[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Carpentier explained. "They have also brought in a great deal of oil." "Brought it in?" Steve showed his surprise. Carpentier nodded. "In the shallower waters near the shore line and along the river they release quantities of oil at different temperatures. The infrared patterns we use for tracking are then made worthless. We also believe they use iron filings, well magnetized, mixed in with the oil. This makes our magnetic anomaly detectors work very poorly." "The White House completely agrees with our evaluation, as does Defense's military intelligence," Schiller said. "They consider this base to be evidence of Russian duplicity, violating the agreement that came out of the so-called Cuban crisis. Now we've got far worse on our hands. We just can't bull our way in there because we'd be interfering with the sovereignty of Surinam and French Guiana, and God knows what else, and we could precipitate all sorts of crises." "It is all much worse," said Carpentier, picking up the theme, "because now the Russians, they have the missiles, right, but they also have perhaps fifteen to twenty V-class submarines, each with sixteen missiles, and they are never in one place long enough for us to—" "What about the Victor-class boats?" Steve asked. "Perhaps a dozen," said Schiller. "Fast, maybe forty knots submerged. They're playing cat-and-mouse games with our subs. They're out in such numbers we know they've got to be resupplied. The Navy covers everything out at sea, so we know they're not resupplying at sea. It's all coming out of that base." "And where does this leave us?" Steve asked. "Like I said," Schiller said, "we need objective, convincing proof. Photographs. Pictures that leave no doubt, pictures that let our people walk into the meetings of the OAS and literally slap them down on the table. Same thing with the United Nations. We need the kind of proof that lets us act swiftly and decisively, that gives the White House the edge in telling the Russians to get the hell out— or else, and not appear arbitrary and provocative. We must demonstrate with this proof that our interests are also the interests of the international community—especially as represented in this hemisphere by the OAS. That's a speech and I apologize." Schiller shrugged. "What it comes down to is we've got to get inside that base and get some pictures." "And," added Carpentier, "get them out again." "Who," asked Steve, "is 'them'?" Schiller looked at him. "You are, Colonel." CHAPTER 17 RICARDO HELPED him to polish his Spanish in case he might be forced ashore and need to get out on foot. They made three-dimensional models, courtesy of the cartography people, of the coastal area for him to study. He went to the mat, literally, with Ricardo for some karate, took his considerable lumps, and then found what he could do with his remarkably powerful limbs in hand-to-hand encounters. McKay watched it all, delighted with the tight, fine edge Steve was obviously developing. There was more than one way to program a man. Then came the special adaptations for the mission. They equipped him with new knee joints that reduced friction by nearly ninety percent and in which the heat rise was negligible after the equivalent of some four hours of steady swimming. Next was an immersion test, in which they lowered the water temperature to what could be expected below the surface of the ocean off the Surinam coast. Steve wore a special insulating swimming garment to keep his body warm in the ocean. Wire hookups, laced in a back-and-forth pattern through the suit, drew energy through one of the small nuclear-isotope generators. The same reduction in friction and lowered operating temperature that characterized his new knee joints were built into his feet, so that he had better fore-and-aft ankle movement. The bottom half of his feet now contained a sliding compartment. Steve could release a safety catch and a folded web of woven metal slid forward through an opening just behind his toes. The folded web hinged back and was locked in place, and the fins then opened to full size so that he was "wearing" swim fins that greatly increased his speed and maneuverability either on or beneath the surface of the water. If he needed to leave the water and move across land, he had only to unhinge the fins, snap the webs closed, bend the unit forward, and slide it back into his foot. The capacity of the oxygen cylinder inside Steve's left thigh, just above the knee of the bionics limb, was supplemented by a unit strapped to his body that could provide another thirty minutes of oxygen. The installation was repeated on his right. He was given a camera, but in case he lost it, a miniature camera was inserted in the false eye. To activate the camera, Steve pressed against the side of his head, where a trip switch was embedded beneath the plastiskin that had been built around his once-shattered eye socket. This released the shutter mechanism. To take a picture he merely blinked his eye. The muscles still worked. His eye-camera had a capacity of twenty exposures. If the way back from the underwater approach to the submarine pen were blocked, he could try to swim north or even south along the coast and they'd find him through a homing transmitter. But they also equipped him with weapons in case he had to fight his way overland through jungle and swamp—when the transmitter might not pick him up and he'd be entirely on his own. His left hand, the bionics hand, was modified so that the outer side was provided with a bottom layer of silastic, over which went a strip of steel, extending from the wrist down to the end of the fifth finger. Plastiskin camouflaged steel. The outer covering of the hand when clenched into a fist received the same treatment. Properly braced he could punch his way through heavy wood or light metal. The middle finger gave him a weapon with reach beyond his body. Fanier's technicians disconnected and removed the finger and replaced it with a digit built to Schiller's specifications. When he extended the finger straight out and snapped a presslock, the curving cylinder that formed the finger became rigid. Once he rigidified the finger it became the barrel of a needle dart gun. It activated with a small CO2 cartridge and a revolving chamber that contained a swift-acting poison. The darts were designed to penetrate skin, dissolve with impact, and spread the poison into the system to take its effect within six seconds. Getting information back was the primary purpose of the operation, even if they couldn't get Steve and the photos back. A miniature wire recorder powered with two mercury-cell batteries was inserted into Steve's right leg. He could tape up to ten minutes through a small microphone extractable from the limb. He would have to be back on the surface for this action. When he completed taping his message he could twist a control on the microphone to rewind the wire. Then, using the radio transmitter built into his right leg, he could burst-transmit the recorded message. It was a system that had been in use for years aboard scientific [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |