Nat Damon signed the paper with a flourish. “I’ve never been asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement before.”

“I’m surprised,” the man in the shiny suit said, taking the paper back. “I would have thought it was standard procedure. We don’t want our proprietary information to be disclosed.” He was a lawyer accompanying his client, a bearded man with glasses, wearing jeans and a work shirt. This bearded man said he was a petroleum geologist, and Damon believed him. He certainly looked like the other petroleum geologists he had dealt with.

Damon’s company was called Canada Marine RS Technologies; from a tiny, cramped office outside Vancouver, Damon leased research submarines and remote submersibles to clients around the world. Damon didn’t own these subs; he just leased them. The subs were located all over the world—in Yokohama, Dubai, Melbourne, San Diego. They ranged from fully operational fifty-foot submersibles with crews of six, capable of traveling around the globe, to tiny one-man diving machines and even smaller remote robotic vehicles that operated from a tender ship on the surface.

Damon’s clients were energy and mining companies who used the subs for undersea prospecting or to check the condition of offshore rigs and platforms. His was a specialized business, and his little office at the back of a boat repair yard did not receive many visitors.

Yet these two men had come through his door just before closing time. The lawyer had done all of the talking; the client merely gave Damon a business card that said Seismic Services, with a Calgary address. That made sense; Calgary was a big city for hydrocarbon companies. Petro-Canada, Shell, and Suncor were all there, and many more. And dozens of small private consulting firms had sprung up there to do prospecting and research.

Damon took a small model down from the shelf behind him. It was a tiny white snub-nosed submarine with a bubble top. He set it on the table in front of the men.

“This is the vehicle I would recommend for your needs,” he said. “The RS Scorpion, built in England just four years ago. Two-man crew. Diesel and electric power with closed cycle argon drive. Submerged, it runs on twenty percent oxygen, eighty percent argon. Solid, proven technology: potassium hydroxide scrubber, two-hundred-volt electrical, operational depth of two thousand feet, and 3.8 hours dive time. It’s the equivalent of the Japanese Shinkai 2000, if you know that one, or the DownStar 80, of which there are four in the world, but they’re all on long leases. The Scorpion is an excellent submarine.”

The men nodded, and looked at each other. “And what kind of external manipulators are there?” the bearded man said.

“That’s depth dependent,” Damon said. “At lesser depths—”

“Let’s say at two thousand feet. What external manipulators are there?”

“You want to collect samples at two thousand feet?”

“Actually, we’re placing monitoring devices on the bottom.”

“I see. Like radio devices? Sending data to the surface?”

“Something like that.”

“How large are these devices?”

The bearded man held his hands two feet apart. “About so big.”

“And they weigh what?”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. Maybe two hundred pounds.”

Damon concealed his surprise. Usually petroleum geologists knew precisely what they were going to place. Exact dimensions, exact weight, exact specific gravity, all that. This guy was vague. But perhaps Damon was just being paranoid. He continued. “And these sensors are for geological work?”

“Ultimately. First we need information on ocean currents, flow rates, bottom temperatures. That kind of thing.”

Damon thought: For what? Why did they need to know about currents? Of course, they might be sinking a tower, but nobody would do that in two thousand feet of water.

What were these guys intending to do?

“Well,” he said, “if you want to place external devices, you have to secure them to the exterior of the hull prior to the dive. There are lateral shelves on each side—” he pointed to the model “—for that purpose. Once you’re at depth, you have a choice of two remote arms to place the devices. How many devices are you talking about?”

“Quite a few.”

“More than eight?”

“Oh yes. Probably.”

“Well, then you’re talking about multiple dives. You can only take eight, maybe ten external devices on any given dive.” He talked on for a while, scanning their faces, trying to understand what lay behind the bland looks. They wanted to lease the sub for four months, starting in August of that year. They wanted the sub and the tender ship transported to Port Moresby, New Guinea. They would pick it up there.

“Depending on where you go, there are some required marine licenses—”

“We’ll worry about that later,” the lawyer said.

“Now, the crew—”

“We’ll worry about that later, too.”

“It’s part of the contract.”

“Then just write it in. However you do it.”

“You’ll return the tender to Moresby at the end of the lease period?”

“Yes.”

Damon sat down in front of the desktop computer and began to fill in the estimate forms. There were, all in all, forty-three categories (not including insurance) that had to be filled out. At last he had the final number. “Five hundred and eighty three thousand dollars,” he said.

The men didn’t blink. They just nodded.

“Half in advance.”

They nodded again.

“Second half in escrow account prior to your taking delivery in Port Moresby.” He never required that with his regular customers. But for some reason, these two made him uneasy.

“That will be fine,” the lawyer said.

“Plus twenty percent contingency, payable in advance.”

That was simply unnecessary. But now he was trying to make these guys go away. It didn’t work.

“That will be fine.”

“Okay,” Damon said. “Now, if you need to talk to your contracting company before you sign—”

“No. We’re prepared to proceed now.”

And then one of them pulled out an envelope and handed it to Damon.

“Tell me if this is satisfactory.”

It was a check for $250,000. From Seismic Services, payable to Canada Marine. Damon nodded, and said it was. He put the check and the envelope on his desk, next to the submarine model.

Then one of the men said, “Do you mind if I make a couple of notes?” and picked up the envelope and scribbled on it. And it was only after they were gone that Damon realized they had given him the check and taken back the envelope. So there would be no fingerprints.

Or was he just being paranoid? The following morning, he was inclined to think so. When he went to Scotiabank to deposit the check, he stopped by to see John Kim, the bank manager, and asked him to find out if there were sufficient funds in the Seismic Services account to cover the check.

John Kim said he would check right away.