Eberson took a swallow of coffee, then leaned across the table.
“Do you think we can really get to the theoretically predicted levels?”
Heiland nodded, his eyes sparkling. “We’ll find out shortly.”
A few minutes later, Manny cut the motor, signaling they had arrived at their test site. They had crossed into Mexican waters, almost twenty miles from shore and well off the path of the average San Diego day sailor. The water was too deep to anchor, so the boat drifted while Heiland went to work.
Ignoring a long rectangular case strapped to the bulwarks, he opened several smaller cases that contained a pair of laptops, some cabling, and connectors. Setting the computers on a low bench, he knelt and began configuring them.
Manny poked his head out from the wheelhouse. “Doc, there’s a freighter coming up on us.”
Heiland glanced over his shoulder. “She’ll be well past us by the time we’re ready to go.” He returned his attention to the computers.
Eberson took a seat on the large crate and watched the ship approach. A midsized freighter, it seemed of recent build, by its streamlined design and lack of rust. Dark gray in color, the ship almost had a Navy look about it. The bridge windows caught Eberson’s attention. Tinted black, they gave off an odd, almost menacing look.
A few crewmen in coveralls on the main deck worked behind a large container. As the ship drew closer, he could see they were adjusting a large dish-shaped object mounted on a platform amidships. The dish was painted a drab green and turned toward the sea, rising several feet into the air like a hardened sail. The men on deck soon disappeared, and Eberson noted the ship seemed to be slowing.
“Carl, I’m not sure about this ship.” He rose uncomfortably to his feet.
“We’ve got nothing for them to see,” Heiland said. “Why don’t you pick up a rod and make like you’re here to catch a tuna.”
Eberson grabbed one of the boat’s rods from a rack and cast a weighted hook over the side, not bothering with any bait lest he actually have to fight a beast from the deep. As the freighter pulled alongside a short distance away, he tossed a friendly wave toward the blacked-out bridge.
A burning pain shot through his hand, quickly tracking down his arm to his torso. He dropped his arm and shook it, but the sensation was already spreading across his body. In seconds, it felt like a thousand red ants were biting his flesh. The fire shot to his head, where his eyes seemed to boil in their sockets.
“Carl—” he cried. The words came out in a raspy gurgle.
Heiland felt the same burning sensation on his back. Spinning around, he processed two scenes at once. One was the dying Joe Eberson, still clutching the fishing rod as he fell to the deck, his skin glowing scarlet. The other was the freighter’s shield-like device, directed at him from a few dozen yards away.
Ignoring the burning that seared through his body, he staggered to the cabin. Manny was already on the deck, gasping a last breath as blood dribbled from his nose and ears. Heiland stepped past his longtime friend as his own pain became amplified. His entire body felt inflamed. Somewhere in his consciousness, he wondered why his skin wasn’t falling off in chunks. A single urge drove him forward as he lurched to the pilot’s seat. His head felt like it was going to explode as he reached under the console, his burning fingers grasping a pair of hidden toggles. He tripped them both, then took his last breath.
4
ARE YOU GOING TO GET WET WITH ME?”
Loren Smith-Pitt stared at her husband. Just seconds ago, it seemed, he had risen from the pilot’s seat and tossed an anchor over the side of their rented speedboat. Yet now he sat on the transom, clad in wet suit and dive tank, anxious to explore the depths below. Loren could only marvel at how the sea acted like a magnet to the man, drawing him in with an unseen force.
“I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the sunshine and the clear Chilean sky,” she said. “With Congress back in session on Monday, I could use a healthy dose of fresh air.”
“For Capitol Hill, earplugs might be a better choice.”
Loren ignored her husband’s quip. A congresswoman from Colorado, Loren was only too happy to escape the partisan bickering of Washington, if only for a few days. Free from the pressures of work and an intrusive media, she felt more relaxed in another country. Dressed in a skimpy two-piece bathing suit she would never wear at home, she flaunted her curvaceous but firm body, kept trim through yoga and daily runs on a treadmill.
Stretching across the boat’s bench seat, she hung a leg over the side and dipped her toes in the water. “Yikes! That water is cold. I’m going to stay warm and dry up here, thank you very much.”
“I won’t be gone long.” Her husband stuck a regulator between his teeth, stared admiringly at his wife for a moment, then fell backward into the blue Pacific. He playfully kicked a spray of water onto his wife with a fin before he disappeared under the surface.
Toweling herself off, Loren tracked her husband’s air bubbles for a few minutes, then gazed across the horizon. The afternoon air was crystal clear, the sapphire sky nearly matching the color of the ocean. They’d anchored the red speedboat a half mile off the Chilean coast, opposite a small beach called Playa Caleta Abarca.
A towering Sheraton Hotel stood on a rock cliff nearby, its outdoor pool crowded with sun-worshiping tourists. A short distance to the south lay Valparaiso, Chile’s colorful and historic seaport long known by sailors as the “Jewel of the Pacific.” Ancient buildings climbed the steep hills ringing the city, reminding Loren of San Francisco. She noted a large white cruise ship, the
A gentle swell rocked the speedboat as Loren turned her gaze to sea. A small yellow sailboat passed by, then tacked north toward an approaching freighter, its triangular sail fluttering. She leaned back on the padded seat, closed her eyes, and luxuriated in the warmth of the sun.
Sixty feet beneath her, Dirk Pitt had just shaken the ocean’s chill that permeated the country’s coastal waters due to the Humboldt Current. His breath rate eased as he slowed his descent. The visibility was good, about forty feet, allowing him clear view of a rocky bottom anchored with thick seaweed. Kicking his fins lazily, he glided over a coral-strewn ledge crowded with brightly colored urchins and starfish. A small school of jack mackerel eyed him for a minute or two, then darted away.
The sea relaxed Pitt in a way nothing else could. To some it was confining, but Pitt found the ocean depths produced in him an odd feeling of release that seemed to heighten his senses. It was an experience born decades ago, when he spent the better part of his youth exploring the coves along the Southern Californian coastline, free diving and bodysurfing. The allure was like that of flying, which had led him to the Air Force Academy and flight school as a young officer.
But the draw of the sea enticed him to leave the flight line and a promising military career to join a newly created federal organization, the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Created to study and protect the world’s oceans, NUMA was the perfect home for Pitt, allowing him to work on and beneath the sea, all over the world. After years as its Special Projects Director, he now found himself heading the agency, which only fortified his sense of stewardship of the world’s oceans. Loren often joked that she still competed with Pitt’s first love, his mistress called the sea.
Pitt’s quest for underwater discovery, along with a love of history, had led him to discover dozens of shipwrecks. But this afternoon, the object of his search was considerably smaller. Eyeing a thick ridge of jagged rocks that stretched into deeper water, he swam over and surveyed its crevices. After several minutes, he found what he was looking for. He plunged an arm between two boulders and pulled out a spirited brown spiny lobster that weighed almost five pounds. He eyed its long, waving antennas for a moment and then stuffed the crustacean into a mesh dive bag and began a search for its twin.
Above the noisy rhythm of his regulated breathing, a faint tapping rippled through the water.
He held his breath to hear better. The metallic rapping repeated a familiar cadence—two short raps, two long raps, then two short raps. It wasn’t exactly the Morse code distress call of SOS, which used three dots and dashes, but Pitt guessed the intent was the same. He could not determine its direction, only that the source was nearby. It
