40 degrees North, 180 degrees West, North Pacific. The CIA ship Hughes Glomar Explorer has company: the radar ship Chazhma (which set sail from Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka to support a Soyuz launch) arrives. A helicopter lifts off from the Soviet ship, flies closely over the CIA ship (whose compartment containing Clementine, for lifting the K-129—PL-574 for the Russians—has been appropriately covered) and takes photographs. The Americans respond by also taking photographs of the helicopter and the ship… The official reason for the American ship’s presence is to test new techniques for collecting manganese nodules for the Hughes Corporation. Chazhma will leave the site four days later.
