“The image scans? No, sir. Not yet.”
“Sir,” Clay spoke up. “Have the Russian’s asked for their crew back yet?”
They all looked to Bartman, who shook his head. “No, no communication yet.”
“That’s peculiar.”
“Very,” agreed Langford.
“Sir,” Clay continued. “The initial report we received on the Forel was lacking a few details. For example, information on the actual capture itself. Was there a reason for that?”
Langford looked at Stan Griffith, who in turn exchanged a knowing expression with Bartman before speaking. “What would you like to know, Commander?”
It seemed the omission from the report was intentional. “Who exactly located the Forel?” Clay asked.
“The Brazilian Government. We don’t know who exactly.”
“They knew where it was?”
“Yes.”
Clay frowned, confused. “Brazil has five submarines, all much closer than we are. If they already knew where the Forel was, why did they need our help with the capture?”
“It was a favor,” Griffith sighed and continued looking at Clay. “The relationship between the United States and Brazil has been slowly eroding for some time. As a major emerging market, they have voiced their displeasure over a number of recent political and economic decisions of ours, which has put our relationship on delicate footing.” He shrugged. “It was a simple political favor, nothing more.”
“So we kept quiet to give Brazil credit over the Forel’s capture,” stated Caesare matter-of-factly.
“Something like that.”
“And to avoid souring our relationship with the Russians at the same time.”
Griffith reluctantly nodded.
“Except we didn’t know what was on it,” Clay picked up where Caesare left off. “The Admiral indicated that it was harder than usual to locate the Forel. Exactly how hard was it?”
“Four attempts.”
Clay and Caesare were both surprised. “Four attempts? Even after Brazil told us where to look?”
“That’s right.”
“So, it took four sonobuoys to find it?”
“That must be some damn effective noise cancellation,” Caesare mused.
Clay turned back to Griffith and Bartman, asking the question that everyone was now thinking. “So, if it took us four tries to find that sub, and our sonobuoys are better than the MADs that Brazil uses… do we actually know how Brazil knew about the Forel?”
After a long pause, Bartman shook his head. “We thought it better not to ask.”
The expression on Langford’s face told Clay that something in that discussion was a surprise, even to him. But the look was only momentary. “Okay,” Langford began, “so we have what appears to be a prototype of a new Russian technology. Their crew is obviously well-trained on it, and Russia still hasn’t made a sound.” He shot Bartman a subtle but dubious glance. “So either they’re afraid to say something, or they’ve already quietly spoken to the Brazilian government. And if that’s true, it means the Russian crew may be about to disappear on a first-class flight home.” He looked at the others. “Any other possibilities?”
Clay was chewing absent-mindedly on his lip when he looked up. “Well, there is one other possibility, sir. The simplest and most obvious.” He shrugged at Langford. “What if the Russians don’t even know it’s been captured?
14
After unlocking two deadbolts, Clay pushed open the door and stepped into the still darkness of his apartment. Flicking the light switch revealed a large, sparsely decorated living room that looked as though it hadn’t been used in months. It hadn’t.
In the bedroom, he parked his suitcase near the bed and dropped his bag onto the blue and grey striped comforter. He was looking forward to a good night’s sleep, and had a feeling he was going to need it.
Unfortunately, Clay’s sleep only lasted until 4:10 a.m. when his cell phone rang. He picked it up off the nearby nightstand and squinted at the bright screen.
He answered and sat up, groaning. “Will, do you ever sleep?”
Borger chuckled on the other end. “Probably more than you do. Sorry to wake you up, but it’s important.”
“What do you have?”
“I found something with my pixel scanning. I think it’s significant.” Borger switched the phone to his other hand and used his mouse to enlarge the picture on his screen. “It’s not what we were expecting.”
“Have you called Langford?”
“Yes. He should be online in a few minutes. He told me to get you and Steve on too.”
Seven minutes later, Clay sat hunched in a dining room chair, staring at his laptop screen. Langford and Caesare were doing the same on theirs. They were all looking at the display Borger was sharing from his own monitor. He enlarged a picture of the Atlantic Ocean so everyone could see it.
“I came back to my lab last night after our meeting,” Borger began. “Clay’s comment about the simplest answer got me thinking. What if what we were looking for was more obvious? We’ve been scanning data from thousands of miles of ocean looking for the signs of the Forel. It would have taken the sub weeks to get here. And knowing that the longer they were out, the higher the chances of somehow being discovered, probably means a direct route.” Borger zoomed out to a larger picture, highlighting the area he was scanning. “But what if we were approaching this from the wrong angle, or more specifically the wrong angle? Or more specifically, the wrong direction? The Forel was captured here.” A bright circle appeared off the northern coast of Brazil. “From there, pretty much anywhere south has a higher chance of being patrolled by the Brazilian Navy. So I decided to take a look to the north.”
Borger double-clicked his mouse. Again, the picture zoomed in, but this time closer to the northeastern coastline of South America. The next countries north of Brazil were the small countries of French Guiana, Suriname, and Guyana, lastly followed by the larger Venezuela at the top of his picture.
“I managed to commandeer more servers to run another search and went north instead. And this is what the program found.” He typed something on his keyboard and his map zoomed in even further, down to the individual wave level where a tiny red cloud appeared.
All three of the others stared at their own screens, studying the red image. “That’s it,” said Langford.
“Yes, sir,” answered Borger. “The Forel’s exhaust plume. Or at least the heat from it. But that’s not the best part. Look at where I found it.” He zoomed out yet again and the other three on the line fell silent.
“Guyana?”
“Guyana,” repeated Borger.
Caesare tilted his head curiously at the image. “What on earth was it doing in Guyana?”
“That’s where it gets weird.” Borger leaned forward again in his chair and resumed typing. “It’s not just that the Forel was submerged off the coast of that country. “It’s how long it was submerged for.”
“How long?”
“Two months!”
“Two months?!” cried Langford. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. Once I found it, I downloaded another two months of data and started going backward. The exact location varies a little, but not much. That Russian sub had been sitting there for exactly two months and four days.”
The conference line fell silent again as the three digested the information. Modern submarines could, of course, remain stationary for a long period of time. Although no one really ever did it for that long, outside of running drills.