A high steel fence topped by barbed wire surrounded the shipyard compound, and as the car pulled to a halt at the gate Richards and Marie pinned on identification badges bearing their photographs. The proprietor of the plant signed in his guests, who were provided with special visitors’ badges. Only then did the uniformed, armed guards open an inner gate.
‘I like your security,’ Adrienne said.
‘We do what we can, but it isn’t perfect. Most of our workers have been with us for years, but a turnover is inevitable when you have fourteen thousand people on the payroll. Everyone is investigated before we hire him, but I doubt if we’re as thorough as the Corporation.’
They drove past the main administration headquarters, machine shops, warehouses, and the research and development building, then approached the drydock where a delegation, warned by telephone from the gate, awaited them. The general manager was presented to the visitors, as was the plant security chief, Henry Kaspar, a burly, middle-aged man. A flicker of recognition appeared in his guarded eyes as he shook hands with Adrienne, then with Porter, but he made no comment and ostensibly accepted them as a couple from London.
Porter knew him well, and approved of Richards’ choice. Kaspar was a retired Corporation man, a former head of the Trieste section, who had served previously in Naples and Marseilles, so he knew ships and yards.
Kaspar fell in beside them as the general manager led the party on board the Neptune, and then an eager Franklin Richards took charge as guide.
Work on the passenger section of the ship and crew quarters was almost completed, and Porter was surprised to find the cabins spacious and comfortably furnished, those on the upper decks the equal in both quality and size with the accommodation found on most passenger liners. Members of the party who would take part in the expedition to the South China Sea would suffer no personal hardship.
There were four dining-rooms, one for the officers, another for the crew and two for the passengers, the smaller of them obviously intended to shield the scientists and other experts who would try to raise the sunken Russian submarine. Porter counted three large lounges, all furnished with couches and easy chairs, and saw two bars. There was even a small gymnasium in the aft portion of the officers’ deck.
Directly below the captain’s quarters was the suite Richards had installed for his own use. It consisted of a living-room, bedroom and dining-room, and was even equipped with a small galley, making it virtually self-sufficient.
It was the rear portion of the ship that fascinated the visitors.: The hydroelectric plant was five decks high, and the cranes towered at least 200 feet above the superstructure. Each was made with automatically operated extensions that would enable it to plunge 500 feet below the surface to take hold of an object being raised to the deck. One aft section was a huge cavity, located below the water line and similar to the open space on board a container ship. Neither Porter nor Adrienne needed to be told that, if the mission proved successful, this area would be used to store the Zoloto after it was salvaged. A sliding bulkhead could be utilized to cover the top, so it would be impossible to see the precious cargo from the air.
‘Where is the float?’ Porter asked.
‘In the deep freeze at the San Diego Navy Yard,’ Richards said. ‘We’ve made it in sections, and they’ll be flown to us and assembled after we put to sea. We’re taking no chances of anyone catching a premature glimpse of it.’
‘How many of the Neptune’s officers, men and passengers will know in advance about the float?’ Porter wanted to know.
Richards made some mental calculations. ‘No more than twenty-five or thirty.’
‘Can you cut that down to a maximum of ten?’
Henry Kaspar smiled appreciatively, and Adrienne approved, too.
‘If I must,’ Richards said, ‘but it won’t be easy.’
‘From what I’ve seen and heard,’ Porter said, ‘nothing connected with Project Neptune is easy. Don’t even tell the technicians who’ll assemble the float the real reason they’re being taken on the voyage. Make up some other reason that will satisfy them until the time comes.’
‘We’ll want an advance list of all those who will be told about the float,’ Adrienne added. ‘We’ll put them through the Corporation’s investigative wringer, and we must ask that you keep even these people in the dark until they pass a top secret security clearance.’
Richards thought they were taking unnecessary precautions, but was forced to agree. ‘Okay, we’ll do it your way.’
‘Listen to these two,’ Kaspar told him, ‘and you won’t go wrong.’
The inspection of the Neptune took most of the afternoon, and dusk was falling when Richards drove his wife and their guests back to the mansion on the bluff. Porter remained in the living-room with his host while the women went upstairs to change for dinner.
‘We have another guest coming for dinner,’ Richards said. ‘Captain Humphries, the master of the Neptune.
Mr Davidson thought it would serve everyone’s purposes best if you met him here. Privately.’
‘Who is he?’
He’s commanded several of the Navy’s largest salvage ships, so I hired him a couple of months ago, when I learned he was retiring after twenty-five years of Navy service,’
‘A phoney retirement,’ Porter said.
‘Well, yes.’ Richards was surprised. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve spent more years than I care to count with the Corporation, and I know how the so-called minds of their desk officers function. Captain Humphries will be recalled to active duty – with no loss of seniority – as soon as this mission is ended.’
‘That’s my understanding.’
‘You’re making just one mistake, Mr Richards. It’s one thing to help the country and provide cover for the Corporation in this operation. But you’re asking for trouble by playing an active part in it.’
The financier shook his head. ‘That was my one condition when your director came to me. I can do a more efficient job directing the salvaging of the Zoloto than anyone else they could find. Besides, it will be more fun than just making money.’
Porter could think of no reply.
Captain Charles Humphries was announced, and was identifiable at a glance as a new breed US Navy officer. Trim and tall, with greying, short-cut hair, he was completely at ease in the presence of the financier and the senior security agent. He had attained higher degrees at civilian universities after attending the Naval Academy, he had travelled extensively, holding a number of posts as a naval attache, and he could hold his own in any conversation. Even when Adrienne and Marie arrived, both dazzling in low-cut dinner gowns, he remained unflustered.
The weather had cleared, so they went out to the terrace for cocktails. ‘I own all the property you can see from here,’ Richards said, ‘except for that horn-shaped little peninsula jutting out into the strait. That’s state land, used mainly for picnics and camping, and so it isn’t available for me to buy. Unfortunately. Tourists who know we live here often train binoculars on us, but there’s nothing we can do to stop them.’
If tourists could spy on the house so could others, Porter realized, so the security of the place was less than perfect. He kept his thoughts to himself.
No one referred to the business at hand during a pleasant dinner, but after the meal was finished Porter and Adrienne took Captain Humphries off to the library for a chat. He filled them in without prompting.
‘I’ve asked the Navy for the loan of eight officers and forty-one enlisted men,’ he said, handing them a list. ‘Divers, bathyscaphe people – including the commander of the vessel that found the Zoloto, salvage experts. I need all of them in addition to a regular crew, and I believe the Office of Naval Intelligence is double-checking them for the Corporation.’