said Jake.'Yes,' Trask answered, 'I have to agree. This is certainly a gadget, and Chung's message is about ghosts - of a sort.'
'Are you kidding me?' Jake couldn't any longer be sure of anything.
'I suppose I am,' Trask suddenly looked tired, 'though notnecessarily. Don't you believe in ghosts, Jake?' And before the other could answer: 'Well, these ghosts are submarines. They're dead Russian subs, yes - except they're still very much alive. Another paradox? Not really. Just wait a minute and you'll see what you'll see. Meanwhile, why don't you pour us a drink? And consider yourself lucky. It's Wild Turkey.'Jake poured; the machine whirred; eventually two sheets of paper slid from the slot, pushed out and followed by the original. One of the decoded sheets was a-large-scale map of Europe and the seas around, with numbered, circled pinpoints of reference. The other was a list of grid references, numbered to correspond with those on the map. All of the grid references were oceanic: two pinpoints in the Black Sea off Varna in Bulgaria, another off Podisma in Turkey; two more in the Tyrrhenian midway between Naples and Sardinia; one in the Atlantic off Portugal's Algarve; and three more between Iceland and Norway, south of the Arctic Circle. And there were others marked out by tiny question marks instead of dots. Looking at these little black marks on the map, and matching them with the grid references, Trask's expression was very bleak.'Look there,' he indicated the question marks. 'As close to home as that: the Barents Sea, off Norway. Crazy!''Close to home?' Jake echoed him.'Close to the former Soviet Union,' Trask answered. 'Odd, because the Russians are usually more careful than that. Chernobyl taught them that much of a lesson at least - taught them to look after their own, anyway. So maybe those two were accidental? Maybe they didn't intend for them to go down just there. Jesus, but whatever they intended, still it's a mess!'I'm not with you,' said Jake, shaking his head.'Then let me explain. Each of those pinpoints represents a hulk resting on the bottom. But what kind of hulk? The answer's almost unbelievable, but since I've already told you ...''Submarines?'Trask nodded. 'Those innocuous little black dots? Each one of them is a disaster just waiting to happen or already happening. They're allegedly "decommissioned" nuclear subs we thought had been cleaned up, made safe, taken apart and stored with ten thousand tons of other radioactive rubbish years ago. Relics of Russia's penniless, outmoded, unwanted Cold War navy, yes. But the Russian military was lying to us - which is nothing new - and this is the truth.''And it's a bad thing?' Jake still didn't see it. 'I mean that these things have been sent to the bottom, miles deep, out of harm's way?''Out of harm's way? God, what an infant!' Trask shook his head. And before Jake could get upset again:'Look, most of these subs have twin atomic engines. There are two possible meltdowns in each hulk. Barely possible, mind you, but possible. We don't know if they've been shut down properly, or even if they could be. But the very means of disposal tells us they're less than safe! Why else would the Russian military dump them on someone else's doorstep? What's more - since they're capable of this - how do we know they didn't load them to the gills with other high-level waste before scuttling them? What? They might have even left their leaking missile payloads aboard. These were ships of war, Jake! And sooner or later the bastard things will start spilling their guts!''What, in ten, twenty, fifty years? And a mile or so deep?' Jake still wasn't too impressed. 'And anyway, what has this to do with you and E-Branch?'Trask scowled at him, actually clenched a fist and thumped the table. 'If Anna-Marie English were here right now ... she'd knock you arse over breakfast!'Astonished, Jake drew back. 'Anna-Marie English? Isn't she someone who Chung mentioned?'
'She worked for us,' Trask snapped. 'An ecopath, she gave warning of Earth's decline - I mean personally. She was "ecologically aware," or as she herself would put it, she was "as one with the Earth". It was her talent - or her curse. Funny, isn't it,
Jake? But there are very few in E-Branch who are happy with their talents. They would much prefer to be ordinary. But