Black wind

places on a ship outside of the cargo containers where somebody could hide a bomb,” Dahlgren stated.
    “That’s a more difficult problem, but it’s where the dogs come into play,” Aimes replied, nodding his head toward the far end of the bridge. Dirk noticed for the first time that a pair of yellow Labrador retrievers were tied to a bulkhead stanchion and lay asleep on the deck. Summer had already made her way over to the dogs and begun scratching them contentedly behind the ears.
    “The dogs are trained to sniff out a variety of explosive compounds commonly used in bomb manufacture. Best of all, they can run through a ship in quick order. If a biological bomb is being smuggled in on a containership, there’s a good chance those boys could sniff out the explosives component of it.”
    “That’s what we’re looking for,” Dirk said. “So, we’ll be working off of San Diego?”
    “No,” Aimes replied, shaking his head. “There’s only minimal commercial traffic that moves through San Diego and the regional Coast Guard vessels are more than adequate to handle the volume. We’ve
    been ordered to patrol a quadrant southwest of the Port of Los Angeles in support of the L.A.-Long Beach Coast Guard Marine Safety Group. Once on site, we’ll coordinate local positioning and boarding through Icarus!”
    “Icarus?” Dahlgren asked.
    “Our all-seeing eye in the sky on the project,” Dirk said with a knowing smile.
    As the Deep Endeavor chugged toward the Pacific, cruising past Coronado Island and a Navy aircraft carrier inbound from the Indian Ocean, Dirk and Summer went aft and studied the strange submersible that faintly resembled a steroid-augmented earthworm. The bullet-shaped vessel was dotted with a series of bladed propulsion units mounted irregularly about the main body like glued-on heat pumps. Strutted beneath the front of its bullet nose stood a giant coring device that stood ten feet long, protruding upward like a unicorn’s horn. Bathed in its garish orange red metallic hue, the submersible reminded them of a giant insect from a fifties horror film.
    “What’s the story on this contraption?” Summer asked of Dahlgren.
    “Your father didn’t tell you about the Badger? It’s a prototype that he authorized. That’s why we were here in San Diego. Some of our engineers have been working on a joint venture with Scripps Institute to develop this hot rod. It’s a deep-water corer designed to gather sediment samples from the seabed. The scientific community is anxious to gather sediment and organism samples around volcanic hydrothermal vents, many of which are located ten thousand feet or deeper.”
    “What’s with all the propulsion units?” Dirk asked. “To get to the bottom in a hurry. She’s a real speed buggy. Rather than waiting for gravity to pull her to the seafloor, she has a hydrogen fuel cell power plant that allows her to submerge at speed to the bottom. She allows you to descend, take a core sample, and then pop back to the surface without twiddling your thumbs all day. Less time spent diving and surfacing means more core samples for the geologists to pick through.”
    “And the boys at Scripps were actually willing to trust you behind the wheel?” Summer asked with a laugh.
    “They didn’t ask how many speeding tickets I have on land so I didn’t feel compelled to tell them,” Dahlgren replied with mock innocence.
    “Little do they know,” Dirk grinned, “that they just loaned their new Harley-Davidson to Evel Knievel.”
    The Deep Endea vor steamed up the California coast for three hours before turning out to sea just before darkness. Dirk stood on the bridge watching the ship’s progress on a colored navigation map displayed on an overhead monitor. As the coastline fell away behind them, he observed the island of San Clemente scroll up on the map to the west of their aligned path. He studied the map for a moment, then turned to Aimes, who stood nearby examining a radarscope.
    “I thought your interdictions were restricted to no more than twelve miles from the coast? We’re headed by San Clemente Island, which is over fifty miles from the mainland.”
    “For normal coastal duty, we recognize the twelve-mile limit from the mainland. The Channel Islands are technically a part of California, however, so, legally, we can operate from the islands as an origination point. For this mission, we have been given temporary authorization to expand our normal interdiction