Polar Shift

their attention.'

Karla nodded and dug in her pocket for a phone. She punched out an emergency number. When she got through to the police, she conveyed Austin's message. 'They say they'll have someone check it out,' she said. 'I'm not sure they believed me.'

The bikers were moving up again. Austin was pushing the car's envelope. He should have been dealing with the various controls governing water level, fuel pressure, pilot and other functions, but he was too busy staying on the road.

A moving shadow appeared suddenly on the highway. Austin glanced up and to the side. A helicopter was pacing them. 'That was fast!'

'It's not the police,' Karla said. 'It's a television station traffic helicopter.'

The helicopter appeared overhead and easily kept up with the chase. Austin frantically scoured his brain for a plan, but he had exhausted all his options. The car flew past an off-ramp. Austin glanced in the mirror and saw the bikes slow, then make a turn onto the ramp.

'Our friends have deserted us,' he said.

Karla turned just as the last Rebel soldier turned off the highway. 'Why?' she said.

'Camera shy. They don't want to be on the six o'clock news.'

He slowed the car down to a manageable sixty. He and Karla waved up at the helicopter.

They were still waving when three Virginia State Police cruisers caught up with them. Austin heeded the phalanx of flashing lights and the wail of sirens and pulled off the highway. The Stanley was immediately surrounded by armed police officers. Austin suggested to Karla that she keep her hands where the police could see them. Once the police got past their nervousness and checked Austin's license and NUMA ID, they seemed more interested in the steamer than its occupants.

Austin told them about the six bikers who had tried to force them off the road. At his suggestion, they talked with someone at NUMA, who vouched for Austin. The television station backed up the biker story. After about an hour, Austin got his license back, and was told he and Karla were free to go.

They stopped at a car wash to clean the grass and dirt off the car body. Austin was amazed to see that the car hadn't been damaged. People who were leaving the battlefield smiled and waved when they saw the steamer drive up a short while later. A tall man with dark hair and opaline eyes was waiting patiently for them.

Austin braked the car to a halt and smiled. 'Hi, Dirk. Thanks for the car loan.'

'I saw you go flying between the battlefield lines with the Hell's Angels on your tail. What's going on?'

'This is Karla Janos. Karla, Dirk Pitt.'

Pitt gave Karla his best smile. 'I was looking forward to meeting you, Miss Janos.'

'Thank you,' she said.

'How fast did you have her up to?' he asked Austin.

'Around a hundred.'

'Impressive,' Pitt said. 'I've only had her up to ninety.'

'Sorry to borrow your car without asking. We needed transportation in a hurry. Someone tried to kill us.'

'It's only a replica. Don't worry about it.' Pitt checked the car for damage, and, seeing none, said, 'Not everyone owns a car that was in the third battle of Bull Run.'

Austin's cell phone started playing the blues. He excused himself and put the phone up to his ear. Barrett was calling, and he sounded excited. There was a muffled engine roar in the background.

'I can barely hear you,' Austin said. 'What's that noise?'

'I always think better when I'm riding. I think I've got it.'

'Got what?'

'The nursery rhyme. It was code. I've got the formula for the antidote.'

Austin couldn't believe his ears. 'Say that again.'

'The antidote,' Barrett yelled, thinking Austin was simply not hearing over the noise of the motorcycle. 'I've got Lazlo Kovacs's antidote for polar shift.'

37

Shortly after the hot Brazilian sun dropped below the mountains, the handsome, 350-foot-long expedition vessel Polar Adventure slipped out of Rio de Janeiro harbor and headed on a southerly course toward the open waters of the Atlantic at its cruising speed of fifteen knots.

The Polar Adventure had been built by Danish shipbuilders in the late 1990s, and had enjoyed a busy schedule that took it to the Mediterranean, Europe, Greenland and most recently on Antarctic cruises. The ship had been purchased from its owners by a straw company set up expressly for that purpose by Gant's foundation.

The acquisition was purely an accounting device. On the books, the millions of dollars spent to acquire and refurbish the ship had been earmarked to build a factory in Santiago, Chile. The Adventure had been designed as a smaller version of the great ocean liners. The builders had lavishly decorated the decks and cabins with varnished wood and brass. Passengers could enjoy their voyage from the comfort of the outside cabins, the window-lined dining room, lounge, observation and covered promenade decks, or from an observation platform below the bridge.

As the ship plowed through the South Atlantic, Gant and Margrave stood on a balcony deep in the heart of the vessel. It overlooked a vast open space. A tall, cone-shaped metal structure, supported by extensive framework, rose from the center point of the space. Thick cables snaked out from the cone to four massive dynamos, two on either side of the structure. A covered moon pool below the cone allowed it to be lowered into the ocean.

'We essentially gutted every nonessential space below the main deck to make room for this setup,' Margrave said with a sweep of his hand. 'After our initial crude experiments, we decided that we didn't need four ships. One vessel, properly outfitted, could produce enough power to get the job done. We had been concentrating the low- frequency transmissions to a central point from the four ships.'

'Which, as I understand it,' Gant said, 'created a scattering of the electromagnetic vibrations along the periphery of the target area, setting off unexpected waves and whirlpools like the ones that sank our transmitter ship and the Southern Belle.'

'Right. We solved that problem by using the single transmitter you see here, with an increase in the power level. It also meant that we didn't have to build a new ship to replace the one destroyed in the initial experiments. We simply moved dynamos from the other three ships and added one.'

'Are you satisfied with the crew I got you?'

'They look like a bunch of cutthroats, but they know their way around a ship.'

'They should. They've cut their share of throats. I used my old business contacts to recruit them. They're all former pirates who went to work for an ocean-protection arm of our security company.'

The two men left the transmitter hold and strolled along the polished wooden floor of the promenade deck until they came to the observation deck below the bridge. Windows that wrapped around the outside of the comfortably furnished platform offered a view of the sharp bow cutting its way through the ocean.

'This is where the passengers would normally observe wildlife,' Margrave said. 'We'll be watching the reversal with our electronic eyes.'

He pressed a wall button and a screen dropped down showing a diagram of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. 'I've always liked home movies,' Gant said.

'You'll especially like these,' Margrave said with a chuckle. 'We'll have the entire target area under surveillance with our lead-shielded satellites. We'll be able to see the giant waves and whirlpools developing on the periphery of our target area. Should be quite spectacular!'

'Not too spectacular, I hope.'

'Don't tell me you believe those phony warnings from Austin and his friends.'

'I'm a political person, not a scientific one. But I do know that Austin was trying to torpedo this project with scare tactics.' He smiled. 'Maybe I'd do the same thing if I were in his place helplessly watching something that I