Black wind

ahead and find it for you,” Summer joked as she took his seat and typed a string of commands into the keyboard. A new set of images appeared on the screen, a five-hundred-meter swath of ocean bottom scrolling from top to bottom, which resembled the aerial view of a hard-packed dirt road through the desert. Summer had adjusted the color images in a golden hue so that the occasional rock or mound on the bottom cast a brown-tinted shadow. She studied the monitor closely, watching the same monotonous sea bottom glide by. Suddenly, a dark smudge appeared on the top right side of the screen and grew larger as the readings rolled down. The smudge was a shadow, she quickly realized, created by a long tubular shape that was crisply defined in a dark shade of russet.
    “My word, there it is!” she squealed, surprised at her own voice.
    A small crowd gathered around Summer as she replayed the image at a slow speed several times. The distinct outline of a submarine was clearly evident, complete with an upright conning tower that cast a long shadow to one side. The image roughened near one end of the vessel, but Summer measured the object at well over three hundred feet.
    “Sure looks like a submarine, and a big one,” she said, not sure whether to trust her eyes.
    “That’s our baby,” Dirk said confidently. “Looks just like the image we scanned of the I-403.”
    “Nice work, Summer,” Morgan offered as he approached the commotion.
    “Thanks, Captain, but Audry did all the work. We better pull her aboard before she makes her way to China.”
    Summer typed in a new handful of commands and a signal was relayed from the transducers to the underwater vehicle. In a matter or seconds, Audry terminated the search pattern and propelled herself upward, where she broke the water’s surface a quarter mile away from
    the Sea Rover. Summer, Dirk, and Morgan watched as a retrieval team in a rubber Zodiac scooted over to the idling yellow sensor and clamped it to the gunwale. The team slowly made their way back alongside the research ship, where Audry was hoisted out of the water and replaced in her cradle on the stern deck.
    As the second of the two transducers was hoisted back aboard, Dirk admired a large exploration vessel that was inching past them a mile away, a Japanese flag wafting off its high bow platform.
    “Cable-laying ship,” Morgan said, catching Dirk’s gaze. “She followed us out of the Inland Sea.”
    “She’s a beauty. Doesn’t appear to be in any hurry,” Dirk said, noting the vessel’s slow speed.
    “Must be operating under a daily billing rate contract,” Morgan laughed, then turned his attention to ensuring the transducers were securely aboard.
    “Maybe,” Dirk replied, smiling, but a vague caution tugged at the recesses of his mind. He shook off the feeling and refocused his thoughts on the task at hand. It was time to take a look. at the I-411 up close and personal.
    The crew of the Sea Rover wasted no time in making preparations to investigate the submerged target. Captain Morgan brought the ship around and positioned it directly above the target, using the GPS coordinates identified by Audry. Computerized side thrusters on the research vessel were activated and the Sea Rover was parked in place, constantly self-adjusting its position against the wind and current with the thrusters to remain fixed within a few inches of the designated mark.
    On the aft deck, Dirk, Summer, and First Officer Ryan carefully walked through a pre dive checklist for the Starfish. Specifically designed for deep-water scientific exploration, the Starfish was a high-tech submersible capable of operating in depths up to two thousand meters. Resembling a giant translucent ball on a forklift, the Starfish cat-tied two operators in a six-inch-thick reinforced acrylic bubble that offered a panoramic view of the sea. Wedged into a bright orange supporting buttress, the see-through sphere was filled with a myriad of
    sensors, still and video cameras, and coring devices. Four sets of adjustable thrusters were mounted behind and beneath the bubble, which provided the sub with a high degree of maneuverability. Adding to the functionality were a pair of steel articulating arms mounted on either side of the bubble, which could be used for collecting samples and manipulating the multiple data analysis devices. Since the right mechanical arm was larger in size than the left, the whole submersible took on a crablike appearance when