Deep Fathom

8 Endgame

In his usual red trunks and white cotton robe, Jack relaxed in a lounge chair on the bow deck of his ship. His hair was still wet from the long shower, but the late afternoon remained warm. It felt good to soak in the last rays of the setting sun. His dog, Elvis, lay sprawled beside the lounge.

Across the deck, the sleek contours of the Nautilus 2000 reflected the light off its titanium surface. Robert worked under the dry-docked submersible, inspecting every square inch, while Lisa sat inside, doing the same. So far the sub seemed to have withstood the extreme pressures without a problem. The only concern: the radio glitch. Lisa had been troubleshooting the computer and com systems, trying to trace the gremlin in the works, but so far without success.

“How’s your jaw?”

Jack turned his attention back to his companion. Admiral Mark Houston relaxed on a neighboring lounge. He puffed on a thick cigar, one of Jack’s prized stock. With his other hand, the admiral scratched Elvis behind an ear, earning a slow thump of a tail.

“I’ve had worse.” Jack rubbed his jaw. It still ached dully.

Houston held out his cigar, inspecting it with pleasure. “Cuban tobacco…I’m breaking so many laws…”

“But it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

He replaced the cigar, inhaling deeply. “Oh, yeah.” His eyes narrowed with appreciation as he exhaled.

Except for the admiral and his two personal aides, Jack had the Deep Fathom back to himself, at least for now. With the two black boxes wrapped and under armed guard, David Spangler and the other government investigators had left immediately for the USS Gibraltar. The admiral had remained behind. He would be alerted as soon as any word came through on the flight data and cockpit recorders. Until then, everyone was holding their breath.

“So I take it,” Houston said, “that your reunion with Commander Spangler didn’t resolve anything.”

“What did you expect?” Jack slumped in his lounge chair. First the Gibraltar, then Admiral Houston, now David Spangler. All together again. He had run from his past for over a decade, and ended up right where he started. He sighed. “Nothing changes. Even before the shuttle accident, David hated me. He resented that I took his place on the shuttle.”

“It wasn’t your decision. It was NASA’s jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, tell that to Spangler. We had a major blowout the night before the launch. I was almost scrubbed.”

“I remember. He found out you were dating his sister during the year you spent at NASA training.” Houston pointed his cigar at Jack’s swollen lip. “And it seems that old grudge is still strong.”

Jack shook his head. “He lost his sister. Who can blame him?”

“You should. We’ve lost other shuttles. Everyone knows the risks.” The admiral sucked on his cigar. “Besides, there’s something I just don’t like about our Mr. Spangler. I never did. There’s always been a lot of hatred buried beneath that cold surface. I’m not surprised he’s fallen into the employ of Nicolas Ruzickov at the CIA. Those two sharks deserve each other.”

Jack was surprised at the admiral’s words. His face showed it.

Houston’s voice grew stern. “Just watch yourself around him, Jack.” He pointed his cigar at Jack’s swollen eye. “Don’t allow your guilt to weaken your guard. Not around him.”

Jack remembered the keen hatred in David’s eyes: This isn’t over, Kirkland. Perhaps he had better take his former commander’s advice and steer clear of the man, he thought. Jack closed his eyes and leaned back. “If only I had spotted the glitch a few seconds earlier…or held her hand tighter.”

“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Jack. But, you know what, sometimes shit happens. You can’t see every bullet aimed at your head. Life just isn’t that fair.”

“When did you become such a philosopher?”

Houston tapped his cigar. “Age grants you a certain wisdom.”

From across the deck Lisa called to him, perched at the sub’s hatch. “Jack, come see this.”

Groaning, Jack pushed himself up. “What?”

Lisa just waved to him.

“All right. Hang on.” He got off his lounger, and the admiral sat up straighter, preparing to follow. “Relax,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”

Elvis rolled to his chest, starting to push to his legs.

Jack held out a hand, stopping the dog. “You, too. Stay.” The German shepherd sank back to the deck with a clearly irritated huff.

Houston patted Elvis’s side. “We old men will keep each other company.”

Jack rolled his eyes, then crossed the deck. He climbed down the stepladder to join Lisa. She lowered herself into the sub’s seat, and Jack leaned over her. “What’s up?”

“Look at the Nautilus’s internal clock.” She pointed to the clock’s red digital numbers. The seconds scrolled normally. “Now look at my wristwatch.”

Jack studied the Swatch on her wrist, then looked back at the digital clock. It was off by a little over five minutes. “So it’s slow by a few minutes.”

“Before the dive, I synchronized the clock myself when I calibrated the Bio-Sensor program. It was exact to the hundredth of a second.”

“I still don’t understand the significance.”

“I compared the time gap with the Bio-Sensor log. The difference in clocks exactly matches the length of time you were off-line.”

Jack crinkled his brow. “So the glitch must have affected the clock, too. Must be a short in one of the batteries.”

“No, the batteries checked out fine,” she mumbled, and looked up at him. “When you were off-line, did you see the clock stop?”

Jack shook his head, frown lines creasing the corners of his lips. “No. In fact, I remember checking. The clock was running normally the whole time.”

Lisa wiggled up off the seat. “It doesn’t make any sense. The diagnostics of the systems are perfect. Jack, is there anything you’re not telling me?”

He glanced over his shoulder. The admiral was lost in his appreciation of his cigar. Jack lowered his voice. During the postdive briefing, Jack had glossed over the details of the strange crystal pillar. No one seemed interested anyway. “That pillar I discovered down there…”

“Yeah. The one on the disk you gave Charlie.”

Jack bit his lip. He didn’t want to sound crazy. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. The pillar was giving off some strange vibrations or harmonics. It screwed with my compass. I could even feel it on my skin, an itchy tingle like ants crawling all over.”

Lisa furrowed her brow. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to prejudice your examination of the Nautilus. If there was any other explanation, I wanted you to find it.”

Lisa’s cheeks grew red. “Jesus Christ, you know me better than that. Either way, I would have been just as thorough.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Lisa scooted out of the sub. Jack helped her onto the ladder. Her eyes flicked toward the admiral, then back to Jack. “Charlie is still holed up with George, studying that secret disk of yours. I’m going to find out if they’ve learned anything.” She shoved past. “You really should have told me, Jack.”

“What do you think it means?”

Lisa shrugged. “Beats me, but it’s worth checking out.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Robert, the marine biologist, crawled from under the sub’s tail. “All the seals check out fine, Jack. If you want to take her for another dive, you should have no problems.”

Jack nodded, distracted. “Robert, could you keep the admiral company for a few minutes? I have some brandy in the cupboard under the microwave.”

“Yeah, I know where it’s at. But what’s up?”

“We’ll fill you in with the details as soon as we have any,” Lisa answered, casting an angry look at Jack. She moved off.

Jack called across the deck to Admiral Houston. “I’ll be right back!”

He was answered with a nod and a dismissive wave.

Jack followed Lisa to the lower deck hatch. She descended the steep stair ahead of him, back stiff. This first of the lower levels contained Robert’s wet lab, the ship’s library, and Charlie’s tiny work station. Below were the crew’s cabins.

Lisa led the way through the wet lab to Charlie’s smaller compartment. She knocked on the steel door.

“Who is it?” Charlie called out to them.

“Lisa and Jack! Open up!”

After a short pause, Jack heard the locks unlatch and the door creak open slightly. Charlie peered out at them. “Just making sure you’re alone.” He sounded excited. The geologist pulled the door the rest of the way open. “C’mon inside…you have to see this.”

“You found something?” Jack asked as he and Lisa entered.

“Oh, yeah, mon, you could say that.”

The geology lab was no bigger than a single car garage, but every square inch was utilized. Equipment and tools were stacked neatly on shelves and counters: rock saws, drills, sieves, scales, magnetometers, even a complete ASC Core Analysis System. Jack was ignorant of most of the equipment’s use. This was Charlie’s domain.

With a dual doctorate in geology and geophysics, the Jamaican geologist could have taught at any university. But instead he ended up on Jack’s boat, doing his own research. “I didn’t earn my degrees to hole up in no classroom,” he had explained seven years ago, eyes bright with excitement. “Not when there is so much to explore out here. The deep ocean seabed, Jack! That’s where the Earth’s history and future are written. Down there! It’s waiting for someone to read it. And that someone is me!”

As Jack entered the lab now, he saw the same excitement in Charlie’s eyes. The geologist waved them over to his worktable. A television and video recorder had been set atop it.

Crouched before it was the ship’s historian. The professor leaned only a few inches from the video screen, squinting through his bifocals. George scribbled on a pad. “Amazing…simply amazing,” he mumbled as he worked.

Jack and Lisa moved to either side of him, trying to get a better look at the monitor. “What did you find?” Jack asked.

George finally seemed to realize their presence. He turned, his eyes wide. “You have to go down there again!” he said in a rush, clutching Jack’s sleeve.

“What? Why?”

“We should start at the beginning,” Charlie interrupted. He pointed the remote, and the video image reversed. On the screen, Jack watched the view of the crystal spire vanish into the ocean gloom. Once he’d rewound it far enough, Charlie stopped the DVD and allowed it to play forward. The obelisk slowly reappeared as Charlie spoke. “You were right, Jack. The crystalline substance appears natural. I’ve analyzed the video closely, and from the fracturing of the planes and uniformity of light refraction, it must be a spike of pure crystal.”

“But what type? Quartz?”

Charlie tilted his head, watching the video. “No. That’s just it. I don’t know. At least not yet. But I’d sell the Fathom for a sliver of it.”

“So you think it’s something new?”

The tall Jamaican nodded. “Nowhere on this planet is there an environment like the one down there.” Charlie tapped at the screen. The sub slowly circled the spire, showing the brilliant shaft from every angle. The video image was crisp and detailed. Flawless. There was no sign of the interference that was described topside. “At these extreme pressures of seawater and salinity, who knows how crystals might grow?”

Jack sat on one of the stools. He leaned closer to the screen. “So what you’re saying is that we’re the first people ever to see such a crystal creation?”

Charlie laughed, drawing Jack’s eye away from the screen. “No. I’m not saying that, mon…I’m not saying that at all.” Charlie manipulated the remote’s shuttle, slowing the recording.

Jack watched the spire slow its spin as the submersible finished its circuit. Charlie stopped the video just as the sub’s xenon headlamps began to swing away. Jack remembered this was the moment when he had turned back to continue his search for the black boxes. He had been looking elsewhere and missed what his camera picked up next.

With the light cast at an angle across the nearest plane of the obelisk, slight imperfections could be seen marring its crystalline surface.

“What is that?”

“Proof that we’re not the first to discover this crystal.” Charlie played with the remote and zoomed in on the imperfections. The image swelled on the monitor. The imperfections grew into rows of tiny markings, too regular and precise to be natural. Jack leaned in closer. Though the enlarged video image was fuzzy, there was no mistaking what he was seeing.

George spoke it aloud, voice hushed with awe. “It’s writing. Some type of ancient inscription.”

“But at those depths?” Jack stared in disbelief. Etched deep into the crystal were blocks and rows of tiny iconlike images: animals, trees, distorted figures, geometric shapes.

Jack could not dismiss what he was seeing. Each symbol was carved into the smooth surface, then filled with a shiny metallic compound. It was no optical illusion.

It was ancient writing…on a spire two thousand feet underwater.

Karen held her penlight above her head as she fought the growing depth of the water. She slogged forward, the water now past her waist. She shrugged the equipment bag higher on her shoulder, trying her best to keep it dry, but the heavy weight kept pulling toward the rising seawater. When would this passage end? How long was it? Up and down the passage the echo of pouring water filled the tunnel.

Behind her, she could hear Miyuki struggling. The Japanese professor was smaller than her, the water up to Miyuki’s breasts. She half swam to keep up.

At last Karen saw her penlight illuminate another wall ahead, something different than this endless passage. “I think we’ve reached the end.”

She moved faster. The tunnel ended at a staircase, its steps climbing up. It reminded her of the staircase that had led them down here. She reached the first step, almost trip-ping over it since it was under the black water. Catching herself on the smooth wall, Karen stumbled up the steps and dragged herself out of the flooding passage.

She turned to help Miyuki, and both women climbed several steps until exhaustion dragged them down. They sat on the dry stairs, panting, shivering.

Karen pointed to the walls on either side. “Stone blocks,” she said. Here the walls and ceiling were no longer bare rock, but stacked and carefully fitted basalt slabs and blocks. “We’re above the lava tube.”

“So we won’t drown?” Miyuki looked pale, her ebony hair wet and clinging to her face.

“Not if we climb high enough. Get above sea level.”

Miyuki stared up the staircase. “But where are we?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say these steps lead into the heart of the second Dragon, the twin pyramid to the one we entered.” At least, she hoped so. But it made some sort of symmetrical sense. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the passage had been heading in the direction of the other pyramid. The lava tube must connect the two structures.

“Will there be a way out?”

Karen nodded. “I’m sure there is.” She left unspoken her own fear. What if they couldn’t find it?

“Then let’s go,” Miyuki said, shoving herself to her feet. She reached toward Karen. “I’ll carry the bag from here.”

Karen pushed the strap off, only too glad to shed the burden, and passed the bag to Miyuki, who almost dropped it.

“You weren’t kidding that it’s heavy,” she said, straining to heft it to her own shoulder.

“Nope. It’s that crystal artifact. It must weigh close to ten kilos.”

“But it was so small.”

Karen shrugged and stood up. “Just one more mystery about this place.” Sighing, she led the way up, praying that the final mystery would not escape her: the way out of this death trap.

The climb up the steep stairs was a cruel torture for their aching limbs. It felt like they were climbing a ladder. But they plodded onward, silent, too tired to talk. At least the exertion served to warm their cold bodies. But soon even the warmth became a burden. With each step the temperature seemed to rise in the narrow stairway. By the time they neared the top of the stairs, it was stifling. It seemed to Karen that her damp clothes were steaming.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and entered the next chamber. “Finally,” she moaned as she shuffled into the room. Miyuki followed her, wheezing. Karen raised her small flashlight.

The bare walls of the inner chamber offered no clue to an exit. Stacked stones and a slab roof surrounded them. Both women gazed around. There were no adornments, no writing.

Karen moved along the margins of the walls. “Turn off your light,” she ordered Miyuki. Karen flicked her penlight off, too.

Darkness plunged around them. The echo of splashing water from the passage below seemed to swell. With eyes wide, Karen looked for a chink in the solid walls and ceiling. Some evidence of an exit. By now she assumed the sun would be sliding toward the western horizon.

She mopped at her brow. It was so warm in there. Not a bit of air moved. With one hand on a wall, she edged around the room, searching for a telltale glow, some sign of an exit. But the darkness seemed complete.

“Are you finding anything?” Miyuki asked, hopeful.

Karen had opened her mouth to answer when her hand touched a stone warmer than the others. She paused, placing one palm on one stone and the other on its neighbor. There was a clear difference in temperature.

“I think I may have a clue here.” She fingered the edges of the warmer stone. It was difficult in the dark. The blocks had been fitted snugly. She discovered the edges, but as she stared, found no sign of sunlight creeping through. She frowned. There had to be a reason for the warmer stone.

Karen thumbed on her penlight, and Miyuki moved to her side, resting her bag on the stone floor. She rubbed at her shoulder. “What did you find?”

Karen shoved hard on the stone. It didn’t move. She backed up a step, head tilted, studying the stone block. It was featureless, about half a meter square. “This is warmer than the others, suggesting it must be more directly exposed to the sun.”

“Is it a way out?” Miyuki turned on her own flashlight.

“I hope so. I just don’t know how to open it.” Karen closed her eyes. Think, goddamn it! She pictured the second Dragon in her mind. It was identical to the first, except for the collapsed temple. This second pyramid’s summit had been bare. No clue.

“What are you thinking?” Miyuki asked.

Karen opened her eyes. “I’m not sure. In the other pyramid, the temple’s altar was the access point. The sculptured snake head was the key.”

“Yeah?”

“Think symmetry. Think larger. In the ruins of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan peninsula, the main pyramid casts a snake shadow during the equinoxes, a winding shadowy body that connects to a carved stone snake head at its base.”

“I don’t understand.”

Karen kept talking, intuiting that she was close to an answer. “The serpent’s head was the entry point. This connected to a long lava tube…perhaps representing a snake’s body.”

Miyuki nodded. “If you’re right, then we’re in the snake’s tail.”

“We were swallowed by a snake, traveled through its belly, and now must complete the digestive process.”

“In other words, we must find this snake’s butt.”

Karen laughed at the dead seriousness with which Miyuki had spoken these last words. “Yep.” Karen turned. The opening to the stairwell lay directly opposite her. She twisted around. The warm stone was in direct line with the opening. A straight line. She placed a hand on the stone. “This is the tip of the tail. The end of the snake.”

“Right. You said that. It’s the way out.”

“No! We aren’t paying attention to anatomy. A snake’s butt isn’t in the tip of its tail. It’s on its underside!” Karen pointed to the floor. “Its belly!”

Miyuki stared at her toes. “To go up, we must go down.”

Karen dropped to her knees on the stone floor. It wasn’t a slab, but fitted blocks, like the walls. She crawled forward, starting at the warm brick and aiming for the stairwell, wiping the water and debris from the floor as she went. It had to be here!

Her fingers brushed over something rough on the smooth stone. She froze for a heartbeat, then rubbed the spot, praying.

Miyuki knelt near her. “What is it?”

Karen moved aside. “The snake’s butt!”

Imprinted into the smooth block was a carving: a star-shaped depression.

“Get me the crystal!”

Miyuki rushed over and retrieved her bag. She dragged it back, then zipped open the side pouch and pulled the star-shaped crystal out. She had to use both hands. Grunting, she hauled it over to Karen. “Here.”

Karen rolled to her belly and lugged the star into place in the depression. It was a perfect fit. She held her breath, ready for anything. Miyuki stood by her shoulder, a fist at her throat.

Nothing happened.

Karen sat up on her knees. “What’s wrong? What aren’t we doing right?”

“Maybe the mechanism is broken.”

Karen did not even want to think of that possibility. She knew that by now the lower passage must be totally flooded. There was no way back. They were trapped here. She felt tears coming to her eyes. Her throat tightened.

“How was the crystal supposed to trigger the secret passage?” Miyuki asked, still pondering the riddle.

“I…I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you say something about the other mechanism being pressure-sensitive?”

Miyuki’s words sank through Karen’s hopelessness. She remembered how the altar stone had moved back up into the ceiling after Miyuki had jumped off it. The mechanism must have been pressure-sensitive, responding to the change in weight.

Karen stared down at the crystal. It was heavy, unusually so. But if the secret door here was triggered by weight, then why hadn’t it triggered when she’d first walked across it?

Then it dawned on her.

“Get off! Get off!” she yelled at Miyuki, waving her away from the stone block and crystal. “We weigh too much!”

“What?” Miyuki said, but backed away.

Karen moved beyond the edge of the block. “It must be balanced to the weight of the crystal. No more, no less.”

Both women stepped away. Karen stared hard at the crystal. Still nothing. She felt a scream of frustration building in her chest. What were they missing?

She turned in a slow circle. The walls were blank and featureless. No answer—or was there?

She turned again. No wall sconces. No place to hook a torch. “Darkness,” she mumbled. “The belly of a snake is hidden from the sun.”

“What?”

“Turn off your flashlight!”

“Why?”

“Trust me!” Karen thumbed off her penlight.

Miyuki followed suit, plunging them into perfect darkness. “Now what are—”

A sharp grinding interrupted Miyuki. Rock on rock. Karen froze, praying she was right. In the hushed silence she reached out and fumbled for Miyuki’s hand.

Then a spear of sunlight appeared, sprouting from the floor to strike the ceiling. Blinking against the glare, Karen dropped to her knees. The stone block with the crystal was sinking into the floor.

Karen crawled to the edge and peered into the deepening hole. The shaft of sunlight came from a narrow crack in the left wall of the pit. As she watched, the block sank away and the crack grew wider, opening a side tunnel.

Light poured in.

Karen’s vision blurred with tears of relief. It was the way out!

Below, the stone block finally stopped its descent with a grating sound, leaving the side passage wide open.

Karen rolled to her side and waved for Miyuki to go first. “Let’s get out of here.” It was only a drop of a couple meters.

Grabbing her satchel, the Japanese professor, smiling with relief, clambered into the pit. She landed and crouched down, peering through the side tunnel. “It’s only a few feet! I see the sun!” Miyuki crawled into the passage, giving Karen room to come down.

Karen did not pause. She jumped into the pit. The sunlight blinded her for a moment, then she saw the blue sea beyond the short tunnel, shining bright. “Thank God!” She bent and entered the side passage. Twisting around, she grabbed the crystal star. She was not leaving behind her prize.

The star seemed much lighter now. She was able to pick it up with one hand. As she held it, the stone block ground up behind her and Miyuki, closing off the doorway back to the inner chamber. Turning to the exit, she shoved the artifact into her hip pocket. Free of her fingers, it sank like a lead weight, straining her pants’ seams. Damn, this thing is heavy. But as she moved beyond the tunnel and into the sunlight, cold metal pressed against the back of her neck, and she forgot about her burden.

“Don’t move!” someone ordered in Japanese.

She froze.

A second man jumped off the pyramid step behind her. With relief, she saw that he wore a police uniform with the Chatan emblem on his sleeve. It wasn’t the looters. She was ordered to face the stone, palms on the rock.

To the side, Miyuki spoke rapidly to another officer. He had her identification in his hand. He finally nodded, turned to the man holding Karen and waved him off.

Karen stepped away from the wall. “They got Gabriel’s warning over the teletype about the looters and were just under way when they heard the explosion,” Miyuki told her. “By the time they got here, the looters had already taken off. There was no sign of them, so they staked out this second pyramid, meaning to protect it.”

“And they found us crawling out and thought we were the looters.”

Miyuki nodded. “Luckily, Gabriel had transmitted our names, saying we were in danger.” Miyuki put away her identification. “We’ll have questions to answer, but there’ll be no charges.”

Karen took a deep breath. “Answers? I have more questions than answers.” She pictured the looter’s tattoo, a pale winding snake against his dark skin. Another serpent. In the light of the day, it seemed too much of a coincidence.

Karen wandered to the corner of the pyramid so she could see the other Dragon. Miyuki followed. Across the hundred meters, the Dragon’s summit was a cratered ruin. Smoke curled into the sky, a man-made volcano.

Why had their attackers done that? It made no sense.

And where had they gone?

“What’s wrong?” Miyuki asked. “We’re safe.”

“I don’t know.” Karen could not escape the feeling that the true danger was just beginning. “But let’s go back to the university. I think it’s time we tried to put a few pieces of this mystery together.”

“No argument from me.”

They turned away from the smoking pyramid and crossed back to the officers. The white and blue police motorboat waited in the water below, its lights blinking.

Karen sighed with shaky relief. “Remind me I owe Gabriel a great big hug.”

“And you owe me a new pair of Ferragamos.” With a tired grin, Miyuki swiped her hair from her damp forehead. “After all this, I’m holding you to your promise!”

Ensconced in the ship’s geology lab, Jack and the others sat staring at the frozen video image of the inscribed obelisk: metallic symbols etched crudely into the crystal’s surface. “Who could have done this?” he asked.

George took off his bifocals. “I’ve never seen anything like it. But I’m going to get on-line and post some questions to various archaeology websites. See if I get any bites.” He picked up a legal pad with a handwritten copy of the writing. “But it would help if we had more data.” The historian glanced meaningfully at Jack.

Charlie clicked off the monitor. “I agree with the professor. We need more information.”

Jack found all eyes on him.

George spoke first. “You’ve got to go back down there.”

“I…I haven’t made a decision on that yet.” He was in no hurry to return to the deep-sea graveyard.

Lisa added her support. “We should just take the money and run. We’ve met our obligation to the Navy. We’re not required to haul pieces of the plane to the surface…and I don’t like what happened when Jack was near that pillar.”

George crinkled his brow. “What do you mean? What happened?”

Lisa turned to Jack, allowing him to explain, but he remained silent. He felt foolish discussing his vague misgivings while down there.

“The Nautilus checked out fine,” Lisa explained, filling in for him. “Instruments, computers, radios, power supply…all get clean bills of health. But during Jack’s communication blackout, when he was near that pillar, he reports sensing vibrations coming off it.”

Charlie offered a more plausible explanation. “If the sub’s batteries were malfunctioning, the thrusters might have become misaligned, tremoring the vessel.” He looked at Jack. “Or maybe you were picking up vibrations from the slight seismic readings. They occurred the same time as the blackout.”

Jack, embarrassed, felt heat rising to his cheeks. “No, it was not vibrations from the ship. It felt…I don’t know, more electric…”

“Then a short in a system somewhere?” Charlie persisted.

Lisa shook her head. “I found no evidence of any electrical problems.”

George pocketed his paper. “So what are you saying?”

By now Jack’s face was red. He could not meet the others’ gazes. “It was the pillar. I can’t explain how I know this, but it was. The crystal was giving off some type of…I don’t know…harmonics, vibrations, emanations.”

George and Charlie stared at Jack. He recognized the doubt in their eyes. Charlie spoke first. “If you’re right, it’s even more of a reason to go down and do a little private snooping.”

George nodded. “And if there’s more writing, I’d like a complete copy.”

A firm knock on the door saved Jack from having to answer. “It’s Robert,” the marine biologist called from beyond the door.

“What is it?” Jack asked, relieved at turning aside more questions from the others.

“Word has come over from the Gibraltar. They have news about the crash.”

Jack unlocked the door. He hoped some concrete answer had been discovered, something that would dismiss the need to go back down.

Robert stood outside. He waved them all out. “They’re faxing over a copy of the cockpit voice recorder.”

“Then let’s go,” Jack said.

The marine biologist, excited, continued his explanation. “Whatever they found, it has everyone in a buzz. I saw the admiral’s face when he was informed over a scrambled line. He did not look happy. He insisted that a full copy of the cockpit’s final conversation be faxed over to him.”

Jack hurried, climbing the stairs to the main deck, then up the steps to the pilothouse. As he opened the door, he found Houston’s two personal aides inside, in uniform, armed, standing stiffly. They were twin bulldogs, old Navy.

Nearby, the Fathom’s accountant leaned on the pilot seat.

“Where’s the admiral?” Jack asked.

Kendall McMillan pointed toward the closed door to the radio and satellite system. “He’s in there. He told us to wait for him.”

Jack frowned at the closed door. This was his ship. He did not like someone closing him out of his own ship’s heart — even an admiral. He moved to the door, but the two burly aides blocked him, hands on holstered pistols.

Before any confrontation could flare, the door swung open. The first one out was Jack’s dog. Elvis padded from the radio room, tail sweeping back and forth. The admiral followed him. Jack opened his mouth, about to scold the old man, but when he saw the pallor to Mark Houston’s face, he remained silent. Deep wrinkles etched the admiral’s forehead.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

Houston glanced around. The entire ship’s crew was now crammed into the small pilothouse. “Is there a place to get a drink around here?”

Jack waved the others away and turned to his old friend. “Follow me. I have a bottle of twenty-year-old scotch in my stateroom.”

“Just what the doctor ordered.” The admiral smiled, but it came out sickly.

Jack led the way down to the main deck and to his stateroom. He held the door open for the old man.

Once both were inside, Houston nodded back at the door. “Lock it.”

Jack did as ordered. He pointed toward a pair of leather chairs in front of his shelves of nautical memorabilia. Houston crossed to the shelves, touching an ancient sextant. “Is this the one I gave you?”

“After I was accepted to the shuttle mission, yep.”

Huston turned and sank into one of the chairs with a long sigh. For the first time, Jack saw the man’s age. He looked sunken, defeated. The admiral pointed back at the sextant. “So you haven’t completely tossed away your past.”

Jack moved to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of scotch and two glasses. “Not the important things.”

Houston nodded. He was silent for several moments. “Jack, have you made a decision yet on helping us retrieve sections of Air Force One?”

Jack sighed. He poured a couple fingers worth of his private stash into each glass. He knew Houston liked his scotch neat. “No, sir…we’re still doing some diagnostics on the sub.”

“Hmm…” the admiral mumbled, accepting the glass. He sipped thoughtfully, clearly thinking something through. Finally, he settled the glass on a teak captain’s table. Reaching inside his flight jacket, he pulled out a folded sheaf. “Maybe this will help you decide.” He held out the papers.

Jack gripped the proffered sheets, but the admiral did not release them. “This is confidential information. But if you’re going to help us, you should be kept informed.” Houston let go of the report.

Jack moved to his chair. “This is from the cockpit voice recorder?”

“Yes, the last minutes between the cockpit crew.”

Jack sat down and slowly unfolded the papers. As much as he didn’t want to be drawn further into this operation, his curiosity couldn’t be ignored. He read the report.

Jack lowered the sheets. “My God. What happened up there?”

Houston shifted in his seat and reached for the fax sheets. “A chopper is on its way to collect me. I want to listen to the recording myself. But as to the true answer, there’s only one way to find out…. The answer lies down below.”

Jack reached a trembling hand to his glass of scotch. He swallowed its contents in one gulp. The expensive liquor burned all the way to his belly.

“Jack…?”

Jack filled his glass one more time. He leaned back into his seat, sipping more gently at the smooth scotch, appreciating it this time. He met the admiral’s gaze. “I’ll go,” he said simply.

Houston nodded and raised his scotch. Jack reached over and tapped his old friend’s glass with his own. “To absent friends,” Jack said.