Havana Storm

32

Dirk and Summer had barely stepped aboard the Sargasso Sea when the engines rumbled to life and the research vessel sailed out of Montego Bay’s sparkling waters.

“No R and R for the crew in sunny Jamaica?” Summer asked her father after greeting him with a warm hug.

Pitt shook his head. “We’re headed for the north side of Cuba and I want to get there as soon as possible.”

“He’s a regular Captain Bligh,” Giordino said.

Pitt shifted his eyes toward Giordino. “There might be certain crew members who can’t be trusted on a rum-producing island like Jamaica.”

Giordino shook his head. “Ye of little faith.”

“We got your email describing the dead zones,” Dirk said. “Have you learned anything more?”

Pitt led them to the wardroom, where poster-sized photos were taped to a corner bulkhead. “These are seafloor images of the three dead zones we surveyed. Photomosaics, actually, stitched from individual images recorded by the AUV. As you can see, there is a symmetrical depression at the center of each zone. We didn’t identify the source of the toxicity until Al and I took the Starfish down for a closer look at one of them and found a hydrothermal vent at its center.”

“The thermal vents we’ve explored in the Pacific are rich in minerals and highly acidic,” Dirk added, “but not broadly toxic.”

“These are. They are in relatively shallow water for a thermal vent, less than a thousand feet, which may contribute to the problem. We’re finding methyl mercury plumes over ten miles long.”

“Mercury?” Summer asked.

Pitt nodded. “Surprising, but it shouldn’t be. The largest source of mercury in the environment comes from the volcanic eruptions. Two hundred and fifty million years ago, give or take a few weeks, the seas were completely poisoned by mercury from volcanic activity, to the extent that virtually all marine life was killed off. Hydrothermal vents, we know, are nothing more than a vestige of underwater volcanic activity. For whatever reason, the mounts and ridges in this part of the ocean are rife with mercury.”

“Now that you mention it,” Dirk said, “I recall reading about an underwater volcano off the southern tip of Japan that’s spewing a high concentration of the stuff.”

“Same principle in effect here,” Pitt said.

Summer pointed at one of the photos. “It’s odd that there’s a similar depression around each of the thermal vents.”

“That’s no coincidence,” Pitt said. “We’re quite sure the craters were formed by man-made explosions.”

“Why would someone blow up a thermal vent?” she asked.

“Someone,” Giordino said, “was plowing up the bottom in the name of subsea mining.”

“Of course.” Summer nodded. “Hydrothermal vents are often surrounded by rich sulfide ore deposits.”

“Looks like somebody tried panning for gold in a serious way,” said Dirk.

“That’s our guess,” Pitt said. “They blasted open the vent, then sent down mining equipment to vacuum it all up.”

“Walking away with the gold,” Summer said, “and leaving an environmental mess in their wake.”

“So who’s responsible?” Dirk asked.

“We don’t yet know,” Pitt said, shaking his head. “Hiram ran a check on all known subsea mining ventures, and associated ocean lease agreements, and found nobody operating in this area. Legally, at least.”

“Could it be the Cubans?” Summer asked.

“Possibly,” Pitt said, “but we don’t think they possess the technology. They’d have to contract for the equipment and that would find its way into the public record. But we do have one clue.”

“What’s that?” Summer asked.

“These tracks.” Pitt pointed to a mass of parallel lines that crisscrossed the depression. “Al and I saw similar tracks near the wellhead where the Alta sank.”

“And those tracks looked fresh,” Giordino said.

“Was it the company that’s drilling for oil?” Dirk asked.

“I contacted the captain of the drill ship and he said they had no equipment that could have created those tracks.”

“So you think whoever blew these three vents is working on the other side of Cuba?” Summer asked.

“It’s the best we have to go on,” Pitt said, “so we’re heading back to the Florida Straits. About twenty miles off of Havana.”

“That’s a precarious spot for a toxic mercury problem,” Dirk said, “right at the head of the Gulf Stream.”

“That’s what has us worried. A major mercury plume there might carry up Florida’s east coast, and beyond.”

A crewman entered the wardroom and approached Summer. “Miss Pitt, your teleconference is ready. There’s a Mr. Perlmutter waiting on-screen.”

Summer smiled at her brother as she jumped from her chair. “Maybe he found the stone,” she said, before following the crewman to a nearby video conference room.

“The stone?” Giordino asked. “What were you two up to in Jamaica?”

Dirk described their encounter-laden quest for the two Aztec stones since deciphering the codex, eliciting a grave look of concern from Pitt.

“There must be something valuable waiting for the person who puts the two pieces together,” Giordino said. He rubbed his chin a moment. “You said Aztec stone? You should meet our friend Herbert.”

Giordino stepped to a corner table, where the statue they plucked off the bottom was serving time as a paperweight for some sonar records. He grabbed the statue along with a handful of photos.

“Say hello to Herbert.” He set the statue on the table in front of Dirk. “We found him in a large canoe near one of the vents. Our shipboard archeologist thinks it could be Aztec.”

Dirk studied the figurine with a hint of recognition. The warrior’s strong profile and costume had a distinct familiarity.

“Dr. Madero showed us a similar statue in his university’s museum. It looks a lot like one of the Aztec deities.” He looked at Giordino with curiosity. “You said you found this on a canoe?”

Giordino nodded and slid over the photos. “Images we took from the Starfish, at a depth of twelve hundred feet.”

“The stone depicts the voyage of several large boats on a pilgrimage to the Aztec’s homeland,” Dirk said. “Dr. Madero told us that while the Mayans were known to trade at sea, there’s no record of the Aztecs traveling offshore.”

“Then either the canoe is Mayan or somebody needs to change the history books.”

“Did you find any other artifacts with the canoe?” Dirk asked.

“No,” Pitt said. “But those mining vehicle tracks ran right up to it, so someone else may have picked it over.”

Summer returned to the room, showing a defeated look on her face.

“No luck with the stone?” Dirk said.

“None of it good. It’s not at Yale, or anywhere else in the U.S., as far as St. Julien can determine. It seems that Ellsworth Boyd, the archeologist who found half the stone, never made it back home. Shortly after departing Jamaica, he was killed in Cuba. Believe it or not, he died in the explosion that sank the USS Maine.”

“What was he doing aboard the Maine?” Giordino asked.

Summer shook her head. “Nobody knows. St. Julien’s going to do some more digging. He seems to think there’s a chance the stone was with him aboard the Maine.”

The group fell silent as they contemplated the sunken warship that instigated the Spanish — American War.

Dirk finally looked at his father with a devilish smile. “You said we’re heading to a spot about twenty miles off of Havana?”

“That’s correct.”

“That should put us right in the ballpark.”

“The ballpark for what?”

“If my history serves,” Dirk said, “the place where the Maine now lies at a rest.”

33

When the armored cruiser Maine blew up unexpectedly in February 1898, killing two hundred and sixty-one sailors, there was an immediate siren call for war. Though the cause of the spark that triggered her powder magazines to detonate still remains a mystery, contemporary fingers all pointed at Spain. Jingoistic fever, fanned by a strong dose of yellow journalism, quickly incited a declaration of war.

The resulting Spanish — American War was itself a short-lived affair. Within months, the American Navy had crushed the Spanish fleet in battles at Santiago and Manila Bay. In July, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders won the day at San Juan Hill, and by August a peace agreement had been brokered between the antagonists.

After the war’s end, the genesis for the conflict was oddly forgotten. The mangled remains of the Maine sat mired in the silt of Havana Harbor for more than a decade, her rusting main mast standing forlornly above the waves. Commemorative interest, and a desire to clear a harbor obstruction, finally prompted Congress to approve funds to raise the vessel.

In an engineering feat that many predicted would fail, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed a cofferdam around the wreck and pumped away the water. The mud-covered ship that emerged was a devastated mass of twisted metal. The engineers cut away the damage and sealed the breach. In March of 1912, the ship was refloated and towed offshore, where she was sunk with her colors flying.

Sitting on the bridge of the Sargasso Sea, Pitt studied the hundred-year-old coordinates of the wreck site, marked on a digital map of the Cuban coastline.

“They sank her about four miles from shore. That may have been considered the high seas in 1912, but today the territorial limit is twelve miles. We dally around the site and we’re liable to become permanent guests of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.”

Giordino exhaled a cloud of blue smoke from a lit cigar. “I wonder if they allow smoking in their prisons.”

Summer stood near the helm with her brother, staring at a calm expanse of blue water. “We could survey the wreck remotely,” she said.

Giordino nodded. “Shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings if we sent an AUV to find the wreck and take a few passes. Depending on how the ship struck the bottom, we might get some good looks at her.”

“Okay,” Pitt said. “But we’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment. I’ll give you twelve hours, then we’re off to the Alta’s wreck site. And just don’t let the Cubans end up with my AUV.”

Dirk paused. “What about your Creepy Crawler, Al? If we get a fix on the wreck with the AUV, couldn’t we send in one of your crawlers to investigate?”

“With a transponder in the water, we can operate it in real time from the ship. It would be a good test of its abilities.” Giordino sat upright, setting aside his cigar. “I might even be able to rig a deployment device so the AUV could drop it over the site and save time.”

Pitt knew an American-flagged ship lingering near Cuban waters, especially near Havana, was liable to attract unwanted attention. As soon as Giordino had his AUV launched an hour later, he repositioned the Sargasso Sea several miles outside Cuba’s territorial limit.

Under Giordino’s programming, the yellow AUV sped to the Maine’s last-known coordinates and dove to the bottom, initiating a survey grid with its sensors on alert for a large magnetic object.

After six hours, the AUV completed its survey and made a beeline for the NUMA research ship. The vehicle was hoisted aboard and its data pack removed. With the Pitt family crowded around him, Giordino reviewed the results. A square diagram filled with vertical lines appeared on the monitor, sprinkled with amoeba-shaped bubbles.

“We’ve got a handful of small magnetic anomalies. And a large one in lane 14.” Giordino pointed to a large red splotch.

“Let’s take a look at the sonar images,” Pitt said.

Giordino brought up the sonar record and scrolled rapidly until a data table in the corner indicated lane 14. “The magnetic target was near the top of the lane,” he said, slowing the video to its recorded speed.

A gold-tinted rendition of the seafloor appeared. The sonar system created shadowy images of rocks, mounds, and other features that rose from the seabed. The record scrolled a short distance when a dark trapezoidal shape appeared on one side of the screen. Giordino froze the image. “There she is.”

Summer and Dirk leaned in for a closer look. There was no mistaking the elegant tapered stern of the ancient warship. The opposite end was oddly blunt where the Army Corps had cut and inserted a flat bulkhead to refloat the ship. The Maine appeared to be sitting upright on her keel with just a negligible list.

The sight sent a chill up Summer’s spine. “She looks intact and quite accessible. Al, do you think you can get a Creepy Crawler on her?”

“Problem solved,” Giordino grinned. “While the AUV was running its grid, I had the machine shop fabricate a harness with a timed release. The AUV can carry the crawler to the site and circle a few minutes until the timer activates. The crawler will deploy a transponder when she bails out, which will allow us to walk all over the Maine. If your stone was left on the ship, we just might find it.”

“How do you know,” Pitt asked, “that it wasn’t blown to bits in the explosion or ended up in the harbor?”

“The fact is, we don’t know if it was destroyed in the explosion,” Summer said. “As for it ending up in the harbor, Perlmutter told us the refloating of the Maine was very well documented. They even dredged all around the wreck site. There was no indication of its recovery.”

“So what makes you think it’s still on the ship?” Giordino asked.

“Two items give cause for hope. First, the recovery team was focused on refloating the ship. The Maine’s powder magazines were located forward, so the bow section suffered the worst damage. The engineers spent the bulk of their effort there, cutting away the damage and installing a bulkhead. The work crews in the stern just cleared away mud in the search for human remains. I’d like to think they would have left in place a heavy old stone.”

“Assuming,” Pitt said, “it was carried on the stern of the ship.”

“Our second point of hope there is the archeologist, Ellsworth Boyd,” Summer said. “Though he died in the blast, his body was recovered intact, indicating he wasn’t near the epicenter. As a guest, he would have had a stateroom in the stern. If he wasn’t near the worst of the explosion, there’s hope that the stone wasn’t either.”

“I think I like my odds in Las Vegas better,” Pitt said, shaking his head. “All right, you might as well get to it.”

Giordino chuckled. “Don’t worry, boss. I have a good feeling that Herbert won’t let us down.”

34

Giordino’s release system worked as advertised. Two hours later, they were watching in fascination as the Creepy Crawler scurried up a rise of sand and clawed its way onto the deck of the Maine. The crawler’s video camera showed a bare metal hulk, covered in only a light blanket of marine growth.

Giordino guided the crawler across the steel deck footings, now absent the inlaid teak that originally graced the ship. He battled with the crawler’s low level of lighting and an annoying time delay between his movements on a joystick and the device’s reaction, but he soon had it scurrying about the wreck.

The Maine’s remains were a ghostly tomb of corroding steel, the decks starkly empty. The robot crept into the stern superstructure, which had housed the officers’ and captain’s quarters. Where paneling and carpet once covered the interior, now there were only gray steel bulkheads. Most of the hatch doors had been dogged open, allowing free view of the empty cabins that had been home to sailors now long dead.

Giordino maneuvered the crawler down a companionway to the berth deck and into an empty wardroom. There was little to see other than some small cut-glass lighting fixtures that still clung to their ceiling mounts. Finding nothing that resembled a large stone, Giordino guided the crawler back to the main deck and exited the aft structure. He had bypassed the engine room and some coal bunkers, which everyone agreed were unlikely storage places for the stone.

“I think we’ve seen all there is to see.” He stretched the tired fingers that were operating the joystick.

“Nothing remotely resembling the stone,” Dirk said. “It probably didn’t survive the explosion.”

Summer nodded. “I guess we’ll never know the full Aztec tale.” She turned to Giordino. “Thanks for the effort, Al. If nothing else, you’ve captured some amazing footage of the old battlewagon.”

“All in a day’s work,” he said, sharing in their disappointment.

“How are you going to get your crawler back?” Dirk asked.

“I’ll send it walking toward Key West. If we’re still in the neighborhood in a few days, we can pick it up on the fly.”

As he spoke, the crawler caught a leg on a twisted ventilator that was pressed against the aft superstructure. Giordino had to reverse course in order to free the device.

“Hold up.” This came from Pitt, who had been standing silently behind the others, watching the video.

“Go back to where you got hung up.”

Giordino reversed the crawler a few steps. “Something catch your eye?”

“There, against the bulkhead. Can you zoom in with the camera?”

Giordino nodded and tapped a keystroke. The video display enlarged, revealing a metallic object wedged between the bulkhead and the damaged ventilator.

“It’s a gun,” Giordino said.

He finessed the camera controls to focus on the weapon. Pitt stepped to the monitor for a closer look. It was an open-frame revolver, showing only slight corrosion on the barrel and grip though missing its original wooden stock.

“It looks like a Lefaucheux,” Pitt said, “a French cartridge revolver that was a common sidearm with the Union cavalry during the Civil War.”

“It looks to be wedged pretty tight under that mangled ventilator,” Giordino said. “It must have gone unseen when they cleaned up the ship for refloating.” He brought the crawler a step closer, magnifying the image even more.

“What is an old French revolver doing on the Maine?” Summer asked.

Nobody had an answer until Giordino refocused the image. In fuzzy letters, a faint engraving could be seen on the barrel.

“‘F. de Orbea Hermanos, Eibar 1890,’” Pitt read. “That would be the manufacturer.”

He turned to Summer with an arched brow. “You were close. The correct question would be, what is an old Spanish revolver doing aboard the Maine?”

35

Have you found your way to the bottom of the pile yet?”

St. Julien Perlmutter looked up from his table in the central research room of the National Archives to see the smiling face of the facility’s chief military records archivist.

“Very nearly, Martha, very nearly. I apologize for the heavy workout. The files on the Maine are more extensive than I anticipated.”

“Lord knows, I can use the exercise.” Martha rested a hand on one of her ample hips. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can pull for you.”

“Martha, my dear, you are pure ambrosia,” Perlmutter said with a smile.

It was his third day in the research room, poring through century-old documents. Although already familiar with the Maine’s sinking, he was fascinated at reading the official inquiry into the disaster and its supporting documentation, including vivid accounts by survivors and reports of the ship’s damage from Navy hard-hat divers. Possible causes for the explosion, ranging from a smoldering coal bunker to a bursting boiler, were all dismissed by the inquiry board in favor of a suspected external mine.

At first, Perlmutter found no mention of the archeologist Ellsworth Boyd, so he jumped ahead to records of the salvage and refloating of the warship in 1912. Detailed engineering reports, rich with black-and-white photographs, documented the construction of the cofferdam around the wreck, the removal of human remains, and the refloating of the ship and her second sinking.

Throughout the reports, Perlmutter found no mention of Boyd’s artifact.

He perused a remaining file of naval communiqués related to responses in Havana immediately after the explosion. He was nearing the end of the folder when he found a letter from the chief forensics officer at Brooklyn Naval Hospital addressed to General Fitzhugh Lee, the Consul General of Cuba. The narrative was brief:

Perlmutter studied the letter, wondering why an autopsy would have been performed on Boyd. His research instincts told him there was more to the story. Closing the file, he called to Martha.

“All finished?” she asked.

“I’m done with these materials but I’m afraid the quest continues. Can you see what Uncle Sam is holding in the way of some nineteenth-century diplomatic correspondence?”

“Certainly. What did you have in mind?”

“The file of one General Fitzhugh Lee, while engaged as Consul General to Cuba, in the year 1898.”

“Let me check. Those might be at the Library of Congress.”

The archivist returned a few minutes later, beaming. “You’re in luck, Julien. We have a file for him in the archives bearing the dates 1896 to 1898. I put a rush order to have it pulled, but it will still take an hour or two.”

“Martha, you are a peach. Two hours would allow an enjoyable lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill. Can you join me?”

“Only if we make it an hour,” she replied with a blush. “I am on the federal payroll, you know.”

“The most civil of servants,” Perlmutter said, standing and bowing. “After you, my dear.”

When they returned an hour and a half later, the files were waiting in the archivist’s bin. Refreshed from a lunch of oyster stew and crab cakes, Perlmutter dove into the records.

The correspondence from Fitzhugh Lee, a Civil War veteran and nephew of Robert E. Lee, was voluminous. The papers covered his 1896 appointment to the post in Havana by President Grover Cleveland until his evacuation from Cuba in April 1898 at the onset of the war with Spain.

Perlmutter skimmed through a hoard of letters describing growing tensions with the Spanish ruling force and growing resistance from the ragtag Cuban rebels.

Working through a flurry of communiqués surrounding the Maine’s destruction, he was surprised to find a copy of Boyd’s autopsy. The one-page document, a simple narrative of the examination, revealed a startling discovery. Boyd had not died from the Maine’s explosion. Instead, his death was attributed to a gunshot wound to the chest, in conjunction with evidence of partial drowning.

Perlmutter sniffed for more clues and found them an hour later in the form of a letter from the Maine’s captain, Charles Sigsbee, to Lee. The handwritten letter said, in part:

“Treasure?” Perlmutter muttered to himself. “It’s always treasure.”

He waded through Lee’s remaining papers, discovering another clue: a War Department communiqué to Lee dated a week after the Maine’s sinking. Lee was informed that the USS Indiana had engaged the steamer San Antonio in the Old Bahamas Channel off Cuba’s northeast coast.

The Indiana’s captain reported with regret that the vessel was sunk in deep water during an attempted apprehension. While the contraband was lost, a survivor, Dr. Julio Rodriguez, disclosed his assessment of the suspected repository site before he succumbed from wounds received during the engagement. The location was marked classified and sent to the War Department for strategic evaluation.

Perlmutter put down the letter, aghast at the implications. He now had more questions than answers. But he knew the Pitts’ pursuit of the Aztec stone carried considerable significance.

He perused the remaining documents in the file, nearly overlooking a one-page letter on White House stationery dated 1908. It was clearly misfiled, he thought, recognizing the sweeping signature of the President at the bottom. But perusing the shortly worded Executive Order, he felt a tightening in his throat.

An hour later, he bundled the Lee papers and carried them to the return counter, where Martha was finishing with another customer.

“I am most grateful for your assistance, Martha,” he said. “That should conclude my studies for today.”

“Find anything astounding that will bring you back tomorrow?”

“Indeed.” Perlmutter’s eyes were aglow. “A whole new cause for the Spanish — American War.”

36

It might be meaningless, but I thought it was worth passing along.”

Rudi Gunn’s blue eyes glistened on the ship’s video conference monitor as he waited for a reply a thousand miles away.

“Any input is helpful,” Pitt said, “when you’re chasing gremlins.”

“When you told me about the depressions at the heart of the toxic zones,” Gunn said, “I had Dr. McCammon in the geology department scan the region for seismic events. Within the past six weeks, there has been an event near each of the three sites, measuring 4.0 on the moment magnitude scale, or just under 3.0 on the Richter scale.”

“That sounds significant,” Giordino said, pacing in front of the screen.

“Not necessarily. There are about a thousand seismic events a day around the world, but in this instance there appears to be a correlation.”

“I assume the seismic readings could be registering an underwater explosion,” Pitt said.

“Absolutely. About six hundred to eight hundred pounds of TNT could produce an equivalent reading. Dr. McCammon showed me similar readings from known land-based mining operations.”

“That’s another shred of evidence that someone is blasting open the thermal vents,” Pitt said.

“There are a limited number of underwater mining systems in operation,” Gunn said, “but we haven’t tracked one to the Caribbean yet. Most seem to be deployed in Indonesia.”

“Given the environmental damage they’re causing,” Pitt said, “it’s little wonder they are flying under the radar.”

“One more thing,” Gunn said. “You mentioned you were headed back to the site of the sunken drill ship?”

“That’s right. Al and I noticed some bottom tracks that matched with marks we found around the vents.”

“We checked that area for seismic events and found there was a small rattle in the region just four days ago,” Gunn said. “Your hunch may be a good one.”

“We’re nearly there, so we’ll know soon enough. Thanks, Rudi.”

Gunn nodded and his image vanished from the monitor. Pitt turned to Giordino seated next to him. “Is the Starfish prepped for business? I’d like to start with another look at those tracks we saw near the Alta.”

“Standing by and ready to go.”

Twilight had settled over the ocean when the Sargasso Sea arrived at the spot of the Alta disaster. The surface waters were surprisingly crowded. Less than a half mile away, the lights of another vessel could be seen, standing on station. A second vessel appeared to be just east of it.

Pitt turned to the research ship’s captain. “Do we have identification of the vessels?”

The captain peered into a large radarscope, which typically provided a neighboring vessel’s name with its location and heading via a satellite tracking system called AIS. He looked up at Pitt and shook his head. “No identification is registering. They must have their AIS systems turned off.”

Pitt nodded. “Try them on the radio and advise them we will be deploying a submersible in the area of the wreck.”

The captain hailed the nearby ships but received only radio silence. “Do you want to wait and deploy in the morning?”

“No, we’ll go as soon as you are on station. After all, it’s always dark on the bottom.”

Thirty minutes later, Pitt headed to the stern deck cradle of the Starfish but was stopped along the way.

“Mr. Pitt?”

Pitt turned to find Kamala Bhatt stepping out of a side lab carrying a binder. “We just pulled a water sample when the ship stopped. I ran a quick test to check for methyl mercury.”

“What did you find?”

Pitt didn’t have to ask, he could see the answer in her eyes.

“The numbers are off the charts.”

37

Clad in a blue jumpsuit, Pitt crawled through the hatch of the deepwater submersible. Squirming into the pilot’s seat, he was surprised to find his daughter at the copilot’s station. “You nudge Al out of riding shotgun?” he asked.

“Why should he have all the fun?” she replied. “Of course, it will cost me a box of cigars when we make port. On top of that, I had to tell Dirk that you weren’t deploying for another hour to get him out of the way.”

“What kind of a daughter do I have?”

She smiled. “One who likes to get wet.”

They completed a predive checklist, then radioed the bridge that they were ready to deploy. Giordino activated a crane that lowered the Starfish into the water. With lights ablaze, the submersible sank slowly beneath the surface.

Pitt eyed his daughter as she reviewed the readouts on the console and radioed the ship that they were proceeding to descend.

“I don’t think we’ve taken a ride together,” he said, “since I taught you how to double-clutch my ’33 Packard.”

“Thank goodness submersibles don’t come with clutches.” She shook her head at the memory. “My left leg was sore for a week.”

When the bottom came into view, Pitt adjusted the ballast and engaged the thrusters.

“Is the wreck south of us?” she asked.

“Unless it crawled away. Maybe we can spot it on the sonar. Al said he configured a new system on the Starfish.”

Summer reached to an overhead panel and triggered a handful of switches, beating her father to the punch. “It’s a forward-looking, multibeam system with a range of three hundred meters,” she said. “Dirk and I tested it in the Mediterranean last month and it worked quite well.”

A small monitor began showing a multicolored image of the seabed in front of them. Summer adjusted the sonar’s frequency to increase the range.

Pitt shook his head. “I knew I’ve been spending too much time in Washington.”

He adjusted the thrusters and sent the submersible skimming over the seafloor. As they traveled south, a dark smudge appeared at the edge of the monitor. A minute later, the Alta rose up before them. Her bow was crushed from colliding with the seafloor while her topsides were charred from fire.

“Al and I saw the tracks off her opposite side,” Pitt said as he guided the submersible down the length of the wreck.

“She sank due to the fire?” Summer asked.

“An explosion in the forward fuel bunker sent her to the bottom. There’s a mystery as to what, or who, set it off.”

He slowed the Starfish as they approached a hole in the lower hull a few feet back from the bow.

“Pretty sizable blast,” Summer said. “Internal or external?”

“Interesting question. I’m sure the insurer will be asking the same.”

He maneuvered the submersible around the bow and across an undulating stretch of sand. The Starfish’s lights soon illuminated the set of tracks Pitt had seen on the earlier dive.

“Do they look like the same tracks you saw by the thermal vents?” Summer asked.

“They do. Let’s see where they lead.”

Pitt accelerated forward, gliding over the tracks while startling an occasional deepwater fish.

Summer watched the sonar monitor. “Multiple targets directly ahead.”

“I see them,” Pitt said. He wasn’t looking at the sonar but at a sprinkling of lights that pierced the darkness ahead.

The seafloor gradually descended and Pitt could see that the lights were centered at the base of a bowl-shaped crater. Two large vehicles came into view, both brightly illuminated. Each was creeping across the seabed, emitting large clouds of silt out their back ends. They were deep-sea mining vehicles, operated from the surface via thick, black power cables.

“Those things are massive,” Summer said, “as large as a Greyhound bus.”

“At least we caught them in the act,” Pitt said. “Now we can find out who’s causing all the damage.”

Pitt turned off the lights of the Starfish and moved closer to the vehicles, the nearest of which was called a bulk cutter. It looked like an overgrown tractor with a giant roller for its snout.

The roller was a rotating cutting drum affixed with tungsten carbide teeth that could chew apart rocks and hardened sediment. The tracked vehicle would ingest the rubble and expel it out a large tube in back. The second vehicle, similar in size but absent the roller drum, was a collecting machine. It would follow the bulk cutter and suck up the slurry, pumping it to the surface through a thick Kevlar hose.

Pitt closed with the bulk cutter, admiring its robot efficiency as it churned across the seabed an inch at a time. Summer captured the image of the slate-colored vehicle with the onboard video camera, knowing that few manufacturers could build such a specialized machine.

Pitt was edging alongside for a better view when a bang erupted from the rear of the submersible. The Starfish drifted laterally, knocking against the side of the cutter. Pitt reversed the submersible’s thrusters, resulting in a second clang from behind.

Summer turned to peer out a small rear viewport. “It’s an ROV. It rammed us.”

“It just took out our main thruster.” Pitt toggled a pair of side thrusters to maneuver out of the way.

The submersible started to turn when another bang rang out and the Starfish was again shoved toward the bulk cutter.

“It’s intentionally pushing us toward the bulk cutter,” Summer gasped.

Pitt felt the effects through the steering yoke. The ROV had smashed into and disabled one of the remaining side thrusters. Before the ROV could strike again, Pitt pivoted the Starfish, spinning away from the bulk cutter. The ROV’s bright lights shone through the submersible’s canopy. Pitt could see it was a large, deepwater ROV, box-shaped and better than twice the size of the NUMA submersible. The vehicle came charging at them again.

Striking the Starfish’s bow off center, it again drove the weakened submersible sideways, shoving it against the bulk cutter just behind the cutter drum.

Pitt reached between their seats and pulled a grip toggle that released an emergency ballast weight. The submersible ascended at once, then came to a crashing halt.

Near the top of the bulk cutter, a large manipulator had been extended. As the Starfish collided into it, the robotic arm moved down and pinned the submersible against its side.

Pitt kicked the remaining side thruster and applied full reverse power. The Starfish just slipped from under the manipulator when the ROV came up from the side and smashed into their top. Their instrument lights flickered as the submersible keeled over.

At the same instant, the manipulator dropped down and slid through the base frame of the Starfish. Its claw grabbed onto a section of tubing and closed shut.

Pitt frantically worked the thruster controls, but they proved useless. The bulk cutter had a solid grip on them and there was nothing they could do about it.

“It’s going to ram the glass!” Summer shouted.

The ROV had repositioned itself directly in front of the Starfish and was rushing toward the acrylic viewport. At the last second, the ROV ascended, striking the top of the submersible and sliding along its roofline. The ROV then backed away, sporting a scruff of yellow paint and some dangling wires.

Pitt looked at the wires. “It’s our emergency transponder. So we can’t communicate with the surface.”

“Are they going to leave us here to die?” Summer whispered.

“Only they know the answer to that,” Pitt said, staring out the viewport.

Like an all-seeing apparition, the ROV floated before them, its lights glaring into the submersible in a blinding taunt of death.

38

We’ve lost contact with the Starfish.”

“Be right there,” Giordino said.

Hanging up a wardroom telephone, he called over to Dirk, who was examining the results of additional water samples while the submersible was on its dive. The two raced to a tiny control shack on the stern deck.

A communications technician greeted them with a sober nod. “Both data and communications quit about five minutes ago. I’ve tried multiple frequencies and links but am getting no response.”

“Any indication of trouble beforehand?” Giordino asked.

“Negative. The last operating specs were fine. Summer radioed a few minutes earlier that they had located the Alta and were following some underwater tracks leading southeast.”

“Give me a mark on their last telemetry.” Giordino moved to a monitor that displayed a chart of the area. The technician tapped into a keyboard, pulling up the submersible’s last-recorded coordinates, which appeared on the chart as a red triangle.

“That’s about a thousand meters south of us.” Giordino motioned out a side window toward the lights of the ship in the distance. “In the same direction as our friends over there.”

“I’ll call them from the bridge and find out what they’re doing and whether they have any resources in the water,” Dirk said, rushing out the door.

“Have the captain reposition us over the Starfish’s last coordinates,” Giordino said. “I’ll have an ROV ready to deploy in five minutes.”

It took ten minutes for the ship to be repositioned. Dirk hailed the nearby vessel but received only a brief rebuff. Without identifying itself, the ship replied that it was engaged in seabed testing, had not seen the Starfish, and ordered the NUMA ship to stay a half mile clear.

The Sargasso Sea’s captain promptly ignored the request, rushing his ship within a quarter mile of its position in hopes of locating the submersible.

Giordino lowered his ROV over the side, spooling out its lift cable as fast as the drive winch would allow. Dirk sat in the control shack, watching its video feed. Halfway down, the ROV’s camera briefly picked up some faint lights in the distance, then lost them.

At six hundred feet, Dirk activated a joystick and navigated the ROV in a small circle as the seafloor came into view.

Giordino stepped into the control shack a minute later. “See anything?”

“Caught a flash of lights during the descent at about two hundred feet. Looked too dispersed to be the Starfish.”

“That ship is up to no good. Take a look at those bottom tracks.”

The ROV hovered over a slew of tread marks that crisscrossed the bottom. Dirk guided the ROV toward the heaviest concentration.

“Something off to the right,” Giordino said.

Dirk pivoted the ROV, its camera picking up a distant flicker of lights. “Let’s go have a look.”

While Giordino remotely played out additional cable, Dirk powered toward the lights. It didn’t take long to see they didn’t come from the Starfish.

The lights twinkled from the massive collecting machine that was designed to vacuum up crushed rock. The big vehicle sat idle, its bulk cutter partner nowhere in sight. Standing watch nearby was the large, square ROV, hovering a few meters off the bottom.

As the NUMA probe drew near, the collecting machine rose off the bottom amid a cloud of silt. A thick pair of cables began hoisting the machine on a slow journey to the surface. Dirk tracked its motions for a short distance, then broke away as the other ROV came to investigate.

The two ROVs eyed each other warily for a minute. The larger vehicle then turned and chased after the ascending machine to the surface.

“Seabed testing, my foot,” Giordino said. “They’re absconding with most of the seafloor.”

“Dad and Summer surely must have snuck up on their operation.”

“Seems a little unusual that they suddenly packed up and headed for the surface. All we can do now is keep searching.”

They piloted the ROV across the bottom for another two hours, repositioning the Sargasso Sea several times to expand the search area. They found no trace of the missing submersible.

Giordino frowned. “I can’t believe we haven’t heard a peep from their emergency transponder.”

“Is it external?” Dirk asked.

“Mounted on the sub’s roof.”

Dirk turned to the communications technician. “Have you been recording the ROV’s video feed?”

“Yes, as per standard procedure.”

“Replay the footage where we stared down the other ROV.”

The technician rewound the feed.

“Freeze it there,” Dirk said. He and Giordino crouched close to the monitor.

“There,” Dirk said, “at the bottom of the ROV. There’s a couple of dangling wires that look out of place, and a small piece of plastic wedged just below.”

Giordino tensed. “That looks like part of the transponder’s housing. And there’s yellow scuffing on the ROV’s frame.”

A shadow of anger descended over Giordino’s normally jovial face. He stood and stepped toward the door. “Let’s get that ROV back on deck now! I think it’s time we pay our neighbors a visit.”

39

The churning cutter head, the internal pumps and conveyors, and the creeping steel tracks all came to a stop. The big mining vehicle spit out a final mouthful of gnarled rocks and fell silent.

Peering out the Starfish’s viewport, Summer felt more unnerved than ever. After a minute, she turned to her father. “Do you think they’ll just hold us here until we run out of air?”

Pitt shook his head as he focused on shutting down all nonessential systems. “It won’t happen. The Sargasso Sea will find us first. Dirk and Al will have an ROV down here before you know it.”

“That monster ROV may try to disable it, too.”

“We’ll just have to hope they see us first.”

The chance never occurred. At the same moment Giordino’s ROV hit the water, the bulk cutter was yanked off the seabed, with the Starfish clutched to its side. Twin cables spooled around a massive drum winch on the surface ship pulled the vehicle up, giving Pitt and Summer the sensation of riding an elevator.

Halfway to the surface, they noticed the lights of the NUMA ROV traveling in the opposite direction. Pitt grabbed a flashlight and clicked an SOS out the viewport, but the ROV quickly vanished from sight.

A short time later, the bulk cutter broke the surface alongside the mining support ship. The large vessel had disengaged its dynamic positioning system after both mining vehicles had left the bottom and drifted over a mile from the Sargasso Sea. The ship turned its starboard side away from view of the NUMA ship.

A massive A-frame, mounted amidships, hoisted the bulk cutter clear of the water. On the opposite side of the deck, a matching A-frame awaited the retrieval of the collecting machine.

Pitt and Summer peered out of the submersible through the glare of dozens of work lights strung above the ship’s deck. Their arrival was met by curious stares from a handful of crewmen in hard hats who guided the bulk cutter across the deck and into a semi-enclosed hangar. A contingent of soldiers in green fatigues quickly surrounded the submersible, armed with AK-47s.

“Not the welcoming committee I was hoping to see,” Pitt said.

“Cuban Army soldiers?” Summer asked.

“I believe so,” he said, noting a white star over a red diamond insignia on one of the uniforms.

A soldier shone a flashlight into their faces, motioning them to exit the submersible. Pitt followed Summer to the hatch, stopping at a tool locker and slipping a small folding knife into his pocket before climbing out.

They were greeted silently by the soldiers.

Pitt countered by exploding in mock anger. “What have you done!” he yelled. Stepping to the rear of the sub, he pointed to the mangled thrusters. “Look at the damage. I want my ship notified at once.”

The soldiers’ hesitation ended when a dog-faced officer appeared on the scene with an authoritative air. “Take them below and secure them!” he barked. Turning to one of the ship’s crew, he added, “Get that submersible concealed.”

With their assault rifles drawn, four of the soldiers prodded Pitt and Summer away from the Starfish. As they passed the bulk cutter, Pitt saw a small red logo painted on the side: a grizzly bear carrying an ax in its teeth.

They were escorted down a companionway into an open work bay that housed the now recovered ROV. A technician procured a pair of cable ties, which the guards used to secure the captives’ wrists behind their backs. Pitt and Summer were shoved to the floor with their backs against a bulkhead.

The Army officer, a man named Calzado, appeared a short time later in the company of one of the ship’s officers. The two argued loudly while gesturing toward the captives. Then both left the bay.

“What was that all about?” Pitt whispered. Though he understood the Spanish spoken, he had been blocked from view of the quarreling parties by one of the guards.

“I don’t think the ship’s captain is too happy that we were brought aboard. I caught something about breaching security on the project. I think they’re going to move us.”

Summer’s words proved prophetic. A half hour later, the pair were marched back up to the main deck. An aged tugboat was tied alongside the mining ship, astern of a wooden barge stacked high with ore from the seabed. Pitt and his daughter were led aboard the tug and into a cramped cabin, where a guard kept watch with the door open.

“Did you see the Sargasso Sea when we boarded?” Summer asked.

“No. We must be turned away from her. I’m sure they’ll be looking for us by now.”

“But they won’t know where to track us,” she replied in a down voice.

They heard the tug’s motor rumble to life. A few minutes later, the stubby boat got under way, shoving the barge ahead of it through the rocky seas. Into the night they sailed, leaving the NUMA ship, and freedom, in their wake.

40

The large workboat cut its engines and slowed to a drift under a cloudy night sky. A few faint lights tickled the horizon far to the south, but the ocean around them was empty. The boat’s skipper checked the radar system to ensure there were no unseen vessels about. Satisfied they were alone, he picked up a handheld radio.

“Bridge. We’re at the drop zone. You’re clear to deploy.”

Standing on the open stern deck, James Maguire replied instantly. “Roger. Proceeding to deploy.”

The mercenary turned to a tall, muscular man smoking a cigarette at the side rail. “Okay, Gomez. We’re clear to drop.”

The two stepped to a large covered object strapped to the deck. They released the ties and pulled back a tarp to reveal a dilapidated coastal fishing boat powered by a small, rusty outboard motor. Or at least that’s how it looked.

The boat was actually constructed with a Kevlar composite that made it virtually indestructible. The exterior had been molded and painted to resemble bleached wood suffering from rot.

“Are we fully gassed up?” Maguire asked.

Gomez checked a pair of concealed fuel tanks near the bow and nodded. The tanks fed two 150-horsepower horizontal motors concealed beneath the bench seats that powered twin jet impellers mounted on the hull.

Maguire opened a set of false floorboards and performed a quick inventory check with a flashlight. One compartment contained a mini arsenal of pistols, assault rifles, and an RPG launcher, plus ammunition. Another contained an assortment of dive gear. Maguire loaded a third compartment with a heavy plastic bin he brought from his cabin.

Sealing up the floorboards, he called to Gomez. “Let’s get her wet.”

Gomez stepped to a small crane and hoisted the boat by its lift straps over the side and into the water.

Maguire eyed its name, Surprise, lightly painted in yellow on the stern, before climbing aboard. He released the lift straps and handed them to Gomez, who stowed them aboard the ship, then joined Maguire in the boat.

Maguire started up the inboard motors and radioed the workboat’s bridge. “Surprise is away. We’ll see you in forty-eight hours.”

“Roger that,” the skipper replied. “We’ll be waiting right here, catching some rays.”

Maguire laid on the throttle and the faux fishing boat shot away into the night. The mercenary aimed the bow toward the distant lights of Grand Cayman Island, bounding over the choppy black sea on a mission of death.

41

The Sargasso Sea’s Zodiac approached at a whisper, only the slap of the waves against its hull signaling its presence. Giordino was thankful for finding an electric motor aboard the research vessel, one used by the ship’s scientists when examining ecologically sensitive areas. He was less enamored with the fact that he was piloting a bright orange inflatable across a moonlit sea. The ship’s maintenance crew had hurriedly slapped a coat of black paint on the inflatable in the name of stealth, but much of it had fallen victim to the salt spray.

Giordino guided the Zodiac toward the mining ship, which was now holding position a mile east of the Sargasso Sea. The vessel was illuminated from stem to stern with bright floodlights that revealed an impressive, modern-built ship with multiple hydraulic A-frames, pumps, and conveyors designed for subsea mining. Beyond the mining ship, Giordino saw the lights of a second vessel receding to the south.

He approached the ship from the stern to avoid observant eyes on the bridge while searching for a means to gain access. His luck held when he spotted a ladder that had been lowered off the starboard flank. As the Zodiac drew closer, he read the ship’s name on the transom, Sea Raker.

Dirk sat on the bow, dressed in black and holding a coil of rope. Figuring their chance of detection was less with a quick strike, Giordino held the throttle down and gunned for the ladder. The inflatable bounced against the side of the ship. Dirk leaped to the ladder, tied off the inflatable, and scrambled up the steps. Clearing the ship’s rail, he ducked behind a crane and waited for Giordino.

Giordino tumbled to Dirk’s side a minute later. “How we looking?”

“Not good. We just missed a pair of guards on patrol that are headed up the port rail. They were uniformed and carrying assault rifles.”

“Assault rifles on a mining ship. Lovely,” he said, angered at the notion they had arrived unarmed.

“We better keep a low profile. It looks like there are a few scattered work details still about as well.”

“That may not be a bad thing, if we can mix with the locals.”

Dirk spied an enclosed operator’s cab affixed to the crane they were hiding behind. “I think I see something.”

He crept to the cab door, climbed inside, and he found a work coat draped over the operator’s seat and a hard hat hanging from a hook. He grabbed both and returned to Giordino.

“Too short for me,” he said, holding up the jacket. “You’re elected to join the ship’s crew.”

Giordino squeezed his torso into the coat and pulled the hat low. “This should pass muster. Let’s go see what we can find.”

He stepped onto the deck and moved along the starboard rail as if he’d worked aboard the ship for years. Dirk followed a few paces behind, holding to the shadows. They passed beneath a massive conveyor apparatus used to offload ore, then approached the bulk cutter machine’s hangar.

Several crewmen were milling about, some wearing full protective suits and breathing devices. Giordino stood at the fringe until a lone crewman carrying a clipboard stepped in his direction. Giordino waved him over as if to point out a problem with some equipment. When he drew near, Giordino put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Where’s the man and woman from the submersible?” he asked.

The crewman gaped at Giordino a moment, then jabbered a litany of his own questions. Dirk materialized behind him and grabbed his arms, allowing Giordino an unfettered punch to the man’s chin. The man instantly fell limp.

“That wasn’t very sporting,” Giordino whispered, rubbing his knuckles.

“The consequence of a wrong answer.” Dirk dragged the crewman behind a large drum winch and stripped him of his jumpsuit and clipboard. He rejoined Giordino, moving forward along the deck. They stopped and ducked into the side of the hangar when they noticed a pair of armed guards approaching from the other direction.

Dirk and Giordino approached the bulk cutter and pretended to inspect its steel treads. The guards paid little attention as they strolled past. Once they were out of sight, Giordino started to exit the bay, but Dirk grabbed his arm.

“Al, over here.”

Dirk pulled him aside as a grease-stained mechanic walked by. He waited a moment, then steered Giordino to the other end of the bulk cutter. At the back of the hangar was a large oblong object covered in canvas tarps. Dirk pulled back a corner and saw a familiar yellow shape underneath. “It’s the Starfish,” he said. “They brought it aboard.”

Pitt and Summer weren’t trapped at the bottom of the sea. In all likelihood, they were alive and well somewhere aboard the ship.

“Why would they bring them aboard and hide the fact?” he asked.

“Who knows? Maybe they’re mining here without authorization.”

They exited the hangar and peered toward the forward section of the ship.

“They probably have them locked in a cabin,” Giordino said. “Let’s see if we can find them.”

They made their way to the six-story accommodations block near the bow. Entering an open side door, they searched the first two floors, finding a galley, a wardroom, and several storage lockers. At that late hour of the night, there were only a few sleepy crew members about, waiting for their shifts to end. On the third level, they stumbled into a lounge fronting the crew’s cabins. Three off-duty soldiers sat playing cards. Giordino eyed the adjacent corridors to the cabins. Finding them empty, he smiled at the soldiers and led Dirk to the companionway.

One of the cardplayers gave a cold stare to the two strangers in ill-fitting jumpsuits, but his partners kept their focus on the card game at hand.

“Lucky for us,” Giordino said as they broached the fourth level, “it doesn’t appear as if the ship’s crew mingles with the Army boys.”

“Not so lucky, we’re running out of accommodations quarters.”

They found the fourth floor identical to the third, absent the cardplayers. There was no sign of visitors under guard.

As they ascended toward the fifth level, an alarm sounded. After thirty seconds, the siren ceased and a stern voice barked through the public-address system in rapid-fire Spanish.

“I think somebody woke up and wants his threads back,” Giordino said.

“Don’t tell me that jackhammer right of yours has lost some steam.”

He shrugged. “We all have our off days. Let’s take a quick look at the fifth floor, then hit the road.”

They scrambled up the stairwell to the next level, which was split between officers’ cabins on one side and senior crew members’ on the other. A few groggy-eyed ship’s personnel were staggering from their cabins. No guards were visible, so they turned back toward the stairwell. A soldier came bursting onto the floor. He took one look at Dirk and Giordino and shouted, “Alto, alto!”

Giordino recognized him as the cardplayer from the third level. He also saw that he was unarmed. Stepping up to the man, Giordino grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room. The soldier nearly came out of his shoes before slamming into a side wall and slumping to the floor.

“Let’s go,” Giordino grunted, turning around and ducking down the companionway. Dirk followed on his heels.

The stairs were empty, and they raced to the bottom and darted out the door. Giordino exited first and ran straight into an armed soldier heading the other way. The two men bounced off each other, stumbling to the ground.

Though the soldier took the harder fall, he reacted quicker. Bounding to his feet, he thrust his assault rifle into Giordino’s chest and shouted, “Don’t move.”

Giordino could only scowl as he eased his hands up in surrender.

42

Dirk stepped from the stairwell at the moment the two other men collided. He leaped back into its cover as the soldier stood up, having not noticed Giordino had a partner. Pounding footfalls and a murmur of voices overhead told him reinforcements were coming down the stairs. With little time to lose, he took a deep breath and waited for Giordino to set him up.

Raising his palms, Giordino feigned innocence and chatted nonstop to divert the soldier’s attention. “What are you doing?” he cried. “I need to check the main hydraulics. Put your gun down. I’m no intruder.”

He faked an injured leg from the collision and hobbled to the side rail, leaning on it for support. The soldier pivoted to track his movements, repeatedly calling for him to halt. He relaxed slightly when Giordino finally stopped and again raised his arms up high.

It had taken Giordino just a few seconds to get the soldier turned around so his back was to the stairwell. Dirk reacted instantly, leaping from the stairs and charging toward the soldier like an angry bull. Dirk made no attempt to wrest the gun away; he simply lowered his shoulder and barreled into the man.

The soldier caught his approach from out of the corner of his eye and twisted with the gun just before Dirk smashed into him.

The soldier went tumbling toward Giordino, who in turn tagged him with a hard punch to the gut.

The soldier squeezed the trigger on his AK-47 before he fell, spraying a half-dozen shots harmlessly into the deck plate.

The combined blows had knocked the wind out of him and he fell to the deck atop his rifle, gasping for air while clutching his stomach.

“Appreciate that,” Giordino said to Dirk. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

They sprinted down the starboard deck, but the gunfire had awakened the ship. Armed soldiers and crewmen came flooding out of the accommodations block.

Dirk and Giordino had run only a short distance when shots began flying past them. Ducking for cover, they slipped back into the hangar that housed the bulk cutter.

The hangar was now empty, save for a lone electronics technician on a raised platform checking a control panel. Giordino surveyed the platform, then motioned toward the stern.

“Make for the boat,” he said to Dirk. “I’ll slow them down.”

“You’ll never make it.”

“Look for me over the side.”

Dirk knew there was no point in arguing, so he bolted across the hangar and slipped out to the stern.

Giordino approached the steps to the control platform. Alerted by the gunshots, the technician turned with a petrified look as Giordino stormed up the steps. “You can’t come up here,” he yelled.

Giordino saw the man was terrified. Waving his thumb over his shoulder, he said, “Get lost!”

The technician nodded. Nervously slipping past Giordino, he fled down the stairs and out of the hangar.

Giordino turned to the control panel, which served as a testing station for the bulk cutter. Green lights showed there was a live power connection to the vehicle. He tweaked an assortment of dials and knobs until he found a pair of dual controls that made the machine stir beneath him. He jammed the levers forward and the bulk cutter began creeping forward on its heavy tracks.

Giordino adjusted the controls, slowing the cutter’s left track and pivoting the machine until it faced the ship’s bow. Satisfied with its angle, he found and activated the vehicle’s cutter drum.

A pair of armed soldiers peeked around the side of the hangar as the cutter drum ground into the side wall. The wall burst off its mounts and collapsed on the men as the cutter bulled forward. One man rolled clear and grabbed the arm of his companion, but the compressed wall had pinned him to the deck. The man let out a warbled cry as the cutter drum drove forward, grinding him, the wall, and the deck surface into a bloodstained mixture.

The cutter ground forward across the starboard deck, blocking the soldiers who rushed from amidships. Giordino descended the platform and ran aft. He could see the stern rail ahead when suddenly two soldiers appeared in front of him. They knelt and opened fire with their assault rifles.

Giordino didn’t wait for them to take aim. Without missing a beat, he stepped to the side rail, grabbed it, and vaulted over the side.

A spray of bullets peppered the rail a second later as Giordino plunged safely into the sea. He dug hard into the water, swimming deep and away from the ship. He traveled twenty yards before surfacing for air, and to take a quick look.

Dirk’s voice filled his ears. “Grab the line and hang on!”

A large dark object speckled with orange whisked by Giordino’s head. He felt a rope sliding by his body and he clamped onto it with both hands.

He was immediately ripped forward, dragged across the surface as a spray of water pounded his face. His arms felt like they were being ripped from their sockets, but he hung on for nearly a minute. Whenever his head broke the surface, he heard the intermittent crack of distant gunfire. He was choking on water and out of breath when the rope in his hands finally fell slack.

He treaded water a moment while catching his breath. The inflatable nudged up beside him and Dirk leaned over and offered a hand. Sporadic gunfire still sounded but in diminishing intensity.

Giordino lunged aboard and spit out a mouthful of saltwater. “Thanks for the keelhauling,” he sputtered.

“Sorry. I figured it was the fastest way out of Dodge. They nicked our inflatable pretty good, but we’re well out of view now.”

Giordino saw two of the Zodiac’s five airtight compartments were sagging. “They’re certainly gun happy.”

“Guess they weren’t too crazy about your shipboard mining demonstration.”

Giordino looked back toward the Sea Raker, several hundred yards distant. Somebody had pulled the power on the bulk cutter, but only after it had chewed up thirty feet of deck. He could just make out contingents of armed men swarming around the ship like a hive of bees.

Dirk hit the throttle and turned for home.

As they bounded over a rising sea, Giordino grimaced at the chaotic scene behind them. Their foray had been a complete failure. Somewhere aboard the mining ship, Pitt and Summer were being held captive, and now they would be hell to rescue.

43

A half-moon was still kindling the night sky when the tugboat carrying Pitt and Summer throttled down its engine. Pitt nudged his daughter awake as the boat scraped against a dock and its motor shut down.

She yawned. “How long was I out?”

“An hour or so.”

“Great. So we must be in Key West by now.”

The guard at the door had stood, stone-faced, the entire journey. Little changed in his demeanor as he held the captives in the cabin another full hour. Finally, another soldier arrived, and together they marched Pitt and Summer off the tug and onto a long dock.

Summer scanned the area. “Funny, this doesn’t look like Florida.”

They had landed along a rugged stretch of verdant coast. Scattered lights were visible on the hills beyond, but the immediate landscape seemed isolated. A pair of illuminated buildings faced the extended dock, set in the base of a protected rocky cove.

The dock itself was massive, extending nearly four hundred feet. Pitt noticed the steel platform was painted a teal gray, which would make it hard to see from overhead. The tugboat was tied up just behind the large oceangoing barge it had pushed to shore. The barge held a mountain of ore, the now dried slurry that the Sea Raker had mined from the ocean floor.

As Pitt and Summer were marched along the dock, a contingent of workers approached from shore. Most wore military fatigues, like the soldiers on the Sea Raker. A few were attired in hazmat suits with breathing devices. These men began maneuvering into place a large conveyor system that would offload the barge’s cargo.

At the end of the dock, Pitt paused to eye several high mounds of ore already onshore, presumably awaiting shipment to a smelter. The barrel of an assault rifle nudged him in the back as a reminder that he wasn’t there to sightsee.

They were led past a helicopter pad and a two-story dormitory building to the doorway of a small, low-roofed structure. Inside, it was configured as a contemporary executive office space, complete with plush carpeting and paneled walls.

Summer’s eyes perked up at the sight of some Mesoamerican artifacts displayed in a glass case. She could give them only a cursory glance before they were shoved into a small office containing an empty desk and two stuffed chairs. The door was left open and an armed guard took his position at the threshold.

“At least we get a modicum of comfort before they pass out the blindfolds,” Pitt said. He sank sideways into one of the chairs, his wrists still bound behind him.

“That’s not funny.” Summer took the other seat and leaned toward her father. In a low voice she asked, “Why do you think they brought us here?”

“Guess they didn’t want us in the midst of their mining operation. Maybe they just want us out of the way until they’re finished working around the Alta site.”

“But the Sargasso Sea isn’t going to stand by and do nothing.”

“They might not have a choice if the Cuban Navy shows up.”

“That’s not going to go over well with Al.”

“There’s not much he can do about it. If the military is running the show here, we’ll probably have to wait for some sort of political resolution.” He leaned back in the chair. “We might just have to sit tight and relax until they can barter us back.”

Summer shook her head. “They’re not going to be able to conceal the damage from the mercury releases.”

“That’s true. There’s something else bothering me. Did you see the shore workers dressed in hazmat suits and breathing devices?”

“They must know about the mercury in the sediments.”

“Maybe, but there was something else. Their suits had clipped to them small monitoring devices — like the pocket dosimeters used by sailors on nuclear submarines.”

Summer thought for a minute, then shook her head. “No, you may be right. I remember examining the geological makeup of a thermal vent in the East Pacific Rise. There were concentrations of uranium and some rare earth elements in the surrounding basalt.” She looked at her father. “Could it be they’re mining uranium from the thermal vents?”

Pitt nodded. “It would explain the high degree of security. And maybe why the Alta was sunk.”

“You think the Cubans created that hole we saw in the side of her hull?”

“One of the men on the diving bell said he saw an unknown submersible just before the drill ship sank.”

“But why would the Cubans be interested in mining uranium? They don’t have the technology to create a weapon.”

“I don’t know,” Pitt said.

They both fell quiet, overcome with a feeling they had stumbled onto something much more sinister than they knew.

44

Giordino shook his head in frustration. “Are we anchored to the seafloor?”

Although the lights of the Sargasso Sea glistened a short distance away, it seemed they could not draw close to the NUMA ship. The inflatable’s tiny motor was overwhelmed, first by its deflated sections, then by a breeze that had stiffened since their departure. Their voyage to the Sea Raker had taken less than fifteen minutes, but they were approaching an hour on the return.

“She’s at full throttle.” Dirk squeezed the motor’s handgrip tight for good measure. “The headwind isn’t helping.”

On the bridge of the Sargasso Sea, Captain Malcomb Smith scanned the waters between the two ships with a pair of binoculars. “There, I see them!” he said to the helmsman on graveyard shift.

“Is Summer and Mr. Pitt with them?”

“It’s too dark to tell. I’m going down to meet them at the boom crane to find out.”

The captain made his way to the port side rail, where two crewmen were waiting with a crane to retrieve the inflatable. Smith caught a glimpse of the boat as it cut around the stern and turned up the ship’s flank. It hung tight against the hull, hiding within the ship’s shadow as it approached the crane.

Smith stepped to the side rail and leaned over, anxious to see if Pitt and Summer were aboard. Instead, he saw a boat full of black-clad commandos, followed a short distance behind by a second boat. The first inflatable raced to a stop as a pair of grappling hooks attached to rope ladders flew over the ship’s rail. Two commandos sprang up the ladders and vaulted the rail.

The NUMA captain reacted with a shout, shoving the nearest intruder over the rail and back into the boat below. The second commando, the team’s leader, didn’t wait for a repeat performance. He leveled a pistol at Smith and pulled the trigger.

A hundred yards away, Dirk and Giordino heard the popping of gunfire. Although they hadn’t seen the commandos race by, they could guess what was happening.

A few yards from the ship, Dirk swung the inflatable wide around its bow. Under the glow of the ship’s lights, he could see the two assault boats tied amidships with a lone sentry guarding them.

Giordino pointed at the guard, and Dirk nodded. Turning away from the ship, he steered the inflatable in a wide loop until they could see the back of the sentry and then he turned the boat home. With their electric motor, they could approach with stealth.

The sentry was focused on the ship above when Dirk’s inflatable came out of nowhere and rammed him broadside. Giordino leaped off the bow and was on the man before he knew what happened. Lifting the guard off his feet, Giordino slammed him down. His head smacked the housing of the outboard, knocking him out cold. Giordino wasted no time, tearing the rifle from the guard’s hands and scaling the side of the ship.

By the time Dirk maneuvered his inflatable alongside the hull and climbed over the side rail, Giordino was out of sight. Moving forward, he recoiled as he tripped over the bloodied body of a crewman, lying facedown.

The ship was oddly quiet, the main deck deserted. Where were the other commandos — and Giordino?

Figuring Giordino would head for the bridge, he followed suit, heading down the deck until he found the port stairwell — and stepped right into the barrel of a waiting pistol.

Too late, he saw the companionway was cramped with bodies. Captain Smith sat on the steps with a dazed seaman, nursing a bloodied shoulder and leg. Giordino, sporting a nasty gash on his head, stood with a pair of scientists under guard by two commandos.

Then came Calzado, the commando leader, who held his pistol at Dirk’s cheekbone. “Good of you to join us. I missed making your acquaintance aboard the Sea Raker.”

Dirk had no reply as another commando thundered down the steps, stopping at Calzado’s side.

“The bridge is secure, sir,” he reported. “We have complete control of the ship.”

45

Dirk and Giordino hoisted Smith to his feet and half carried, half dragged the wounded captain out of the stairwell. A trail of blood followed across the deck as Calzado marched them at gunpoint to the stern. They found the remaining scientists and crew being herded, under armed guard, into two of the ship’s labs. Calzado motioned for them to join the group being squeezed into the nearer wet lab. Inside, Dirk found the ship’s doctor and brought him to the captain.

“What are our casualties?” Smith asked in a weak voice as the doctor examined the shoulder wound. The captain looked like he would pass out at any moment.

The ship’s first officer, a gangly man named Barnes, responded first. He wore only his skivvies, having been rousted from his bunk at gunpoint. “Assistant Engineer Dyer was killed on deck, sir. We have at least four other serious injuries but none life-threatening.”

“Did the bridge get off an emergency call or beacon?”

Barnes shook his head. “No, sir. They stormed the bridge before anyone knew what was happening. The helmsman reported they were unable to issue any kind of emergency signal. The boarders are still holding Ross on the bridge.”

Captain Smith turned to Giordino. “Did you see any signs of Summer or Pitt?”

“We found the Starfish on board their ship, next to their seabed mining equipment. They must still be aboard.” He refused to consider a less positive outcome.

The captain wheezed. “Who in blazes are they?”

“The ship is named Sea Raker,” Giordino said. “It’s staffed like a destroyer, not a mining ship. Armed soldiers all over the place. They look to me like Cuban regulars.”

Confirmation came a moment later when the door to the lab burst open. Calzado stepped across the threshold and regarded the cramped bay with a surly glare.

“The Sargasso Sea has been seized for violating the territorial sovereignty of Cuba,” he said in clipped English. “You are now prisoners of the state.”

“We haven’t entered Cuban waters,” Barnes said.

Calzado looked at the first officer and gave a cold smile. “It is my duty to warn you that any attempt at escape or interference with the operation of the ship will be met with severe consequences. You will stay here and remain quiet.”

He turned on his heels and marched out. A pair of commandos slammed the door closed and locked it.

“That’s a load of bunk,” Barnes said. “We are positioned over five miles from Cuba’s territorial limit.”

The ship’s engines rumbled, and they could feel the vessel get under way.

“If we’re not in Cuban waters now,” Dirk said, “we will be shortly.”

Smith closed his eyes as if asleep, but he spoke in a firm voice. “Let’s not tempt fate. Headquarters can still track us and will be alerted when we don’t report in. There will be help headed our way in no time. I want everyone to stay put and do as the man says.”

For Giordino, the words fell on deaf ears. He was already pacing the lab like a caged tiger, calculating a way to pounce on his captors.

46

Pitt and Summer were detained in the office for half a day, until they heard several men enter the office complex. The newcomers convened in an adjacent executive office. With its thin walls and both doors left open, the two captives could hear every word.

“All right, Molina, what is the great emergency that required my presence today?”

Juan Díaz put his feet on a large mahogany desk and looked down his nose at the mining operations manager seated across from him. Despite his own time in the Revolutionary Army, Díaz had an open disdain for the military.

“Comandante, you always stated that the mining operation is to be conducted with absolute secrecy,” Lieutenant Silvio Molina said. Though Díaz no longer held military rank, the militia on-site addressed him in deference to his powerful family connections.

“Yes, of course,” Díaz said. “You and your men were handpicked to oversee the operation on account of your loyalty to the general.”

“During our excavations last night, we had an intrusion at the Domingo 1 site.”

Díaz glanced at an oversized map of the Florida Straits pinned to one wall. An irregular circle, drawn in green and denoted Domingo 1, was marked northeast of Havana. “Go on.”

“An American marine research ship named the Sargasso Sea arrived at dusk and moored near the wellhead site—”

“The Sargasso Sea?” Díaz said. “Wasn’t that the vessel that was nosing around after the drill ship was sunk?”

“Yes, it is a vessel of the National Underwater and Marine Agency. They were the ones that picked up the survivors of the Alta.”

“What are they doing back at the site?”

“I don’t know.” Molina shrugged. “Perhaps they are performing an inspection for the Norwegian owners of the ship. Or perhaps they are CIA.”

“The destruction of the drill ship was made to look like an accident,” Díaz said. “Those were your orders.”

“And it was so accomplished. But I warned you it could attract unwanted attention.”

“We’re on a schedule, and we needed more time to complete the excavation. If the late Minister Ortiz hadn’t given them that sector, of all places, to drill in, we would never have had a problem. We had no choice but to remove them from the site.” Díaz scowled. “I see that the barge is offloading a new shipment. What are our latest stockpile figures?”

“Including the current barge load, we estimate a total of two hundred and eighty tons in readied stockpile. The customer supply ship is arriving in the morning to collect the first half order of two hundred and fifty tons.”

Díaz stood and approached the wall map. In addition to the green circle, there were two red circles twenty and thirty miles farther north into the Florida Straits. He motioned toward them. “The thermal vents at Domingo 2 and Domingo 3 are each ten times the size of Domingo 1. They will easily provide the balance of our delivery, if our yield percentages are accurate.”

“Domingo 1 has proven better than anticipated,” Molina said. “We’ve seen uranium oxide content in excess of fifty percent, which far exceeds the highest known yields from any terra firma mines, even those in Athabasca, Canada.”

“The very reason we pursued the high-cost operations of undersea mining. When will the Sea Raker be finished at the current field?”

Molina looked at the floor. “That’s uncertain. They had completed eighty-five percent of the field operations but are standing by at the moment while repairing damage to the ship.”

“What damage?” Díaz asked.

“It was the American research vessel. While we were conducting excavation operations, they sent down a submersible that approached our bulk cutter machine. We were able to remotely acquire the submersible and bring it aboard the ship.”

“You what!” Díaz said, flying out of his chair.

“It was recording our operation. Calzado, on the Sea Raker, reported that his men concealed the submersible on the ship and sent its two pilots ashore this morning with the barge. A short time later, two men from the NUMA ship boarded the Sea Raker, apparently in search of their comrades. They were discovered but escaped. And they caused some damage with the bulk cutter before they got away.”

Díaz’s face had turned red. “So this NUMA ship is aware of our operation and knows we captured their submersible?”

“Calzado reports that he and an armed party have taken control of the American ship. He doesn’t believe they had a chance to issue a call for help.”

Díaz stared at him. “You did all this without my authorization?”

“It was an urgent military operation and the hour was late. I did wake the general and obtained his approval.”

Díaz glared at the lieutenant. “You don’t think the Americans will miss their research ship?”

“The vessel has been relocated closer to shore. If they raise trouble, we can accuse them of spying in our waters.”

“This has endangered the entire operation just as we are in the final stretch.” He stared at Molina with cold determination. “We must accelerate the excavations at Domingo 2 and 3 at once. I will see if our customer will make early acceptance of the second delivery.”

“The Sea Raker can proceed to the next two fields and set the explosives while the bulk cutter is repaired.”

“When can they resume mining?”

“Within twenty-four hours, if not sooner.”

“Do it,” Díaz said. “Do it now! We may not have even that long before the American ship becomes a major liability. I’m returning to Havana to meet with the general. Have the Sea Raker moved to the Domingo 2 site at once.”

As he rose to leave, Molina stopped him. “What about the submersible pilots we captured?”

“Are they still on the barge?”

“They’re right next door.”

Díaz took his seat with an exasperated sigh. “All right, let me see them.”

47

Pitt and Summer had heard every word. They were shocked at the news that the Sargasso Sea had been captured. Pitt was less surprised about the intrusion and damage aboard the Sea Raker, obviously Al and Dirk’s handiwork.

The stakes were suddenly much higher. Absconding with a nosy submersible was one thing, but boarding and commandeering a NUMA ship was something else. The secrecy and paranoia meant the mining project was a high-stakes operation — with even greater environmental consequences at risk from the two untapped thermal vents.

“If those other two vents are ten times larger than the one at the Alta site,” Summer said, “what happens when they blast those open? Rudi said they already had a report of elevated mercury levels near Andros Island in the Bahamas.”

“Multiply the existing contamination by twenty and you’ve got a full-blown environmental catastrophe,” Pitt said. “As Rudi pointed out, there’s an exponential risk to marine life due to migrating species passing through the mercury plumes.”

“During the BP oil disaster, the great fear was that the spill would reach the Florida Straits and carry up the East Coast,” Summer said. “The danger here is much worse. If the toxins are released in the middle of the Florida Straits, the methyl mercury could spread through the food chain and contaminate fish stocks from Texas to New England.”

Two armed soldiers roused them from their chairs and escorted them to the room next door.

“These are the two people who were spying on our mining operation,” Molina said as they were brought into the office.

Díaz nearly fell out of his chair at the sight of Summer. She was equally shocked to find her captor was Juan Díaz, but she found her words first.

“Professor Díaz,” she said with a sarcastic emphasis on the title. “I didn’t know your anthropology skills included murder and kidnapping.”

“There is much about me you don’t know, Summer Pitt,” he said.

She started to respond, then looked past Díaz. Resting on a sturdy table in the corner of the office was the Aztec stone she had discovered at Zimapán. The horror of the events that followed came flooding back. “You murdered Dr. Torres in cold blood.”

Díaz responded with a cold smile.

“You know this woman?” Molina asked.

“Yes. We have a shared passion for Aztec history.” He walked over to the stone and grazed his fingertips across its surface. “A pity the other half didn’t remain aboard the wreckage of the Oso Malo in Jamaica.”

“Yes,” Summer said, regaining her composure. “Ironic, actually. The other half ended up in Havana, destroyed on the Maine. It was under your nose all along.”

“Yes, I, too, discovered that Dr. Boyd was aboard the Maine with the other half of the stone when the ship blew up. Still, you have been very helpful in providing data on where the treasure may still lie.”

“What treasure?”

Díaz stared at her. “You mean, you don’t know the stone’s significance?”

He let out a bellowing laugh as he stepped to a bookcase filled with small stone carvings and artifacts. He picked up a figurine and set it on the desk in front of Summer. “Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of science.”

It was a figurine of a dog made of solid gold. The design had an ancient look, which Summer suspected was Aztec. “Where did you steal this? The Veracruz University Museum of Anthropology?”

“It was discovered at the bottom of the sea during one of our mineral surveys.”

“On a long canoe,” Pitt said, “about thirty miles northwest of Montego Bay.” He had kept silent as the others talked, trying to edge closer to the wall map. A jab from a guard’s rifle kept him from discerning its markings.

Díaz bristled at the comment. He picked up the figurine and returned it to the shelf. Then he stepped over to Summer. Reaching down, he grabbed a fistful of long red hair and yanked her head forward. “Tell me — now! — why are you here?”

Pitt lunged across the room, his hands still pinioned behind his back, and plowed his shoulder into Díaz.

Díaz sprawled back across his desk as the two guards jumped on Pitt and held him back. Molina unholstered a Makarov pistol and leveled it at Pitt.

Díaz staggered to his feet and glared at Pitt, then regarded Summer. “A family resemblance, it seems. Your daughter?” he asked Pitt.

Pitt said nothing, appraising him with contempt.

“Perhaps she can entertain my men during your stay.” Díaz turned to the soldiers. “Get him out of my sight — now!”

The soldiers dragged Pitt out of the office, leaving Summer alone with Díaz and Molina. Díaz opened a desk drawer and pulled out a knife with a carved obsidian blade. He showed it to Summer, then pressed its blade lightly against her cheek. “Now, where were we?”

Summer gritted her teeth. “We are tracking the outbreak of mercury pollutants.”

Díaz nodded and pulled away the knife, leaving a thin trace of blood.

“Your mining operation has released toxic plumes that are destroying large swaths of marine life,” she said. “The plumes are visible by satellite. We tracked the latest one here and came to investigate. The mercury is creating a huge environmental risk.”

Díaz nodded. He was aware of the methyl mercury toxins being released from his underwater blasting but was indifferent to its consequences. “Perhaps the mercury is problematic, but it will dissipate over time.”

“Irreparable harm has already been done to marine life. And your mining here, in the Florida Straits, could have serious effects throughout the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast.”

“Harmful to the U.S., in other words? That is no concern of mine.” Díaz laughed. “I’m afraid you are too late for that.”

He stepped to the Aztec stone and admired it a moment before tapping it with the obsidian knife. “Yes, too late for that. But maybe…” He tapped the stone once more. “Maybe you will be here with me when I recover the second stone and complete the message of the Aztecs.”

48

The pilot killed the smoky outboard motor, allowing the skiff to drift with the current. A man on the bow tossed a purse seine net over the side, allowing the movement of the boat to spread its floats. Taking a seat on the forward bench, he made a show of regulating the net’s lines. Hesitating a moment, he waved a hand across his nose while gazing at the catch in the bottom. “Man, these fish have gone bad.”

Seated by the outboard motor, James Maguire laughed. “Hopefully, they’ll deter anyone from searching the boat.”

In ragged T-shirts and dirty baseball caps, the pair looked like local Cayman Island fishermen. They certainly didn’t resemble hired mercenaries. Maguire was in fact a former Marine Corps sniper and CIA field operative. Marty Gomez was an ex — Navy SEAL. Only a keen observer would notice the paltry catch they had hauled in over the past six hours, due in part to Maguire intentionally slicing a hole in the center of the net.

While Gomez made a show of yanking on a snagged net, Maguire slouched in the stern and raised a compact pair of binoculars to his eyes. He focused on a small white yacht moored to a buoy a hundred yards away. There was nothing remarkable about the boat, except for a crisp Cuban flag that flapped above its flybridge.

Maguire shifted his gaze to two Revolutionary Armed Forces patrol boats just beyond, which circled the yacht in a slow, continuous loop.

“We’re losing daylight,” Gomez said. “Are you going in?”

They had spent the better part of the day inching close to the yacht. A few hours earlier, one of the guard boats had whisked by for a look but took no interest in the derelict craft.

Maguire looked from one patrol boat to the other, then lowered his binoculars. “Those boys look half asleep. My grandma could probably pull off the job in a pink rowboat. Anchor us down and I’ll be on my way.”

Gomez lowered an anchor beneath the net lines and tied it off.

Reaching beneath the pile of rotting fish, Maguire retrieved a plastic box containing a small dive computer. Activating a digital compass, he took a sighting of the yacht and programmed a path to its estimated position, then strapped the mechanism to his arm.

“Ready to roll.” He removed his hat and sandals. “Give me some cover.”

“Roger.” Gomez stood with an armful of netting, blocking Maguire from view of the patrol boats. “I’ll keep the lights on.”

Maguire took a last look at the yacht and slipped over the transom. He swam beneath the boat, its underside not looking anything like its shabby topside appearance. He pulled himself past twin impellers and a set of extending hydrofoils, which had propelled the Surprise at over forty knots during its offshore voyage from the workboat the night before.

The boat’s slick hull now resembled a rack from a sporting goods store. Maguire grabbed a tank and buoyancy compensator that hung from a hook and popped the regulator into his mouth. A mask and fins came next, then a weight belt. Once outfitted, he swam over to two other concealed items. The first was a hardened plastic box affixed to the hull with a large suction device. He twisted a grip handle, pulled it clear of the boat, and attached it to his BC. Then he grabbed a small diver propulsion unit dangling from a rope. Taking a bearing from his dive computer, he held the water scooter in front of him and powered it on.

He whisked through the water, angling the scooter until he was thirty feet deep and beyond clear view of the surface. The visibility was good, allowing him to see well ahead as schools of fish darted out of his path. Tracking his progress on the computer, he hesitated at reaching his designated end point. The seafloor was empty, so he continued another fifty feet before spotting his target, a large concrete mooring block. His line was true, he had just underestimated the distance.

Powering off the scooter, he set it on the mooring block and ascended a chain that ran to a metal float overhead. Looking up, he could see the outline of the yacht floating above him. He checked its orientation, then moved amidships just aside of the keel line and brushed some marine growth from a small area on the hull. He secured the suction device, along with the plastic box containing five pounds of high explosives and an electric detonator.

He unwound a thin spool of wire attached to the detonator and stretched the wire down to the mooring float. With some plastic ties, he secured it to the float chain and carefully ascended. Just beneath the surface, he affixed a small receiver to the base of the float and extended a flat wire antenna out of the water, plastering it to the side of the float with a wad of putty. With a reassuring tug on the wire, he swam back down the chain and retrieved his underwater scooter.

Ten minutes later, he was alongside Gomez, guiding his skiff down the coast under a setting sun, just another tired Cayman fisherman bringing home his meager catch.

49

A thousand thoughts raced through Pitt’s mind, but foremost was concern for his daughter’s safety. Pitt’s children had been raised by their now deceased mother, so he had missed their childhood upbringing. When Dirk and Summer entered his life as young adults, he had instantly bonded with them. Working together at NUMA had instilled a trusting relationship, allowing their shared love of the sea to draw them even closer. Although Pitt knew his daughter was a tough and savvy young woman, her safety still tugged at his heart.

He focused on the more immediate problem. He had been thrown into an empty storage closet near Díaz’s office, secured with a thick door and a sliding-bolt lock. Save for an overhead light fixture attached to the plaster ceiling, the tiny room was bare.

His wrists were still bound behind his back with the cable tie. But that was no barrier, as the Cubans had never searched him. Stretching out on the floor, he lay on his side and twisted his arms until he worked a hand into his front pocket. The penknife from the Starfish was buried deep, but he grasped it and pulled it out. Working by touch behind his back, he opened the blade and sawed through the tie.

Once free, he rose to his feet and massaged his wrists while studying the closet door. Again his luck held. Though it was locked on the outside, the door opened inward, held in place by three tubular hinges. Pitt again went to work with the penknife, prying two pins from their hinges while loosening the third. Then it became a waiting game.

Pitt could still hear voices in the office and he sat and waited for silence. Once he heard the slide of the bolt latch, he jumped back from the door, pocketing the loose pins and hiding his wrists behind his back. A guard stuck his head in and tossed a bottle of water and an empty bucket toward Pitt, then departed.

When an hour of silence had passed, Pitt pried the last pin from its hinge. Working the knife blade into the doorframe, he wedged open the back side and peered through the crack. He could see no one. Grasping the door, he yanked it into the closet and pulled the bolt free of its latch. He slid the bolt over and replaced the door on its hinges, securing it with one of the pins. Finally, he stepped out of the closet and locked the door behind him.

But the office complex wasn’t empty. He heard two men conversing down the corridor, so he headed the other direction, toward the entrance. He checked the office where he and Summer had first been held, but the room was empty. Summer, he suspected, was no longer in the building.

The voices grew louder, so Pitt ducked into Díaz’s open office and closed the door behind him. He stepped to the wall map showing the Florida Straits. The chart had three circles marked in red and green. The smallest he recognized as the location where the Alta had sunk. With a sense of dread, he saw that the two red circles were farther offshore, near the center of the strait. They could only be the next thermal vents targeted for destruction and they were in the worst possible location.

At the center of the Florida Straits, the Florida Current was in high gear, generating a northeast flow in excess of three knots. Pitt knew counterclockwise gyres spun off the current, cycling water to the eastern Florida shoreline. He followed the path of the Florida Current as it curled up the coast to join the Gulf Stream. Miami Beach appeared on the map barely a hundred miles away. The miners couldn’t have picked a worse location if they’d intentionally tried to commit environmental sabotage.

With a sinking feeling, Pitt envisioned the invisible tide of death. If the thermal vents were blown and the mercury release was of the expected magnitude, the devastation would be wholesale. Contaminated waters, dead marine life, and extinguished fish stocks could plague the entire East Coast. It would make the BP oil spill look like a minor nuisance.

He briefly perused the desk, spotting a calendar with several handwritten notations. An entry marked the imminent arrival of a vessel named Algonquin. Below the ship’s name was the notation “250 tons at 45 % yield.”

Pitt rifled through the desk drawers, finding only routine paperwork and a crude obsidian knife. He palmed the knife when he heard voices outside the door.

The voices receded, and he stepped to the shelf of artifacts. The collection of clay pots, stone carvings, and gold jewelry was stacked high. A mahogany paddle sat on the top shelf, a reproduction, Pitt presumed, of one used with the Aztec canoe. At the far end of the shelf, he noticed a framed drawing of a page from a Mesoamerican codex.

Picking it up, Pitt saw that it showed a man in a green feather headdress lying facedown. In the background, two men wearing eagle-beaked head coverings were loading a chest into a small canoe. Pitt gazed at the drawing for a long while, then considered the half stone next to it.

“Well, I’ll be…” he muttered, patting the stone in understanding. “No wonder the big fuss.”

He put the stone out of his mind, focusing on locating Summer and figuring a way to halt the blasting of the thermal vents. But first he had to find his way out of the building. As far as he could tell, there was only one entrance. It was sure to be guarded.

Pitt opened the door to Díaz’s office and listened. The corridor was silent, the back-office occupants having apparently left the building.

Testing the waters, he stepped into the hall and made his way toward the foyer. He froze after seeing an armed guard standing by the front receptionist desk, looking out the window. There was too much distance to approach undetected, so Pitt backtracked down the hall — with an idea.

He returned to Díaz’s office and studied the phone. It was an older executive model with push buttons for multiple lines. Pitt lifted the receiver and began pushing the buttons until a ringing erupted from the front reception. He set the receiver on the desk, moved to the shelf, and removed the mahogany paddle.

Pitt stepped into the hall and crept toward the foyer. The phone continued ringing at the reception desk as the guard paced its perimeter with a look of annoyance. After five minutes, the irritation became too great and he picked up the receiver. “Hola? Hola?”

When there was no response, he slammed down the receiver. Detecting a movement behind him, he spun around to find Pitt in a home run swing with the paddle. It struck him on the side of the head, knocking him onto the receptionist desk. He sprang forward in a daze, only to collect another blow to the opposite side of his skull that laid him out.

Pitt grabbed the limp body and dragged it to the locked closet. Pulling him inside, he removed the man’s camouflage jacket and pants and slipped them on over his own clothes. He locked the man in the closet and made his way to the front of the building, grabbing the soldier’s AK-47 for good measure.

He peered outside, finding the immediate area quiet. Treading cautiously out of the building, Pitt moved in a frantic hunt to find his daughter.

50

Admiral Raphael Semmes awoke with a start. His ears prickled at a distant sound and he let out a low growl.

The twenty-pound tabby cat rose from his floor pillow, stretched his legs, and hopped onto a king-sized bed. Approaching his sleeping master, he brushed his whiskers against the man’s cheeks and began meowing.

St. Julien Perlmutter roused from a dream and pushed the cat from his face. “What is it, Admiral?”

The cat responded with a loud meow, then hopped off the bed and waited near the doorway. Perlmutter took notice and dragged himself out of bed. His cat wasn’t prone to feeble neediness. Indeed, he had proven himself something of a fine house guard. Once, he had alerted Perlmutter to a forgotten strudel burning in the oven. Another time, he garnered his owner’s attention when some neighborhood kids tried to take his vintage Rolls-Royce for a joyride.

Pulling on a robe and slippers, Perlmutter walked to the door, then hesitated when he heard a sound downstairs. From a display shelf above his dresser, he pulled down a large marlinespike. Nearly the size of a nightstick, the polished metal pin had been used by seamen during the age of sail to splice heavy ropes. With his de facto weapon, Perlmutter stepped down the stairs as quietly as his large frame could muster.

At the base of the stairs, he saw the glow of a penlight coming from his study. He stepped to the doorway and was reaching for the light switch when Admiral Semmes meowed loudly. The penlight’s beam swung to the doorway, shining in Perlmutter’s eyes.

He shielded his eyes from the light. “What’s going on here?” the marine historian boomed.

He heard a scurrying of papers, so he reached once more for the light switch.

Before he could flick the switch, a heavy book was flung at him and struck the side of his face.

Perlmutter shook off the blow and charged into the dark room, shouting, “Heathen!”

The penlight blinked off, but Perlmutter stepped toward its source and swung the marlinespike in front of him in a wide arc. He cut only air, then was struck hard by a body blow to the side.

He reacted with a swipe of his free hand, clasping the jacket of the black-clad robber. Perlmutter yanked and the man flew into him. He was barely half Perlmutter’s size and squirmed like a snake.

Perlmutter brought the marlinespike around and jabbed the blunt end into the man’s ribs, causing a sharp cry. He tried to put his weight to use by grasping the man in a bear hug, but the intruder slipped free and retaliated with a kick to Perlmutter’s knee.

Perlmutter buckled and staggered back, stepping on the tail of his cat. Admiral Semmes shrieked and clawed the floor as Perlmutter tried to dance clear. His feet became entangled and he tripped to one side. His head caught a corner of his desk and he crashed to the floor as the intruder bolted out the front door.

The next thing Perlmutter felt was Admiral Semmes’s tongue lapping his face. He slowly sat up and rubbed the bump on his head. After a few minutes, the throbbing pain eased enough for him to stand. He flicked on the lights to inventory the room.

A front window had been jimmied open, providing the burglar entry. Yet little in the study had been disturbed. Valuable antiques and ship artifacts were left untouched, as was his collection of rare books. Everything was in its place, except for the leather-bound copy of Moby-Dick that had been hurled at him.

He checked his desk drawers, but they had not been touched. As he examined the desktop, he realized there was something missing — his file on Ellsworth Boyd and the sinking of the Maine.

He sat down and was about to call the police when Admiral Semmes jumped in his lap.

“Well, Admiral, it would seem the Pitts have stirred up a bit of trouble with the Maine and the Aztec artifact. It’s a good thing I had already digested the complete file.”

The cat poked his head at Perlmutter’s hand and he obliged by stroking the cat’s back.

“I will say our tag team wrestling left a bit to be desired. But your early-warning system was superb. It’s extra milk for you in the morning, my good friend.”

Admiral Semmes looked at him and purred.

51

Pitt spied a flurry of activity around the dockside facility. The ore barge had been emptied of its original cargo and was now being loaded with small wooden crates and large bins filled with heavy canvas sacks.

He stopped in the shadows and watched a team of men in a guarded storage pen load the sacks, which resembled dry concrete mix. Red signs marked Explosivos hung nearby. The sacks likely contained ANFO, or ammonium nitrate/fuel oil, a common industrial bulk explosive, while the small crates contained TNT. The explosives would soon be on their way to the Sea Raker for blasting open the thermal vents.

Pitt made his way past the pen to the two-story building. He saw that the lower level was used for operations support. An equipment locker and a machine shop faced the water on the near side. At the far end was an open garage with a utility cart parked out front. The upper level looked to be barracks for the soldiers — a likely holding place for Summer.

He spotted a side stairway, crept to its base, and started climbing.

When he was halfway up, the door to the second level burst open and a soldier rushed out with a toolbox. There was little Pitt could do, so he simply lowered his head and picked up his pace. The soldier stormed past him without a glance.

At the top landing, Pitt took a deep breath and stepped inside. A dim corridor stretched before him, with multiple rooms on either side. All the doors were open except for one at the far end. Opposite the room, two soldiers leaned against the wall, smoking cigarettes.

Pitt walked toward them, trying to appear casual as he tightened his grip on the assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

Noting his approach, one of the soldiers spoke rapidly to his companion, then darted out an opposite exit, fearful he was about to be caught goldbricking. The other soldier extinguished his cigarette and stood at attention.

Pitt approached quickly, asking from a distance, “Cigarillo?”

The soldier reached into his pocket before realizing something was amiss. The approaching man was taller than any soldier he knew, his uniform was several sizes too short, and his craggy face was too mature for his rank.

Rather than extending a hand for the cigarette, the stranger jammed his rifle into the soldier’s chest. Before he had a chance to react, Pitt commanded him, “Drop your weapon.”

The guard nodded and let his rifle slip to the floor. Pitt nudged him toward the door and told him to open it. The door was unlocked. The guard twisted the knob and flung it open. Summer was seated on a bunk inside, visibly working to free her bound wrists. She froze, then did a double take as Pitt entered with the guard ahead of him.

She gave him a tired smile. “You join the Revolutionary Armed Forces?”

“The Boy Scouts wouldn’t have me.”

Keeping his gun leveled on the guard, Pitt handed Summer his penknife. “You okay?” He noted the light cut on her cheek.

She nodded. “Received some idle threats from our host but was otherwise stuck here counting flies all day.”

“I think you’ll need his cap and jacket.” Pitt motioned toward the guard.

Summer appropriated his attire. “What do we do with him?”

“Tie him up. You can use those bedsheets, but start with this.” Pitt handed her the shoulder strap off his rifle.

She wrapped the man’s wrists together behind his back, then stripped the sheets off the bed. She secured one around his elbows, then shoved him on the bed and tied his ankles together with the other. She finished the job by gagging him with a pillowcase.

“You did that very well,” Pitt said.

“I’ve had a bit of experience on the other end lately.”

Summer slipped on the guard’s jacket and hat. Before they exited the room, Pitt retrieved the man’s weapon from the floor and handed it to his daughter.

“I’ve never fired one of these.”

“You won’t need to. Just act like you know how.”

They exited the building by the rear stairwell and ducked behind a dumpster to reconnoiter the dock.

“How do we get out of here?” she asked.

“The tug.”

Summer looked at her father and shook her head. “Why don’t we just sneak down the coast and find another boat? They’ll be all over us here.”

“Because of the thermal vents. They’re loading explosives aboard the barge right now in preparation for blowing the next two vents. We can’t let that happen.”

Summer had heard that firm tone in her father’s voice before. She knew there would be no changing his mind. And, rationally, he was right. If the Cubans blew up the thermal vents, it would cause an environmental catastrophe of untold proportions. They had to be stopped and there was no time to spare.

She just wished the job could fall to someone else. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“Try to ignite the explosives on the dock — or on the barge. If we’re lucky, maybe we can sink the barge with it. During the confusion, we’ll slip out on the tug.”

“And if we’re not lucky, we’ll be blown sky-high?”

Pitt smiled and shook his head. “The explosive they’re loading, ANFO, has a low volatility. Getting it to blow requires a secondary detonation. The best we can hope to do is ignite it and hope it burns like crazy.”

“‘Crazy’ is the operational word, all right.” She noticed her father’s calm demeanor and her fears fell away. “Okay, what can I do?”

Pitt rapped his knuckles against the trash bin. “I need you to do a little dumpster diving while I round up some transportation. We could use an empty bottle or two, and perhaps a small open container. I’ll be right back.”

Before she could answer, he rushed back to the barracks building and stepped to the front side. A short distance away, the storage garage was still open and the gas-powered utility cart parked in front. Pitt lingered near the side of the building as a truck loaded with explosives rumbled past on its way to the barge. Once it passed, he crept toward the open garage. Voices sounded from inside, where a pair of mechanics were overhauling a truck engine.

Pitt ignored the men and approached the cart. Releasing its emergency brake, he pushed it past the open garage door. The cart rolled easily, and the mechanics didn’t notice the sound of crunching gravel under its tires. Pitt pushed it past the building and up to the dumpster.

Summer’s head popped up from inside, a look of relief on her face when she saw that it was her father.

“Any luck?” he asked.

Summer nodded. “Three empty rum bottles, a coffee can, and a pair of rats that nearly gave me cardiac arrest.” She passed the containers to Pitt, then leaped out of the dumpster like an Olympic high jumper.

Pitt held up the empty rum bottles. “They didn’t even leave us a last shot.”

“I’d trade a case of rum for a hot shower.” Summer wiped her hands on the borrowed fatigues.

Pitt had Summer stand watch while he went to work. He opened the utility cart’s hood and located a rubber fuel line. Pulling it from the carburetor, he let the gas drain into the coffee can, then transferred it into the rum bottles, filling each half full. He reinstalled the fuel line, then sliced several lengths of cloth from his camouflage jacket. He stuffed these into the bottle tops, completing a trio of Molotov cocktails.

“Truck coming,” Summer whispered.

They ducked behind the cart as an empty truck rumbled to the pen for another load of explosives. Once it passed, Pitt stood and placed the bottles in the back of the cart.

“The dock’s clear,” he said. “Let’s get down there before the truck comes back.”

“How are we going to light the bottles?”

“Get behind the wheel and hit the starter for a second when I tell you.”

As Summer slid into the driver’s seat, Pitt gathered some dry leaves and sticks and placed them in the coffee can. A thin layer of gasoline sloshed at the bottom, ensuring fuel for the fire. Pitt picked up the can and carried it to the cart’s engine. He pulled a spark plug wire, dangled the end inside the coffee can, and motioned for Summer to turn the key.

A blue spark spit from the cable end and ignited the fuel in the bottom of the can. Pitt jammed the wire back onto the plug and jumped into the passenger seat with his canned campfire. Summer restarted the cart and drove down a short hill to the dock.

The barge was still tied up, with the tug astern. Summer drove onto the dock, thankful there were no soldiers nearby. Several men were working around a crane that was loading the barge with crated explosives. Others were positioned aboard the barge, securing the crates.

“See if you can get us past the crane without stopping.” Pitt hid the coffee can and bottles at his feet.

Keeping her head down, Summer maneuvered the cart past the stacked crates and around the crane. The soldiers were too busy loading the barge to pay any attention, save for the crane operator, who looked askance at Pitt’s ill-fitting uniform. When Summer had made it past two stacked crates of explosives, Pitt told her to pull over.

Partially concealed by the crates, he grabbed a bottle and lit the rag with his coffee can fire. Stepping to the edge of the dock, he hurled it toward the center of the barge.

The bottle shattered against the top of an open bin, sending a shower of flame over the top sack of ANFO.

Pitt had barely hopped into the cart when he heard someone yell, “Hey!” Just in front of them, two armed soldiers appeared.

“Go,” Pitt whispered.

Summer floored the accelerator, aiming the utility cart at the two men. The first jumped clear but the second hesitated. Summer clipped him in the thigh, sending him reeling to the side.

Pitt turned to see the first soldier regain his balance and raise his rifle. Quickly lighting the next rum bottle, he flung it to the ground in front of him. The glass exploded in a small fireball that engulfed the soldier’s legs. A short burst of gunfire riddled the back of the cart before the soldier dropped to the ground and rolled to douse the flames.

“Where did they come from?” Pitt asked.

“I think they were loafing on the other side of the crate. Tug’s just ahead.”

Pitt lit the final Molotov cocktail and flung it at the last stack of crates on the dock, engulfing it in flames.

Summer skidded to a stop in front of the tugboat and they both hopped out of the cart.

“Release the stern line,” Pitt said, “then go to the wheelhouse and see if you can start her.”

“What if someone’s aboard?”

“They probably won’t be armed.” He patted the AK-47 under his arm.

Pitt ran to free the bow and spring mooring lines, then jumped onto the tug’s narrow deck. He raced to the bow, where several towlines from the barge were wrapped around a trio of bollards. The lines had been drawn tight and Pitt worked feverishly to release them.

Ahead of him on the barge, he heard the cries of men trying to douse the flames, while others ran to quell the dock fire. It would be short order before the two injured soldiers would alert the others of their presence. He was relieved to hear the tug’s diesel engine churn to life behind him.

Freeing the last of the barge lines, he scrambled across the squat deck and dashed to the wheelhouse, clutching the AK-47. Bursting through an open side door, he stopped in his tracks.

The wheelhouse was cramped and dim, but he could clearly see Molina standing with an arm locked around Summer’s neck and a pistol held to her temple.

“Put down your weapon,” Molina said. “It is not time to leave just yet.”

Behind him, he heard the sound of additional men charging from the dock and boarding the tug. Pitt could only look at his daughter in anguish as he slowly dropped his weapon to the deck.

52

Rudi, you’re here early.”

Vice President James Sandecker burst into the foyer of his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building like a rabid hyena. A fitness fanatic, he was dressed in a black jogging suit and followed by two out-of-breath Secret Service agents in similar attire.

“I wanted to catch you first thing.” Rudi Gunn was seated waiting on a sofa. “How was your morning run?”

The worst-kept secret in Washington was that the Vice President took a three-mile run around the Mall at five-thirty every morning, much to the chagrin of his security detail.

“A D.C. cab nearly T-boned one of my boys here, but otherwise it’s a glorious morning to be pounding the pavement.”

Sandecker opened the door to his office and waved Gunn in as the two agents waited outside for plainclothes replacements. The Vice President took his place behind a massive desk built from the timbers of a Confederate blockade runner. A retired admiral, Sandecker had been the founding head of NUMA, and Gunn had been one of the first he had hired. He still considered NUMA his baby, and kept close relations with Gunn and Pitt. “What brings you here so early?”

“It’s the Sargasso Sea. She was operating in the Florida Straits, about thirty miles northeast of Havana. Voice and data links have now been nonresponsive for more than twenty-four hours.”

“Any distress calls or emergency beacons?”

“No, sir.”

“She’s captained by Malcomb Smith, isn’t she?”

“That’s correct.”

“He’s a good man.”

“Pitt and Giordino are also aboard.”

Sandecker pulled out a thick cigar, his lone vice, and lit it up. “What were they doing off of Cuba? You weren’t helping the CIA, were you?”

“No, nothing like that. They were tracking a series of toxic mercury plumes that have cropped up in the Caribbean.” Gunn explained the sites they’d surveyed off the southern coast of Cuba. “Pitt believes the mercury plumes are the result of an underwater mining operation targeting hydrothermal vents. We’ve traced seismic events to each of the areas consistent with the signature of land mining explosions.”

“Underwater blasting?”

“That’s what we think. Pitt was tracking some activity at a site in the Florida Straits when we lost contact.”

“Who’s responsible for the mining?” Sandecker asked.

“We don’t know yet, but we suspect Cuban involvement.”

“Have you searched for the ship?”

Gunn nodded and pulled a photo from an attaché case. “Satellite imagery from six hours ago indicates she’s still afloat.”

Sandecker looked at the dark image, which revealed two light smudges near its center. “Can’t tell much at night,” he remarked.

Gunn pulled out a color infrared image, which showed two oval bands of red in a sea of blue. “We’re confident that is the Sargasso Sea, alongside a ship we believe is called the Sea Raker. We backtracked through satellite images from the prior week, which confirmed the Sargasso Sea’s movements.”

“So who owns this Sea Raker?”

“A Canadian company called Bruin Mining and Exploration,” Gunn said. “The ship is operating under lease to a Panamanian-registered entity with no real history. A rep from Bruin said he thought the ship was involved in a mining project off the west coast of Nicaragua but couldn’t confirm where the ship was currently located.”

“Has anybody tried contacting this Sea Raker?”

Gunn nodded. “Yes. The Coast Guard cutter Knight Island out of Key West was dispatched to the area. They radioed the Sea Raker but received no response.”

“So you think this Sea Raker may have boarded the Sargasso Sea?”

“That’s my guess.”

“Why didn’t the Coast Guard sail up alongside and see for themselves?”

“At last check, both vessels are sitting five miles inside Cuba’s territorial waters. The Knight Island pushed the envelope and crossed the line to within sight of both vessels but then was challenged by a Cuban Navy corvette.”

Sandecker blew a ring of smoke toward the ceiling. “So we need to put the hammer down on the Cuban government.”

“It’s a presumed act of piracy.”

“If you assume the Sea Raker is in fact controlled by the Cubans. And if you assume that Pitt wasn’t dallying in their territorial waters to begin with.” They both knew Pitt’s tendency to bend the rules if a situation called for it.

“The tracking data suggests they were operating outside the territorial limit when contact was lost. At this point, it doesn’t matter. We need to go get them.”

Sandecker rolled the cigar between his fingers, then placed it in an ashtray. He looked at Gunn with troubled eyes. “I’m sorry, Rudi, but there’s nothing we can do.”

Gunn recoiled from his chair. He knew Sandecker regarded Pitt like a son. “What do you mean, there’s nothing we can do?”

Sandecker shook his head. “There are other events in play that involve the President. At the moment, we can’t afford to stir the pot with the Cubans. That means no Navy, no Coast Guard, and no State Department. And no cowboy rescue attempts from NUMA. Check with me in another forty-eight hours and I’ll see what I can do.”

“They might not have forty-eight hours.”

“My hands are tied.” Sandecker rose from his desk. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to shower and dress for a cabinet meeting in forty minutes.”

Gunn could only nod. He shuffled from the office with an angry despair. By the time he exited onto the street, his despair had turned to resolve. He dialed a number and waited until a gruff voice answered.

“Jack, this is Rudi. How soon can you meet me in Miami?”

53

The warmth of the morning sun only added to Maguire’s fatigue. The mercenary pulled his hat down low over his eyes and let his mind wander. After an all-night reconnaissance of the white yacht, he and Gomez were bleary-eyed. They’d earn their paychecks shortly, he thought, envisioning the celebratory plate of crawfish étouffée he would enjoy upon returning to his home in Baton Rouge.

“I have a small boat heading toward the target.”

Maguire cocked open a tired eye. Gomez was hunkered down below the gunwale at the other end of the skiff, looking through a pair of binoculars.

“How many aboard?” Maguire asked.

“Three, plus the pilot. One looks like our man.”

Maguire looked toward the shoreline. The skiff was positioned two hundred yards offshore of the white yacht as they engaged in more pretend fishing. The former sniper wielded his own binoculars and zeroed in on an aqua speedboat racing from shore. One of the yacht’s security patrol boats peeled off on an intercept course. But rather than challenge the speedboat, it looped alongside and escorted it to the yacht.

“Better start the video,” Maguire said. “Let’s see if we can get a positive ID.”

While Gomez swapped his binoculars for a video camera, Maguire pulled out a waterproof satchel and retrieved some photos. They all showed the same person: a short, fit, older man with gray hair, glasses, and a thin mustache. Most were distant shots, none particularly clear, but it was all they had been provided. Maguire passed the best one to Gomez. “What do you think?”

Gomez had already studied the photos. He took a glance, then checked the video camera’s zoomed-in display screen. “The guy in the gray suit looks like our boy.” He took a second look at the photo. “You know, there’s something familiar about him.”

Maguire nodded as he took another look at the speedboat — and the man in gray. The hair, the glasses, even the clothes seemed to match the photo. Alone, that wouldn’t be enough for his usual precise manner of doing business. But his employer had told him to expect the target to visit the yacht in the morning and there he was. He reached into his satchel and powered on a small transmitter.

The speedboat slowed and pulled astern of the yacht. Gray Suit’s two companions climbed up a stepladder first and helped the older man aboard. From their cropped hair, hefty builds, and ill-fitting suits, Maguire could tell they were a security detail. They escorted the older man into the main salon, then returned to the speedboat. With the patrol boat at its side, the speedboat raced back toward shore.

“Strange that his security detail left him aboard alone,” Gomez said.

“He’s probably got a girlfriend on the way, or maybe one already waiting for him in the master cabin.”

“If so, she must be invisible. I haven’t seen any sign of life aboard in the last twenty-four hours.” He looked at his partner. “Video’s still running.”

Maguire nodded, then pressed a red button on the transmitter as casually as flipping a light switch.

It sent a radio signal to the antenna Maguire had wrapped around the mooring buoy the day before. The transmission triggered a battery-induced charge to the detonator caps in the plastic case suctioned to the yacht’s hull. Their detonation in turn ignited the five pounds of plastic high explosives.

A low bellow echoed across the surface as the yacht rose out of the water in a fountain of smoke, flame, and debris. By the time particles of the yacht began raining in a wide, circular swath, Gomez had the skiff’s outboard motor started. Any remnants of the yacht that didn’t disintegrate in the blast quickly vanished under the waves.

As Gomez motored the skiff away, Maguire observed the scene with a morbid satisfaction. No man could have survived the blast, he thought. Then there came another rumble, this one from his stomach. All he could think about was crawfish étouffée.

54

General Alberto Gutier’s large corner office in the Interior Ministry Building was a model of vanity. The large-windowed suite, commanding a prime view of Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, was plastered with photos of himself. Some showed Gutier as a handsome young officer commanding troops in Angola. Others showed him speaking with one — or both — of the Castro brothers. A few even showed Gutier with his own brother. But most were solo portraits of the man, gazing into the camera with mercurial poses of self-importance.

A look of aggravation registered on the flesh-and-blood face of Gutier as his younger brother strolled into the office. Juan Díaz, who had been given his late stepfather’s surname while a boy, helped himself to a seat in front of Gutier’s massive executive desk.

“You leave the country for a week, and when you return, there is nothing but chaos,” Gutier said. “You know I can’t afford any exposure with the mining operation — especially now. What is going on up there?”

“An American research ship, the Sargasso Sea, came snooping around the Domingo 1 site as we were concluding extractions.”

“Isn’t that the same vessel that happened by when you sank the drill ship?”

“The Alta. Yes, that was happenstance. But there was no happenstance in their return to the site. If they are to be believed, they were tracking plumes of mercury that are being released in the sea when the thermal vents are blown.”

“I told you that was a mistake to sink the drill ship.” Gutier scowled.

“If we didn’t clear the site, we couldn’t complete our excavation. And if we didn’t complete the excavation, we would fall short of our promised delivery.”

“You are naïve,” Gutier said. “This vessel is CIA, and they’ve discovered our deal with the North Koreans.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve confirmed that the mercury releases are occurring. Quite a large disturbance has been created from the Domingo 1 site.”

“Will that be of harm to Cuba?”

“No, the currents will carry it northeast.”

“That is good but no proof of the Americans’ intentions.”

“The vessel’s history tracks to strictly oceanographic projects,” Díaz said. “And we found no weapons or covert equipment aboard the ship. As you know, one of its submersibles was caught examining our excavation. Two men from the American ship then snuck aboard the Sea Raker and caused some damage. Commander Calzado felt it imperative to launch a counterassault, which you authorized. This was successful and the research ship has been relocated to our territorial waters.”

“There was no choice,” Gutier said, “but now we are playing with fire.”

“I feel the same, but it has already been done. There has been no outcry from the Americans yet, so we still have time to bury things.”

Gutier relaxed slightly. “This still has the potential to blow the lid on our entire project.”

“I’ve performed some calculations,” Díaz said. “We now have sufficient quantity to exceed by twenty tons our first delivery, which, incidentally, is scheduled for pickup tomorrow. I’ve taken the liberty of accelerating our final shipment to three weeks from today. Our customer has arranged for shipping accordingly.”

“That’s two months earlier than we agreed.”

“Yes, but the ore at Domingo 1 has proved a much higher grade than the previous sites. The customer will accept a reduced quantity on the second shipment if the ore contains a uranium oxide content exceeding thirty percent. We’re seeing amounts surpassing fifty percent, and I expect Domingo 2 and 3 to show similar yields. I’ve sent explosives to the sites in order to open the vents as soon as possible. If we blow the vents and begin extraction immediately, we can meet the shipment schedule. We just need to keep the Americans at bay until then.”

“You are asking a lot, but I suppose we have little choice,” Gutier said. “What about the mercury poisoning? I believe Domingo 2 and 3 are much larger thermal vents.”

“Yes, it could create an environmental disaster for the Americans.” Díaz stared up at a portrait of his brother, wearing his finest dress uniform while astride a black stallion.

“Alberto, it was I who discovered the uranium deposits during our oil surveys with the Mexicans. I was merely investigating the possibility of mining gold or silver from the vents. The existence of uranium — and in such high content — was a complete surprise. Yet it was you who saw the potential to use it to strengthen Cuba in the world. Our own leaders are not even aware of what you have accomplished.”

“Which makes it all the more damaging if things are revealed too soon.”

“You knew the risks when you engaged the North Koreans. Trading a thousand tons of high-grade uranium ore for a pair of tactical nuclear missiles was a bold gesture — and it remains such.”

“Bold but risky,” Gutier said. “I regret to say it was not even my idea. The Koreans wish to enlarge their nuclear arsenal and are short the raw materials to do it. The issue just happened to surface while we were discussing a small-arms trade. Still, it is a brilliant proposal.”

“A nuclear-armed Cuba will no longer be a pushover for the Americans,” Díaz said.

“We will take a rightful seat among the world’s powers.” Gutier clenched his fist, recalling their father’s death at the Bay of Pigs invasion. “Unfortunately, the deal can still unravel quickly.”

“Not with half the order going out tomorrow. But what of your own status? I thought you were anticipating some movement soon.”

Gutier checked his phone. “I am waiting for news at any moment.”

“The people look up to power,” Díaz said. “Bringing these weapons to Cuba will make you the country’s most powerful man. You will have achieved something that even Fidel could not.”

The words played on Gutier’s ego and his anger softened. “I am still concerned about this American ship and the possible repercussions.”

“We can say they were defecting.” Díaz smiled. “Convert the ship to our own use and quietly send the crew to a political prison.”

Gutier stared out the window, searching for a better idea. His phone beeped and he found an anonymous email with a video file attached. He played the twenty-second clip and a wide smile crossed his face.

“This changes matters.” He held up his phone and replayed the video.

Díaz watched as a man boarded a yacht, which moments later blew up in a massive fireball. A shocked look crossed Díaz’s face. “That man on the boat — he looks a lot like Raúl.”

“It is Raúl. He was in the Cayman Islands for a meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. I had privileged information that he would be staying aboard a yacht owned by the Cayman’s deputy governor.” Gutier beamed. “It would seem there was an unfortunate accident.”

Díaz shook his head in disbelief. “My brother, that is a risky operation.”

“It was handled by outside elements. Professionals who have no interest in talking even if they thought they were killing somebody else.” Gutier gave a wry smile. “My only regret is that Foreign Minister Ruiz was not aboard. He was scheduled to have joined Raúl but canceled at the last moment.”

“An audacious action nevertheless. On the heels of Fidel’s passing, it will be a great shock to our country. Perhaps it is best that Ruiz was not there as suspicions might have been directed at you. On the other hand, you are still left in a precarious situation. The foreign minister is a lock to succeed Raúl, once our feeble vice president succumbs. You will not be able to maintain your position of power when that happens.”

Gutier showed no concern. “Perhaps you have provided the means to prevent that from happening.”

“What are you saying?”

“The Americans. They played right into our hands. Ruiz has made no secret of his desire to make peace with the United States and expand trade and tourism. His affection for America has always been his vulnerability. We’ll exploit it by implicating this NUMA ship in the death of Raúl.”

Díaz’s face lit up. “Of course. The public will go berserk if they think the Americans killed Raúl. We can make it look like a planned coup, an attempt to install the foreign minister as head of the government.”

“Just the whiff of a connection would be enough for the Council of State to turn their back on Ruiz,” Gutier said. “If not, I may be able to call on enough comrades in the military to back me in a temporary takeover while the charges are investigated.”

“The only thing better would be if you could claim credit for capturing the assassin,” Díaz said, his eyes dancing with inspiration. “Forget the research ship, we can go one better. I’ll give you the American in charge, a man named Pitt, who was aboard the submersible. We can pin the assassination on him.”

Gutier considered the prospect. “Yes,” he said, “we can certainly manufacture evidence to link him to the explosion. We’ll have a public trial, which would boost anti-American sentiment… and assure in the process that Ruiz is disgraced.”

“And it will allow us to proceed with our deal with the North Koreans. But what should we do about the NUMA ship?”

“I have heard of no private inquiries from the American government,” Gutier said.

“Nor has there been any public reaction.”

“Then sink the ship with all hands,” Gutier said. “It would be better not to have a chorus of denials. We can say it was lost in an accident. Or if the Americans resist, we’ll claim it was a CIA ship in our waters supporting Raúl’s assassination and the attempted coup. In the meantime, take a military helicopter to the facility to retrieve the prisoner and I’ll arrange for it to appear as if he was apprehended in the Cayman Islands.”

As Díaz nodded, there came a knock at the door. A portly secretary entered the office with a troubled look on her face. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s been a news report from the Cayman Islands. It seems a boat the president was visiting caught fire and was damaged. There’s speculation that the president may have been injured.”

Gutier nodded at his brother and rose to his feet. “This is terrible news,” he said, escorting the secretary from the office. “We must find out the truth of the matter at once.”

55

The Russian-built Mil Mi-8 helicopter flew in fast over the hills, slowing as it came to the clandestine mining facility. The pilot approached the concrete landing pad and set the chopper down on its center. He let the engines idle as Díaz unstrapped himself and hopped out an open side door.

Molina waited to greet his boss, an armed guard at his side. Díaz turned to peruse the dock as he stepped off the helipad. The barge and tug were gone, replaced by a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier named Algonquin. The shore crew was busy working the dock conveyor, loading uranium ore into the ship’s holds.

“I’m happy to see that the Algonquin has arrived on time,” Díaz said. “The barge is safely away?”

Molina nodded. “The fires were extinguished without incident. She has already met up with the Sea Raker. They should begin laying explosives at the Domingo 2 site within a few hours.”

“Good. Where are the Americans?”

“Follow me.” Molina led the way to the open garage on the lower level of the barracks. Pitt and Summer sat on a bench in an empty corner, with two armed guards positioned a few feet in front of them.

Díaz approached with a twisted sense of amusement. “I understand you enjoyed some extracurricular activities while I was gone. Your attempt to damage the barge and dock was futile, I am happy to report. Our excavation will continue unabated.”

“Blowing up those thermal vents will poison the seas for a thousand miles,” Pitt said. “Cuban waters and beaches won’t be immune.”

“You are wrong, Mr. Pitt. The Florida Current will carry it all to American shores. It will be your country’s problem, not mine.”

Pitt gave him a steely gaze. “It will be your problem when the world discovers you caused it intentionally as part of your uranium mining operation.”

Díaz chuckled. “That’s not about to happen, my friend. Now, on your feet.”

The guards jabbed their assault rifles at Pitt. He rose, and Summer followed suit.

Díaz looked at her and shook his head. “I’m afraid you won’t be going with him this time.” He turned to the guards. “You will be escorting him to Havana. The helicopter is waiting.”

Summer looked him in the eye. “Why are you taking him to Havana?”

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Díaz gave a reptilian grin. “President Castro is dead and your father has been implicated in his assassination. He will be going to Havana to stand trial.”

“That’s absurd!”

“Not at all. Numerous witnesses will place him at the scene.”

Díaz nodded at the guards, who pushed Pitt forward.

Summer stepped in front of the guards and embraced her father.

He gave her a reassuring look as he whispered in her ear to keep calm. But his insides were churning. He had no regard for his own plight, but the last thing he wanted was to leave his daughter behind with Díaz. The guards gave him no choice and he was forced toward the helipad.

Prodded into the helicopter, he was buckled into a bench seat beside the open cargo door. The guards took seats opposite him. One leaned forward and gave the pilot a thumbs-up sign. The rotor spooled up, and a few seconds later the transport helicopter rose into the sky. Pitt looked down in helplessness as he watched Summer being escorted into the office building with Díaz and Molina. Then the mining facility slipped away beneath him, replaced by an empty expanse of blue ocean.

The Cubans reconvened in Díaz’s office, where he took a moment to admire the Aztec stone. “I received an interesting report from a contact in the United States,” he said to Summer. “Your friend, Perlmutter, is quite a fruitful historian.”

She glared at Díaz. “Did you hurt him?” she asked with fire on her tongue.

“He is perfectly fine, although short a few documents. Documents that indicated the other half of the stone was not destroyed on the Maine after all.”

“So the treasure is still in play?” Molina asked.

“Very much so.”

Summer held her temper. Her father had started to describe a link he had discovered in the office between the stone and a lost treasure. But the guards had forced him to sit silently.

“So where is the other stone?” Molina asked.

“If Perlmutter’s data is correct,” Díaz said, “the stone was stolen from the Maine during her sinking. It was presumably placed aboard a steam packet named San Antonio that immediately left Havana. The American Navy apprehended her off the East Coast, but the vessel sank before they could recover the stone.”

Díaz smiled. “According to the naval records, the San Antonio lies in fifty fathoms, some fourteen miles due east of Punta Maisí.”

“You can locate the wreck with the oil survey ship Kelowna,” Molina said. “She’s still under charter for another month.”

“Actually, I’m sending you to go find the wreck, Silvio, just as soon as the Algonquin leaves the dock.” He glared at Summer. “I will personally oversee the remaining excavations to ensure there are no more interruptions.”

“I will notify the crew of the Kelowna at once.”

Díaz passed a paper to Molina. “Here are the San Antonio’s presumed coordinates. Take the Kelowna and initiate survey operations until you locate the wreck. I’ll join you as soon as I am able.”

“If we find it first, we shall do nothing until your arrival.” Molina nodded toward Summer. “What about the girl?”

Díaz looked her up and down and smiled. “The girl shall be coming with me.”

56

The Army helicopter flew low over the water, hugging the northern coastline of Cuba a hundred yards offshore. Its thumping rotor caught the attention of those below, eliciting friendly waves from solitary fishermen in small boats and young children playing in the surf.

Pitt stared out the open cargo door, computing his odds of escape. The helicopter had a three-man flight crew, plus the two guards. He had little chance of overpowering all five. The open door gave a potential opportunity, though a plunge to his death wasn’t what he had in mind. He studied the helicopter more closely.

The aged Mi-8 was a classic military transport helicopter, capable of ferrying twenty-four soldiers in its long cabin. Pitt observed that this particular craft had been modified for search-and-rescue operations. A rescue basket, along with stacks of life preservers, was stowed in the aft fuselage, while a spooled-cable winch was mounted above the open cargo door. Pitt casually glanced at the Spanish-labeled controls on the winch, identifying a lever that raised and lowered the lifting hook.

Pitt found the rest of the interior of classic military design: bare-bones, with exposed bulkheads. An ex — Air Force pilot with a keen mechanical aptitude, Pitt tracked a myriad of cables and hydraulic lines that crisscrossed the interior. When his foot knocked against a small fire extinguisher beneath his seat, a crude plan came together. Foolhardy though it might be, it was better than facing a firing squad in Havana.

It would all come down to timing — and the men across from him. The guards were professional soldiers, but they had been on duty most of the prior day and night. One was already dozing, while the other regarded Pitt through tired eyes.

Pitt gave the soldier his best disinterested look and closed his eyes. Placing his hands in his lap, he pretended to sleep. He held the pose for several minutes before risking a peek. The second soldier was still awake but had shifted his body to gaze out the forward cockpit window.

With tiny, incremental movements, Pitt unclasped his seat belt, covering the act with one hand. He shifted in his seat, dropping the other hand beneath his knee until it grazed the fire extinguisher. The guard looked his way for a moment and Pitt froze. But then he resumed staring at the rushing water below.

Pitt slowly tightened his fingers around the fire extinguisher, took a deep breath, and sprang from his seat. He swung the steel canister in a wide arc. But rather than attacking the guards, he smashed the base of the extinguisher into a side bulkhead. It wasn’t just a random strike. He had targeted a pair of stainless steel lines that crimped under the heavy blow.

“Hey!” The open-eyed guard looked at Pitt like he was deranged. He reached for the rifle on his lap, but Pitt was quicker. He flipped the extinguisher around, yanked its safety pin, and squeezed the handle, shooting a stream of monoammonium phosphate into the faces of both guards. As the first guard blindly raised his gun, Pitt hurled the extinguisher at him for good measure.

“Adiós,” he said as he smacked the rescue hoist lever down. Pitt grasped a small ball hook that unraveled from the cable winch, took a quick step, and dove out the open cargo door.

It took a few moments for the guard to wipe his eyes clear and train his rifle on the prisoner. By then, Pitt was gone.

“Land the helicopter at once!” he shouted to the pilots.

The pilot ignored him as a ribbon of red lights flashed across the cockpit controls and the helicopter began bucking in the air.

“She’s not getting any fuel,” the copilot said. “Both engines.”

The pilot checked the gauges. “But the external tanks are full.” He switched the fuel supply from one external tank to the other, but it made no difference. The helicopter’s twin motors continued to sputter.

Pitt had chosen his target well, crimping the twin steel lines near the engine cowling labeled Combustible de aviación. Unfortunately for the pilot, they fed the motors fuel from both external tanks. Pitt had correctly guessed the internal tank had been emptied on the flight in, though its reserve contained enough to keep the motors running for a few minutes. With only seconds to react, the pilot couldn’t see past the fact that he knew the external tanks were still full.

The chopper’s motors coughed and sputtered, then died in quick tandem. Only the sound of the cockpit alarms and the dying whine of the rotors now cut the air.

The pilot pushed the nose forward and tried to coax out a glide, but the heavy armored craft would have none of it. The big chopper swooped a short distance, then dropped like a sack of concrete.

It struck the water nose-first, the cockpit instantly crumpling, while the main rotor sheared off and tumbled across the surf. The open fuselage bobbed for a second, then plunged under the waves, carrying all of its occupants to the depths below.

57

Jumping from the cargo door, Pitt nearly lost his grip on the rescue line. The ball hook dug into the back of his hands, painfully preventing him from sliding off. With his arms outstretched over his head, he dangled just beneath the skids as the helicopter began to convulse.

The winch gradually fed out more cable, but he cursed its slowness. He had hoped to drop quickly to a jumping point, but he was still too high. He had no choice but to wait for the line to descend — as the helicopter above him engaged in a slow dance of death. Fortunately, the guards were too preoccupied to throw the winch lever and halt his descent.

The line jerked sharply as the helicopter stuttered and slowed. It was all Pitt could do to keep a grip on the steel hook and cable as he swung wildly beneath the chopper. Though he and the helicopter had both lost altitude, he was still dangerously high.

He glanced up, seeing the helicopter’s main rotor slow as the motors sputtered — and then quit altogether. When the pilot dipped the nose into a shallow dive, the rescue line fell slack. Pitt dropped almost twenty feet before the line snapped taut, nearly ripping his arms from their sockets.

He was dragged forward and down as the helicopter briefly accelerated under the force of its dive before losing all momentum. The motion caused Pitt to swing ahead of the chopper. Fearful of being crushed under it, he let go of the line and tucked into a ball.

Though now only thirty feet above the water, he was still propelled forward at a high speed. He smacked the ocean hard, tumbling underwater before fighting his way to the surface.

Pitt gasped. The impact knocked the wind from him. He tried to stretch and swim, but a pain shooting from his shoulder kept him from extending his left arm over his head. He kicked and clawed with his good right arm to keep afloat.

He looked in time to see the helicopter cartwheeling past just a few yards in front of him. He ignored the hissing from the helicopter as its remains sank. Instead, he set his sights on an empty sand beach in the distance. Easing into a sidestroke, he swam several yards before holding up in pain.

He paddled slowly, feeling a crosscurrent carrying him toward a wave-battered stretch of shoreline. With a determined breath, Pitt turned toward the sand beach and began kicking and stroking against the current. The pain surged through him, but he forged on until a ripple of white foam beckoned at the surf line. His feet touched bottom, and he staggered toward a thick stand of foliage up the beach. A warm trickle flowed down his neck and left shoulder and he realized the cable hook had gouged him when he jumped.

Pitt staggered exhausted to the bushes. Approaching a tall banyan tree, the exertion, pain, and loss of blood finally reached their zenith. He fell to his knees and collapsed in a heap on the soft sand.

58

Captain to the bridge, please. Captain to the bridge.”

Bill Stenseth retrieved the handheld radio that blared with the call and held it to his lips. “Aye, on my way.”

The veteran sea captain abandoned his morning inspection of the engine room and climbed to the Caroline’s bridge. As one of the newest research ships in the NUMA fleet, the Caroline was built with a central moon pool and a massive A-frame on its stern for deploying a myriad of underwater vehicles. Like all NUMA ships, the vessel’s hull was painted turquoise.

A young officer in a starched white uniform approached Stenseth the instant he stepped onto the bridge. “Sorry to bother you, Captain, but we received an odd message over the radio.”

“What is it, Roberts?”

“An incoming aircraft has requested we pick up three divers in the water off our port bow.”

Stenseth glanced out the bridge window. The Caroline was sitting at anchor in a gentle swell less than a quarter mile from a small Bimini island called South Cat Cay.

“There’s nobody in the water that we’ve been able to see,” Roberts said.

“Who made the call?”

“We don’t know. They wouldn’t identify themselves.”

A seaman on the far side of the bridge pointed toward the bow. “Incoming helicopter, sir.”

Stenseth stepped onto the bridge wing and watched as a white helicopter approached at low altitude. It was a commercial Bell 407 civil utility helicopter, commonly used by law enforcement and for offshore transport.

The chopper circled the Caroline once and hovered off its port bow, dropping almost to wave height. A side door slid open and three men in dive gear leaped out, splashing into the water below. A large orange container was tossed out after them. The helicopter rose from the surface, waggled its main rotor, and took off in the direction it had come.

Stenseth watched the men surface near the ship. “Get a Zodiac in the water — now!”

Before the Caroline’s crew could deploy the inflatable boat, the divers swam to the ship’s stern with their container in tow. A dive platform was lowered and the men climbed aboard with their equipment.

Stenseth waited at the rail as the platform was raised to deck height. The shortest of the three divers stepped forward and extended his hand to the captain as he pulled off his dive mask. “Hi, Bill. Good to see you.”

Stenseth looked agape as he recognized the man normally seen wearing horn-rimmed glasses. “Rudi, is that you?”

Gunn smiled and motioned to the other divers. “My apologies for the surprise visit. I think you know Jack Dahlgren and Pierce Russell.”

“Yes,” Stenseth nodded at the men. “But why the air drop? We could have picked you up onshore.”

“Time is of the essence. Plus, when you are defying the Vice President of the United States, you want as few people to know as possible.”

“Know what?” Stenseth asked.

“It’s the Sargasso Sea. We have reason to believe she’s been hijacked near Havana. For reasons that are beyond my pay grade, Vice President Sandecker has refused to issue help — and in fact ordered us not to intervene.” Gunn shook his head. “But I can’t do it. The crew may be in danger, so we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

“Aren’t Pitt and Giordino aboard?”

“Yes, which makes things more unnerving. The ship went silent a couple of days ago. They were investigating an undersea mercury plume and may have stumbled on its source.”

“The Cubans?”

“We don’t know.”

“So that explains the anonymous commercial helicopter ride.”

“The pilot thinks we’re here on a secret mission to track dolphins. He wasn’t too happy about making a round trip from Miami and dropping us in the sea, but he was well paid for his services.”

“You’re really sticking your neck out, Rudi, but I’ll be glad to help,” Stenseth said. “Pitt has saved my bacon on more than one occasion.”

“I knew I could rely on you.”

“What can we do to help?”

Gunn pointed across the ship’s open deck. A sleek underwater vehicle with a fiberglass hull was parked on a wooden cradle.

“I need you to tell me two things,” Gunn said. “First, that the Bullet over there is fully operational. Second, that you can get the Caroline under way within the hour.”

It was Stenseth’s turn to smile. “The Bullet just needs a full tank of gas and she’s ready to run. As for the Caroline, if we’re not headed to Cuba at flank speed in twenty minutes, you can have my job.”

“Thanks, Bill. Every second may count.”

“We’re on it.” Stenseth took a step toward the bridge, then hesitated. “By the way, what’s in the orange box?”

Gunn’s eyebrows arched as he replied to the captain with a straight face.

“Insurance.”

59

Summer sat on the dock in the morning sun for over an hour, an armed guard close by. Her thoughts centered on her father and what had become of him.

As sweat trickled down her brow, a blue dot appeared on the horizon, growing ever larger. It eventually morphed into a sleek crew boat, which raced to the dock under the power of twin turbocharged diesels. Summer was escorted into its air-conditioned passenger cabin, where she watched as several small crates of high explosives were loaded onto the stern deck.

Díaz and Molina appeared on the dock a short time later. They shook hands, then Díaz hopped aboard and the boat roared away from the dock. Summer suppressed a chill as he entered the cabin and took a seat next to her.

“A slight deviation in plans,” he said. “We will be making a short stop at your old vessel, the Sargasso Sea.”

“I may return to the ship?”

Díaz laughed. “No, my dear. I don’t believe you will want to. You shall be joining me instead on the Sea Raker.”

“You don’t know the damage you’ll create by destroying those thermal vents.”

“You don’t know the money and power I’ll forgo if I don’t.” He smiled. “Of course, it may turn out to be a pittance compared with what our Aztec stones are concealing.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“It’s the reason I went to Mexico. Our survey ship discovered the canoe near Jamaica, on which the gold figurine was found. We now know from your codex that the canoe was one of many that sailed from the Aztec empire. Dr. Torres was kind enough to confirm the figurine was of a known Aztec design. There must have been much more on the other canoes.”

“A single gold figurine seems like a leap of faith to me,” Summer said.

“It was the only artifact remaining with the canoe. I believe the canoe sank slowly, allowing the crew to escape to the other canoes with most of their cargo.”

“Perhaps. But you now have the location of the other stone. Why don’t you stop this insane blasting of the thermal vents and go recover the treasure?”

“And let you and your father go?”

Summer looked into the dark, sadistic eyes of Díaz and found anything but sympathy.

“No, I think not,” Díaz said, answering his own question. He rose to his feet. “You see, my brother and I have a larger destiny to fulfill.”

He strode off to the bridge as the Sargasso Sea appeared before them, leaving Summer to wonder the identity of Díaz’s brother.

The twin commando inflatables were still tied alongside the NUMA ship as the crew boat pulled next to a drop-down accommodation ladder. The crates of explosives were transferred aboard first and then Díaz climbed to the Sargasso Sea’s main deck. The commando leader Calzado met him at the rail.

“Any problem with the ship?” Díaz asked.

“No, sir. The prisoners are secure and the ship is quiet. We’ve been awaiting further orders.”

“Molina tells me that no communications were made by the vessel during the assault.”

“We caught the bridge crew unaware, so we believe that is true. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel pestered us on the radio for some time when we relocated the ship, but they were turned away when we alerted a Cuban Navy patrol craft in the area.”

“Very well.”

“Sir, we just received a call from shore ops. They received a report that a helicopter departing the facility earlier this morning went down near Puerto Escondido while en route to Havana.”

“Any survivors?”

“Unknown. Army forces and a dive rescue team have been called to the site. Updates will be provided as they learn more.”

Díaz’s face tightened. Could Pitt have had a hand in the crash? But all was not lost. If Pitt was dead, perhaps he could substitute Pitt’s daughter as a suspect in Raúl’s death.

He turned and pointed to the explosives stacked on the deck. “The general has ordered the destruction of the ship. Where is the American crew?”

“They are being held in two locked laboratories near the stern.”

“Keep them there. Your orders are to scuttle the ship with all hands after nightfall. There are to be no survivors. Do you understand?”

The commando nodded. “It will be done. No survivors.”

60

The crew imprisoned in the Sargasso Sea’s wet lab recoiled when the lone door was flung open. One of the ship’s helmsmen, a diminutive man named Ross, was shoved through the door, clutching a large cardboard box. A pair of armed commandos followed him in and scanned the room from behind the muzzles of their assault rifles. They nudged Ross forward to distribute the box’s contents.

“Ross, is that you?” Captain Smith asked from the back of the bay. He was seated in a desk chair with his feet propped on a stool and his chest wrapped in gauze. While he was still weak, his eyes were bright and alert.

Ross made his way to the captain, passing out bottles of water. He moved gingerly, sporting a black eye and a bruised cheek.

“Sir, the ship’s been relocated nine miles off the coast. A crew boat came alongside a short time ago. My Spanish is a little spotty, but I think one of the commandos on the bridge said they brought some explosives aboard and they intend to sink the ship tonight with us on it.”

Smith’s ashen face seemed to pale further, then a swell of anger turned his cheeks red. “Keep that to yourself, Ross.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you know of the crew being held in the other lab?” Giordino asked.

“They seem to be holding up fine except for Tyler, who’s lost a lot of blood. They let me drop a box of provisions there before I came here.”

“Is that what’s in the box?” Smith asked.

“Yes, a bit of a mad mix of food stores. They gave me ten seconds in the galley, so I grabbed whatever was within reach.”

“You!” One of the guards motioned to Ross. “Hurry up. And no talking.”

“Distribute that to the rest of the crew,” Smith said.

Ross nodded, passing out apples and water as he made his way up front. The guards escorted him out of the lab and locked the door behind them.

The captain motioned to Dirk and Giordino. “We’re in a tight fix,” he said in a low voice. “Any ideas?”

“It’s a sure bet we’re supposed to ride the ship to the bottom,” Dirk said. “Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of options.”

“There’s no way out of here on our own accord.” Giordino waved his arm around the lab. Immediately after being locked up, he’d examined every square inch for an escape route. But absent a blowtorch, there was none. The lab was essentially a big steel box with a single entry point. “Our only chance will be to jump the guards next time they open the door.”

Dirk nodded. “It’s all we can do.”

Smith shook his head. “There are always at least two armed men at the door. You’ll both get killed.”

As he spoke, the captain squirmed in his seat, causing his legs to slip off the stool and crash to the floor. The pain wrenched through his shoulder and he cursed.

Standing closest to him, Dirk helped readjust his seat. As Dirk bent down, he noticed that a lower shelf on the lab bench held a large bottle of iodine and several other reagents used by the lab’s scientists. As he examined the bottles, an idea formed.

“Captain, about Al’s suggestion…” He rose to his feet, clasping a few of the bottles. “What if I can improve our odds a bit?”

61

Pitt came to amid a clamor of voices. He rubbed his eyes, shaking off a grogginess that made him forget where he was. He rolled onto his elbows, and the sharp pain in his left shoulder instantly restored his memory of the helicopter crash. He peered through a low hedge of bushes to locate the source of the shouting.

It came from some divers on a military dive boat working a short distance offshore. A small inflatable cruised the shoreline, presumably looking for survivors. He was stunned at their sudden arrival, then glanced at his Doxa wristwatch and realized he had been out for nearly two hours. He touched his hand to the gash on his neck and shoulder, feeling a mass of dried blood. No wonder he’d passed out.

From the commotion on the dive boat, it seemed the rescue team had located the remains of the helicopter. Pitt watched as five body bags were passed over the boat’s rail to a team of divers in the water. It wouldn’t be long before someone would realize there had been a sixth person of interest aboard the chopper.

Pitt took stock of the terrain. He had staggered into a small grove of bay cedar shrubs growing beneath a banyan tree. It was the only significant cover for thirty yards around. The open beach stretched for a half mile to his left, while a boulder-strewn bluff blocked passage to his right. Behind him was an open, rocky incline that rose toward the inland jungle a short distance away.

Pitt was considering a path up the hill when he heard the sound of brakes squealing just above. He spied the top of a canvas-covered military truck pull to a stop near the jungle fringe. There was a road atop the hill. But for now it was out of reach as a squad of Revolutionary Armed Forces soldiers dispersed from the truck and began combing down the slope toward the beach.

Pitt moved to the corner of the thicket and crawled under a large bay cedar as a pair of soldiers trod by. They didn’t linger but instead proceeded through the thicket and onto the beach. But something caught the attention of one of the soldiers. He stopped and looked down, examining the sand at his feet.

It was Pitt’s footprints. They led one way from the surf, up the beach and into the thicket. Pitt watched as the soldier slowly traced the prints back to the banyan tree. The ground was firm around the base of the tree, the prints less distinct. The soldier pivoted around as he searched the area. There was no way Pitt could avoid detection, so he took to the offensive. Waiting until the soldier turned away, he sprang from the bush.

It took Pitt two steps to reach him undetected. He swung his fist, delivering a blow that struck just above the soldier’s belt, forcing him to stagger. He spun around to bear his assault rifle, but Pitt was ready. He grabbed the barrel and jammed it to the soldier’s chest, then delivered a blow to his face with his free hand.

The soldier dropped to his knees, letting go of the rifle. Pitt snatched the weapon and turned it on the soldier, who he now saw was a boy barely seventeen — likely an unwilling conscript, certainly not on the order of Díaz’s highly trained men. The hapless soldier gazed at Pitt with a look of fear.

“Get!” Pitt ordered in a low voice.

The soldier scrambled to his feet and staggered toward the beach. Pitt took off in the other direction, up the hill as fast as his rubbery legs would carry him. He didn’t look back when he heard the young soldier shouting to his comrades but ducked when a burst of gunfire shattered some rocks at his side.

Armed with the soldier’s AK-47, Pitt sprayed the beach with a short salvo, then continued up the hill. His return fire bought him a few more seconds, just enough time to approach the top of the incline before the shooting from below resumed, this time from multiple sources. He gambled that the other soldiers were equally young and inexperienced marksmen and he continued racing to the top. A ribbon of lead chased him the last few steps, but he was able to dive over the ledge and out of sight.

He rolled into a shallow gully that abutted a narrow paved road. The empty military truck sat a short distance ahead. Thoughts of commandeering the truck vanished when he saw two soldiers setting up a checkpoint behind it. They dropped their barricade posts and peered over the side ledge to see what the shooting was about.

Pitt rose and sprinted across the road. He nearly made it unseen, but one of the soldiers caught his movement and yelled. Pitt countered by firing a short burst in their direction, then raked the truck’s engine compartment while continuing across the road. The rifle’s half-loaded clip ran dry, and Pitt ditched the weapon as he ducked into the jungle scrub.

He had no time to hesitate. Soldiers from the beach began pouring onto the road behind him. The barricade guards pointed to where he had gone and the soldiers converged on his last position.

Pitt sprinted a dozen yards into the foliage, then turned sharply to the right and ran parallel to the road. He stopped for a second and picked up a rock, which he hurled in the opposite direction. The noise of it striking a tree elicited a crack of gunfire and a pursuit, he hoped, in the wrong direction.

After some hundred yards, he angled to his right until brief glimpses of the road appeared. He approached the fringe and took a peek back down the road.

An old sedan coming from the opposite direction had been stopped at the barricade. Nearer to Pitt, a pair of soldiers were walking along the road, peering into the jungle every few yards. He saw some movement behind him and knew there was no time to rest.

Ducking back into the jungle’s protective cover, he continued running parallel to the road. A minute later, he tripped and fell, his weakened legs failing to clear a dead branch. As he pulled himself to his feet, he heard the car coming down the road.

Thinking fast, he grabbed the branch and dragged it toward the road. He found that he was at the tail end of a curve that obscured both the barricade and the approaching car. He quickly dragged the branch into the middle of the road, then dove into some bushes on the far side as the car rounded the corner and slammed on its brakes.

Pitt recognized the vehicle as a 1957 Plymouth Fury, one of thousands of aged American cars that ordinary Cubans continued to drive as a result of the decades-long trade embargo. Though its body was bruised and its hubcaps mismatched, the chrome bumpers still sparkled and its white paint shined from years of polishing that had buffed it nearly down to the primer.

The two-door hardtop was driven by an older man and woman. They climbed out and dragged the branch off the road. As the couple returned to the car, Pitt emerged from the bushes and held his empty hands out in front of him. He found himself looking into the faces of a gracefully aged Cuban couple who were both smartly dressed.

“Hola!” The man took a step back.

“Hello,” Pitt said with a smile. “I am desperate for a ride. Sorry to trouble you.”

The woman studied Pitt, noting the wound on his shoulder, the bloodied clothes, and the haggard yet pleasing face. “Are you hurt?”

Before he could answer, she rushed to his side and led him to the car. She turned to her husband. “Salvador, hurry, help this man into the back of the car. We have to get him home.”

Just as they pulled away, Pitt saw two soldiers pop out of the jungle, where he had stood seconds before, and stare at the old car rumbling down the road.

62

The Plymouth turned off the pockmarked paved road and onto an equally rutted dirt lane. Pitt’s shoulder ached with every pothole, the car’s tired suspension relaying each bump in full. Something beneath him in the backseat scratched at his side with every jostle.

After a rough patch of gravel, the car finally stopped and the motor shut off.

The woman, though tiny, possessed a domineering presence. Her full cheeks and wide eyes suggested the beauty of her youth.

“We are here, señor.” She turned to her husband. “Salvador, take this man inside and get him cleaned up. He shall join us for dinner. I just hope he didn’t mangle the chickens.”

After helping Pitt out of the car, she reached into the backseat and pulled out a dead pair of whole chickens whose claws had been the source of Pitt’s discomfort. Perusing them with satisfaction, she marched into a small house perched along the sloped drive.

Pitt looked at the man and grinned. “You married a powerful woman.”

“Maria? She is as strong as an ox in all ways. Once she makes up her mind, there is no changing it. I learned long ago to avoid the sharp tip of her horns.”

Pitt laughed. “Sounds like sage advice.”

“My name is Salvador Fariñas.” He extended his hand.

“Dirk Pitt.”

“Come this way, Mr. Pitt, and we’ll get you cleaned up as Maria asks.”

Fariñas led Pitt to the pitched-roof house, which had a tired and faded façade. Its position on a steep bluff offered a commanding view of the ocean. Pitt saw the paved road a half mile below and the shoreline of a small bay some distance beyond.

Inside the house, Pitt was surprised to find a stylish interior. Dark Saltillo tile covered the floor, supporting a mix of modern furniture. A huge picture window facing the ocean illuminated the stark white walls, which were curiously bare. A single brightly colored painting occupied an empty wall next to a fireplace. Pitt admired the depiction of a fisherman displaying his catch, painted in the style of Gauguin. “That is quite good.”

“Maria painted it. She was a famous artist in Havana many years ago. Regrettably, that is the only work of hers we now possess.”

“She has a gift.”

Fariñas guided Pitt to a cramped bathroom shower and left him with soap and towels. It took nearly twenty minutes to scrub away the dried blood and the pain of his injuries. Borrowing some bandages and a fresh shirt from Fariñas, he looked and felt like a new man when he stepped into the main living quarters.

Maria had plucked and cleaned the chickens and was busy cooking. Fariñas offered Pitt a glass of aguardiente, a harsh, locally fermented rum, which he downed with gratitude.

“To your kindness to strangers,” Pitt said when his host filled their glasses again.

“You are most welcome.”

“Salvador, may I ask if you have a telephone?”

Fariñas shook his head. “We are fortunate to have reliable plumbing and electricity, but the phone lines haven’t reached us. And Maria refuses to purchase a cell phone.”

“It’s urgent I make an international call.”

“I can take you to Santa Cruz del Norte after supper. You should be able to make a call from there.”

Maria stepped from the kitchen with her paella-like dish, arroz con pollo.

“Please, sit down. And, Salvador, please open a bottle of Soroa for our guest.” She turned to Pitt. “It’s a local white wine I think you will enjoy.”

They sat and ate. Having not eaten a full meal in two days, Pitt devoured three platefuls of the chicken and rice. “You are as excellent a chef as you are a painter, Maria.”

“That is kind of you to say. You know, Mr. Pitt, there are rumors that President Castro has been murdered.”

“Yes, I have also heard that.”

“A guard at the roadblock said an American has been implicated and had escaped custody in the area.”

Pitt looked her in the eye. “I would be that American. And I assure you I had nothing to do with Castro’s death. But I may know who did.”

Maria looked at him with a hint of disappointment.

Her husband guffawed. “You needn’t worry, Mr. Pitt, about Maria turning you over to the Army. Many years ago, she served three years in custody for a painting that was deemed disrespectful to the state.”

“It is true.” Maria’s eyes filled with fire. “An imbecile Army colonel running the Ministry of Culture took offense to a painting I did of a gun emplacement filled with flowers. They destroyed my studio and confiscated all of my work, locked it away in the ministry building.” She pointed to the lone canvas. “That is the only painting I kept hidden from them.”

“Why don’t you paint again?” Pitt asked.

An inward look crossed Maria’s face. “When they stole my work, they stole a part of me, a part of who I am. I set down my brush that day and vowed never to paint again as long as the state suppressed my work.”

She looked at Pitt with envy. “Cuba has lived for too long fighting a blanket of oppression against its own spirit. Perhaps change is finally in the air. I pray the change will be only for the good.”

“When power is up for grabs,” Pitt said, “the first casualty is often liberty.”

“There are always dark forces at play, it seems. Tell me, Mr. Pitt, what are you doing in Cuba?”

Pitt described his search for the mercury poisoning and his capture by the Sea Raker. He relayed the urgency of halting the destruction of the thermal vents. His anguish showed when he mentioned his daughter was still being held captive.

“We will help you return to your ship,” Maria said. “Salvador, help me wash the dishes and then we will take Mr. Pitt to Santa Cruz.”

Pitt helped clear the plates, then ambled to the picture window, where a seaman’s telescope was trained on the waterfront. The sun was low as he gazed out the window and noticed a large luxury yacht moored offshore. Taking a closer look through the telescope, he spotted an odd banner flying over the bridge. Focusing the lens, he was startled to see the flag featured a red bear clutching an ax in its teeth.

“Are you ready to leave?” Fariñas approached with the car keys.

“A slight change of plans.” Pitt pointed out the window. “Can you get me to that yacht moored in the bay?”

Fariñas gazed at the vessel and nodded. “I have a cousin with a boat who can run you over. You sure they’ll let you aboard?”

Pitt smiled. “I’ll bet a Bentley that they will.”

63

Precisely thirty miles due south of Key West, two boats approached each other for a late-afternoon rendezvous. Both were nondescript cabin cruisers, the likes of which flooded the Florida coastlines every summer weekend. But rather than being sailed by half-drunk doctors sporting sunburns, both were crewed by professional security men carrying concealed weapons. Three miles distant, a pair of Apache attack helicopters kept a discreet eye on the proceedings.

The boats approached each other cautiously like a pair of wary boxers facing off in the ring for the first time. A light breeze ruffled small flags above each pilothouse, one Cuban and the other American.

As crewmen swapped lines and tied the boats side by side, Vice President James Sandecker emerged from the cabin of the American boat and stepped to the side rail. He extended a hand to a gray-haired man on the other boat.

“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” Sandecker said.

Raúl Castro shook Sandecker’s hand with a firm grip. “It is an honor, Mr. Vice President.”

“Please, call me James. May I come aboard?”

“Of course.” Castro maintained his grip on Sandecker’s hand as the Vice President hopped boats. The Cuban president regarded Sandecker up close, noting he was shorter than he appeared on television. But there was something of a revolutionary fire in the man’s blue eyes that he instantly admired.

“Call me Raúl,” he said. “Come, let us sit on the stern deck and talk.”

Sandecker waved off his Secret Service detail, and Castro did the same to his men. The two leaders stepped to the stern and sat beneath a shade canopy.

“Bring us some rum brandies,” Castro called to an aide before addressing Sandecker.

“James, I thank you for agreeing to see me. I never expected that the government of the United States would warn me of a threat on my life. On account of you, I am alive today. I would like to thank you, and your President, for saving me from death.”

“The President was disturbed when our intelligence people pieced together the details of the assassination attempt, particularly since it occurred out of your country. The President and I are pleased you are safe and well.” Sandecker cleared his throat. “The President feels this would be a good opportunity to advance our relationship from the shadows of the Cold War.”

Castro nodded, staring out with a distant gaze. “This, too, has been heavy on my heart since my brother died. At one time, my country needed Fidel as much as he needed the people. But that day is long past. For all of the good that Fidel accomplished, he didn’t allow Cuba to grow. It is past time for our people to prosper.”

He looked Sandecker in the eye. “James, as you know, I have announced I will not seek reelection in 2018. I intend to appoint Foreign Minister Ruiz to succeed me. He is a strong proponent of introducing market economics and improving relations with your country.”

He took a deep breath. “In my remaining days in office, I have decided to pave the way for his initiatives.”

“We have a two-and-a-half-century history of free market democracy. We can help lead you down the right path.”

A burden seemed to lift from the shoulders of the old Marxist. “It is not an easy thing to abandon the road of the past, but at the same time, it can be liberating.”

An aide arrived with the rum brandies, and the two drank a toast to their improved relations.

“Raúl, I have a question,” Sandecker said. “Unofficial reports are circulating widely that you were killed in the Cayman Islands. Why have you not gone public and dispelled those rumors?”

Castro’s eyes clouded with anger. “We still don’t know who hired the mercenaries to conduct the attack. If those responsible believe I am dead, they will soon act in a way that identifies their guilt.”

“A sound tactic,” Sandecker said, “but I think I can point you in the right direction.” He reached into his shirt pocket and handed Castro a folded sheet of paper. “We were curious as well and performed a trace on the funds paid to the mercenaries. Tracking the payment backward from the drop account, we found it had been flushed through no less than three Cayman Islands accounts, each at a different bank. The trail then led through a Venezuelan bank, and finally to a national account in Havana. That’s as far as we could get. You’ll note the account is a registered repository of the Interior Ministry.”

Castro studied the paper wide-eyed. “Gutier! Of course. He has a history of extremism, and his ambition is legendary. If I were out of the picture, he could rely on the support of the Army to strong-arm his way to the presidency. It’s no secret he covets my job. I guess he couldn’t wait… or stand to see Ruiz take my place.”

“I’m sorry,” Sandecker said. “Treachery from within is hard to face.”

“No, I thank you for revealing this rabid dog. I’ve always had my reservations about the man, but he is a capable leader who has served the state well for many years.”

“Does his role in the military create any complications?”

“Absolutely not. My Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces has stood with me for forty years.” He softened his tone. “I’m sorry, James, but the loss of loyalty is difficult to bear.”

“I understand. It is your matter to resolve.”

“The positive is that it has created a building block to our friendship.” Castro finished his drink.

“Agreed,” Sandecker said. “Still, there are two issues on our side of the fence that may prove a hindrance in moving ahead.”

“What would that be?”

“The first comes from Asia. We’ve received a troubling communiqué from our friends in the South Korean National Intelligence Service. They got wind of a rumored deal between Pyongyang and your country. A source alleges that Cuba is providing North Korea a large quantity of high-grade uranium oxide for use in their enrichment facilities. In exchange, North Korea is offering you a small number of tactical nuclear weapons.”

“What?” Castro popped out of his chair. “That is preposterous. Your intelligence is completely mistaken.”

“You have had some small-arms trades with North Korea in the past.”

“True, but they were minute quantities. We have very little business with North Korea. I assure you, James, I have no knowledge of such an agreement. We have no uranium mining on our island to begin with. And we certainly have no need, or desire, for nuclear weapons.”

“I am happy to hear that. Intelligence errors do happen, and anything out of North Korea tends to be unreliable.”

Castro nodded. “That must be the case. It is a mad proposition, but fear not. Now, you indicated there was another matter that concerned you?”

“Yes, a secondary issue of great concern to me personally. It’s our NUMA research vessel Sargasso Sea. You are holding it captive in Cuban waters.”

A blank look fell over Castro’s face. “What do you mean?”

Sandecker explained the sudden loss of communications and the satellite photos showing it afloat in Cuban territorial waters.

Castro shook his head. “I’m sorry, James, I know nothing of this. Are you sure the vessel hasn’t just experienced equipment problems?”

“The satellite photos show no evidence of fire or damage. And the ship has multiple means of communication. We sent a Coast Guard vessel to investigate, but they were driven away by a Cuban Navy vessel. We believe the Sargasso Sea has been apprehended by hostile forces.”

“It is possible a regional naval unit is responsible, but this incident has not been reported in Havana.”

“There are fifty people aboard, some of them close friends. I’d take it as a personal favor if you could let me know what’s going on.”

“Of course. I understand your concern. I promise to look into the matter immediately upon my return to the capital.”

A short distance off the stern, a large fish jumped out of the water, catching both men’s attention.

“Do you like to sport fish, James?” Castro asked.

“It’s been a few years since I battled the big ones,” Sandecker said.

“You and I, we must go fishing on our next visit. The blue marlin in the Florida Straits is the best in the world.”

“Reason enough to meet again soon,” Sandecker said, standing and shaking hands. “I can think of nothing I’d like better.”

64

Riding in the passenger seat this time, Pitt joined the elderly couple for the drive down the hill in the Plymouth. He wore a borrowed straw hat and sunglasses as a minor attempt at cover. There were no roadblocks along the way, though they spotted a speeding military truck as they crossed the paved road.

Fariñas drove through a neighborhood of run-down block houses before stopping at a pink one near the water. An ebullient man with large ears emerged and Fariñas introduced him as his cousin.

“My boat is this way,” the man said. “Come, I can run you over right now.”

Pitt shook Fariñas’s hand and gave Maria a hug. “I won’t forget your kindness.”

“Keep up the good fight, Mr. Pitt,” she said. “And good luck to you and your daughter.”

The cousin led him to a small fishing boat beached on the sand. They dragged it into the water and climbed aboard. A rickety outboard was started and a few minutes later they pulled alongside the stern of Mark Ramsey’s yacht, Gold Digger. A muscle-laden crewman appeared and motioned for them to move away.

“Is Mark aboard?” Pitt shouted.

“Who wants to know?”

“A Bentley driver by the name of Pitt.”

The crewman gave Pitt an annoyed look, then spoke into a handheld radio. His features softened when the radio squawked a minute later and he waved the boat alongside. Pitt thanked Fariñas’s cousin and hopped aboard.

“Mr. Ramsey will be pleased to see you in the salon.” The crewman guided Pitt across the open stern deck and through a pair of French doors.

Dressed in a sport shirt and slacks, Ramsey sat at a table, poring through a stack of seismic surveys. He stood up and greeted Pitt with a warm smile. “You’re a long way from the track, Mr. Pitt. How on earth did you find me here?”

“Your red grizzly bear logo. I remembered it from your car hauler in Washington. I’ve also seen it on another vessel in the area, a mining ship called the Sea Raker.”

“Yes, that’s our flagship deep-sea mining vessel. But you must be mistaken. The Sea Raker is operating under charter in the Pacific off of Nicaragua.”

He showed Pitt to a chair, noticing his disheveled appearance and the bandage on his neck. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“In a word, mercury. I was tracking the dispersal of toxic mercury plumes that have occurred in the Caribbean. They are being created by the destruction of undersea hydrothermal vents. Your ship, the Sea Raker, is responsible for the damage.”

Ramsey shook his head. “No, the Sea Raker is in the Pacific.”

“I was aboard her two days ago not thirty miles from here. We were investigating the seafloor in a submersible and were abducted by one of the ship’s mining machines. We were brought aboard the Sea Raker a short time before being taken to shore. I managed to escape, but my daughter is still being held prisoner.”

“Why would the Sea Raker abduct you?”

“Because they are blowing up thermal vents in order to mine deposits of uranium buried within them.”

Ramsey looked at Pitt like he’d just stepped off a flying saucer. “Uranium? You’re mad. The ship was chartered to mine gold off Nicaragua.”

Pitt shook his head. “Perhaps they started with gold, but they’ve graduated to uranium in the Caribbean. They have a stockpile down the coast that was being loaded aboard an outbound freighter just today.”

“That can’t be. I know uranium deposits coexist with other minerals, but I’ve never heard of it being commercially mined undersea. Why would they be doing so?”

“You’d have to talk to a Cuban named Juan Díaz.”

“Díaz? He took possession of the ship on behalf of a Panamanian venture. You know him?”

“He seems to be running the show. And he’s the one holding my daughter.”

Ramsey could see from the intense look in Pitt’s eyes that he was telling the truth. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a shaken voice.

“That’s not the worst of it. High-grade uranium ore apparently exists in the deep core of the thermal vents in this region. Somewhere within the layers of sediment is a concentration of mercury, probably laid down during the Triassic Period. Díaz and his Cuban Army pals have blasted open several vents in the Caribbean — and one nearby — that have released large plumes of mercury,” said Pitt. “As we speak, they are preparing to blast a pair of very large thermal vents in the middle of the Florida Straits. If they succeed, the mercury plumes will likely expand to the Gulf Stream. It will be the environmental disaster of the century.”

Ramsey sank into his chair with the look of a shattered soul. “I’ve built my career on prudent mining, using the least invasive environmental techniques possible. I would have never provided my equipment and expertise had I known that’s what they were up to.”

He shook his head slowly. “I should have known something wasn’t right. They were extremely secretive about their mining plans, which isn’t unusual when gold is at stake. But everything was handled as a military operation. They insisted on crewing my ship with their own men. I never imagined they could create such harm in the few months that they’ve leased the Sea Raker.”

“There’s also a high likelihood they were responsible for sinking the drill ship Alta.”

Ramsey stared at the plush carpet, overwhelmed by what he’d been told. “You say they are about to blast more vents? What can we do to stop them?”

“Two things,” Pitt said. “Get this yacht to the Sea Raker as fast as you can and find a way to sneak me aboard. In the meantime, please show me to a radio. I’d like to call my ship.”

65

The Domingo 2 hydrothermal vent emerged like a shattered kaleidoscope amid a barren desert. At a depth of twelve hundred feet, the surrounding seabed was a cold, muddy plain devoid of life and color.

The Sea Raker’s auxiliary cutter had excavated a linear trench near the vent’s core as a place to deposit the bulk explosives. At the trench’s epicenter, a narrow, deeper cut had been made for inserting the high explosives.

A suspended platform, filled with the crated bags of ANFO explosives, was lowered nearby. The bulk cutter, using its heavy manipulator arm, clasped one of the crates and transported it to the trench. In a few hours, more than five thousand pounds of explosives had been laid in the heart of the thermal vent.

On the surface, Díaz’s crew boat approached the marionette-like operation performed by the Sea Raker. Summer noted the bright deck lights were reflecting off the water as dusk settled over a calm sea. The barge, still laden with explosives for the second thermal vent, was tied alongside the mining ship’s port flank. As they approached the barge, they saw the auxiliary cutter machine, finished with its seafloor ditch digging, being hoisted back aboard.

The crew boat tied up aft of the barge, and Díaz climbed a lowered ladder. Summer remained seated in the passenger bay as two soldiers boarded the boat. One took up position in the pilothouse while the other grabbed her elbow and escorted her aboard the Sea Raker.

A mining engineer greeted Díaz, then led them to a large prefabricated building on the center deck. Summer felt like she had entered a smaller version of NASA’s fabled Houston Control Center. Multiple rows of manned computer stations filled the room, all facing a giant video screen. Each workstation controlled an element of the subsea mining operation, with the collector, cutter machines, and ROVs operated by toggled panels and joysticks. Video feeds from each underwater device fed into the multiscreen video board.

Summer observed the live underwater footage from two ROVs, while the two raised cutter machines showed deck shots from their multiple cameras.

Díaz took a seat at a leather armchair in front of the video screen while Summer was escorted to a nearby bench.

The mining engineer stood in front and spoke to Díaz. “We have completed trenching and placement of the base explosives. We are well positioned at the vent, so the deployment went quicker than expected. As you probably saw, both the bulk cutter and the auxiliary cutter have been returned to the ship.”

Díaz pointed to the screen. “But the high explosives have not yet been set?”

One of the cameras on the bulk cutter showed several crewmen coiling a long, tube-shaped charge about the deck.

“The bulk cutter still needs to place the TNT sleeve and detonator into the base of the thermal fissure. Then we’ll be able to fire. We should be ready to lower the charge and the cutter in about ten minutes.”

“Very well. I’ll watch the operations from here.”

The engineer nodded as a nearby phone rang. He answered and passed the receiver to Díaz. “The captain has a question for you from the bridge.”

As Díaz took the call, the engineer stepped to one of the work consoles and conversed with its operator.

Summer was alert to it all. Since entering the control center, she had seen that the operators were too engaged in their duties to pay her any attention. With Díaz and the engineer temporarily occupied, she looked about for her guard. He was leaning against the wall at the side of the room, watching the underwater video feeds.

Summer quietly got up, stepped to a door on the opposite side, and slipped out, only to come face-to-face with another guard, his hand on the bolt of his rifle. He backed her into the control room, shoving her with his gun muzzle digging into her stomach.

Díaz witnessed the act and marched over with a shake of his head.

“A valiant, if fruitless, effort,” he said.

“Why don’t you just let me go? I can’t halt your undersea destruction now.”

“You don’t care for our hospitality? Then have it your way. You can indeed depart the Sea Raker.” He sneered. “Only it won’t be aboard my crew boat.”

66

Pounding the seas at almost thirty knots, Ramsey’s Gold Digger located the Sea Raker on its radar in less than two hours. Pitt spent the intervening time trying to hail the Sargasso Sea but was met with only silence. Even a last-minute call to Rudi Gunn at NUMA headquarters went unanswered.

The last vestiges of daylight streaked the western horizon as the Sea Raker loomed ahead. Ramsey radioed the mining vessel, then turned to Pitt.

“They were quite surprised and very unhappy to hear from me. They tried to beg off a visit since they are conducting operations. They didn’t explain what they are doing here.” He rubbed his chin. “I said, being just as surprised finding them in the Caribbean, that it was just a brief social call and I certainly wasn’t here for an inspection, so they agreed. They’ll be rather shocked if you’re part of the boarding party.”

“Too many people might recognize me coming in the front door,” Pitt said, peering at the mining ship and adjacent barge. “I’ll have to try the back door. Can you position yourself off Sea Raker’s port bow and shield your launch from the ship when you deploy it?”

“Not a problem.” Ramsey relayed the request to the yacht’s captain, then gave Pitt a handheld marine radio. “You’re on your own, I’m afraid. We’ll loiter about the area a few miles away until we hear from you.”

“Thanks, Mark.” Pitt shook the Canadian’s hand.

“Watch yourself. And good luck.”

The Gold Digger turned away from the Sea Raker as its launch was lowered off the stern. Ramsey and his hefty bodyguard sat on the forward bench as the pilot engaged the outboard and sped toward the mining ship.

On the Sea Raker’s opposite deck, Díaz and his crew were engaged in their own launching exercise, deploying the bulk cutter. Dangling at its side like an ornament on a Christmas tree was the Starfish, suspended by the cutter’s manipulator. Both machines were quickly swallowed by the sea as the ship’s drum winch released a steady stream of support cable. Díaz watched them submerge into the black water, then stepped to the opposite side of the ship to greet Ramsey.

The Gold Digger’s launch sailed along the ship’s port rail to its lowered ladder. Ramsey and his bodyguard leaped onto the ladder and up the steps to the Sea Raker’s deck. Díaz was there waiting with several armed soldiers standing loosely behind him.

“Mr. Ramsey, a pleasant surprise.” Díaz’s tone was anything but pleasant.

“Hello, Juan. I was on my way to New Orleans when my captain spotted you.”

“I’m glad you can visit. Come, let’s have a drink.”

Díaz led him forward to the ship’s wardroom, where an attendant fixed them drinks.

“What are you doing in Cuba?” Ramsey said. “You’re supposed to be working off Nicaragua.”

“The site proved to be a disappointment. We decided to redeploy here for some test excavations that looked promising from an earlier seismic survey.”

“Do you have authorization to dig here?” Ramsey asked.

“The approvals have been made through the necessary channels.”

“I admire your efficiency. How is the ship working out?”

“She’s been outstanding. We had a learning curve on managing the excavation equipment, but now we are operating at high efficiency.”

“Yes, that’s why I would have preferred you use my crew.”

Díaz ignored the comment. “I’m sorry you didn’t come at a more opportune moment. We are just deploying one of the cutters for a test run.”

“Could I see your seismic survey data? I’ve been studying a lot of undersea terrain in this region lately. Perhaps I could be of help.”

“I’m afraid the data isn’t aboard ship.”

Ramsey saw through the lie. “Have you completed an environmental impact assessment for this area?”

“Our scientists have determined there is no impact.”

“Even with blasting?”

“Blasting?” Díaz replied with a wary look. “We are not conducting any blasting.”

“Our charter specifies full environmental impact assessments and minimally invasive operations in the course of any mining activity. I’ve built a lifetime’s reputation on safe and friendly mining techniques. I must insist that the contract stipulations be followed.”

“Of course. I’ll have the reports sent to you next week.”

Díaz drained his drink and rose to his feet. “It was nice of you to stop by, Mr. Ramsey. I hope you have a pleasant journey to New Orleans.”

Ramsey slowly finished his drink. With a sick feeling, he realized that everything Pitt had told him about Díaz was true. He had signed away his ship to mercenaries under the protection of the Cuban government — and they were about to unleash a vast environmental disaster. The situation left him with little recourse.

“It is later than I thought,” Ramsey said. “Thank you for the drink, Juan. I best get going.”

They exited the wardroom and returned to the deck. Walking past the bulk cutter hangar, Ramsey noticed a crewman in a hazmat suit sweeping up some seafloor residue. It made him think of Pitt and he glanced over the rail at the barge tied alongside.

Bidding Díaz good-bye, he climbed down to his waiting launch and cast off toward his yacht. As the illuminated outline of the Sea Raker receded behind him, Ramsey kicked at a loose tarp on the floorboard and muttered to the breeze, “Good luck, Dirk Pitt. You’re going to need it.”

67

Crouched behind a pallet of explosives on the barge, Pitt watched Ramsey’s launch sail away as his mind returned to his daughter. The discovery that Díaz was aboard the Sea Raker changed everything. It gave him hope that Summer might be aboard, but it also changed his strategy. He’d planned to sneak aboard and somehow disable the mining equipment. But if Summer was aboard, he would have to find her first.

With Ramsey’s help, he’d made it this far. Covered by a tarp, he’d hid on the floor of the launch as Ramsey visited the Sea Raker. While the Canadian met with Díaz, the launch’s pilot idled the boat off the mining ship’s side and let it drift astern. When a few nosy ship hands at the rail grew bored and wandered off, the pilot eased alongside the barge and signaled Pitt. With a quick leap, he boarded unseen.

He crossed the barge, moving quickly from crate to crate. A heavy white powder littered the deck, which he knew was the ANFO from some spilled bags. The barge was only half full of crated explosives, indicating a large portion had already been deployed on one of the thermal vents. The delivery means was in service a few yards ahead of the barge: a steel-grated platform suspended by a thick drop cable. Pitt watched as several crewmen loaded a long, coiled tube onto the platform and lowered it over the side.

He made his way to the rear of the barge and climbed aboard the Sea Raker when he spotted no one about. The ship was otherwise alive with activity. He could only assume the crew was preparing to blow the thermal vent. An uneasy feeling began to creep over him. He might be too late to prevent it.

He shook his doubts aside, knowing his top priority was to find Summer.

He crept forward, holding to the shadows, but progressed only a short distance when a work crew came up behind him, lugging a replacement cutter head for the auxiliary mining machine. One man tripped under the burden, twisting his ankle and dropping his end of the weight. A supervisor, straining under the load on the opposite side, noticed Pitt standing nearby.

“You, over there. Come give us a hand.”

Pitt was trapped. If he assisted the men, the bright deck lights would reveal he wasn’t part of the crew. If he ignored the supervisor, he would create an undue suspicion.

Spotting a door to a nearby prefabricated structure, he took a chance. Shrugging at the supervisor, he motioned toward the door, stepped over, and turned the handle. His luck held and the door opened. He ducked inside as the supervisor shouted a curse in his direction.

Pitt had expected to walk into an equipment locker but found himself at the back of the mining control room. Multiple video images illuminated the big screen while chatter from computer station operators rattled off the steel walls. Pitt eased into a dark corner when he saw Díaz directing the operation from his armchair down front.

Several ROVs flitted about the sea bottom, displaying the massive cache of ANFO explosives piled into the slit trench. One ROV turned upward, its camera capturing the arrival of the bulk cutter as it dropped to the seabed and vanished in a cloud of sediment.

The current blew the water clear as the ROV moved in for a closer view. When it turned to capture the side of the cutter, Pitt nearly choked. Clasped by the cutter’s manipulator and held to its side like a bread basket was the NUMA submersible Starfish.

Yet it wasn’t the appearance of the Starfish that startled Pitt. What took his breath away was the sight of his daughter, sitting alone and helpless in the pilot’s seat of the stricken submersible.

68

Ninety minutes.

That was the remaining life of the Starfish’s battery reserves. Once the power failed and the carbon dioxide scrubbers ceased, Summer would die a slow death from asphyxiation. Unless hypothermia from the cold struck first.

When Díaz and his men forced her into the submersible and lowered it over the side, she knew he didn’t intend for her to surface again. She immediately activated the life-support systems, while shutting off all nonessential power drains. She was thankful her father had powered down everything when they were brought aboard the Sea Raker, leaving her some remaining battery charge.

Once on the seafloor, she realized ninety minutes was a false hope. As the bulk cutter’s treads began turning and the big machine lurched forward, she saw the massive pit filled with explosives. Her death would come soon — and violently.

The cutter trudged to the edge of the trench and stopped. Its manipulator arm rotated outward, swinging the Starfish from its side. An operator on the surface released the manipulator’s grip and the submersible dropped into the trench, landing upright on a carpet of explosives.

A pair of ROVs captured the scene, their lights blinding Summer as they buzzed about the submersible. They gradually pulled away, hovering over the bulk cutter as it crawled into the darkness.

Summer peered out the viewport until the ROVs faded to a small speck of light. Then she went to work.

She had one last gambit: the fact she could still make the submersible buoyant. The ROV may have destroyed the sub’s external thrusters on their first encounter, but it hadn’t hampered the Starfish’s ability to surface.

Summer powered the ballast tank pumps and initiated a purge to empty the flooded tanks. She waited for a reaction, but nothing happened. There was normally a hissing of compressed air, followed by a gurgle of expelled water, but now there was only silence. She checked the power and circuit breakers and tried a second time.

Again nothing. Then she checked the compressed air cylinder that supported the ballast tank. The gauge read zero. The Sea Raker’s crew had emptied the cylinder to prevent such an attempt.

Glancing out the viewport at the bed of explosives, she tried not to panic. She took a deep breath — and thought of one more option. The Starfish was fitted with twin lead weights that could be jettisoned for lift in an emergency. Her father had released one set of weights when they tried to escape the bulk cutter, but another still remained.

She climbed behind the seat, where under a floor panel she found a secondary release. Grabbing the handle, she twisted it to the drop position.

Nothing happened.

The Sea Raker’s crew had done their handiwork there, too, securing the weight so it couldn’t be released. Díaz had made sure her last voyage was a one-way trip.

With an angry resignation, Summer slid into the pilot’s seat and gazed into the darkness, wondering how much longer she had left to live.

69

A trickle of cold sweat ran down Pitt’s back as he watched the Starfish being deposited on the pile of explosives. The ROV’s underwater cameras tracked the bulk cutter as it left the submersible and crawled to the utility platform, which had been separately lowered to the seafloor. The cutter stopped alongside the platform and used its manipulator to pluck up the end of the coiled detonator tube filled with TNT.

The bulk cutter reversed course and began crawling back toward the explosives trench, unraveling the tube along its side. It eventually pulled the snake-like detonator tube clear of the utility platform, trailing a wire cable. Tagged with small floats, the cable led to the surface, where a console operator a few rows ahead of Pitt could ignite the charge on command.

Pitt glanced around the control room and dismissed any thought of trying to commandeer the bulk cutter. Three men operated its controls from an expanded console near the front of the room. Near it was a side exit door, guarded by a pair of armed soldiers. Farther back was an unoccupied table used for the auxiliary cutter, followed by a half-dozen staggered workstations that controlled the ROVs, the utility platform, and numerous shipboard cameras.

Nearest Pitt was one of the ROV control stations: a large table topped with several monitors and a joystick control system. A slight man in military fatigues and cap hunkered over the controls, engrossed in tracking the movements of the bulk cutter with his ROV’s camera.

Pitt watched the camera’s view of the detonator tube trailing beside the cutter and had an idea. He’d need some help, but it was all that time allowed.

The key was the ROV and its operator station at the back of the room. Weaponless, Pitt stepped to a nearby bookshelf filled with technical manuals. He selected the thickest one, then crept back to the station. As the operator focused on the controls, he never noticed Pitt step behind him and smash the binder into his temple.

The operator let out a muted grunt as he tumbled from his chair, a communications headset flying off him. Pitt instantly slipped an arm around his throat and squeezed in a tight choke hold. The dazed man gave little resistance as Pitt dragged him out the back door with a few quick steps. The action went undetected. While the front of the control room was brightly illuminated by the video screen, the rear was virtually black.

Outside, the operator regained his bearings and tried to break free. Pitt didn’t give him the opportunity, swinging him forward and driving him into a bulkhead. The man didn’t throw up an arm in time and connected headfirst with the steel wall. His skull made a loud clang, and Pitt felt him go limp.

“I’m sure Díaz offers workmen’s comp,” Pitt muttered. He dragged the man behind a storage locker and removed his cap. Placing it on his own head, he hurried back to the control room and took his place at the ROV controls.

Díaz was yelling and pointing at the big screen, and Pitt immediately saw why. The unmanned ROV had drifted to the bottom and was sitting idle, its main camera pointed at a rock. Pitt kept his face hidden behind the monitors as he groped for the toggle and thruster controls. An experienced hand at operating ROVs, Pitt managed to raise the vehicle and move it forward, quieting Díaz’s complaints.

He quickly gained a feel for the ROV, which operated much like a backyard, radio-controlled helicopter. He guided the ROV across the bottom, pursuing the tracks of the bulk cutter until the cutter and its trailing detonator tube came into view.

There were two monitors on his operator’s desk, which relayed video feeds from separate cameras on the front and back of the ROV. Only the front view was displayed on the screen at the front of the room. He experimented with the commands and found the drop-down menu for picture quality.

Díaz wanted to see the detonator tube being inserted and he voiced his wishes from his command seat. Pitt began distorting the picture quality. In frustration, Díaz ordered another ROV to take over and dropped Pitt’s ROV from the big screen.

He readjusted the picture and was relieved to see that the bulk cutter was retracing its tracks toward the Starfish. Pitt quelled the urge to peek in on Summer and studied the flank of the bulk cutter and its trailing explosives.

The cutter crept slowly past the Starfish and proceeded another twenty feet before stopping. Its manipulator reached out to its full lateral extension, swinging the detonator tube from its side.

At Díaz’s command, the tube was released. The forward section coiled into the drill hole, disappearing several feet beneath the base of the trench. The remaining section of tube, with its firing line attached, fell at an angle atop the trench filled with ANFO. Once detonated, the TNT in the tube would initiate a concentrated blast at the heart of the thermal vent’s fissure — and set off the ANFO in a broad eruption.

Pitt followed the drop with the ROV, turning it to face the trench. He eased the ROV back from the fissure to provide a panoramic view of the trench. Careful to avoid passing the second ROV’s camera, he drove the ROV toward the Starfish.

As the yellow submersible loomed up, he spotted Summer in the pilot’s seat. He feverishly hoped she would help him save her life.

70

The rattling sound on the exterior lock signaled everyone in the Sargasso Sea’s lab that the door was about to open. All the occupants scurried to the back of the bay, where they ducked beneath a large desk. Everyone except Dirk and Giordino, who stood at separate angles to the door shielded by a pair of lab benches.

The door flung open and the helmsman Ross was again shoved into the lab at the point of a muzzle. A commando followed him in and looked about. His eyes squinted in puzzlement. It wasn’t the concealed crew at the back of the lab that baffled him as much as the attire of Dirk and Giordino.

Each had a shop towel wrapped around his nose and mouth while wearing crude goggles cut from plastic water bottles. Before the commando could respond, Giordino sidearmed a glass beaker in his direction. The gunman ducked as the beaker struck the door above his head, releasing upon him a shower of glass and liquid.

“Ross, get down!” Dirk yelled.

The helmsman dove to the floor as the commando sprayed the room with gunfire. Anticipating the move, Dirk and Giordino dropped beneath the lab benches. The firing soon stopped as the gunman dropped his weapon and began rubbing his eyes, which were flooding with tears.

At the sound of the shooting, a second commando came rushing through the door. Dirk popped from behind the bench and let his weapon fly. Another sealed glass beaker, it smashed into the doorframe inches above the man. He, too, was instantly overcome, choking and hacking as his eyes swelled.

The pain-inducing liquid was a homemade batch of tear gas concocted from chemicals in the lab. Aided by the ship’s biologist Kamala Bhatt, Dirk had mixed iodine with portions of nitric acid and an acetone solvent and heated it in a sealed container with a match. The mixture was a crude facsimile of riot-control tear gas.

They had tested a small sample on a volunteer crewman, whose red, watery eyes an hour later vouched for its efficacy. Giordino had found a pair of empty beakers in a cabinet, which proved the perfect delivery vehicle.

Dirk and Giordino waited briefly for the gas to disperse, then sprang from their cover. The first commando was crawling toward the door while the second staggered after him. Dirk ran over and scooped up the first commando’s weapon. Giordino in turn launched himself at the second commando with his elbows flying. He struck the man hard in the side, propelling them both out the doorway.

Dirk sprinted out after them, finding the two commandos writhing on the deck with Giordino on top. Giordino had already wrestled the AK-47 from his victim as the man clawed at his eyes. Dirk was reaching down to help Giordino to his feet when a burst of gunfire tore into the bulkhead just above their heads.

“Drop your weapons!” Calzado shouted from twenty feet away. Alerted by the gunfire, he had rushed to the scene accompanied by two more commandos. All three stepped closer, each with an assault rifle aimed at Dirk and Giordino. The NUMA men had no choice but to drop their weapons and stand empty-handed.

With considerable effort, the two tear-gassed guards rose to their feet, their eyes red and burning.

“Close and lock the door to the lab,” Calzado ordered.

The guards nodded and did as instructed. After the door was sealed, one of the commandos motioned toward Dirk and Giordino. “What about them?”

“I have no time for further hindrances,” Calzado said. “Stand out of the way. I will take care of them right now.”

Raising his rifle, the commando leader took aim at the two captives and tightened his finger on the trigger.

71

Absent the normal humming of its heat-producing electronics, the Starfish felt like an icebox. Summer sat with her teeth chattering as the bulk cutter made a return appearance, inching past the submersible while dragging the long detonator tube. She tried to watch the cutter insert the end of the tube in the trench, but her view was blocked by one of the ROVs.

The boxy device approached the submersible and hovered outside its viewport. Summer resisted the urge to extend her middle finger at it, instead shielding her eyes from its glaring lights.

Then an odd thing happened. The ROV flashed its lights.

This time, she didn’t hesitate, letting loose with her finger while cursing Díaz for his taunting gesture.

Though clearly observing Summer’s response, the ROV didn’t waver. Instead, it flashed its lights again, in a short-long-short sequence, as if sending a modified SOS signal.

Intrigued, Summer watched the ROV repeat the flashing twice more. She then reached up and toggled a switch, flashing the submersible’s forward external lights.

Her mouth dropped when the ROV responded by tilting up and down as if nodding. Somewhere, someone at the other end of the controls was trying to help.

She leaned forward and watched the ROV as it eased closer. It turned slightly to angle its bright lights away from the cockpit and brushed against the submersible’s low-mounted manipulator arm. Again, the ROV flashed its lights.

Summer activated the controls, raising the robotic arm from its cradle.

Again the ROV nodded approval. When Summer continued to raise the manipulator, the ROV pivoted side to side, expressing its disapproval.

Through trial and error under the ROV’s guidance, Summer extended the manipulator laterally to its full reach and opened its claw grip.

Ahead of the submersible, the bulk cutter had completed its task and was retracing its tracks to the drop point. Those tracks would bring it alongside the Starfish in another minute or two.

Summer watched as the ROV seemed to consider the cutter for a moment, then darted to the submersible’s side. Summer had to press her face against the viewport to see its next move.

The ROV pivoted and dropped to the seabed. It thrust toward the Starfish, shoving a thin layer of sand in front of it like a snowplow. At first baffled, Summer saw the intent. The ROV had begun its push on the opposite side of the detonator tube’s firing cable. It was shoving it toward the Starfish. Or more specifically, toward the submersible’s manipulator arm.

The ROV wanted her to grasp the cable. She waited as the ROV pushed again. When the cable came into reach, she snatched it with the arm’s claw grip.

The ROV gave a quick flash of its lights, then rose and hovered over the approaching bulk cutter. As the big mining machine churned close, the ROV dropped along its side and bumped up against a stubby metal appendage that protruded at a forward angle.

It was a spud, or stabilizer leg, that could be lowered for extra leverage when the cutter was battering through hard rock. The ROV moved up and down along the spud’s flat metal foot and flashed its lights.

Summer understood. She retracted the manipulator arm clear of the bulk cutter’s path and waited.

The churning steel treads shook the seabed as the machine crept across the bottom. The operator held to his prior tracks, driving alongside the Starfish. As its forward treads inched past her viewport, Summer raised the manipulator and aimed it toward the bulk cutter.

When the stabilizer assembly drew within reach, she extended the manipulator and draped the firing cable around the spud’s foot. The bulk cutter moved so slowly, she had ample time to loop the cable a second time before releasing her grip. As the machine crept forward, the loop drew tight, snagging fast on the metal appendage.

The ROV appeared outside the viewport and nodded its approval. With a final flash, it whirred off to follow the bulk cutter. Summer waited a minute, then flicked on the Starfish’s external lights. She saw the detonator tube unraveling from the trench and sliding past her, tailing the cutter. She killed the lights and watched the glow of the assorted mining equipment again recede into the distance.

Summer checked her remaining battery power, then sat back in the cold, dark confines of the submersible, contemplating the mysterious ROV. It had saved her from dying in an explosion, but could it find a way to get her off the bottom?

72

Pitt was contemplating the same question when the rear door of the control room burst open. An armed soldier stepped in, supporting the woozy frame of the ROV operator. The dazed man regained his focus at the sight of Pitt at his workstation.

“That’s him!” He pointed a finger at Pitt. “That’s the man who attacked me. Shoot him!”

Pitt jumped to his feet but refrained from further movement when the soldier leveled his assault rifle on him at point-blank range. The two guards at the front of the room sprinted up a second later. Pitt was now surrounded.

“What’s going on here?” Díaz stepped over to see what the commotion was about. His jaw dropped when he saw Pitt standing by the ROV console.

“I believe you have a submersible of mine,” Pitt said calmly. “I’d like it back.”

The ROV operator stepped forward. “He attacked me and dragged me out of here so he could control the number two ROV.”

Díaz nodded, not taking his eyes off Pitt. “You may have cheated death once, but you won’t a second time. I will personally deliver you to Havana and take a front-row seat at your execution. But before that, you will join me up front… to watch your daughter die.”

He turned to the operator. “Quickly check on the submersible. We’re about to raise the equipment.”

Díaz strode to the front of the room, taking a seat in his command chair. The guards were more diligent this time, taking up positions on either side of Pitt.

Pitt looked up at the video screen and watched the feed from the number two ROV as it circled about the Starfish. For an instant, Pitt saw Summer peering out of the viewport as if expecting a message from the ROV. But this time, it just looked at her coldly.

Pitt remembered the detonator tube and held his breath that the ROV wouldn’t turn the other direction and find it missing. But the ROV operator didn’t think to survey the explosives. He hovered the ROV over the submersible a minute or two, then raised it off the bottom and thrust it toward the distant bulk cutter.

Díaz looked on in satisfaction. “I hope you said good-bye to her, Mr. Pitt,” he said, then addressed the entire room. “All equipment to the surface. Prepare for detonation.”

Four giant winches began turning around the main deck, spooling the cables attached to the bulk cutter, the utility platform, and the two ROVs. Inside the control room, the underwater video feeds turned to snowy images as the equipment was tugged up through the water.

When all four devices were thirty meters off the bottom, Díaz phoned the bridge. “Reposition the ship two hundred meters up-current. We are preparing to detonate.”

The Sea Raker’s propellers churned the sea as the big ship slowly moved off station. A few minutes later, the captain reported they were holding the new position as ordered. Díaz asked the chief mining engineer for an update on the deployed equipment.

“Both ROVs are aboard and the utility platform has just cleared the water. The bulk cutter is ascending slowly and is presently showing a depth of twenty meters.”

“We’re well clear of the shock zone. Let’s proceed with the detonation.” Díaz turned to Pitt. “Would you like the honors?”

Pitt gave him a hard stare. “No. I think the last act belongs to you.”

Díaz stepped to the utility platform’s control panel and placed his finger over the firing cable activator. He smiled at Pitt and pushed the button.

73

Dirk sunk to his knees, waiting for the slugs from Calzado’s assault rifle to tear into his chest as he made a desperate grab for his dropped weapon. Instead, an agonizing bolt of pain shot through his head. His ears felt like they were going to explode, while his skull seemed to vibrate with an intensity that rated a ten on the numeric pain scale.

He thought he had been shot in the head, but as he raised his hands to muffle his ears, he felt no blood. Looking up, he saw that Calzado and his commandos, as well as Giordino, had also fallen to their knees and were crushing their hands against their ears.

Compressing his ears did little to alleviate the pain, but it was an instinctive act of survival against the unseen force. Giordino dropped his hands and reached for the gun at his feet, but the painful auditory assault forced him to abandon the act and return his palms to his ears.

As he cringed from the pain, Dirk noticed a trio of figures emerge from the shadows of the aft deck and slowly approach. They were dressed in commando-style fatigues similar to the Cubans, only black. Curiously, they wore motorcycle-type helmets with thick, dark visors. Two carried assault rifles and were following a third man, who led with an octagonal paddle held in front of him that was wired to a bulky backpack.

The intruders were oblivious to the pain. Drawing closer, the two armed men kicked away the Cubans’ weapons, pulled out flex cuffs, and bound the commandos as they squirmed on the deck. The third intruder eased alongside Dirk and Giordino, keeping his electronic paddle aimed at the Cubans.

The pain eased from Dirk’s ears and he realized the paddle was somehow generating the auditory assault. When all the Cubans were subdued, the man clicked a button on the paddle and lowered it to his side.

Flipping open his visor, Rudi Gunn smiled at his two NUMA friends. “Sorry for the earache. Your little escape attempt forced us to engage sooner than we planned.”

“Rudi, you’re a sight for sore eyes, but that’s as far as it goes,” Giordino said, his ears ringing like the bells of Big Ben at high noon. “What is that torture contraption?”

“It’s called an MRAD, or medium range acoustic device. This is a portable version of a system built for the Navy, used to ward off small-boat attacks or Somali-type pirates. It’s a high-intensity directional acoustic array capable of emitting sound waves at an extremely high volume, which are in turn relatively focused.”

“A loudspeaker on steroids,” Dirk said, rubbing his ears.

“Pretty much. Jack and I borrowed it from a friend at the Naval Research Laboratory.”

Jack Dahlgren, the burly marine engineer who was old friends with Dirk, approached carrying an assault rifle. “Glad to see you boys happy and healthy. Rudi, we best move to the bridge. Does anybody know how many commandos are aboard?”

“I counted nine.” Giordino picked up one of the Cuban guns. “You keep that ear blaster away from me and I’ll back you up.”

Gunn passed some small headphones to Dirk and Giordino. “These will help.”

He reactivated the system and led his armed companions to the forward superstructure. The ship’s bulkheads acted as a deterrent to the MRAD system, so Gunn didn’t hesitate, scrambling up the companionway and bursting onto the bridge.

The remaining four commandos were on duty and alert to the commotion on deck. Two were standing watch with assault rifles and instantly turned toward Gunn. He dove to the floor, holding the MRAD paddle aloft. Dahlgren and his partner turned the corner and fired. Their aim was true and they took down the two shooters.

The other two Cubans, unarmed, had fallen to the floor during the audio bombardment and now climbed to their feet. They raised their hands as Dirk and Giordino entered with their weapons drawn.

Dirk stepped over and helped Gunn to his feet. “Rudi, are you okay?

“I’m good. Is everybody on the ship safe?”

“They won’t be for long,” Giordino said. “Word is, our friends planted explosives on the ship and were about to send her to the bottom.”

He stepped to the smaller of the two Cubans. Grabbing him by the lapel, he raised him off the floor and ground his teeth in the man’s face. “Where are the explosives? Dónde están los explosivos?”

The soldier saw the unflinching determination in Giordino’s eye. “La sala de máquinas,” he grunted.

“The engine room,” Dirk said. “Let’s go.”

He and Giordino sprinted from the top of the ship to the bottom, reaching the engine room two minutes later. They didn’t have to search long before finding several crates of explosives positioned aside a seawater induction valve. It would have quickly flooded the ship.

Giordino found a simple digital timer wired to a detonator that was packed into the high explosives. He nervously removed the detonator. “Two more hours and she’d be on her way to the bottom.”

“Good thing Rudi and Jack arrived when they did.”

They climbed back to the main deck and released the crew from the two labs, but not before Giordino flung the timer and detonator over the side. They helped Dahlgren lock up the surviving Cubans, then rejoined Gunn on the bridge.

He stood over a communications console, shaking his head. “The satellite communications system was destroyed in the shoot-out.”

“We’ve still got marine radios,” Giordino said. “By the way, how’d you find us?”

“Tracked you with satellite imaging, until we left Bimini on the NUMA research ship Caroline. Fortunately, you hadn’t moved by the time we crossed the straits.”

“Where’s the Caroline now?”

“She’s holding in friendly waters, about ten miles due north.” He gave Giordino a studious gaze. “I’ve been afraid to ask. Where’s Pitt and Summer?”

“As of two days ago, a mining ship called the Sea Raker,” Giordino said. “They were abducted aboard the Starfish while investigating the subsea mining. The Sea Raker was operating at the site of the Alta’s sinking. We need to find her and fast.”

Gunn nodded as he took the helm and dialed up the ship’s engines. He stabbed a finger at a horizontal radar screen that had survived the shoot-out. “If the Caroline doesn’t find her first,” he said in a determined voice, “we will.”

74

Fifty feet beneath the hull of the Sea Raker, an electrical charge ignited a lead azide detonator. The small primary detonation instantly ignited the eight hundred pounds of TNT packed into the sleeve that dangled from the bulk cutter.

A shock wave rippled through the water as the explosion created a large gas bubble in the depths. The bubble rose rapidly, expanding in size and power as it ascended through less dense layers of seawater.

On board the Sea Raker, the shock wave was felt first, rattling through the ship like a burst of thunder.

“What was that?” Díaz asked as the deck shuddered beneath his feet.

The chief mining engineer shook his head. “I don’t know. There should be no impact to the ship at this range.”

Pitt smiled at the two men and pointed to the video screen. “Perhaps your explosives got tied up below.”

Díaz looked at the screen. The video feed from the bulk cutter had gone blank.

“What have you done?” he screamed at Pitt. He turned and grabbed an assault rifle from one of the guards.

Pitt didn’t have to answer. A second later, the explosives-induced gas bubble struck the underside of the Sea Raker like a boot to the belly. The ship’s midsection was driven almost out of the sea, its keel fracturing in three places. Hull plates ruptured along the vessel’s spine, allowing the sea to flood in from stern to stem. Alarms sounded throughout the ship as power from the main generators was instantly severed.

On the bridge, shipboard diagnostics told the captain his worst fear. Flooding was pervasive and there was no hope of staying afloat. He issued the order to abandon ship, which blared through the vessel’s PA system on a recorded message.

In the control room, everyone had been knocked off their feet. The electrical power had vanished, pitching the bay into total darkness. As Díaz climbed to his feet still clutching the rifle, emergency lights slowly flickered on, casting the room in a red glow.

The chief mining engineer stood and grabbed Díaz’s arm. “Come, we must get out of here.”

Díaz shook his head, his face a mask of rage. He knocked the engineer away and swept the room with his weapon. “Where is he?”

His anger magnified when he realized that Pitt was no longer there.

75

Pitt was already on the run to save his daughter. His only hope, albeit a slim one, was with the auxiliary cutter machine that was aboard the ship. If he could quickly lower and drive the cutter to the Starfish, he might be able to latch onto the submersible and raise it to the surface.

It was a big if.

Crawling out of the blackened control room, he found an early state of chaos on deck. There was already a panicked exodus as the crew flocked to the lifeboats. Shouts and curses filled the air as the soldiers, most with no prior seagoing experience, ran about searching for the boats. Whatever loyalty the soldiers owed to Díaz had vanished in a sudden effort to save their own skins.

Pitt realized he was on the opposite deck from the auxiliary cutter and sprinted across an amidships passageway. He stopped momentarily at the rail and radioed Ramsey, requesting he return with the Gold Digger to pick up survivors and make an emergency call for a deepwater submersible rescue. He knew the chances of the latter arriving in time were minimal.

As he raced forward across the deck, he saw the Sea Raker had generated a noticeable list but seemed to be settling slowly. She was going to afford Pitt a few minutes afloat.

He fought past a group of men lined up to board a lifeboat, then ran along the explosives barge, still secured to the ship. Just beyond the barge, he found the dark bay where the auxiliary cutter was housed. Only partial power had been restored to the ship, and Pitt feared the machine would be dead. Locating a control station at the edge of the bay, he found that wasn’t the case. A row of lights illuminated the control panel, showing the auxiliary cutter still had full power.

Pitt fidgeted with the controls, decoding the machine’s drive mechanism and activating its forward lights and camera. A separate overhead hydraulic lift was used to lower the cutter over the side. Searching for its controls, he stopped as several men rushed into the bay.

“There he is,” a voice cried out.

It was Díaz and a guard, both leveling assault rifles.

As he dove to the ground, Pitt punched the winch activation button and slapped the auxiliary cutter’s forward control lever. A seam of bullets ripped into the control panel an instant later, showering him with plastic debris. Although the bay was dimly lit, he was still in view of the gunmen and he rolled to the side as more shots followed.

The back of the hangar proved darker, and Pitt scrambled behind the rear of the cutter. The big machine was surging forward, its steel treads clattering against the wood decking. With its cutter head barely ten feet from the rail, the vehicle was well on its way to marching over the side.

Díaz yelled to one of his men on the right, so Pitt crawled along the cutter’s left side. A hail of gunfire sounded through the bay, but it wasn’t directed at Pitt. Someone was aiming high, the bullets hitting the ceiling.

The auxiliary cutter ground to a halt as something struck the deck with a thump just in front of Pitt. It was the cutter’s overhead power cable, deliberately severed by the gunshots to disable the machine. Sparks flew from the end of the cable, which began spooling loosely about the deck as its supply winch continued to turn.

Pitt heard a noise in front of him. A guard had hopped onto the cutter machine’s front frame and was lining up a shot on him.

Pitt lunged forward, grabbing the severed cable lead and jamming it against the steel frame. The gunman screamed as a fatal surge of high-voltage power coursed through the cutter.

Pitt pulled away the cable and stepped to the front of the cutter, intent on grabbing the dead man’s weapon. He hesitated at hearing a shuffle on the deck. Díaz was charging around the left side of the cutter, while two others approached from the back.

Thinking fast, Pitt snake-whipped the power cable toward the side rail, watching as its sparking tip slipped over the side. Pitt then backed around the right side of the cutter and raised his arms over his head.

The two soldiers converged on him first and held him at gunpoint until Díaz approached.

Díaz saw the dead guard beneath the auxiliary cutter’s frame and stared at Pitt with his eyes aglow. “I’m afraid you won’t be going to Havana after all. It ends now.”

He raised his rifle and aimed at Pitt’s chest. As he reached for the trigger, a whooshing sound erupted behind him. Then he disappeared in a maelstrom of fire.

When Pitt had thrown the live power cable aside, he hadn’t just tossed it over the rail. He had tossed it into the adjacent barge. The unraveling cable snaked around its interior, igniting the scatterings of ANFO that littered the deck. It was only a matter of time before a smoldering pile ignited one of the crates of TNT, detonating the barge’s entire contents of explosives.

The barge blew apart in a thunderous blast that sent a thick white cloud heaving into the night sky. It shook the entire length of the Sea Raker, shattering her superstructure. The vessel lurched to the side, jettisoning the auxiliary cutter and other loose equipment near the rail, before settling sharply by the bow. The stern rose out of the water a minute later, and the ship glided under the surface on a collision course with the seafloor.

A circle of foam and bubbles rippled the surface in the ship’s wake. Then only silence draped the waves for the remaining survivors left floating on a dark sea.

76

The auxiliary cutter saved Pitt’s life twice. Standing beside its huge mass, he was shielded from the direct force of the blast while those around him were incinerated. Still, he was knocked off his feet by the concussion, then nearly crushed by one of the steel treads when the cutter began sliding toward the rail.

Choking through the blinding smoke, Pitt heaved himself onto the topsides of the open tread and grabbed an upper brace. He hung on as the cutter slid through the Sea Raker’s side rail and toppled over the edge. The cutter tried to carry him to the bottom, but he pushed away and swam to the surface. He stroked away from the Sea Raker to avoid its suction, then turned and watched as the last frightened crewmen jumped overboard before the ship slipped under.

He had been treading water only a few minutes when the Gold Digger burst on the scene with a throaty roar from its motors. It stopped near one of the Sea Raker’s lifeboats as a searchlight on its stern scanned the waters. Desperate to get to Summer, Pitt swam to the yacht and took his place with the Sea Raker’s survivors clamoring to get aboard.

Ramsey was on deck leading the rescue. He flashed a relieved look when Pitt staggered aboard. “I was worried about you when we saw that second explosion.”

Pitt could only nod. His ears were ringing, his body ached, and he was out of breath. More than that, he knew he had failed Summer, who was trapped on the seafloor beneath them.

“Sorry about the ship,” he finally muttered.

“You… you did it?” Ramsey gave Pitt a chagrined look. “Your friendship is really beginning to cost me.”

Pitt shook off the remark. “Did you contact the Navy’s undersea rescue unit? How soon can they get here?”

Ramsey shook his head. “I did better than that. I hooked up with a much closer vessel that you might be familiar with.” He pointed off the starboard rail.

For the first time, Pitt noticed the lights of an approaching vessel. Its illuminated profile had a familiar look, and as it drew near, he could make out a hint of its turquoise-colored hull in the darkness. “The Sargasso Sea?”

“Yes. They responded over the radio. It seems they were searching for the Sea Raker—looking for you and your daughter.”

“Who’s in command?”

“A fellow named Gunn. He seemed surprised when I mentioned your name.”

Ramsey motioned to one of his crewmen, then turned back to Pitt. “I’ll get a Zodiac in the water so you can get to her right away.”

A tired smile crossed Pitt’s face. He reached out and shook Ramsey’s hand.

“Mark, you’re a good man. And if it’s any consolation, I’ll make you a guarantee.”

“What’s that?” Ramsey said.

“I promise you’ll never lose to me on the track again.”

77

Pitt gunned the Zodiac’s motor, racing to the Sargasso Sea as it slowed to a drift near the luxury yacht. Dirk, Gunn, and Giordino were all waiting at the rail and helped Pitt aboard.

Giordino eyed Pitt’s singed and waterlogged clothes. “You look like you took a nap in a rock crusher,” he said.

“I needed the sleep.”

“Where’s Summer?” Dirk asked. “The Gold Digger said you had a deepwater emergency.”

“She’s stuck on the bottom in the Starfish,” he said. “While I’m glad to see the ship, that was the Sargasso Sea’s only submersible. We need some outside help — and quick.”

“Actually, we don’t.” Gunn extended an arm like a waiter. “If you’ll be kind enough to follow me…”

Gunn quickly escorted the group aft with Pitt in a frantic rush to save Summer. At the stern deck, they found Jack Dahlgren inspecting the submersible Gunn had borrowed from the Caroline. Named the Bullet, it was a hybrid that mated a submersible’s cabin to a powerboat’s hull. With both conventional and electric motors, the sleek craft was able to skim the surface at high speed.

Pitt was familiar with the vessel, having piloted it in Turkey a few years earlier. “Where’d this come from?” he asked.

“Jack and I needed something fast and stealthy to get aboard the Sargasso Sea. She was operating out of Bimini on the Caroline, so we brought the ship in close and piloted her the rest of the way.”

Dahlgren looked up at Pitt and nodded. “Good to see you, boss. Heard you need a fast ride downstairs.”

“Summer’s life depends on it.”

“She’s good to go,” Dahlgren said, patting the submersible. “Hop in and we’ll get you over the side.”

Pitt turned to Gunn as he made his way to the Bullet’s hatch. “Ramsey’s going to need some help with the survivors.”

Gunn nodded. “We’ll lend a hand, once you’re off.”

Giordino joined Pitt in the submersible and they were quickly lowered over the side. Pitt took a bead on Ramsey’s yacht and barreled along the surface, descending just as they neared the Gold Digger.

The submersible would normally descend by gravity alone, but they lacked the luxury of time. After flooding the ballast tanks, Pitt pushed the nose of the Bullet forward and applied full propulsion. The vehicle shot downward. At seven hundred feet, Pitt eased back on the thrusters, and leveled off a minute later as the seafloor loomed beneath them.

The Bullet wasn’t equipped with sonar, so they had to locate Summer visually. Giordino marked their position as Pitt propelled the submersible in a wide arc.

“There’s something on the right.” Giordino pointed out the submersible’s large acrylic viewport.

Pitt adjusted course toward a dark object at the fringe of their visibility. It was the auxiliary cutter, which had righted itself during its descent and landed upright on the bottom. Pitt circled around the large cutter head and paused at the gruesome sight. A man was impaled on the blades, his singed uniform indicating he’d been blasted onto them by the barge’s explosion.

“Say hello to Juan Díaz,” Pitt said, recognizing the figure. The face was twisted in a final death cry. “He was responsible for this operation.”

“I see you cut him up with your wit and charm,” Giordino said.

“That and a ton of explosives.”

Giordino marked their position as Pitt accelerated forward. Summer had to be within two or three hundred yards. He traveled that distance, then looped to his left. The bottom became rockier, rising with mounds and hills that showed occasional signs of marine life.

“Water temperature is up a few degrees,” Giordino said. “We must be in the neighborhood of the thermal vent.”

A few moments later, they came across some tread marks. Pitt followed them to the trench filled with explosives. The yellow Starfish was visibly perched on the far side. Pitt zoomed over, bringing the two submersibles nose to nose.

Summer was slumped over in the pilot’s seat. As the bright lights shone into the cockpit, she rolled her head back and opened her eyes. She blinked twice, then closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat.

“She looks to be suffering carbon monoxide poisoning,” Giordino said.

“We’ll have to find a way to get her up on our own.” Pitt backed the submersible away and slowly circled the Starfish.

“Hang on, partner,” Giordino said. “Take a look at the aft frame.”

Pitt followed Giordino’s lead and examined the base of the Starfish. Several strands of wire were wrapped around a side frame and extended underneath the submersible. Pitt pivoted around the Starfish, observing that the ends of the wires were secured on the opposite side. “It’s the secondary emergency ballast weight. They’ve wired it up so Summer can’t release it.”

“That explains why she’s stuck here,” Giordino said. “They probably spiked the ballast tank, too.”

“You up for some surgery?”

“With no waiting.”

Pitt brought the submersible as close as he could, holding it at an angled hover while Giordino went to work. Using his own small manipulator, Giordino grasped one of the wires, then rotated the mechanical claw. The wire easily snapped under the manipulator’s hydraulic power.

Giordino made quick work of the remaining wires. But the Starfish failed to ascend.

Pitt brought his submersible in slowly and gave it a firm nudge. Nothing happened.

“She might be stuck in the mud,” Giordino said.

“Then let’s pull her out.” He hovered above the Starfish, creeping across its top until Giordino could snare a lift ring with the manipulator.

“I got her,” he said, “though that mechanical arm isn’t made for hauling.”

Pitt nodded. He slowly purged his ballast tanks. The Bullet rose slightly and stopped as the manipulator reached its full extension.

Pitt kept on the ballast pumps, then tapped his thrusters. The submersible pulled forward, tilting the Starfish. Then the yellow submersible broke free of the mud’s suction — and started to ascend.

The two submersibles rose together, but the ascent was too slow for Pitt’s liking. He powered the thrusters and angled toward the surface. The rise was still agonizing for him. There were no lights on inside the Starfish, indicating Summer’s battery reserves had expired.

Giordino released the manipulator’s grip at fifty feet, and the two vessels broke the surface together. Pitt had Giordino bring them alongside as he opened the hatch and hopped out.

A searchlight from the Sargasso Sea illuminated them as Pitt leaped aboard the Starfish. He attacked the main hatch, releasing its safety latch and spinning it open. He quickly slithered into the interior, which had turned icy.

Summer wrapped her arms around her father as he picked her up. She shivered suddenly, breathing hard. “Dad.”

He carried her to the hatch, where Giordino stood, reaching down with his thick arms.

“Hand her up.” He pulled her out like a rag doll.

Pitt climbed out to see Summer open her eyes and force a smile.

Cradled by the two men atop the submersible, she inhaled deep breaths of night air. “I don’t feel quite as foggy,” she said, “but I’m getting a headache you wouldn’t believe.”

“You nearly slept for good,” Giordino said as the Sargasso Sea closed in to pick them up.

“I saw a bright light,” she said in a weak voice. “I thought it was an angel calling me, then I realized it was something else.”

“What’s that?” Pitt asked, leaning close.

“It was you,” she said, reaching up to her father’s face and stroking away a tear.