Larry Bond - Dangerous Ground

“Out of the question,” declared Hardy quickly. “It would take way too long to figure out how to get the damn thing out. And the risk of radiation exposure is way too great. No, we grab the whole thing.”

“And they’re running short of time,” added Jerry as he checked his watch. “They can stretch it a little by running shallow on the trip back, but we have to get them out of there in ten or fifteen minutes, tops.”

Patterson asked, “Can you maneuver the Manta in close enough for them to attach it?”

“No, ma’am. I can’t maneuver the Manta in close quarters and it wouldn’t even fit. ”

As Jerry started to explain, the ROV’s camera image shook, first briefly, and then for a full minute. Davis, flustered, almost shouted, “The ROV’s in trouble. Something’s hitting it! I’m taking it out!”

“But the only things in there that are moving are the divers,” Jerry argued. Then he yelled, “Wait!”

Emily nodded, but nervously fingered the controls.

After another moment, the image steadied. They could see one of the divers in the immediate foreground swimming away from the ROV. The other was bent over the warhead with the empty tool bag. As the first diver moved away from the camera, Jerry recognized it as Reynolds. He was trailing a rope behind him.

“Control, U-bay, I think they’ve solved our problem,” Jerry announced happily. “I think that line leads back to one of the brackets on the bottom of the ROV. They’re going to use the ROV to lift the warhead out of the barge.

“Dr. Davis,” Hardy asked. “Can you lift the warhead out?”

“Yes,” she answered cautiously, “but Huey will take forever to get it back here.”

“Then we’ll transfer it to the Manta,” Jerry said. “I’ll come in under you and you lower it down on the top. We can use the same attachment point that we used for the tool bag.” As he spoke, he began steering the Manta back toward the barge. He risked one active sonar pulse at long range before closing. That gave him a good enough picture of the area to approach quickly.

The divers were already rigging the line to the tool bag, and Jerry noted how it angled up off the deck, confirming that it was attached to the ROV.

As Jerry brought the Manta in, he slowed it to a creep, loath to have it arrive too early. He tried to guess how long it would take Reynolds and Harris, tired and half-frozen to finish rigging the bag, then for Davis to carefully lift the load out and away from the barge. Then remembered to check the time. They were cutting it close.

They finished getting the bag around the warhead case, which entailed half-lifting each end to get the material around it. As they finished, Jerry expected the Master Chief to take up the slack and start the lift, but instead he saw Reynolds gesture to Harris. When the other turned to face the COB, he motioned to another nearby crate, and then to the line.

“They’re taking two of them!” Emily exclaimed as the divers passed the line through the lifting hooks.

“The first one will now likely have water damage,” Patterson guessed.

Davis worried out loud. “I’m not sure Huey can lift that much weight.”

“The divers can help with the lift,” Jerry reassured. “And if Huey can’t hack it, we’ll jettison one of the warheads. We can always come back…”

“We’re not doing this twice.” Hardy declared. “Make it work, Dr. Davis.”

“Conn, sonar. Two new contacts bearing two zero zero and two one zero. I’m detecting two medium-frequency active sonars, classified as probable Bull Horn.”

Bull Horn, the NATO code name for a MGK-335 Platina sonar, meant Russian surface combatants. It could be a patrol craft, like a Parchim or Grisha, or a big destroyer like a Sovremennyy. Whatever it was, it was bad news. They hadn’t seen a single Russian warship since they entered the Kara Sea, and now two had chosen this moment to show up? Jerry wondered if the Bear Foxtrot that went by the other day had actually gotten a whiff of them.

“Dr. Davis,” Hardy ordered, “send the recall signal.”

“Yessir.” She cycled a switch on the ROV console, flashing Huey’s external lights twice. They had only one way of communicating with the divers, the ROV’s external lights, and two flashes meant it was time to come back.

On the video screen, they saw Reynolds still bent over the second case. When the lights flashed, he turned to look at the ROV and its camera. He waved, made an “okay” sign with his hand and then returned to the case. His movements, slower than normal underwater, now seemed almost glacial.

Davis looked at Jerry, her expression filled with concern. “How far away are they?” Jerry knew she meant the approaching warships.

“We can hear them pinging a long way off. I don’t have a proploss display in front of me, but call it fifteen to twenty miles.”

She relaxed a little, but asked. “Can they find us?”

“Not until they get to about four miles away. And we don’t even know if they’re headed toward us,” he added. Although that was the way to bet, he thought.

They watched as Reynolds and Harris finished knotting the line. The camera image jiggled again as the divers took up the slack, and Emily began feeding power to Huey’s motors. She kept the camera trained on Reynolds and Harris, but they disappeared in the foreground, and they had to assume that the two men were helping with the lift.

“Conn, sonar. Contacts have a very slight left drift. Screw noises indicate twelve knots. Classify contacts as Grisha-type corvettes.” Slight drift meant a near steady bearing, and a closing course. But it would still take them a while to get here, Jerry thought. They should have enough time. Should.

Jerry concentrated on getting as close to the barge as the Manta’s limited navigation allowed.

“Conn, U-bay. Request permission to transmit one ping with the Manta’s sonar. It will help me close quicker.”

“What’s your distance?” Hardy asked.

“Nav system estimates several hundred yards, sir. The divers are still inside the barge, and if I can get a better fix, then…”

“Is there any risk of the Grishas detecting the ping?”

“No, sir, not at this range and I’m pointed the wrong way.”

“Permission granted. We need all the speed we can get.”

Jerry sent the command for a single ping, waited for the image to return, and found himself about three hundred yards away. Imagining how long it would take to swim that distance, he adjusted his course and speed, then ran for a carefully calculated forty seconds.

By this time, Davis had Huey’s motors running at half-speed with hardly any movement. Thinking of the divers’ fatigue as much as the approaching patrol craft, Jerry told her, “Just pin it to the right, Emily.”

“I can’t risk damaging Huey,” she answered.

“Yes, you can. It’s only a risk, not a certainty. We’re running out of time and so are the COB and Harris.”

Taking a deep breath, she increased the power and a cloud of sediment totally obscured the camera. Jerry’s heart sank. How could she navigate safely in that debris cloud?

He saw her hands hover over the controls. She could reduce the power, but how much? And would the ROV hold position or start to sink? And where were the divers? He knew they would try to keep clear, but they had to be nearly blind as well.

“I can see the needle on the battery gauge moving,” she warned. “It’s slow, but I can actually see it going down.”

“Just a few more moments and we’ll know.” Jerry tried to be positive.

The cloud cleared and the view suddenly expanded to show open water. They were already out of the cargo hold, about ten feet above the barge deck and rising.