“Soon,” Jake said. “First I want to show you our towed array sonar display. Mister Lion and I just rolled the hydrophones out. Are you familiar with it?”
Renard followed Jake’s finger to the display of squiggly lines he thought he remembered how to decipher.
“If I interpret this correctly, that’s the array’s nose, the direction in which we’re pulling it. The middle of the display represents the beam, or the perpendicular bisection of the array, correct?”
“That’s right,” Jake said. “You see these three fuzzy lines trickling down the screen? Do they correlate with what you’ve been tracking on the spherical sonar?”
Standing, Renard felt light headed and numb. He needed sleep.
“Yes, precisely. I have three merchant vessels on the sphere,” Renard said, “and I’m tracking them in the fire control system. I entered the sonar room and listened to verify that they sounded like merchants. There are no warships in our vicinity.”
“Yeah, the merchant traces look fuzzy like they’re made by poorly machined screws,” Jake said. “It looks like we’re undetected. I relieve you. Get some sleep.”
Renard crept down the staircase. As befitting his role on the Colorado, he entered the executive officer’s quarters. Lying in his rack, he assessed Jake Slate.
Although possibly lucky, the American had shown good judgment. He had risked bottoming the ship to submerge as soon as possible, and that decision had minimized damage by the jet fighter attack. Also, Renard thought that by slowing to eight knots, Jake might have already saved the Colorado from a P-3 Orion attack.
He complimented himself for identifying Jake’s potential but reflected upon the mission off the Russian coast and wondered if deceit could victimize him twice. He made a note in his tired mind to remain wary of Jake. He also pondered the threats outside of the Colorado’s hull. Countless submarines, surface combatants, and aircraft surely hunted them, but for the moment, he comforted himself with the thought that the Colorado appeared to be alone.
As sleep overcame him, he thought of the only person whom he knew still meant anything to him, Marie Broyer. She filled his dreams.
In his dream, a strong gust carried the sweet scent of lilac across Renard’s face. His hands felt warm stone as he sat on a slab of sunbathed granite.
Examining the view below a clear sky, he recognized a summit he had climbed often during his boyhood in France’s Provincial region. Atop Mont Saint Victoire, the peak gracing Paul Cezanne’s impressionist paintings, Renard looked around.
To his left, fertile valleys of green and sunflowers. To his right, the rocky mountaintop. Below him, the dirt and underbrush that blanketed the eastern slope. Renard felt peace in this image of his past.
He spied a figure seated next to him out of the corner of his eye. He recognized a loving voice.
“Pierre?”
“Marie?” he asked, but the figure was gone.
Storm clouds invaded the dream and turned the sky dark. A gust felt cold on his face as a second voice startled him.
“Pierre!”
Standing over him, blocking the scant sunlight that pushed through approaching storm clouds, loomed the figure of an American naval officer wearing a deep blue cotton jump suit. Flame had charred the embroidered nametag that displayed Jake Slate’s name. A blood-caked tear at the shoulder appeared to have been carved by animal claws.
The Jake-image pointed a pistol up the mountain. Renard looked to the summit, but the peak had disappeared into black clouds. Covered in sweat and grime, Jake’s face looked agonized. His eyes were filled with rage.
“Pierre, come with me. I need you!”
“Me? Why? I thought you did not trust me.”
“Come with me. I need you!” Jake said.
“Why? Where are we going?”
“You know where we’re going.”
Lightning crashed. Jake tucked his pistol in his belt and started up the mountain.
“We’re going to die,” Jake said.
Lightning cracked again, and Renard awoke.
CHAPTER 18
“What do you have, executive officer?” Brody asked from the captain’s chair in the Miami’s control room.
“Sir, we presently hold sierra thirty-seven, the USS Colorado, at twelve thousand, five hundred yards, just over six miles,” Parks said. “Course and speed haven’t changed.”
“Got it. Thanks for covering things last night. I needed the rest.”
Brody had hardly slept while hunting Jake. He questioned if his friend had gone insane, but with the bitterness of his failing career, he also wondered if the Navy might have done something to set him off. Frustrated that he might deliver judgment without knowing the truth, Brody had only been able to sleep after giving in to exhaustion.
“Sir,” Parks said. “Some of the guys say you know Slate pretty well.”
“I do. Or at least I thought I did.”
“He’s your friend?”
“Yeah?”
“You want to talk about it?” Parks asked.
Brody felt Parks studying him. Despite the temptation of oblivion gnawing at him, he had kept the bottle at bay while underway, but he sensed Parks’ suspicion.
“You’ve got something on your mind, Pete?”
“You’re under enough stress already, sir. I can’t imagine what it’s like having a friend of yours go nuts and all. Then being tasked to kill him.”
“We don’t have to kill him,” Brody said.
“Come on, sir. The brass back home wants a flowery ending where we figure out who’s behind this theft and recapture the Colorado in one piece, but you and I both know there aren’t a heck of a lot of scenarios where everyone gets out of this alive.”
Brody feared Parks was right but clung to the optimism that he needed to stay in balance. He wouldn’t let Parks upset that.
“It’s entirely possible, Pete. And don’t you for a second abandon the idea that it isn’t.”
“Well, sir,” Parks said, “it’s just that…”
“You think I’ve gone soft because I know Slate?”
“Just volunteering the possibility, sir.”
“You just do your job,” Brody said. “And unless I ask, don’t bring it up again.”
For the first time while Parks was his executive officer, Brody thought he saw defiance in his face. The vision unsettled him.
“Okay sir,” Parks said. “I have a recommendation.”
“Go ahead.”
“I think we should open range.”
“Why?”
“To avoid counter-detection.”
“Our orders are to keep our thumb on Slate,” Brody said. “If we drift too far behind and can’t hear him, then we could miss something. I don’t want to risk that.”
“The sound propagation environment supports hearing him out another three thousand yards.”
“He’s got a skeleton crew and can’t hold a constant alert state. He’s not looking hard over his shoulder.”
“I think we don’t lose anything by backing off, though, sir.”
Brody wasn’t sure if he refuted Parks’ advice for tactical reasons or to keep his executive officer in check.
“No. We’re staying right where we are.”
Jake noticed that the Frenchman’s eyes were puffy from sleep.
“Have you considered doing a baffle clear to see if someone is trailing us?” Renard asked.
“It’s too noisy. But we could deploy the thin line towed array.”
“You have another towed array sonar?”
“We hardly use it,” Jake said.