Polar Shift

energy.'

'It will be a pleasure.'

Gant was a master at hiding his own emotions, but he had a talent for reading the expressions of others. Doyle looked like a bulldog about to be served a slab of steak.

'You don't like him, do you?'

'Tris? Naw. He's always treated me like crap. He thinks I'm his monkey. Tells me to fetch coffee and drinks, and pop a beer as my reward. I'm pretty invisible to a guy like him.'

'That's what makes you so valuable to the Freedom Project. You're better than a fly on the wall. You'll be rewarded far beyond your dreams. If it's any consolation to you now, for all Margrave's brilliance he doesn't have a clue about what's going on under his nose. He has no idea that the security company working for him is a private army for the very 'Elites,' as he calls them, whom he wishes to humble. He thinks his little project is going to forward the goals of his neo-anarchist friends. He doesn't realize that what he is doing will destroy him and his unwashed fools, and solidify the power of those he would like to defeat.'

'What do you want to do about the old guy in Montana?'

Gant chuckled. 'My philosophic ravings must bore you.'

'Not at all. I just need some direction.'

'I wouldn't think that you'd want to tangle with that old grizzly bear again after he mauled two of your men.'

'He was smart. They were dumb.'

'I don't like loose ends, but he is no longer a priority. With the information on the girl, we don't need him anymore. One more thing. Those lawyers who were in my office. I'd like you to dispose of them. Do your best to make it look accidental. An explosion in their office, perhaps.'

Doyle rose from his chair. 'I'll get on it right away.'

After Doyle left, Gant went to his window and looked out at Massachusetts Avenue. The fools in this city thought that they were living in the most powerful country in the world. They never understood that military power was limited. The organization of Elites that he was part of knew that political ends were not achieved by guns alone but by close surveillance and total control of all communication.

Goals that would soon be realized.

15

Austin leaned against a rail on the Throckmorton and peered through binoculars at the ship that had suddenly appeared from the heart of the sea. The vessel listed drunkenly to one side, and sat so low in the water that the three-foot seas were splashing onto the deck. By some miracle, the ship somehow managed to stubbornly resist being pulled back to its watery grave.

As an experienced salvage expert, Austin had pulled objects of every size and shape off the bottom, ranging from atomic bombs to submarines. He knew that simple physics suggested that the ship should not be afloat at all. At the same time, he was aware that strange things happen at sea. He was not a superstitious man, but years sailing the world's oceans had made the unexplainable commonplace. He was no different from many sailors who bestowed vessels with human qualities. The ship seemed determined to tell its story. And Austin was just as determined to hear what it had to say.

'What's keeping her afloat?' said Zavala.

'I don't know what's keeping her up or why she popped to the surface,' Austin said. 'She could have been stuck in the muddy bottom or weighted down by cargo. Maybe the whirlpool shook things loose, and it rode to the surface like a wood chip.' He noticed Zavala's skeptical expression, and said, 'Okay, I don't have the foggiest idea why she came to the surface and why she hasn't sunk. Are you up for taking a closer look at her?'

Like Austin, Zavala was wrapped in a blanket that the crew had supplied when they came aboard after rescuing the Trouts. 'I was hoping to settle in with a bottle of reposada, but I can be ready to get up in the chopper again as soon as I change into some dry clothes.'

Austin had forgotten that his clothes were soaking wet from his ocean dip.

'I was thinking of going over by boat so we could go aboard and look around,' he said.

'I'm always up for a boat ride. Besides, tequila tastes better as it ages.'

Austin suggested that they meet at the boat launcher. He went to his cabin and exchanged his soggy clothes for dry ones. Before hooking up again with Zavala, he stopped at the sick bay to check on the Trouts. They were sleeping. The medical tech said they were suffering from exposure and exhaustion but after a few hours of rest they would be fine.

On the way out of sick bay, he encountered Professor Adler, who was anxious to talk to the Trouts about their firsthand experience in the whirlpool. The professor was disappointed that he couldn't see them, but he seemed happy when Austin suggested that he speak instead to some of the crew of the Benjamin Franklin, who had been transported to the Throckmorton to have their injuries treated. The Franklin was anchored near the Throckmorton while recovering from its battering.

Austin met Zavala at the launch boom as planned, and minutes later their boat was cutting a foamy way toward the mystery ship. Austin steered the inflatable around the vessel in a big circle while Zavala snapped photographs. The sea was covered with dead fish and debris of every kind. Austin measured the vessel with his eye, comparing it to the NOAA and NUMA ships.

'She looks fairly new. I'd say she's around three hundred feet long,' he said.

'She looks like I feel after a night out on the town,' Zavala said. 'She's fairly wide in the beam. Built to take a sizable load of cargo. But I don't see any cargo booms. They must have been knocked off in the whirlpool.'

'There's no name or registration numbers on the hull,' Austin said.

'Maybe we're looking at a pirate ship.'

Zavala's suggestion was not as bizarre as it sounded. Modern-day piracy was a big problem on the seas of the world. Like their ancient counterparts, pirates captured ships and used them to attack other vessels.

'Maybe,' Austin said, but he sounded unconvinced. The vessel was in fairly good condition, considering that she had lain on the bottom of the sea. 'From the look of her, she was only submerged a short while. I don't see any unusual rust, although it might have been blasted off.' He slowed the boat down to a crawl. 'We've seen everything we can from sea level. Let's go aboard?'

'Proper protocol says we should wait for an invitation from the captain?' Zavala said.

'Yes, under ordinary circumstances. But he seems to be otherwise occupied. I think I see the cocktail flag flying,' Austin said.

'You've got better eyesight than I have. All I see is a hulk that looks as if it would roll over if a seagull landed on the deck.'

'In that case, we'd better make sure we're wearing our water wings.'

While Zavala contacted the Throckmorton on a hand radio and asked the ship to stand by in case of an emergency, Austin brought the boat around to the lower side of the ship. He waited for a wave to roll in, then gunned the motor. The boat rode up on the crest and the power of the sea carried the Zodiak onto the deck. Zavala quickly tied the boat to a metal stub projecting from the deck. Leaning forward like roofers to compensate for the ship's list, they half walked, half crawled up the slanting deck. The broad expanse was clear except for a twisted tangle of metal that protruded from the deck at the ship's midpoint.

They made their way across the deck using their loping, bent-over walk. Four girders had been bolted to the deck to form a rectangle of steel. The framework surrounded a rectangular opening in the deck about twenty feet square. They leaned over and peered into a dark shaft. They could hear the hollow swish of waves against metal.

'The shaft goes all the way to the bottom,' Zavala observed. 'Wonder what it was for?'

'My guess is that they used it to put something in and take it out. This framework might have supported a crane of some sort.'

The fallen framework was partially obscured by a tangle of thick electrical cable that looked like a pile of black