Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

"Glad to hear it," Hannah said. "Because I have a big favor to ask, Tanbury."

"Shoot."

"I want to borrow LISA for a day."

Tanbury smile faded. "I'd call that a damn big favor."

"It gets bigger. I can't tell you why I need it, and no one off this ship can know I have it."

Tanbury shook his head. "I have people from the institute on board who expect to use it all day tomorrow."

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important to me. I need this, Tanbury."

He studied her expression. "Yeah, I can see it means a lot to you. Can't it wait a day or two? Maybe I can work it."

She shook her head.

"Tough." He thought for a moment. "Let me put on my bullshit hat for a second. What if I tell them you had concerns about the structural safety of the pod and needed to take it away to conduct some tests? That will satisfy the people on board. But after that, when word gets back to the institute and manufacturer…"

"I'll handle it. Stick by your story, and I'll take the heat."

"You'll have to." He grimaced. "Because this is the kind of caper I could lose my job over."

"I appreciate it. You won't lose your job. I'll make sure of that."

"I trust you. There's not many people in this world I'd trust with my livelihood, but you're one of them, Hannah." He walked to the side and stared down at their rented boat. "You won't get far trying to take LISA with that ."

"We'll do an underwater tow from the stern. The winch will support it."

"I guess so, as long as the weather holds." He turned back. "Jesus, Hannah, a woman with your connections should be able to just pick up the phone and-"

"You're the only connection that will do me any good right now, Tanbury."

He sighed. "How did I get so lucky? Oh well, we're about to have dinner. Care to join us?"

"The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll have your submersible back to you," Kirov said.

"In that case, cancel the dinner invite. I'll get my crew out here to put LISA in the water."

It took Tanbury's crew ninety minutes to replace LISA 's depleted power cells and attach it to the rental boat's winch. Soon after dark, Hannah and Kirov were under way, heading toward the coordinates indicated in the digital video file.

Kirov scribbled on the chart he had spread out on the interior cabin's dining table. "Perfect. We should make it there just before dawn."

Hannah looked at the Samsovian symbols on the map. "Sometime you'll have to teach me this system of yours. Is it really that good?"

"It's very elegant, very clean, and utterly confusing to those who don't take the time to understand it completely." He smiled. "I think it made us feel like we were members of an exclusive club. But snob appeal aside, it takes me back to a different time."

"What time?"

"When I was in the academy, the world was a simpler place. Or at least it appeared to be. We had a country we could be proud of, and we believed our navy was second to none."

"It's a fine navy," Hannah said.

"Don't believe the propaganda. There were fine people in it, and I'd trust my life to almost any of them. But do you know how much of the time U.S. military vessels are at sea? Sixty-five percent of the time. Do you how much of the time Russian boats are out there? Only fifteen percent, all due to mechanical and efficiency problems. Our average was a bit better in my day, but not much."

"It's a country in upheaval."

"There needed to be upheaval. It took me a while to realize it was necessary, but the reality set in soon enough." His lips twisted. "It was forced on me at the point of an AK-47. So here I am drowning in reality and trying to make clarity out of the chaos of my life."

"By killing everyone who caused that chaos."

He smiled. "Trust you to simplify and rid me of any false rationalizations. You're right, of course. You're a very unusual woman, Hannah. It didn't surprise me that Tanbury was willing to trust you with his daily bread." He held her gaze. "I'm beginning to think I'd trust you with much more."

Christ, she couldn't look away from him. She felt… She finally managed to tear her gaze away from his. Crazy. Block it. Hannah quickly glanced at the rearview video monitor and saw the wake of LISA 's antenna as it cut through the water. "You don't think the video file we found is showing us the location of the capsule?"

"It wouldn't make sense. Pavski obviously has a copy of the video. Otherwise, he would have wanted that music player. We know that it's at least five days old. Why would he have bothered with the Silent Thunder , Conner, or you? As I said, this might be something else, perhaps Heiser's clue. Of course, Pavski may have already beaten us to it."

Hannah stared into the darkness that lay ahead. "If that's true, he could even be there now."

4:45 A.M.

Hannah's eyes opened. It took her only a moment to realize that the boat's sudden downshifting had wakened her.

"Good morning," Kirov said. "Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their normal and upright position."

"Are we there?"

"Just another few hundred yards. No sign of Pavski or anyone else."

Hannah pulled off the jacket that Kirov had draped across her while she was sleeping. It was still dark outside save for a sliver of orange on the eastern horizon. She quickly looked up at the rearview monitor, which now displayed a green-tinted "night-vision" mode.

"Don't worry, LISA is safe and sound. I've been keeping an eye on her." Kirov throttled down the engine and idled through the water. "Okay, this is about where we need to be. It's your show now."

Hannah glanced at the sea around them. The seas were calm, and there wasn't a light to be seen anywhere. "Let's get on that winch and raise LISA four feet. That will give us access to the top hatch."

"Aye aye."

While Kirov moved to the stern and activated the power winch, Hannah slipped on the jacket and zipped up. As chilly as it was on the water's surface, she knew it would be much colder a mile and a half below.

Kirov stepped onto LISA 's upper hull and rotated the wheel lock until he could pull open its narrow hatch. "Ladies first?"

"Ladies only."

He stiffened. "What are you talking about? I'm going with you."

"The hell you are."

"It's a two-man craft. I'm not going to stay up here while you-"

"Yes, you are. As brilliantly designed as LISA may be, things can and do go wrong. I never dive without a support team on the surface."

"I'm your support team?"

"Unless you think you can pilot LISA better than I can."

"You know I can't."

"Hello, support team."

"Shit."

Hannah reached into the pod, pulled out a four-foot rod, and handed it to Kirov. "This is an amplified underwater telescoping antenna. Attach it to the side of the boat and extend it all the way down. If you connect it to the boat's main radio, we should be able to keep in touch most of the way down."

"Will I be able to see?"

"Nope. For that we'd need a mile and a half of fiber-optic cable. I give great description, though."

"Terrific."

"Give me a few minutes to power up and run diagnostics. After that, you can disengage the winch."

"I'm not happy about this, Hannah."

"And I wouldn't be happy if something went wrong, and I didn't have a support team to rescue me." Hannah settled into the righthand pilot seat, flipped the power switches, and initiated the diagnostic routine. While she waited, she listened to the familiar purr of LISA coming to life. The last time she was in there, Conner was her point man on the surface, making sure the company engineers didn't suddenly change the test conditions. He'd always been there to watch her back.