“So far, so good,” the man said. “The light-up crew is ready and standing by.”
“The emergency isotope?”
“Positioned and ready.”
“Carry on. Keep me informed about the situation on the pier — that’s the uncertain element.”
“Ay, sir.”
Slightly more than six minutes later Morrison, the man who had been doing the talking for the Mare Island team, came across the brow, removed his headgear, and went up to speak to the commander. Kepinsky joined them to hear what was being said.
“All right, I can give you the preliminary word,” he reported. “We have a leak, and a potentially very dangerous one, in the pile. We haven’t got it pinpointed yet, but we know the general area and we’ve started to get in there.”
“How dangerous is it?” the commander asked.
“Bad enough. We’re working in very short shifts, but we’re protected and the crew knows what it’s doing.”
The commander did not like the use of the word “crew,” it was too suggestive of the truth, but his lined face gave no clue to that fact. “How about the day men?” he asked.“We’re still keeping them here.”
“Why don’t you send them up to get something to eat; by the time that they get back we’ll know whether we’re going to need them or not,” Morrison suggested.
“Good idea. Anything else?”
“We may need a lot of wash water; if you can rig some hose lines that would be a help. Also, since we’re going to be here all night at least, could you have some food sent down. We can’t leave the job and there may be contamination.”
“Show me what is happen,” Kepinsky interrupted.
“I need something to draw on.”
The commander went to his car and produced a block of paper. He supplied a pencil from his pocket and then walked over to where the day crew men were still waiting at the opposite side of the pier. “You guys go and eat,” he said. “We may need you, we don’t know yet. Tell them at the cafeteria that I said it’s on the house.”
The men got up and started down the pier. The commander looked about and saw that the number of enemy guards had been somewhat decreased; a half dozen were still in evidence as well as the omnipresent gun crew, but there was no evidence that they were more than casually interested in what was going on. They stood and waited, and would continue to do so until they were given orders to the contrary.
Apparently Kepinsky was satisfied with the explanation he was given; he even looked a trifle worried when he rejoined the commander. “It is ungood,” he said.
“I don’t like it, either, but I have confidence in our boys,” the commander responded. Wearily he raised his arms and rubbed his fingers through his hair.
Morrison recrossed the brow and went down the rear hatch. As he did so the radiation detector suddenly showed a gain and a red light mounted on the dial went on. It remained that way for several seconds and then subsided. Kepinsky moved back a few feet but stayed where he could keep a careful watch over the instrument. He had had experience once with a leak in a nuclear pile in his own country and the results had been disastrous. There was, however, no way that he could leave; he remained because he had to, and waited.
The fresh spurt of radiation produced a noticeable reaction from the guards who remained on the pier. Apparently they were not sure what was happening, but it was obvious that they were suddenly afraid. One by one they drew back as far from the submarine as they dared. They could not leave their posts and they knew it, but self-protection was uppermost in their minds.
None of them heard the slight noise which came from the opposite side of the ship when the lead diver, his face and hands blackened, opened the sail door as quietly as he could and looked out carefully into the night. The South Pier was sufficiently far away to give him a measure of protection. With practiced care he slipped through the opening, crossed the few feet of curved decking, and slid all but silently into the water.
Five seconds later the second man followed. In addition to his SCUBA gear he had a sack of tools. He too slid into the water so expertly that there was a minimum of noise or movement to betray him. The two men below the surface swam carefully, one behind the other, toward the stern. When they reached the propeller they waited until the third member of the team joined them, then with the aid of a carefully shielded faint light they tried to measure the extent of the task before them.
The propeller itself was formidable: it was more than nineteen feet in diameter and dwarfed the men who hovered near it appraising the substantial chain which had been woven around it and the rudder post a half dozen times. One end reached over in a lazy underwater arc to the base of the pier.
The lead diver followed it quietly and invisibly until he saw how it had been secured. He did not touch it; instead, using a tiny light of his own, he studied it carefully until he saw two thin electrical wires which had been fastened with insulating staples to the back of the post to which the chain was attached.
He maneuvered into the limited space behind the post and with his diver’s knife removed three of the staples. One at a time he very carefully scraped the wires completely around for a distance of four inches. When he was entirely satisfied with his work he used the limited amount of available play to wind them tightly together. He was careful not to put too much strain on the joint until he was absolutely sure that he had a secure electrical connection. Then he swam back to see how his two companions were doing.
The job of putting the chain around the propeller had been crudely accomplished, probably because the men who had done it did not expect that any inspection would be made of their work. It had simply been wound around the propeller blades and the rudder post enough to insure the fact that the drive system was immobilized until it was removed. Silently the underwater trio conferred by signs. The head diver held up two fingers; each of his companions showed three. He accepted their verdict; he swam to the side of the submarine and with the aid of his light looked at his underwater watch. He waited ninety seconds, then at the exact five-minute interval he tapped very gently against the pressure hull.
He was answered almost at once by four evenly spaced knocks which could have been someone at work in another part of the ship. A full minute of silence passed; sixty measured seconds to break the continuity in case anyone had taken note of the audible signals. Then the diver tapped twice, waited, then tapped three more times.
A single knock acknowledged the message; as soon as he had heard it the diver swam away.
Inside the hull the crewman who had been listening went forward to find the captain as rapidly as he was able. “Sir,” he reported, “I’ve got the word from the Seals. The screw is fouled, but they estimate that they can clear it within three hours.”
Although he already knew the time to the minute the captain consulted his watch once more, then turned to his exec who was close by. “We’ll gamble on that — we’ve got to. Pass the word to the light-up crew to get started and to make the best time that they can.” He knew that the job would take close to six hours, and that it was an extremely critical operation which could not be hurried beyond a certain point.
The men in the reactor compartment were anxiously awaiting that order. The three who were assigned to this important duty knew that from the moment they were authorized to start, time would be vital and that none of it could be wasted. The dropped isotope would mask the increased radiation level; the cooling water was another matter, but there was a cover for that — at least so they had been informed. Their job was to get the pile going and to ignore everything else.
On the dock Kepinsky was having second thoughts. He knew the acute danger that a mishap in the nuclear pile represented, but to remain on the pier without making a personal inspection could be interpreted as negligence. He had been rationalizing, he realized that, and danger or no danger, he would have to go below. If some eighty Americans could brave the peril no excuse would be accepted for failure on his part to make a personal inspection and determine what was going on. He spoke to the commander. “I wish a suit,” he said. “At once I myself going to see.”