George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

Serebnitskiv turned from the chart table and shouted to his first officer, “Make your speed forty-five clicks.”

Before the shocked officer could even reply, the commander turned and strode out of the control room. He could feel the sub accelerate as he walked down the passageway to his tiny stateroom and a swig of something stiffer than the hot tea.

Alan Smythe looked up as soon as he heard the tentative knock on his door. Carl Andretti stood there waiting for Smythe’s nod to enter. The tall, overweight chief technical officer for OptiMarx walked in, closed the door behind him, and plopped down hard onto the black leather couch that ran under one of the long windows that looked out over the harbor. His tie was crooked, his jacket wrinkled, and a loose button showed a white chunk of his ample belly.

“You wanted to talk with me, Alan?”

Smythe pushed aside the report he was reviewing and laid the gold Mont Blanc back in its case. He deliberately removed his reading glasses and placed them next to the report, then shifted them around as if their exact position on his desk was of some importance. He looked over at Andretti. “Yes. I had a most disconcerting discussion a bit ago with Mark Stern. I understand you and he have had a conversation or two.”

Andretti answered nonchalantly, but there was just a hint of alarm in his small, deep-set eyes. He licked his lips after every few words. “Yeah, he called me yesterday afternoon. He said he wanted to talk about schedules. I swear that guy thinks he has my job. I told him we were having some problems integrating the quote feed and setting up the communications protocols. Nothing earth-shattering and he seemed okay with it.”

Smythe nodded, then spoke in a quiet, deliberate voice. Andretti had to lean forward on the couch to try to hear him. “Carl, I wish you would let me know when you take these calls. We’ve talked many times about how we want to answer their questions. The board members, and particularly Stern, are not as up to speed on technology as they think they are. Even those PhDs out in Chicago who came up with the OptiMarx idea in the first place are so far behind the technology curve they may as well be using slide rules.”

Andretti seemed relieved as he nodded in agreement. They were on common ground, unified against a common enemy. “You can say that again, Alan. Those bastards in their ivory towers. They’re always talking about market structures and all that other gobbledygook that has no real-world application in—”

Smythe held up his hand, stopping his chief technical officer in midsentence. His words were clipped, his precise British accent even more pronounced when he lectured. “Carl, just let me finish what I want to say. What I need for you to do is to understand that we… you and I… are sitting on a gold mine here. Neither the VCs nor the inventors have any idea what a mother lode we are about to dig into. They think we are going about building a better stock trading system.” Smythe rocked back and forth in his chair. “If we play our cards right, we won’t simply be able to retire to some South Sea island. Carl, we’ll be able to buy the damned island with our pocket change. The beauty of it is that we can do it without anyone having any idea what’s going on.” Smythe turned his chair a bit so he was now facing Andretti. The bright morning sun reflecting off the water and through the wall of glass gave his face a harsh, brittle look. “The two of us have to work together here, Carl. If we are going to pull this off, I can’t afford for you to go off on your own and plant little seeds of doubt. Do you understand, Carl?”

Andretti nodded but didn’t say anything. Smythe continued, his voice even lower now.

“Good. Now I need you to have a project status report ready for Stern this afternoon. Good numbers, all perfectly on schedule and on budget. Understand, Carl? Nothing for them to question at all. We’ll discuss the rest on the flight out. I want to see that special trading module you’re working on. Wheels up at six this evening. I’ll meet you at the Executive Aviation Terminal at Teterboro.”

Andretti nodded. “Got it. I’ll have the full report ready in a couple of hours.”

The big man stood, turned, gave Smythe a quick wink, and walked out of the office. He was all the way across the office suite, at his desk and behind closed doors before he allowed a slight smile to flit across his broad face.

He reached into his jacket pocket and turned off the tiny digital recorder. Another disk to lock away in his safe. Another bit of insurance just in case anything went wrong in this intricate, dangerous game in which he was involved.

He gritted his teeth. How dare that girlish Brit bastard talk to him like a truant schoolboy! If it weren’t for the great harvest he was about to reap from this whole thing, he would punch the son of a bitch in the face. Let him know who was doing all the work here. Remind him who deserved the lion’s share of what they were about to bring down.

He forced himself to breathe normally, sat at his desk, moved his mouse to awaken his sleeping computer, and went to work on the reports Smythe had demanded.

The 21MC speaker broke the silence inside the American submarine’s control room.

“Conn, sonar. New contact on the towed array. Best bearing either zero-three-five or one-two-five.”

Commander Joe Glass leaned back and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He pursed his lips as he glanced around the cramped space of the control room of the USS Toledo, SSN 769. This boat was different from the old Spadefish where Glass had most recently been the executive officer. The bright fluorescent lights of Toledo ’s control room illuminated a scene that could have been lifted right out of a Hollywood science fiction movie.

The forward port corner looked more like the control station for a starship. The diving officer and two planesmen faced a wall of flashing red LED displays and liquid crystal screens that would have done Captain Kirk proud, but it gave them all the information they needed to drive the boat through the inky blackness of the North Atlantic.

To their left, the chief of the watch sat facing an imposing wall that held still more displays, gauges, and switches. A myriad of heavy steel pipes and thick wiring bundles ran from behind his desk to the farthermost ends of the boat. From here, he could operate the complex high-pressure air, hydraulic, and trim systems. Over his head were two large brass handles, the emergency-blow “chicken switches” that forced massive amounts of forty-five-hundred-psi air into the ballast tanks that would rocket them to the surface in an emergency.

The entire starboard side of the control room was dedicated to the computerized fire control system, the BYG-1. Here they analyzed and scrutinized every shred of data Toledo ’s sensors could dredge up. The information was turned into “solutions,” information to use to better aim the torpedoes and missiles the submarine could shoot.

The center of the room was dominated by the periscope stand with the two shiny steel barrels protruding from the wells in the deck and extending through the overhead, up into the sail above. From this central location, Commander Joe Glass could observe and direct the complex operation of the boat.

This was the first opportunity for Glass to watch his crew in action since taking command of the boat the previous month. The Toledo was one of the newest Los Angeles–class boats in the Atlantic and she was out now, running drills, breaking in a new captain. Glass couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He felt like a teenager with a new sports car, and driving the shiny new boat was the most fun he had had since joining the Navy.