Page 48 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier
Callie killed the verbal alarm, but the text warning still flashed on the navigation console in bright red letters.
The marine snow fell beyond the optically perfect acrylic bubble surrounding them. TheSpook Fish’s thrusters fought to maintain its position in the slow-moving currents.
“Well, we’re at the end of the line,” Callie said. “Now the fun begins.”
?
Today was as much a test for Juan and Linda as it was for Callie’s submersible. They would be the ones to pilot theSpook Fishon the deepwater adventures Cabrillo planned for her. He often thought of his need for a vessel with the combined automated features and extreme depth capabilities that Callie’s vehicle possessed. Until now, none had existed. TheOregonmostly sailed in deep waters, and on more than one occasion his people had nearly died in dangerous underwater operations.
Juan’s interest in theSpook Fishwas accelerated when he came across the rumor of the sinking of an old Cold War–era Soviet fishing trawler decades ago. A cover for a Soviet electronic eavesdropping vessel, this particular trawler was secretly ferrying a key component in the Soviet “Perimeter” system, also known as “Dead Hand.” In effect, Perimeter was a semiautonomous nuclear launch program.
During the Cold War, the threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD) promised that if America attacked Russia with nuclear weapons, the Russians would have sufficient nuclear arsenals to retaliate and destroy the Americans. Therefore, it was suicidal for the Americans to ever launch a first strike.
But American technological advances in the 1980s suggested the United States could launch a devastating first strike—preventing any kind of Soviet retaliation. This made the prospect of nuclear war more likely. Thus, the Soviets developed Perimeter. In the event the U.S. decapitated Soviet leadership in a nuclear first strike, the “dead hand” of Perimeter would still be able to launch a retaliatory strike from the grave. Perimeter restored the MAD calculus and, logically, deterred any American decision to launch a first strike.
America’s current interest in the old Soviet Perimeter system was that apparently it was still operational and deployed by the current Russian government. Acquiring the sunken trawler’s Perimeter cargo would be a massive intelligence coup that would undermine Russian strategic security.
And for such a coup, Overholt would pay handsomely.
As of this moment, only Juan knew the location of the trawler—his source having revealed it in the moments before her death. Even the venerable St. Julien Perlmutter, the world’s foremost marine historian and archivist, was unaware of the trawler’s whereabouts, though he was able to confirm its mysterious disappearance.
Now Juan was trying to determine if theSpook Fishcould give him the ability to retrieve it—and quickly. The clock was ticking. Recovering the Vendor’s flight data recorder was as good a test as he could imagine.
If it succeeded today, Callie’s submersible would open up a whole new line of revenue for the Corporation. The CIA hadn’t possessed deepwater capabilities since theGlomar Explorerdecades ago on which, ironically, Max had been the chief engineer. But today’s global security issues were increasingly located in the crushing depths of the world’s oceans. TheSpook Fishwas an ideal vessel for that kind of work—if it performed according to expectations.
They were about to find out.
?
Callie pressed a button on the touchscreen and a new monitor lit up displaying a bright light illuminating the marine snow.
“That’s the first-person-view camera on the drone,” Callie said. She tapped another button that disengaged the drone from the underside of theSpook Fishhull and sent it on its way toward the flight data recorder and the tail section.
“Specs on the drone cable said three thousand feet,” Juan said. “Can’t wait to see how this works.” He wasn’t exaggerating. Ever since he found out about Callie’s invention he had been chomping at the bit to get a real-world demonstration.
Of course, Callie hadn’t invented the first deepwater submersible—there were several others in operation with many thousands of hours logged by underwater scientists, videographers, and the like.
Callie’s unique contribution was both the drone itself and, more importantly, the three-thousand-foot-long graphene navigation and power cable that she had developed.
The problem with previous remotely operated tethered drones, otherwise referred to as ROVs—remotely operated vehicles—was the cabling. Conventional cables had to be short because they were thick and heavy. If the cable was too long, it would weigh down the ROV and impede progress.
Callie had solved that problem by developing a new manufacturing process that made graphene cable possible. Graphene was a “miracle” substance that still hadn’t quite fulfilled its promise in practical engineering applications.
Graphene was comprised of a single, two-dimensional layer of carbon atoms. The resulting material was two hundred times stronger than steel, highly conductive, extremely flexible, and waterproof.
Her other invention was even more practical. Because her father had been killed in an underwater demolition accident, Callie applied her incredible skill sets to building a drone capable of doing the same work, fitted with the necessary tools for automated welding, cutting, fastening, and unfastening. She had also developed other specialized ROVs.
What was even more incredible was that her demolition drone deployed an AI program to carry out its tasks without human assistance. In deepwater environments, humans became quickly fatigued, cold, disoriented, and even frightened as they attempted to carry out difficult or complex tasks. Drones suffered none of these ills, nor did they require oxygen or get the bends. The worst thing that could happen was the drone would be destroyed.
Better still, it would leave no grieving daughters behind.
By combining the graphene cabling with the highly capable work vehicle, Callie was providing the underwater community a vastly safer, cheaper, and more capable system than any single human could deploy.
Juan saw the value of her new system immediately and already it was paying off—or at least, was about to. All three of them stared at the drone’s first-person-view monitor. Within a few minutes, the shadow of the airplane’s tail section appeared far below in the gloom like a broken, Gothic mansion precariously perched on a dark, snowy mountain crag—upside down.
A yellow alarm light flashed on the drone video monitor as thedrone slowed and then stopped at three thousand feet. Theend of cablemessage flashed on-screen. With theSpook’s depth at four thousand feet and the drone down a farther three thousand feet, the total extended reach was at seven thousand feet.
But the tail section was located at 7,214 feet, and still out of reach.
