Polar Shift

imaginable.

At the center of the puckered area was a massive bubbling, like that made when a scuba diver is about to surface, only much bigger. Then the water rose in a greenish white mound, and a huge object emerged from the sea and wallowed in the waves.

In its death throes, the maelstrom had disgorged a ship.

11

The LA-250 Renegade amphibious airplane had followed the rocky Maine coast to Camden, where it wheeled above a line of swanlike windjammers leaving the picturesque harbor and then headed east over Penobscot Bay. Its destination was a pear-shaped island easily identified by the candy-striped red-and-white lighthouse that stood on a high promontory at its narrower end.

The plane made a water landing near the lighthouse and taxied up to a mooring buoy. Two men got out of the plane, climbed into an outboard skiff that was tied up at the mooring and headed toward a wooden dock, where a cigarette boat and a forty-eight-foot schooner were tied up. They left the skiff and walked along the dock to a steep flight of stairs that led up the side of a rugged cliff. The bright Maine sunshine reflected off Spider Barrett's shaved head and colorful tattoo. Barrett looked as if he could single-handedly cause a biker riot. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt that revealed thick arms covered with skull tattoos. His eyes were hidden behind round-framed, reflecting blue sunglasses. A gold ring dangled from one ear, he had a silver stud in his nostril and an Iron Cross hung from a silver chain around his neck.

The Hell's Angel look was deceiving. Although Barrett owned a fortune in classic Harley-Davidson motorcycles, he was an honors graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he had majored in quantum physics.

The pilot was named Mickey Doyle. He was a compactly built man who looked like a walking sports bar. He wore a Celtics T-shirt and a New England Patriots zippered sweatshirt. A Red Sox baseball cap was jammed down on a thatch of unruly hair the color of carrot juice. He was chewing on a thick cigar stub. Doyle had grown up in tough, working-class South Boston. He had a quick, street-smart intelligence and antic Irish sense of humor, and a disarming smile that charmed the unwary but failed to soften the hardness in his blue eyes.

A man carrying an automatic rifle materialized from a thicket of low-growing blueberry bushes. He was dressed in a camouflage uniform and wore a black beret at a rakish angle. He gave the two men a hostile stare, jerked the gun barrel toward the base of the cliff and followed a few paces behind, his weapon cradled in his arm.

At the foot of the bluff, the guard clicked a remote and a door disguised as rock facing opened. On the other side was an elevator that whisked them up to the lighthouse.

As they stepped from the lighthouse they saw Tristan Margrave, who had been chopping wood and stacking it into a neat pile. He put his ax down, waved the armed man away and walked over to greet the newcomers with a handshake.

'So much for my peace and quiet,' he said, a mock frown on his thin, satanic face.

He was taller than the other two men by a foot. Although his hands were callused from cutting wood, he was neither a laborer nor a New York Times reporter named Barnes, as he had introduced himself to the detective Frank Malloy. He had met Barrett at MIT, where he had graduated with a degree in advanced computer science. Working together, they had developed innovative software that had made them millionaires many times over.

Barrett watched the departing guard disappear into the trees. 'You didn't have the guard dog the last time I was here.'

'Guy from the security company I hired,' Margrave said dismissively. 'There's a contingent of them camped farther down the island. Gant and I thought it might be good to hire them.'

'And what Gant wants, Gant gets.'

'I know you don't like the guy, but Jordan is vital to our efforts. We need his foundation to negotiate the political agreements we're going to get after our work is done.'

'Lucifer's Legion not good enough for you anymore?'

Margrave chuckled. 'My so-called legion began to fall apart as soon as there was any hint of discipline. You know how anarchists hate authority. I needed professionals. They call themselves 'consultants' these days, and charge an arm and a leg for their services. He was just doing his job.'

'What is his job?'

'To make sure no unauthorized visitors come onto the island.'

'Were you expecting visitors?'

'Our enterprise is too important to fail.' Margrave grinned. 'Hell, what if someone saw a guy with a spider tattoo on his head and began asking questions?'

Barrett shrugged and glanced at the woodpile. 'Glad to see you're living your retro philosophy, but cutting all those logs would be a lot easier with a chain saw. I know you can afford one.'

'I'm a neo-anarchist, not a neo-Luddite. I believe in technology when it's for the good of mankind. Besides, the chain saw is broken.' He turned to the pilot. 'How was the flight from Portland, Mickey?'

'Smooth. I flew over Camden, hoping the pretty sailboats would cheer your partner up.'

'Why should he need cheering up?' Margrave said. 'He's about to enter the pantheon of science. What's going on, Spider?'

'We've got problems.'

'That's what you said on the phone. I thought you were kidding.'

Barrett gave him a bleak smile. 'Not this time.'

'In that case, I think we all need a drink.' Margrave led the way up a flagstone walkway that led to the big, two-story, white clapboard building attached to the lighthouse.

When Margrave bought the island three years earlier, he had decided to preserve the keeper's house as it had been in the days when it quartered the taciturn men who manned the lonely station. The pine-board walls had bead-board wainscoting, and the worn linoleum flooring was original, as were the slate sink and hand pump in the kitchen.

Margrave gave Doyle's shoulder a squeeze. 'Hey, Mickey, Spider and I have some stuff to discuss. There's a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in the pantry. Rustle up a couple of drinks, like a good fellow. There's beer in the fridge for you.'

'Aye-aye, Captain,' the pilot said with a grin and a brisk salute.

The other two men ascended a painted wrought-iron spiral staircase to the second floor. The upper level, which once housed bedrooms for the keeper and his family, had been gutted to create one large room.

The clinical minimalist decor stood in stark contrast to the preservation on the ground floor. A laptop computer sat on a black teak table on one side of the room. A chrome-and-leather sofa and a couple of armchairs were the only furniture on the other side. Windows on three walls offered views of the island, with its tall pine trees, and the sparkling waters of the bay. Flowing through the open windows was the salty scent of the sea.

Margrave motioned Barrett into the sofa and settled into a chair. Doyle arrived a few minutes later and served the drinks. He popped a can of Budweiser for himself and took a seat at the table.

Margrave raised his glass in a toast. 'Here's to you, Spider. The bright lights of New York City will never be the same. Too bad your genius must go unrecognized.'

'Genius had nothing to do with it. Electromagnetism runs almost every part of our lives. Fiddle around with the magnetic fields and it's easy to mess stuff up.'

'That's the understatement of the century,' Margrave said, roaring with laughter. 'You should have seen the look on that cop's face when his name was plastered all over Times Square and Broadway.'

'Wish I could have been there in person, but it was easy enough to do from my house. The locator you carried in your recorder did its job. The big question is whether our demonstration put us anywhere nearer our goal.'

A cloud seemed to pass over Margrave's brow. 'I've been checking the media reports,' he said with a shake of his head. 'The spin machine is going full steam. The Elites are saying it was a fluke that the disruptions coincided