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Page 375
lence. They turned to watch the questing vacuum intake tube of the airlift working on a long sedimentary ridge in the sea bottom caused by the missile's slide toward deeper water. Wherever the tube touched, an instant depression in the sediment was formed, as silt was sucked into the airlift. Now they sat transfixed, watching as mud and debris were drawn up from the bottom of the bay and the rotting white carcasses of fish swirled, spun, and then were consumed by the searching mouth of the airlift.
Morgan was watching an even more important item, the heads-up readout of a radiation counter, superimposed on the upper right-hand comer of the picture. The count hovered near 2,200 roentgens. The water flowing through the airlift tube was lethal, and few watching knew how deadly. Nuclear radiation exposure was measured in millirems, and U.S. law limited it to no more than 5,000 millirems of radiation a year. This count was 400 times that level.
But the RPV officer brought the counter to general attention, and her voice reflected her respect for the presence of the enormous killing force lying in the silt at the bottom of the bay. ''Judging from the bottom traces and a radiation trail detector,'' Commander Hebert said soberly, "we conclude that the missile was originally deployed closer to shore. And from intelligence suppliedvery late, I must sayby the U.S. Navy, we conclude that the device was emplaced last December." She turned an angry, but contained, glance on Arkady Karmann. "This information has been confirmed by one of our Russian experts, Academician Karmann, as was the preset time of detonation. More on this later, Colonel Morgan?"
"Definitely later," Morgan said. Washington and Ottawa had been undecided about the advisability of letting members of the joint task force know of Arkady Karmann's part in the deployment of the device. Among the Canadians present at this briefing were local people, Inuit, who were suffering personal tragedies caused by the plutonium contamination in the water. With tensions this high, everyone in officialdom was

 
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