AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"How about meteor impact?"
Giordino looked skeptical. "A meteor crater this deep on the sea bottom?"
"Probably struck thousands, maybe millions of years ago, at a time when the sea level was lower."
"What led you up that street?"
"Three clues," Pitt explained. "First, we have a well defined rim without a prominent outer upsiope. Second, the subbottom profiler indicates a bowl-shaped cross section. And third" he paused, pointing at a stylus that was making furious sweeps across a roll of graph paper.
"The magnetometer is having a spasm. There's enough iron down there to build a fleet of battleships."
Suddenly Giordino stiffened. "We have a target!"
"Where?"
"Two hundred meters to starboard, lying perpendicular on the crater's slope. Pretty vague reading. The object is partly obscured by the geology."
Pitt snatched the phone and rang the bridge. "We've had a malfunction in the equipment. Continue our heading to the end of the run. If we can make the repair in time, come around and repeat the track."
"Will do, sir," replied the watch officer.
"You should have sold snake oil," said Giordino, smiling.
"No telling the size of Soviet ears."
"Anything from the video cameras?"
Pitt glanced at the monitors. "Just out of range. They should pick it up on the next pass."
The initial sonar image that appeared on the recording paper looked like a brown smudge against the lighter geology of the crater's wall. Then it slipped past the sidescan's viewing window and disappeared into a computer that enhanced the detail. The finished picture came out on a special large high-resolution color video monitor. The smudge had become a well defined shape.
Using a joystick, Pitt moved a pair of crosshairs to the center of the image and clicked the button to expand the image.
The computer churned away for a few seconds, and then a new, larger, even more detailed image appeared on the screen. A rectangle automatically appeared around the target and showed the dimensions. At the same time another machine reproduced the color image on a sheet of glossy paper.
commander Knight came rushing back into the compartment. After days of tedium, cruising back and forth as though mowing a vast lawn, staring for hours on end at the video display and sidescan readings, he was galvanized, anticipation written in every line of his face.
"I was given your message about a malfunction. You have a target?"
Neither Pitt nor Giordino answered. They smiled like prospectors who have hit the mother lode. Knight, staring at them, suddenly knew.
"Good God above!" he blurted. "We've found her, really found her?"
"Hiding in the seascape," said Pitt, pointing to the monitor while handing Knight the photo. "The perfect image of one Alfa-class Soviet submarine."
Knight stared, fascinated, at both sonar images. "The Russians probed all around this section of the sea. Incredible they didn't find her."
"She's easy to miss," said Pitt. "The ice pack was heavier when they conducted their search. They couldn't maintain a straight track.
Probably skirted the opposite side of the upslope, and their sonar beams only showed a shadow where the sub was lying. Also, the unusually heavy concentration of iron under the crater would have thrown off their magnetic profile."
"Our intelligence people will dance on the ceiling when they see this."
"Not if the Reds get wise," said Giordino. "They'll hardly stand idle and watch us repeat our 'Seventy-five snatch of their 'Golf' class sub with the Glomar Explorer."
"You suggesting they haven't swallowed our story about conducting a geological s
urvey of the seafloor?" Pitt asked with deep sarcasm.
