Pandemic Page 57

“Topside, Diver Two, entering the sub.”

The dive master continued to calmly issue orders, sending the remaining UUVs to the Los Angeles and getting rescue divers into the water.

The image on Clarence’s screens shifted from static to the entrance hole and then the torpedo room, the view of Diver Two’s camera nearly an exact replay of what Diver One had seen just minutes earlier.

Suddenly, the image shook violently, filled with bubbles and bits of falling metal. The diver slewed right, making the view tilt.

“Topside! Large explosion in the nose cone! Wreck is unstable!”

“Diver Two, exit immediately. Repeat, exit immediately.”

Clarence heard the diver scream, saw a flash of something coming down from above. The image slewed the other way, the horizontal now vertical and the vertical horizontal as the diver fell to her side. He heard a crunching sound, painfully loud in the speakers.

“Diver Two, get out of there,” the dive master said, his voice at last carrying a shred of urgency, a hint of emotion. “Exit immediately.”

“Topside … I’m stuck … oh my God, my visor is cracked, water is coming in, get me help, get someone down here—”

Another crunch far louder than the first, then, no sound at all.

The sideways view didn’t waver. The diver had been crushed, but her helmet camera remained on, continued to send signals up the umbilical to the Brashear far above.

Clarence sagged back in his chair. He felt cold, distant, as if it were all happening somewhere else. Two divers dead. Both ADSs destroyed.

And, worst of all, the artifact was still down there.

DAY FOUR

FOREIGN POWERS

Murray hated the Situation Room, but at least that felt comfortable, felt familiar. The president’s private sitting room didn’t feel familiar at all. He’d been here twice before, both times to deliver bad news to former presidents; the kind of news that couldn’t wait until morning.

The room could have been in any house, really, any house of someone with money and status. Murray and Admiral Porter sat on a comfortable couch. Murray knew he looked wrinkled, disheveled — he’d been napping on a cot when the news had come in. His staff had brought him fresh clothes, but he’d done little more than throw them on. Porter, of course, looked neat and pressed, not a wrinkle on his uniform.

The sitting room was right next to the president’s bedroom. Blackmon seemed sleepy, which was no surprise — she’d been woken up only fifteen minutes earlier.

“An explosion,” she said. “What was the cause, Admiral?”

“Unknown at this time,” Porter said. “Possibly sabotage, a booby trap left by the infected crew of the Los Angeles.”

Blackmon’s tired eyes turned to Murray. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s a possibility, Madam President,” Murray said. “Once the LA’s engines blew, the infected crew could assume that sooner or later divers would come down to retrieve the artifact. Booby traps fit the mentality of the infected, to some degree, although the infected would be most interested in spreading the disease. The explosion was definitely internal, however, which does make crew sabotage the most-likely cause.”

He stood — slowly, his aching hips and a stabbing pain in his back keeping him from doing it otherwise — and handed the president a photo taken by one of the Blackfish UUVs. The front end of the Los Angeles had blown open like some cartoon cigar.

Blackmon studied it. “Admiral, would that destroy the artifact?”

“Possibly,” Porter said. “The last report from the diver said he had removed it from the main, hardened storage locker. If that is accurate, it’s doubtful the smaller container holding the artifact itself could have withstood such an explosion.”

Blackmon set the picture in her lap. “When will we know for sure?”

“Another ADS is en route,” Porter said. “It will be at least twelve hours before we can get a person down there. The UUVs have scanned the area, but found no sign of the container. Considering the damage, that’s not surprising.”

She looked at the photo again. “Could it have been survivors? The Los Angeles also had one of those deep-sea suits, did it not? That, or someone in an air pocket? Or could the disease modify human biology enough for people to survive down there?”

Porter shook his head. “Not likely. At that depth, the pressure is twenty-eight times that of sea level — nitrogen narcosis would quickly kill anyone not locked into a sealed area or wearing an ADS. Those suits have at most forty-eight hours of life support, and the Los Angeles sank four days ago. Any normal human being in that crew is definitely dead.”

Porter looked at Murray to answer the final part of the question.

“The disease can change physiology, but not to that extent,” Murray said. “Pressure is still pressure, Madam President.”

She nodded. “All right. Now for the obvious question — could this have been a deliberate attack by foreign agents, allowing them to seize the artifact?”

Murray had known that question was coming. Truth be told, he wanted to hear the answer himself.

Porter thought carefully before responding.

“It’s absolutely a possibility, although less likely than the booby trap. Recon flights are out around the clock. Coast Guard ships have been called in to patrol the five-mile perimeter around the task force. It is highly doubtful any sub could swim undetected beneath that perimeter, and nothing on the surface could get past it unseen. The Pinckney reported no sonar sightings, nothing was detected by the UUVs and ROVS, and neither of the deceased divers reported anything unusual until they entered the nose cone.”

Chapter end