The other four men in the augmented team were in the booth across from Jeffrey, all blindfolded, racing each other to field-strip and reassemble South African assault rifles. COB, off watch, was timekeeper, obviously enjoying himself. A pile of twenty-dollar bills sat on the table, almost lost amid the trigger groups and slide stops.
"How you guys making out?" Jeffrey said.
"Halfway there," COB said. "Winner's best of fifty."
"Best of fifty?" Jeffrey said.
"Hey," Clayton said, "endurance counts."
"I guess it does," Jeffrey said. "Okay, Shaj, what's next?" Clayton tossed Jeffrey a combat helmet and gave one to Ilse too. Jeffrey put his on. Clayton asked one of the mess management crew, cleaning up from breakfast, to kill the lights.
"Flip down the helmet visor," Clayton said. Jeffrey did.
Twin oculars came down before his eyes, flat-screen displays. The stereoscopic image began to switch back and forth, between infrared and low-light-level television. Jeffrey looked around the room. The data coming at him blew his mind.
"Total tactical awareness," Clayton said. "Notice how the contrast's enhanced by the flickering positive-negative effect."
"I see it," Jeffrey said.
"That's great for your reaction time."
Jeffrey glanced at a bulkhead. On IR he could see right through the wall, to the racks and sleeping figures in the accommodation space beyond.
"This is awesome," Ilse said. Jeffrey studied her through his visor, until she turned to look at him.
"They're like the X-ray goggles they advertise in comic books," Jeffrey said. He squelched the thought before it could go further.
"The helmet's ceramic," Clayton said. "Stops a thirty-cal at almost point-blank range. Neutral buoyancy too, though you have to watch out for trapped air. The battery's conformal. Feel that little switch inside, by your right ear? That controls the interval. You might try half a second on each mode for starts."
Jeffrey played with it, making the picture flash back and forth faster and then slower. " Antiblooming feature?"
"These have pixel gain control. Lets you look right past glaring headlights and see someone in the shadows, all in real time."
"What about a mushroom cloud?" Ilse said.
Clayton laughed. "Keep your fingers crossed," he said. "These don't have much EMP shielding. By then we should be done and out of there."
Jeffrey reached to his left ear and folded down the tiny built-in mike. "What about our comms?"
"Digitized voice, encrypted," Clayton said. "Using frequency-agile low-probability-of-intercept radar pulses."
"Not plain radio?" Jeffrey said.
"Nope. Too easy to detect or jam. These go through trees and bushes better. The signal bounces well through building clusters too, and windows, hallways, things like that. You get distortion from multipath, but it's workable."
"Super," Jeffrey said.
"Lights, please," Clayton called. The crewman hit the switch and the fluorescents came back on. "Speaking of which, the moon will be well up as we insert, two days past full, so there'll be plenty of light through the clouds to drive the image intensifiers. In a completely darkened room you'd stick to infrared."
"Right," Jeffrey said.
"Next," Clayton said. He gave Ilse and Jeffrey diving masks, with wires that ran to little chest packs.
"The mask fits under the helmet?" Jeffrey said.
Clayton nodded. "And the rig's compatible with mixed-gas Draegers."
"You still use those things?" Jeffrey said. He turned to Ilse. "They're closed-circuit scuba gear, rebreathers. The works fit across your chest so you can reach everything easily."
"I've heard of them," Ilse said.
"There've been improvements," Clayton said. "A U.S. contractor beefed up the endurance of the 02 renewer, the carbon dioxide scrubber's more efficient, and they've got heliox for deeper depth … They also added a mike to the mouthpiece, for clandestine digitized underwater telephone."
"You mean like gertrude?" Jeffrey said.
Clayton nodded. "Except now it's low probability of intercept and frequency agile, encrypted, just like our radio."
Ilse donned her diving mask and turned it on. "Wow! It's a head-up display!"
"See everything you get there?" Clayton said.
"Left side's time and depth, water pressure, and compass heading," Ilse said. "Plus other stuff. I'm not sure how to read it."
Jeffrey held his to his face and smiled. "It's a swim board."
"Yup," Clayton said. "Except it keeps your hands free, and it has inertial nav with programmable way points and a steering bug. Senses water temperature and currents too, and gives you swimmer speed over the bottom. And," Clayton added, holding up a palm-sized object, "watch this. Ultrasonic sonar simulator. Your skipper gave permission, it won't get through the hull." He switched on the handheld transducer. An indicator began to pulse on Jeffrey's mask display, showing the bearing to Clayton's hand.
"Jeez," Jeffrey said, "you've got built-in acoustic intercept!"
"Uh-huh," Clayton said. "The hydrophones react to any loud noise too. Figure of merit's pretty poor, the directivity could be better. But it does give back your sense of undersea direction."
"This could come in handy," Jeffrey said.
"Amen, bro," Clayton said. "Like if some patrol boat screw starts up, or someone's dropping antiswimmer charges, you need to know which way they are before they know where you are."
"What's this other stuff?" Ilse said. "The numbers on the right?"
"Diver data," Clayton said. "Monitors your physiology objectively — which is kinda hard to do yourself when someone's shooting at you. Pulse and respiration, remaining air supply, 02 partial pressure and consumption rate."
"How does that part work?" Jeffrey said.
"You have to put the chest pack on. It picks up from your body, like a lie detector, and from the regulator valves."
"That's clever," Ilse said. She modeled the chest pack, which was broad and flat. "You forgot a lady's model," she said deadpan. The thing squashed her breasts. "It's heavy."
"Not when you're swimming," Clayton said. "Same density as seawater, won't affect your buoyancy, like the flak vests we'll wear over it, underneath the Draegers."
"Great," Ilse said.
"It also shows your rate of rise or dive," Clayton said. "It sets off an alarm — the transducers vibrate at your temples — if you go too deep or start coming up without exhaling, like if you're wounded or you just go stupid. That feature can be switched off in tactical situations. It's loud enough for your swim buddy to hear. I'll be yours, by the way."
"You really thought of everything," Ilse said.
"You bet," Clayton said. "Remember, when in doubt while going up or down, thirty feet per minute always works."
"Right," Ilse said. "I have a scuba Openwater Two certificate."
"I've kept at it myself," Jeffrey said. "I'm a qualified safety diver. Hull inspections mostly, for maintenance or damage, and for any sabotage when we leave port." Clayton nodded. He held up a little keypad, also with a wire. "Dive computer, standard navy tables and the classified aggressive ones. This goes on your wrist, plugs into the pack. The output shows up on your mask. Keys are big enough for frozen fingers or some hard corner of your gear."
Ilse laughed, obviously impressed. Two more crewmen came into the mess, grabbed coffee and donuts, stared at the group with all their weapons, and left quickly.
"How long do these batteries last?" Jeffrey said. "Long enough," Clayton said.
"What's the mean time between failures? I've a sneaky feeling these were rushed into production."