Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

But Kirov was here. Kirov would watch.

After the "all clear" lights appeared, Hannah looked outside to see that Kirov had successfully mounted the underwater antenna. She gave him the thumbs-up.

He picked up the radio microphone and spoke into it. "Last chance for a little companionship."

She slipped on her headset and angled the microphone over her mouth. "Just close the damned hatch."

He slammed the hatch shut and locked it.

As she buckled herself in, she heard him releasing the winch hook. After a few moments, LISA was free in the water and slowly dipping beneath the waves.

Kirov's voice came over the radio a few seconds later. "Support team to LISA , do you read?"

"Loud and clear, support team. I'm glad you've finally accepted your place in the world."

"I didn't say that. I just wanted to feed your ego. What's your depth?"

She checked the readout. "Eighty-five feet and falling free."

"ETA?"

"About ninety minutes. Know any good drinking songs?"

"Too many. I take requests, you know."

"Maybe I'll save them for the trip back up."

"As you wish. Support team out."

Hannah settled back in the bucket seat and felt her body relax for the first time in days. Why did this experience always bring her so much peace? Many people went nuts in those tiny pods, but she always found serenity once the surface sounds faded, and the last traces of sunlight disappeared. The ocean was hers.

She checked the onboard CD player. Howard Hanson's Second Symphony, which for some reason was a favorite of researchers on deep dives. Dark and foreboding, but ultimately triumphant. Why not? She hit play and let the orchestra take her to the ocean floor.

Eighty minutes later, traces of sediment floated in front of her running lights. She spoke into the microphone. "Kirov, can you read?"

No answer.

"Kirov?

"Yes, my dear. Nice to hear from you. I thought you'd fallen asleep down there."

"I was starting to think the same about you. I'm glad the underwater antenna is working so well. We usually need a lifeline to communicate with someone this far down. I'm nearing the floor."

"Do you see anything?"

"Not yet. Sonar shows me about sixty feet from the bottom. I'm about to hit the high beams."

Hannah turned on the high-wattage navigation lights, which cast an intense aura of illumination around LISA 's hull. After a few moments, she saw waves of silt on the ocean floor, almost like tiny sand dunes.

"I've arrived. I'm about a quarter of a mile north-northwest of the target site."

"Keep your eyes open. We don't know how precise their coordinates are. If it was dropped from the surface, it could have drifted."

"Tell me about it." She thought of the two halves of the Titanic , which went under at the same spot but ended up almost a mile apart on the bottom. "I'm going in."

She gripped the control stick and piloted LISA six feet over the ocean floor, moving slowly so as not to kick up too much silt. "Visibility's good. I'm nearing the target zone. Still no sign of anything unusual."

Christ, he hated this, Kirov thought.

He knew what it was like down there. He wanted to be in that pod with her.

No, he wanted to be in that pod instead of her.

Okay, keep his voice calm and casual. She didn't need to know he was in a panic. Support meant emotional as well as physical and mental. She was alone down there and doing her job. If even a hint of the terror he was feeling crept into his demeanor, then that claustrophobic pod could seem like a coffin to her.

"Do you see anything?"

"I'll tell you when I do. Don't be impatient. Wait. I see something. I'm moving in for a closer look."

Kirov was so focused on Hannah's voice from the radio that the sound of his satellite phone ringing startled him. It was in the cabin connected to its charger/antenna unit.

Should he answer or let it ring? He strode into the cabin to check the ID box.

Eugenia.

Hannah's eyes narrowed on the four large red canisters. Clustered together on the ocean floor, they measured four feet long and twelve inches in diameter. To her surprise, they rested precisely where the video file had indicated they would be. Either they had been placed there by a sub, or there was a built-in beacon that had relayed precise GPS coordinates after the canisters settled to the bottom.

Hannah slipped her hands into the glovelike controllers that operated the mechanical hands outside the pod. She flexed her fingers and watched the steel fingers outside mimic every movement. Although she had specified the device in many of her designs, she never ceased to be amazed by the finely articulated robotic hands. Television news stories often gave her the credit for the hand probes, but she took great pains to give proper credit to their brilliant young designer, a kinesiology professor from Cornell.

"Hannah, stop. Don't go any closer!" Kirov's voice was tense.

Hannah froze. "Why?"

"I just heard from Eugenia. Pavski may have wanted us to have that satchel."

"What?"

"She found out that Petrenko didn't pick up anyone last weekend because he wasn't even in the country. He was at an estate auction in Paris from Saturday to Monday. It was a setup. A trap. No one is closing in on the boat, so it must be down there. The canisters."

"Then what the hell am I looking at?"

"What do you see?"

"Four cylinders. They appear to be welded together. There's no silt on them, so they haven't been here for long. There's no way the Silent Thunder deposited them here six years ago."

"Are they missiles?"

"No, not like in the video, but they are red. They're less than three yards from me."

"Don't do anything."

"After all this time and effort, we're just going to pack up and take LISA home?"

"It could be a trap. Pavski may have wanted us to find those cylinders."

"You really believe that? If I hadn't thought to look at the files in that music player-"

" I would have thought of it. I would have eventually gone through everything. And Pavski knows that. The information had to be hidden well enough that we wouldn't suspect a trap."

"You're giving him a lot of credit."

"He's earned it, believe me. A lot of people have died underestimating Pavski."

She stared at the cylinders. "It's so damned frustrating. They're right in front of me."

"It's not worth it, Hannah. It might be a booby trap."

"I won't go any closer. Let me at least do a sweep with the radio and sonar sensors."

Kirov paused for a long moment. "Okay, but be careful. And whatever you do, don't touch it."

She grasped a tiny joystick on the main console and focused the secondary parabolic antenna toward the canisters. She wished she were in one of her other pods, designed for salvage missions rather than the study of natural phenomena. LISA 's options were limited in this type of operation.

Hannah switched on the scanner to determine if the canisters were emanating radio waves. After a few seconds, the scanner's scope lit up with a rhythmic visual pattern. "Okay, I'm getting a low-frequency pulse. Probably the GPS locator signal."

"Fine. Now get out of there."

"Not yet. I'm bouncing sonar off them, and there appears to be some dense mass there. They're not hollow."

"I never thought they were. Happy now?"

"Just another few seconds." She steered LISA over the canisters to give her sensors a clearer shot. "Okay, I'm getting some magnetic readings."

"How intense?"

"Strong… and suddenly getting stronger." She watched the readout. "The magnetic readings are going through the roof."

"Hannah, you may have triggered an explosive device. Get the hell out of there!"