The monitors dimmed until their screens showed only blackness. They looked cold and dead, but occasionally a faint, undefined movement showed through. If a stranger had walked into the control room he would have written everyone off as men tally incompetent; finding a group of people standing enraptured by dark TV screens was a psychologist's dream.
Ten minutes became twenty, and twenty became thirty. There was no change. Anticipation hung heavy in the air. Nothing and still nothing. Then very gradually, so gradually nobody noticed it at first, the screens began to lighten. "What do you make of it?" Pitt asked Hoker.
"No way of telling. Without power, I can't read the systems."
"Activate the instruments, but only long enough for the computers to record the data."
"You're talking in microseconds."
"Then go for it."
The dexterity in Hoker's index finger ran a poor second to the incomprehensible speed of the data system as he flicked the switch. The demand signals were received by the RSV and returned to the computers, which in turn relayed their readout across the digital dials on the console before the switch clicked to OFF.
"Position, four hundred meters, heading zero-twenty-seven degrees. Depth, thirteen meters."
"It's coming up," Gunn said.
"Surfacing about a quarter mile off our starboard stem," Hoker verified.
"I can make out color now," said Heidi. "A dark green becoming a deep blue."
The haze in front of the camera lenses began to shimmer. Then a bright orange glare burst from the video screens. Human forms could be distinguished now, blurred as though animated through a frosted window.
"We have sun," declared Hoker. "Baby is on the surface."
Without a word, Pitt ran from the room up a companionway to the bridge. He snatched a pair of binoculars hanging by the helm and aimed them across the river.
The sky was free of clouds and the late morning sun reflected off the waters. A light breeze came in from the sea and nudged the short furrows upriver. The only vessels in sight were a tanker steaming from the direction of Quebec and a fleet of five fishing boats to the northeast, fanned out on different headings.
Gunn came up behind Pitt. "See anything?"
"No, I was too late," Pitt said shortly. "Baby is gone."
"Gone?"
"Perhaps kidnapped is a better word. Baby has probably been taken aboard one of those fishing boats out there." He paused and handed the glasses to Gunn. "My guess is the old blue trawler, or maybe the red one with the yellow wheelhouse. Their nets are hung so they block off all view of any activity on the far side of their decks."
Gunn stared silently across
the water for a few moments. Then he lowered the binoculars. "Baby is a two-hundred thousand-dollar piece of equipment," he said angrily. "We've got to stop them."
"I'm afraid the Canadians would not take kindly to a foreign vessel forcibly boarding boats inside their territorial limits. Besides, we've got to keep a low profile on our operation. The last thing the President needs is a messy incident over a piece of gear that can be replaced at the expense of the taxpayers."
"It doesn't seem right," grumbled Gunn.
"We'll have to forget righteous indignation," said Pitt. "The problem we have to face is who and why.
Were they simply thieving sport divers or persons with more relevant motives?"
"The cameras might tell us," said Gunn.
"They might at that," Pitt said with a faint smile. "Providing the kidnappers didn't pull Baby's plug."
There was a strange atmosphere in the control room when they returned, thick and acrid and almost electrical. Heidi was sitting in a chair shuddering; all color was drained from her face, her eyes were blank. A young computer technician had produced a glass of brandy and was coaxing her to drink it. She looked for all the world as if she'd seen her third ghost of the day.
Hoker and three other engineers were bent over a circuit panel, checking the rows of indicating lights gone dark, fruitlessly manipulating knobs and switches. It was obvious to Pitt that all communications with the RSV had gone dead.
Hoker looked up when he saw Pitt. "I've got something interesting to show you." Pitt nodded toward Heidi. "What's wrong with her?"