atoll looked exactly as he had seen it on the satellite image. He confirmed that there was no break in the reef wide enough to have allowed a boat of any size to pass through. He headed down for a closer look, and brought the helicopter onto a soft pontoon landing a few hundred feet from the atoll’s island, which was oddly located at one end of the lagoon rather than at its center.
As the rotors whirled to a stop, Zavala unbuckled himself and stepped out onto one of the pontoons. It was absolutely silent except for the whisper of the waves on the shore. Looking down into the crystal clear water, he saw a crab scuttling along the bottom.
The raft was in an orange-colored plastic container that he muscled out of the cockpit. He set it in the water and yanked an inflation cord. There was a hiss from the carbon dioxide capsule, and the raft writhed into full inflation. Zavala climbed into the raft and paddled to shore.
He pulled the raft up on the blinding white sand and walked around the perimeter of the island. He felt like a shipwreck victim on one of the miniature desert islands that cartoonists like to draw.
The tropical sun beat down like a blowtorch on his uncovered head. He sought shelter in the shade of the few pitiful palm trees. He surveyed his surroundings, absorbing the remote beauty of the atoll, with its otherworldly light and color.
He walked the perimeter of the island again, retracing his own steps. He frowned. This insignificant speck of sand could never have been Trouble Island. It was just a rinky-dink atoll. He walked back to his raft and turned for a last look. A glint of light came from near the top of a palm tree.
Zavala went back and stood under the tree. He craned his neck but couldn’t determine the source of the reflection. He clambered onto the palm’s trunk, which grew at an angle, and climbed up to where the broad fronds branched out. He found the source of the reflection immediately. Sunlight was glancing off the lens of a miniature video camera attached to the trunk.
Zavala realized, as he looked at the lens, that it was possible the camera was looking back at him. He backed down the palm’s trunk only to stop halfway. The tree had a slick, unnatural feel to it. He unsheathed the knife at his belt and dug its point into the trunk, but it went in only so far. He peeled back a section of the trunk and got another shock: it seemed to be made of woven plastic fabric covering a hard metal core.
Zavala reached up and sliced off a section of palm frond. He stuck it between his teeth and bit down: more plastic. He sheathed his knife, and shimmied down the trunk to the sand. He walked several paces to the right, then to the left. The camera swiveled to follow him.
Zavala sprinted across the atoll, shoved his raft off the beach, and dug into the water with his paddle. He had to get back to the radio in the helicopter. He looked over his shoulder, expecting all the demons of hell to be after him, but was encouraged that no attempt was being made to stop him. A few more paddle strokes and he’d be in his helicopter.
Then the oddest thing happened. The bottom of the lagoon rose up to meet him, burst from the water in a long, shiny mound directly in front of him. Then the mound parted, and a huge black fin ripped through the bottom of the lagoon, rising until it towered more than forty feet above Zavala’s head. He was looking at the conning tower of a giant submarine. Seconds later, the submarine’s deck lifted the raft into the air. The helicopter headed skyward at the same time, and it teetered for a moment before sliding off the rounded deck at an angle. When the helicopter hit the foaming water, the water poured into the cockpit.
The raft slid off the rounded sides of the submarine, and water flowed into it. Zavala tried to climb back on the sub’s deck from the upended raft, but his fingers slid off the slick, wet metal, and the fast-flowing torrents pushed him back into the lagoon.
He choked on seawater, gasping for breath like a beached fish. Then something like a baseball bat slammed into the side of his head. He saw a brief explosion of brightness before his eyes and then felt a numbing pain. Then someone pulled the shades down, and Zavala was in darkness.
CHAPTER 40
THE TOUR BOAT CAPTAIN WASN’T SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF the people he had pulled out of the Nan Madol Canal. The half-drowned young Asian woman seemed harmless enough, but he wondered about the muscular scuba diver in the wild surfing trunks.
Checking out Austin with a wary eye, the captain asked, “What happened, man?”
Austin pointed to the rental boat, which was sinking at a sharp angle, with only a foot or so of the bullet-riddled bow sticking out of the water.
“Leaky boat,” he said.
“I heard a lot of noise,” the captain said. “Sounded like guns.”
Austin clamped his hand on the captain’s shoulder and turned him around.
“See that bag floating over there?” Austin said, pointing. “That’s mine. Can we pick it up?”
The doubtful look in the captain’s round brown face suggested he was starting to regret his decision to pluck his new passengers from the water, but he sensed that Austin would not be denied. The captain moved the boat closer so Austin could lean over and retrieve the dive-gear bag. Austin unzipped the bag and pulled out his wallet. He peeled off a fifty.
“This is to cover the tickets for the boat ride.” He gave the captain another fifty-dollar bill, and said, “This is for asking no more questions.” Holding out a third fifty, he wrapped his arm around the captain’s shoulders and, speaking low so he wouldn’t be heard by the other passengers, Austin said, “How much longer is left in the tour?”
“I dunno . . . half an hour, maybe,” the captain said.
“This is yours if you cut that time in half.”
The captain grinned, and the third fifty-dollar bill followed the first two into his pocket.
“You just bought the boat, man,” he said. “You and the lady, have a seat.”
Austin and Song Lee ignored the curious gazes of the other passengers and looked for a place to sit. The boat had a canopy overhead to block the sun, but there were no seats and passengers sat on stacked life preservers. A young Japanese couple on their honeymoon made room for the new passengers.
The tour boat captain was true to his word. Fifteen minutes after Austin and Lee had climbed aboard, he told the passengers to take one last look at the mysterious ruins. Using the housing of one of the twin outboards as a seat, he goosed both engines, and before long the boat was pulling up to the dock at Kolonia.
While Lee went off to the restroom to freshen up, Austin made his way to the dive shop. He returned the scuba gear in good condition but asked the crestfallen owner to come up with a figure to replace the boat and motor. Although the price was exorbitant, Austin produced a NUMA credit card and told him to charge the replacement cost. The bean counters at NUMA who kept an eye on finances had become used to Austin’s strange purchases. He asked for a receipt anyhow.
As the boat owner was writing out the purchase order, he said, “Your friend catch up with you?”
“What friend?” Austin asked.
“Asian guy driving a pickup truck. Didn’t leave his name. Showed up a few minutes after you took off in the boat. I told him you were going out to the ruins.”
Austin did a good job hiding his surprise. He thanked the owner and went into the men’s room to change into dry clothes. He stuffed the surfing trunks in a wastebasket and dug his cell phone from the bag. He was glad to see that it was operational. He noticed that the Trouts and, most recently, the captain of the
“This is Austin,” he said. “I see that you’ve been trying to get in touch with me, Captain Dixon. I’ve been away from my phone.”
“Glad to hear from you, Kurt. I’ve got some bad news. Joe has disappeared. He borrowed a NUMA helicopter from the agency’s ship and flew to the north of here to take a closer look at an atoll. We lost him on radar.”
“Did he send off a Mayday?” Austin asked.
“Not a whisper,” Dixon answered. “Whatever happened must have happened fast.”
“How soon can you have the chopper pick me up?” Austin asked.
