Day 22—Wednesday
It had been over two weeks since Yuri last visited the FBI’s Seattle office. This morning he was alone in a conference room deep inside the warren of offices and cubicles. He nursed a cup of coffee, offered by his escort. The FBI logo filled one side of the ceramic mug.
Yuri employed the usual countermeasures to ensure he was not tracked. He parked in an underground garage at Union Square where he was picked up by an FBI agent and driven to the garage of the nearby Seattle field office. After a security guard collected Yuri’s cell phone and the Colt, placing both in a secure locker and providing Yuri the key, the driver-agent escorted Yuri to the conference room.
Yuri’s mug was empty when Special Agent Michaela Taylor entered the conference room. She carried a manila file folder. “Good morning,” she announced. “Nice to see you again.”
Yuri returned the greeting.
As Michaela settled in, she said, “Thanks for coming in today.”
“No problem.”
“Just so you know, Captain Clark and Steve Osberg have the data you provided me last week. They both asked me to thank you personally.”
Yuri flashed a smile.
Michaela opened the folder and briefly studied the contents before glancing Yuri’s way. “The reason I asked to see you this morning concerns the issue with Ms. Newman’s missing bodyguard, Sara Compton.”
Yuri’s spine stiffened.
“As you know,” Michaela said, “Compton’s family has been pursuing the issue regarding her fate. The Sammamish police are also investigating and reached out to our office for assistance.”
“Is this about the hearing?” Yuri asked.
“Yes, the family’s attorney has been pressing hard for a court hearing to declare Ms. Compton dead.”
“And they want Laura and me to testify.”
“Yes. Since Laura was the last person to see Ms. Compton before Laura and her daughter were kidnapped, the family wants to make the case that their abduction led directly to Compton’s own abduction and eventual death.”
Yuri said, “This would be a public hearing where the press could have access?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Yuri massaged his forehead. Laura’s attorneys had managed to keep the kidnapping out of the news because the police were not involved, but a public hearing would put a spotlight on Laura. “The local reporters will be all over it because of Laura’s wealth. And then someone might get interested in me.”
“I agree, and so does the Attorney General.”
Taken aback, Yuri cast a questioning gaze.
Michaela said, “In order to keep you off the radar, we have quietly squashed the hearing process.”
“How?”
“The Department of Justice informed King County and the City of Sammamish that neither you or Laura can participate in the hearing due to an ongoing national security investigation related to Laura’s kidnapping.”
“That will stop the hearing?”
“Yes, since neither of you will be available to testify, they don’t have a case.”
“What happens if they go directly to the press?”
“They could, but I don’t believe they’ll do that. DOJ left a juicy carrot for the family.”
Yuri puckered his brow, not sure of Taylor’s idiom.
“Ms. Compton was in the Army reserves and the company she worked for has security contracts with the U.S. military. At the request of Justice, the Department of Defense indicated it would invoke federal statutes to declare Compton dead. That would take just a fraction of the typical time if left up to the state. With an official declaration of death from the federal government, the family would be eligible for death benefits from Compton’s employer, which are significant—five million dollars in life insurance. It will also offer some form of closure for them.” Agent Taylor recalled another item. “The family may also be entitled to DoD death benefits; a couple hundred thousand.”
Yuri signaled his confusion. “How’s that possible?”
“It’s all under the national security umbrella.”
“You mean me.”
“Yep.”
Yuri exhaled an audible breath.
Michaela smiled, “This should come as a relief to both you and Laura.”
“It does…thank you.”
* * * *
It was Dr. Meng Park’s first dive in a submersible. The Xiu Shan cruised twenty feet above the mud bottom. The three person submarine was 5,550 feet below the surface, heading northward at three knots. Floodlights illuminated the seabed and surrounding water column in the otherwise perpetual darkness of the deep.
“This is just unbelievable,” Meng muttered as she took in the 3-D bubble view.
“Indeed,” Captain Zhou said.
Meng was in the starboard seat of the cockpit. Captain Zhou claimed the port station. The pilot manned the aft control console behind the passengers. All three wore blue jumpsuits. A transparent acrylic sphere, just over six feet in diameter, encapsulated the trio. Located behind the pilot’s station were the submersible’s electronics and life support systems. A top opening hatch placed at the peak of the orb above the pilot’s seat allowed crew ingress and egress. Two articulated robotic arms were appended to the forward end of the steel frame that supported the pressure sphere.
Attached to the aft end of the plastic bubble was a tapered, hydraulic slick fiberglass fairing that extended ten feet in length. The service module housed the minisub’s ballast chambers, compressed air and oxygen tanks, and battery compartment. At the base of the module was a compartment containing two hundred kilos of lead shot. In an emergency, the ballast could be jettisoned, allowing the sub to ascend without the need for expelling seawater from ballast tanks.
Launched six months earlier, the Xiu Shan—Elegant Coral—was China’s latest class of deep diving research vessels. Rated for 2,000 meters—about 6,500 feet, the Xiu Shan’s hull had a sleeker profile than its predecessors. Sacrificing extreme deep diving capability for endurance, the Xiu Shan could cruise at four knots continuously for twenty-four hours.
“Captain, the search sonar has just picked up something,” reported the pilot. The twenty-six-year-old was a lieutenant in the PLAN. He was one of two dozen young officers handpicked by senior staff to command China’s growing fleet of manned submersibles.
“What’s the range?”
“Sixty meters. Should be coming into view soon.”
The Xiu Shan had descended eighty minutes earlier after it launched from the support ship Lian. The bottom search commenced from the coordinates of the attack on the American submarine—roughly 154 nautical miles east of Sanya. The submersible made two tracks along the planned survey route before the Xiu Shan’s sonar registered return echo’s from its ranging pulses.
“Target in sight!” announced the pilot.
Meng Park shifted forward in her bucket seat. “I see it!”
The Xiu Shan hovered over the eighteen-foot length of Viperina Five. The remnant of the one-foot diameter weapon was strung out along the sea floor; it had the appearance of a utility pipe.
“Could the charges still be primed?” asked Captain Zhou.
A two-kilogram shaped charge was positioned about every foot and a half along the length of the Viperinas. Designed to blast through high tensile steel pressure hulls of U.S. subs, the shockwave from a detonation now could crack Xiu Shan’s synthetic polymer sphere like an egg shell.
“No, it should be safe,” Dr. Meng answered. “The charges were designed to detonate simultaneously. This is the tail end of the unit. The trigger signal would have been issued from the CPU. A fault in the wiring may have caused the misfire.”
“So, it’s okay if we recover it?” Zhou asked.
“Absolutely. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I can run diagnostics on it to determine what happened.”
Captain Zhou addressed the pilot. “Lieutenant, go ahead and retrieve the unit.”
“Aye aye, Captain.
It took the Xiu Shan almost two hours to ascend. When it broke through the sea surface, the remains of Viper Five were wrapped around the submersible’s starboard articulated mechanical arm.