Calypso's Mast

Chapter 33 - Eye in the Sky

Maddock set his coffee down on the desk and with his mouse wheel, scrolled through the emails. Then, he checked the North Queensland weather. His pulse quickened a little when he saw it was clearing.

He flicked over to the satellite images from the first flyover of the morning. The winds were northerly but the cloud cover was receding northward. Fantastic! He picked up his coffee and zoomed in. He might be able to see something.

A moment later, he slammed the cup down, spilling coffee all over his desk. He hastily grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial.

"Moira. Can you get in here quick? I've found that goddamn submarine. It's sitting just off the edge of the continental shelf." He hung up the phone and zoomed in further, studying it. It was a black smudge in the water, but the clear straight lines of a man-made machine were plainly visible against the random curves of nature.

Shield's was there in seconds and she came around his desk and peered over his shoulder at the screen as he mopped up the spilt coffee with a napkin. She nodded.

"That's him alright," she said. "So that's where he is hiding. Good find. I'll call the Navy. This one's ours."

"It was a fluke. It was the first image from this morning's first daylight pass. I spotted it straight away," said Maddock.

She picked up Maddock's phone.

"Yes well, we won't be telling them that," she said. "Better that they think we have an army of analysts on the job. Oh, Gary, Hi. It's Moira Shields from Border Protection. We've located that submarine."

Maddock clicked a control on the screen and the mouse pointer changed to cross-hairs. He zoomed in and centred the crosshairs on the submarine. A set of coordinates beside the centre of the crosshairs indicated the latitude and longitude.

"Don't worry about how we know. We just do," she said into the phone. "We've done our job and found the submarine. You guys need to get going and do something now. Go and sharpen up this sucker."

She leaned over Maddock's shoulder and peered closely at the screen.

"He is sitting just out, off the continental shelf at location 12 degrees, 6 minutes south, 143 degrees, 58 minutes east...Ok. I'll talk to you later." She hung up.

"That will give their guys some excitement for the day," she said. "Where's Hatfield? Can we get him on his satellite phone?"

"Standby," said Maddock. He picked his phone up and dialled it.

"Winston," he said. "This is Arthur Maddock. Yes. How are you?"

He listened for a moment.

"Winston, I've got Moira Shields here with me. We've found that submarine on a high resolution satellite image. Are you up in the plane? It sounds like it...good. Can you check out the contact? I'm going to text you the coordinates. Okay. Good, thanks. See you."

He hung up.

"He said that they were up early and have been out, looking for it." Maddock opened the Sat-phone provider's website on his computer. He entered Hatfield's phone number and the coordinates into the text field and hit the send button. "They can go and check it out."

"I hope they beat the Navy. He's got a camera hasn't he? Get him to take some footage so we can put it on the news."

"All right." Maddock typed another message into the texting program.

"It's done," he said. "What's next?"

"Let's set up an operations room so that we can manage the flow of information. We need some space to make sure everything is tasked correctly, and we handle the media appropriately," said Shields. "Grab a couple of guys from down the hall to give you a hand."