Chapter 14: Tap

"You two, be careful, all right?" Josh said as Kai and Joe prepared to climb back into the mini-sub.

Joe was forced to make a decision, the tracing device would die soon. They were diving just as the unmanned subs surfaced, just as the sun went down. It wasn't an ideal plan but it was the only one Joe could think of.

The captain wasn't happy, but agreed that time was a factor. If they lost the device, they might not ever find the cable again.

The tap was already loaded onto the sub. It wasn't anything like a phone tap. They couldn't actually break into the wire, it would destroy the fiber optic cables inside and those cables were covered by an entire series of protections including thick metals. The tap was more like a sleeve. It would fit over the cable line, recording everything that was carried through the wires and was designed to fall off if anyone tried to lift the cable for repairs leaving it unnoticed.

However, it couldn't transmit the singals it recorded. The tap itself couldn't be detected any way but physically, providing an antenna to relay the messages it carried would run the risk that someone could hear it. Instead, it actually recorded everything on a series of tapes that would have to be retrieved and changed out regularly.

Joe had spent all night studying on how to keep the sub steady. Since she wouldn't be able to see, Kai would be placing the tap. That meant that she had to drive in his place.

"You're all set." a maintenance man, who Joe found out was Ilia's new boy toy, called out. "I've put the tap on the port side." he told Kai.

Kai nodded once in thanks as he climbed onto the sub then lowered himself into it.

"I'll be monitoring everything from here." Josh told her. "We were lucky we caught that submarine before it caught you."

"We won't linger." Joe said. "Until I work out a way to get down without being noticed, we're being careful about it. We'll go down, plant the tap, then come right back up."

"Here you are, ma'am." another maintenance man handed her the backpack.

"Thanks." Joe slung one strap over her shoulder and turned to the sub.

She climbed up, climbed down, and shut the door. She heard it being sealed from the outside as she sealed it from the inside.

She turned and Kai was already in place, ready to send the sub down.

Before Joe could sit down, from the outside, the magnet released dropping the sub into the ocean.

The sudden fall then stop sent Joe tumbling beside Kai.

"Are you alright, Kyma?" he asked.

"Fine." Joe laughed as she tossed the backpack away and sat back up. "They could have given me a chance to actually sit down."

Kai set the sub to sink then sat up as well.

The shades were still up and the lights were still on, which Joe regretted a bit. She wanted to see what she could of the ocean as they descended.

Then again, necking as they fell was just as good, she thought as Kai reached for her and she went to him willingly.

It amazed her how comfortable she was with him already. Joe had never really been self conscious, per se, but constantly being touched and caressed had never been something she had been completely comfortable with. But with Kai, it felt as natural as breathing and even easier.

XXXXXXX

Jack grumbled as he looked over some reports from an investigation team in New York. Kidnappings of elves had risen to ridiculous levels there. But, no sooner than his agents arrived in town that the kidnappings stopped. He was getting annoyed about it, actually.

Not to mention the fact that Joe had yet to ease his mind about those lights. It wasn't that he wanted to rush her, not at all.

Rushing results got you crappy results as Brook told him all the time. But he didn't like those lights. They left a bitter taste in his mouth and made his stomach cramp a bit.

He knew that Joe wasn't ruling anything out. She wouldn't until she had irrifutable evidence to do so, that was what made her so great at her job. But Jack knew that those lights were not natural. He knew that they were not friendly.

The only reason he could think that someone would put something on the bottom of the ocean was that they didn't want it to be found. And things that weren't meant to be found were either dangerous, wicked, or both.

Then he had received her report about the submarine along with Kai's. Joe couldn't see it, but Kai could. He hadn't been able to see anything like numbers, flags, or designs; such things were almost impossible to see in total darkness. But he could tell him that it was a full length, black, nuclear powered, submarine.

Big meant expensive, meaning whoever put whatever on the sea floor had lots of money. That plus whatever had been sunk there and underwater cable line meant that there was some serious money going around everywhere. A transatlantic cable line cost millions to make and millions to place. And while he didn't know what caused the lights, he was sure it was equally expensive. He didn't like that at all.

Submarines were either diesel or nuclear powered. That it was the more expensive, more advanced, nuclear powered variety meant that whoever it was that had commissioned the submarine had the resources to obtain the highly radioactive uranium.

Those two things together meant power and lots of it.

People and groups with that kind of power to throw around were rare and dangerous. And Jack was uneasy of things with such power, they made his teeth grind. He wanted to know what those lights were, he wanted to know how to deal with them, and he didn't want to lose his men in the process.

And he really didn't want to pick up the phone and report in to Victor Ozera, the other thing besides too much power that made Jack's teeth grind.

So he didn't.

Part of Jack's job was intelligence and part of that was knowing who needed to know what. To him that meant that not everyone needed to know everything. Mr. Ozera would get mad, if he found out, which Jack intended on not happening. He would send Mr. Ozera an e-mail telling him only that Joe hadn't found anything yet. That was it. Mr. Ozera could shove it for all Jack cared.

XXXXXXX

"Just a minute more." Kai's voice came to Joe from the darkness.

She felt and heard the mechanical arms responding to his fingers as he placed the tap. They wouldn't know until they retrieved the tapes what they recorded, but to Joe it was perfect. It meant that, if they were lucky, they could hear about the lights.

That or they were placing a tap on a cable line that was no longer opporational, perfectly legal, unlikely, or they might get nothing at all.

"Done." Kai told her. "All right. Let's resurface."

Silence.

"Kyma?"

"I want to go take a look." Joe said. "Just get a bit closer to the lights."

"Kyma..." he said slowly, obviously not happy with that idea. "You said yourself that it wasn't safe."

"There's no sub." Joe pointed out not liking not being able to see him as they argued the point. "I'm not saying lets get along side it, I just want to see them from a different angle other than down."

No answer.

"If you don't steer us over there, I'll turn on the lights and drive myself." Joe threatened.

She heard a sigh.

"Very well, Kyma. Give me the controls."

Joe beamed in victory and they switched places.

A few minutes later, they were rounding the sand dune and looking over at the lights.

For the first time, Joe could see under the water.

The lights were extremely bright, they illuminated a good portion of the sea floor.

From this angle, Joe could see four lights of the original 24. One long strip, two beside it, and one a bit to the right of it and a bit higher up.

As Joe watched, a shadow moved in front of the smaller light to the left.

Joe gasped.

The shadow was a circle attached to a long body; a person.

Her mouth gaped a bit as the shadow moved around, ducked down, stood back up, then shrunk out of sight.

A window, she realized.

It was a window.

Windows meant it was a base of some kind, people meant it was active, and no one knowing about it meant it wasn't legal.

"That's enough." Kai declared turning the sub around and heading back so they could resurface.

Joe didn't argue, she was busy processing this new information