Medusa

CHAPTER 37

SHORTLY AFTER THE SIKORSKY SEAHAWK LIFTED OFF FROM Pohnpei, Zavala had slipped a chart from the TOP SECRET pouch Austin had put in his safekeeping and matched the specks on it to the islands and atolls he could see from the helicopter. Ensign Daley tapped him on the shoulder and pointed directly ahead, where silhouettes of ships dotted the ocean sheen.

“Looks like we’re coming up on an invasion fleet,” Zavala said.

“We’re entering the search area,” Daley replied. “We’ve got six Navy ships working the waters around the lab site. A research vessel from NUMA has come in to help out. My ship is the command center. We’re coming up on her at twelve o’clock.”

The Seahawk quickly covered the distance to the Concord, hovered over the stern for an instant, then dropped slowly onto the large circle painted on the deck. Zavala slid the helicopter’s door open and climbed out. He was greeted by a gray-haired man in a khaki uniform.

“I’m Hank Dixon, Mr. Zavala,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m commander of the guided-missile cruiser Concord. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks, Captain. You can call me Joe. My boss, Kurt Austin, is busy in Pohnpei, but he’ll be coming along in a couple of hours. Ensign Daley told me that the Concord is acting as central control for the search flotilla.”

“That’s right. C’mon, I’ll show you what we’ve been doing.”

The captain led the way to the midship’s search-and-rescue center, just off the main deck. A dozen men and women, sitting in front of computer monitors, were processing information that was streaming in from the ships and planes involved in the search.

“How close are we to the actual lab site?” Zavala asked.

Dixon pointed down to the deck at his feet.

“It’s approximately three hundred feet directly under the ship’s hull. We had been on standby patrol for the lab, acting as backup for the support ship, Proud Mary. When we heard the Mayday, we got to the site within hours.”

“Where is the support ship now?” Zavala asked.

“A Navy salvage vessel is towing what’s left of her to a ship-yard, where the forensics folks can take a closer look at her. We were busy taking care of the survivors, so it took some time before we got around to checking on the status of the lab. When we couldn’t raise it on the radio, we erroneously assumed at first that the communications buoy got shot out. We carry an ROV for hull inspections, and we got it down.” He stepped over to a computer screen. “Those circular depressions you see in the ocean bottom match the feet of the legs supporting the Locker.”

“There are no drag marks,” Zavala observed. “That indicates the lab was lifted off the site, which would have been possible with the Locker’s neutral buoyancy. Can you show me the site on the satellite map?”

Dixon asked a technician to bring up a map-and-satellite-image hybrid of the waters being searched.

“We’ve been using orbiting spy satellites that can zero in on an area as small as a square yard to look for infrared emissions,” Dixon said. “Davy Jones’s Locker was west of Pohnpei, between Nukuoro Island on the north and Oroluk Island to the south. We’ve drawn lines from all three islands and dubbed our main search area the Pohnpei Triangle.”

“Those red squares must be the areas that have been searched,” Zavala said.

“That’s right. The squares designate the territory that’s been scoured with sonar. The ships transmit their sonar data to our computer network. We map out a grid of the ocean in squares, the ships move over each square parallel to one another in a line that stretches several miles across, and then they move on to the next square. We can cover a lot of ocean that way in a very short time. We’ve also got fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters making visual checks.”

“These would be the islands circled in red,” Zavala said.

“Correct again. They range from midsize islands to atolls not much bigger than a thumbnail. Most are deserted. We’ve put choppers down on a few of them and talked to the inhabitants, but nobody’s reported anything suspicious. The places we can’t get to by boat or air we’ve vetted pretty thoroughly with aerial surveys.”

“The ensign said you’ve deployed sonobuoys,” Zavala said.

Dixon nodded.

“It took a while before we figured out the lab was gone and got acoustical sensors down,” he said. “We’ve got three antisub submarines equipped with electronic ears so sensitive they can hear a fish sneeze out patrolling the perimeters of the triangle.”

“You might want to tell your subs to use their acoustical detectors to listen for the sound signature of a Russian Typhoon-class submarine. The Typhoons run quiet, but maybe you’ll pick something up.”

Dixon gave Zavala an odd look.

“You think the Russians are involved in this?”

“No,” Zavala said, “but one of their old subs might be. Looks like you’ve got all bases covered. I’d like to go back to square one. I’ll contact the NUMA ship to see if I can borrow a submersible so I can get a look firsthand at the site.”

“I’ll give them a call,” Captain Dixon said, then added, “I’m running out of ideas. You got any suggestions?”

Zavala stared at the vast area represented by the satellite image. The Navy faced a daunting, almost impossible task. The Federated States of Micronesia consisted of more than six hundred islands scattered across a million and a half square miles of the Pacific. Actual land covered an area smaller than the state of Rhode Island, but, factoring in the ocean, the FSM was two-thirds the size of the United States.

“The good news is, your search plan is terrific, Captain. Given enough time, I don’t doubt you would find the lab.”

“Thanks.” The captain narrowed his eyes, and said, “What’s the bad news?”

Zavala gave him a sad smile.

“We don’t have time.”