Medusa

return to the lab.”

“To put it bluntly, Dr. Lee, even if we find the lab and produce the vaccine, it may be too late?”

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

Colonel Ming turned to the others.

“Any questions? No? Well, thank you very much for your time, Dr. Lee. We will be in contact with you again.”

The screen went blank. Song Lee was terrified at being alone in the room with her thoughts. She bolted out the door and onto the deck, where she looked around frantically for a glimpse of Kurt Austin’s reassuring face. She needed an anchor to keep her from drifting over the edge. She climbed to the bridge, and asked Dixon if he had seen Austin.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Lee,” the captain said. “Kurt didn’t want to interrupt your meeting. He said to tell you that dinner has been postponed. He left the ship.”

“Left? Where?”

Dixon called her over to look at a chart and jabbed his index finger down on the wide expanse of ocean.

“Right now, I’d say that Kurt is just about here.”

CHAPTER 41

“WAKE UP, TOVARICH!”

Joe Zavala floated in a netherworld just below consciousness, but he was awake enough to know that the cold liquid being poured on his lips tasted like antifreeze. He spit the liquid out. The roar of laughter that followed his instinctive reaction jerked him into full consciousness.

Hovering over Zavala was a bearded face with a fourteen-karat grin. Zavala saw a bottle again being tilted toward his lips. His hand shot up, and he clamped his fingers in a viselike grip around the man’s thick wrist.

A startled expression came to the blue eyes at Zavala’s lightning-quick move, but the gold-toothed grin quickly returned.

“You don’t like our vodka?” the man said. “I forget. Americans drink whiskey.”

Zavala unclenched his fingers. The bearded man pulled the bottle away and took a swig from it. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Not poison,” the man said. “What can I get you?”

“Nothing,” Zavala said. “But you can give me a hand sitting up.”

The man put the bottle aside and helped Zavala sit on the edge of the bunk. Zavala looked around at the cramped quarters.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Where are you?” the man said.

He turned, and, in a language Zavala recognized as Russian, translated the question for the benefit of three other similarly bearded men who were crammed into the tight space. There was laughter and the vigorous nodding of shaggy heads.

“What’s so funny?” Zavala asked.

“I told them what you said, and what my answer will be, that you are in hell!”

Zavala managed a slight smile, reaching out his hand.

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll take that vodka you offered me.”

The man handed the bottle over, and Zavala took a tentative sip. He felt the fiery liquor trickle down his throat, but it did little to alleviate the throbbing in his head. He put his hand to his head and felt a bandage wrapped around it like a turban. He still had the bruises on his scalp from his B3 adventure.

“Your head was bleeding,” the man said. “It was the best we could do.”

“Thanks for the first aid. Who are you guys?” Zavala asked.

“I am Captain Mehdev and these are my officers. You are on a nuclear-powered Akula missile submarine. We are what you Americans know as the Project 941 Typhoon, the biggest class submarine in the world. I am the commander.”

“Nice to meet you,” Zavala said, shaking the captain’s hand. “My name is Joe Zavala. I’m with the American National Underwater and Marine Agency. You’ve probably heard of it.”

Mehdev reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and produced Zavala’s laminated NUMA ID with his picture on it.

“Anyone who goes to sea is familiar with the great work of NUMA,” Mehdev said. “Your beautiful ships are known around the world.”

Zavala took the ID and tucked it into his shirt pocket, grabbed the blanket from the bunk, and wrapped it around him to soak up moisture from his clothes. He took another sip from the bottle and handed it back. One of the officers went over to a sink and got him a glass of water. Zavala washed away the vodka taste with it, and touched his head bandage again.

“No offense, Captain, but you should pay more attention to your driving. Your submarine surfaced right under me and my helicopter.”

Mehdev did another translation that his officers found hilarious, but when he turned back to Zavala he had a somber expression on his face.

“My apologies,” the captain said. “I was ordered to take the vessel to the surface and bring you aboard. Even for someone with my experience, it is difficult maneuvering a six-hundred-foot-long vessel with any degree of precision. You were floating in the water. We brought you on board. I am sorry too for the loss of your helicopter.”

“Who told you to take me prisoner?”

A frown came to Mehdev’s genial face.

“The same criminals who hijacked my submarine and have held me and my crew prisoners,” he said.

Mehdev launched with angry gusto into his fantastic story. He was a Navy veteran of the Typhoon service who had gone into civilian work. The Rubin Central Design Bureau, which designed the submarine, had come up with the idea to use decommissioned Typhoons to carry freight under the Arctic Ocean. The missile silos were replaced with cargo holds that had a capacity of fifteen thousand tons. A corporate buyer purchased the sub, and it was Mehdev’s job to deliver the vessel to its new owner.

The crew of seventy or so was half the normal complement, but without the need for weapons specialists it was large enough to do the job. They were promised big paychecks. The captain’s instructions were to surface for an at-sea rendezvous. But a Chinese freighter carrying armed men met them and took over the ship. They were told to sail the ship to the Pacific Ocean. Using a torpedo tube, the kidnappers launched a missile, targeting a surface ship. Then the Typhoon was involved in an operation to move the underwater lab off the ocean floor.

“Where is the lab now?” Zavala asked.

Mehdev pointed downward with his index finger.

“About three hundred feet beneath our hull, at the bottom of a submerged caldera,” he said. “There was an eruption many years ago and the volcano collapsed, leaving the caldera in place of the island that was once here. Coral grew on the rim, establishing the reef you came across.”

“How did your vessel break through the reef?” Zavala asked.

“We didn’t. We passed under it. The Japanese blasted a tunnel through the caldera, planning to use this place as a submarine base in World War Two. They were going to wait until the American fleet bypassed the atoll and come up behind them with German supersubs to sink their ships. A clever plan. But the Allies bombed the German submarine factories, and then the war ended.” Then Mehdev asked, “What do you know of this lab? It must be important.”

“Very important,” Zavala said. “The U.S. Navy has planes and ships out searching. I flew over the lagoon. The water is as clear as crystal. Why didn’t I see you?”

“We’re below a camouflage net stretched across the lagoon. It’s what you Americans call low-tech.”

“What about the island I landed on in the lagoon?”

“That is high-tech. An artificial platform on floats, kept in place through a propulsion system geared to a self-