Ian Slater - World in Flames

This day, however, two of the twelve samples would not match. Ray ran them again, with the same result. Next, he called EPA in Washington, though with the phone networks still in a mess from sabotage, it took him fifteen minutes to get through. Was it possible, he asked, that there was oil not “fingerprinted” with isotopes? The answer was a definite no— all refined oil and crude was fingerprinted by law, and supervised by government inspectors.

“Yes,” answered Ray, “but was it possible that the government rules and regulations had been relaxed because of the war — to make it easier to move oil more quickly?”

“Hell, no.” was the bureaucrat’s answer. “Doesn’t take any time at all to seed the cargo. A few drops and it’s done. If you have two that aren’t matching, there must be something wrong with your terminal. If you like, I’ll authorize one of our electronic technicians out there to check it out. We’ve got a couple on the base.”

“Yeah, I know them,” Ray Brentwood answered. “Thanks.”

The technician took ten minutes to tell him there was nothing wrong with the terminal. Ray ran the two samples again in the technician’s presence, aware as he did so that the technician, thinking Ray couldn’t see him, was staring at Ray’s face in the kind of fascinated horror that children exhibited upon first seeing him.

“Still no friggin’ matchup!” Ray snapped at the technician.

“Master data bank mightn’t have all—”

“Yes it has!” said Ray just as grumpily as before. “Something’s wrong.”

“Well, it ain’t that terminal, man. It’s A-okay.”

Ray took the two samples down to the privately run yard laboratories and asked the chemical lab technician there if he’d do him a favor and run them through the spectrometer. After what the navy brass had done to him in their inquiry about the Blaine, Ray was going to play it by the book, too, and nail the big brass of whatever warship had opened its bilges and caused the ruckus in La Jolla and environs.

The lab technician told him it was his coffee break.

“Look,” said Ray, “I’m due back at the ship. I’m in a hurry.” The technician couldn’t suppress a smile. He’d heard about “Frankenstein’s” boat. Not a bad guy, Brentwood, they said, but man, his face was a weapon — should send it into North Korea — get the bastards to surrender in no time.

“Okay,” said the technician magnanimously. “Wouldn’t want to delay your sailing. What are you on, destroyers?”

“Not at the moment,” said Ray quietly. “How long will this take?”

“Whoa there. You just got here, mac. Five minutes. Can you wait that long?” He flashed a friendly grin. Ray nodded. Destroyers? Screw him.

“It’s the sulfur content that’ll tell us whether it’s navy or civilian fuel,” said the technician. “Tell you by the smell it’s diesel.”

“I know that,” said Ray irritably. Destroyers. Smart-ass.

When the computer slave hooked up to the spectrometer, the printer started chattering and the technician, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of a scummy-looking, acid-holed lab coat, started rocking on his heels, announcing knowingly, “Yep! What’d I tell you? Dieseline. Let’s see.” He leaned closer. “Sulfur content coming — hmm. That’s funny.”

“What is?” asked Ray.

“Sulfur content,” the technician answered.

“What about it?”

The technician had stopped rocking and was now frowning. It brought a twisted smile to Ray’s face. So he was right after all — one of the navy’s big ships had spewed out the oil in the sample. Or both samples. He’d get his own back.

“Holy Toledo!” the technician said, slipping in the second bottle. It, too, was from a diesel load, he told Ray.

“All right,” said Ray. “You have a U.S. Navy master sheet here?”

The technician was running the sample again. “I don’t need a U.S. master sheet,” he said. He turned around and looked worriedly at Ray. “Captain, that’s Baku — prime grade. We’re looking at Russian oil here.”

“How the hell—” began Ray.

“Submarine grade,” said the technician. “This crap is from diesel subs. Two different lots.”

“Can’t be,” said Ray Brentwood. “They couldn’t get that close to our coast. Christ, even their nuclear jobs are noisier than ours — in their ‘silent running’ mode, you can still hear their pumps — come in like a heartbeat on the underwater hydrophones and—” Suddenly he stopped. “Listen — I’ve got to check something out, real fast. But you sit on this until I get back to you. Understand? If we’re wrong about this, we’ll get our butts kicked from here to Norfolk.”

“What are you going to do?” asked the technician.

“Told you. Gotta sort something out first.”

Ray Brentwood was walking quickly down along the docks, turning right at one of the submarine tenders toward where he’d seen five 688 Los Angeles attack-class subs tied up. Overhead in the fast-fading twilight, gulls screeched, and the only parts of the subs that were visible were the white depth numbers painted on the rudders, which served as perches for groups of brown, dimly silhouetted pelicans. Now, thought Ray, if only Robert were here instead of flitting around the Atlantic, he’d have the answer to his question. He tried to think back to the conversation he had had with Robert about the subs, but his older brother, like most submariners, had been tight-lipped about even the most mundane matters aboard a sub, and especially about where they went and what they did, the brotherhood of submariners in a nuclear age giving new meaning to the “Silent Service.”

“Who goes there?” It was a marine guard, his M-16 looking straight at Ray Brentwood.

“Captain Ray Brentwood.”

“Check his ID!” It was another marine approaching from the dark shadow of the sub’s sail. Ray put his hand up to turn his ID tag, which had flipped over in the wind.

“Don’t move!”

Ray mumbled. A flashlight blinded him. Instinctively he turned away from it.

“Jesus—!” the guard began. Then shifted the beam to the ID tag. “IX-44E,” he called out to the other guard.

“Check the board!” said another voice, and now Ray was aware that it came from high up on the sub’s sail, from the bridge, the officer of the watch a black dot against the rapidly darkening sky.

“Sir,” called out one of the guards. “IX-44E is a sludge-removal barge — propelled. His ID number checks.”

“Very well,” said the OOD. “What do you want, Captain?”

“I want to ask a question about subs.”

“They’re very well guarded,” said the OOD.

“So I see. Look — it’s not classified as far as I know, but isn’t it true that a nuclear sub’s quieter than the old diesels — or any diesel for that matter?”

“Of course. Most of the time. Why?”

Ray answered him with a follow-up question. “What do you mean, ‘most of the time’?”

“Well, cooling pumps on a nuclear sub are going all the time — have to because of the reactor. On a diesel you can shut the engines right down. Go on batteries. No pumps at all. No noise. Then a diesel’s quieter than a nuclear.”

Ray wasn’t aware of saying thank you, though he did, but as he turned back along the pier, his pace increased. Born out of his spite, he now knew the answer to the navy’s riddle of how the Russians were getting so close to the convoys, and he was now convinced they were close in off the West Coast — no doubt the East Coast as well. He was running flat out, heart thumping. The diesel boats were the key — the diesels, which in the nuclear age had been relegated to the museums. Hell, the United States no longer had any. But they could carry missiles as well as any nuclear-powered ship. And they were cheaper. He knew that much. For every SSN or Sea Wolf like the Roosevelt, you could build half a dozen diesels, equip them with snorkels. The only difference was speed and the time they could stay submerged. But if they were on battery power and shut down the engine, they could drift and you’d never hear them. If the war went nuclear in Europe and the Russians decided to launch, having subs close in to the American coast would have an enormous advantage and—