Deep Six Page 18

  "All right, I'll get my best people on it." Sandecker made a movement toward his intercom. Emmett raised his hand in a negative gesture.

  "I don't have to describe the chaos if this leaks out."

  "I've never lied to my staff before."

  "You'll have to keep them in the dark on this one."

  Sandecker gave a curt nod and spoke into the intercom. "Sylvia, please get Pitt on the phone."

  "Pitt?" Emmett inquired in an official tone.

  "My special projects director. He'll head up the search."

  "You'll tell him only what's necessary?" It was more an order than a request.

  A yellow caution light glimmered in Sandecker's eyes. "That will be at my discretion."

  Emmett started to say something but was interrupted by the intercom.

  "Admiral?"

  "Yes, Sylvia."

  "Mr. Pitts line is busy."

  "Keep trying until he answers," Sandecker said gruffly. "Better yet, call the operator and cut in on his line. Tell her this is a government priority."

  "Will you be able to mount a full-scale search operation by evening?" asked Emmett.

  Sandecker's lips parted in an all-devouring grin. "If I know Pitt, he'll have a crew scanning the depths of the Potomac River before lunch."

  Pitt was speaking to Hiram Yaeger when the operator broke in.

  He cut the conversation short and then dialed the admiral's private line. After listening without doing any talking for several moments, he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  "Well," asked Casio expectantly.

  "The money was exchanged, never deposited," Pitt said, looking miserably down at the floor. "That's all. That's all there is. No thread left to pick up."

  There was only a flicker of disappointment in Casio's face. He'd been there before. He let out a long sigh and stared at his watch.

  He struck Pitt as a man drained of emotional display.

  "I appreciate your help," he said quietly. He snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. "I'd better go now. If I don't lag, I can catch the next flight back to L.A."

  "I'm sorry I couldn't provide an answer."

  Casio shook Pitts hand in a tight grip. "Nobody scores one hundred percent every time. Those responsible for the death of my daughter and your friend have made a mistake. Somewhere, sometime, they overlooked a detail. I'm glad to have you on my side, Mr. Pitt.

  It's been a lonely job until now."

  Pitt was genuinely moved. "I'll keep digging from my end."

  "I couldn't ask for more." Casio nodded and then walked down the stairs. Pitt watched him shuffle across the hangar floor, a proud, hardened old man, battling his own private windmill.

  THE President SAT upright in a black leather-cushioned chrome chair, his body held firmly in place by nylon belts. His eyes stared off in the distance, unfocused and vacant. Wireless sensor scans were taped onto his chest and forehead, transmitting the physical signatures of eight different life functions to a computer network.

  The operating room was small, no more than a hundred square feet, and crammed with electronic monitoring equipment. Lugovoy and four members of his surgical team were quietly and efficiently preparing for the delicate operation. Paul Suvorov stood in the only empty corner, looking uncomfortable in a green sterile gown.

  He watched as one of Lugovoy's technicians, a woman, pressed a small needle into one side of the President's neck and then the other.

  "Odd place for an anesthetic," Suvorov remarked.

  "For the actual penetration we'll use a local," Lugovoy replied while staring at an image-intensified X ray on a vineo display.

  "However, a tiny dose of Amytal into the carotin arteries puts the left and right hemispheres of the brain in a drowsy state. This procedure is to eliminate any conscious memory of the operation."

  "Shouldn't you shave his head?" Suvorov asked, gesturing toward the President's hair, which protruded through an opening of a metal helmet encasing his skull.

  "We must ignore normal surgical procedures," Lugovoy patiently answered. "For obvious reasons, we cannot alter his appearance in any form."

  "Who will direct the operation'?"

  "Who do you think?"

  "I'm asking you, comrade."

  "I will."

  Suvorov looked puzzled. "I've studied your file and the file of every member of the staff. I can almost repeat their contents by heart. Your field is psychology, most of the others are electronic technicians and one is a biochemist. None of you has surgical qualifications."

  "Because we don't require them." He dismissed Suvorov and scrutinized the TV display again. Then he nodded. "We can begin now.

  Set the laser in place."

  A technician pressed his face against the rubber eyepiece of a microscope attached to an argon laser. The machine tied into a computer and displayed a set of coordinates in orange numbers across the bottom of the microscope's position fixer. When the numbers read only zeros the placement was exact.

  The man at the laser nodded. "Position set."

  "Commence," Lugovoy directed.

  A wisp of smoke, so faint that only the laser operator could see it in the microscope, signaled the contact of the imperceptibly thin blue-green beam with the President's skull.

  It was a strange scene. Everyone stood with his back to the patient, watching the monitors. The images were magnified until the beam could be seen as a weblike filament strand. With a precision far above human dexterity, the computer guided the laser in cutting a minute hole one thirtieth of a millimeter in the bone, penetrating only to the membrane covering the brain and its fluid.

  Suvorov moved closer in rapt fascination, "What happens next?" he asked hoarsely.

  Lugo'voy motioned him over to an electron microscope. "See for yourself."

  Suvorov peered through the twin lenses. "All I make out is a dark speck."

  "Adjust the focus to your eyes."

  Suvorov did so and the speck became a chip-an integrated circuit.

  "A microminiaturized implant that can transmit and receive brain signals. We're going to place it in his cerebral cortex, where the brain's thought processes originate."

  'What does the implant use for an energy source?"

  "The brain itself produces ten watts of electricity," Lugovoy explained. "The President's brainwaves can be telemetered to a control unit thousands of miles away, translated and any required commands returned. You might say it's like changing TV channels with a remote control box."

  Suvorov stepped back from the microscope and stared at Lugovoy.

  "The possibilities are even more overwhelming than I thought," he murmured. "We'll be able to learn every secret of the United States government."

  "We'll also be able to manipulate his days and nights for as long as he lives," Lugovoy continued. "And through the computer, direct his personality so that neither he nor anyone close to him will notice."

  A technician stepped behind him. "We're ready to position the implant."

  He nodded. "Proceed."

  A robotlike machine was moved in place of the laser. The incredibly diminutive implant was taken from under the microscope and exactingly fitted into the end of a single slim wire protruding from a mechanical arm. It was then aligned with the opening in the President's skull.

  "Beginning penetration now," droned the voice of the man seated at a console.

  As with the viewer on the laser, he studied a series of numbers on a display screed. The entire procedure was preprogrammed. No human hand was lifted. Led by the computer, the robot delicately eased the wire through the protective membrane into the soft folds of the brain.

  After six minutes the display screen flashed, "MARK."

  Lugovoy's eyes never left the color X-ray monitor. "Release and withdraw the probe."

  "Released and withdrawing," a voice echoed.

  After the wire was removed it was replaced with a miniature tubelike instrument containing a small plug with three hairs and their roo
ts, removed from one of the Russian staff whose head growth closely resembled the President. The plug was then inserted into the tiny hole neatly cut by the laser beam. When the robot unit was pulled back, Lugovoy approached and studied the results with a large magnifying glass.

  "What little scabbing that transpires should flake away in a few days," he remarked. Satisfied, he straightened and viewed the computer-directed screens.

  "The implant is operational," announced his female assistant.

  Lugovoy massaged his hands in a pleased gesture. "Good, we can begin the second penetration."

  "You're going to place another implant?" Suvorov asked.

  "No, inject a small amount of RNA into the hippocampus."

  "Could you enlighten me in layman terms?"

  Lugovoy reached over the shoulder of the man sitting at the computer console and twisted a knob. The image of the President's brain enlarged until it covered the entire screen of the X-ray monitor.

  "There," he said, tapping the glass screen. "The sea-horse-shaped bridge running under the horns of the lateral ventricles, a vital section of the brain's limbic system. It's called the hippocampus.

  It's here where new memories are received and dispersed. By injecting RNA-ribonucleic acin, which transmits genetic instructions-from one subject, one who's been programmed with certain thoughts, we can accomplish what we term a 'memory transfer."' Suvorov had been furiously storing what he saw and heard in his mind, but he was falling behind. He could not absorb it all. Now he stared down at the President's, eyes uncertain.

  "You can actually inject the memory of one man into another's brain?"

  "Exactly," Lugovoy said nonchalantly. "What do you think happens in the mental hospitals where the KGB sends enemies of the state. Not all are re-educated to become good party lovers. Many are used for important psychological experiments. For example, the RNA we are about to administer into the President's hippocampus comes from an artist who insisted on creating illustrations depicting our leaders in awkward and uncomplimentary poses.

  I can't recall his name."

  "Belkaya?"

  "Yes, Oskar Belkaya. A sociological misfit. His paintings were either masterpieces of modern art or nightmarish abstractions, depending on your taste. After your fellow state security agents arrested him at his studio, he was secretly taken to a remote sanitarium outside of Kiev. There he was placed in a cocoon, like the ones we have here, for two years. With new memory storage techniques, discovered through biochemistry, his memory was erased and indoctrinated with political concepts we wish the President to implement within his government."

  "But can't you accomplish the same thing with the control implant?"

  "The implant, with its computerized network, is extremely complex and liable to breakdown. The memory transfer acts as a backup system.

  Also, our experiments have shown that the control process operates more efficiently when the subject creates the thought himself, and the implant then commands a positive or negative response."

  "Very impressive," Suvorov said earnestly. "And that's the end of it?"

  "Not entirely. As an anded safety margin, one of my staff, a highly skilled hypnotist, will put the President in a trance and wipe out any subconscious sensations he might have absorbed while under our care. He'll also be primed with a story of where he's been for ten days in vivin detail."

  "As the Americans are fond of saying, you have all the bases covered."

  Lugovoy shook his head. "The human brain is a magical universe we will never fully understand. We may think we've finally harnessed its three and a half pounds of grayish-pink jelly, but its capricious nature is as unpredictable as the weather."

  "What you're saying is that the President might Dot react the way you want him to."

  "It's possible," Lugovoy said seriously. "It's also possible for his brain to break the bonds of reality, despite our control, and make him do something that will have terrible consequences for us all."

  SANDECKER STOPPED HIS CAR in the parking lot of a small yacht marina forty miles below Washington. He climbed from under the wheel and stood looking out over the Potomac River. The sky sparkled in a clear blue as the dull green water rolled eastward toward Chesapeake Bay. He walked down a sagging stairway to a floating dock. Tied up at the end was a tired old clamming boat, its rusting tongs hanging from a deck boom like the claws of some freakish animal.

  The hull was worn from years of hard use and most of the paint was gone. Her diesel engine chugged out little puffs of exhaust that leaped from the tip of the stack and dissolved into a soft breeze. Her name, barely discernible over the stern transom, read Hoki Jamoki.

  Sandecker glanced at his watch. It showed twenty minutes to noon.

  He nodded in approval. Only three hours after he'd briefed Pitt, the search for the Eagle was on. He jumped on deck and greeted the two engineers connecting the sonar sensor to the recorder cable, then entered the wheelhouse. He found Pitt scrutinizing a large satellite photograph through a magnifying glass.

  Is that the best you can do?" Sandecker asked.

  Pitt looked up and grinned humorously. "You mean the boat?"

  "I do."

  "Not up to your spit and polish naval standards, but she'll serve nicely."

  "None of our research vessels were available?"

  "They were, but I chose this old tub for two reasons. One, she's a damn good little workboat; and two, if somebody really snatched a government boat with a party of VIPs on board and deep-sixed her, they'll expect a major underwater search effort and will be watching for it. This way, we'll be in and out before they're wise."

  Sandecker had told him only that a boat belonging to the naval yard had been stolen from the pier at Mount Vernon and presumed sunk.

  Little else. "Who said anything about VIPs being onboard?"

  "Army and Navy helicopters are as thick as locusts overhead, and you can walk across the river on the Coast Guard ships crowding the water. There's more to this search project than you've let on, Admiral. A hell of a lot more."

  Sandecker didn't reply. He could only admit to himself that Pitt was thinking four jumps ahead. His silence, he knew, only heightened Pitts suspicions. sidestepping the issue, he asked, "You see something that caused you to begin looking this far below Mount Vernon?"

  "Enough to save us four days and twenty-five miles," Pitt answered. "I figured the boat would be spotted by one of our space cameras, but which one? Military spy satellites don't orbit over Washington, and space weather pictures won't enhance to pinpoint small detail."

  "Where did you get that one?" Sandecker asked, motioning toward the photograph.

  "From a friend at the Department of Interior. One of their geological survey satellites flew 590 miles overhead and shot an infrared portrait of Chesapeake Bay and the adjoining rivers. Time: four-forty the morning of the boat's disappearance. If you look through the glass at the blowup of this section of the Potomac, the only boat that can be seen down river from Mount Vernon is cruising a mile below this dock."

  Sandecker peered at the tiny white dot on the photograph. The enhancement was incredibly sharp. He could detect every piece of gear on the decks and the figures of two people. He stared into Pitts eyes.

  "No way of proving that's the boat we're after," he said flatly.

  "I didn't fall off a pumpkin truck, Admiral. That's the presidential yacht Eagle."

  "I won't run you around the horn," Sandecker spoke quietly, "but I can't tell you any more than I already have."

  Pitt gave a noncommittal shrug and said nothing.

  "so where do you think it is?"

  Pitts green eyes deepened. He gave Sandecker a sly stare and picked up a pair of diviners. "I looked up the Eagle's specifications.

  Her top speed was fourteen knots. Now, the space photo was taken at four-forty. Daylight was an hour and a half away. The crew who pirated the yacht couldn't risk being seen, so they put her on the bottom under cover of darkness. Taking all that into con
sideration, she could have traveled only twenty-one miles before sun up."

  "That still takes in a lot of water."

  "I think we can slice it some."

  "By staying in the channel?"

  "Yes, sir, deep water. If I was running the show, I'd sink her deep to prevent accinental discovery."

  "What's the average depth of your search grid?"

  "Thirty to forty feet."

  "Not enough."