Lowell nodded, and stabbed a finger at a row of buttons on the console in front of Scofield. “Give me the high end first,” he said decisively. If he was right, it would be the only frequency range he’d need.
“Yes, sir. And thanks, I’ll remember that,” Scofield said, pushing the button labeled 16/40 kHz, rerouting the hydrotape data through the digitizer that filtered out all but the highest frequencies.
The sound in Lowell’s headphones changed dramatically. The low rumble of the ship’s power plant dropped out, as did the swishing throb of a passing school of barracuda, leaving the high frequency whine of propeller cavitation, the noise made by the ship’s blades carving a hole in the water. The singsong rhythm of the whine he’d isolated was all the proof Lowell needed that the vessel was pushing twin screws.
“That’s the one,” he said triumphantly.
Lowell removed his headphones, scooped up the phone that hung from one side of the console, and punched out Arnsbarger’s number.
The phone rang several times before Arnsbarger lifted his head from the pillow. “Cissy? Cissy, get that will you?” he growled, before realizing that she was in the shower and her son had already left for school. Finally, he crawled out from beneath the bedding and picked it up. “Yeah—” he mumbled in a sleepy voice.
“Rise and shine, big fella!” Lowell hooted.
“Christ,” Arnsbarger replied, wincing. “Won’t be noon for a couple of hours. What the hell’s going on?”
“I nailed her!” Lowell blurted excitedly.
“Great. Glad to hear you’re not a virgin anymore, son. Now if you don’t mind—”
“I’m talking about our mystery ship,” Lowell interrupted, laughing. “We just tracked down her acoustic signature.”
“Oh,” said Arnsbarger, suddenly coming to life. “Way to go. I sure to hell wished it’d taken you a couple of hours longer. On my way.”
In the forty-five minutes it took Arnsbarger to shower, dress, and drive to the base, Lowell and Scofield refined the distinction between frequencies, and digitally isolated the acoustic signature of each of the ship’s propellers.
When Arnsbarger entered, they had already made separate tracks of each cavitation whine, and Lowell was running them through the graphic analyzer.
Two linear patterns moved horizontally across the console’s video screen. Each of the parallel waves peaked and valleyed about a centerline, like an electrocardiogram.
“What do you have up there?” Arnsbarger rasped, looking better than he sounded. “A couple of whales getting it on?”
“Yeah,” Lowell chuckled. “You’re looking at the hottest pair of twin screws this side of Cienfuegos.”
“Separated them out, huh?”
“It was easy. Look at that.”
Lowell tapped the screen, indicating the top signature pattern. It was decidedly more frenetic than the lower.
“Hard to port,” he went on. “Starboard screw is turning almost half again as many revs. Frequency’s more than ten killies lower.”
“Well, let’s find out if that John Hancock has a match,” Arnsbarger replied. “What’re we waiting for, anyway?”
“For your head to clear,” Lowell cracked.
“Ship’ll be a pile of scrap in a Yokohama yard before that happens.”
“So will you if you don’t give it a night off once in a while.”
“You’re starting to sound just like Cissy,” Arnsbarger teased. “But she’s a lot easier to look at. I mean, I could’ve stayed home and heard that.”
“Yeah, but not this,” Lowell replied.
He removed his headphones and tossed them to Arnsbarger, who slipped them on. Then Lowell swiveled to the console’s keyboard and encoded:
LOG: CX-MP/AC: SIG: LIB-COMP: ANA/2-TRK: SRCH
This linked the computer in Lowell’s console to the Cray X-MP in the control room, instructed it to access the acoustic signature library, and run a comparative analysis program on the two-track specimen signature Lowell had prepared.
“Okay. Here we go,” he announced, pushing a button that transmitted the data and started the search and match process.
Operating at speeds in excess of one billion instructions per second, the supercomputer compared the specimen acoustic signature with the hundreds of thousands on file. In the time it took Scofield to stub out a cigarette, pull another from his pack, and light it, the Cray had found a match. The laser printer tied in to Lowell’s computer came to life:
P103612PMAR
ASW PENSACOLA
ACSIG COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS REPORT 71938647
VESSEL IDENTIFIED AS: VLCC KIRA
CLASSIFICATION: SUPERTANKER TWIN SCREWS
DISPLACEMENT: 145,000 TONS
CARGO: 125,000 TONS
MANUFACTURER: MITSUI YARDS YOKOHAMA JAPAN MAY59
MOTHBALLED: PIROS FINLAND DEC68 FEB72
REOUTFITTED: VASIL’YEVSKIY YARDS LENINGRAD USSR
REGISTRY: REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA 26JUL73
OWNER: LEASEHOLD SHIPPING LTD HAVANA CUBA
Lowell tore the page from the printer, and the three men huddled scanning the data.
Arnsbarger whistled.
Scofield nodded in agreement.
Lowell just smiled.
All eyes were on the third line from the bottom. The connection to Boulton’s KIQ directive was strong. They went to the ranking ASW intelligence officer in K building immediately. Within an hour, copies of the acoustic signature report on the Kira, the KH-11 recon photographs, and a log listing the sightings of the Soviet submarine that provoked their investigation had been transmitted, via a secure communications link, to Boulton at Langley. In minutes, the best of the CIA’s analytical minds were focused on the Kira.
Chapter Twenty-three
The weather in Rome had cleared when Melanie Winslow’s flight from New York landed later that same morning. She cleared customs and hurried to a bank of public telephones. Her pulse rate soared as she pulled the Rome directory from its hanger, opened it to the Ds, and frantically turned the pages to the heading DES. She ran her finger down the column of names — Descano, Descenta, Descilare. The names jumped from Desc-e to Desc-i. Not a single Desc-h. No Deschin, not a one. Melanie let out a long breath, and admonished herself for believing, even for a moment, that it might be this easy.
She took a taxi into the city and checked into the Gregoriana, a tiny hotel that lies hidden just east of the Spanish Steps on a narrow residential street after which it is named. Its fourteen cozy rooms were coveted by those in the arts who were fond of their intimacy and the bright palette used in their decor. Melanie had stayed here once, years ago, while performing with a dance company at Teatro dell’ Opera. She was pleased to find the hotel’s ambience intact on her return.
She showered quickly, slipped into jeans, turtleneck, and leather bomber jacket, and took a taxi to the Piazza Cavour, where she rented a motor scooter.
An attendant in coveralls with SCOOT-A-LONG embroidered on the breast pocket gassed the bright green Motobecane, and gave Melanie a map of the city.
“My last one. I saved it just for you,” he said flirtatiously.
“Thanks,” Melanie replied with a smile. She settled on the scooter and, handling the controls with familiarity, started the engine, prompting the attendant to skip his orientation speech. “Maybe you can tell me how to get to the State Archives?” she asked.
“Ah, si, the Sapienza. You want the most direct route? Or the one where the streets have cobblestones?” he asked with a lascivious smile.