With Quisset glued to his leg, Hawkins went up the porch steps and opened the unlocked door. He went into the kitchen, put the whiskey in a cabinet, and gave Quisset some dog treats, which she noisily demolished.
Hawkins climbed to the study that took up the entire second floor. Afternoon light streamed in through the picture window and reflected off the rows of polished bronze and brass diving helmets lined up in display cases according to year of manufacture. The helmets ranged from an antique Sander built in 1917 to a group of Discos dating back to the 1940s.
Hawkins had collected other examples of antique dive paraphernalia as welclass="underline" a weight belt patented in 1898, dive lamps, single lens masks, air pumps, Frankenstein-type boots and double hose regulators like those used by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. The wall opposite the helmets had floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books and scale models of the shipwrecks that Hawkins’ non-profit sea exploration company had discovered.
Hawkins was fascinated by the unwieldy gear both as functional art and for what it said about the earliest divers. Ever since man had crawled out of the sea humans had seemed compelled to return to their salty origins. There was no other reason a person would leave his warm, earth-bound haunts, don hundreds of pounds of encumbering equipment and descend into a hostile environment at the end of an air hose.
Hawkins flicked on a sound system. A tune by the legendary blues guitarist Mississippi John Hurt — just one entry in Hawkins’ extensive collection of blues — issued from four reproduction dive helmets that housed quadraphonic speakers.
He was carrying a laptop computer that had been monitoring Fido’s video cameras. He pushed aside a dive knife made by Siebl that he used as a letter-opener, placed the computer on a sturdy desk built of polished driftwood and settled into a chair made from the welded links of a tugboat hawser.
The dog had followed him to the study and now rested her chin on his knee.
Hawkins scratched the dog’s head and thought about Snowy’s comment. He was right about Hawkins being unsociable. His real problem was his inability to trust in his fellow humans. He preferred dealing with robots. If they failed him, he could replace a part.
Maybe he should have gone to the bar. The thought made him thirsty. He said, “Beer.”
A loud hum came from a small atmospheric dive suit in a corner of the room. The suit was a scale model used to test a full-size ADS, basically an underwater vehicle with mechanical arms and legs. Hawkins had acquired the suit at auction and installed a refrigeration unit, an electric motor to give the scale model mobility and a basic audio program to pick up his commands. He had named it Mitch after the puffy-limbed Michelin man it resembled.
Mitch moved toward Hawkins on the powered roller skates attached to the bottom of its boots and stopped near his desk. Hawkins flipped back the transparent helmet and a light went on, revealing a six-pack of beer. He reached in for a bottle and said, “Thanks.”
He lowered the helmet and the refrigerator rolled back to the wall. The wonders one can accomplish with an MIT education, he mused. He stared at the three-foot-high figure.
“Maybe I am as weird as people say.”
He took a couple of slugs of beer, then booted up the computer and watched the video taken by the submersible’s camera.
Hawkins had wanted to develop a robot that would be aware of its surroundings and change its environment when it had to. Fido had not only detected the barriers blocking its way through the maze but had also figured out how to remove them. By observing, analyzing and reacting, the little robot had come one step closer to putting real artificial intelligence on the bottom of the ocean.
Hawkins was deep into the intricacies of a communications link paradigm when his phone chirped a computerized rendition of B Flat blues. The caller ID said the call was from out of the area. He pushed the speaker button and said hello.
“This is Jack Kelly. Don’t hang up on me, Matt.”
Matt recognized the knife-sharp voice even though he hadn’t heard it in years.
He smiled. “Why would I hang up on my favorite former commanding officer?”
“Nice try, Matt. I saw the letter you sent to the navy. It should have been written on asbestos.”
Hawkins recalled that the letter had used the word “incompetent” more than might have been necessary to prove his point.
“Okay, the letter was a little over the top. But I’ve mellowed, Jack. I don’t hate the navy brass 24/7. Only on damp days. If I count the twinges in my left leg I can forecast a storm right down to Beaufort scale.”
“Glad I caught you on a good day, lieutenant. Got a big favor to ask. Urgent matter. Can you come to the War College today?”
The naval war college in Newport, Rhode Island was about an hour’s drive from Woods Hole.
“What’s going on, Jack? Does the navy want to make me an admiral?”
“Haven’t a clue. I’m only the messenger.”
Hawkins glanced at his computer. “I’m in the middle of a big project, Jack.”
“Be forewarned that they intend to keep bugging you. If you say no to me, they’ll go up the line of command to the Secretary of Defense.”
“Who’s they?”
“You know better than to ask me that. Consider this a personal favor to me.”
“Like to accommodate you, commander, but my dealings with the navy are strictly arm’s-length these days. The only guys I’ll talk to are the tech people and the bean counters. Unless this has to do with my robotics work, it’s nothing that will interest me. Sorry.”
“Okay. Call this number if you want to reconsider.”
Hawkins grunted a reply, hung up and stared into space. He’d always gotten along with Kelly. Not necessarily one of the good guys, but he wasn’t bad either. But it had been five years since Hawkins had pulled a paycheck as a navy SEAL. It made no sense.
He wasn’t joking when he told Kelly that the pain in his leg predicted the approach of nasty weather. The dampness in the air that presaged rain affected the metal bolts that held his bones together. He got up and went to the window.
The sky had gone from blue to tangerine.
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
In mariner’s lore, a reddish-orange sky in the evening was the sign of good weather. There was only one problem. Hawkins’ leg was twanging like a bluesman plucking a guitar string, and in his experience, the sensation meant only one thing.
A storm was on its way.
CHAPTER THREE
Hawkins got the bad news over coffee early the next morning.
It came in the form of an email on his smart phone saying that his navy contract to develop Fido had been canceled because of lack of funding. After a flurry of back-and-forth emails that shed no further light on the decision, he made a series of dead-end phone calls. Everyone in the navy department was apparently out in the field.
He finally got through to an engineer he’d worked with on an earlier project and asked what happened. The engineer said he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“What I’m talking about is cutting me loose after I’ve put a pile of my own money into this project in expectations that it would be repaid.”
The engineer said he would ask around. He called back a half hour later and confirmed the cancellation and said no one could come up with an explanation. Hawkins was stewing over the announcement when Snowy called and said the Osprey had sunk at its mooring. Minutes later, he was standing on the dock with Snowy and a dozen or so spectators who were looking at the pilot house sticking out of the pond like the conning tower of a surfacing submarine. A salvage barge and divers came in and plugged a hole in the hull. It was early evening when they pumped out the water and re-floated the boat. It was caked with mud.