Ian Slater: Choke Point

“Have our two SEALs go back and do a deep dive,” he ordered Duty Officer Morgan. Morgan suggested the divers use Frank Hall’s oceanics vessel Petrel II . The oceanographic ship had all the required equipment for a deep dive, even LOSHOK explosive to send sound waves down for its side-scan sonar should the sonar’s electric transponder malfunction. Plus Petrel II , more commonly known as Petrel , was a civilian ship and a common sight in Northwest waters. A simple press release from Bangor could claim Petrel was moving farther west of Nanoose Bay, where it was usually employed to retrieve practice torpedo debris. The release could emphasize the Navy’s zero tolerance for scrap metal, especially the miles of torpedo guidance wire that, since the thousands of practice firings during World War II, had until now been permitted to pollute the strait.

“Damn good PR, Morgan,” said the admiral.

“And it’ll be the truth,” Morgan added, elated by the admiral’s appreciation. “I mean, this anomaly is polluting. Have to clean it up.”

“Precisely.”

There was silence on the line. “Admiral?”

“Why didn’t the CG water sample show anything?” the admiral asked. “This water bottle would have been taken below the prop wash that Albinski was talking about?”

“Faulty equipment?” proffered Morgan.

“Perhaps.” But the admiral didn’t sound convinced.

“Want the Coast Guard to do it again, sir?” suggested Morgan. “Same vessel. Tell them not to change any of the equipment. Do it just as they did the first time. A double check.”

“Good idea.”

The Coast Guard steamed over the “dumbbell” in the morning fog and took another sample. It showed a three-degree difference in the water and high toxicity.

“What in hell’s going on?” Jensen asked Morgan from his study, his voice tired. He hadn’t had a wink of sleep since Morgan called in the first situation report. Before the duty officer could answer, Jensen continued, “Where’s the Utah ? Could it have anything to do with this?”

“No way, sir. Last SITREP says that it’s heading into the strait as we speak. Over twenty miles to the west. It had a practice target firing. And one false alert. Nowhere near the anomaly.”

The admiral paced his office, gazing out at the cobalt blue of the Hood Canal and the wildly beautiful mountains of the snow-topped Olympic peninsula beyond. Something was odd about the Coast Guard not getting any anomalous reading the first time around. No salinity change. No temperature change. “Weird,” he muttered. Then the admiral had a burst of inspiration, his voice suddenly losing its fatigue. “It’s an old torpedo, Morgan! By God, why didn’t I think of it before? Leaking. Those two divers reported it’s a small source area, right? Cone-shaped?”

“Yes,” agreed Morgan.

“Damn torpedo’s buried in mud, Morgan, that’s why Coast Guard sonar didn’t pick up a profile! How long will it take those two divers from the RIB to reach Petrel ?” he asked impatiently. “They would need the ship’s special salvage deeper diving gear.”

“They could be there within half an hour, sir — it’d only be a short helo hop from Port Angeles to the ship.”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s going on?” Margaret Jensen asked her husband as he appeared, bleary-eyed, at the kitchen table.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, less sure about his idea of the torpedo now. Sonar penetrated mud. Still, whether you got a profile did depend on the angle of approach. He knew about Ballard’s difficulty in finding the Titanic . Still … God, he wished life was simpler. She slid the Seattle Post Intelligencer toward him. “Dammit, Margaret, just once I’d like to get the paper in one piece. After you’re finished with it I can’t find a damn thing.”

She poured him coffee. “It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s something ,” he said, turning the paper inside out until he finally found the social section.

“There’s a good photo of you,” Margaret told him, “on page two.”

He grunted, but turned to it nevertheless. She was right. Both of them looked good — though she’d never admit it. He couldn’t remember Margaret ever saying she’d taken a good photo. Couldn’t remember any woman saying she liked her photo. Something always wrong with their damned hair. But there they both were, standing next to the wonder boy Gates himself. “It’s something toxic,” he told her.

“How long before you know the cause?” she asked, without looking up from the funnies.

“Tonight possibly. Divers are going down.”

“Again?’

“To the bottom. Civilian research vessel.”

“I should hope it’s before nightfall.”

He said nothing, turning the paper noisily back to the front page. China and Taiwan were on the boil again. Beijing, resurrecting the confrontations of the fifties and sixties, when the PLA had shelled the Taiwanese islands of Matsu and Quemoy, was warning Taipei not to proclaim independence. If it did, Beijing said there’d be war. The admiral shook his head. The U.S. should never have agreed to defend Taiwan, he thought. If push came to shove, there’d be a war against China as well as the war against terror. War on two fronts — any military’s worst nightmare.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Margaret pressed. “Sending them to the sea bottom in those conditions?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll say a prayer.”

“Thanks.”

Margaret folded her hands and closed her eyes. He envied her faith. He’d lost his long ago. Some commanders, like the retired nuisance, General Freeman, hadn’t, but even Freeman’s faith was qualified, his adage being, “Love thy neighbor and keep the son of a bitch in your sights.”

As Jensen worried and his wife prayed, the oceanographic ship Petrel was casting off from Nanoose Bay and Albinski and Dixon’s chopper was heading for it, to land directly on the upper deck’s helo pad.

Over Suzhou, the ancient canal city of eastern China, the morning mist and smog had turned the autumn sun into a hazy saffron ball, but apart from this, the October dawn had begun much like any other. From around the algae-streaked arch of Wumen Bridge and the myriad hutongs —the alleys leading away from the Grand Canal — came the usual sounds of people on their way to work: the crush of jangling bicycles, shouted greetings, the noise of children and the sound of bird sellers. The smoggy air was heavy with the vinegary odor of urine on damp earth and the stench of feng che , the night soil carts, mingling with the warm, sweet aromas of the sidewalk stalls selling fresh mantao buns, hot soybean drink, and the oil-fried breakfast twists of youtiao .

The hunched rider of one of the feng che carts passed an old man in a faded blue Mao suit, his chin stubbled, teeth brown and crooked, a homemade cigarette dangling from his lips as he sat on his haunches on the dirt sidewalk outside a dingy, clay-walled house. A small boy, emerging from the dark interior of the house, watched the old man spreading an oil-stained rag before him on the sidewalk and placing on it an odd assortment of screws, small levers, and tire puncture kits. The old man’s sinewy hands sifted through the bits and pieces like some aged carrion bird picking over a carcass. Now and then he made a strangled coughing noise, took the drooping cigarette from his mouth, spit, wiped the dribble from his mouth with his wrist, and looked up at the endless river of bicycles streaming to and from the arch of the Wumen Bridge. As always, the cyclists heading to the bridge slowed as they drew level with the old man, for it was here they dismounted and began filing off to the right. There, instead of having to lift and carry their “Flying Pigeon” or “Forever” bicycles up over the stone stairs, they used the narrow, gutter-deep troughs running up and down the arc of the bridge, enabling the dismounted riders to wheel their bikes next to them as they climbed the stairs up and over the arch of the bridge down toward Panmen Gate. High above the gate, red-flagged battlements towered forbiddingly over the crumbling ruins of nearby Rugang Pagoda.