The Ariadne swung out over the Arctic Ocean, a slight chop on the cold waters as the crane took her clear of the service ship’s starboard hull. The big Swede raised his hand as he yelled into his radio and his sidekick continued to look up and down the lines with his binoculars. When the binoculars man finally spoke, the Swede brought his hand down and said something quickly into the radio, and then the pale blue form of the Ariadne was being lowered into the sea, the waves lapping gently at the steel fuselages at first and then slowly engulfing the structure until it seemed tiny. And then it was gone.
Gallen stared at the point where the Ariadne used to be and was momentarily struck by how massive the ocean actually was. The sea had swallowed that lump of steel like it was a raindrop, he thought, following Hansen as he charged through the media scrum to the control room.
From the control room — a glass-sided area wrapped around the pylons and gantries of the crane — they watched the cables and lines spill off the decking as the crane lowered the Ariadne. European voices barked out of the radio speakers and people responded to Hansen as he demanded answers from the operators at their screens. Gallen had no idea what language they were speaking — they were Dutchies, Swedes and Danes but they seemed to understand just fine when Hansen spoke.
Looking nervously at his watch, Gallen saw they had fifteen minutes until the take-off. The Dutch pilot shrugged into the yellow sub, Ford behind him, and the deck crew screwed down the lid. Gallen’s stomach grumbled with stress and he wondered if the ship carried a nice big bottle of Pepto-Bismol. And then the secondary crane lifted the bright submersible clear of the hull and into the sea, and it was gone too.
‘We at depth yet?’ said Gallen, as the media dispersed. At the rear of the service ship he could hear the sounds of the first Sikorsky being readied to shuttle the reporters back to land.
‘Halfway down,’ said Hansen, pointing at the main monitoring screen, where a digital read-out on a blue background showed a white 28—the Dutch ship was run in metrics, and at 28 metres, the Ariadne was more than halfway to Florita’s take-off.
‘Can I?’ said Gallen, pointing at the comms desk.
‘Sure,’ said Hansen, ushering him forward with a big paw.
‘Yellow Bird, this is Blue Dog,’ he said into the mic stalk. ‘Are you reading, over?’
There was a pause of a few seconds and then Tucker was on the radio. ‘Gotcha, Blue Dog, this is Yellow Bird reading you clear, over.’
‘Red Fox is on his way down, repeat Red Fox is five minutes away. You readied for the take-off, over?’
‘Ready and—’ came the American’s voice, and then there was nothing. No static, no squelch, just dead air.
Looking at the mic, Gallen felt Hansen push past and gabble at the comms guy, who shrugged as he played with the settings.
Stepping back as the control room personnel descended on the comms desk, Gallen joined Aaron and Joyce. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Aaron. ‘The radio’s just down for a few seconds.’
In special forces, losing comms was usually the starting point for a whole world of wonderful screw-ups, and Gallen wasn’t interested in the glass-half-full argument. He wanted the glass fully full.
‘We on with the sub?’ he said, and the comms guy nodded enthusiastically, hitting a button and pointing to the mic.
Leaning into the stalk mic, Gallen called up Mike Ford.
‘We’ve lost comms to the Ariadne. You talking to them?’
‘Negative, Blue Dog,’ came the Aussie accent. ‘We have dead air with the Ariadne.’
Gallen felt his pulse bang behind his eyeballs. ‘Got visuals, Red Fox?’
‘Affirmative, Blue Dog. We have her in our lights and we’re continuing to the RV.’
Gallen looked at Hansen and the commander hit a series of switches; the screens that had stopped broadcasting the Ariadne’s video footage now leapt to life and showed Mike Ford and the Dutch sailor in the sub itself, while another screen was the submersible’s camera view of the Ariadne.
The depth counter showed thirty-five metres.
Gallen tapped it. ‘Can we stop the Ariadne?’
‘The descent?’ said Hansen.
‘Yeah,’ said Gallen. ‘Just a time-out until we can sort this out? ‘
‘We’re on a clock,’ said the Swede.
‘And I’ve lost contact with my employer. Let’s do the take-off at forty metres,’ said Gallen, irritated.
‘Sounds fair,’ said Aaron, schmoozing between them and giving Hansen the go-ahead. Turning to Gallen, he gave him a look. ‘Take it easy, Gerry.’
The cables screeched and the control room shuddered slightly as the descent slowed and then stopped at forty-one metres. The screens on the control console showed the Ariadne looming out of the darkness of the killer-cold sea as the submersible closed on her, the flashing red light on the top of the vessel and the lights shining through the portholes a sign that at least the vessel had power.
‘Blue Dog, this is Red Fox,’ came Mike Ford’s voice. ‘We’re twenty-three metres from the Ariadne. Closing.’
‘See anything, Red Fox?’ said Gallen.
‘No, boss. It looks business as usual. You’ve stopped her, so this is the take-off?’
‘Affirmative, Red Fox,’ said Gallen, making himself breathe out. ‘This is the take-off Proceed to the diving lock.’
The submersible’s camera tracked their path under the massive submerged vessel and the workers in the control room pored over the detail as Ford talked them in. ‘Five metres and powering back,’ said the Aussie as the submersible moved under the light from the open divers lock beneath the diving section of the vessel.
‘And powering up,’ said Ford, and the submersible ascended slowly into the Ariadne’s belly, the light becoming brighter until the processors had to adjust for flaring light.
‘Blue Dog, this is Red Fox. We’re docked and ready for take-off,’ said Ford.
From the interior shots, Gallen could see the two men doing their pressure checks as the external sensors gave them ATM and psi readings from the diving bell. The outside camera just showed the side of the diving bell with its padded V-docks for submersibles.
‘Strange,’ said Hansen, as he left a confab with two technicians. ‘Power, air and water are up. So are comms.’
‘So?’ said Gallen.
Hansen frowned. ‘So my guys are saying it’s ninety per cent the case that comms have been shut down on the sea-side.’
‘Someone on the Ariadne has shut down comms?’ said Gallen.
‘There’re no faults.’
‘Red Fox, this is Blue Dog,’ said Gallen, leaning into the mic as the Dutch sailor with Ford indicated the right pressure to leave the submersible.
‘Go ahead, Blue Dog,’ said Ford as the Dutchie moved out of frame to release the lid.
‘Red Fox, present arms and be alert, over.’
‘Everything okay?’ said Ford, and Gallen watched him pull the black SIG 9mm from his travel pouch and check the slide for load.
‘Comms is down, but no faults detected,’ said Gallen.
‘No contact from Yellow Bird?’ said Ford, crouching and turning for the open lid, which allowed fluorescent light into the submersible.
Gallen sighed. ‘No.’
Behind him, the fax machine double-beeped and the whir of a received message sounded.
‘Talk me through it, Red Fox, you’re now out of shot,’ said Gallen, as the Aussie moved away.