Medusa

Suburban traffic was piling up, but Austin knew the short-cuts, and slightly less than an hour after Joe’s call he pulled up in front of a small building in Arlington.

At the front door of the former library, he punched the entry code into a keypad and stepped into the main living level. The space, which once had housed stacks, now looked like the interior of an adobe building in Santa Fe. The floors were dark red Mexican tile, the doorways arched, and niches in the whitewashed walls displayed colorful folk art that Zavala had collected on trips to his ancestral home in Morales. His father, a skilled carpenter, had made the beautifully carved furniture.

Austin called out Zavala’s name.

“I’m down in Frankenstein’s lab,” Zavala yelled up from his basement, where he spent his spare time when he wasn’t tinkering with his Corvette.

Austin descended the stairs to the brightly lit workshop. Zavala had utilized every square inch of the former book-storage room for his gleaming collection of lathes, drills, and milling machines. Odd-shaped metal parts whose functions were known only to Zavala hung from the walls next to black-and-white poster engravings of old engines.

Mounted in glass cases were scale models of the cutting-edge underwater vehicles Zavala had designed for NUMA. A Stuart model steam engine he was restoring sat on a table. Zavala never hesitated to get his hands greasy when it came to tinkering with mechanical contrivances or creating new ones, but today he was facing a computer screen with his back to Austin.

Austin glanced around at the bewildering shrine Zavala had established to moving parts.

“Ever think of continuing where Dr. Frankenstein left off?” he asked.

Zavala spun in his chair, his lips cracked in their usual slight smile.

“Making monsters out of junk parts is ancient history, Kurt. Robotics is where it’s at. Isn’t that right, Juri?”

A Tyrannosaurus rex, around ten inches high, with plastic skin the color and texture of an avocado, stood next to the computer. It waggled its head, shuffled its feet, rolled its eyes, opened its toothy mouth, and said, “Si, Senor Zavala.”

Austin pulled up a stool.

“Who’s your green friend?”

“Juri, short for Jurassic Park. Got the little guy over the Internet. He’s programmed for about twenty functions. I tinkered with his innards to make him speak Spanish.”

“A bilingual T-Rex,” Austin said. “I’m impressed.”

“It wasn’t that difficult,” Zavala said. “His circuits are relatively simple. He can move and bite, and he can respond to external stimuli. Give him a little more muscle, bigger teeth, optical sensors, put him in a waterproof jacket, and you have something like the mechanical shark that thought an Austinburger would make a tasty snack.”

Zavala wheeled his chair aside to give Austin a clear view of his monitor. Floating in a slow rotation against a black background was a three-dimensional neon-blue image of the manta-ray AUV that had cut the bathysphere cable and attacked Austin.

Austin let out a low whistle.

“That’s it. Where did you find this thing?”

“I went back to the original video from the Hardsuit camera.”

Zavala clicked his mouse to replay the skirmish with the AUV. There was a quick succession of images, a confusion of bubbles, and glimpses of the vehicle.

“I didn’t give you much to go on,” Austin said.

“You gave me enough. I slowed the action and culled details here and there. I used those bits to create a rough outline of the AUV and then compared it with the automated underwater vehicles in my database. I’ve got info on practically everything self-propelled ever made, but at first I couldn’t find this one anywhere.”

“My first impression was that it resembled the Manta, the sub that the Navy developed for mine detection and destruction.”

“Not a bad call,” Zavala said. “Here’s the Manta. There are some of the same features that you get when you have a computer-generated design. But your guy didn’t have the launching pads for mini mine sniffers and torpedoes like the Navy’s model.”

“Good thing. Neither one of us would be here if our little friend had been armed with the hard stuff.”

“After I breezed through military models, I went to scientific applications. Most of the AUVs I found are torpedo-shaped, like Woods Hole Oceanographic’s ABE or Scripps’s Rover. After ruling out military and scientific, I looked to industry. But oil, gas, and communications didn’t pan out, so I tried commercial fishing.”

He called up an article from a commercial-fishing magazine.

Austin looked at the photos with the article and smiled.

“Jackpot,” he said.

“The vehicle in the magazine piece is used to film experimental fishnet designs,” Zavala said.

“That would account for the manta shape,” Austin noted. “You’d need something flat and smooth to get under the nets, no projecting fins that might catch.”

“The pincers allow the AUV to cut its way through tangled nets,” Zavala said. “It was used by a Chinese company, Pyramid Seafood Exports.”

“Chinese? That’s significant. The men who attacked the ship were Asian. The weapons they carried were Chinese.”

“I Googled the name,” Zavala said. “Pyramid is headquartered in Shanghai, but they’re a global company.”

Austin said, “Why would a legitimate fishing company be involved in the attacks on the Beebe and the bathysphere?”

“I may be able to answer that question after seeing my friend Caitlin Lyons at the FBI’s Asian Crime Unit later today,” Zavala said.

Austin had to admit that Zavala’s wide network of women friends sometimes came in handy.

“Have you figured out how the attack on the B3 may have been set up?” Austin said.

“The vehicle could have been launched from any of the press and party boats watching the dive,” Zavala said.

“Maybe someone saw the launch,” Austin said. “We could get Detective-Superintendent Randolph and the Bermuda Coast Guard to ask around.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but my guess is that the vehicle went into the water hours before the bathysphere dive and was put into a sleep mode, programmed to wake up after a certain time to begin the hunt. It could have been directed from the surface, in the general area of the Beebe.”

“How would it have picked its target?”

“Sonar combined with the optical sensors would look for a vertical line. The AUV homes in on the B3’s tether. Snip-snip. There goes the bathysphere.”

“And there goes Doc Kane and the mysterious research project that was going to affect everybody on the planet.”

“Any word from Kane since he took off into the wide blue yonder?” Zavala asked.

“I’ve tried a number of official and nonofficial channels,” Austin answered. “Bonefish Key may be our only lead.”

“Doubt he’s there. Somebody wanted him to die a horrible death at the bottom. Bonefish Key would be the first place to look after finding out he wasn’t on the Beebe.”

A look of alarm crossed Austin’s tanned face.

He dug his cell phone out of a pocket and called Paul Trout.

“Have you heard from Gamay?” he asked.

“I’ve been trying to reach her but my calls won’t go through,” Trout said.

“Keep trying,” Austin said. “I’m at Zavala’s place. I may have been too casual when I asked you to poke around Kane’s lab. Gamay should be alerted to possible danger from the people who wanted to take down Kane.”

Trout said, “Don’t worry, Kurt, Gamay can take care of herself.”

“I know she can,” Austin said. “Just tell her to be careful and not take any chances.”

HAVING DONE ALL HE could to warn the Trouts, Austin put in a call to NUMA and asked for a dossier on the