Through the years, her natural good looks didn’t go unnoticed by members of the opposite sex. In high school, she had her fair share of dates, but for the most part she found those boys boring and vain. Of course, there was always the natural inclination to compare them to her father. And in every instance, none came close to matching Dr. Frank Lansing in brains, charm, or force of personality.
Her social life was almost nil in college. She was much too busy mastering the challenging principles of applied physics or probing into the intricacies of advanced engineering. During summer vacations, she went to work for her father in the Naval Arctic Lab.
Because of the strategic importance of the Arctic Ocean, the US Navy was interested in knowing all it could about the region’s unique physical makeup.
Surprisingly little past research had been done in this area, and her father’s lab was helping to coordinate this new effort.
Advances in technology were changing the character of Arctic research. Exciting new inventions such as the laser-guided surface-scanning Fathometer were finally coming out of the test stage and being applied to actual, operational hardware.
To Laurie, there could be no more exciting field than this. Though she had several other attractive offers, there was never much doubt in her mind as to the direction of her graduate curriculum, and finally, with a doctorate in advanced Arctic studies in hand, she applied for a position on her father’s staff. She was instantly accepted, and spent the next five years assisting her father develop what one senior admiral in the Pentagon called “the most significant advancement in under-the-ice technology since the advent of the nuclear reactor.”
All their hard work came to fruition six months ago, when the US Navy notified the lab that it was accepting one of the laser-guided Fathometers to test on an actual sub. After the briefest of celebrations, they went to work preparing an operational system.
Because they had to meet a sailing deadline, they had little time to tarry. Fourteen-hour work days were not uncommon, and a day off was almost unheard of. Yet during the entire six-month period, never once did Laurie hear one of the staff voice a complaint. For they really believed in the project, and were willing to sacrifice their personal lives to insure its success.
Of course, no one was as dedicated to this effort as Dr. Frank Lansing. Going to the extreme of setting up a cot in the lab, he worked tirelessly for hours on end.
It was a chore for Laurie to even get him to break for meals, and several times she actually had to drag him away from his work in order to get some decent food into his system.
Two weeks before their deadline was upon them, her father moved into the lab permanently. It was at this point that the hundreds of hours of hard work began to show in his eyes and general physical appearance.
He seemed to be uncharacteristically slovenly, and it was obviously an effort for him to drag his tired, bent body around the laboratory. Several times he complained of attacks of what he called heartburn, but whenever Laurie advised that he should see his physician, he inevitably changed the subject.
She knew now that she should have been firmer with him about seeking medical treatment. Yet her work schedule was equally as intense, and when it came time to begin installing the Fathometer into the Defiance, it was all she could do to find the time to take care of her own personal concerns.
On the morning of the day the installation was to be completed, Laurie found herself on her way to the docks to personally supervise the final calibration of the scanning lasers. Since her father wished to be on the scene also, she stopped at the lab to pick him up.
It was a brisk, clear autumn day, and as she expectantly pulled up to the three-story brick building where their offices were located, she spotted a pair of police cars parked immediately in front of the entranceway.
Not really giving these vehicles much thought, she entered the central foyer and encountered two policemen intently interrogating Will Harper, one of the project’s senior technicians. It only took one look at Will’s face for her to know that there had been some sort of tragedy. But little was Laurie prepared for what she was soon to learn, when the bearded scientist took her aside and with tear-stained eyes explained the grim discovery he’d made that morning.
Also on his way to the Defiance, Harper had stopped off at the lab first to pick up a program manual. Once inside, he’d decided to see if the project’s director needed a lift to the docks. Poking his head into Frank Lansing’s office, he found the white-haired researcher slumped over his desk. At first Will Harper assumed that Lansing had only fallen asleep.
But as he took a step inside, he realized that their venerated director was no longer breathing. Harper called 911, and then began a frenzied attempt at pulmonary resuscitation. His efforts were futile. Ten minutes later the paramedics arrived and pronounced Dr. Frank Lansing dead from an apparent heart attack.
Laurie’s initial reaction was one of shocked disbelief.
She demanded that she be taken to the hospital where her father’s body had been transferred. And only when she had personally viewed his corpse did cold reality suddenly sink in. Numbed into speechlessness, she sat in the morgue and contemplated her loss, and for the first time in her relatively young life tasted the bitter fruit of real loneliness.
Tears clouded Laurie Lansing’s eyes as she sighed heavily and tore her gaze away from the photograph that had triggered these intense memories. Absentmindedly scanning the cramped cabin of her current submerged home, she could only wonder what her father would have to say about her present duty.
Surely he’d be immensely proud of her. In his earlier days, Frank Lansing had spent many months at a time beneath the world’s oceans, while in the midst of a variety of experiments designed to enhance the nation’s fledgling nuclear submarine fleet. Yet the culmination of his long, selfless career wouldn’t be attained until his most cherished project went operational.
And it was up to Laurie to insure that it did.
The throbbing hum of a muted turbine sounded in the distance. Other than this barely audible noise, there was no hint of the true nature of her current means of transport. There was no shifting of the deck, no feeling of movement, as the 4,600-ton nuclear-powered attack sub cut through the icy Atlantic depths at a steady twenty knots of forward speed.
Truly this craft was an incredible engineering feat, and to be a part of a project intended to make such a technological marvel even better was a stimulus to the twenty-nine-year-old research engineer.
Chapter Seven
The view from the Antonov An-22 airliner was a limited one. Since it had crossed the Ural Mountains just south of the Siberian city of Vorkuta, the weather had progressively worsened. Even at its present cruising altitude of 12,500 meters, the sky was filled with nothing but roiling, black storm clouds. Accompanying this front were stiff northerly head winds, and because of the resulting turbulence, the pilot had long ago activated the seatbelt sign.
Peering out the rounded viewing port. Admiral of the Fleet Mikhail Kharkov looked out to the stormy skies and tried his best to ignore the mad, shaking vibration of the plane’s fuselage. Thankfully, he wouldn’t be in this bumpy, unstable craft much longer. For his immediate destination, Murmansk airport, was less than twenty-five kilometers distant.
Encountering an air pocket, the massive An-22 suddenly lost altitude, and Mikhail found himself tightly gripping his seat’s armrests as the plane sickeningly plunged downward. To the grinding roar of its four dual-propped Kuznetsov turboprop engines, the mammoth transport vehicle strained to stabilize itself.