“Give ‘em hell,” he said.
“Dammit, Brock, I hope ”
“Me too,” he said. “8-82 out.”
“Whatever,” Carol muttered and the call was ended.
“A little slack for a military operation,” Krail commented with sudden disdain.
With Charon out of earshot, Krail seemed to want to irritate someone else.
Garner retained the calm grin on his face but his eyes flashed at Krail’s remark.
“Let’s keep one thing straight,” he said. “We’re not here for the military.”
“Oh, Christ,” Krail said. “Not you too. What is this, Pick on the CO Day?”
“Scott, we’re not here to help NOL sweep its mistakes back under the rug. We’re here to try to cork the bottle before it starts a chain of events no one will be able to stop.”
“Easy, buddy. This isn’t a competition. We’re all on the same side.”
“Really?” Garner said, the tension in his voice rising. “Does Charon know that? Does the Navy? Now the Phoenix is involved, a platoon of SEALS, and the Canadian Coast Guard. All in some sort of loose-knit force with no definite leader, despite what you think. That’s how miscommunications happen. That’s how people get killed.”
The smile ebbed from Krail’s face as he listened to Garner’s accusations.
Keeping his voice low, Krail stared directly back at his friend.
“I appreciate your concern for Carol’s safety, Brock. We’re all a little freaked out by this situation, and I believe that’s a good thing. It’ll keep us sharp. But make no mistake about it, I am in charge here. These men have to get my approval to wipe their asses, and each and every single one of them is dedicated to the success of this mission. You are involved because you possess a unique scientific knowledge critical to the success of this mission. Critical, but not irreplaceable. If you have a problem with that, I can make certain that you, Medusa, and the Phoenix are commandeered or removed entirely from this operation. Do I make myself clear?”
“For once, yes,” Garner replied. There was no point in challenging Krail’s assertion. On the contrary. Garner had successfully reminded him that the highly volatile chain of command on B-82 was being questioned. It might even inspire Krail to keep Charon on a little shorter leash.
Now, with Carol, Zubov, and Junko leading the convoy of icebreakers back toward Baffin Island, Garner wished someone was watching his own back.
At the end of the third watch and another night without sleep, Charon retired to his cabin and pushed himself through another intense regimen of calisthenics.
Sweat glistened on his forehead and the veins stood out on the lean, bulging muscles of his arms, legs, and chest. Though his heart rate barely elevated above normal, his anticipation of the events scheduled to unfold over the next few days made him feel like a bull moose awaiting the rut.
The loading of the Voyager had nothing to do with it: Stimson had called Charon out of the van expressly so that they could monitor the conversation between Krail and Garner. Garner was right, of course. No single officer could oversee the entirety of the growing operation, which left Charon free to conduct the demolition exactly as he wanted.
The collapse of the canyon had to be successful, but Charon had his own reasons for that. His personal experience gave him reason enough to loathe a venture like B-82. Then, as some kind of ironic bonus, an acquaintance in the NSA had introduced him to military interests in India. Advance payments began coming in to a numbered bank account, enough money given with enough sincerity to convince him the foreign concerns were legitimate and they were willing to pay generously for his attention. To reward his pain. With a battery of spy satellites monitoring their land-based nuclear-production activities, the Indians’ interest in B-82’s destruction was twofold: first, to eliminate the sentry the facility represented over a large cache of uranium and plutonium reserves, and second, to smash a significant hole in the Americans’ satellite surveillance capabilities. The Indian Navy had already purchased several nuclear submarines from the aged Russian arsenal and was actually beginning to think the pit at the bottom of Thebes Deep was a viable location to scavenge bomb ingredients. Let them dream. They didn’t have the hardware to do it, they didn’t have the divers to do it, but enough time, money, and hatred had a way of changing that. Realistically or not, they also perceived Commander Matt Charon as the one best capable of compromising B-82’s activities.
As their generous investment in him continued, they had little other choice. Decommissioning the waste facility was as effective as destroying it, but that would never occur as long as B-82 was generating profits and the fuel deposits below it showed no immediate signs of running out. Charon needed a catastrophic failure of the structure and biding his time wasn’t making that need any smaller. By now he had taken far too much money to change his mind. He needed to find a plausible excuse to permanently compromise B-82 and to find one before the Indians ran out of money or patience or both.
Then, like a reprieve from God Himself, Krail contacted him and started talking about the possible leak. When Krail first announced the news in the tank, he could have picked up the little pissant and kissed him right there in front of everybody. Suddenly, Charon had the absolute best of plausible excuses, and now the Navy was bringing in boat loads of SEALS and equipment to assist him.
No amount of planning could have played more perfectly into Charon’s strategic needs. As the walls of the fault folded in from the north collapsing the Devil’s Finger, then progressing southward the concussion would be amplified by charges Charon himself would place along the length of Thebes Deep. Scorpion’s demise had shown such a result was possible, and Charon retained an exhaustive knowledge of the canyon’s weak geological foundation from the earliest surveys leading to B-82’s construction. A second set of charges at the GBS itself would do the rest of the job, toppling the rig into the new eastern depression in the canyon system.
Stimson and the others would follow Charon’s commands to the letter.
The rest of the operation would be removed from the area or focused on the Devil’s Finger.
That left only Krail or Garner in any position to question the movements of the demolition operation. If either of them tried to challenge him, Charon might have to bury him in Thebes Deep as well.
Come to think of it, that wasn’t such an unattractive option.
I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. Quoting the Upanishad, Robert Oppenheimer had reputedly spoken those words on the eve of the first successful A-bomb tests. The phrase occurred to Charon now as he finished exercising and ran a towel over his close-cropped hair. His body quivered with the strain of his workout and the newfound power he believed he possessed.
“I am become Death, destroyer of worlds,” Charon repeated to his reflection in the small mirror above the sink. He smirked.
“Cool.”
19
The U.S. Navy Sikorsky S-61 lifted off the deck of the Rushmore and deposited the platoon of sixteen SEALS Charon had requested on B-82’s topsides. As Garner watched, the blunt, humorless special operations men spilled forth from the helicopter and went into the briefing Charon had arranged. As they had done with the contingent from the Phoenix, Charon, Stimson, and Krail led their visitors directly to the tank for an in camera debriefing. While there were no longer any civilian employees on the rig, Charon still insisted on taking every precaution against intercepted communications.