“I don’t tell her what I’m spending it on?”
“You and I get along real well, Bull.”
Paul Deride had his shoes off, his feet on the coffee table, a cigar lit, a lead crystal tumbler of Cutty Sark at hand, and a fine view of San Francisco Bay from the living room of the suite in the Fairmont which AquaGeo Limited kept for him.
Anthony Camden had declined the cigar and the drink, and Deride didn’t know whether or not he was enjoying the view.
“You got it down, Anthony?”
“Yes, Paul, I think so. I’ve got my staff preparing the boilerplate now. If anyone makes a squawk, it won’t take long to fill in the particulars and get everything filed.”
“In what courts?” Deride asked.
“It’ll depend on where the squawk comes from. We’ll be ready for anything.”
“Good.”
“Nothing to be nervous about, Paul.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Are you hungry, then? I haven’t had lunch.”
“Yeah, order something up.”
Camden picked up the phone from the coffee table, called room service, requested petite filets, and while they were waiting for them, the phone rang again.
Deride grabbed it before Camden could reach it.
“Deride.”
“Uncle Paul, there’s been an accident.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Angie buzzed him on the intercom. “Mr. Unruh is here, sir.”
She only called him “sir,” when others were present, no matter who it was. Hampstead had tried to break her of the habit when it wasn’t necessary, but she would make promises, and then break them as soon as he had a visitor.
“I guess we can let him in, Angie. Search him for guns and stuff, will you?”
“Mr. Hampstead!”
Grinning, he got up and went around his desk as Unruh entered his office.
“What an unexpected pleasure,” he said.
Unruh smiled, though somewhat grimly. “I was getting bored, so I came over to look at your wrestling posters.”
“You want coffee or something?”
“Nah, I’m coffeed out.”
He actually walked around the perimeter of the office and perused the posters. Then he sat down in one of the two cushioned visitor chairs in front of Hampstead’s desk.
Hampstead sat on the corner of the desk. “You must have terrific news, to come all the way over to my place.”
“I told you. I came to see the posters.”
“And I believe that, of course.”
“I get antsy when there’s no action,” Unruh said. “I spent too many years in the operations directorate.”
“So nothing’s happening?”
Unruh had already told him about the makeup of the task force. “I’ve done my part. I looked into Deride and AquaGeo.”
“And found?”
“He’s a hard and smart man. Came out of nowhere to make Forbes’ top ten wealthiest. He worked the oil fields to put himself through the University of Sydney and then Oxford, and then he worked some more. When he decided to strike off on his own, his first big project in New Zealand came up roses — million dollar roses. That gave him the cash and leverage base he needed, and he’s been hitting about ninety per cent of every venture he tries.”
“And that’s it?”
“The Agency, nor the Bureau when I checked over there, have a great deal of interest in an Australian entrepreneur, Avery. The files are not extensive on the man as a person.”
“How about his company?”
“Just about as sparse. There have been some complaints over the years, and they’re mostly from people who felt they got the raw end of a deal. As far as I can tell, there’s been nothing fraudulent, but there have been some sore losers. I checked out my information with what a guy named Porter in your building is supposed to come up with.”
“Sam Porter?”
“That’s it. He any good?”
“A political hack,” Hampstead said. “But he knows the right people.”
“He says that that it appears as if AquaGeo often walks the fine lines of ethics, but they’ve never been in criminal court, and they’ve never had anything illegal proven against them. They are litigious.”
“Lots of lawsuits?”
“From what Porter tells me,” Unruh said, “yes.”
“They lose any?”
“Nope. They either win or settle out of court.”
“Who’s been suing them?”
“It’s the other way around, Avery. AquaGeo is the first to go to court, and then they draw it out for as long as possible, often for years. They sue the little guys over clauses in contracts, over the amount of royalties, over anything. They sue the big guys for the same things, as well as infringement of contractual rights. Their law-guy, name of Anthony Camden, likes to overload the system with paper, though he’s rarely in court.”
“What companies are involved?” Hampstead asked.
“The details I don’t have. Porter gave me the gist of it over the phone, and I assume he’ll have more for our meeting in the morning. The picture I get….”
Angie interrupted him. The intercom blared, “Mr. Hampstead!”
He leaned across the desk and depressed the talk button. “Yes, Angie?”
“Dr. Brande is on the line. He says it’s urgent.”
Still leaning across his desktop, Hampstead punched the phone button and picked up the receiver. “Hello, Dane. What’s up?”
Brande was normally even-tempered, especially in a crisis, but Hampstead heard the rare edge of rage in his voice.
“The son-of-a-bitches rammed DepthFinder.”
Penny Glenn tried to get the straight story out of Mac McBride, the wiry Irishman who was piloting B-3, the Melbourne. The scrambled acoustic telephone made conversation warped as it was, and McBride had probably damaged his antennas, judging from the way the transmission was interrupted or stopped altogether.
All six of the people in the station were gathered around her console, peering over her shoulder as if they would get to see some live action shots on the screen, but it was blank. She had tried to link into the Melbourne’s telemetry, but that was also garbled. The tension in the room was almost visible.
“I didn’t get that, Mac. Repeat.”
“I said… we went under… her… get the….”
The transmission broke off again.
Glenn spun around to Gary Munro. “Launch the Sydney and get over there.”
Munro turned and ran for the hatch, signaling his assistant to follow him.
“…AG-4… you there?”
“I’m here, Mac. Tell me again.”
Silence.
All Glenn knew from the first reports, as she had told Deride on the phone, was that the Melbourne had collided with the DepthFinder near Site F.
Jesus. All that ocean out there, and two submersibles meet each other at speed.
She felt isolated, lacking the information she needed to make decisions. McBride was able to transmit sporadically, but she wondered about the condition of Brande’s submersible. At these depths, it didn’t take much damage to achieve critical states.
“Bert,” she told Conroy, “get on the clear acoustic and see if you can pick up any transmissions from the Orion.”
“Right away, Penny.” He settled into a chair at the console next to hers.
“Ag-4….”
“I hear you, Mac.”
“Told you… we were only… going… cut the tow.”
Shit! Cut the tow!
She had to assume that the DepthFinder was towing some kind of robot. And McBride had taken it upon himself to sever the towline. That would be construed as an unprovoked attack. Both Deride and Camden were going to scream.