Night Probe! - Clive Cussler

"You've never stood on formality before," Sandecker grumbled good-naturedly. "Why start now?"

"It's colder than a polar bear's rectum inside this floating abortion. We burn off a ton of calories just trying to keep warm.

"The Doodlebug is not a cruise ship."

Pitt set the sandwich aside. "Maybe so, but next trip the crew would appreciate a little more thought being given to the heating system."

"How deep are you?"

Pitt consulted a dial. "Seven hundred and thirty feet. Water temperature is twenty-nine degrees. Conditions not exactly conducive to a game of water polo."

"Any problems?"

"None," Pitt answered, his grin still in place. "The Doodlebug is performing like a perfect lady."

"We're running out of time," said Sandecker evenly. "I expect a call from the new president at any moment, demanding to know what we're up to."

"The crew and I will stick around until the fuel is gone, Admiral. I can promise you no more."

"Any mineral contacts?"

"We've passed over large iron deposits, commercially obtainable uranium, thorium, gold and manganese. Almost every mineral except our primary target."

"Does the geology still look promising?"

"Strengthening indications, but nothing that looks like a structural uplift, anticline or salt dome."

"I'm hoping for a stratigraphic trap. It's got the greatest potential."

"The Doodlebug can't produce a paying sandbar, Admiral, only find one."

"Not to change the subject, but keep a sharp eye in your rearview mirror. I can't bail you out if you're caught trespassing on the wrong side of the street."

"I've been meaning to ask you, what's to stop an audience from triangulating my video transmissions?"

"One shot in forty."

"Sir?"

"NUMA's satellite communications network has a direct link with forty other stations. They all receive and instantaneously relay your transmissions. The lag is less than a millisecond. To anyone tuned into this sending frequency your voice and image come from forty different locations around the globe. There is no way they can single out the original."

"I think I can live with those odds."

"I'll leave you to your sandwich."

If Pitt felt pessimistic he didn't show it. He put on a confident face and threw a lazy wave. "Hang loose, Admiral. The law of averages is bound to catch up."

Sandecker watched as Pitt's figure faded from the screen. Then he rose from his chair and left the projection room. He walked up two flights of stairs to the computer section and passed through security. In a glass-enclosed room set away from the rest of the humming machines a man in a white lab coat studied a stack of computer printout sheets. He peered over the rims of his glasses as the admiral approached.

"Good afternoon, doc," greeted Sandecker.

Dr. Ramon King indolently replied by holding up a pencil. He had a light-skinned narrow, gloomy face, with jutting jaw and barbed-wire eyebrows-the kind of face that mirrors nothing and rarely displays a change of expression.

Doc King could afford a sour countenance. He was the creative genius behind the development of the Doodlebug.

"Everything functioning smoothly?" asked Sandecker, trying to make conversation.

"The probe is functioning perfectly," answered King. "Just as it did yesterday, the day before that and the previous two weeks. If our baby develops teething problems, you'll be the first to be notified."

"I'd prefer good news to no news."

King laid aside the printout sheets and faced Sandecker. "You're not only demanding the moon but the stars as well. Why continue this risky expedition? The Doodlebug is a qualified success. It penetrates deeper than we had any right to expect. The doors of discovery it throws open stagger the mind. For God's sake, cut the subterfuge and make its existence known."

"No!" Sandecker snapped back. "Not until I damn well have to."

"What are you trying to prove?" King persisted.

"I want to prove that it's more than a highfalutin dowser."

King readjusted his glasses and went back to scanning the computer data. "I'm not a gambling man, Admiral, but since you're carrying the bulk of the risk on your shoulders, I'll tag along for the ride, knowing full well I'll go on the Justice Department shit list as an accomplice." He paused and peered at Sandecker. "I have a vested interest in the Doodlebug. I'd like to see it make a score as much as anyone. But if something fouls up and those guys out there in the ocean are caught like thieves in the night, then the best you and I can hope for is to be tarred and feathered and exiled to Antarctica. The worst, I don't want to think about."

The Washington athletic community looked askance at Sandecker's running habits. He was the only jogger anyone had ever seen pounding along the sidewalk with an ever-present Churchill-style cigar stub protruding from his mouth.

He was puffing along toward the NUMA building under an early morning overcast sky when a rotund man in a rumpled suit, sitting on a bus bench, looked up over a newspaper.

"Admiral Sandecker, may I have a word with you?"

Sandecker turned out of curiosity, but not recognizing the President's security adviser, he kept his stride. "Call me for an appointment," he panted indifferently. "I don't like to break my pace."

"Please, Admiral, I'm Alan Mercier."

Sandecker stopped, his eyes narrowing. "Mercier?"

Mercier folded the newspaper and stood. "My apologies for interrupting your morning exercise, but I understand you're a hard man to trap for conversation."

"Your office supersedes mine. You could have simply ordered me to come to the White House."

"I'm not fanatical on official protocol," Mercier replied. "An informal meeting such as this has its advantages."

"Like catching your quarry off his home ground," said Sandecker, cannily sizing up Mercier. "A sneaky tactic. I use it myself on occasion."

"According to rumors, you're a master of sneaky tactics."

Sandecker's expression went blank for an instant. Then he burst into a laugh, pulled a lighter from a pocket of his sweat suit and lit the cigar stub. "I know when I'm licked. You didn't ambush me for my wallet, Mr. Mercier. What's on your mind?"

"Very well, suppose you tell me about the doodlebug."

"Doodlebug?" The admiral gave a faint tilt to his head-a movement equivalent to stunned surprise in any other man. "A fascinating instrument. I assume you're familiar with its purpose."

"Why don't you tell me?"

Sandecker shrugged. "I guess you could say it's a kind of water dowser."

"Water dowsers don't cost six hundred and eighty million taxpayer dollars."

"What exactly do you want to know?"

"Does such an exotic instrument exist?"

"The Doodlebug Project is a reality, and a damned successful one, I might add."

"Are you prepared to explain its operation and account for the money spent on its development?"

"When?"

"At the earliest opportunity."

"Give me two weeks and I'll lay the doodlebug in your lap neatly wrapped and packaged."

Mercier was not to be taken in. "Two days."

"I know what you're thinking," said Sandecker earnestly. "But I promise you there is no fear of scandal, far from it. Trust me for at least a week. I simply can't put it together in less."

"I'm beginning to feel like an accomplice in a con game."

"Please, one week."

Mercier looked into Sandecker's eyes. My God, he thought, the man is actually begging. It was hardly what he expected. He motioned to his driver who was parked a short distance away and nodded. "Okay, Admiral, you've got your week."

"You drive a tough bargain," said Sandecker, with a sly grin.

Without another word the admiral turned and resumed his morning jog to NUMA headquarters.

Mercier watched the little man grow even smaller in the distance. He seemed not to notice his driver standing patiently beside the car, holding the door open.