Sea of Greed

Max answered momentarily. “NUMA has conducted three hundred and seventy-one manned surveys of the area in question. An additional one hundred and fifty-eight surveys have been conducted using autonomous underwater drones. Three surveys are currently in progress.”

“That ought to cover a fair amount of the seafloor,” Kurt said.

“Twenty-nine percent of the basin east of Toulon,” Max replied.

“Not as much as I’d hoped,” Kurt replied.

Rudi jumped in. “Like you said, we’re not the only ones who’ve been dragging sonar arrays around the Mediterranean. Hiram, have Max look over the old data for anything that might suggest a submarine resting on the bottom. I’m going to reach out to every country, aquatic organization and amateur wreck hunter I can find. You never know what information we might be able to beg, borrow or steal.”

Kurt took a quick look at the map. Their chances were rising. “In the meantime, we’ll head west.”

“Why west?” Paul asked.

“Because the Minerve won’t be found between here and Israel,” he said. “In fact, I’d suspect it’s well to the west of our current position.”

“And how do you know this?” Gamay asked.

“If the Minerve had reached this area, the French would have found it and sunk it, just as they sank the Dakar,” he said. “And if it passed through these waters unscathed, getting any closer to Israel, the submarine’s commander could have ordered the boat to the surface, radioed in to Haifa and called out a never-ending stream of IDF fighters to provide air cover and chase off the French antisubmarine patrols. Since neither of those things happened, we have to conclude that the Minerve never got this far.”

“That covers the waters east of us,” Paul said. “But what makes you think it will be found so far west? The two subs had similar capabilities, similar speeds. And they left the coast of France at the same time.”

“But the Minerve was operating with a damaged snorkel,” Kurt said. “Which means she couldn’t run underwater for long periods of time or at a high rate of speed. If you were on the run in that condition, what would you do?”

A longtime Navy man, Rudi answered this one. “Sit still and submerged during the day, conserving my batteries, and then run on the surface at night.”

“Which cuts her speed in half and limits how far she could have gotten.”

“I’m sold,” Rudi said. “Head west. We’ll contact you as soon as we have more to go on.”

Kurt took another look at the chart, picked a course that would take them south of Crete and toward Malta. He stepped to the helm, fired up the engines and got the Gryphon rolling. They’d covered ten miles when a radar contact appeared off the stern. It followed on an intercept course, closing in despite the Gryphon making thirty knots.

“What do you think?” Paul asked.

Kurt adjusted course to the south and the trailing contact followed suit. “I think someone out there wants to have a few words with us.”

57

KURT PUT ON more speed and adjusted the Gryphon’s course to the north. The mysterious radar contact reacted predictably, mirroring Kurt’s course change and continuing to close the distance.

Gamay came into the wheelhouse as Kurt straightened up. “What’s with all the twists and turns?”

“We’ve picked up a tail,” Kurt said.

“Faster than us?”

“Looks that way,” Paul said.

Kurt pointed to the panel on Paul’s left. “Check the cameras.”

Paul switched on the camera system, slaving it to the radar contact. The natural light spectrum was useless, since night had fallen, but the night vision lens clarified what they were looking at.

“Helicopters,” Paul said. “Two of them. Right on the deck. They look military to me.”

Kurt looked. Gun blisters underneath the nose were obvious, as were the lethal-looking missile pods on either side of the stubby wings.

“This is going to be rocky,” Kurt said. “Time to break out our presents. Paul, you’d better man the surface-to-air launch panel. Gamay, you’re the marksman of the group, you get on the CQW.”