“Is there anything else?” Quicken asked.
She glanced at Emry, but was apparently not going to say anything.
Emry did. “We, ah, happened to disable one of their floor crawlers.”
“I see,” Harris said. “How did you do that?”
“Brande and Dokey cut a power cable to one of the tracks. Keeps them moving in a circle.”
“Without endangering anyone?”
“The crew could be picked up.”
“I might also suggest that similar sabotage in the future won’t be conducive to resolving the issues,” Harris said, though he had to suppress an urge to grin.
“You ought to get the CIA or someone to brief you on Deride’s history,” Thomas said. “He won’t be trying to resolve any issues but his own.”
Once again, Harris felt a bit deprived of information. Everyone around him seemed to know more than he did. It left him at a disadvantage.
“Okay, there’s one more thing, Dr. Thomas.”
“Of course there is.”
“George.”
Quicken passed each of them copies of the faxed articles from the Washington Post.
He waited while they read the Wilson Overton-bylined story, then said, “That hit the street this morning.”
“I think he got it mostly right,” Thomas said. She was smiling.
“I assume that you’re the unnamed source from Marine Visions.”
“Since I was a little kid, I’ve always wanted to be an unnamed source,” she said.
“This is damned good, Kaylene,” Emry told her.
“I understand your point, naturally,” Harris said. “You can’t get the legal system to move, so you went to the public with the story.”
“It nearly worked for Ross Perot,” she said. “In fact, there are changes being made directly as a result of his concern for the involvement of people in the political process.”
“Not that I don’t understand your motivation,” Harris said, “but this article is already having some drastic response.”
“Such as?”
“The White House and the Pentagon are swamped with telephone calls and wires, for one thing. Protestors are lined up on Pennsylvania Avenue and in front of the state capitol in Sacramento.”
“For another,” she said, “I’ll bet you heard from your bosses.”
“I did, as a matter of fact,” Harris admitted. The Chief of Naval Operations, Delecourt himself, had blistered his hide for half-an-hour on a scrambled radio frequency.
Harris had taken it stoically. He didn’t know what he could do about changing freedom-of-the-press rules. There was no declared war or hostilities involved here.
“Of concern to the people in Washington, Dr. Thomas, are the mounting number of protests. AquaGeo’s offices in Washington and San Francisco are being protected by police. There’s a flotilla of environmental activists on its way here. Someone is bound to get hurt.”
“And what’s Deride doing?” she asked.
“Ah, as far as I know, and I may not know very much, Deride’s doing very little.”
“You must have an eye on the Outer Islands Lady.”
A P-3 Orion was flying an orbit that encompassed both the maintenance ship and the two freighters holding station above what Emry’s map described as Site Number Four.
“We do.”
“And what is happening with her?”
Harris didn’t have a security classification to fall back on, so he said, “The ship has retrieved a submersible. Our recon photos show that it’s severely damaged.”
“One of the propellers?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the one Dokey took out,” Emry said. “Cost us a quarter-million dollar robot to do it.”
“And the freighter?” Thomas probed.
“They seem to be off-loading additional submersibles and floor crawlers.”
“Damn,” she said. “They’ve got reinforcements, Larry.”
“How many did you see?” Harris asked.
“We were figuring two subs and three floor crawlers, with one of each out of commission,” Emry said. “But if Deride’s bringing in more, then surely you know that he’s not going to listen to any reason that doesn’t have a dollar amount tied to it.”
Harris thought that Emry made a good argument, but he said, “Our hands seem to be tied. The Chief of Naval Operations would like to do more, but the directions are apparently being devised by the Justice Department.”
“Don’t you get overwhelmed by the bureaucracy?” Thomas asked him.
“I try to do my job, Dr. Thomas.”
“What’s your job going to be when San Francisco and Carmel slide into the sea?”
Avery Hampstead asked Brande, “Who leaked this thing to the press?”
Their scrambled communications circuit caused voices to echo, ebb, and rise.
“An unnamed source, as I understand it,” Brande said.
“Well, it’s got people riled up. When I talked to Unruh last, they had just called an emergency meeting of the task force. He said that a whole fleet of Justice Department lawyers had just sailed for the courts of prominent jurisdiction. Plus, they’re digging into every on- and off-shore permit and license issued to AquaGeo. They’re going to dig until they find something.”
“Good. Maybe a little blackmail is in order, Avery.”
“How about you?”
“We’re just hanging around. The Navy made it clear to Rae, without saying so, that one massive missile cruiser will get in our way if we don’t stick to the rules.”
“And will you stick to the rules?”
“You know me, Avery.”
“That’s the problem. I do know you.”
“So where are we?”
“Our contact at Justice, one Ms. Pamela Stroh, tells me that AquaGeo, through its counsel, Mr. Anthony Camden, has denied any wrong-doing on the part of the company. He said they’d alleviate any concerns at the hearing before the Maritime Commission.”
“And when is that?” Brande asked.
“Camden asked for a continuance, and that’s being considered.”
“When is the hearing scheduled, Avery?”
Hampstead cleared his throat. “Ah, the sixth of January.”
“Shit!”
“Well, they’re getting some pressure now, as a result of the publicity, and I think they’ll try to move it up.”
“If it’s not held within the next two days, it’s too damned late.”
“I’m aware of that, Dane. So are others.”
“Go out and buy yourself an electric cattle prod, Avery. Try that on them, will you?”
Deride took the call at the console on the far end and bent over the countertop, trying to keep his conversation confidential.
“Tell me that again, Anthony.”
“There’s FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers invading every operation we’ve got going in the States, and within the off-shore limits.”
“Bloody hell! What are they looking for?”
“Anything, I imagine, Paul. There will be some loopholes, something that we forgot to cross. As soon as they find one, they’ll close us down.”
“Damn it!”
“I told you this morning that the newspaper story was going to hurt.”
In all of its years of operation, AquaGeo had never had a single adverse article appear in the media. Their success had been derived from staying in the fringes and out of the limelight. As much as he hated working below the surface, Deride enjoyed working in the dark.
“We’ve got five San Francisco cops outside the office door here,” Camden said. “There are a dozen protestors in the hallway with all kinds of derogatory placards, and when I look down on the street, I can see another hundred or so.”