David Rollins
A Knife Edge
Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those
who know how to make use of their victories.
Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank a number of people who helped me out on this book with their time, expertise, and encouragement. First and foremost, there's Lieutenant Colonel Keith, U.S. Army. The colonel came on board for The Death Trust, and stayed around for A Knife Edge. He's out of the military now, editing a music magazine. I wish him all the best of luck with it. It's a wonderful thing to be doing what you love.
Then there's Richard “Woody” Woodward, a man who knows a thing or two about the USAF because he used to be in it. Woody's another longtime helper whose e-mail and phone lines never close.
I'd like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Mike “Panda” Pandolfo. He has both an amazing eye for detail, and infinite patience to go with it. I met Panda when I toured Elgin AFB in 2007. He has given a lifetime of service to his country and I admire him enormously.
Elizabeth Richards, a special agent with the AFOSI, has also been enormously helpful and generous with her time.
I'd like to thank Dave Millward and Manly Fight Gym for teaching me some moves that I've passed onto Special Agent Cooper. Hopefully they'll help keep the guy alive for a few books to come.
Thanks also to my friend and fellow author Tony Park, who read the proofs and gave me some great tips on Afghanistan, where he served with the Australian Army.
I'd also like to thank Dr. Malcolm Parmenter, Tricia and Michael Rollins (my parents), Andrew Sargant, and Kelli Anderson, who all read early proofs. And Craig “Moose” Moore for a few NFL tips.
Saving the best till last, I'd like to thank Sam, my wife, for continuing to believe in my promises, even though she has heard them all before.
Prologue
The shark's back was the width of a boardroom table and crosshatched with countless battle scars. It cruised a foot and a half beneath the surface, dorsal fin knifing the oily blue swell above. There was little apparent caution in the way it meandered back and forth alongside the Natusima. If the cook didn't know better, he'd have said it seemed to be waiting for something. The inevitable theme music from the movie Jaws playing in his head, he took a final drag on his cigarette, then flicked the butt into the water. He glanced left and right and, satisfied the coast was clear, motioned at the kitchenhand to tip the pot containing what was left of last night's stew over the railing. The pot was heavy and the young man grunted with the effort required. The cook knew he was risking his job. The damn tree-huggers aboard ship would have his balls if they found out about this. “Don't feed the animals,” one of them had said when someone had suggested throwing scraps to the shark. All the other guy wanted was to bring it in close to get some cool snapshots for the wife and kids.
“Now, that there's a goddamn fish,” the cook said to the kitchenhand as he lit another Chesterfield and watched the shark glide past with its mouth open.
“Fuckin' A,” agreed the young man.
The massive shark broached as it turned back toward the splash made by the stew hitting the water, displaying multiple rows of white teeth set in red, pulpy gums. But then the fish appeared to change its mind, resuming its original course. It circled back for a pass beyond the stern, trailing a wake like a boat with an outboard motor. The cook experienced the cold realization that the brute seemed more interested in the meat moving around up behind the railing and beyond its reach — namely him—than it was in the chuck steak sinking slowly into the depths. Confirming this, the shark appeared to fix him with its ancient and fathomless black eye.
The kitchenhand muttered, “Fuckin' thing gives me the creeps. Why the hell are we feeding it, anyway?”
“So we can tame it. Maybe we can teach it to roll over,” the cook said.
The kitchenhand gave his boss a look that said, Are you serious? He found his boss's preoccupation with the thing freaky. He tugged the zipper on his jacket up to his chin and clapped his gloved hands together. It was getting cold, or perhaps it was the company that gave him a chill.
The cook found himself wondering what it would be like to be down there in the water alone with that fish, helpless. The skin on his arms prickled with goose bumps. What would it be like watching a man being mauled by it — how long could you last? Now, that would be some entertainment, he thought.
The shark had appeared two days earlier, trailing the ship. A veteran seaman claimed the animal had been following them for far longer as they motored up the Japan Trench.
The man-eater's presence had excited much interest at first — it was the biggest shark anyone had ever seen — but that had waned as the scientists and submersible specialists readied and then launched the Shinkai. There was some concern about what the beast would do when the deep-diving craft entered the water, but in fact the meeting between the two was a nonevent. The sub was over thirty feet long, barely ten feet longer than the great white, and it bristled with many delicate sensors and remote-operated arms, any and all of which could easily be damaged by the shark if it became inquisitive. It did indeed approach the sub, but then turned away with a flick of the tail, snubbing the vessel, much to the relief of the scientists.
The recovery ship, Natusima, was “anchored” in a relatively shallow part of the 29,500-foot-deep trench, thrusters linked to its navigation systems keeping the ship stationary above a point on the seafloor. The Shinkai had been down for over six hours already, diving on hydrothermal vents at the very extremity of its 21,000-foot performance envelope.
At a depth of 20,374 feet, the world outside was solid black, so utterly black it seemed almost to suck the very illumination from the Shinkai's spotlights. Weird and delicate creatures in all their phosphorescent glory curled, snaked, drifted, or darted past the submersible's portholes, indicating that this blackness was in fact teeming with life, and was liquid rather than solid.
“Back us up a tad,” said Professor Sean Boyle.
Dr. Hideo Tanaka's thumb shifted a toggle on the hand controller. There was the slightest vibration accompanied by an electrical hum and the Shinkai's twenty-six tons eased away several feet from the volcanic rock face. Darkness rushed in to fill the widening gap.
“That's it,” said the professor. He watched one of the video screens, leaning toward it with intense concentration.
“You OK about going down again?” asked Tanaka, a little concerned about his research partner's well-being.
The professor nodded. Perspiration dripped from his forehead onto his sweat-soaked T-shirt.
The technician handling the buoyancy controls made the adjustments and the sub slid horizontally into the depths. The hull popped a couple of times. Outside, the pressure was close to 630 atmospheres. If a seal gave out now, even a thin stream of water under such pressure would slice through the three men inside like a wire through soft cheese. Professor Boyle was aware of the danger and it weighed heavily on his mind. Dr. Tanaka had spent a lot of time in deep-sea submersibles over many years and experience had taught him this fear — a kind of claustrophobia — was irrational. These submersibles were overengineered and the Shinkai's real limit, before the weight of the sea above the hull crushed it to the thickness of a slice of bread, was probably closer to 23,000 feet.