"I hate that word," Giordino said, holding his head in his hands. "The mere thought of it gives me a rash."
Sandecker gave him a curt look and continued. "After landing in the sea, you'll settle to the bottom, still using the chutes to slow your descent. Once you are mobile, you drive to the B-Twenty-nine, remove the atomic bomb from inside its fuselage, carry it to a designated area, and detonate it."
Giordino went as rigid as a man seeing a ghost. "Oh, God, it's far worse than I thought."
Pitt gave Sandecker a glacial stare. "Don't you think you're asking a bit much?"
"Over fifty scientists and engineers in universities, government, and hightech industries joined together on a crash program to develop Arizona, and take my word for it, they've created a perfect diagram for success."
"How can they be so sure?" said Giordino. "No one has ever dumped a thirty-five-ton deepsea vehicle out of an aircraft and into the ocean before."
"Every factor was calculated and evaluated until all probability of failure was worked out," said Sandecker, eyeing his expensive cigar in Giordino's mouth. "You should hit the water as lightly as a falling leaf on a sleeping cat."
"I'd feel more comfortable jumping from a diving board into a dish rag," grumbled Giordino.
Sandecker gazed at him with forbearance. "I am aware of the dangers, and I sympathize with your misgivings, but we can do without your Cassandran attitude."
Giordino looked at Pitt questioningly. "What attitude?"
"Someone who predicts misfortune," explained Pitt.
Giordino shrugged moodily. "I was only trying to express honest feelings."
"Too bad we can't ease Big Ben down a ramp off a ship and let it drift to the bottom with variable pressure tanks, as we did with Big John over Soggy Acres."
Sandecker said indulgently, "We can't afford the two weeks it took to get your DSMV here by sea."
"May I ask just who the hell is going to instruct us how to remove an atomic bomb from tangled wreckage and detonate it?" demanded Pitt.
Sandecker handed them both folders holding forty pages of photos, diagrams, and instructions. "It's all in here. You'll have plenty of time to study and practice procedures between now and when we reach the drop zone."
"The bomb has been under water inside a mangled aircraft for fifty years. How can anyone be certain it's still in any condition to be detonated?"
"The photos from the Pyramider imaging system show the fuselage of the B-Twenty-nine to be intact, indicating the bomb was undamaged during the crash. Mother's Breath was designed to be jettisoned in water and recovered. The armored components of its ballistic casing were precision cast with machine finishing and fit together with tolerances that were guaranteed to keep the interior waterproof. The men still living who built it swear it could remain on the bottom of the sea and be detonated five hundred years from now."
Giordino wore a very sour look. "The explosion will be set with a timer, I hope."
"You'll have an hour before detonation," Sandecker answered. "Big Ben's top speed has been increased over Big John's. You should be well away from any effects of the blast."
"What's well away?" Pitt pursued.
"Twelve kilometers."
"What is the end result?" Pitt put to Sandecker.
"The concept is to induce a submarine earthquake with the old atomic bomb and cause a set of circumstances similar to the one that destroyed Soggy Acres."
"A totally different situation. The explosion on the surface may have caused a sub-bottom quake, but our habitat was wiped out by a resulting avalanche combined with thousands of kilograms of water pressure. Those forces don't apply on ground above the surface."
"The water pressure, no. The avalanche, yes." Sandecker tapped his finger on the chart. "Soseki Island was formed millions of years ago by a long extinct volcano that erupted just off the coast of Japan and spewed a river of lava far out into the sea. At one time this immense lava bed was an arm of the Japanese mainland, rising above the water to a height of two hundred meters. It rested, however, on soft layers of ancient sediment. Gradually, gravity forced it down into the softer silt until it fell beneath the water surface with only its lighter and less massive tip remaining above sea level."
"Soseki?"
"Yes."
Pitt studied the chart and said slowly, "If I get this right, the bomb's shock waves and resulting submarine quake will shift and weaken the underlying sediment until the weight of the island pushes it under the sea."
"Similar to standing in the surfline while the wave action slowly buries your feet in the sand."