeating the process.

“I'm already getting cold,” griped Andrews, primarily to himself.

“We're going to have to pick up our pace if we want to live to see the end of this dive,” said Chambers sympathetically.

At that point, Kim's electronically distorted but still recognizable voice came over the voice communicators: “Lead diver, this is Kim. The weather's really making up fast, so the captain's recalling the boats. He says he's going to have to start turning the shafts in about five minutes. Do you want the HBI to pick you up on the port side, where it's a little calmer?”

Damn, thought Mike, the temptation of Christ! He was freezing, Jerry was freezing; it was all they could do to keep their arms and legs moving, and they hadn't found a damn thing. There was nothing he would have liked better than to surface and get warm, but the inspection had to be completed. Especially the stern area, where it was easiest to hide things. “Kim, tell Captain Covington to go ahead and turn his shafts and recover the passengers. We're going to keep going until we get too close to the screws for comfort. Then we'll surface on the port side and come back down again for a few minutes after all the passengers are aboard.”

“That's not very safe, sir.”

“No, it's not, but it has to be done.”