Free Operation Barracuda (2005) by Tom - Splinter Cell 02 Clancy

under me, the president and vice president, and the people in this room .”
    Morris Cooper leaned forward. “Is that some kind of accusation, Lambert? You think one of us —?”
    “Gentlemen, please,” Senator Coldwater said. “No one’s blaming anyone in here.”
    Lambert took a breath and continued. “I have a man tracking down the Shop’s known directors as we speak. We have successfully identified them and we are hot on their trails.”
    “I’m happy to hear that, Colonel,” Cooper said.
    Darrell Blake came to Lambert’s defense. “The FBI is looking for these men as well. What’s the CIA doing?”
    “Oh, we’re on the lookout, don’t you worry,” Cooper said. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms.
    Senator Coldwater nodded. “Fine. At any rate, gentlemen, nothing has been decided yet. The budget is still being broken down and analyzed. Colonel, I will take your words under advisement. Let’s move on.” She then nodded at Admiral Colgan.
    The naval officer cleared his throat and spoke. “Senator Coldwater, gentlemen, thank you for allowing me and my colleague, Charles Kay—you all know Charlie, the director of SeaStrike Technologies?”
    Some of them shook their heads. Lambert had heard of him but never met the man. SeaStrike Technologies was a subsidiary of a major defense corporation that researched and developed tools and weaponry for the U.S. Navy.
    “SeaStrike Technologies has been working with the navy for several years now on our MRUUV project. You’re all familiar with that.”
    Lambert nodded. So that was what this was about. The MRUUV program had been initiated by the Naval Sea Systems Command to research and develop the technology necessary to create a Mission-Reconfigurable Unmanned Undersea Vehicle—the MRUUV—capable of being launched from the twenty-one-inch torpedo tube that is standard on all U.S. Navy submarines. The last Lambert had heard about the project was that SeaStrike was close to realizing its completion.
    “Charlie, why don’t you tell everyone what you came here to say?” Colgan asked.
    Kay nervously pulled on his shirt collar and then spoke with the clarity of a scientist. “At the heart of the MRUUV project is that it’s the evolutionary development of the tube-launched long-range mine reconnaissance system, or the LMRS. We intend for it to be launched from a Virginia-class or Los Angeles-class attack submarine for clandestine ISR, as well as mine neutralization and tactical ocean survey.”
    Lambert’s interest perked up. ISR stood for “intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance”—just the stuff that was Third Echelon’s expertise.
    Kay stood and moved to the covered easel. He removed the drape to reveal a rendering of a sleek, tubular rod with various sensors and probes sticking out of it.
    “This is our MRUUV,” he said. “It is mission-reconfigurable and offers advantages over single-mission UUVs because submarine torpedo spaces are too small to carry separate twenty-one-inch UUVs for each mission. By reconfiguring sensor packages and other mission payloads on the UUV either inside the submarine or at a support facility ashore, the mission payload can be optimized for the submarine’s overall mission.” Kay pointed to the rendering with his pencil. “The Flight 1 MRUUV has a diameter of twenty-one inches and weighs approximately twenty-eight hundred pounds. It will capitalize on the BLQ-11 long-range mine reconnaissance system to provide an initial ISR capability for current SSNs. It’s operated from its mother sub and it communicates directly to the sub or indirectly via satellite communications with other nodes. The system uses its mother sub’s navigation systems for mission planning and is capable of receiving mission updates from the Global Positioning System. The real beauty about it is that the MRUUV can use modular payloads that can be swapped out.”
    Kay turned and then smiled at everyone in the room. “And