Tropical Terror by Keith Douglass

Author:Keith Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

17

Kaneohe Bay

Oahu, Hawaii

A half hour after the sweep by the big ship began, a sailor came to tell Murdock he was wanted in the radio room.

“CINCPAC is calling for you,” the seaman said. “We don’t get many messages from the top man in the Pacific.”

Murdock took the handset and responded.

“Murdock here, sir.”

“Yes. Good. Thought you would be on board the Chief. We’ve had some reaction from Admiral Magruder on the Jefferson. He’s had some of his antisub choppers on a search pattern around the waters off Kaneohe Bay. Says there’s a chance that the mini-sub was brought in by a regular Chinese sub latched to the deck. Then when they got into the shallow water of the bay, or near it, they sent the little guy in to look for the bomb.”

“Yes, sounds like a good possibility.”

“Now that the mini-sub is gone, the Chinese will have to use some other tactic. Chances are that the regular sub will come into the bay hunting the bomb, or it will send in divers or small boats. Magruder wanted you to be aware of this possibility and figured you might have some ideas.”

“Yes, sir. Those sub-killing torpedoes are the best idea. Did the admiral say that they had any indications that there was a sub off the coast?”

“From their searches they have had some readings, but they fade out too fast. He says definitely there is at least one Chinese sub in this area, but they aren’t sure exactly where.”

“Sir, there’s been some talk about the bomb threat as being a hoax. Any thinking on that?”

“We’ve worked it over a dozen times. The radiation we found where the bomb package had been could have been planted, or allowed to leak from some other radioactive material in that big box. Then, on the other hand, they have done a lot of work to plant the thing and move it. Feeling is here that we have to treat it as a real threat until somebody finds it and proves it’s not a nuke.”

“We’ll go on that assumption, Admiral. Anything else?”

“Do what you can for us, Murdock. All we can ask.”

“Do our best, Admiral Bennington.”

They signed off and Murdock went back to the compartment where they had the readout.

“Nothing so far,” the ship’s captain told Murdock. “We’re still working in what we call the hot zone. We could pick it up any minute if it’s still there.”

“Kind of hard to move that beer truck and the big box without some divers and a good tugboat,” Murdock said. “Divers couldn’t do it alone.” They watched the readout.

A half hour later Murdock had a question. “Commander, if you needed to drop a package into the bay here and intended to come back for it, how would you do the job?”

“How? Equipment?”

“That and anything else that would help you locate the package.”

“I don’t know. A marker buoy would be good, but then anyone could find it. Maybe put a sonobuoy on it activated, then locate it with a line of sonobuoys.

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