Текст книги "Medusa"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“I asked him about specifics. He said that if he told me what he’d been working on he would have to kill me.”

The right side of Austin’s mouth turned up in a lopsided grin.

“He actually saidthat? Seems ironic, considering that you were minutes away from what the tabloids call a grisly death.”

“We had a good laugh about it, but I think he was sincere.”

Austin pondered Zavala’s reply, and said, “What do you make of that call Doc got a few minutes ago?”

“Doc looked as if a horse had kicked him in the stomach.”

“He was upset, no doubt about that.”

Austin suggested that they talk to Kane again. As they stepped out onto the deck, they saw Kane and the captain. Kane was still somewhat stiff-legged as he walked in their direction with Gannon by his side and he was carrying his duffel bag.

“We were on our way to see you folks,” said the captain, pointing to the lights of the approaching vessel. “That’s a U.S. Coast Guard cutter coming in for Dr. Kane.”

The cutter stopped around a hundred yards from the ship. Austin helped Kane put his flotation vest on and walked him to the ramp at the stern, where the Zodiac crew was waiting. He thanked Austin, Joe, and the captain for all their help.

“Sorry you have to leave, Doc,” Austin said.

“Not as sorry as I am to go.” He smiled, and added, “Beebe’s adventures pale by comparison to our dive.”

“Going back to Bonefish Key?”

“No, not for a while . . . I’ll be in touch.”

Kane got into the Zodiac. The inflatable pushed off into the chop and bounced over to the Coast Guard vessel, Kane was helped aboard, and it started to move away even before the inflatable made it back to the ship.

Austin, Gannon, and Zavala watched the cutter until it was out of sight, then Gannon turned to Austin and asked if he wanted to head back to port in the morning. Austin suggested that they try to retrieve the lost ROV. Gannon said the forecast called for fair weather after the gale blew itself out. He’d plan a salvage operation using the ship’s largest ROV, a mechanical monster nicknamed Humongous.

“We don’t really know very much about Doc,” Zavala said after the captain had left.

“It’s time we remedy that situation. I’ll ask the Trouts to check into Bonefish Key. In the meantime, British Navy regulations allow a second shot of grog.”

“This is NUMA, not the British Navy,” Zavala said. “And, technically speaking, tequila is not grog.”

“May I point out that we are in Bermudan waters and thus in British territory.”

Zavala slapped Austin on the back and said something in Spanish.

“My Espanolis a bit rusty, pal,” Austin said. “Please translate.”

Zavala lifted his chin and sniffed the air, as if he had smelled something unpleasant.

“I said, ‘Jolly good show, old chap.’”

CHAPTER 13

THE COAST GUARD CUTTER BROUGHT KANE TO THE MAINLAND, where a car drove him to a business jet waiting at the airport. Kane watched the lights of Bermuda fade in the distance, then turned away from the plane’s window and tried to make sense of the past twenty-four hours. His undersea ordeal had worn him out. His thoughts tripped over one another until, finally, he closed his eyes and dozed off. The jounce of the plane’s landing woke him up, and the pilot’s voice over the intercom informed him that they had touched down at Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

The plane taxied to an off-limits section reserved for VIPs. A strapping young man sporting a military brush cut greeted Kane as he stepped onto the tarmac. Aviator sunglasses shaded the man’s eyes, even though it was nighttime, and his black suit would have sent a conspiracy theorist into a swoon.

“Dr. Kane?” the man asked, as if there were some doubt.

The question irritated Kane, since he was the only passenger on the six-seat plane.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s me. How about you?”

“Jones,”the man said without a change in his expression. “Follow me.”

Jones led the way to a black Humvee, opened the rear door for Kane, then got in front next to the driver, who was also dressed like an undertaker. After leaving the airport, they raced along the George Washington Memorial Parkway as if there was no speed limit, skirted the city, and headed toward Maryland.

Jones had been silent during the drive, but as they entered Rockville he spoke briefly into a hand radio. Kane overheard something about a package being delivered. Minutes later, the Humvee pulled up to a large office building. The sign out front identified the building as the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters. The windows of the FDA were dark except for a few offices lit for cleaning crews.

Jones escorted Kane to a side entrance. They rode an elevator down one level and walked along a hushed corridor to an unmarked door. Jones knocked softly, then opened the door for Kane, who stepped into a nondescript conference room similar to hundreds of other sterile spaces scattered in government edifices around the capital. The room had pale green wall-to-wall carpeting, beige walls decorated with generic artwork, a lectern, and a projection screen. A dozen or so people were seated around a long oak table.

Kane went around the table shaking hands and was greeted with hellos or smiles from everyone except a stranger who identified himself as William Coombs, representing the White House.

Kane sat down in the only unoccupied seat next to a firm-jawed man wearing the uniform of a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

“Hello, Max,” he said. “How was your trip from Bermuda?” His name was Charley Casey.

“Fast,”Kane said. “Hard for me to believe that a few hours ago I was a half mile under the ocean.”

“I watched the dive on TV,” Casey said. “Too bad you lost contact with the surface just when things started to get really interesting.”

“ Interestingisn’t the word for it,” Kane said. “But it’s nothing compared to the craziness about the lab. Any news?”

The lieutenant shook his head.

“We’re still trying to make contact,” he said, “but there has been no response.”

“Could it simply be a foul-up in the communications system?”

Casey glanced over at Coombs.

“We have reason to believe that there is more involved than a systems failure,” Casey said.

“You might want to bring Dr. Kane up to date on the details as we know them, Lieutenant Casey,” Coombs said.

The lieutenant nodded, opened a folder, and pulled out several sheets of paper.

“We’ve pieced together a scenario based on witness statements. The situation has been confused, and reports are still coming in, but here’s what we have so far. Yesterday, at approximately 1400 hours our time, a cruise missile was launched against the Proud Mary,the lab’s support-and-security ship.”

Kane shook his head in disbelief.

“A missile? That can’t be true!”

“I’m afraid it is true, Max. The missile hit the ship on the port side. No one was killed, but at least a dozen were injured. The Maryis a tough old gal. She stayed afloat and got off a Mayday. The Navy cruiser Concordshowed up within hours and rescued the survivors. Repeated attempts were made to contact the Locker. No reply.”

“Maybe the blast damaged the communications buoy,” Kane suggested.

“Negative. The cruiser checked out the buoy and found it undamaged.”

“Where was the lab’s service shuttle when all this happened?”

“A short while before the attack, the submersible had made a run down to the lab to deliver a representative from the company in charge of the Locker’s security. The sub was still on the lab when the missile came in.”

“What about the Locker’s minisubs?” Kane said. “They could be used to evacuate the lab in an emergency. The lab also has escape pods it can use as a last resort.”

“No subs or pods, Max. Our guess is that what happened to the lab was sudden and catastrophic.”

Kane’s head was spinning. He slumped in his chair as he tried to digest the implications of Casey’s last statement. He thought about Lois Mitchell and the other members of the Bonefish Key lab staff who had gathered to send him off on the B3 dive. He rallied after a moment, reminding himself that he was a scientist who dealt with facts, not suppositions.

Straightening up in his chair, Kane said, “How long before we can check out the lab itself?”

“The Concordis sending down a remote-operated vehicle,” Casey said. “All we can do at this point is to wait for them to report in.”

“I hope the Navy is doing more than sitting on its hands,” Coombs said. “Have you tracked the source of the missile?”

The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. Coombs was one of those ubiquitous young staff aides who looked as if he had been punched out of white dough with a cookie cutter. He was as clean-cut as a West Point grad, although his closest brush with a uniform had been as an Eagle Scout. He had cultivated an all-purpose facial expression of quiet competence that failed to hide a barely restrained arrogance. During his naval career, Casey had frequently encountered clones of the White House man, with their inflated sense of power, and had learned to cloak his disdain under a polite veneer.

He prefaced his answer with a pleasant smile.

“The Navy can walk and chew gum at the same time, Mr. Coombs. We’ve reconstructed the probable trajectory of the missile, and we’ve got planes and ships vectoring in on the launch position.”

“The White House isn’t interested in trajectories or vectors, Lieutenant. Has the source of the launch been tracked? If it was launched by a foreign power, this could have serious international repercussions.”

“The missile could have come from a ship, a sub, or a plane, sir, that’s all we know. Pretty much a crapshoot at this time. We’d welcome suggestions as to how to proceed, sir.”

Coombs was too well practiced in the art of passing the buck to take the bait.

“I’ll leave that up to the Navy,” he said, “but I can tell you one thing: this has all the earmarks of a well-organized and well-financed plan.”

“You won’t get any argument from me on that score,” Kane said. “About the same time the Proud Marywas being attacked, an attempt was made to sabotage the bathysphere dive.”

Kane waited for the noisy reaction to subside and then laid out the details of the attack on the sphere.

When Coombs heard about Austin’s rescue dive, he said, “I’ve heard Vice President Sandecker talk about Kurt Austin. He’s some sort of NUMA troubleshooter. From the little I know of the man’s exploits, you would still be at the bottom of the ocean if he had not been on board the Beebe.This thing with the lab is starting to make sense now. Someone wants to destroy our project.”

“That’s my take on it too,” Kane said. “The people behind the attack on the lab must have figured that I’d be ripe for the picking in the bathysphere.”

Dr. Sophie Pappas, the sole female member of the scientific board, asked, “Why didn’t the people behind these events wait until you were back on the lab? Instead of two simultaneous attacks, they only would have had to mount one.”

“Good question.” Coombs turned to Kane. “Could the work of the lab go on without you?”

Kane nodded.

“Sure,”he said. “As director, my job is to ride herd on the project. I’m a scientific coordinator now rather than a researcher. Lois Mitchell, my assistant, knows more about the actual nuts and bolts of the project.”

“You’re saying that the project could continue without you, but not without her,” Coombs said.

Kane said, “I have more experience working with the government bureaucracy, but she could easily wrap up this project in days without me. On the other hand, I know enough to reconstitute the work with the scientists remaining at Bonefish Key. It would take time, but I could get things moving again.”

“Not if you’re dead,” Coombs said. “But the lab’s work could continue without you, which means that it may nothave been destroyed.”

“Your theory makes sense in a nutty sort of way,” Kane said.

“Thank you. A devious mind is essential at the higher levels of government. Have we informed the Chinese government of the attacks?”

“After the meeting, I’ll contact Colonel Ming, who is my Chinese counterpart on this project,” Lieutenant Casey said. “He’s corrupt as hell, I hear, but well connected. Perhaps he knows something that can help.”

“I hope so. This incident with the lab couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Coombs said. “The other shoe is about to drop.”

Coombs snapped his fingers, and his assistant went over to a large-screen computer at the end of the table and brought up a map of China.

“This red spot shows the village where the original outbreak occurred. These other three dots show that the epidemic has broken the quarantine and is spreading beyond the original source. We think the virus may be moving through the water table. The bug is leaping from village to village. Eventually, it will hit the big cities. Once it gets into the populations of Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, there will be no stopping it from spreading to the rest of the world. It will be in North America within weeks.”

There was silence around the table for a moment, then Casey said, “How long before it strikes an urban area?”

“The computers say seventy-two hours from midnight.”

“That still gives us time to stop it with the vaccine,” Casey said. “Presumably, we’ll be able to reestablish contact with the lab. Once we have the cultures, we hope to produce the vaccine in quantity.”

“We’re whistling in the dark,” Coombs said. “We won’t know what happened to the lab until the Navy does its job.” Coombs leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers. “Let’s back up. Who would benefit from scuttling the work of the lab?”

“I’ll pass on that one until we know more,” Kane said, and the others at the table nodded their heads in agreement.

“Okay, then,” Coombs said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe somebody can answer the question about how the attackers knew about the existence andlocation of a top secret facility.”

“Leaks may have been inevitable,” Kane said. “When this committee first approached the government with our findings and Uncle Sam set up Bonefish Key as a front, we were pretty inexperienced at this whole spook thing. The instinct of a scientist is to make information public, not withhold it.”

“Which is why the research was removed from Bonefish Key to the Locker,” Coombs said, “so we could keep a tight lid on it and be closer to the resource.”

“There were safety reasons as well,” Kane said. “We were working with a waterborne pathogen and tinkering with altered life-forms. The Bonefish Key lab is near populated areas that could have been impacted in the advanced stages of research.”

Coombs frowned.

“The Locker’s existence was under tighter security than the Manhattan Project,” he said. “What about that woman at your lab? The scientist the Chinese sent over as a liaison?”

“Dr. Song Lee? I’ll vouch for her. She was a whistle-blower during the SARS epidemic. She risked prison by speaking out. Her contributions to the project have been vital.”

“So were Oppenheimer’s during the original Manhattan Project,” Coombs said. “That didn’t keep his loyalty from being compromised.”

“Before you indict Dr. Lee, I’d like to point out that I was the only one at Bonefish Key who knew the exact location of the lab. That information could have come from an outside source. What about the security company?”

Lieutenant Casey said, “The security people didn’t know what the lab was for, but they knew whereit was. And they might not have been as tight-lipped as government operatives.”

The lieutenant had made no secret of his opposition to outsourcing the security arrangements for the lab to a civilian company.

“The use of civilian contractors has been widespread,” Coombs said, “especially since the Iraq War.”

“Where it was proven time after time that the government had limited oversight-and-control capabilities,” Casey said. “The taxpayers pay for a professional Navy, not a bunch of oceangoing cowboys.”

“You’re out of line, Lieutenant,” Coombs said. He had lost his cool demeanor, and his face was flushed with anger.

The lieutenant’s phone trilled, heading off a heated argument over the use of private warriors. He had a brief conversation with the caller and hung up.

“The ROV is on the lab site,” he announced with a cutting glance at Coombs. “It’s transmitting photos of the bottom.”

He rose from his chair and went over to a computer at one end of the table, which was connected to a PowerPoint setup. He clicked the mouse and an image of the ocean bottom appeared on the projection screen. There was no trace of the lab, no wreckage to suggest that the Locker had been destroyed.

“Are you sure you’ve got the correct location?” Coombs asked with irritation in his voice.

“Absolutely,”Casey said. “Look closer. You can see the big circular indentations in the sand. That’s where the lab’s support legs rested.”

“What’s this all mean?” Coombs demanded.

Casey gave him a bleak smile.

“Taking a wild guess, Mr. Coombs, I’d say this means that Davy Jones’s Locker has been hijacked.”

Kane still didn’t believe it.

“How could anything that big simply disappear?” he asked.

“You fellows figure out how this facility was hijacked under the nose of the U.S. Navy,” Coombs said. “I’m going to see that Dr. Kane does a similar vanishing act.”

Coombs raised his hand to cut Kane’s next question off, reached into his suit jacket for a cell phone, and hastily punched in a number.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said into the phone.

After a quick conversation, he hung up.

“You’re going to a safe house, Dr. Kane,” he announced.

When Kane protested, Coombs again cut him off.

“Sorry for the temporary inconvenience,” he said, “but someone wants you out of the picture. These attacks show that unauthorized people have found out about the lab even though we have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep it a secret. Even without the natural disaster you suggested, the political repercussions would be staggering if word of this research gets out.”

“I can’t see that happening,” Kane said. “Whoever tried to torpedo our research seems to like secrets too.”

“The difference is, we were prepared to go public once we had a vaccine,” Coombs said.

There was a quick knock at the door, and Jones stepped into the room. He was still wearing sunglasses. Kane felt as if he were being placed under house arrest. He said good-bye, then followed Jones out into the hall.

After Kane was gone, Coombs turned to the others.

“I’m going to recommend to the President that he prepare the country for a state of emergency,” he said. “We’ll contact the CDC and tell them this is the big one.”

“I’ll inform Vice President Sandecker directly,” Casey said. “He maintains contacts at NUMA and will enlist them in the search for the lab.”

“Good idea,” Coombs said. “Maybe their guy Austin can give the Navy some help doing its job.”

This parting comment was intended as another dig at the Navy, but Casey didn’t come back at Coombs as he had at the earlier jibes from the White House aide. He merely smiled.

“Maybe he can,” he said.

KANE TRIED TO GET a rise out of the man in black.

“Guess we’re going to the mattresses,” he said as they walked to the elevator.

“Huh?” Jones said.

“From The Godfather. . . Mafia talk.”

“We’re not the Mafia, sir.”

No, you’re not,Kane thought as he followed Jones from the room, but you might as well be.He couldn’t resist using another borrowed line from the movie.

“Don’t forget the cannoli,” he said.

CHAPTER 14

A FEW MINUTES AFTER ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AN inflatable pontoon boat softly bumped against the hull of the William Beebeand four figures dressed in black-and-green camouflage suits clambered up the side of the ship on rope ladders suspended from padded grapnel hooks. They vaulted over the rail one by one and dashed across the deck as silently as the shadows they resembled.

Except for the night-shift watch on the bridge, the crew was sound asleep in their cabins, recovering from the exertions of the bathysphere launch and rescue. Austin was awake, however, and after staring at the ceiling, his mind churning, he got up and got dressed and made his way to the machine shop.

He switched on the lights, and went over to examine the blade clamped in a table vise. He found a magnifying glass, placed a desk lamp directly over the blade, and examined the tiny ding near the hilt. Through the lens he saw that the flaw was actually a mark in the shape of an equilateral triangle with a dot at each point.

Austin drew the design on a pad of paper. He stared at it for a few moments but nothing jumped out at him. He set the pad down and went out onto the deck, thinking the cool air might blow away the cobwebs of sleep. He took a deep breath, but the sudden influx of oxygen produced a yawn instead. His synapses needed a stronger jolt.

He looked up at the bridge lights glowing in the window of the pilothouse. The night watch always kept a coffeepot brewing. He climbed the exterior stairs to the starboard bridge wing. A man’s voice came through the partially open door. The words were growled rather than spoken, and had an accent Austin couldn’t place, but one word stood out from the others.

Kane.

Austin’s well-honed instincts came into play. He moved away from the door, plastered his back against the outside wall of the bridge, and edged up to a window. He saw Third Mate Marla Hayes, a male crewman, and Captain Gannon standing together in the pilothouse. The captain must have been rousted from his bunk because he had a jacket on over his pajamas and slippers on his feet.

Four figures wearing commando outfits were gathered around the captain, the third mate, and the crewman. Hoods covered the faces of three of the commandos, the fourth having removed his to reveal an Asian face with jade-green eyes and a clean-shaven head. All four cradled short-barreled automatic weapons carried sidearms, and had long-bladed knives hanging at their waists.

“I’ll tell you again: Dr. Kane is no longer on this ship,” Gannon was saying. “He left hours ago on a seaplane.”

The unhooded commando reacted with the swiftness of a striking rattlesnake, his free hand shooting out in a short, stabbing blow to the captain’s solar plexus.

“Do not lie to me!” he snapped.

The captain doubled over, but he managed to gasp out a reply.

“Kane is not here,” he wheezed. “Search the whole damned ship, if you don’t believe me.”

“No, Captain,” his assailant said. “ Youwill search the ship. Tell everyone to come up to the deck.”

Still bent over in pain, Gannon reluctantly picked up a receiver connected to the Beebe’s public-address system. When he hesitated with the receiver at his mouth, his assailant forcefully jabbed a gun barrel into the captain’s side to show his impatience.

Gannon winced, but he stubbornly resisted the impulse to cry out. He took a deep breath and spoke into the receiver.

“This is the captain. All hands on deck. All officers and crew assemble on the fantail.”

Gannon’s assailant barked out an order, and then he and two of his accomplices herded their three prisoners toward the door leading out onto the wing. Austin saw the move and climbed up a ladder that provided access to the radio tower on the pilothouse roof. From his perch, he watched the group descend to the main deck. He climbed back down and peered in a window. One attacker had been left to guard the ship’s control center.

Austin descended the stairs to a lower deck, quietly opened the door to Zavala’s cabin, stepped inside, and poked the mound beneath the blankets. Zavala groaned, then pushed the covers aside and sat up on the edge of his bed.

“Oh, hi, Kurt,” he said with a yawn. “What’s up?”

“Didn’t you hear the captain tell the crew to gather on deck?” Austin asked.

Zavala rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“I heard him,” he said, “but I’m not crew, so I stayed in the sack.”

“Your skill at splitting hairs may have saved your butt,” Austin said.

Zavala suddenly came to life.

“What’s going on, Kurt?”

“Uninvited company. A bunch of heavily armed gentlemen in ninja suits.”

“How many?”

“Four that I know of, but there may be others. They’re looking for Kane. Gannon told them Doc’s not on the ship, but they didn’t believe him. He was forced to round up the crew.”

Zavala muttered something in Spanish, then bounded out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a windbreaker. He yanked his lucky skullcap down over his ears.

“What sort of firepower are we dealing with?” he asked.

Austin told him about the machine guns and pistols the commandos carried. Zavala frowned. Neither man had thought to bring along a weapon on a peaceful scientific expedition.

“We’ll have to improvise for now,” Austin said.

Zavala shrugged.

“What else is new?” he said.

Austin checked the passageway. Seeing it was clear, he led the way to the bridge, with Zavala a few steps behind. The commando was still inside. He was lighting a cigarette. Austin pointed to his own chest, then to the roof ladder. Zavala curled his forefinger and thumb into an OKgesture. As soon as Austin was on the roof, Zavala tapped on the window and waved at the commando, who burst onto the wing with his machine gun at waist level.

“Buenas noches,”Zavala said, brandishing his friendliest smile.

Zavala’s Latin charm fell on deaf ears. The man pointed his gun at Zavala’s midsection. Zavala raised his hands. The man was reaching for a radio at his belt when Austin called down from the roof.

“Yoo-hoo,” Austin said, “I’m up here.”

The man looked up and saw a steel-haired gargoyle grinning down at him. He brought his gun up, but Austin leaped off the roof and landed with his full weight on the man’s shoulders. The man folded like a rag doll under the impact of more than two hundred pounds of muscle and bone and crashed to the deck.

The machine gun flew from the man’s hand. Zavala dove for the weapon and deftly snatched it up before it skittered over the edge. He held the gun on the man, who lay on the deck without stirring.

“Did you really say, ‘ Yoo-hoo’?” he asked Austin.

“There wasn’t time for a full introduction.”

Austin prodded the man with his toe and told him to get up. When there was no response, he rolled the limp man over onto his back and pulled the mask back to reveal broad-faced Asian features. Blood drooled from the man’s mouth.

“He’s going to need a good orthodontist when he wakes up,” Zavala said.

Austin felt for a pulse in the man’s neck.

“That’s the least of his worries,” he said. “He’d be better off seeing the undertaker.”

Zavala stepped on the cigarette that had flown from the man’s mouth.

“Someone should have told him that smoking is bad for his health,” he said.

They dragged the body inside the bridge. Austin radioed a quick Mayday while Zavala picked up the man’s gun. They descended to the deck. Crouching low and taking advantage of the shadows, they made their way to the fantail. The powerful floodlights used to illuminate night operations had been turned on, bathing the deck in bright light. The crew and officers were huddled in a tight knot guarded by two of the commandos. The clean-shaven man had his machine gun trained on Gannon with one hand while with the other hand he brandished a photo of Kane in Gannon’s face.

The captain shook his head and pointed skyward. He looked more exasperated than frightened.

The man angrily pushed Gannon aside and turned to the Beebe’s crew. He held the photo high.

“Tell me where this man is hiding,” he announced, “and we will let you go.”

When no one took him up on the offer, he strode over to the crewmen, studied their frightened faces, then reached out and grabbed an arm that belonged to Marla. He forced her to her knees, glanced at his watch, and said, “If Kane does not appear in five minutes, I will kill this woman. Then we will kill one of your crew every minute until Kane comes out of hiding.”

Austin lay belly-down on the deck next to Zavala, trying to train his sights on the commando. Even if he took the man out with the first shot, he might not get the other two, who could sweep the deck clean with a few bursts from their automatic weapons. He lowered his gun and signaled to Zavala. They crawled backward until they were in the shadows of the ship’s garage.

“I can’t nail Bullethead,” Austin said. “Even if I do, his pals could go on a shooting spree.”

“What we need is a tank,” Zavala agreed.

Austin stared at his friend and punched him in the shoulder.

“You’re a genius,Joe. That’s exactlywhat we need.”

“I am? Oh, hell,” he said as if something had occurred to him. “The Humongous? That’s an ROV, Kurt, not an Army tank.”

“It’s better than nothing, which is what we’ve got,” Austin said.

He quickly outlined a plan.

Zavala saluted to show that he understood, then turned and sprinted off to the remote-control center. Austin slipped through a door to the ship’s garage and turned the lights on. The Humongous had been pulled up close to the doors in preparation for the search for the sunken ROV the next morning.

The Humongous was about the size of a Land Rover. It was built with treads that allowed it to crawl along the sea bottom. It had a flotation pack full of foam that held the instruments, lights, and ballast tanks. Six thrusters allowed for agile, precise maneuvering in the water, and it carried a battery of still and television cameras, magnetometers, sonar, water samplers, and instruments that measured water clarity, light penetration, and temperature.

The pair of now-folded mechanical manipulators that extended from the forward end could be operated with surgical precision. Their claws could pluck the tiniest of samples from the bottom and store them in a collection cage slung under the front of the vehicle.

A couple hundred feet of umbilical tether had been coiled behind the ROV. Austin stood in front of it, waiting, as precious seconds went by. Then the vehicle’s searchlights snapped on, and the electric motors began to hum.

Austin waved his arms at the camera. Zavala saw him on the monitor and waggled the manipulator arms to signal that he was at the controls.

Austin went around behind the ROV and climbed on top. Zavala gave the vehicle power. The Humongous lurched forward and crashed into the double doors, pushing them wide open. As it emerged onto the deck on grinding treads, Zavala waved the manipulators around and worked the claws, adding to the dramatic effect.