Medusa

earlier ones were privately produced and had lots of errors. The Admiralty certified some maps that shouldn’t have been.”

“You’re saying that an island could be on some charts but not others?”

“Absolutely! The charts and atlases of the nineteenth century showed more than two hundred islands that never existed.”

“How could that happen?”

“Many ways. A land-starved mariner might mistake a cloud formation for an island and record its position. Figuring longitude was also a problem. Someone might mark a real island in the wrong place. Con men created phony islands to push get-rich-quick schemes. The next guy in the neighborhood looks at his chart and sees empty sea where an island should be . . . Now, tell me what you know about your phantom island.”

“I know that it was real,” Zavala said. “An American whaling ship stopped there in 1848. But the island is not on any modern map. There’s an atoll fairly close by, though.”

“I’ll start by looking for an 1848 chart or one close to it,” she said. “Next, you’ll want to compare it to Pacific Chart 2683.”

“What is so special about it?”

“It’s the gold standard of Admiralty charts. The British Hydrographic Office knew that the Admiralty maps were getting out of whack. Accurate charts were essential for the Navy and commercial interests. So, in 1875, the Admiralty brought in a chief hydrographer named Captain Frederick Evans to purge the phantom islands from all their charts. He got rid of more than a hundred islands in the Pacific alone. The corrected chart was designated with the number 2683.”

“Then it’s possible that the island never existed?” he asked.

“Possibly. But islands can disappear. Your island might have sunk into the sea after a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, or a flood. There is historical precedent: the island Tuanah supposedly sank with its inhabitants. And there are other reported cases on record. It could be a reef or rock below the surface now, and even a satellite wouldn’t pick it up. You’d have to get in for a close look.”

“Where do we start?” Zavala asked.

“A lot of this stuff is online,” Beth replied. “The British Library has the biggest collection of Admiralty charts. I’ll go there first, and then I’ll take a look at the UK’s National Archives. If I have to go to the Royal Geographical Society or the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, it might take a while. When do you need this information?”

“Yesterday,” Zavala said. “Lives may depend on what we find.”

“Are you joking, Joe?”

“I wish I were.”

After a brief pause at the other end of the line, Beth said, “Like I told you, I love a challenge.”

Zavala wondered if he had been too dire and tried to lighten the mood.

“Are you married or engaged, Beth?”

“No. Why?’

“In that case I would like to buy you dinner to show my appreciation.”

“Wow! Who says you can’t meet eligible men in the map division? Gotta go. ’Bye.”

Zavala clicked the phone off and made his way to the NUMA helipad. The helicopter was fitted out with pontoons that allowed it to land on water. Zavala gazed at the helicopter lost in thought, then went back to the ship’s bridge.

“I’ve got another favor to ask,” he said.

“We’ll do whatever we can to help,” Captain Campbell said.

“I’ve got a NUMA map expert looking into the history of the atoll the Trouts found the coordinates for. If she comes up with any leads, I’d like to borrow your helicopter to check them out.”

“I’ll make sure it’s fueled and ready to go whenever you need it.”

Zavala thanked Campbell, and went down to the supply shed on the main deck. He had set aside an emergency life raft and was wondering if he needed additional gear when his phone trilled. Beth was calling back.

“I’ve got it!” she said.

“That was fast,” he said.

“Pure luck. I found what I was looking for in the British National Archives. Their stuff is on a database, categorized according to time period. What’s your e-mail address?”

Zavala gave Beth the information, and, before hanging up, made sure he had her personal phone number so he could call to set up a dinner date.

Zavala made his way to the ship’s communications center and borrowed a computer. He called up his e-mail address and seconds later the British Admiralty chart of 1850 filled the screen. He studied the chart for a moment, especially the dot labeled Trouble Island. Then he clicked the mouse. Pacific Chart 2683 appeared.

He put the earlier chart side by side with the corrected one. The circles on the corrected chart designated the position of nonexistent islands that the Admiralty hydrographers had removed. Trouble Island was not circled, but the name had been removed and the dot designated it as an atoll. Some time between 1850 and 1875, Trouble Island had become an atoll.

Zavala made a phone call to a NUMA colleague who specialized in old sailing ships and got an estimated sailing speed for a fully loaded whaler. Zavala then leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head, and put himself in a ship captain’s place.

Song Lee had said that the plague killed within days of infection. The crew would have been in good shape immediately after leaving Pohnpei. He assumed that the ship had a fair wind filling its sails.

Zavala marked an X on the chart west of Pohnpei where the Princess would have been at the end of the first day. By day two, the fever would have started taking men down. The ship would have lost time. He marked another X to indicate the ship’s position at the end of the second day.

Day three would have been chaotic on board the whaler. Most of the crew and officers would have been out of commission or near death. The ship might have limped along. He marked a third X closer to the second one.

Okay, Captain Zavala, he almost said aloud, you’ve got a full load of valuable whale oil, your officers and crew are dying, and you’re sick. What would you do? I’d want to get to landfall, he thought. Not Pohnpei. It was the source of the plague. And it was out of reach anyhow.

Zavala linked the computer to a surveillance satellite and zeroed in on the atoll of interest. Was it possible this unnamed atoll had once been an island? Beth had said that an island that sank into the sea might leave an atoll in its place. An eruption or earthquake would have been noted by people living on nearby islands, but there was no time to check the historic record.

He zoomed the satellite camera in on the tiny speck. Typical Pacific atoll: a minuscule island with a few palm trees encircled by a lagoon and ringed with a coral reef that was mostly solid and with no opening big enough for a massive Typhoon-class submarine to pass through with the lab in tow. Nothing could be seen in the clear waters of the lagoon.

Zavala called the Search Command ship and reconfirmed that planes had flown over the island and ships had come close for a look, but it was too insignificant to merit further investigation.

Despite his doubts and those pesky facts, he kept coming back to the name: Trouble Island. Someone had designated the island as a source of misfortune. What kind of trouble?

Zavala tried Austin’s phone number, but there was no reply. He stared into space and contemplated his course of action. He could stay on the NUMA ship and twiddle his thumbs waiting for the search flotilla to hit pay dirt or he could join in the search, well aware that he was probably wasting time and fuel.

He hated inaction. He picked up an intercom phone, called the bridge, and told the captain he would need the helicopter to take a closer look at the atoll.

Crew members helped Zavala haul the emergency raft from the storage shed and load it onto the helicopter. He got into the cockpit and started to work the controls. Moments later, the chopper lifted off the pad, made one circle around the ship, and shot off on a northerly course.

Zavala kept the helicopter at an altitude of five hundred feet and a cruising speed of one hundred fifty miles per hour. Seen from this high up, the ocean was a sun-sparkled blue-green blur. He passed a couple of ships from the search flotilla, but most of them were looking in other areas. The blinding sheen off the water prevented him from seeing the atoll until he was almost on top of it.

He banked the helicopter and looked down at a handkerchief-sized patch of sand with its few palm trees. The