Deep Storm

Al Ta

"It's Wah-zoh," Loiseau muttered under his breath. You'd think that in a gourmet kitchen, people would know how to pronounce a French name. Maybe they were all just teasing him. But the fact was only Renault, the executive chef, pronounced his name properly-and he rarely condescended to call people by name, preferring to beckon with a curt movement of his index finger.

With a sigh, he turned back to the range. No time for daydreaming. Right now he had to prepare some béchamel sauce: a whole lot of béchamel, in fact. Chef Renault was serving tournedos sauce Mornay and côtelettes d'agneau Écossais on the di

Sweat the onion, incorporate the roux… As he went over his mise en place, Loiseau felt his heartbeat accelerate again and his breathing grow shallow. It was possible he was getting sick, of course. But he thought he had a better explanation for the sweaty palms and sleepless nights: anxiety. It was one thing to work on an aircraft carrier, with its cavernous hangars and endless echoing corridors. But this was different. During the protracted vetting process, with its endless interviews, he hadn't stopped to think much about actually living in Deep Storm. The pay was fantastic, and the thought of participating in a classified, cutting-edge project was a little intoxicating. He'd spent five years in the Navy, working in admirals' kitchens: how different could it be, cooking beneath the sea instead of floating on it?

As it turned out, nothing could have prepared him.

Christ, it's hot. He slowly added a pale roux to the mixture of milk, thyme, bay leaf, butter, and onion. As he bent over the pot, whisking vigorously, a brief sensation of dizziness washed over him and he had to step back, gulping for air. He was hyperventilating, that was the problem. Get your nerves under control, Bobby-boy. Shift's just starting and there's a ton of shit to do.

Now Ta

"Yeah, fine," Loiseau said. Once Ta

Thing was, he hadn't counted on missing sunlight and fresh air quite so much. And at least aircraft carriers moved. Loiseau had never thought of himself as being claustrophobic, but living in a metal box, with no way to get out and all that ocean pressing down on your head…well, it got to you after a while. Whoever had designed Deep Storm had done an ingenious job of miniaturization-and at first, when he was working in Top, the galley on deck 11, he hadn't noticed it so much. But then he'd been transferred to Central, the deck 7 kitchen. And things down here were a little more cramped. When it got busy, when the flour really started to fly, so many bodies were packed in you could barely move. And that was when, these last few days, Loiseau had felt the worst. Waking up today, the first thing he'd thought about was the di

He gripped the stainless-steel range handle tightly as a spasm of indigestion lanced through his stomach. The dizziness returned and-with a faint sense of alarm now-he shook his head to clear it. Maybe he was getting sick, after all. Maybe he was coming down with the flu. When he went off shift, he'd stop by Medical. Either way, nerves or illness, they could help.

With an effort he went back to whisking the sauce, backing it carefully off from the boil, trying to concentrate as he checked it for color and aroma. As he did so, he noticed a "ru

That was something else that bothered Loiseau: all the security. It was a lot more noticeable down here than it had been in Top. He could always tell the ones who worked in the classified areas: they huddled together at a table away from the others, heads together, talking in low tones. Why did a scientific expedition have to be so hush-hush, anyway? With all the secrecy, he had no idea how the expedition itself was going or what kind of progress they were making. And that meant he also had no idea when he would be able to get out of here and go home again.

Home…

Suddenly, a stronger wave of dizziness washed over him. Loiseau staggered, grabbing for the range handle again. This was no fit of nerves: this was something else. Something serious. Fear stabbed through him as he fought to keep upright.

Abruptly, his vision began to dim. Around the kitchen, people were pausing their work, putting down their knives, spatulas, and wooden spoons to stare at him. Somebody was speaking to him, but sound had attenuated to a murmur and he couldn't make it out. Reaching out to maintain his balance, Loiseau grabbed for the heavy pot full of béchamel but just missed, slipping off its side. He felt nothing. Yet another wave of dizziness, even more overpowering. And now an unpleasant scent rose to his nostrils: the smell of singed hair and overcooked meat. He wondered if it was a hallucination. People were ru

16

"Are you almost done, Doctor?"

Crane turned to see Renault, the executive chef, hovering nearby, arms crossed, a look of strong disapproval on his face.

"Almost." And, turning back to a rack holding at least a hundred small tubs of butter, he selected one at random, peeled the plastic wrapping from its top, and scraped about a teaspoon into a small test tube.

The walk-in cooler of Central had been a revelation. It was stocked not only with typical restaurant fare-poultry, beef, eggs, garden vegetables, milk, and the like-but also ingredients that would be more at home in three-star establishments on the Continent. Black and white truffles; near-priceless aged balsamic vinegar in tiny glass bulbs; pheasant, grouse, goose, plover; large tins of Russian and Iranian caviar. And everything was packed into a space no larger than ten feet by twenty. Given such an embarrassment of riches, Crane had been forced to limit his samples to the most common items that most people were likely to ingest every day. Even so, almost all the two hundred test tubes of his sampling kit were now full-and the hour-long process had strained the patience of the executive chef to the breaking point.

Replacing the tub of butter, Crane moved to the next rack, which contained the basic liquids for the house vinaigrette: fine old French white wine vinegars and cold-pressed olive oil.