He matched her wide smile. “And I missed you.” He hugged her again and then leaned back and stared at the adorable gorilla in his arms. “You want to race?”
An hour later, Caesare was staring down at Lee and Juan’s new toy, lying on the table. “That’s pretty impressive, fellas.”
“Thanks,” Lee replied. “We got a little help with production, but the design is pretty close to what we drew up. The board is under here.” He touched an outside section of the vest’s material. “There’s obviously some processing needed locally but we tried to keep it to a minimum, pushing the rest to IMIS for translation. Unfortunately, even with the barest operating system, and a load of flash memory, it still sucks up a lot of energy. Especially with the constant, high-speed wireless connection.” Lee reached down and peeled the thick rubber seal away, releasing the plastic door to the battery compartment. “Less than five minutes underwater still used up quite a bit of power. Which means usage is going to be limited in open water.”
Caesare nodded and looked curiously at the large rectangular battery. He fingered it and gently pulled it out of its socket. “This lithium?”
“Yep.”
Caesare turned it over, noting the connection points. “You know, the Navy’s got a team working on a new battery prototype for some drones. They’re using a special nickel coated polymer which gives them a much higher storage density. I may be able to get you a few.”
“Really?” Lee and Juan looked at each other excitedly.
“Really. They even have one that’s a similar size. I might be able to get some overnighted. You may just have time to work it in before the trip.”
“That would be amazing!”
Caesare shrugged. “Don’t mention it. As a matter of fact, if you print up the schematics for your board and the processor, including the frequency you’re using, Clay and I can take a look and see if there are any other areas where we can help reduce electrical draw. Our Electronics and Signaling group back in D.C. does this all the time. Between some frequency modifications and the prototype batteries, I bet you could increase your operating time quite a bit.”
“That would be fantastic.” Lee turned back to Juan, who was already at the computer looking for the schematics.
“So, I presume you guys are taking a server when you go out, to handle the translation.”
“Three, as a matter of fact,” Lee said. “IMIS does the heavy lifting, but we can offload the basics onto some smaller servers. Very much like we did last year on the Pathfinder with Mr. Clay. Of course, the vocabulary is more advanced now and we have the wireless bit.”
“And a more reliable boat,” Caesare teased.
Lee laughed. “Yes, definitely a more reliable boat.”
“Cool, I’m looking forward to hearing how things go. This is pretty exciting.”
“Oh, yeah, very! It’s too bad you can’t come with us.”
Caesare smiled, thinking of his joke earlier to Alison. “Unfortunately we’re in the middle of something.” He reinserted the battery and laid the corner of the vest back down, now thinking of the Forel sub and the reason they had to get back. He hoped Borger had a little insight into the data they had sent him from Belem.
He was about to find out that Borger had much more than that.
12
Clay stared through the side window and watched the Mercedita runway fall away as they climbed over the south end of the island, banking to the left. The late sun reflected brightly over the crystal blue Caribbean water, and Clay gazed down wistfully at the dozens of sailboats below them.
He’d loved the ocean since the first day his father took him out on the boat. It was just a small daysailer, but he loved every minute of it. From then on, it was something they did religiously, every time he visited his father in Florida. Ultimately, it was that very same relationship with the ocean behind his enlistment in the Navy. Now he looked forward to the day he could cast off for good, traveling the globe through the blue water with nothing but a sturdy boat, stars in the sky… and of course, a woman to share it with.
Clay leaned his head back and thought of Alison, letting his lips crack into a smile. She seemed as happy to see him as he was to see her. After a few minutes, he took a deep breath and reached down for his pack on the floor.
Caesare sat across from him, studying the schematics Juan had printed out. He noticed Clay pull a shiny object from his bag. Caesare glanced up to see a small silver brick, reflecting brightly from the incoming sunlight. It was about the size of a deck of cards and Clay sat gazing at it curiously.
“You still carrying that souvenir around with you?”
Clay didn’t look up. He simply nodded and flipped it over, rubbing it gently with his thumb.
“Any idea how it works yet?”
“Not exactly.”
He’d had the device for over a year, since a harrowing event which nearly ended in a global catastrophe. In the end, few people knew what really happened. That was the way it always was when the government was involved.
Clay turned the object over again in his hand. “Borger and I put it under an electron microscope but couldn’t determine what it was made from. It’s plated in silicon and its core is deuterium. But the rest is made out of elements that we can’t identify.”
“Well, you already know it’s a fusion device,” replied Caesare. “Maybe you’re not supposed to know how it works.”
Clay looked up at Caesare thoughtfully. “Then why would he let me keep it?”
“Clearly, it was to drive you insane.”
Clay smirked. “Clearly.”
Caesare watched Clay quietly examine the object. They had worked together for over twenty years, beginning with their service as Navy SEALs. Eventually moving out into Investigations once their aging bodies began to object to the constant physical punishment. There were also the questionable missions that the teams were increasingly instructed to carry out, which ultimately left some of the SEALs wondering just which side of the fight they were really on.
Caesare had seen his friend in a number of binds, even some in combat. He’d come to know the man inside and out. Through it all, he had learned one unswerving fact about John Clay; the man never gave up. No matter what the predicament, Clay’s mind simply never stopped working. He would continue studying that silver object, chipping away at logic until he figured something out. The question really was just how long it was going to take.
He mused and gave Clay a minute before changing the subject. “So listen, I’ve been looking at the design of that new vest Alison’s team developed. It’s pretty impressive. Tighter than I was expecting.”
“Yeah, IBM helped them with it.”
“There are a few things we can help them with too, particularly around the wireless. There are better frequencies they could be using, but it would probably mean testing another prototype.” He reached out and handed the sheet to Clay.
Clay reluctantly dropped the silver block back into his bag and studied the sheet, holding it up to the window for a better look. “You know, with a thicker design, I bet they could make this thing self-contained.”
Will Borger stole a look at his watch and looked back to the screen. He wasn’t going to make it.
The program he’d written was still crunching through the data, and the meeting with Admiral Langford was in fifteen minutes. In fact, the job was barely halfway done.
Behind him, his office in the Pentagon’s basement was crowded with enough computer and signaling equipment to put the displays at the Smithsonian to shame. To him, technology wasn’t just a job, it was an obsession, and Langford was happy to oblige him. Especially lately.