Black Wind

Tracking their depth as they rose, Dirk flared his body out like a sky-diver at forty feet to slow his ascent and purged a shot of air out of his BC. Dahlgren followed suit and the two men stabilized themselves at a depth of twenty feet to help rid their bodies of elevated levels of nitrogen in their blood.

“That extra five minutes on the bottom cost us another thirteen of decompression time. I'll be sucking my tank dry before thirty-eight minutes rolls around,” Dahlgren said, eyeing his depleted air gauge. Before Dirk could answer, they heard a muffled metallic clang in the distance.

“Never fear, Leo is here,” Dirk remarked, pointing at an object forty feet to their side.

A pair of silver scuba tanks with attached regulators dangled at the twenty-foot mark, tied to a rope that ascended to the surface. At the other end of the rope, Delgado stood munching a banana on the back deck of the Grunion, tracking the men's air bubbles and making sure they didn't stray too far from the boat. After hovering for a fifteen-minute decompression stop at twenty feet, the men grabbed the regulators affixed to the dangling tanks and floated up to ten feet for another twenty-five-minute wait. When Dirk and Dahlgren finally surfaced and climbed aboard the boat, Delgado acknowledged the men with just a wave as he turned the boat for landfall.

As the boat motored into the calmer waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Dirk unwrapped the bomb canister fragments and laid them on the deck.

“No sign of one of these on the aircraft, or in the hangar?” Dirk asked.

“Definitely not. There was plenty of parts, tools, and other debris in the hangar, but nothing that looked like that,” Dahlgren replied, eyeing the pieces. “Why would a canister crack open like that?”

“Because it's made of porcelain,” Dirk replied, holding a shard up for Dahlgren's closer inspection.

Dahlgren ran a finger over the surface, then shook his head. “A porcelain bomb. Very handy for attacking tea parties, I presume.”

“Must have something to do with the payload.” Dirk rearranged the fragments until they fit roughly together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The payload armament had long since washed away in the sea, but several compartmentalized sections formed in the interior were clearly evident.

“Looks like different combustibles were to react together when detonated.”

“An incendiary bomb?” Dahlgren asked.

“Perhaps,” Dirk replied quietly. He then reached into the side pocket of his BC and pulled out the digital timer. “Someone went to a fair amount of trouble to retrieve one of these bombs,” he said, tossing the timer over to Dahlgren.

Dahlgren studied the device, turning it over in his hands.

“Maybe it was the original owner,” he finally said with seriousness. Raising his arm with the timer in his palm, he showed Dirk the backside of the clock. In raised lettering on the plastic case was an indecipherable line of Asian script.

Like A pack of hyenas fighting over a freshly killed zebra, the president's security advisers were biting and yipping at each other in a self-serving attempt to dodge responsibility over the events in Japan. Tempers flared across the Cabinet Room, situated in the West Wing of the White House.

“It's a breakdown of intelligence, clear and simple. Our consulates are not getting the intelligence support they need and two of my people are dead as a result,” the secretary of state complained harshly.

“We had no advance knowledge of an increase in terrorist activity in Japan. Diplomatic feeds from State reported that Japanese security forces were in the dark as well,” the deputy CIA director fired back.

“Gentlemen, what's done is done,” the president interjected as he attempted to light a large old-fashioned smoking pipe. Bearing the physical appearance of Teddy Roosevelt and the no-nonsense demeanor of Harry Truman, President Garner Ward was widely admired by the public for his common sense and pragmatic style. The first-term president from Montana welcomed spirited debate among his staff and cabinet but had a low tolerance for finger-pointing and self-serving pontification.

“We need to understand the nature of the threat and the motives of our opponent, and then calculate a course of action,” the president said simply “I'd also like a recommendation as to whether Homeland Security should issue an elevated domestic security alert.” He nodded toward Dennis Jimenez, sitting across the Cabinet Room conference table, who served as secretary of the homeland security department. “But first, we need to figure out who these characters are. Martin, why don't you fill us in on what we know so far?” the president said, addressing FBI Director Martin Finch.

An ex-Marine Corps MP, Finch still sported a crew cut and spoke with the blunt voice of a basic training drill sergeant.

“Sir, the assassinations of Ambassador Hamilton and Deputy Chief of Mission Bridges appear to have been performed by the same individual. Surveillance video from the hotel where Bridges was killed exposed a suspect dressed as a waiter who was not known to be an employee of the hotel. Photographs from the video were matched to eyewitness accounts of an individual seen at the Tokyo area golf course shortly before Ambassador Hamilton was shot.”

“Any tie-in to the killing of the executive Chris Gavin and the Sem-Con plant explosion?” the president inquired.

“None that we have been able to identify, although there is a potential indicator in the note left with Bridges's body. We are, of course, treating it as a related incident.”

“And what of the suspect?” the secretary of state asked.

“The Japanese authorities have been unable to make a match in their known criminal files, or provide a possible identification, for that Matter. He was not a previously recognized member of the Japanese Red Army cell. He is apparently something of an unknown. The Japanese law enforcement agencies are cooperating fully in the manhunt and have placed their immigration checkpoints on high alert.”

“Despite no prior connection, there would seem to be little doubt that he is operating under the auspices of the Japanese Red Army,” the CIA deputy added.

“The note left with Bridges. What did it say?” asked Jimenez.

Finch rifled through a folder, then pulled out a typewritten sheet.

“Translated from Japanese, it says: ”Be vanquished, American imperialists who soil Nippon with greed, or death will blow her cold, sweet breath to the shores of America. JRA.“ Classic fringe cult hyperbole.”

“What is the state of the Japanese Red Army? I thought they were essentially dissolved a number of years ago,” President Ward asked. Waiting for the reply, he tilted his head back and blew a cloud of cherry-scented tobacco smoke toward the paneled ceiling before Finch answered.

“As you may know, the Japanese Red Army is a fringe terrorist group that grew out of a number of communist factions in Japan during the seventies. They promote an anti-imperialist rant and have supported the overthrow of the Japanese government and monarchy by both legitimate and illegitimate means. With suspected ties to the Middle East and North Korea, the JRA was behind a number of bombings and hijackings, culminating in the attempted takeover of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 1975. They seemed to lose support in the nineties, and by 2000 the known leadership of the organization had been largely apprehended. Though many believed the organization was dead, indications of the group's stirrings have been seen again in the last two years. Published doctrines and active media reporting in Japan have provided a new sounding board, gaining more reception in the country's declining economic climate. Their message has focused on anti-American and anticapitalist tenets, rather than the anarchistic overthrow of the government, which has found a degree of support within a fragment of the population's youth. Oddly, there is no visible front man, or poster child, for the group.”

“I can endorse Marty's comments, Mr. President,” the deputy CIA director offered. “Until the hits on our people, we've had no overt record of activity from these people in a number of years. The known leadership is behind bars. Quite frankly, we don't know who is now calling the shots.”

“Are we confident there is no Al Qaeda connection here?”

“Possible, but not likely,” Finch replied. “The method of assassination is certainly not their style, and there has been no real radical Islamic presence visible in Japan. At this juncture, we have absolutely no evidence to suggest a link.”

“Where are we with the Japanese on this?” the president asked.

“We have an FBI counterterrorist team in-country working closely with the Japanese National Police Agency. The Japanese authorities are quite cognizant of the nefarious nature of these assassinations in their country and have assigned a large task force to the investigation. There is little more in the way of assistance we could ask of them that they haven't already offered up.”

“I have initiated a request through State to the Japanese Foreign Ministry for an update to their profile of high-risk aliens,” Jimenez interjected. “We'll issue a border security alert watch, in coordination with the FBI.”

“And what are we doing elsewhere abroad to prevent any more target shooting?” the president asked, addressing the secretary of state.

“We have issued heightened security alerts at all of our embassies,” the secretary replied. “We have also assigned additional security protection to our senior diplomats, and placed a temporary travel restriction for all State Department personnel within their host country. For the time being, our ambassadors abroad are under lock and key.”

“Any opinion that there is an imminent threat domestically, Dennis?”

“Not at this time, Mr. President,” the homeland security director replied. “We've tightened our travel and immigration inspections on incoming traffic from Japan but don't feel it is necessary to raise the domestic security alert.”

“Do you concur, Marty?”

“Yes, sir. Like Dennis, all our indications suggest that the incidents are isolated to Japan.”

“Very well. Now what about the deaths of those two Coast Guard meteorologists in Alaska?” the president asked, drawing another puff on his pipe.

Finch rifled through some documents before responding. “That would be the island of Yunaska in the Aleutians. We have an investigative team presently on site working with local officials. They are also looking at the destruction of a NUMA helicopter as a related incident. Preliminary indications are that the acts were the result of rogue poachers who used cyanide gas to subdue a herd of sea lions. We're trying to track down a Russian fishing trawler that was known to be fishing the local waters illegally. Officials on-site appear confident that they will apprehend the vessel.”

“Cyanide gas to hunt sea lions? There are lunatics all over this planet. All right, gentlemen, let's give it our all to find these murderers. Allowing our diplomatic representatives to be gunned down without repercussion is not the message I want to be giving the world. I knew Hamilton and Bridges. They were both good men.”

“We'll find them,” Finch promised.

“Make sure,” the president said, tapping his downturned pipe bowl against a stainless steel ashtray for effect. “I fear these characters have more up their sleeve than we realize and I want none of what they're selling.” As he spoke, a glob of burned tobacco plopped unceremoniously into the ashtray, and nobody said a word.

Although Keith Catana had been in South Korea only three months, he had already identified his favorite off-base watering hole. Chang's Saloon appeared little different from the dozen or so other bars of “A-Town,” a seedy entertainment section on the fringe of Kunsan City that catered to the American servicemen stationed at Kunsan Air Force Base. Chang's skipped the loud blaring music that emanated from most of the other bars and offered a decent price for an OB beer, one of the local Korean brews. But perhaps more important, in Catana's eyes, Chang's attracted the best-looking working girls of A-Town.

Abandoned by two buddies who decided to pursue a group of American servicewomen headed to a dance club around the corner, Catana sat silently nursing his fourth beer, welcoming the early periphery of a warm buzz. The twenty-three-year-old master sergeant was an avionics specialist at the air base, supporting F-16 attack jets of the Eighth Fighter Wing. Located just a few minutes' flight time from the DMZ, his squadron stood in constant preparedness for an aerial counter strike should North Korea initiate an invasion of the South.

Sentimental memories of his family back in Arkansas were suddenly jolted from his brain when the door to the bar flung open and in strolled the most stunning Korean woman Catana had ever laid eyes on. Four beers were not enough to deceive himself; she was a genuine beauty. Her long, straight black hair accentuated a delicate, almost porcelain-skinned face that featured a petite nose and mouth but stunningly bold black eyes. A tight leather skirt and silk top accentuated her small build but magnified a distorted symmetry created by her large, surgically enhanced breasts.

Like a tigress searching for prey, the woman surveyed the crowded bar from front to back before focusing on the lone airman sitting alone in a corner. With her sights locked, she swiveled her way over to Catana's table and smoothly slipped into the chair facing him.

“Hello, Joe. Be a friend and buy me a drink?” she purred.

“Glad to,” Catana stammered in reply. She was definitely in a different league from the normal A-Town hookers, he thought, and not the type that caters to enlisted servicemen. But who was he to argue? If the heavens intended to drop this creature in his lap on payday, then good fortune was indeed smiling his way.

It took only one quick beer before the harlot invited him back to her hotel room. Catana was pleasantly surprised that the woman didn't wrangle about price, or, in fact, mention it at all, he thought oddly.

She led him to a cheap motel nearby, where they walked arm in arm down its seedy hallway that was complete with red lights. At the end of the hall, the woman unlocked the door to a small, hot corner room. Sleep wasn't the major draw of the room, Catana could see, as evidenced by a condom machine mounted near the bed.

After closing the door, the woman quickly stripped off her top, then embraced Catana in a deep, passionate kiss. He paid little attention to a noise near the closet as he soaked in the warmth of the exotic woman, intoxicated by a combination of her beauty, the alcohol,

and the expensive perfume she wore. His pleasurable delirium was suddenly jolted by a sharp jab to his buttocks, followed by a hot, searing pain. Whirling unsteadily around, he was shocked to find himself facing another man in the room. The stocky bald man grinned a crooked smile through his long mustache, his dark cold eyes seeming to penetrate right through Catana's skull. In his hands, he held a fully depressed hypodermic needle.

Pain and confusion overwhelmed Catana as his body suddenly went numb. He tried to raise his hands but his limbs were useless. Even his lips refused to cooperate with his brain in voicing a cry of protest. It took just a few seconds before a wave of blackness rolled over him and all feeling departed his senses.

It was hours later when the incessant pounding jarred him from a state of unconsciousness. The pounding was not in his head, as he first imagined, but came externally, from the motel room door. He noticed a warm stickiness enveloping him as he fought to clear the fog from his vision. Why the pounding? Why the wetness? The dimly lit room and cobwebs in his mind refused to reveal the mystery..

The banging ceased for a moment, then a loud blow struck the door, bashing it open with a flood of light. Squinting through the brightness, he saw a company of policemen storm into the room, followed by two men with cameras. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden infusion of light, he was able to notice what the wetness was around him.

Blood. It was everywhere: on the sheets, on the pillows, and smeared all over his body. But mostly it was pooled about the prone figure of the nude woman lying dead beside him.

Catana instinctively lurched back from the body in shock at the sight of the corpse. As two of the policemen pulled him off the bed and handcuffed his wrists, he cried out in horror.

“What happened? Who did this?” he said in a daze.

He looked on in shock as a third policeman pulled back a sheet partially covering the woman, fully exposing a body that had been brutally mutilated. To Catana's further bewilderment, he saw that the body was not that of the beautiful woman he had met the night before but rather was of a young girl whom he did not know.

Catana sagged as he was dragged out of the room amid a flurry of photographs. By noon that day, the story of the rape and savage murder of a thirteen-year-old Korean girl by a U.S. serviceman was a countrywide horror. By evening, it had become a national outrage. And by the time of the girl's funeral two days later, it was a full-blown international incident.

The high noonday sun shimmered brightly off the sapphire waters of the Bohol Sea, forcing Raul Biazon to squint as he gazed toward the large research vessel moored in the distance. For a moment, the Philippine government biologist thought the sun's rays were playing a trick on his eyes. No respectable scientific research ship could possibly be emblazoned in such a lively hue. But as the small weather-beaten launch in which he rode drew closer, he saw that there was nothing wrong with his vision. The ship was in fact painted a glistening turquoise blue from stem to stern, which made the vessel appear as if it belonged under the sea rather than bobbing atop it. Leave it to the Americans, Biazon thought, to escape the ordinary.

The launch pilot guided the worn wooden boat alongside a stepladder suspended over the side of the ship and Biazon wasted no time in leaping aboard. Speaking briefly to the pilot in Tagalog, he turned and scampered up the ladder and sprang onto the deck, nearly colliding with a tall brawny man who stood at the rail. With thinning blond hair and sturdy build, there was a Viking-like air about the man who was dressed in an immaculate white warm-weather captain's uniform.

“Dr. Biazon? Welcome aboard the Mariana Explorer. I'm Captain Bill Stenseth,” the man smiled warmly through gray eyes.

“Thank you for receiving me on such short notice, Captain,” Biazon replied, regaining his stance and composure. “When a local fisherman informed me that a NUMA research vessel was seen in the region, I thought you might be able to offer some assistance.”

“Let's head to the bridge and out of the heat,” Stenseth directed, “and you can fill us in on the environmental calamity you mentioned over the radio.”

“I hope that I am not interfering with your research work,” Biazon said as the two men climbed a flight of stairs.

“Not at all. We've just completed a seismic mapping project off Mindanao and are taking a break to test some equipment before heading up to Manila. Besides,” Stenseth said with a grin, “when my boss says, ”Stop the boat,“ I stop the boat.”

“Your boss?” Biazon inquired with a confused look.

“Yes,” Stenseth replied as they reached the bridge wing and he pulled open the side door. “He's traveling on board with us.”

Biazon stepped through the door and into the bridge, shivering involuntarily as a blast of refrigerated air struck his perspiration-soaked body. At the rear of the bridge, he noticed a tall, distinguished-looking man in shorts and a polo shirt bent over a chart table studying a map.

“Dr. Biazon, may I present the director of NUMA, Dirk Pitt,” Stenseth introduced. “Dirk, this is Dr. Raul Biazon, hazardous wastes manager with the Philippines Environmental Management Bureau.”

Biazon was shocked to find the head of a large government agency working at sea so far from Washington. But one look at Pitt and Biazon knew he wasn't the typical government administrator. Standing nearly a foot taller than his own five-foot-four frame, the NUMA chief carried a tan, lean, muscular body that showed few indications of having spent much time behind a desk. Though Biazon wouldn't know, the senior Pitt was nearly the spitting image of his son who carried the same name. The face was weathered and the ebony hair showed tinges of gray at the temples, but the opaline green eyes sparkled with life. They were eyes that had absorbed much in their day, Biazon gauged, reflecting an assorted mix of intelligence, mirth, and tenacity.

“Welcome aboard,” Pitt greeted warmly, shaking Biazon's hand with a firm grip. “My underwater technology director, Al Giordino,” he added, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the far corner of the wheelhouse. Curled up asleep on a bench seat was a short, thick man with dark curly hair. A light snore drifted from the man's lips with each breath of air that exhaled from his barrel-shaped chest. His powerful build reminded Biazon of a rhinoceros.

“Al, come join the party,” Pitt yelled across the bridge.

Giordino pried his eyes open, then popped instantly awake. He quickly stood and joined the other men at the table, showing no signs of slumber.

“As I told the captain, I appreciate your offer of assistance,” Biazon said.

“The Philippine government has always been supportive of our research work in your country's waters,” Pitt replied. “When we received your radio call to help identify a toxic marine affliction, we were glad to help. Perhaps you can tell us a little more about the specifics of the outbreak.”

“A few weeks ago, our office was contacted by a resort hotel on anglao Island. The hotel's management was upset because a large quantity of dead fish were washing up on the guest beach.”

“I could see where that would tend to dampen the holiday makers' spirits,” Giordino grinned.

“Indeed,” Biazon replied sternly. “We began monitoring the shoreline and have witnessed the fish kill growing at an alarming rate. Dead marine life is washing ashore along a ten-kilometer stretch of beach now, and growing day by day. The resort owners are all up in arms, and we, of course, are concerned about potential damage to the coral reef.”

“Have you been able to diagnose what is killing the fish?” Stenseth asked.

“Not yet. Toxic poisoning is all we can infer. We have sent samples to our departmental lab in Cebu for analysis but are still awaiting the results.” The look on Biazon's face revealed his dissatisfaction with the snail-paced response from the agency lab.

“Any speculation as to the source?” Pitt asked.

Biazon shook his head. “We initially suspected industrial pollutants, which, regrettably, are an all too common source of environmental damage in my country. But my field team and I have scoured the impacted coastal region and failed to locate any heavy industrial businesses operating in the area. We also examined the coastline for obvious spillways or illegal dump sites but came up empty. It is my belief that the source of the kill originates at sea.”

“Perhaps a red tide?” Giordino said.

“We do experience toxic phytoplankton outbreaks in the Philippines,” Biazon said, “though they are typically seen during the warmer late summer months.”

“It might also be some covert offshore industrial dumping,” Pitt replied. “Where exactly is the impacted area, Dr. Biazon?”

Biazon glanced at the map, which showed Mindanao and the southern Philippine island groupings. “Off the province of Bohol,” he said, pointing to a large round island north of Mindanao. “Panglao is a small resort island located here, adjacent to the southwest coast. Its about fifty kilometers from our present position.”

“I can have us there in under two hours,” Stenseth said, eyeing the distance.

Pitt nodded toward the map. “We've got a ship full of scientists who can help find the answers. Bill, lay a course in to Panglao Island and we'll take a look.”

“Thank you,” a visibly relieved Biazon said.

“Doctor, perhaps you'd like a tour of the ship while we get under way?” Pitt offered.

“I'd like that very much.”

“Al, you care to join us?”

Giordino looked at his watch pensively. “No, thanks. Two hours will be just enough time for me to finish my project,” he replied, easing himself back down on the bench seat and drifting rapidly back to sleep.

The Mariana Explorer cruised easily through a flat sea and arrived at Panglao Island in just over ninety minutes. Pitt studied an electronic navigational map of the area that was displayed on a color monitor as Biazon denoted a rectangular area where the fish kill was occurring.

“Bill, the current runs east to west through here, which would suggest that the hot zone is located at the eastern end of Dr. Biazon's box. Why don't we start to the west and work our way east into the current, taking water samples at quarter-mile increments.”

Stenseth nodded. “I'll run a zigzag course, to see if we can gauge how far from shore the toxin is concentrated.”

“And let's deploy the side-scan sonar. Might as well see if there's any obvious man-made objects involved.”

Dr. Biazon watched with interest as a towed sonar fish was deployed off the stern, then the Mariana Explorer began following a dot-to-dot path laid out on the navigation screen. At periodic intervals, a team of marine biologists collected seawater samples from varying depths. As the ship moved to the next position, the collected samples were sent down to the shipboard laboratory for immediate analysis.

On the bridge, Giordino tracked the signals from the side-scan sonar. The electronic image of the shallow seafloor revealed an interweaving mix of flat sand bottom and craggy coral mounts as the ship sailed over the fringes of a coral reef. In a short time, his trained eyes had already discerned a ship's anchor and an outboard motor | lying beneath the well-traveled waters. As the monitor revealed each object, Giordino reached over and punched a mark button on the con| sole, which flagged the location for later assessment.

Pitt and Biazon stood nearby, admiring the tropical beaches of Panglao Island less than a half mile away. Pitt glanced down at the water alongside the ship, where he spotted a sea turtle and scores of dead fish floating belly-up.

“We've entered the toxic zone,” Pitt said. “We should know the results shortly.”

As the research vessel plowed west, the concentration of dead fish in the water increased, then gradually fell away until the blue sea around them grew empty again.

“We're a half mile beyond Dr. Biazon's grid,” Stenseth reported. “Judging by the water, it looks like we're well clear of the toxic zone.” “Agreed,” Pitt replied. “Let's stand by here until we see what kind of results the lab has found.”

As the ship ground to a halt and the sonar tow fish was retrieved, Pitt led Biazon down a level into a teak-paneled conference room, followed by Giordino and Stenseth. Biazon studied the portraits of several famous underwater explorers which lined one wall, recognizing the images of William Beebe, Sylvia Earle, and Don Walsh. As they were seated, a pair of marine biologists clad in the requisite white lab coats entered the conference room. A short, attractive female, her brunet hair tied back in a ponytail, walked to a suspended viewing screen at the front of the room, while her male assistant began typing commands into the computer-driven projection system.

“We have completed an assessment of forty-four discrete water samples collected, which were analyzed using molecular separation of existing toxic molecules,” she said in a clear voice. As she spoke, an image appeared on the screen behind her, similar to the navigation screen Biazon had noticed the ship tracking to earlier. A zigzag line line punctuated by forty-four large dots ran parallel to an outline of the pang lao Island shoreline. Each dot was color-coded, though Biazon noted that most of them glowed green.

“The samples were measured for toxic content in parts per billion, with positive results occurring in fifteen of the samples,” the biologist stated, pointing to a row of yellow dots. “As you can see from the chart, the concentration increases as the samples moved east, with the highest reading registered here,” she said, tracing past a few orange-colored dots to a lone red dot near the top of the map.

“So the source is from an isolated location,” Pitt said.

“The samples tested negative beyond the red point, indicating that it is likely of a concentrated origin spreading east with the current.”

“That would seem to dispel the red tide theory. Al, do the results mesh with anything we picked up on the sonar?”

Giordino walked over to the console and leaned over the operator's shoulder, typing in a quick series of commands. A dozen As suddenly appeared on the projection screen, overlaid at random points along the zigzag tracking line. Each AT was lettered, beginning with A at the bottom, proceeding to L near the top.

“Al's ”Dirty Dozen' hit list,“ he smiled, retaking his seat. ”We ran over twelve objects that appeared man-made. Mostly chunks of pipe, rusty anchors, and the like. Three items appeared that could be suspected culprits,“ he said, eyeing a sheet of handwritten notes. ”Mark Cwas a trio of fifty-five-gallon drums lying in the sand."

Every eye in the room jumped to the A'marked Con the overhead. The water samples on either side of the mark were all illuminated with green dots, which signified a negative test result.

“No toxins registered in the vicinity,” Pitt said. “Next.”

“Mark F looks to be a wooden sailboat, perhaps a local fishing boat. She's sitting upright on the bottom with her mast still standing.”

This AT was located adjacent to the first yellow dot. Pitt commented that it was still down current of the toxic readings.

“Strike two. But you're getting warmer.”

“My last mark is a little odd, as the image was just at the range of ij the sonar,” Giordino said, pausing with uncertainty.

“Well, what did it look like?” Stenseth asked.

“A ship's propeller. Looked like it was protruding from the reef. I couldn't make out any sign of the ship that went with it, though. Might just be a lone propeller that got bashed off against the reef. I tagged it at mark K”

Every voice in the room fell silent as their eyes found the A'marked Kon the overhead screen. It was positioned right above the red dot..;

“It would appear there's something more to it than just a propeller,” Pitt said finally. “Leaking fuel from a submerged ship, or perhaps its cargo?”

“We did not detect abnormally high readings of petroleum compounds in the water samples,” the NUMA biologist stated.

“You never did tell us what you found,” Giordino said, raising a dark eyebrow at the biologist.

“Yes, you said you did identify toxins in the water, didn't you?” Biazon asked anxiously. “What was it that you found?”

“Something I've never encountered in salt water before,” she replied, shaking her head slowly. “Arsenic.”

The coral reef exploded with a rainbow of colors arranged in a serene beauty that put a Monet landscape to shame. Bright red sea anemones waved their tentacles lazily in the current amid a carpet of magenta-colored sea sponges. Delicate green sea fans climbed gracefully toward the surface beside round masses of violet-hued brain coral. Brilliant blue starfish glowed from the reef like bright neon signs, while dozens of sea urchins blanketed the seafloor in a carpet of pink pincushions.

Few things in nature rivaled the beauty of a healthy coral reef, Pitt reflected as his eyes drank in the assortment of colors. Floating just off the bottom, he peered out his faceplate in amusement as a pair of small clown fish darted into a crevice as a spotted ray cruised by searching for a snack. Of all the world's great dive spots, he always felt it was the warm waters of the western Pacific that held the most breathtaking coral reefs.

“The wreck should be slightly ahead and to the north of us,”

Giordino's voice crackled through his ears, breaking the tranquility. After mooring the Mariana Explorer over the site of the maximum toxin readings, Pitt and Giordino donned rubberized dry suits with full faceplates to protect them from potential chemical or biological contamination Dropping over the side, they splashed into the clear warm water that dropped 120 feet to the bottom. \

The readings of arsenic in the water had been startling to everyone. Dr. Biazon reported that arsenic seepage had been known to occur in mining operations around the country and that several manganese mines operated on Bohol Island, but added that none were located near Panglao. Arsenic was also utilized in insecticides, the NUMA biologist countered. Perhaps an insecticide container was lost off a vessel, or intentionally dumped? There was only one way to find out, Pitt declared, and that was to go down and have a look.

With Giordino at his side, Pitt checked his compass, then thrust his fins together, kicking himself at an angle across the invisible current. The visibility was nearly seventy-five feet and Pitt could observe the reef gradually rising to shallower depths as he glided just above the bottom. His skin quickly began to sweat under the thick dry suit, its protective layer providing more insulation than was required in the warm tropical waters.

“Somebody turn on the air-conditioning,” he heard Giordino mutter, verbalizing his own sentiments.

With eyes aimed forward, he still saw no signs of a shipwreck, but noted that the coral bottom rose up sharply ahead. To his right, a large underwater sand dune boiled up against the reef, its rippled surface stretching beyond Pitt's field of vision. Reaching the coral uplift, he tilted his upper body toward the surface and thrust with a large scissors kick to propel himself up and over its jagged edge. He was surprised to find that the reef dropped vertically away on the other side, creating a large crevasse. More surprising was what he saw at the bottom of the ravine. It was the bow half of a ship.

“What the heck?” Giordino uttered, spotting the partial wreckage of the ship.

Pitt studied the partial remains of the ship for a moment, then laughed through the underwater communication system. “Got me, too. It's an optical illusion. The rest of the ship is there, it's just buried under the sand dune.”

Giordino studied the wreck and saw that Pitt was right. The large sand dune that affronted the reef had built up partway into the crevasse and neatly covered the stern half of the ship. The current swirling through the crevasse had halted the onslaught of the sand at a point amidships of the wreck in a nearly perfect line, which gave the impression that only half a ship existed.

Pitt turned away from the exposed portion of the ship, swimming over the empty sand dune for several yards before it dropped sharply beneath him.

“Here's your propeller, Al,” he said, pointing down.

Beneath his fins, a small section of the ship's stern was exposed. The brown-encrusted skin curved down to a large brass propeller, which protruded from the sand dune like a windmill. Giordino kicked over and inspected the propeller, than swam up the sternpost several feet and began brushing away a layer of sand. From the curvature of the stern, he could tell that the ship was listing sharply to its port side, which was also apparent from the exposed bow section. Pitt floated over and watched as Giordino was able to expose the last few letters of the ship's name beaded onto the stern.

“Something maru is the most I can get,” he said, struggling to trench into a refilling hole of sand.

“She's Japanese,” Pitt said, “and, by the looks of the corrosion, she's been here awhile. If she's leaking toxins, it would have to be from the bow section.”

Giordino stopped digging in the sand and followed Pitt as he swam toward the exposed front of the ship. The vessel eerily emerged again from the sand dune at its main funnel, which jutted nearly horizontally, its top edged meshed into the coral wall. From its small bridge' section and long forward deck, Pitt could see that the vessel was a common oceangoing cargo ship. He judged her length at slightly more than two hundred feet. As they swam over the angled topside, he could see that the main deck had vanished, its wooden planking disintegrated long ago in the warm Philippine waters.

“Those are some ancient-looking hoists,” Giordino remarked, eyeing a small pair of rusty derricks that reached across the deck like outstretched arms.

“If I had to guess, I'd say she was probably built in the twenties,” Pitt replied, kicking past a deck rail that appeared to be made of brass. Pitt made his way along the deck until he reached a pair of large square hatch covers, the capstones to the ship's forward cargo holds. With the freighter's heavy list, Pitt had expected to find the hatch covers pitched off the storage compartments, but that wasn't the case. Together, the two men swam around the circumference of each hatch, searching for damage or signs of leakage.

“Locked down and sealed tight as a drum,” Giordino said after they returned to their starting point.

“There must be a breach somewhere else.”

Silently finishing his thought, Pitt slowly ascended until he could look down the curving starboard side and exposed hull. Surrounding the ship, the coral reef rose sharply on either side. Following his instincts, he swam down the starboard hull all the way to the partially exposed keel line, then moved slowly toward the bow. Kicking just a short distance, he suddenly halted. Before him, a jagged four-foot-wide gash stretched nearly twenty feet down the starboard hull to the very tip of the bow. The sound of whistling burst through his ears as Giordino swam up and surveyed the gaping wound.

“Just like the Titanic” he marveled. “Only she scraped herself to the bottom on a coral head instead of a chunk of ice.”

“She must have been trying to run aground on purpose,” Pitt surmised.

“Outrunning a typhoon, probably.”

“Or maybe a Navy Corsair. Leyte Gulf is just around the corner, where the Japanese fleet was decimated in 1944.”

The Philippine Islands were a hotly contested piece of real estate in World War II, Pitt recalled. More than sixty thousand Americans lost their lives in the failed defense and later recapture of the islands, a forgotten toll that exceeded the losses in Vietnam. On the heels of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces had landed near Manila and quickly overrun the U.S. and Philippine forces garrisoned at Luzon, Bataan, and Corregidor. General MacArthur's hasty retreat was followed by three years of Japanese oppressive rule, until American advances across the Pacific led to the invasion of the southern island of Leyte in October 1944.

Just over a hundred miles from Panglao, the province of Leyte and its adjoining gulf was the site of the largest air sea battle in history. Days after MacArthur and his invasion force landed on "Leyte, the Japanese Imperial Navy appeared and successfully divided the American supporting naval force. The Japanese came within a hair of destroying the Seventh Fleet, but were ultimately turned back in a devastating defeat, losing four carriers and three battleships, including the massive battlewagon Musashi. The crippling losses finished the Imperial Navy's brief dominance in Pacific waters and led to the country's military collapse within a year.

The sea channels surrounding the southern Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, Mindanao, and Bohol were littered with sunken cargo transport, and warships from the conflict. It would be no surprise to Pitt if the toxins were related to combat wreckage. Eyeing the gash in the cargo ship's hull, it was easy to presume that the vessel was a victim of war.

Pitt mentally envisioned the Japanese-flagged freighter under air attack, the desperate captain electing to run the ship aground in a perilous attempt to save the crew and cargo. Slicing into the coral reef, the bow quickly filled with water as the ship ricocheted off the sides of the crevasse. With a full head of steam, the ship literally drove itself over onto its port side. Whatever cargo the captain had tried to save lay hidden and dormant for decades to follow.

“I think we definitely hit the jackpot,” Giordino said in a morose tone.

Pitt turned to see Giordino's gloved hand pointing away from the hull and toward the adjacent reef Gone was the vibrant red-, blue-, and green-colored corals they had witnessed earlier. In a fan-shaped pattern stretching around the ship's bow, the coral was uniformly tinted a dull white. Pitt grimly noted that no fish were visible in the area as well.

“Bleached dead from the arsenic,” he noted.

Turning back to the wreck, he grabbed a small flashlight clipped to his buoyancy compensator and ducked toward the gap in the hull. Edging his way slowly into the ship's underside, he flicked on the light and sprayed its beam across the black interior. The lower bow section was empty but for a mass of thick anchor chain coiled in a huge pile like an iron serpent. Creeping aft, Pitt moved toward the rear bulkhead as Giordino slipped through the gash and followed behind him. Reaching the bulkhead, Pitt panned his light across the steel wall that separated them from the forward cargo hold. At its lower joint with the starboard bulkhead, he found what he was looking for. The pressure from the outer hull's collision with the reef had buckled one of the plates on the cargo hold's bulkhead. The bent metal created a horizontal window to the cargo hold several feet wide.

Pitt eased up to the hole, careful not to kick up silt around him, then stuck his head in and pulled in the flashlight. A huge lifeless eye stared back at him just inches away, nearly causing him to recoil until he saw that it belonged to a grouper. The fifty-pound green fish drifted back and forth across the compartment in a slow maze, its gray belly pointing up toward the trail of Pitt's rising exhaust bubbles. Peering past the dead fish into its black tomb, Pitt's blood went cold as he surveyed the hold. Scattered in mounds like eggs in a henhouse were hundreds of decaying artillery shells. The forty-pound projectiles were ammunition for the 105mm artillery gun, a lethal field weapon utilized by the Imperial Army during the war.

“A Welcome-to-the-Philippines present for General MacArthur?” Giordino asked, peering in.

Pitt silently nodded, then pulled out a plastic-lined dive bag. Giordino obliged by reaching over and grabbing a shell and inserting it in the bag as Pitt sealed and wrapped it. Giordino then reached over and picked up another highly corroded shell, holding it just a few inches off the bottom. Both men looked on curiously as a brown oily substance leaked out of the projectile.

“That doesn't resemble any high-explosives powder I've ever seen,” 'is said, gingerly setting the weapon down.

“I don't think they are ordinary artillery shells,” Pitt replied as he noted a pool of brown ooze beneath a nearby pile of ordnance. “Let's get this one back to the shipboard lab and find out what we've got,” he said, carrying the wrapped ordnance under his arm like a football. Gliding forward along the bow section, he slipped through the open hull and back into the bright sunlit water.

Pitt had little doubt that the armament was a lost World War II cache. Why the arsenic, he did not know. The Japanese were innovative in their weapons of war and the arsenic-laced shells might have been another device in their arsenal of death. The loss of the Philippines would have effectively spelled the end of the war for the Japanese and they may have prepared to use the weapons as part of a last-gasp measure against a determined enemy.

As they surfaced with the mysterious shell, Pitt felt a strange sense of relief. The deadly cargo that the ship carried so many years ago had never reached port. He was somehow glad that it had ended up sunk on the reef, never to be fielded in the face of battle.

Japanese Imperial submarine I-413 and Numa submersible Starfish June 4, 2007 Kyodongdo Island, South Korea At fifty-five meters in length, the steel-hulled Benetti yacht was impressive even by Monte Carlo affluent standards. The custom-built Italian yacht's lush interior featured an array of marble flooring, Persian carpets, and rare Chinese antiques, which filled the cabins and salons with warm elegance. A collection of fifteenth-century oil paintings by the Flemish master Hans Memling dotted the walls, adding to the eclectic feel. The glistening maroon-and-white exterior, which featured a wide band of wraparound dark-tinted windows, was given a more traditional appearance, with inlaid teak decking and brass fittings on the outside verandas. The entire effect was a tasteful mix of old-world charm combined with the speed and function of modern design and technology. Always turning heads as it roared by, the vessel was an admired fixture on the Han River in and about Seoul. To the local society crowd, an invitation aboard was a highly desired mark of prominence, providing the rare opportunity to sil with the boat's enigmatic owner.

Dae-jong Kang was a leading icon of South Korean industry and he seemed to have his hands in everything. Little was known of the mercurial leader's early background, aside from his sudden appearance during the economic boom of the nineties as the head of a regional construction company. But upon his taking over the reins, the low-tech firm became a corporate Pac-Man, gobbling up companies in the shipping, electronics, semiconductor, and telecommunications industries in a series of leveraged buy outs and hostile takeovers. The businesses were all rolled under the umbrella of Kang Enterprises, a privately held empire entirely controlled and directed by Kang himself. Unafraid of the public spotlight, Kang mixed freely with politicians and business leaders alike, wielding additional influence on the board of directors of South Korea's largest companies.

The fifty-year-old bachelor held a veil of mystery over his private life, however. Much of his time was spent sequestered at his large estate on a secluded section of Kyodongdo Island, a lush mountainous outpost near the mouth of the Han River on the western Korean coast. There he dabbled with a stable of Austrian show horses or worked on his golf game, according to the few who had been invited inside the private enclave. More carefully hidden was a dark secret about the iconoclastic businessman that would have completely shocked his corporate cronies and political patrons. Unknown to even his closest associates, Kang had operated for over twenty-five years as a sleeper agent for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea, as it was known by the rest of the world.

Kang was born in the Hwanghae Province of North Korea shortly after the Korean War. At the age of three, his parents were killed in a railroad derailment, blamed on South Korean insurgents, and the infant boy was adopted by his maternal uncle. The uncle, a founding member of the Korean Workers' Party in 1945, had fought with Kim Il Sung and his anti-Japanese guerrilla forces based in the Soviet Union during World War II. When Kim Il Sung later rose to power in North Korea, the uncle was richly rewarded with a series of provincial government appointments, brokering himself into ever more important spheres of influence until, ultimately, gaining a seat as an elite ruling member of the Central People's Committee, the top executive decision-making organization in North Korea.

During his uncle's ascension, Kang received a thorough indoctrination in the Korean Workers' Party dogma while obtaining the best state-sponsored education the fledgling country could offer. Recognized early as a fast learner who excelled at his studies, Kang was groomed as a foreign operative, with sponsorship from his uncle.

Blessed with a keen financial mind, command like leadership skills, and a ruthless heart, Kang was smuggled into South Korea at the age of twenty-two and set up as a laborer at a small construction company. With brutal efficiency, he quickly worked his way up to foreman, then arranged a series of “accidental” work site deaths that killed the firm's president and top managers. Forging a series of ownership transfer documents, Kang quickly took control of the business within two years of his arrival. With secret direction and capital infusion from Pyongyang, the young communist entrepreneur slowly expanded his network of commercial enterprises over the years, focusing on products and services most beneficial to the North. Kang's forays into telecommunications provided access to Western network communications hardware valuable to the military's command and control systems. His semiconductor plants secretly built chips for use in short-range missiles. And his fleet of cargo ships provided the means for covertly transferring defense technology to the government of his homeland. The profits from his corporate empire that were not smuggled north in the form of Western goods and technology were spent bribing key politicians for government contracts or utilized for the hostile acquisition of other companies. Yet Kang's zealous appropriation of power and technology was almost peripheral to his primary objective, set forth by his handlers so many years before. Kang's mission, in the simplest of provisions, was to promote the reunification of the two Korean countries, but on North Korea's terms.

The sleek Benetti yacht slowed its engines as it entered a narrow inlet off the Han River that wound snakelike into a protected cove. As the boat eased through the inlet, the pilot increased the throttle again, racing the boat smoothly across the calm waters of the interior lagoon. A yellow floating dock bobbed gently on the opposite side of the | cove, which quickly grew larger in size as the yacht drew near. The big; vessel stormed toward the dock, swinging parallel at just the last, minute as its engines were cut. A pair of black-uniformed men grabbed the bow and stern lines and tied off the vessel as the pilot finessed her the last few feet to the dock. The shore crew quickly rolled a stepped platform against the yacht's side, the upper step matching the foot level of the first deck.

A cabin door popped open and three gray-looking men in dark blue suits stepped down onto the dock and instinctively peered up at the large stone structure perched above them. Jutting from a cliff that rose nearly vertically above the dock nestled an immense stone house that was half-carved into the crown of the bluff. Thick walls surrounded the house, lending a medieval look to the compound, although the house itself was clearly of Asian design, with a deep angular tiled roof capping the brownstone walls. The entire structure sat two hundred feet above the water, accessible by a steep set of stairs carved into the rock on one side. The three men noted that twelve-foot-high stone walls ran all the way down to the water's edge, ensuring a high degree of privacy. A tight-lipped guard standing at the dock's footing with an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder ensured even more.