Breakthrough (Breakthrough, #1)

by Michael C. Grumley

“Run integrity checks on both systems.” “Already started, sir.” All eyes turned to the monitor now displaying the results. “Systems report no consistency errors.” Great, broken software that doesn’t even know it’s broken. Sykes looked closely at the orange GPS display. “Try re-synching the satellites.” Willie complied and waited. He began to slowly shake his head. “Birds look good. I’ve got five…now six. Pinpointed to one meter and reporting the same coordinates.” The Commander didn’t respond. He remained focused on the GPS screen, thinking. Eugene stuck his head out of the tiny radio area and dropped his headset around his neck. “Sir, I’ve been picking up something for the last few minutes on sonar. It might be related.”

Captain Ashman replied to the knock on his door with a simple “Enter.” Sykes stepped in his head barely an inch from the piping overhead. “What it is?” he hardly needed to look up from his own reading to know who it was. “Sir, we seem to be encountering some problems with our navigation system. It’s put our position off by about fifteen miles.” Ashman looked up. “Fifteen miles?” “Yes, sir.” “Did you run diagnostics?” Sykes nodded. “Yes sir, by the book but cannot find any problems.” Ashman tapped his finger gently against pursed lips. “Could our speed be off?”

The Cayman Islands were first discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1503. Named Las Tortugas after the many sea turtles, the islands were governed as a single colony for centuries, until they became an official British territory in the late 1960’s. Like many Caribbean islands, the majority of business in the Caymans was tourism, flocked to regularly by thousands of sunburned, overweight Americans with too much money and a penchant for cat naps. Arriving in Georgetown and setting out for adventure in their sparkling rental cars and air conditioning, most visitors would be hard pressed to spot remains of the devastation inflicted by the hurricane just a few years earlier. Progress could be simply astounding when it came to the anticipation of more money.

Swimming with dolphins was beyond what most could imagine, and she should know, she did it as often as possible. She rarely missed a Friday, as it was the one day that the aquarium opened late, leaving a forty-five-minute window between feeding time and opening time. Over the last five years, Dirk and Sally had especially come to enjoy their swims together, it was more than obvious. They constantly swirled around her, letting her run her hands over their slick bodies, and in turn, would playfully bump her as they passed beneath. She looked at her watch, gave them one last pat, and headed for the ladder. Alison Shaw surfaced and held onto the ladder while she cleared her mask. She noticed a distorted shape quickly approach and looked up, removing her foggy goggles to see Chris smiling down at her. “Weren’t you just downstairs?” she asked, brushing hair out of her eyes. He did not answer.

The silver doors opened, and John Clay stepped out of the oversized elevator. With a sharp right, he made his way down the long white hallway of the Pentagon’s D ring. From the far end of the hall, Admiral Langford spotted Clay and broke off his conversation with another officer. He walked to meet him and handed Clay a thick folder. “Sorry, Clay.” The admiral was shorter by a couple inches but moved erect and with a sharpness that always made Clay feel he was looking up. They met several years prior when Admiral Langford took over the department. He’d been under Langford ever since. Clay fell into step with Langford as he opened the folder and scanned the first page. “A computer glitch, sir?” “Apparently there’s more to it,” Langford responded calmly. “It was originally filed as a glitch, but we can’t replicate it.” He nodded to a woman walking past them. “Navigation system was working perfectly since the sub left port and then, all of the sudden, they’re fifteen miles off course.” Clay tried to keep up while flipping through several pages of what most would consider random computer code. “Any changes in direction?”

Clay turned a corner and passed a number of offices. His aide, Jennifer, was clearly expecting him when he opened the door and walked through. “Hi, John.” She said, hanging up the phone. “How were the Caymans?” “You would have hated it,” he smiled and moved past her into his office. “No reality TV.” She grinned and followed him with a folder of her own. “I’ll be sure to cross it off my list.” Jennifer laid the folder out and set aside his stack of messages, which Clay eyed with dismay. “All of these in just three days?” “You’re a popular guy.” She flipped through the folder for his benefit. She pulled out a number of documents from the back. “And these need your signature.” “What would I do without you?”

Will Borger was a true throwback from the hippy generation, though technically a few years too young to actually qualify. He wore his hair long in a ponytail, likely trying to make up for the top of his head which was losing ground. He routinely wore round glasses and loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts. He was the epitome of the old computer geek and Clay, and Caesare liked him immensely. The two walked into the lab, filled with computer and satellite equipment, some so complex that it was almost unrecognizable even to them. Most of the shelves were a tangle of wires and cables, connecting dozens of monitors, computers, oscilloscopes, and amplifiers. Clay estimated that Borger had enough coax cable in his office to start a television company. A wooden desk sat in the corner under an old lamp with almost a dozen keyboards, some stacked on top of each other.