"What's the problem. Bill?" Bridger said. "Harpe pays up and the UEO catches them later?"
Bridger saw Bill Noyce look away for a moment, as if someone off-screen had said something to him. Then the Admiral nodded.
And Bridger thought:
There's no way that the seaQuest should get involved in this. If the explosives are there, sitting with remote detonators, there's nothing that can be done—
"Nathan—here's the situation. There are some very important people down there. Important people from major business interests, some very important government people..."
Who, Bridger guessed, were supposed to be somewhere else...
"More the reason to pay up quickly... and then try to find Vargas."
Noyce shook his head. "We've contacted Harpe. There's no problem. He's not very happy, but he can get the bullion in place and fly it out to the drop zone within the time limit—"
"So what's the—?"
There was a knock at Bridger's cabin door.
"Sorry, Bill. Wait a minute." Bridger looked to the door. "Come in."
Chief Engineer Katherine Hitchcock was at the door. "Oh, sorry. Captain. Didn't know you were busy—"
"What is it?"
Hitchcock had the door partly closed again. "Oh, Captain, I wanted to know if it's okay if we deployed WSKRS during our run to Panama ... to check out Wolenczak's modifications..."
Modifications? Darwin's modifications? Bridger wondered.
He nodded. "Sure," and once again felt that while the seaQuest might have been his once, he had a hell of lot of catching up to do.
From his UEO office in California, Noyce was smiling. "Seems like you're settling, in nicely, Nathan."
"Playing catch-up is more like it."
"Nate—we can get the gold there. But here's the problem. We think—"
Noyce took a breath.
He proceeded to tell Bridger what the real problem was.
Mary walked over to Cutter's minicomputer console and shut the video screen off. The sitcom floating in the middle of the room disappeared.
"Hey—" Cutter protested.
"We're behind schedule. Cutter. And you're not fully suited up yet."
Cutter still hadn't put on the protective vest that fit over the kelvar jacket. It was possible that no one would get to take a shot at them, but if they caught some heat, it wouldn't bother them at all with all this armor.
"Okay," Cutter said, groaning. "Except this stuff is so damn tight."
Mary shook her head. "Suck it in, Cutter. You've got ten minutes until show time."
Cutter shook his head. "I don't get it. Why do we have to—?"
She put a finger to his lips.
"Don't ask too many questions." She grinned. "You may not like the answers..."
And Jack Cutter zipped up his vest.
Terry McShane left the main dining room. She saw the SousMer staff struggling to keep everyone calm, telling them that everything was "okay." The resort director announced on the speakers that even now the UEO was making arrangements to pay off the terrorists.
Truth or BS? McShane guessed that nothing had been decided. Not yet—
But that's not what worried her.
She wandered down toward the control center of SousMer, toward the engineering and life-support facilities, off-limits to guests.
SousMer staff ran through the carpeted hallway, their faces grim, set. And she thought that this was what it must have been like on the Titanic when the crew knew how bad things were... while the passengers only thought that there had been a slight adjustment in their travel schedule.
I've got to get to a computer station, McShane thought, looking at the various open rooms.
Got to get to a computer.
And let the UEO know where I am...
Dr. Richard Ernst huddled in the corner of the SousMer Seven Seas Lounge. The garish blue-green mother-of-pearl effect on the walls and ceiling made him feel as if he were already in the water.
Already drowning.
It's not so good to have too much of an imagination, he thought. Not good to sit here and imagine an explosion... hitting anywhere, and the water rushing in, washing people down the hallways, while others ran ahead of the rushing water, screaming.
Or maybe—he wasn't sure—the explosives would blow a hole in the resort and the pressure would crush the complex like a Faberge egg. That, at least, would be fast.
Ernst looked up at the bartender.
The bartender was gone, but that didn't matter. Under the circumstances, a bartender wasn't necessary. Ernst got up shakily, walked behind the bar, and dug out a bottle of Glenfiddich scotch from the counter. He poured a tumbler half full, and then carried the glass of amber liquid back to his chair.
Please, he thought while slugging the scotch.
He begged for his life to a power that at any other time in his life he would have scoffed at.
For Dr. Richard Ernst, there had been only science. And science couldn't help him much now...
"Nathan, we think that once the gold is dropped and picked up, they may still blow SousMer."
"Christ." Bridger rubbed his chin, feeling for his phantom beard. He missed it. "What do you mean... they may still blow the resort?"
Bridger's cabin felt small to him and the air—cleaned and refreshed steadily—now tasted stale, bitter...
"Just that... once they get the gold, we think that they'll set off the explosions anyway."
"What on earth for?"
"We're not sure. I mean, Nathan, we're guessing here. But our best political crisis simulations all project that the terrorist action is sponsored by one of the big independent deep-sea mining concerns, or maybe one of the pirate combines."
"I still don't get it—"
"Since the united action of the UEO, laws have been enforced, skirmishes controlled... and there's been peace. And you know that the independent mining cartels, with their private sub fleets—modified and heavily armed, mind you—have been controlled. But some of them don't like the new system. They develop a way to embarrass the UEO, distract it, and maybe bring the whole shaky alliance tumbling down."
Bridger shook his head. Six hundred people, ransomed and then killed anyway.
He took a breath.
"So what do you want me to do. Bill?" Bridger regretted the question the minute he voiced it.
Noyce shifted in his seat. "Nathan, we have someone inside. I haven't heard from her yet—but I expect to. But we've gotten some information on a possible—I stress possible—location of one of the charges."
"Yes, and if anyone goes near it, it will be detonated. So how does that—?"
"Perhaps—but that's not all. We think that they're still there."
"What? Who's still there?"
"We have good reason to believe that whoever planted the charges, inside and outside the complex, whatever—we think that they're still there."
"And what makes you say that?"
"We have a report... An outside maintenance person spotted something, maybe an explosive, on his last inspection. Not only that, they've been able to pinpoint when it was planted. The cameras went down. A glitch in the system... or so they thought."
"They're still there— What are these people running? A suicide mission?"
"I doubt it. No, if they're still there, they'll be getting out soon. I think—"
Bridger saw Noyce look to the side. Someone handed him a piece of paper. Was he getting more information? Bridger thought. And, more importantly, was he telling Bridger everything he knew?
Noyce skimmed the sheet of paper, then looked back at Bridger.
"The UEO thinks we have a window of opportunity here, Nathan. If the terrorists are still there, the UEO thinks..."
Here it comes...
"... that the seaQuest can play a role."
"And what the hell role is that?"
"Nathan, seaQuest has the ability to monitor the resort, scan it for any irregularities. You might even get a team into the resort—without anyone detecting."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"You've got the WSKRS data, Darwin, the entire resources of the Net. Nate, I want to patch you directly through to the command center at the resort. If the terrorists are still there, maybe you can save the six hundred people a mile deep."
Sure, Bridger thought. And he wondered if Noyce had considered something else. Maybe the terrorists wanted the seaQuest to get involved. What better way to embarrass the UEO but to bring its flagship down?
But Bridger didn't say anything. He was only glad that he had taken that catnap, bad dream and all... because now it might be a long time before he got some sleep.
"Certainly, everything is in motion," Geoffrey Harpe said, speaking on the phone.
His guests were still enjoying the late afternoon Hawaiian sunshine, sipping exotic drinks by the pool, eating some of Chef Moritani's succulent swordfish drenched in a tangy pineapple sauce.
There was no need to interrupt the party.
But the fun, for Harpe, was over. SousMer was to have been the first in a chain of underwater resorts, offering the wealthy every thrill of this new era of underwater exploration.
Now it appeared that the thrills might be getting way out of hand.
Now all of Harpe's plans were threatened.
"You may send the message that I will have the bullion in the air by..."
Harpe checked his watch. It was the middle of the night in Switzerland, but one call to Harpe's European executives would get the wheels rolling very quickly. "I imagine that I can have the gold out of Lausanne airport by, say, four A.M., Swiss time."
The voice on the other end sounded relieved. Harpe's first contact had been with Admiral Noyce himself. No love lost there, Harpe knew. But Noyce was now busy dealing with the crisis—and Harpe had to deal with Noyce's aide.
The gold was no problem. And Harpe guessed that this UEO functionary wasn't used to someone who could make things happen—just like that.
"From there the plane will fly to Hong Kong, and the gold will be loaded onto a C-137 transport. The C-137 will fly directly to the drop zone." Harpe paused. "So—there won't be any problem at my end."
Harpe looked out the giant plate-glass window at his guests, enjoying the sun, the drinks, the gentle jazz. He envied their lack of troubles. He shook his head. This party had been expensive before... but now the cost had gone up to a hundred million dollars.
"Oh," Harpe said, "there is one thing. I'd like to know what steps the UEO will be taking to recover my bullion."
Later, Harpe knew that he could start his own private "inquiries." There were plenty of nasty free-lance investigators who could track down the gold and—with enough firepower and luck—recover it. But he wanted to hear what the UEO had planned.
And that's when he listened as Admiral Noyce's aide, a former member of Britain's M5 Intelligence unit, delivered the news that the scenario in progress could, in fact, take a much worse turn.
That the payoff might not end the business.
Now the party was really ruined for Harpe.
Cutter sat on his bunk.
Mary saw him sweating under the weight of so much leathery armor—or maybe he was sweating simply because this was too damn nerve-racking.
It was funny, Mary thought, that someone whose expertise was handling highly volatile explosives could be so nervous.
"There it is," Cutter said. He looked up at Mary. "God, yes! The confirmation signal has appeared on the Net. It's on all the CommSats, the relay stations, and is being downloaded everywhere. The gold is coming!"
"Good," Mary said.
Cutter looked up at her. "I-I still don't see why we have to do this. I mean, what's the bloody point? They say they're going to pay. We're going to get the damn gold. And that's the deal, isn't it? Isn't that what we want?"
"Shut up."
Mary came by Cutter and looked at the screen. What happened next had been planned. A computer station in Key West, a lone computer sitting in an empty rented room with an open link to the Net, sent out a message:
CONFIRMATION NOT RECEIVED IN TIME. PLEASE OBSERVE THE DEMONSTRATION.
"God—it isn't right," Cutter said. "They're going to pay us."
Mary imagined everyone seeing the message on their screens, the panic by all the fat cats in the resort, the confusion, the disorder.
"Hit it," Mary said.
Cutter, shaking his head, hit a key on the small computer pad...
Nathan Hale Bridger entered the seaQuesf s bridge and felt the tension. Well, he thought, guess it's no surprise to the crew that our travel plans have been changed.
He slid into his command chair—it still felt awkward—and immediately Ford was by his side.
'There's been a change in plans, Mr. Ford."
Bridger looked up at one of the VR screens above the helmsmen's chairs. "Set a new heading, one zero eight degrees, Mr. Ford. Thirty-degree starboard rudder, trim forward ballast."
"Aye, aye, Captain. We're taking her deep?" Ford seemed confused.
"I believe there's a nasty storm system growing in the direction we're heading, Mr. Ford, a real El Nino. I'd like us well below any turbulence. Another hundred meters down should do it."
Bridger watched the seaQuest's helmsmen immediately carry out Ford's orders, and the giant sub smoothly responded.
Bridger looked over at Ortiz at the sensor station, with Hitchcock standing beside him. "Lieutenant Hitchcock, are the WSKRS still deployed?"
"Yes, Captain. Do you want—"
"Bring in—what are they... Mother and Loner, but leave Junior swimming out there."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"And Ortiz, are we patched into the SousMer communications system?"
"Yes, Captain. I'm monitoring all their communications."
Ford turned away from the command chair, looking at a chart. "Oh—and, Mr. Ford, let's make it full speed ahead. Time may be a factor here."
"Aye, Captain."
Ortiz looked over from the sensor station and shouted. "Captain! There's been an explosion at SousMer!"
One of the VR screens suddenly displayed a schematic of SousMer, with a section flashing, showing damage.
Nobody said anything while the image of the resort floated on the screen, the damaged portion glowing red.
"So much for playing fair," Bridger said.