Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) by George Wallace (different ereaders .txt) 📕

“You sure you’re not trying to upsell me, Eng?” Glass grinned. “I come in for an oil change and you try to sell me a ring job and a set of tires?”

“Oh, no!” Smith replied seriously. “Just a couple of things that we…”

Smith realized his captain was kidding and smiled, too.

Glass walked away, toward the escape trunk hatch on his submarine. He could only shake his head. Back in his day, there was no such thing as “chat.” If there was a problem onboard at sea, they troubleshot and fixed it onboard. No “call a friend.”

Then Glass shook his head as he considered the amazingly complicated war machine he now commanded. The systems were a lot more complex than on his previous boats. A hell of a lot more complex. And considering the complicated missions he and his fellow submariners were asked to complete these days, that was a damn good thing.

Joe Glass dropped down the ladder into the blessed cool air below decks.

Ψ

Ben Tahib gazed out the big helicopter’s expansive glass-enclosed cockpit. Five thousand feet below, the Arabian Sea stretched deep blue and empty to the flat horizon. Tahib was getting tired. Tired and very worried. What should have been a ninety-minute flight out from Salalah in southeast Oman to their destination, the research ship Ocean Mystery, had now stretched to more than two and a half hours. The pilot had already voiced his concern about fuel a couple of times. The last time had been emphatic.

But where was the ship? Tahib checked his notes against the GPS for the hundredth time. The flickering screen matched within a few meters the position where the vessel was supposed to be sitting, awaiting their arrival. It had all been set up by the United Nations, the ship’s operators, and Tahib’s employer, the Al Jazeera News Network. But there was not the slightest sign of a ship anywhere in the huge circle of water that he could see below the chopper. Nor had she responded to their repeated radio calls. She simply was not there.

“Mr. Tahib,” the pilot said in a clipped English accent. “We really must stop searching and return to Salalah International at once.” Before the reporter could protest, the pilot went on. “We have already used all our reserve fuel. If we encounter any headwind, your nice suit is going to get very wet.”

The Al Jazeera gig was a sweet one, but Ben Tahib was not about to risk his life just to get an interview with some mid-level UN bureaucrat and a tree-hugging scientist, all for a story that would likely make the tail end of the network’s nightly news hour. It simply was not worth the risk. Tahib was about to motion for the pilot to start back when a thought occurred to him.

There might still be a story here. Tahib ran the storyline through his head. A missing research ship. A noble vessel apparently disappears from the face of the earth. Uh, the sea. A ship that had been out here conducting valuable research to help save the world’s environment. But then it mysteriously vanishes without a trace.

He could change the mid-level bureaucrat into a top-level UN official who had been working tirelessly, at great personal sacrifice, to help protect the world’s oceans. And change the tree-hugging scientist into the world’s leading expert on something or other whose revolutionary research was helping to save the world from a dire disaster. Of course, he would have to fill in the details, add color to the tale. Even if the ship turned up later with a simple, boring explanation for why it was not where it was supposed to be, Ben Tahib’s story would have already run at the top of the newscast. The eventual happy ending would get little play at all.

Yes, this story had legs. The day had not been a complete loss after all.

Ben Tahib tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Patch me into Al Jazeera’s main line. I have a hot story I need to file right now.”

Ψ

The yellow unmanned underwater vehicle nudged its nose into the shallow waters just above a small sea mount. The feature was little more than a mound rising from the sea floor, but its exact position and depth were recorded precisely within the UUV’s data files. The depth readings from the little submersible’s sensors almost matched the reading logged in its data files. Even so, the vessel maneuvered slightly until the evaluations matched within the tolerances that it was programmed to accept. Precision was only one of the device’s strengths.

Then, satisfied that it was where it was supposed to be, the electronic brain within the sub adjusted its inertial navigation system so that the estimated position—the “EP”—agreed with the bottom contour fix on the sea mount below.

The UUV would rely on the inertial navigation system and its EPs for the next several hours for dead reckoning. On this critical leg of the mission, the submersible could not risk coming to the surface to use its GPS receiver and there were no convenient sea mounts for bottom contour navigation.

The vessel slowly and silently worked its way toward the coastline. The muddy bottom gradually rose to put less and less water beneath the little craft. At the same time, the UUV’s sensors detected currents trying to push it along the coast, away from where it had been ordered to go. Still other sensors detected a ship steaming toward the UUV. The submarine knew exactly what to do. It automatically maneuvered to keep well away from the ship. And it adjusted for a course that would take it precisely where it was supposed to be, even