Samuel Edwards - Neptune

Nancy’s death made him realize how much he loved Adrienne. All the way, with no holds barred, nothing held back. So he was as soft as any ordinary man who was prey to his own emotions.

‘Porter, you idiotic bastard,’ he murmured aloud, ‘you’re vulnerable after all!’

He had to get out of the business. Without delay.

But first there was a job to finish, the most important assignment of his life. And the most dangerous, thanks to the revelation of his unexpected weakness.

In the hours ahead he couldn’t allow himself to think of Adrienne, no matter what happened.

Not glancing again at the body of Nancy Wing, Porter left the hotel room and went to meet his own destiny.

The sonar devices guided the Neptune to a place on the surface of the South China Sea directly above the sunken Russian submarine, and there she dropped her anchor. Additional sonar equipment was lowered to a depth of more than three miles, and the pinpointing on charts that followed soon revealed that the Zoloto had shifted its position on the bottom slightly during the preceding year, moving about twenty feet.

Preparations for the following day’s attempt to raise the vessel continued through the night. The demagnetizing of the submersible’s ballast in a special compression chamber was the most important of these activities, and all of the special generators made for the mission were functioning, storing energy for the work ahead.

The submersible, attached to the mother ship by a towline, bobbed gently in the calm water. After dinner a team went on board and, under Franklin Richards’ direct supervision, filled her special underside compartment with 8,652 gallons of high octane aviation gasoline that would be used to send her to the bottom and back to the surface again as the petrol compressed and decompressed.

Three of Adrienne Howard’s Corporation agents, all armed with sub-machine guns, were stationed on board the submersible through the night, prepared to repel any invaders who might try to intervene. In these last hours before the critical phase of Project Neptune began it was no longer possible to maintain complete secrecy, and the US Navy cruiser, flagship of the rear admiral in charge of the escort, anchored less than a mile away. Its three launches were lowered and their heavily armed crews sailed continuously around the Neptune and the ungainly float. Five squadrons of fighter planes from Clark Field also took part in the protection of the project, and no fewer than three were in the air at any given time, keeping the skies overhead clear.

The scientists and technical experts who had been practising for days ate an early dinner, but few were hungry, and most of them went to play bridge or backgammon, but could not concentrate on their games. Some went off to bed, but few could sleep, and the entire company would be awakened at 3.00 a.m. for the start of the final phase of the operation.

Franklin Richards made no attempt to rest, and personally tested every instrument, every piece of equipment that would be used the following morning. Endowed with greater drive and more inner resources of energy than most men, he was inexhaustible. No detail was too small to capture his attention, and thanks to his zeal a small leak was discovered in a gasoline compression valve. At his insistence the entire valve was replaced, even though it would have been easy to repair the malfunctioning part.

Technicians inspected all of the consoles that would be used, and experts who had spent a full year in training for their highly specialized task tested the twin gyroscopes and the highly sensitive computer they directed. These devices would be used to keep the football field horizontal as it submerged and, of far greater importance, prevent it from tipping when it rose to the surface again with the sunken Russian submarine on board. The release of the iron shot used as ballast on the submersible would be controlled by the computer, which would send electrical impulses to the lip of the float. Compartments in that lip would be opened or kept closed according to the directions of the computer because mere men could not calculate the degrees of list and then correct it as rapidly as might be necessary, particularly when unseen and unmeasured underwater currents struck the huge barge.

Adrienne made no attempt to sleep, and roamed the Neptune after eating a small sandwich and a bowl of soup. In a sense, she thought, her task was finished, and she would become active again only in the event of an emergency. The communications centre on the operations deck was in constant wireless touch with the Navy escort and Air Force squadrons, attempts to maintain silence having been abandoned in this crucial stage. The two destroyers that comprised part of the escort were equipped with sonar devices of their own, and were on watch for a possible intrusion by a Russian nuclear submarine, in case a last-minute attempt was made to disrupt Project Neptune by force.

The bridge players, Adrienne saw, were making stupid bids and forgetting what cards had been played; the backgammon players moved their counters in defiance of the odds. The library appeared deserted, but she caught a glimpse of someone sitting in a high-backed chair, then saw Marie Richards holding an opened book in her lap.

‘This is the worst part,’ Marie said. ‘The planning was fun, the building was exciting, but now I only feel dread.’

Porter had been wrong to think Marie might be a foreign agent, and Adrienne was sorry she had been forced to refuse the woman’s request to send off a frivolous wireless message. ‘We won’t have to wait much longer, you know.’

‘That’s what upsets me,’ Marie said. ‘Suppose we fail. All the money and effort and time lost forever. Frank has thought of nothing else for months and months. Neither have I, really.’ She turned back to her book, but it was apparent she had no idea what she was reading.

Frank and Marie were an extraordinary couple, Adrienne thought. Their wealth, power and social position meant nothing to them, and all that mattered was the success of Project Neptune. Marie was concerned for her husband’s sake, but what were his motives? Patriotism might play a part in his participation, but his reasons were more complex. He had won so often in life that ordinary competition no longer interested him, and only the ultimate challenge could arouse him.

If something went wrong tomorrow, Franklin Richards would suffer far more than would anyone else involved. A failure to recover the Zoloto would be a blow to the United States, but the pride of a genius would be devastated.

‘Miss Howard,’ the loudspeaker blared, ‘the Captain would like to see you in his quarters.’

Adrienne climbed a flight of stairs and went to the suite directly behind the bridge.

Captain Humphries was in his combination living-cabin office, and looked pale beneath his tan as he stood at a porthole. ‘This,’ he said, thrusting a yellow flimsy at her, ‘is the latest from the meteorologists.’

She scanned the report:

‘STORM HAS DEVELOPED INTO FULL-SCALE TYPHOON PACKING WINDS OF UP TO 115 MPH AND STILL INCREASING. PRESENTLY ON DIRECT COLLISION COURSE WITH ‘NEPTUNE’, ALTHOUGH CHANGE IN DIRECTION COULD OCCUR AT ANY TIME. IF NOT, FORCE 9 WINDS SHOULD EE ANTICIPATED BY 1700 HOURS TOMORROW.’

Adrienne raised an inquiring eyebrow.

‘Unless the typhoon shifts,’ the Captain said, ‘gale-strength winds will start hitting us around five in the afternoon.’

‘Even if everything goes according to schedule,’ she said, ‘the operation won’t end before seven or eight tomorrow night.’

‘That’s why I’m telling this to no one except you right now,’ Captain Humphries said. ‘I won’t say anything to Frank Richards until later tonight, after we see what the storm is doing. The Russian sub down at the bottom may be important to a lot of people, but I’m responsible for the lives of everyone on board the Neptune. And if a crunch comes, I’ll pull out, even if it means losing the sub.’