The NUMA Files 02 – Blue Gold – Cussler, Clive

Prolog

Sao Paulo Airport
,
Brazil
, 1991

 

 With a POWERFUL KICK FROM ITS twin turbofan engines, the sleek executive jet lifted off the runway and shot into the vaulted skies above
Sao Paulo
. Climbing rapidly over the biggest city in
South America
, the Learjet soon reached its cruising altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet and raced toward the northwest at five hundred miles an hour. Seated in a comfortable rear-facing chair at the back of the cabin, Professor Francesca Cabral peered wistfully out the window at the cottony cloud cover, already missing the smog cloaked streets and sizzling energy of her hometown. A muffled snort from across the narrow aisle interrupted her musings. She glanced over at the snoring middle-aged man in the rumpled suit and wondered with a shake of her head what her father was thinking when he assigned Phillipo Rodriques as her bodyguard.

 

Extracting a folder from her briefcase, she jotted notes in the margins of the speech that she planned to deliver at an international conference of environmental scientists in
Cairo
. She had gone over the draft a dozen times, but her thoroughness was entirely in character. Francesca was a brilliant engineer and a highly respected professor, but in a field and society dominated by males, a female scientist was expected to be more than perfect.

 

The words blurred on the pages. The night before Francesca was up late packing and pulling together scientific papers. She had been too excited to sleep. Now she cast an envious glance at the snoozing bodyguard and decided to take a nap. She set the speech aside, pushed the back of her thick-cushioned seat into its reclining position, and closed her eyes. Lulled by the throaty whisper of the turbines, she soon dozed off.

 

Dreams came. She was floating on the sea, gently rising and falling like a jellyfish buoyed by soft billows. It was a pleasant sensation until one wave lifted her high in the air and dropped like a runaway elevator. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked around the cabin. She had an odd feeling, as if someone had grabbed at her heart. Yet all seemed normal. The haunting strains of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba” played softly over the sound system. Phillipo was still out cold. The sense that something was amiss would not go away. She leaned over and gently shook the sleeping man’s shoulder. “Phillipo, wake up.”

 

The bodyguard’s hand went to the holster under his jacket, and he came instantly awake. When he saw Francesca he relaxed.

“Senhora, I’m sorry,” he said with a yawn. “I fell asleep.”

“I did, too.” She paused as if she were listening. “Something isn’t quite right.”

“What do you mean?”

She laughed nervously. “I don’t know.” Phillipo smiled with the knowing expression of a man whose wife has heard burglars in the night. He patted her hand. “I will go see.”

He got up and stretched, then went forward and knocked on the cockpit door. The door opened, and he stuck his head through. Francesca heard a murmured conversation and laughter.

Phillipo was beaming broadly when he returned. “The pilots say everything is okay, Senhora.”

Francesca thanked the bodyguard, settled back in her seat, and took a deep breath. Her fears were foolish. The prospect of being freed from her mental meat grinder after two years of exhausting work had given her the jitters. The Project had consumed her, drained the hours from her days and nights, and demolished her social life. Her gaze fell on the divan that stretched across the rear of the cabin, and she resisted the impulse to see if her metal suitcase was still safely stored in the space behind the sofa cushions. She liked to think of the valise as a reverse Pandora’s box. Instead of evil, good things would pour out when it was opened. Her discovery would bring health and prosperity to millions, and the planet would never be the same again.

 

Phillipo brought Francesca a cold bottle of orange juice. She thanked him, thinking she had grown to like her bodyguard in the short time she had known him. With his wrinkled brown suit, balding pepper-and-salt hair, thin mustache, and round spectacles, Phillipo could have passed for an absentminded academic. Francesca couldn’t know that he had spent years perfecting the shy, bumbling manner. His carefully cultivated ability to merge into the background like faded wallpaper made him one of the top undercover agents in the Brazilian secret service.

 

Rodriques had been hand picked by her father. Francesca initially balked at her father’s insistence that a bodyguard accompany her. She was far too old to have a baby-sitter. When she saw his genuine concern for her welfare, she went along. She suspected her father was more worried about good-looking fortune hunters than for her safety.

 

Even without her family’s wealth, Francesca would have drawn male attention. In a land of dark hair and smoky complexions, she was a standout. Her blue-black almond-shaped eyes, long lashes, and almost perfect mouth were the legacy of her Japanese grandfather. Her German grandmother had passed along her light brown hair, her height genes, and the Teutonic stubbornness of the delicately sculpted jaw. Her shapely figure, she decided long ago, had something to do with living in Brazil. Brazilian women seem to have bodies especially designed for the country’s national dance, the samba. Francesca had improved on the natural model by many hours spent in the gym where she went to relieve the tension of her work.

 

Grandfather had been a minor diplomat when the Empire of Japan ended under twin mushroom clouds. He stayed on in Brazil, married the daughter of a Third Reich ambassador similarly unemployed, became a Brazilian citizen, and switched to his first love, gardening. He moved the family to Sao Paulo, where his landscape company served the rich and powerful. He developed close ties with influential government and military figures. His son, Francesca’s father, used those connections to move effortlessly to a highly placed position in the commerce department. Her mother was a brilliant engineering student who put her academic career aside to become a wife and mother. She never regretted her decision, at least not openly, but she was de lighted that Francesca would choose to follow in her academic footsteps.

 

Her father had suggested that she fly on his executive jet to New York, where she would meet with United Nations officials before boarding a commercial flight to Cairo. She was glad to get back to the States, if only for a short visit, and wished she could make the plane move faster. The years she had spent studying engineering at Stanford University in California would always be pleasant memories. She glanced out the window and realized she had no idea where they were. The pilots hadn’t re ported on the flight’s progress since the plane left Sao Paulo. Excusing herself to Phillipo, she went forward and stuck her head in the cockpit.

 

“Bom dia, senhores. I was wondering where we are and how much longer we’ll be in the air.”

 

The pilot was Captain Riordan, a rawboned American with crew-cut straw-colored hair and a Texas accent. Francesca had never seen him before, but that wasn’t surprising. Nor was the fact that Riordan was a foreign national. Although the plane was privately owned it was maintained by a local airline that sup plied pilots.

 

“Bowanis deeyass,” he said with a lopsided grin, his Chuck Yeager drawl and butchered Portuguese grating on her ears. “Sorry for not keeping you up to date, miss. Saw you were sleeping and didn’t want to disturb you.” He winked at the copilot, a thickset Brazilian whose over muscled physique suggested he spent a lot of time pumping iron. The copilot smirked as his eyes roved over Francesca’s body. Francesca felt like a mother who had come upon two mischievous boys about to play a prank. “What’s our timetable?” she said in a businesslike manner.

 

“Waall, we’re over Venezuela. We should be in Miami in approximately three hours. We’ll stretch our legs while we refuel and should be in New York about three hours after that.”

Francesca’s scientific eye was drawn to the screens on the instrument panel. The copilot noticed her interest and couldn’t resist the chance to impress a beautiful woman.

“This plane is so smart it can fly itself while we watch the soccer games on TV,” he said, showing his big teeth.

“Don’t let Carlos blow smoke up your flue,” the pilot said. “That’s the EFIS, the electronic flight instrument system. The screens take the place of the gauges we used to use.”

“Thank you,” Francesca said politely. She pointed to another gauge. “Is that a compass?” she said.

“Sim, sim,” the copilot said, proud of his successful tutelage.

“Then why does it indicate we’re going almost due north?” she said with a furrowed brow. “Shouldn’t we be heading in a more westerly direction toward Miami?”

 

The men exchanged glances. “You’re quite observant, senhora,” the Texan said. “Absolutely right. But in the air a straight line isn’t always the fastest way between two points. Has to do with the curvature of the earth. Like when you fly from the U.S. to Europe the shortest way is up and around in a big curve. We’ve also got to deal with Cuban airspace. Don’t want to get ol’ Fidel all haired up.”

The quick wink and smirk again.

Francesca nodded appreciatively. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. It’s been most instructive. I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“No bother, ma’am. Any time.”

Francesca was fuming as she took her seat. Fools! Did they think she was an idiot? The curvature of the earth indeed!

“Everything’s okay, like I said?” Phillipo asked, looking up from the magazine he was reading.

She leaned across the aisle and spoke in a low, even tone. “No, everything is not okay. I think this plane is off-course.” She told him about the compass reading. “I felt something odd in my sleep. I think it was the shifting of the plane as they changed direction.”

“Maybe you’re mistaken.”

“Perhaps. But I don’t think so.”

“Did you ask the pilots for an explanation?”

“Yes. They gave me some absurd story saying the shortest distance between two points was not a straight line because of the curvature of the earth.”

 

He raised an eyebrow, apparently surprised by the explanation, but he still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know . . .”

Francesca pondered some other inconsistencies. “Do you re member what they said when they came on board, about being replacement pilots?”

“Sure. They said the other pilots were called off on another job. They took their place as a favor.”

She shook her head. “Peculiar. Why did they even bring it up? It’s as if they wanted to head off any questions I might have. But why?”

 

“I have had some experience in navigation,” Phillipo said thoughtfully. “I will go see for myself.” He sauntered up to the cockpit again. She heard male laughter, and after a few minutes he came back with a smile on his face. The smile faded as he sat down.

“There’s an instrument in the cockpit that shows the original flight plan. We are not following the blue line as we should be. You were right about the compass, too,” he said. “We are not on the correct course.”

“What in God’s name is going on, Phillipo?”

A grave expression came onto his face. “There was something your father didn’t tell you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Phillipo glanced toward the closed cockpit. “He had heard things. Nothing that would persuade him you were in danger, but enough so that he would like the reassurance of knowing I would be nearby if you needed help.”

“Looks like we could both use some help.”

“Sim, senhora. But unfortunately we must do for ourselves.”

“Do you have a gun?” she said abruptly.

“Of course,” he said, faintly amused at the hard-nosed question from this beautiful and cultured woman. “Would you like me to shoot them?”

“I didn’t mean-no, of course not,” she said glumly. “Do you have any ideas?”

‘A gun is not just for shooting,” he said. “You can use it for intimidation, use its threat to make people do things they don’t want to do.”

“Like pointing us in the right direction?”

“I hope, senhora. I will go forward. I will ask them politely to land at the nearest airport, saying it is your wish. If they refuse I will show them my gun and say I would not like to use it.”

“You can’t use it,” Francesca said with alarm. “If you put a hole in the plane at this altitude, it would depressurize the cabin, and we’d all be dead within seconds.”

“A good point. It will increase their fear.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I told your father I would watch out for you, senhora. “

She shook her head as if it would make the situation go away. “What if I’m wrong? That these are innocent pilots doing their job?”

“Simple,” he said with a shrug. “We call ahead on the radio, we land at the nearest airport, we bring in the police, we straighten things out, then we resume our trip.”

They cut their conversation short. The door to the cockpit had opened, and the captain stepped into the cabin. He ambled forward, having to bend his head because of the low overhead.

“That was some joke you just told us,” he said with his crooked grin. “Got any more?”

“Sorry, senhor,” Phillipo said.

“Waall, I got one for you,” the pilot replied. Riordan’s droopy, heavy-lidded eyes gave him a sleepy look. But there was nothing sluggish about the way he reached behind his back and produced the pistol he had tucked in his belt.

“Hand it over,” he said to Phillipo. “Real slow.”

Phillipo gingerly opened his jacket wide so the shoulder holster was in plain view, then extracted his gun by the tips of his fingers. The pilot stuck the gun in his belt.

“Grazyeass, amigo,” he said. “Always nice to deal with a professional.” He sat on an armrest and with his free hand lit a cigarette. “Me and my partner have been talking, and we think maybe you’re on to us. Figured you were checking us out when you came up a second time, so we decided to lay it all out so there won’t be any misunderstandings.”

“Captain Riordan, what is going on?” Francesca said. “Where are you taking us?”

“They said you were smart,” the pilot said with a chuckle. “My partner never should have started bragging about the plane.” He blew twin plumes of smoke from his nostrils. “You’re right. We’re not going to Miami, we’re on our way to Trinidad.”

“Trinidad?”

“I hear it’s a real nice place.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s like this, senyoreeta. There’s going to be a welcome party waiting for you at the airport. Don’t ask me who they are ’cause I don’t know. All’s I know is we’ve been hired to deliver you. Things were supposed to go nice and easy. We were going to tell you we had mechanical problems and needed to land.”

“What happened to the pilots?” Phillipo asked.

“They had an accident,” he said with a slight shrug. He ground the cigarette butt on the floor. “Here’s the situation, miss. You just stay put, and everything will be fine. As for you, cavaleiro, I’m sorry to get you in trouble with your bosses. Now I can tie you both up, but I don’t think you’d try anything foolish unless you can fly this plane yourselves. One more thing. Up, partner, and turn around.”

Thinking he was about to be frisked, Phillipo complied without protest. Francesca’s warning came too late. The pistol barrel arced down in a silvery blur and struck the bodyguard above the right ear. The sickening crunch was drowned out by the bodyguard’s cry of pain as he doubled over and crumpled onto the floor.

Francesca jumped up from her seat. “Why did you do that?” she said defiantly. “You have his gun. He couldn’t harm you.”

“Sorry, miss. I’m a firm believer in insurance.” Riordan stepped over the prostrate form in the aisle as if it were a sack of potatoes. “Nothing like a cracked skull to discourage a man from getting into trouble. There’s a first aid kit up there on the wall. Taking care of him should keep you busy ’til it’s time to set down.” He tipped his hand to his cap, strolled back to the cockpit, and shut the door.

Francesca knelt by the stricken bodyguard. She soaked cloth napkins in mineral water and cleaned the wound, then applied pressure until the bleeding was stanched. She daubed an antiseptic on the scalp cut and the bruised skin around it, wrapped ice in another napkin, and pressed it to the side of the man’s head to prevent swelling.

As Francesca sat by his side, she tried to piece the puzzle together. She ruled out a kidnapping for money. The only reason someone would go through this much trouble would be for her process. Whoever was behind this mad scheme wanted more than a scale model and the papers explaining her work. They could have broken into the lab or grabbed her luggage at the airport. But they needed Francesca to interpret her findings. Her process was so arcane, so different, that it didn’t conform to the norms of science, which is why no one had thought of it before.

The whole thing didn’t make sense! Within a day or two she was going to give the process to the countries of the world for nothing. No patents. No copyright. No royalty fees. Absolutely free of charge. Anger smoldered in her breast. These ruthless people were stopping her from improving the lot of millions.

 

 Phillipo groaned. He was coming around. His eyes blinked open and came into focus.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“It hurts like the devil, so I must be alive. Help me sit up, please.”

Francesca put her arm around Phillipo and lifted until he sat with his back against a seat. She unscrewed a bottle of rum from the bar and put it to his lips. He sipped some liquor, managed to keep it down, then took a healthy swallow. He sat there for a moment waiting to see if his guts would come up. When he didn’t vomit, he smiled. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

She handed him his glasses. “I’m afraid they were broken when he hit you.”

He tossed them aside. “They are only plain glass. I can see fine without them.” The level eyes that bored into Francesca were not those of a frightened man. He glanced at the closed cockpit door. “How long have I been out?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Good, there is still time.”

“Time for what?”

His hand slid down to his ankle and came up filled with a snub-nosed revolver.

“If our friend hadn’t been so anxious to give me a headache, he would have found this,” he said with a grim smile.

This was definitely not the same rumpled man who had seemed more like an absentminded professor than a bodyguard. Francesca’s elation was tempered by reality. “What can you do? They have at least two guns, and we can’t fly the plane.”

“Forgive me, Senhora Cabral. Another failure to be forthright on my part.” Sounding almost guilty, he said, “I forgot to mention that I was in the Brazilian air force before I joined the secret service. Please help me up.”

Francesca was speechless. What other rabbits would this man pull out of his hat? She gave him a hand until he was able to stand on shaky legs. After a minute a new strength and determination seemed to flow through his body. “Stay here until I tell you what to do,” he said with the air of a man used to people obeying his command.

He went forward and opened the door. The pilot glanced over his shoulder and said, “Hey, look who’s back from the land of the living dead. Guess I didn’t hit you hard enough.”

“You don’t get a second chance,” Phillipo said. He jammed the revolver barrel under the Texan’s ear hard enough to hurt. “If I shoot one of you, the other can still fly. Which one will it be?”

“Christ, you said you took his gun!” Carlos said.

“You’ve got a short memory, cavaleiro,” the pilot replied calmly. “You shoot us and who’s going to fly the plane?”

“I will, cavaleiro. Sorry I didn’t bring my pilot’s license with me. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

Riordan turned his head slightly and saw the cold smile wreathing the bodyguard’s face.

“I take back what I said about dealing with a professional,” Riordan said. “What now, partner?”

“Give me the two guns. One at a time.”

The pilot handed over his pistol and the one he had taken from Phillipo. The bodyguard passed the weapons back to Francesca, who had come up behind him.

“Get out of your seat,” he ordered, backing into the cabin. “Slowly.”

Riordan caught the copilot’s eye and levered himself out of his seat. Using his body to shield the gesture, he made a quick palm-down flip with his hand. The copilot nodded almost imperceptibly to show he understood.

The pilot followed Phillipo as if drawn by an imaginary leash, as the bodyguard backed up into the cabin. “I want you to go lie facedown on the divan,” Phillipo said, keeping his gun pointed at Riordan’s chest.

“Hell, I was hoping I could take a nap,” the pilot said. “That’s real kind of you.”

Francesca had backed off the aisle to make room for the two men to pass. Phillipo asked her to get some plastic trash bags from under a front seat. Phillipo intended to use the bags to bind the pilot. With Riordan on ice he would only have to deal with the copilot.

The cabin was about twelve feet long. In the tight space Phillipo had to step aside to let the other man pass. He re minded Riordan not to try anything at close quarters, because it would be impossible to miss. Riordan nodded and stepped to ward the rear. They were only a few inches apart when the co pilot put the plane over on its left side.

Riordan had expected the move, but he didn’t know when it would come or that it would be so violent. He lost his balance and was thrown onto a seat, his head slamming into the bulkhead. Phillipo was lifted off his feet. He flew across the cabin and landed on top of Riordan.

The pilot disentangled his right hand and blasted his big fist into the bodyguard’s jaw. Phillipo saw galaxies whirling over his head and almost blacked out, but he managed to keep a death grip on the gun. Riordan brought his arm back for another punch. Phillipo blocked it with his elbow.

Both men were street fighters. Phillipo clawed at Riordan’s eyes. The pilot bit Phillipo on the fleshy part of the palm. The bodyguard jammed his knee into Riordan’s groin, and when the pilot opened his mouth, Phillipo snapped his head forward, smashing the cartilage in Riordan’s nose. He might have gained the upper hand, but at that point the copilot made the plane yaw sharply to the right.

The struggling men flew across the aisle into the opposite seat. Now the American was on top. Phillipo tried to club Riordan with the gun’s muzzle, but the pilot grabbed his wrist with two hands and twisted it away and down. Phillipo was strong, but he was no match for the double-teamed assault. The barrel swung closer to his midsection.

The pilot had his hands on the gun and was wrestling it away. Phillipo tried to hold on to the pistol, almost had control of it again, but the grip was slippery from the jets of blood flowing from Riordan’s nose. In a wrenching twist the pilot took control of the gun, got his fingertip onto the trigger, and squeezed.

There was a muffled crack! Phillipo’s body jerked and then went limp as the bullet plowed into his chest.

The plane righted itself as the copilot put it back into its nor mal position. Riordan stood and staggered toward the cockpit. He stopped and turned, apparently sensing something wasn’t right.

The gun he had left behind was propped up on the body guard’s chest. Phillipo was trying to steady it for a shot. Riordan charged like a wounded rhino. The pistol cracked. The first bullet hit the pilot in the shoulder, and he kept coming. Phillipo’s brain died, but his finger twitched twice more. The second shot caught the pilot in the heart and killed him instantly. The third went wild and missed him completely. Even as the pilot crashed to the floor, the pistol had dropped from Phillipo’s hand.

The struggle from one side of the cabin to the other had taken only a few seconds. Francesca had been thrown between the seats and played possum as the bloodied pilot was making his way back to the cockpit. The shots sent her down again.

She cautiously stuck her head into the aisle and saw the pilot’s still body. She crawled over to Phillipo’s side, pried the pistol from his bloody hands, and approached the cockpit door, too enraged to feel fear. Her anger quickly turned to shock.

The copilot was slumped forward, his body held in place by his seatbelt. There was a bullet hole in the partition separating the cockpit from the cabin and through the back of the copilot’s chair. Phillipo’s third shot.

Francesca pulled the copilot upright. His groan told her he was still alive.

“Can you talk?” she said.

Carlos rolled his eyes and whispered a hoarse “Yes.”

“Good. You’ve been shot, but I don’t think it hit any vital organs,” she lied. “I’m going to stop the bleeding.”

She retrieved the first aid kit, thinking that what she really needed was an emergency-room trauma unit. She almost fainted at the sight of the blood flowing from the wound down his back to puddle on the floor. The compress she applied immediately turned scarlet, but it may have helped stanch the loss of blood. It was impossible to tell. The only thing she knew for certain was that the man was going to die.

With fearful apprehension she looked at the glowing instrument panel, numbed by the realization that this dying man was the key to her survival. She had to keep him alive.

Francesca retrieved the bottle of rum and tilted it to the copilot’s lips. The rum dribbled down his chin, and the little amount he swallowed made him cough. He asked for more. The strong liquor brought color to his pale cheeks and the gleam of life back into the glazed eyes.

She put her lips close to his ear. “You must fly,” she said levelly. “It’s our only chance.”

 

The proximity of a beautiful woman seemed to give him energy. His eyes were glassy but alert. He nodded and reached out with shaking hand to flick on the radio that connected him directly with traffic control in Rio. Francesca eased into the pilot’s seat and slipped on the headset. The voice of the traffic controller came on. Carlos asked for help with his eyes. Francesca began to talk, explaining their predicament to traffic control.

 

“What do you advise us to do?” she said.

 

After an agonizing pause the voice said, “Proceed to Caracas immediately.”

 

“Caracas too far,” Carlos croaked, mustering the strength to talk. “Someplace closer.”

 

Several more moments dragged by.

 

The dispatcher’s voice came back. “There’s a small provincial airstrip two hundred miles from your position at San Pedro, out side Caracas. No instrument approach, but the weather is perfect. Can you make it?”

 

“Yes,” Francesca said.

 

The copilot fumbled with the keypad of the flight computer. With all the strength at his command he called up the international identifier for San Pedro and entered it in the computer.

 

Guided by the computer, the plane began to make a turn.

 

Carlos smiled slightly. “Didn’t I tell you this plane flies by itself, senhora?” His wheezy words had a drowsy quality to them. He was obviously becoming weaker from loss of blood. It was only a matter of time before he passed out.

 

“I don’t care who flies it,” she said sharply. “Just get us on the ground.”

 

Carlos nodded and set up the automatic descent profile on the flight computer to take the plane down to two thousand feet. The plane began to descend through the clouds, and before long patches of green were visible. The sight of land reassured and terrified Francesca at the same time. Her terror rose a few degrees when Carlos shuddered as if an electric current had gone through him. He grabbed Francesca’s hand and held it in a death grip.

 

“Can’t make San Pedro,” he said, his voice a wet rattle.

 

“You’ve got to,” Francesca said.

 

“No use.”

 

“Damn it, Carlos, you and your partner got us into this mess, and you’re going to get us out of it!”

 

He smiled vacantly. “What are you going to do, senhora, shoot me?”

 

Her eyes blazed. “You’ll wish I had if you don’t get this thing down.”

 

He shook his head. “Emergency landing. Our only chance. Find a place.”

 

The big cockpit window offered a view of the thick-grown rain forest. Francesca had the feeling she was flying over a vast unbroken field of broccoli. She scanned the endless greenery again. It was hopeless. Wait. Sunlight glinted off something shiny.

 

“What’s that?” she said, pointing.

 

Carlos disconnected the auto pilot and auto throttles, took the wheel in his hands, and steered toward the reflection, which came from the sun glinting off a giant waterfall. A narrow, meandering river came into view. Alongside the river was an irregularly shaped clearing of yellow and brown vegetation.

 

Flying almost on automatic himself, Carlos passed the open area and set up a thirty-degree banking turn to the right. He ex tended the wing flaps and put the plane in a boxlike flight pat tern. With a hard right he prepared the plane for its final approach. They were at eighteen hundred feet, descending on a long, shallow glide. Carlos extended the wing flaps to slow them down further.

 

“Too low!” he growled. The treetops were rushing at them. With superhuman strength born of desperation he reached out and gave the throttles more power. The plane began to rise.

 

Through blurred vision he scoped the final approach. His heart fell. It was a terrible landing field, small and lumpy, the size of a postage stamp. They were doing a hundred and sixty miles per hour. Too fast.

 

A soggy gasp escaped from his throat. His head lolled onto his shoulder. Blood gushed from his mouth. The fingers that had clutched the wheel so tightly were curled in a useless death grip. It was a tribute to his skill that in his last moments he had trimmed the plane perfectly. The jet maintained trim, and when it hit the ground, it bounced into the air a few times like a stone skipped across water.

 

There was an ear-splitting shriek of tortured metal as the bottom of the fuselage made contact with the earth. The friction between the plane and the solid earth slowed it down, but it was still going more than a hundred miles an hour, the fuselage cut ting through the ground like the blade of a plow. The wings snapped off, and the fuel tanks exploded, leaving twin black and orange swaths of fire in the plane’s wake for another thousand feet as it hurtled toward a bend in the river.

 

The plane would have disintegrated if the grass-covered ground had not given way to the soft, marshy mud along the riverbank. Stripped of its wings, its blue and white skin splattered with mud, the plane looked like a giant wormlike creature trying to burrow into the mire. The plane skidded over the surface of the muck and finally came to a lurching stop. The impact hurled Francesca forward into the instrument panel, and she blacked out.

 

 

 Except for the crackle of burning grass, the ripple of river water, and the hiss of steam where the hot metal touched the water, all was silent.

 

 Before long, ghostly shadows emerged from the forest. As quiet as smoke, they moved in closer to the shattered wreckage of the plane.

 

San Diego, California, 2001

 

1 WEST OF ENCINITAS ON THE Pacific coast, the graceful motor yacht Nepenthe swung at anchor, the grandest craft in a flotilla that seemed to include every sailboat and powerboat in San Diego. With her fluid drawn-out lines, the spearlike sprit jutting from the thrusting clipper bow, and her flaring transom, the two-hundred-foot-long Nepenthe looked as if she were made of fine white china floating on a Delft sea. Her paint glistened with a mirror finish, and her bright work sparkled under the California sun. Flags and pennants snapped and fluttered from stem to stern. Bobbing balloons occasionally broke loose to soar into the cloudless sky.

 

In the yacht’s spacious British Empire-style salon a string quartet played a Vivaldi piece for the eclectic gathering of black clad Hollywood types, corpulent politicians, and sleek TV anchors who milled around a thick-legged mahogany table devouring pate, beluga caviar, and shrimp with the gusto of famine victims.

 

Outside, crowding the sun-drenched decks, children sat in wheelchairs or leaned on crutches, munching hot dogs and burgers and enjoying the fresh sea air. Hovering over them like a mother hen was a lovely woman in her fifties. Gloria Ekhart’s generous mouth and cornflower-blue eyes were familiar to mil lions who had seen her movies and watched her popular sitcom on TV. Every fan knew about Ekhart’s daughter Elsie, the pretty, freckle-faced young girl who scooted around the deck in a wheel chair. Ekhart had given up acting at the peak of her career to de vote her fortune and time to helping children like her own. The influential and well-heeled guests chugging down Dom Perignon in the salon would be asked later to open their checkbooks for the Ekhart Foundation.

 

Ekhart had a flair for promotion, which was why she leased the Nepenthe for her party. In 1930, when the vessel slid off the ways at the G. L. Watson boatyard in Glasgow, she was among the most graceful motor yachts ever to sail the seas. The yacht’s first owner, an English earl, lost her in an all-night poker game to a Hollywood mogul with a penchant for cards, marathon parties, and underage starlets. She went through a succession of equally indifferent owners, winding up in a failed attempt as a fishing boat. Smelling of dead fish and bait, the rotting yacht languished in the back corner of a boatyard. She was rescued by a Silicon Valley magnate who tried to recoup the millions he spent restoring the vessel by leasing her out for events such as the Ekhart fund-raiser.

 

A man wearing a blue blazer with an official race badge pinned to the breast pocket had been peering through binoculars at the flat green expanse of the Pacific. He rubbed his eyes and squinted into the lenses again. In the distance thin white plumes were etched against the blue sky where it met the water. He lowered the binoculars, raised an aerosol canister with a plastic trumpet attached, and pressed the button three times.

 

Hawnk. . . hawnk. . . hawnk.

 

The klaxon’s blaring squawk echoed across the water like the mating call of a monster gander. The flotilla took up the signal. A cacophony of bells, whistles, and horns filled the air and drowned out the cry of hungry gulls. Hundreds of spectators excitedly reached for their binoculars and cameras. Boats heeled dangerously as passengers shifted to one side. On the Nepenthe the guests wolfed down their food and poured from the salon sipping from glasses of bubbly. They shaded their eyes and looked off in the distance, where the feathery plumes were thickening into bantam rooster tails. Carried on the breeze was a sound like an angry swarm of bees.

 

In a circling helicopter a thousand feet above the Nepenthe, a sturdy Italian photographer named Carlo Pozzi tapped the pilot’s shoulder and pointed to the northwest. The water was marked by parallel white streaks advancing as if plowed by a huge, invisible harrow. Pozzi checked his safety harness, stepped out onto a runner with one foot, and hefted a fifty-pound television camera onto his shoulder. Leaning with a practiced stance into the wind that buffeted his body, he brought the extraordinary power of his lens to bear on the advancing lines. He swept the camera from left to right, giving viewers around the world an overview of the dozen race boats cutting furrows in the sea. Then he zoomed in on a pair of boats leading the pack by a quarter of a mile.

 

The speeding craft skimmed the wave tops, their forty-foot hulls planing with elevated bows as if trying to escape the restraints of gravity. The lead boat was painted a bold firehouse red. Trailing by less than a hundred yards, the second boat sparkled like a gold nugget. The boats were more like star fighters than craft designed for travel over water. Their flat decks connected two knife-edged catamaran hulls called sponsons and aerodynamic wings over the engine compartments. Twin F-16-type canopies were set side-by-side two-thirds of the way back from the sharp-pointed double prows.

 

Squeezed into the red boat’s right-hand canopy, his sun bronzed face fixed in a mask of determination, I Curt Austin braced himself as the eight-ton craft slammed against the concrete-hard water again and again. Unlike a land vehicle, the boat had no shock absorbers to cushion the jarring impact. Each jolt traveled through the one-piece Kevlar and carbon composite hull up through Austin’s legs and rattled his teeth. Despite his broad shoulders, his muscular biceps, and the five-point harness system that strapped his two-hundred-pound frame in place, he felt like a basketball being dribbled down the court by Michael Jordan.

 

Every ounce of strength in his muscular six-foot-one body was needed to keep a steady hand on the trim tabs and the throttle levers and a firm left foot on the engine pedal controlling the pressure in the mighty twin turbos that sent the boat thundering over the water.

 

Jose “Joe” Zavala sat hunched over the steering wheel in the left canopy. His gloved hands tightly gripped the small black wheel that seemed inadequate for the task of keeping the boat pointed in the right direction. He felt as if he were aiming rather than steering the boat. His mouth was set in a grim line. The large dark brown eyes had lost their usual soulful look as they strained intently through the tinted Plexiglas visor to read the sea conditions for changes in wind or wave height. The up-and down movement of the bow compounded the difficulty. Where Austin gauged the boat’s behavior, quite literally, by the seat of his pants, Zavala felt the waves and troughs through his steering wheel.

 

Austin barked into the intercom mike that connected the canopies. “What’s our speed?”

 

Zavala glanced at the digital speed gauge. “One twenty-two.” His eyes went to the GPS position and compass. “Right on course.”

 

Austin checked his watch and looked down at the chart fastened to his right thigh. The one-hundred-sixty-mile race began in San Diego, made two sharp turns around Santa Catalina Is land, and came back to the starting point, giving thousands of spectators along the beaches a view of the dramatic finish. The final turn should be coming up any minute. He squinted through the spray-splashed canopy and saw a vertical line off to the right, then another. Sailboat masts! The spectator fleet flanked a wide swath of open water. Once past the spectators, the racers would pick up the Coast Guard cutter near the turn buoy and head into the last lap. He snapped a quick glance over his right shoulder and caught the reflection of the sun off gold.

 

“Kicking it up to one-thirty,” Austin said.

 

   The hard shocks coming through the steering wheel indicated that the wave height was growing. Zavala had observed white flecks in the water and a distinct marbling to the seas that told him the wind was up.  

 “Don’t know if we should,” Zavala yelled over the shriek of the engines. “Picking up a slight chop. Where’s Ali Baba?”   

“Practically in our back pocket!”   

“He’s crazy if he makes his play now. He should just lie back and let us take the lumps like he’s been doing, then go for the home stretch. Sea and wind are too unpredictable.”  

 “Ali doesn’t like to lose.”    Zavala grunted. “Okay. Take it to one twenty-five. Maybe he’ll back off.”  

 Austin pushed down with his fingertips on the throttles and felt a surge of speed and power.   

A moment later Zavala reported: “Doing one twenty-seven. Seems okay.”

 

The gold boat fell back, then speeded up to keep pace. Austin could read the black lettering on the side: Flying Carpet. The boat’s driver was hidden behind the tinted glass, but Austin knew the bearded young Omar Sharif look-alike would be grinning from ear to ear. The son of a Dubai hotel magnate, Ali Bin Said was one of the toughest competitors in one of the world’s most competitive and dangerous sports, Class 1 offshore power boat racing.

 

Ali came within a whisker of beating Austin at the Dubai Duty Free Grand Prix the year before. The loss in his own back yard before his home audience was particularly galling. Ali had beefed up the power in the Carpet’s twin Lamborghini engines. With improvements in its power plant the Red Ink squeezed out a few extra miles per hour, but Austin estimated Ali’s boat was a match for his.

 

At the prerace briefing Ali had jokingly accused Austin of calling in the National Underwater & Marine Agency to quell the seas in his boat’s path. As leader of the Special Assignments Team for NUMA, Austin had the resources of the huge agency at his command. But he knew better than to play King Canute. Ali had been beaten not by engine power but by the way Austin and his NUMA partner clicked together as a team.

 

Zavala, with his dark complexion and thick, straight black hair always combed straight back, could have passed for the maitre d’ in a posh Acapulco resort hotel. The slight smile al ways on his lips masked a steely resolve forged in his college days as a middleweight boxer and honed by the frequent challenges of his NUMA assignments. The gregarious and soft spoken marine engineer had thousands of hours piloting helicopters, small jets, and turbo-prop aircraft and easily switched to the cockpit of a race boat. Working with Austin as if they were parts in a precision machine, he took command of the race from the second the referee raised the green starting flag.

 

They were up on plane at a near-ideal angle and blasted across the start line at one hundred and thirty miles per hour. Every boat had hit the finish line with throttle straight out. Two hard-driven competitors blew out their engines on the first lap, one flipped on the first turn, probably the most dangerous part of any race, and the rest were simply outclassed by the two leaders. The Red Ink rocketed by the others as if they were stuck on fly paper. Only the Flying Carpet kept pace. During the first Catalina Island turn, Zavala had maneuvered the Red Ink around the buoy so that Ali went wide. The F7~ing Carpet had been playing catch-up ever since.

 

Now the Carpet had taken wing and was coming abreast of the Red Ink. Austin knew of Ali’s last-minute switch to a smaller propeller that would be better in rough seas. Austin wished he could trade in his large calm-water propeller. Ali had been smart to listen to his weather sense rather than the forecast.

 

“I’m cranking her up another notch!” Austin shouted.

 

“She’s at one-forty now,” Zavala yelled back. “Wind’s up. She’ll kite if we don’t slow down.”

 

Austin knew a high-speed turn was risky. The twin catamaran sponsons skated across the surface with practically no water resistance. The same design that allowed for high speed over the wave tops also meant wind could get under the hull, lift it in a kiting motion, or, even worse, flip it back onto its deck.

 

The Flying Carpet continued to gain. Austin’s fingertips played over the tops of the throttle levers. He hated to lose. His combativeness was a trait he’d inherited from his father along with the football player physique and eyes the color of coral underwater. One day it would get him killed. But not today. He eased back on the throttles. The maneuver may have saved their lives.

 

A white-crested four-foot rogue sea was racing in off the port bow, practically snarling as it bore down on them. Zavala saw it angling in, prayed they’d clear it, knew instantly that the timing was all wrong. The wave hooked one of the sponsons like a cat’s claw. The Red Ink was launched spinning into space. With lightning reflexes Zavala steered in the direction of the spin like a driver caught on an ice patch. The boat splashed into the water sideways, rolled so the canopies were buried, then righted after a few more yaws.

 

Ali slowed down, but once he saw they were all right, he gunned his engines, throwing caution to the winds. He wanted to finish as far ahead of Austin as possible. Ignoring the advice of his veteran throttle man, Hank Smith, Ali pushed his boat to the edge. The giant rooster tail arced high in the air for hundreds of feet, and the twin propellers plowed a wide and double furrowed wake for hundreds more.

 

“Sorry about that,” Zavala called out. “Caught a wave.”

 

“Great save. Let’s go for second place.”

 

Austin pushed the throttles forward, and with a scream of the engines they were off in hot pursuit.

High above the race course the Italian TV cameraman had spotted the dramatic reversal of the lead boats. The chopper swooped out in a wide circle and came back over the flotilla to hover at midchannel. Pozzi wanted a wide shot of the lone boat speeding past the spectators to the turn buoy for the final approach to San Diego. The cameraman glanced at the sea below

to get his bearings and saw wavelets outlining a large, shiny, grayish object mounding at the surface. A trick of the light. No, there was definitely something there. He caught the attention of the pilot and pointed straight down. “What the hell is that?” the pilot said.

 

Pozzi aimed the camera at the object and zoomed in with the touch of a button.

 

“It’s a balena,” he said as the object came into focus.

 

“For God’s sake, speak English.”

 

“How you say? A whale. “

 

“Oh, yeah,” the pilot replied. “You see them migrating. Don’t worry, he’ll dive when he hears the boats.”

 

“No,” Carlo said with a shake of his head. “I think he’s dead. He’s not moving.”

 

The pilot put the chopper at a slight angle for a better view. “Hell, you’re right. There’s another one. I’m counting three-no, four. Damn! They’re popping up all over the place.”

 

He switched to the hailing channel. “Come in, San Diego Coast Guard. This is the TV helicopter over the race course. “Emergency”

 A voice crackled over the radio. “Coast Guard station at Cabrillo Point. Go ahead.”

 

“I’m seeing whales in the race course.”

 

“Whales?”

 

“Yeah, maybe a dozen. I think they’re dead.”

 

“Roger,” the radio man said. “We’ll alert the cutter on scene to check them out.”

 

“Too late,” the pilot said. “You’ve got to stop the race.”

 

A tense silence followed. Then: “Roger. We’ll try.”

 

A moment later in response to a call from the station, the Coast Guard cutter moved from its post at the turn buoy. Orange signal flares blossomed against the blue sky.

 

Ali saw neither the flares nor the bloated gray carcass floating in his path until it was too late. He yanked the wheel, missed the obstruction by inches, dodged another body, but could not avoid a third. He veered off, yelling at Hank to cut power.

 

Smith’s fingers flew to the throttle, and the planing hull settled down. The Carpet was still going fifty miles an hour when it hit the carcass. With an explosion of foul air, the body popped like a huge blubbery balloon. The boat careened off on one sponson, Ripped, somersaulted, and miraculously landed right-side up again.

 

Ali and the throttle man were saved from fractured skulls by their helmets. Working through a black haze, Ali reached for the wheel and tried to turn, but there was no response from the rudder. He called out to the throttle man. Hank was slumped over the throttles.

 

On the Nepenthe the captain had left the bridge and was down on the deck talking to Gloria Ekhart when the actress leaned over the rail and pointed. “Excuse me, Captain. What’s that gold boat doing?”

 

The Flying Carpet was wallowing like a punch-drunk boxer trying to find a neutral corner. Then the twin bows came around, and the boat straightened out, gained speed, and assumed a trajectory aimed at the yacht’s midships. The captain waited for the boat to veer off. It kept coming. Alarmed, he calmly excused himself, stepped aside, and whipped a walkie talkie from his belt. His mental computer was calculating how long it would take the gold boat to hit them.

 

“This is the captain,” he barked into the hand radio. “Get this ship under way!”

 

“Now, sir? During the race?”

 

“Are you deaf. Weigh anchor and move this ship out. Now. “

 

“Move? Where sir?”

 

They had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting under way in time, and his helmsman wanted to play twenty questions.

 

“Forward,” he shouted, close to panic. “Just move it!”

 

Even as he barked the order the captain knew it was too late. The race boat had already cut the distance in half. He started to herd children to the other side of the yacht. Maybe a few lives would be saved, although he doubted it. The wooden hull would shatter into splinters, fuel would be spilled in a fiery conflagration, and the yacht would go to the bottom within minutes. As the captain grabbed onto a wheelchair with a little girl in it and pushed her across the deck, he yelled at others to do the same. Too frozen by fear to react, Ekhart saw the gold torpedo speeding toward them and instinctively did the only thing she could. She put her arm protectively around her daughter’s thin shoulders and held her tight.

 

Chapter 2

Austin was not surprised to see Ali’s boat go out of control. Ali was begging for a flip or a hook. It was the nature of the accident that puzzled Austin. The Flying Carpet veered sharply in a sloshing, foamy skid, then, living up to its name, went airborne with one side higher than the other, like a stunt car doing a two-wheeler off a low ramp. The catamaran flew bow-first for several boat lengths, landed with a monumental splash, vanished for a moment, then bobbed to the surface right-side up.   

Austin and Zavala had found that a speed just under a hundred miles per hour kept them ahead of the pack but was slow enough to deal with changing water and wind conditions. The sea was a mix of small and moderate waves, some longer than others but most crested with white foam. Not exactly Force 12 on the Beau fort scale but nothing to ignore. They kept a sharp eye out for the sudden buildup of an errant sea that could trip them up again.   

Zavala had brought the Red Ink around in a wide, sweeping curve and pointed the bows toward Ali’s boat to see if he needed help. As the boat topped a wave and slid down the other side, Zavala swerved sharply to avoid a gray object longer than the race boat. The boat did a seam-stretching giant slalom run around three more large slate-colored mounds.   

“Whales!” Zavala shouted with excitement. “They’re every where.”

 

   Austin reduced their speed by half. They passed another lifeless carcass and a smaller one nearby that could have been a calf. “Gray whales,” he said with wonder. “A whole pod of them.”  

 “They don’t look healthy,” Zavala said.    

“Not healthy for us, either,” Austin said, backing off the throttles. “It’s like a minefield out here.”   

 Ali’s boat had been slithering aimlessly around in the waves, the propeller chewing at air. The bows rose suddenly, the stern sank, the blades bit hungrily into the water, and the Flying Carpet was off like a jackrabbit spooked by a hunting dog. It accelerated rapidly, quickly coming up on plane, and headed toward the spectator fleet.    

“Macho hombre!” Zavala said with admiration. “Bounces off a whale and goes to shake hands with his fans.”    

Austin also thought Ali was taking a bow. Ali’s boat streaked across the open water like a gold arrow homing in on a bull’s eye. With his eye Austin drew an invisible line on the water, ex tending the Flying Carpet’s course until it intersected with a big white boat that was anchored broadside to the race chute. The graceful lines identified the vessel as an old luxury yacht. Austin noted with appreciation how the designers had blended form and function in the wooden hull. He glanced again at Ali’s boat. It was moving faster, continuing toward the yacht in an undeviating line.    

Why haven’t they stopped or turned away?   

Austin knew a race boat’s hull was tougher than nails, but the rudders and the connecting tie bar were exposed. If the bar had been bent, the rudders could have been locked in place. Well, so what? Even if the steering were locked, all the crew had to do was shut down the engines. And if the throttle man couldn’t do it, the racer could use the kill switch activated by an arm cord. The boat had struck the whale a glancing blow, but the impact still would have been severe, even worse when it slammed down onto the water. It would have been like hitting cement. Even with helmets and restraining harnesses, Ali’s team

might have been shaken up, at the very least, or, worse, incapacitated. He looked back at the yacht and saw the young faces lining the decks. Good God! Kids. The yacht was full of kids.

There was a flurry of activity on deck. They had seen the on coming race boat. The yacht’s anchor was coming out of the water, but the boat would have to sprout wings to avoid a disastrous collision.   

“It’s going to hit!” Zavala said, more in wonder than in apprehension.    Austin’s hand seemed to move by itself, the fingertips pushing down on the throttles. Engines roaring, the Red Ink lurched forward as if it were a racehorse stung by a bee. The acceleration caught Zavala by surprise, but he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pointed the Red Ink at the runaway boat. Their ability to intuit what the other was thinking had saved their skin more than once while carrying out a NUMA assignment. Austin slammed the throttles forward. The catamaran came up on plane and streaked across the open water. They were going twice the speed of the Carpet, coming in at an angle. Interception was only seconds away.   

“Keep us parallel and come up alongside,” Austin said. “When I yell, nudge him to starboard.”   

Austin’s brain synapses danced with enough electrical energy to light up a city. The Red Ink went up the side of. a wave, flew through the air, and came down with a jaw-jarring splash. The yacht was moving slowly forward. This would give them a slight increase in the margin of error, but not much.   

The two boats were almost side by side. Zavala displayed his incredible skill as a pilot, bringing the Red Ink closer despite the waves from the broadening wake. Austin let them overtake the Ca7pet, move past it, then slowly pulled back on the throttles to match the speed of the other boat. They were only yards apart.    Austin had slipped into the nether land between intellect and action, pure reflex, his every sense at full alert. The ear-splitting thunder of four powerful engines drowned out attempts at rational thought. He had become one with the Red Ink, his muscles and sinews joined with the steel and Kevlar, as much a part of the boat as the pistons and driveshaft. The boats were out of sync, one up when the other was down. Austin fine-tuned the Red Ink’s speed until they were like two dolphins swimming abreast in perfect formation.

Up.

Down.

Up.

“Now!” he yelled.   

The space between the racing boats narrowed to inches. Zavala eased the steering wheel to the right. It was a delicate maneuver. If it were done too sharply, they would hook hulls and possibly flip into the air in a lethal tangle. There was a loud hollow thump and a screech of tortured carbon composite as the hulls came together, then bounced apart. Zavala brought the boat over again and held it firmly in position. The wheel wanted to tear itself out of his hands.   

Austin gunned the throttles. The sound of the engines was horrendous. Again the boats crashed. It was like trying to herd a very large and powerful steer. Eventually the F~7ing Carpet began to yield its forward momentum and angle off to the right. They drifted apart once more. Warmed to the game, Zavala slammed the boats together. The angle increased.   

“Haul off, Joe!”    Ali’s boat surged ahead on a track that would miss the yacht’s stern and sped toward the flotilla. Boats scattered like dry leaves in a wind. Austin knew that battering Ali’s boat off course would send the Red Ink off like a cue ball in a game of billiards. He hadn’t counted on how long it would take to persuade the Carpet to take a hike. Now he and Joe were hurtling toward the moving yacht with only seconds to spare before they struck it. They could see the horrified expressions of the people on deck. The boat was going seventy-five miles an hour. Even if he shut down the engines, he and Zavala would have to be scraped off the wooden sides of the old boat.

 

“What now?” Zavala yelled. “Stay on course,” Austin shouted.     Zavala swore softly under his breath. He had every confidence in Austin’s ability to get them out of a tight spot, but sometimes his partner’s actions defied all logic. If Zavala thought the order meant certain suicide, he didn’t show it. His every instinct told him to whip the wheel over and take his chances, but he grimly held their insane course as steadily as if the two-hundred-foot boat that filled his vision like a big white wall were nothing but a mirage. He gritted his teeth and tensed his body in preparation for the impact.    

“Duck,” Austin ordered. “Keep your head low. I’m going to stuff it. “    

He bent and gunned the engines at full throttle; at the same time he set the trim tabs and ailerons. A stuff was usually some thing to be avoided. It happens when a boat comes off one wave and burrows into another. The worst type is called a submarine, because that’s what the boat becomes when it goes into a stuff at high speed. Far from avoiding this result, Austin was counting on it happening. He held his breath as the race boat nosed down at a sharp angle, buried its bows in the water, and kept on going, burrowing into the sea like a badger. With the full power of the engines behind it, the Red Ink was transformed from a surface boat into a submersible.    

The boat passed under the moving yacht, but not quite deep enough to prevent its canopies from being ripped off. There was a sickening watery crunch. The whirling propellers missed their heads by inches. Then the catamaran passed under the yacht and emerged on the other side. Exploding from the water like a very large and very red flying fish, it came to a halt as the burbling engines stalled out in a cloud of purple smoke.   

The boat was built with an interior cage that could resist a herd of overweight elephants. The canopies were more vulnerable. Both Plexiglas covers had been completely ripped off. The cockpits were taking in seas as the boat rocked in the waves.

 

   Zavala coughed out a mouthful of seawater. “You okay?” he asked, a stunned look on his dark, handsome face.   

Austin pulled his helmet off to reveal the thick head of platinum, almost white hair. He surveyed the propeller scars on the deck and realized how close they had cut it. “Still among the living,” Austin replied, “but I don’t think the Red Ink was designed to be a convertible.”   

Zavala felt the water around his waist. “Time to abandon ship.”   

“Consider it an order,” Austin said, loosening his harness. They piled out of the boat into the sea. As part of their certification, racers must pass a dunk test. A cabin cruiser came over and hauled them dripping from the water minutes before the Red Ink went to the bottom.   

“What happened to the gold race boat?” Austin asked the cruiser’s owner, a pipe-smoking middle-aged man who had come out of San Diego to watch the race and got more than he bar gained for. He pointed off in the distance with the stem of his pipe. “Over there. The guy plowed right through the fleet. Don’t know how he missed hitting the other boats.”   

“Mind if we check them out?”   

“No problem,” the man said obligingly as he put the wheel over.   

Moments later they pulled up alongside the F7~7ing Carpet. The canopies had been pushed back. Austin saw to his relief that the men inside were alive, although blood streamed down Ali’s head where he’d bashed it, and Hank looked as if he were nursing a bad hangover.  

Austin called out, “Are you injured?”   

“No,” Ali replied, although he didn’t look quite convinced of his own well-being. “What happened?”   

“You hit a whale.”   

“A what?” When he saw Austin’s serious expression, Ali’s face fell. “Guess we didn’t win,” he said glumly.   

“Don’t feel bad,” Austin said. “At least your boat doesn’t lie on the sea floor.”

 

   “Sorry,” Ali said sadly. Then he brightened as a thought hit him. “Then you didn’t win, either.”

   “Au contraire,” Austin said. “All four of us won the prize for being the luckiest men alive.”

   Ali nodded. “Praise Allah,” he said a second before he passed out.

 

Chapter 3

Venezuelan Rain Forest

The Thick Canopy of overhanging tree branches blotted out the sun’s rays, making the black water in the still pool seem deeper than it was. Wishing that she hadn’t read that the Venezuelan government was reintroducing man-eating Orinoco crocodiles into the wild, Gamay Morgan Trout jackknifed her lithe body in a surface dive and with strong kicks of her slender legs descended into the Stygian darkness. This must be how a prehistoric animal felt sinking into the ooze at the La Brea tar pits in California, Gamay thought. She flicked on the twin halogen lights attached to her Stingray video camera and swam down to the bottom. As she passed over the spinachy vegetation that rose and fell in the slight current as if dancing to music, something poked her in the buttocks.   

She whirled around, almost more indignant than scared, her hand going for the sheath knife at her waist. Inches from her face mask was a long, narrow snout attached to a lumpish pink head with small black eyes. The snout waggled back and forth like a scolding finger. Gamay unclenched her hand from the knife hilt and pushed the snout aside.   

“Watch it with that thing!” The sentence streamed out the regulator as a stream of noisy bubbles.   

The thin beak opened in a friendly, sharp-toothed circus clown’s grin. Then the river dolphin’s face rotated so that it was looking at her upside down.

 

   Gamay laughed, the sounds coming out like the gurgles Old Faithful makes before it erupts. Her thumb pressed the valve that allowed air to inflate her buoyancy compensator. Within seconds her head broke the pool’s calm surface like a jack-in-the box. She leaned back into her inflated BC, whipped the plastic mouthpiece from between her teeth, and broke into a wide grin.   

Paul Trout was sitting in his ten-foot Bombard semi-inflatable boat a few yards away. Doing his job as a dive tender, he had followed the foamy air bursts marking his wife’s underwater trail. He was startled to see her emerge from the black water and nonplussed at her mirth. Lips pursed in puzzlement, he lowered his head in a characteristic pose, as if he were peering up over the tops of invisible spectacles.   

“Are you all right?” he said, blinking his large hazel eyes.   

“I’m fine,” Gamay said, although clearly she wasn’t. Her laughter was rekindled by the incredulous expression on Paul’s face. She choked on a mouthful of water. The prospect of drowning from laughter made her laugh even more. She popped the mouthpiece back into her mouth. Paul paddled the inflatable closer, leaned over the side, and offered his hand.  

 “Are you sure you’re okay?”   

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said. She regained her composure and spat out the regulator. After a fit of wet-dog coughs she said, “I’d better come aboard.”   

Clinging to the side of the boat, she handed her dive gear up to Paul, who then reached down and easily lifted her one hundred thirty-five pounds onto the raft. With his tan shorts, matching military-style shirt with epaulets on the shoulders, and floppy brimmed poplin hat, he looked like a Victorian fugitive from the Explorers’ Club. The large tropical butterfly perched below his Adam’s apple was actually one of the colorful bow ties he was addicted to. Trout saw no reason he couldn’t be impeccably dressed anywhere, even in the depths of the Venezuelan rain forest where a loincloth is considered going formal. Paul’s foppish attire belied a potent physical strength built up from his days as a fisherman on Cape Cod. The barnacle-hard calluses on his palms were gone, but the muscles from hoisting fish boxes lurked behind the razor-creased clothes, and he knew how to use the leverage of his six-foot-eight body.   

“The depth finder says it’s only thirty feet deep, so your giddiness is not caused by nitrogen narcosis,” he said in his typical analytical way.   

Gamay undid the tie holding back the shoulder-length hair whose dark red color had prompted her wine connoisseur father to name his daughter after the grape of Beaujolais.   

“Insightful observation, my dear,” she said, wringing the water from her tresses. “I was laughing because I thought I was the sneaker when I was really the sneakee.”   

Paul blinked. “What a relief. That certainly clears things know what a sneaker is. Sneakee, on the other hand . . .”   

She flashed a dazzling smile. “Cyrano the dolphin sneaked up and goosed me with his nose.”   

“I don’t blame him.” He leered at her slim-hipped body with a Groucho Marx hike of his eyebrows.   

“Mother warned me about men who wear bow ties and part their hair in the middle.”   

“Did I ever tell you, you look like Lauren Hutton?” he said, puffing on an imaginary cigar. “And that I’m attracted to women with a sexy space between their front teeth?”    “Bet you say that to all the girls,” she said, putting a Mae West huskiness into her voice, which was low and cool by nature. “I did learn something scientific from Cyrano’s little love poke.”   

“That you have a nose fetish?”   

She gave him a no-nonsense lift of her eyebrow. “No, al though I wouldn’t rule it out. I learned that river dolphins may be more primitively developed than their saltwater cousins and more mellow in general than their marine relatives. But they are intelligent and playful and have a sense of humor.”   

“You would need a sense of humor if you were pink and gray, had flippers with discernible fingers on them, a dorsal fin that’s a joke in itself, and a head like a deformed cantaloupe.”   

“Not a bad biological observation for a deep ocean geologist.”

“Glad to be of help.”   

She kissed him again, on the lips this time. “I really appreciate your being here. And for all the work you’ve done computer profiling the river. It’s been a nice change. I’m almost sorry to be going home.”   

Paul looked around at their tranquil surroundings. “I’ve actually enjoyed it. This place is like a medieval cathedral. And the critters have certainly been fun, although I don’t know if I like them taking liberties with my wife.”   

“Cyrano and I have a purely platonic relationship,” Gamay said with a haughty elevation of her chin. “He was just trying to get my attention so I’d give him a treat.”    “A treat?”   

“A fish treat.” She slapped the side of the inflatable several times with a paddle. There was a splash where the lagoon opened into the river. A pinkish-gray hump with a long, low dorsal fin cut a V-shaped ripple in their direction. It circled the boat, emitting a sneezing sound from its blowhole. Gamay scattered fish meal pellets, and the slim beak came out of the water and hungrily snapped them down.   

“We’ve verified those apocryphal stories of dolphins coming on call. I can imagine them helping the locals with their fishing as we’ve heard.”   

“You’ve also proven that Cyrano has done a good job of training you to give him a snack.”   

“True, but these creatures are supposed to be unfinished versions of the saltwater type, so it’s of interest to me that their brains have advanced faster than their physical appearance.”    They watched the circling dolphin with amusement for a few minutes, then, aware that the light was waning, decided to head back.   

While Gamay arranged her gear, Paul started the outboard motor and headed them out of the lagoon onto the slow-moving river. The inky water changed to a strained-pea green. The dolphin kept pace, but when he saw there would be no more treats, he peeled off like a fighter plane. Before long the thick jungle along the river gave way to a clearing. A handful of thatched huts were grouped around a white stucco house with a red tile roof and arcade facade in the Spanish colonial style.   

They tied up at a small pier, hauled their gear from the boat, and walked to the stucco building, trailing a chattering gang of half naked Indian children. The youngsters were shooed away by the housekeeper, a formidable Spanish-Indian woman who wielded a broom like a battle-ax. Paul and Gamay went inside. A silver-haired man in his sixties, wearing a white shirt with an embroidered front, cotton slacks, and handmade sandals, rose from his desk in the coolness of the study where he had been working on a pile of papers. He strode over to greet them with obvious pleasure.   

“Senor and Senora Trout. Good to see you. Your work went well, I trust.”  

 “Very well, Dr. Ramirez. Thank you,” Gamay said. “I had the chance to catalog more dolphin behavior, and Paul wrapped up his computer modeling of the river.”   

“I had very little to do with it, actually,” Paul said. “It was mostly a question of alerting researchers at the Amazon Basin project of Gamay’s work here and asking them to point the LandSat satellite in this direction. I can finish the computer modeling when we get home, and Gamay will use it as part of her habitat analysis.”   

“I’ll be very sorry to see you go. It was kind of the National Underwater & Marine Agency to lend its experts for a small re search project.”   

Gamay said, “Without these rivers and the flora and fauna that grow here, there would be no ocean life.”   

“Thank you, Senora Gamay. As a way of appreciation I have prepared a special dinner for your last night here.”   

“That’s very nice of you,” Paul said. “We’ll pack early so we’ll be ready for the supply boat.”   

“I wouldn’t be too concerned,” he said. “The boat is always late.”   

“Fine with us,” Paul replied. “We’ll have time to talk some more about your work.”

   Ramirez chuckled. “I feel like a troglodyte. I still practice my science of botany the old way, cutting plants, preserving and comparing them, and writing reports nobody reads.” He beamed. “Our little river creatures have never had better friends than you.”    Gamay said. “Perhaps our work will show where the dolphins’ habitat is under environmental threat. Then something can be done about it.”   

He shook his head sadly. “In Latin America, government tends to move slowly unless there is someone’s pocket to be filled. Worthwhile projects sink into the morass.”    “Sounds like home. Our bottomless swamp is named Washington, D.C.”   

They were laughing at their shared joke when the house keeper herded a native into the study. He was short and muscular, wore a loincloth, and had large copper loops in his ears. His jet-black hair was cut in bangs, and his eyebrows had been shaved off. He spoke in respectful tones to the doctor, but his ex cited speech and darting eyes made it clear something had set him off. He kept pointing toward the river. Dr. Ramirez grabbed a broad-brimmed Panama hat from a hook.

 

“There is apparently a dead man in a canoe,” he said. “My apologies, but as the only government representative of any kind within a hundred miles, I must investigate.”

 

“May we come?” Gamay said.

 

“Of course. I am hardly a Sherlock Holmes and would welcome other trained scientific eyes. You may find this of inter est. This gentleman says the dead man is a ghost-spirit.” Noting the puzzled reaction of his guests, he said, “I’ll explain later.”

 

They hustled from the house and walked quickly past the huts to the edge of the river. The men of the village were gathered silently near the water. Children were trying to peek through their legs. The women stayed back. The gathering parted as Dr. Ramirez approached. Tied up to the dock was an ornately carved dugout canoe. The dugout was painted white except for the bow, which was blue, and a blue stripe that extended from the front to the back.

 

The body of a young Indian man lay on his back inside the canoe. Like the village Indians, he had black hair cut in bangs and he wore only a loincloth. The resemblance ended there. The village men tattooed their bodies or dabbed crimson paint on their high cheekbones to protect them from evil spirits who supposedly cannot see the color red. The dead man’s nose and chin were painted in a pale blue that extended down his arms. The rest of his body was a stark white. When Dr. Ramirez leaned into the canoe his shadow startled the green-bottle flies clustered on the dead man’s chest, and they buzzed off to reveal a gaping circular hole.

 

Paul sucked his breath in. “That looks like a gunshot wound.”

 

“I think you’re right,” Dr. Ramirez said, a serious look in his deep-set eyes. “It doesn’t resemble any spear or arrow wound I’ve ever seen.”

 

He turned to the villagers and after a few minutes of conversation translated for the Trouts.

 

“They say they were out fishing when the canoe came floating on the river. They recognized it from the color as a ghost spirit boat and were afraid. It appeared to be empty so they came alongside. They saw the dead man in the canoe and thought they would simply let the boat go on its way. Then they thought better of it, because his spirit might come back to haunt them for not giving him a decent burial. So they brought him here and made him my problem.”

 

“Why would they be afraid of this . . . ghost-spirit?” Gamay asked.

 

The doctor tweaked the end of his bushy gray mustache. “The Chulo, which is the local name for the tribe this gentleman belongs to, are said to live beyond the Great Falls. The natives say they are ghosts who were born of the mists. People who have gone into their territory have never come out.” He gestured to ward the canoe. “As you can see, this gentleman is flesh and

blood like the rest of us.” He reached into the canoe and pulled out a bag made of flayed animal skin that was lying next to the corpse. The village natives backed away as if he were brandishing a sack full of black plague. He spoke in Spanish to one of the Indians, who became more animated the longer they talked.

 

Ramirez abruptly ended the conversation and turned to the Trouts. “They are afraid of him,” he said, and indeed, the village men were drifting back to their families. “If you would be so kind, we will haul the boat onto shore. I persuaded them to dig a hole, but not in their own cemetery. Over there, on the other side of the river, where nobody goes anyhow. The shaman has assured them that he can place enough totems on the grave to keep the dead man from wandering.” He smiled. “Having the body so near will give the shaman more power. When something goes wrong with his spells he can always say the dead man’s spirit has returned. We will send the boat off by itself down the river, and the spirit will be allowed to follow it.”

 

Paul eyed the canoe’s fine workmanship. “Seems a shame to waste such a beautiful example of boat building. Anything to keep the peace.” He grabbed one end of the canoe. With the three people pulling and pushing, they soon had it up on the shore away from the river. Ramirez covered the body with a woven blanket from the canoe. Then he retrieved the sack, which was about the size of a golf bag and tied with thongs at the open end.

 

“Perhaps this will tell us more about our ghost,” he said, leading the way back to the house. They went into the study and placed the bag on a long library table. He untied the thongs, opened the bag gingerly, and peered inside. “We must be careful. Some of the tribes use poisoned arrows or blowgun darts.” He lifted the bottom of the sack, and several smaller bags slid out onto the desk. He opened one and extracted a shiny metal disk that he handed to Gamay. “I understand you studied archaeology before you became a biologist. Perhaps you know what this is.”

 

Gamay furrowed her brow as she examined the flat, round object. “A mirror? It appears that vanity is not confined to women.”

 

Paul took the mirror from her hand and turned it over to ex amine the markings on the back. A smile crossed his face. “I had one of these when I was a kid. It’s a signal mirror. Look, these are dots and dashes. This isn’t like any Morse code I know, but it’s not bad. See these little stick figures? A basic code. Guy running one way means come, facing the other direction is go, I’d guess. Here’s someone lying down.”

 

“Stay where you are,” Gamay ventured.

 

 “My guess, too. These two fellows with spears might mean join me to fight. Little guy and the animal could stand for hunt.” He chuckled. ‘ Almost as good as a cell phone.”

 

 “Better,” Gamay said. “It doesn’t use batteries or cost you per minute.”

 

 Paul asked Ramirez if he could open another bag, and the Spaniard gladly assented.

 

 “Fishing kit,” Trout said. “Metal hooks, fiber line. Hey,” he said, examining a crude pair of metal pincers. “Bet this is a pair of pliers for pulling hooks out.”

 

 “I’ve got you beat,” Gamay said, emptying another bag and pulling out a connected pair of small wooden circles with dark transparent surfaces filling their openings. She attached the apparatus to her ears with fiber hoops. “Sunglasses.”

 

 Not to be outdone, Ramirez also had been poking through bags. He held a gourd about six inches long, unplugged the wooden top, and sniffed. “Medicine perhaps? It smells like alcohol.”

 

 Hanging from the bottom was a miniature bowl and a wooden handle with a flat piece of stone and an irregular wheel on a rotating axis. Paul stared thoughtfully at the gourd, then took it from the other man. He filled the dish with the liquid, brought the wooden device near, and flicked the wheel. It scraped across the stone and emitted sparks. The liquid ignited with a poof.

 

 “Voila,” he said with obvious satisfaction. “The very first Bic cigarette lighter. Handy for starting a campfire, too.”

 

 

 More interesting discoveries followed. One bag held herbs Ramirez identified as medicinal plants including some he had never seen. In another was a slim, flat piece of metal, pointed at both ends. When they placed it on a glass of water it swung around until one end pointed toward the magnetic north. They found a bamboo cylinder. When held to the eye the glass lenses imbedded inside offered about an eight-power telescopic magnification. There was a knife that folded into a slim wooden case. Their last find was a short bow made from overlapping strips of metal like a car spring and curved to provide maximum pull for an arrow. The bowstring was of thin metal cable. It was hardly the primitive design one would expect to find in the rain forest. Ramirez ran his hand over the polished metal.

 

“Amazing,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The bows the villagers use are simple dowels pulled back and tied with a crude bowstring.”

 

“How did he learn how to make these things?” Paul said, scratching his head.

 

Gamay said, “It’s not just the objects themselves but the material they are made of. Where did it come from?”

 

They stood around the table in silence.

 

“There is a more important question,” Ramirez said somberly. “Who killed him?”

 

“Of course,” Gamay said. “We were so overwhelmed by his technical accomplishments that we forgot that these objects be long to a dead human being.”

 

“Do you have any idea who might have murdered him?” Paul asked.

 

A dark cloud descended on Ramirez’s brow. “Poachers. Wood cutters and burners. The latest are men who collect valuable plants for medicine. They would kill anyone who got in their way.”

 

“How could a lone Indian be a threat?” Gamay asked.

 

Ramirez shrugged.

 

Gamay said, “I think that in a murder investigation you are supposed to start with the corpse.”

 

“Where did you hear that?” Paul said. “I may have read it in a detective novel.” “Good advice. Let’s take another look.”

 

They walked back to the river and uncovered the body. Paul rolled it over onto its stomach. The smaller entry wound indicated that the man had been shot in the back. Trout gently re moved a carved pendant from around his neck. It showed a winged woman holding her hands in front of her as if she were pouring from them. He passed it to Gamay, who said the figure reminded her of Egyptian engravings of the rebirth of Osiris.

 

Paul was taking a closer look at the reddish welts on the dead man’s shoulders. “Looks like he’s been whipped.” He rolled the body onto its back again. “Hey, check out this strange scar,” he said, indicating a pale thin line on the Indian’s lower abdomen. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he had his appendix out.”

 

Two dugouts arrived from across the river. The shaman, whose head was adorned with a brilliant crown of feathers, announced that the grave was ready. Trout covered the dead body with the blanket, and, with Gamay at the tiller, they used the inflatable to tow the blue-and-white canoe to the other side. Trout and Ramirez carried the body a few hundred yards into the forest and buried it in the shallow hole. The shaman surrounded the grave with what looked like various dried chicken parts and solemnly warned the assemblage that the spot would be forever taboo. Then they towed the empty canoe to midstream, where the current would catch it, and set the dugout adrift.

 

“How far will it go?” Paul asked as they watched the blue and-white craft wheel slowly on its final journey.

 

“There are rapids not far from here. If it isn’t broken up on the rocks or caught in the weeds, it could continue on to the sea.”

 

“Ave atque vale,” Trout said, quoting the old Roman salute to the dead. “Hail and farewell.”

 

They went back across the river. As Ramirez was climbing from the inflatable, he slipped on the wet bank.

 

“Are you all right?” Gamay said.

 

Ramirez grimaced with pain. “You see, the evil spirits have already begun their work. I’ve apparently twisted something. I’ll put a cold compress on it, but I may require your assistance to walk.”

 

He limped back to the house with a hand from the Trouts. Ramirez said he would report the incident to the regional authorities. He didn’t expect a response. A dead Indian was still considered a good Indian by many in his country.

 

“Well,” he said, brightening. “What is done is done. I look forward to our dinner tonight.”

 

The Trouts went back to their room to rest and clean up for dinner. Ramirez collected rainwater in a roof cistern and channeled it into a shower. Gamay had evidently been thinking about the Indian. As she toweled off she said, “Do you remember the Ice Man they found in the Alps?”

 

Paul had slipped into a silk bathrobe and was stretched out on the bed with his hands behind his head. “Sure. Stone Age guy who got freeze-dried in a glacier. What about him?”

 

“By looking at the tools and possessions he carried it was possible to picture his way of life. The Indians around here are at a Stone Age level. Our blue-faced friend doesn’t fit the mold. How did he learn to make those things? If we had found those tools on the Ice Man, it would be in every newspaper headline. I can see it now: ‘Ice Man Flicks a Bic.’ “

 

“Maybe he subscribes to Popular Mechanics.”

 

“Maybe he gets Boy’s Life, too, but even if he got instructions every month on how to make neat stuff, where would he get re fined metals to make them with?”

 

“Perhaps Dr. Ramirez can enlighten us at dinner. I hope you’re hungry,” Paul said. He was staring out the window.

 

“I’m starved. Why?”

 

“I just saw a couple of natives carrying a tapir to the barbecue pit.”

 

Chapter 4

As Austin stepped through the big bay door into the cavernous building at the San Diego naval station, his nostrils were assaulted by a hell smell emanating from the three leviathans whose floodlit carcasses were laid out on flatbed trailers. The young sailor standing just inside the door had seen the broad-shouldered man with the strange white hair approach and assumed from his commanding presence that he was an officer in mufti. When Austin went to identify himself, the sailor snapped to attention.

 

“Seaman Cummings, sir,” the seaman said. “You might want to use this.” He offered Austin a surgical mask similar to the one he was wearing. “The smell has gotten real strong since they started pulling out the vital organs.” Austin thanked the seaman, wondering whom he had offended to pull such foul duty, and slipped the mask over his nose. The gauze had been sprinkled with a perfumed disinfectant that didn’t quite cut the strong odor but subdued the gag reflex.

 

“What have we got?” Austin said.

 

“A mama, a papa, and a baby,” the sailor said. “Boy, what a time we had getting them here.”

 

The seaman wasn’t exaggerating, Austin thought. The final count was fourteen whales. Disposing of their bodies would have been a tall order even without the turf battles. As the first government agency to arrive on the scene, the Coast Guard was

worried about hazards to navigation and planned to tow the whales out to sea and sink them with gunfire. The highly dramatic TV reports had gone around the world and stirred up animal rights activists who were angrier over the whale deaths than if Los Angeles had fallen into the Pacific Ocean with all its in habitants. They wanted answers, fast. The Environmental Protection Agency was equally curious to know what had killed mammals that were under EPA protection.

 

The city of San Diego was horrified at the prospect of huge, smelly carcasses drifting up to its beaches, marinas, seaside hotels, and shorefront houses. The mayor called the district congressman who happened to be on the naval appropriations committee, and a compromise was reached with amazing speed. Three whales would be brought to shore for necropsy. The others would be towed out to sea and used for target practice. Greenpeace protested, but by the time they mobilized their mosquito fleet, the whales had been blasted to blubbery smithereens by navy gunners.

 

In the meantime an oceangoing tug hauled the remaining whales to the base. Navy cranes lifted the massive bodies from the water in improvised slings, and they were transported to a vacant warehouse. Mammalian forensic specialists from several California universities went to work as soon as the whales were delivered. An improvised laboratory was set up. Dressed in foul weather gear, gloves, and boots, the technicians swarmed around and on top of the carcasses like large yellow insects.

 

The head of each animal had been separated from its body, brain tissue removed and taken to the dissecting tables for tests. Wheelbarrows served the function of stainless steel trays in a human autopsy.

 

“Not exactly brain surgery, is it?” Austin observed as he listened to the buzz of power saws echoing off the metal walls of the warehouse.

 

“No, sir,” the sailor said. “And I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

 

“Let’s hope it’s soon, sailor.”

 

Austin pondered why he had left his comfortable hotel room for this ghoulish watch. If the race hadn’t been a flop, win or lose he would have been guzzling champagne in celebration with the other racers and the coterie of lovely women who hovered around the race circuit like beautiful butterflies. A respectable number of bottles were popped, but the festivities had been dampened for Kurt and Ali and their crews.

 

Ali showed up with an Italian model on one arm and a French mademoiselle on the other. Even so, he didn’t look particularly happy. Austin elicited a smile when he told the Arab he looked forward to competing against him again soon. Zavala up held his reputation as a ladies’ man by carving a chestnut-haired beauty from the field of groupies on hand for the race finale. They were going out for dinner, where Zavala promised to regale his date with the details of his narrow escape.

 

Austin stayed long enough to be polite, then left the party to phone the owner of the Red Ink. Austin’s father was expecting his call. He had watched the race finale on TV and knew Austin was safe and the boat lay at the bottom of the ocean.

 

The elder Austin was the wealthy owner of a marine salvage company based in Seattle. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll build another one, even better. Maybe with a periscope next time.” Chuckling evilly, he recounted in loving and unnecessary detail the night a teenage Austin had brought his father’s Mustang convertible home with a crumpled fender.

 

Most grand prix races were held in and around Europe, but Austin’s father wanted an American-built boat to win in American waters. He paid for the design and construction of a fast new boat he called the Red Ink because of the money it cost him and put together a top-notch pit crew and support team. His father put it with his typical bluntness: “Time we kick ass. We’re gonna build a boat that shows these guys that we can win with American parts, American know-how, and an American driver, You. “

 

He formed a conglomerate of sponsors and used their economic clout to bring a major race to the States. Race promoters were eager for the opportunity to tap into the vast potential of

the American audience, and before long the first SoCal Grand Prix had become a reality.

 

NUMA director Admiral James Sandecker grumbled when Austin told him he wanted to work around assignments, when ever possible, so he could race in the qualifying runs. Sandecker said he was worried about Austin being injured in a race. Austin had politely pointed out that for all its dangers, racing was a canoe paddle compared with the hazardous jobs Sandecker as signed him to as leader of NUMA’s Special Assignments Team. As a trump card he played on the admiral’s fierce patriotic pride. Sandecker gave Austin his blessing and said it was about time the United States showed the rest of the world that they could compete with the best of them.

 

Austin returned to the party after talking to his father. He quickly tired of the false hilarity and was happy to be invited aboard the Nepenthe to meet Gloria Ekhart, who wanted to thank him. The actress’s mature warmth and beauty enchanted him. When they shook hands she didn’t let go right away. They talked awhile and maintained eye contact that sent messages of mutual interest. Austin briefly entertained the fantasy of having a fling with someone he’d idolized on the big and little screens. It was not to be. Apologizing profusely, Ekhart was dragged off by the demands of her children.

 

Figuring it just wasn’t his day Austin went back to the hotel and answered calls from NUMA colleagues and friends. He had dinner sent up and enjoyed filet mignon as he watched TV re runs of the race. The stations were running slow-motion replays again and again. Austin was more interested in the fate of the dead whales. One reporter mentioned that three whales were going to be examined at the naval station. Austin was curious as well as bored. From what he had heard and seen the whales didn’t have a mark to indicate what killed them. The incompleteness of the situation went beyond the loss of his father’s boat. It rankled his sense of orderliness.

 

The autopsy seemed to be winding down. Austin asked the seaman to take his NUMA business card to someone in charge.

 

The seaman returned with a sandy-haired man in his forties who stripped off his blood-soaked foul-weather gear and gloves but kept his surgical mask on.

 

“Mr. Austin,” he said, extending his hand. “Jason Witherell EPA. Pleasure to meet you. Glad to have NUMA interested. We might need to utilize your resources.”

 

“We’re always ready to help the EPA,” Austin said. “My interest is more personal than official. I was in the race today when the whales made their appearance.”

 

“I saw the news clips.” Witherell laughed. “That was one hell of a maneuver you pulled off. Sorry about your boat.”

 

“Thanks. I was wondering, have you come up with a cause of death?”

 

“Sure, they died of DORK.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

Witherell grinned. “Don’t Really Know. DORK.”

 

Austin smiled patiently. He knew pathologists sometimes cultivated a zany sense of humor to help maintain their sanity.

 

“Any guesses?”

 

Witherell said, ‘As far as we can determine for now, there was no evidence of trauma or toxin, and we’ve tested tissue for virus. Negative so far. One whale had become entangled in a monfilament fishing net, but it doesn’t seem to have prevented the animal from eating or harmed it in any fatal way.”

 

“So at least for now you don’t have a clue how they died?”

 

“Oh sure, we know how. They suffocated. There was heavy lung damage that caused pneumonia. The lungs seem to have been damaged by intense heat.”

 

“Heat? I’m not sure I follow you.”

 

“I’ll put it this way. They were partially cooked internally, and their skin was blistered as well.”

 

“What could have done something like that?”

 

“DORIC,” Witherell said with a shrug of his shoulders.

 

Austin pondered the answer. “If you don’t know what, how about when?”

 

“That’s tough to pinpoint. The initial exposure might not

have been instantly fatal. The mammals could have become ill several days before their deaths but continued to make their way along the coast. The little ones would have been the sickest, and maybe the adults waited for them. You’d have to factor in the time it would take for the body to decompose and for the putrefaction gases to bloat them up where they’d surface in the race course.”

 

“So if you backtracked you might be able to determine where they were when they died. You’d have to consider traveling and feeding time and currents of course.” He shook his head. “Too bad the whales can’t tell us where they’ve been.”

 

Witherell chuckled. “Who says they can’t tell us? C’mon, I’ll show you.”

 

The EPA man led the way past the flatbeds around the puddles of bloody water being hosed into drains. The smell was like a sledgehammer this close to the dead whales, but Witherell didn’t seem to be bothered.

 

“This is the male,” he said, stopping by the first carcass. “You can see why they’re called gray whales. The skin is naturally dark, but it’s blotched from barnacle scars and whale lice. He’s a bit chopped up now. When we first measured him he was forty one feet.” They walked to the next flatbed which held a miniaturized version of the first whale. “This calf is also a male, born just a few months ago. There were other calves so we don’t know if it belonged to the female.” They had paused before the last flatbed. “She’s bigger than the male. Like the others, she’s got no outward signs of any bruise or laceration that might be fatal. This is what might interest you.” He borrowed a knife from a colleague, climbed onto the flatbed, and bent over the whale’s fin. After a minute he hopped down and handed Austin a flat square packet of metal and plastic.

 

“A transponder?” Austin said.

 

Witherell pointed up. “This old girl’s every move was being tracked by satellite. Find out who’s been keeping an eye on her, and that person should be able to tell you where she has been and when.”

 

“You’re a genius, Mr. Witherell.”

 

“Only a humble government servant like you, trying to do my job.” He hefted the transponder. “I’ll have to hold on to this thing, but there’s a number to call on the back.”

 

Austin jotted the number down in a small notebook and thanked the pathologist for his help.

 

As Witherell escorted him back to the door, Austin said, “By the way, how’d you choose these particular whales?”

 

“It was done pretty much by chance. I asked the Navy to cut three representative animals out of the batch. I guess there was somebody on board who actually listened to my request.”

 

“Do you think you would have been more likely to find a cause of death if you had a chance to autopsy the other corpses?”

 

“I doubt it,” Witherell said flatly. “What killed these whales killed the others that were towed away. It’s a bit late for that anyhow. From what I understand, after the Navy got through with them there wasn’t enough left of the other animals for a plate of sushi.”

 

More autopsy humor. Tossing his surgical mask into a barrel, Austin took a last look at the butchered carcasses that were the sad remains of once magnificent sea creatures. He thanked Witherell and Seaman Cummings and stepped out into the fresh night air. He gulped in several deep breaths, as if he could purge his memory as well as his lungs of the rank smell. Across the harbor sparkled the city-like lights of an aircraft carrier. He drove back to the hotel and walked quickly through the lobby, but not fast enough to avoid a few nose wrinkles from the staff and guests who had picked up the stench of death.

 

Back in his room Austin threw the khakis and dress shirt he’d been wearing into a laundry bag. He took a long, hot shower, shampooed twice, and changed into slacks and a golf shirt. Then he settled into a comfortable chair, picked up the phone, and dialed the number marked on the transponder. As he expected he was connected to voice mail. The government wouldn’t pay someone to sit around and wait for news of a meandering whale. It might take days before someone answered his call. He left no message and instead called a twenty-four-hour desk at NUMA headquarters outside Washington and put in a request. The phone rang about a half hour later.

 

“Mr. Austin? My name is Wanda Perelli. I’m with the Interior Department. Someone called from NUMA and said you were looking for me. They said it was important.”

 

“Yes, thanks for calling. I’m sorry to bother you at home. You heard about the gray whales off California?”

 

“Yes. I was wondering how you got my number.”

 

“It was on a transponder attached to the fin of a female whale.”

 

“Oh dear, that was Daisy. It was her pod. I’ve been tracking her for three years. She’s almost like a relative.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that. There were fourteen whales in all. She was one of those picked at random.”

 

She sighed loudly. “This is terrible news. We’ve tried so hard to protect the grays, and they’ve really been making a comeback. We’re waiting for a forensics report on cause of death.”

 

“I came from the necropsy a little while ago. Apparently there was no sign of a virus or pollutant. The whales died from lung damage caused by intense heat. Have you ever heard of such a thing happening?”

 

“No. Never. Does anyone know the source of this heat?”

 

“Not yet. I thought it might shed some light on the incident if we knew where the whales had been recently.”

 

“I’m pretty familiar with Daisy’s pod. Their migration is re ally quite remarkable. They make a ten-thousand-mile round trip. They feed all summer in the Arctic seas, then head south along the Pacific Coast to the breeding lagoons in Baja California, Mexico. They start moving around November and December and get there early the following year. The pregnant females lead the way, then the mature adults and the juveniles, in single file or in pairs. They go pretty close to the shoreline. They start back north in March. The whales with calves may wait until April. Again they follow the coastline closely on the

way north. They go real slow, about ten miles an hour on the average.”

 

“There was a briefing before the boat race. We were told to keep a watch for whales, but the race had been scheduled after the last pod had passed. As far as anyone knew there were no whales in the vicinity.”

 

“The only thing I can think of is that they were stragglers. Maybe one of the calves became sick and they dallied some where until the calves were well.”

 

“The pathologist had the same theory. Would you have kept track of their migration?”

 

“Yes. Do you have access to a laptop computer?”

 

“Wouldn’t be without it.”

 

“Good. Give me your e-mail address. I’ll tap into the data base and get the information to you at light speed.”

 

“Thank you. Can’t ask for better service than that.”

 

“You might get the chance to pay me back if we call on NUMA for help.”

 

“Call me personally, and we’ll do what we can.”

 

“Thanks. Oh, God, I still can’t believe it about Daisy.”

 

Austin hung up, opened his IBM laptop computer, and hooked it up to the telephone. After fifteen minutes passed he opened his e-mail file. A map of the western U.S., Canada, and Alaska appeared. A dotted line ran down from the Chukchi Sea, through the Bering Sea, then along the coast of North America to the tip of the fingerlike Baja Peninsula. The map was labeled “General Whale Migration Route.”

 

Attached to the map was specific information on actual pods. Austin scrolled down until he found the file name “Daisy.” The file linked to a map showing the exact route of the Daisy pod. The pod had made steady progress, then had stopped off the Baja coast south of Tijuana. After a pause they started north again, moving slower than before. At one point they looped around as if they were disoriented. He followed their tortuous path until it stopped off San Diego.

 

Austin exited the whale file and called up several other sites.

 

After a few minutes he sat back in his chair and tapped his fingertips together. The whales were migrating normally until they reached a certain area. Then something changed. He was pondering what he should do when he heard somebody at the door. Zavala. “Home from your date so soon?”

 

“Yeah, I told her I had to get back to check on my sick room mate.”

 

Austin looked alarmed. “You didn’t bump your head today, did you?”

 

“I must admit going under a boat was a unique experience. I’ll never look at the nautical rules of the road in the same light again.”

 

“Well, for your information I feel fine, so you can go back and pick up where you left off.”

 

Zavala flopped down onto the sofa. “You know something, Kurt, there are times when one has to show some restraint.”

 

Austin wondered if a Zavala clone, stripped of its sexual drive, had walked into the room. “I agree wholeheartedly,” he said with caution. “Now tell me the real reason.”

 

“She broke Zavala’s rule. I don’t go out with married women.”

 

“How did you know she was married?”

 

“Her husband told me so.”

 

“Oh. Was he big?”

 

“Slightly smaller than a cement truck.”

 

“Well, restraint was an especially wise decision in that case.”

 

Joe nodded, unconvinced. “God, she was beautiful,” he said with a sigh. “What have you been up to?”

 

“I went to a whale necropsy.”

 

‘And I thought I was having a bad time. There must be more fun things to do in San Diego.”

 

“I’m sure there are, but I was curious about what killed those whales.”

 

“Did they find a cause?”

 

“Their lungs were damaged by heat, and they died of pneumonia.”

 

“Strange,” Zavala said.

 

“I thought so. Look at this map on my computer. I got it through a NOAA weather satellite. It shows the water temperature of the ocean. See that little red bump in the water off the Baja? Sudden temperature change.”

 

“You’re saying our whales became sick shortly after they passed this area of warm temperature?”

 

“Maybe. But I’m more interested in what caused that change. “

 

“1 think you’re about to suggest a trip south of the border.”

 

 “I could use an interpreter. Paul and Gamay won’t be back in Arlington for a few days.”

 

 “No problemo. It’s important for me to stay in touch with my Mexican roots.”

 

 He got up and started for the door.

 

 “Where are you going?” Austin said.

 

Zavala looked at the clock. “The night is young. Two devilishly handsome and eligible bachelors sitting in their room talking about dead whales and hot water. Not healthy, amigo. I saw a beautiful woman in the lounge as I passed by. She looks as if she could use company.”

 

“I thought you were giving women up.”

 

‘A momentary delusion caused by my injuries. Besides, I think she had a friend,” Zavala said. ‘And there’s a good jazz band playing in the lounge.”

 

Austin’s appreciation for cool jazz came right after his love of beautiful women and fast boats. A tequila and lime juice night cap would taste mighty good. To say nothing about female companionship. He grinned and closed the cover on his laptop computer.

 

Chapter 5

“How do you like your meal?” Dr. Ramirez inquired.

   Paul and Gamay exchanged glances. “It’s wonderful,” Gamay said. Indeed it was, she thought, surprisingly so. She would have to tell St. Julien Perlmutter, naval historian and gourmet, about this exotic dinner. The thin, tender slices of white meat were spiced with local herbs, accompanied by rich, dark gravy and fresh sweet potatoes. Dinner was served with a respectable Chilean white wine. Oh God! She’d been in the jungle so long she had developed a taste for roast tapir. Next she’d be craving howler monkeys.

 

Paul displayed his Yankee bluntness. “I agree. It’s terrific. We’d never guess it would be so good after seeing the men carry that odd-looking beast in from the forest.”

 

Ramirez put his fork down, a puzzled expression on his face. “Beast? The forest-I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

 

“The tapir,” Gamay volunteered hesitantly as she glanced down at her plate.

 

Ramirez looked stunned, then his mustache twitched and he broke out into a deep laugh. He brought his napkin to his lips. “You thought . . .” He started to laugh again. “Excuse me. I am a poor host. Amusing myself at the expense of my guests. But I must assure you that this is not the animal you saw being trundled in from the hunt. I bought a pig from a neighboring village

for this feast.” He made a sour face. “Tapir. I can’t imagine what it is like. Perhaps it’s quite tasty.”

 

Ramirez poured more wine and raised his glass in a toast. “I will miss you, my friends. Your company has been most enjoy able, and we have had many delightful conversations around this table.”

 

“Thank you,” Gamay said. “It has been a fascinating experience for us. Today may have been our most exciting day, how ever.”

 

“Ah, yes, the poor Indian.”

 

Paul shook his head. “I can’t get over the sophisticated nature of all those gadgets he had with him.”

 

Ramirez spread his palms apart. “The People of the Mists are a mysterious tribe.”

 

“What do you know about them?” Gamay said, her scientific curiosity aroused. Before she attained a doctorate in marine biology from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, she had been a marine archaeologist and had taken many anthropology courses during her studies at the University of North Carolina.

 

Ramirez took a sip of wine, nodded with appreciation, and stared off into space as he ordered his thoughts. The buzzing and chirping of millions of tropical insects came through the screened windows, and the concert provided a fitting back ground for tales of the rain forest.

 

After a moment’s reflection, he said, “First you must realize as we sit here in this island of civilization, with our propane gas stove and our electrical generator, that only a few years ago we would have been dead within minutes had we strayed into this part of the forest. Fierce Indians inhabited the area. Head hunting and cannibalism were commonplace. Anyone, whether you were a missionary bringing in the word of God or a hunter searching for animal skins, was regarded as an intruder who must be killed. Only recently have these people been domesticated.”

 

“Except for the Chulo,” Gamay ventured.

 

“Correct. They retreated further into the forest rather than

be pacified. I must confess that I learned more about them today than I knew in the three years I have been living here. I have seriously doubted they even exist. With this tribe you must separate facts from legend. The other Indians avoid the forest beyond the Great Falls. They say people who go into Chulo territory never come out. Their fear, as you saw today, is real. Those are the scant facts.” “And the legend?” Gamay said.

 

“They can make themselves invisible,” Ramirez said with a smile. “They can fly. They can pass through solid obstacles. They are more like ghosts or spirits than men. They can’t be killed by ordinary weapons.”

 

“The bullet hole we saw puts that myth to rest,” Paul said.

 

“It would seem so,” Ramirez agreed. “There is another story, even more intriguing. The tribe is apparently matriarchal. A woman leads it. A goddess, in fact.”

 

“An Amazon?” Gamay suggested.

 

In answer, Ramirez pulled an object from his pocket. It was the pendant that had been hanging around the dead man’s neck. “Perhaps this is our winged goddess. It is said she protects her tribe and that her vengeance is terrible.”

 

“She who must be obeyed,” Gamay said dramatically.

 

“Pardon?”

 

Gamay smiled. “It’s a quote from an adventure story I read when I was young. About a jungle goddess who lived for. thou sands of years without aging.”

 

Paul took the pendant and studied it. “Goddess or not, she didn’t do a very good job of guarding the native we saw.”

 

The older man’s face darkened. “Yes, but at the same time . . .”

 

“Is there something wrong?” Gamay said.

 

“I’m somewhat concerned. One of the village men came to me. He said there were stirrings of trouble in the forest.” “What kind of trouble?” Paul asked. “He didn’t know. Only that it had to do with the murdered Indian.”

 

“In what way?” Gamay asked.

 

“I’m not sure exactly.” He paused. “Creatures are being killed in this forest at this moment. Insects, animals, and birds are constantly involved in a violent struggle for life. Yet out of this bloody chaos there is an equilibrium.” His deep-set eyes seemed to grow even darker. “I fear that the killing of the Indian has disturbed this balance.”

 

“Maybe the Amazon goddess is about to wreak her revenge,” Paul said, handing the medallion back.

 

Ramirez swung the pendant back and forth on its thong as if he were Svengali using it as a hypnotic device. ‘~As a man of science, I must deal with the facts. It is a fact that someone out there has a gun and has no hesitation about using it. Either the Indian strayed out of his territory or someone with a gun invaded it.”

 

“Do you have any thoughts on who this person might be?” Gamay asked.

 

“Perhaps. Do you know anything about the rubber industry?”

 

Both Trouts shook their heads.

 

“A hundred years ago rubber trees grew only in the Amazon jungle. Then a British scientist stole some seeds to start vast rubber plantations in the east. The same thing is happening now. The shaman who accompanied us on our burial detail today is a bit of a fraud when it comes to chasing out evil demons, but he knows the medicinal value of hundreds of rain forest plants. People come here and say they are scientists, but they are really pi rates looking for herbs that have medicinal properties. They sell the patents to multinational drug companies. Sometimes they work directly for the companies. In either case the companies make fortunes while the natives who have harbored the knowledge get nothing. Even worse, sometimes men come in and take the medicinal plants.”

 

“You think one of these ‘pirates’ tortured and shot the Indian?” Paul asked.

 

“It’s possible. When millions are at stake, the life of a poor

Indian means nothing. Why they shot him, I don’t know. It’s possible he simply saw something he shouldn’t have. These plant secrets have been with the forest inhabitants for generations.” “Is anybody trying to stop these pirates?” Gamay said.

 

“It is a problem. Sometimes government officials are in collusion with the drug companies. The stakes are very high. The governments care little about the indigenous people. They are interested only in how to sell the natives’ genetic knowledge of plants to the highest bidder.”

 

“So the piracy goes unchecked?”

 

“Not quite. The universities are sending teams of true scientists to track down the pirates. They are doing research on plants themselves, but at the same time they talk to the Indians and ask if there have been strangers asking questions. Our neighbors in Brazil have tried to stop the theft of genetic resources in the court. They sued a scientist for cataloging seeds and tree bark the Indians use for cures and charged him with stealing knowledge from indigenous people.”

 

“A difficult charge to make stick,” Paul noted.

 

“Agreed. Brazil is also pushing legislation to protect bio diversity, so we are making progress, but not much. We are talking about taking on drug companies with billions of dollars in re sources. It is not an even match.”

 

A thought occurred to Gamay. “Has your university been involved?”

 

“Yes,” he said. “We have had teams from time to time. But there is little money for full-time police work.”

 

It wasn’t the answer Gamay was looking for, but she didn’t persist. “I wish there was something we could do.”

 

“There is,” Ramirez said with a broad smile. “I would ask a favor. Please feel under no obligation to grant it.”

 

“Try us,” Paul said amiably.

 

“Very well. A few hours’ travel from here there is another settlement on the river. The Dutchman who lives there has no radio. They may have heard about a Chulo being killed. In any event, they should be told, in case there are repercussions.” He stuck his leg out. The ankle was heavily wrapped in a bandage. “I can barely walk. I don’t think there is a break, but it is badly sprained. I was wondering if you could go in my place. You could make a quick trip of it.” “What about the supply boat?” Gamay asked.

 

“It is due late tomorrow as expected. They will lay over for the night. You would be back before it leaves.”

 

“I don’t see why we can’t do it,” Gamay said, stopping short as she caught the quizzical look in her husband’s eye. “If it’s okay with Paul.”

 

“Well-“

 

“Ah, I apologize. My request has created marital discord.”

 

“Oh, no,” Paul reassured him. “It’s simply my New England caution. Of course we’d like to help you.”

 

“Splendid. I will have my men gather supplies for you and fuel my boat. It will be faster on the river than your inflatable. She should make the round trip in the same day.”

 

“I thought you had only dugout canoes in the village,” Gamay said.

 

Ramirez smiled. “They serve most of my needs, yes, but occasionally more efficient transportation is desirable.”

 

She shrugged. “Tell us more about the man you call the Dutchman.”

 

“Dieter is actually German. He’s a trader, married to a native woman. He comes here occasionally, but mostly he sends his men once a month with a list, and we relay it to the supply boat. He is an unsavory character in my opinion, but that is no reason not to warn him of possible danger.” Ramirez paused. “You do not have to do this. These things are really none of your affair, and you are scientists, not adventurers. Especially the beautiful Senora Trout.”

 

“I think we can handle it,” Gamay said, looking at her husband with amusement.

 

She was not speaking with bravado, but as part of the NUMA Special Assignments Team she and Paul had been on any number of dangerous assignments. And as attractive as she was, Gamay was no delicate flower. Back in Racine, Wisconsin, where she was born, she had been a tomboy who ran with a pack of boys and later moved with ease among men.

 

“Well, then, we have an agreement. After dessert we will have a glass of brandy and retire so we can be up at the crack of dawn.”

 

A short while later the Trouts were back in their room getting ready for bed when Gamay asked Paul, “Why were you hesitant about helping Dr. Ramirez?”

 

“Couple of reasons. Let’s start with the fact that this little side trip has nothing to do with our NUMA assignment.”

 

Paul ducked the pillow tossed at his head. “Since when have you gone by the NUMA rule book?” Gamay said.

 

“Like you, whenever it has been convenient. I’ve stretched the rules but never broken them.”

 

“Then let’s just stretch them a little by saying that the river is an integral part of the ocean, therefore any dead person found on it should be investigated by NUMA’s Special Assignments Team. Must I remind you that the team was formed precisely to look into matters nobody else would?”

 

“Not a bad sales pitch, but don’t put too much stock in your powers of persuasion. If you hadn’t suggested looking into this thing, I would have. On similarly flimsy grounds, I might add. I have an aversion to someone getting away with murder.”

 

“So do I. Do you have any idea where we might start?”

 

“Already handled that. Don’t let my taciturn Cape Cod nature deceive you.”

 

“Not in a hundred years, my dear.”

 

“Back to your original question, the reason I hesitated was my surprise. This is the first time Ramirez mentioned his boat. He’s given us the impression he used dugouts. Remember the fuss he made about how great our little putt-putt inflatable was? I was sniffing around one day and found a shed holding an air boat.”

 

She leaned up on one elbow. “An airboat! Why didn’t he say something?”

 

 “I think it’s obvious. He didn’t want anybody to know. I think our friend Ramirez is more complicated than he appears.”

 

“I have the same impression. I think he was being disingenuous about sending us scientific geeks off on a potentially dangerous mission. We’ve told him enough about the Special Assignments Team for him to know what we do when we’re not counting river dolphins. I think he wants NUMA brought into this thing.”

 

“Looks like we’ve played right into his hands, but I’m not sure why he’d be so Machiavellian.”

 

“I’ve got an idea,” Gamay said. “He was talking about the scientists from the university acting as bio police. He is a scientist from a university. He sort of side-slipped the implication.”

 

“I noticed.” Paul stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. “So you think he’s actually a bio cop disguised as a botanist?”

 

“It would make sense.” Gamay paused in thought. “I must confess that the real reason I want to investigate was in those bags we found with the Chulo. I’m intrigued at how a backward Indian got all those high-tech toys, aren’t you?”

 

There was no sound from the other side of the bed except that of low breathing. Paul was exercising his famous talent for dropping off to sleep on command. Gamay shook her head, pulled the sheets over her shoulders, and did the same. They would be up with the sun, and she expected the next day to be a long one.

 

Chapter 6

The Mexican customs agent leaned from his window and checked out the two men in the white Ford pickup truck. They were wearing beat-up shorts and T-shirts, Foster Grant sunglasses, and baseball caps with bait shop logos on them.

 

“Purpose of your visit?” the agent asked the husky man be hind the wheel. The driver jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the fishing rods and tackle boxes in back. “Going fishing.”

 

“Wish I could join you,” the agent said with a smile, and waved them on into Tijuana.

 

As they pulled away, Zavala, who was sitting in the passenger seat, said, “What’s with the Spies Like Us routine? All we had to do was flash our NUMA IDs.”

 

Austin grinned. “This is more fun.”

 

“We’re lucky our clean-cut appearance doesn’t fit the profile for terrorists or drug runners.”

 

“I prefer to think that we’re masters of disguise.” Austin glanced at Zavala and shook his head. “By the way, I hope you brought along your American passport. I wouldn’t want you to get stuck in Mexico.”

 

“No problem. It wouldn’t be the first time a Zavala sneaked across the border.”

 

Zavala’s parents had waded across the Rio Grande in the 1960s from Morales, Mexico, where they were born and raised.

His mother was seven months pregnant at the time. Her condition didn’t stand in the way of her determination to start life with her newborn in El Norte. They made their way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Zavala was born. His father’s skills as a carpenter and woodcarver brought him steady work with the wealthy clients who built their fashionable homes there. The same influential people helped his father when he applied for a green card and later for citizenship.

 

The truck was on loan from the Red Ink’s support team because rental cars couldn’t be taken into Mexico. From their hotel they headed south from San Diego, passing through Chula Vista, the border town that is neither Mexican nor American but a blend of both countries. Once into Mexico they skirted the sprawling slums of Tijuana, then picked up MEX 1, the Carretera Transper linsula highway that runs the full length of Baja California. Past El Rosarita with its concentration of souvenir shops, motels, and taco stands, the commercial honky-tonk began to thin out. Before long the highway was flanked by agricultural fields and bare hills on the left and by the curving emerald bay known as Todos Los Santos. About an hour after leaving Tijuana they turned off at Ensenada.

 

Austin knew the resort and fishing city from the days he crewed in the Newport-Ensenada sailboat race. The unofficial finish was at Hussong’s Cantina, a seedy old bar with sawdust covered floors. Before the new highway brought the tourists and their dollars, Baja California Norte was truly the frontier. In its heyday Hussong’s was a haunt for the colorful local characters and rugged individuals, and the sailors, fishermen, and auto racers who knew Ensenada when it was the last outpost of civilization on the eight-hundred-mile-long Baja peninsula before La Paz. Hussong’s was one of those legendary bars, like Foxy’s in the Virgin Islands or Capt’n Tony’s in Key West, where every body in the world had been. As they stepped inside Austin was heartened to see a few scruffy barflies who might remember the good old days when tequila flowed like a river and the police ran a shuttle service back and forth between the cantina and the local hoosegow.

 

 They sat at a table and ordered huevos rancheros. “Ah, pure soul food,” Zavala said, savoring a bite of scrambled eggs and salsa. Austin had been studying the sad expression on the moose head that had been over the bar for as long as he could recall. Still wondering how a moose got to Mexico, he turned his attention back to the map of the Baja that was spread out on the table in front of him next to the satellite photo showing water temperature.

 

“This is where we’re going,” he said, pointing to the map. “The temperature anomaly is in the vicinity of this cove.”

 

Zavala finished his meal with a smile of pleasure and opened a Baedecker’s guide to Mexico. “It says here that the ballena gris or gray whale arrives off the Baja from December to March to mate and give birth to its young. The whales weigh up to twenty-five tons and run between ten and forty-nine feet long. During mating, one male will keep the female in position while another male-” He winced. “Think I’ll skip that part. The gray was almost exterminated by commercial whaling but was made a protected species in 1947.” He paused in his reading. “Let me ask you something. I know you’ve got a lot of respect for any thing that swims in the sea, but I’ve never thought of you as a whale hugger. Why the big interest? Why not leave this up to the EPA or Fish and Wildlife?”

 

“Fair question. I could say I want to find out what started the chain of events that ended up with the sinking of Pop’s boat. But there’s another reason that I can’t put my finger on.” A thoughtful expression came into Austin’s eyes. “It reminds me of some scary dives I’ve made. You know the kind. You’re swimming along, everything seemingly fine, when the hair rises on the back of your neck, your gut goes ice-cold, and you’ve got a bad feeling you’re not alone, that something is watching you. Something hung7y. “

 

“Sure,” Zavala said contemplatively. “But it usually goes be yond that. I imagine that the biggest, baddest, hungriest shark in the ocean is behind me, and he’s thinking how it’s been a long time since he’s had authentic Mexican food.” He took another bite of his huevos. “But when I look around there’s nothing there, or maybe there’s a minnow the size of my finger who’s been giving me the evil eye.”

 

“The sea is wrapped in mystery,” Austin said with a faraway look in his eyes.

 

“Is that a riddle?”

 

“In a way. It’s a quote from Joseph Conrad. ‘The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.'” Austin tapped the map with his fingertip. “Whales die every day. We lose some to natural causes. Others get tangled in fishing nets and starve to death, or they get nailed by a ship, or we poison them with pollution because some people think it’s okay to use the sea for a toxic waste dump.” He paused. “But this doesn’t fit any of those categories. Even with out interference from humans, nature is always out of kilter, constantly adjusting and readjusting. But it’s not a cacophony. It’s like the improvisation you see with a good jazz group, Ahmad Jamal doing a piano solo, going off on his own, catching up with his rhythm section later.” He let out a deep laugh. “Hell, I’m not making sense.”

 

“Don’t forget I’ve seen your jazz collection, Kurt. You’re saying there’s a sour note here.”

 

“More a universal dissonance.” He thought about it some more. “I like your analogy better. I’ve got the feeling that there’s a big bad-ass shark lurking just out of sight and it’s hungry as hell.”

 

Zavala pushed his empty plate away. “As they say back home, the best time to fish is when the fish are hungry.”

 

“I happen to know you grew up in the desert, amigo,” Austin said, rising. “But I agree with what you’re saying. Let’s go fishing.”

 

From Ensenada they got back on the highway and headed south. As in Tijuana, the commercial sprawl thinned out and vanished and the highway went down to two lanes. They turned off the highway past Maneadero and followed back roads past agricultural fields, scattered farm houses, and old missions, eventually coming into rugged, lonely country with fog-shrouded rolling hills that dropped down to the sea. Zavala, who was navigating, checked the map. “We’re almost there. Just around the corner,” he said.

 

Austin didn’t know what he was expecting. Even so he was surprised when they rounded the curve and he saw a neatly lettered sign in Spanish and English announcing they were at the home of the Baja Tortilla Company. He pulled over to the side of the road. The sign was at the beginning of a long, clay drive bordered with planted trees. They could see a large building at the end of the driveway.

 

Austin leaned on the steering wheel and pushed his Foster Grants up onto his forehead. “You’re sure this is the right spot?”

 

Zavala handed the map over for Austin’s examination. “This is the place,” he said.

 

“Looks like we drove all this way for nothing.”

 

“Maybe not,” Zavala said. “The huevos rancheros were excel lent, and I’ve got a new Hussong’s Cantina T-shirt.”

 

Austin’s eyes narrowed. “Coincidence makes me suspicious. The sign says ‘Visitors Welcome.’ As long as we’re here, let’s take them at their word.”

 

He turned the truck off the highway and drove a few hundred yards to a neatly tended gravel parking lot marked with spaces for visitors. Several cars with California plates and a couple of tour buses were parked in front of the building, a corrugated aluminum structure with a portaled adobe facade and tiled roof in the Spanish style. The smell of baking corn wafted through the pickup’s open windows.

 

“Diabolically clever disguise,” Zavala said.

 

“I hardly expected to see a neon sign that said, ‘Welcome from the guys who killed the whales.’ “

 

“I wish we were toting our guns,” Zavala said with mock gravity. “You never know when a wild tortilla will attack you. I once heard about someone being mauled by a burrito in No gales-”

 

 “Save it for the drive back.” Austin got out of the car and led the way to the ornately carved front door of dark wood.

 

They stepped into a whitewashed reception area. A smiling young Mexican woman greeted them from behind a desk. “Buenos dias,” she said. “You are in luck. The tour of the tortilla factory is just starting. You’re not with a group from a cruise boat?”

 

Austin suppressed a smile. “We’re on our own. We were driving by and saw the sign.”

 

She smiled again and asked them to join a group of senior citizens, mostly Americans and mostly from the Midwest from the sounds of their accents. The receptionist, who also acted as guide, ushered them into the bakery.

 

“Corn was life in Mexico, and tortillas have been the staple food in Mexico for centuries with both the Indians and the Spanish settlers.” She led the way past where sacks of corn were being emptied into grinding machines. “For many years people made their tortillas at home. The corn was ground into meal, mixed with water to produce masa, then rolled, cut, pressed, and baked by hand. With the growth of demand in Mexico and especially in the United States, the tortilla industry has become more centralized. This has allowed us to modernize our production facilities providing for more efficient and sanitary operation.”

 

 

Speaking in low tones as they trailed behind the others; Austin said, “If the market for Mexican flapjacks is in the U.S., why isn’t this place closer to the border? Why make them down here and ship them up the highway?”

 

“Good question,” Zavala said. “The tortilla business in Mexico is a tightly held monopoly run by guys with close government connections. It’s a billion-dollar industry. Even if you did have a good reason to locate this far south, why build overlooking the ocean? Nice place for a luxury hotel, but an operation like this?”

 

The tour went past the dough mixers which fed into machines that produced hundreds of tortillas a minute, the thin flat pies coming out on conveyor belts, all tended by workers in laundry-white coats and plastic caps. The guide was ushering the group to the packaging and shipping department when Austin spied a door with words written in Spanish on it. “Employees only?” he asked Zavala. Joe nodded.

 

“I’ve learned all I want to know about burritos and enchiladas.” Austin stepped aside and tried the door. It was unlocked. “I’m going to look around.”

 

Eyeing Austin’s imposing physique and blazing white hair, Zavala said, “With due respect for your talents as a snoop, you don’t exactly blend in with the people working around here. I might be less conspicuous than a giant gringo stalking the hall ways.”

 

Zavala had a good point. “Okay, snoop away. Be careful. I’ll meet you at the end of the tour. If the guide asks, I’ll say you had to go to the restroom.”

 

Zavala winked and slipped through the door. He was confident he could charm his way out of practically any situation and had already prepared a story saying he’d become lost looking for the bano. He found himself in a long hallway with no windows or other openings except for a steel door at the far end. He walked the length of the hallway and put his ear against the door. Not hearing anything, he tried the knob. The door was locked.

 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a modified Swiss Army knife that would have got him arrested in places where possession of burglar tools is illegal. The standard attachments such as scissors, nail file, and can opener had been replaced with picks for the most common locks. On the fourth try he heard the latch click open. Behind the door another corridor slanted down. Unlike the first, this passage had several doors. All were locked except one that opened into a locker room.

 

The lockers were secure, and he could have opened them with his picks if he had time. He glanced at his watch. The tour would wind up soon. On the opposite wall were shelves piled with neatly folded white coats. He found one that fit and slipped it on. In a supply cabinet he discovered a clipboard. He stepped out into the corridor and continued on to yet a third door. This, too, was locked, but he managed to open it after a few tries.

 

The door opened onto an elevated platform that overlooked a big room. The platform led to a series of walkways that crossed through a web of linking horizontal and vertical pipes. The low hum of machinery seemed to come from everywhere, and he couldn’t trace its source. He descended a set of stairs. The pipes came out of the floor, then disappeared at right angles into the wall. Plumbing for the tortilla factory, he surmised. At one end of the room was another door. It was unlocked. When he cautiously opened it, a cool ocean breeze hit him in the face.

 

He gasped with surprise. He was standing on a small plat form perched high on the side of a cliff, facing out onto a lagoon about two hundred feet below him. It was a beautiful vista, and again he wondered why somebody hadn’t built a hotel rather than a factory there. He assumed the factory was behind the edge of the cliff, but he couldn’t see it from his angle. He looked down again. The water washed up against the jagged rocks along the shore in foamy ripples. The platform had a gate at one end that led to empty space with no steps going down or up. Odd. A few feet from the gate a metal rail ran down the side of the cliff and disappeared into the water.

 

He followed the rail down to the lagoon with his eye. A section of water appeared to be darker than that surrounding it. It might have been kelp and other seaweed washing against the rocks. As he watched, there was an intense bubbling at the base of the cliff, and a large, shiny, egg-shaped object suddenly appeared from the water and began its climb up the side of the cliff. Of course! The rail was for an elevator. The egg rose steadily up the track. It would be there within seconds. Zavala ducked back into the big room with the pipes, keeping the door open a crack.

 

The egg, made of a dark tinted glass or plastic that blended in with the side of the cliff, came to a stop at the platform. A door opened, and two men in white smocks stepped out. Zavala dashed for the stairs. Within seconds he was back at the store room. He tore his coat off, folded it as neatly as possible, and quickly walked along the corridors to the bakery. Nobody saw him step back into the area open to the public. He hurried along in the direction Austin and the tour group had taken. The guide saw him approach and gave him a quizzical and not altogether pleased look. “I was looking for the bano.”

 

She blushed and said, “Oh, yes. I will show you.” She clapped her hands for attention. “The tour is about over.” She handed everyone a sample package of tortillas and conducted them back to the reception area. As the cars and tour buses left, Austin and Zavala compared notes.

 

“From the look on your face I’d guess your little exploration was successful.”

 

“I found something. I just don’t know what it is.” Zavala laid out a quick summary of his findings.

 

“The fact that they hid something underwater indicates that they don’t want anyone to know what they are doing,” Austin said. “Let’s take a walk.”

 

They strolled around the side of the factory but only got a short distance toward the water before they encountered a high mesh fence topped with razor wire a few hundred feet short of where the cliff dropped off.

 

“So much for an ocean view,” Zavala said.

 

“Let’s see if we can get around to the other side of the cove.”

 

The two men returned to the pickup and drove back onto the road. Several tracks led down to the sea, but the fence blocked each potential access. They were just about to give up when they saw a man with a fishing pole and a basket full of fish coming from a path that led toward the water. Zavala called him over and asked if they could get to the water. The man was wary at first, apparently thinking they had something to do with the tortilla place. When Zavala extracted a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet, the man’s face lit up, and he said yes, there was a fence, but there was a place to crawl under it.

 

He led them on a narrow path through the shoulder-high bushes, pointed to a section of chain-link fence, and left clutching his windfall. A section of fence was bent back from the ground and a hole scooped out underneath. Zavala easily slithered under to the other side, then held the fence for Austin. They followed the overgrown path until they came to the edge of a cliff. They were near the tip of the southernmost promontory enclosing the lagoon.

 

A trail that must have been worn by the feet of fishermen descended down the less steep side of the point. The NUMA men were more interested in the unimpeded view across the cove. From this angle the dark metal structure looked like a sinister re doubt out of a Conan movie. Austin scanned the building through his binoculars, then pointed them at the side of the cliff. Sunlight glinted off metal about where Zavala had described the elevator track. He let his eyes sweep out to the wide entrance of the lagoon where surf broke on the rocks, then back to the factory.

 

“Ingenious,” Austin said with a chuckle. “If you stuck a big facility out here in the boonies, everyone, like our fisherman friend back there, would talk about it. But put it in plain sight, invite the public to come tramping in and out every day, and you’ve got an unbeatable cover for some kind of clandestine operation.”

 

Zavala borrowed the binoculars and scanned the opposite cliff. “Why a waterproof elevator?”

 

“I don’t have an answer,” Austin said with a shake of his head. “I think we’ve seen all we’re going to see.”

 

Hoping to detect signs of activity around the building or cliff, they lingered a few more minutes, but the only movement they saw was the soaring sea birds. They headed away from the sea and minutes later were crawling under the fence. Zavala would have liked to ask the fisherman if he knew about the elevator or whether he had seen anything unusual in the lagoon, but the man had taken his money and run. They got back into the pickup and headed north.

 

Austin drove without talking. Zavala knew from past experience that his partner was chewing over a plan and when he had it fully formulated he would spill the details. Just beyond Ensenada, Austin said, “Is NUMA still running those field tests off San Diego?”

 

“As far as I know. I was planning to check in after the race to see how things were going.”

 

Austin nodded. During the drive back they exchanged small talk, trading war stories about past adventures and youthful indiscretions in Mexico. The long line of traffic at the border crossing was moving at a snail’s pace. They flashed their NUMA IDs to save time and were whisked through customs. Back in San Diego they headed toward the bay until they came to a sprawling municipal marina. They parked and made their way along a pier past dozens of sail- and power boats. At the end of a dock reserved for larger craft they found a stubby, wide-beamed vessel about eighty-five feet long. Painted in white on the greenish-blue hull were the letters “NUMA.”

 

They stepped across the catwalk and asked one of the crew men puttering on the deck if the captain were aboard. He led the way to the bridge, where a slim, olive-skinned man was going over some charts. Jim Contos was considered one of the best skippers in the NUMA fleet. The son of a Tarpon Springs sponge fisher man, he had been on boats since he was able to walk.

 

“Kurt. Joe,” Contos said with a wide grin. “What a nice surprise! I heard you were in the neighborhood, but I never suspected you’d honor the Sea Robin with a visit. What are you up to?” He glanced at Zavala. “Well, I always know what you’ve been up to.”

 

Zavala’s lips turned up in his typical slight smile. “Kurt and I were in the offshore boat race yesterday.”

 

A dark cloud crossed his brow. “Hey, I heard about that thing with your boat. I’m really sorry about that.”

 

 “Thanks,” Austin said. “Then you must know about the dead gray whales.”

 

“I do-a very strange story. Any idea what killed them?”

 

“We might be able to find out with your help.”

 

“Sure, anything I can do.”

 

“We’d like to borrow the Sea Robin and the mini and do a little diving south of the border.”

 

Contos laughed. “You weren’t kidding about a big favor.” He paused in thought, then shrugged. “Why not? We’re just about through with our field tests here. If you can get an oral authorization to work in Mexican waters, it’s fine with me.”

 

Austin nodded and immediately called NUMA. After a few minutes of conversation he passed the cell phone to Contos. He listened, nodded, asked a few questions, then clicked off. “Looks like we’re heading south. Gunn gave his okay.” Rudi Gunn was NUMA director of operations in Washington. “Two days at the most. He wants you and Joe back so he can put you to work again. One thing, though. He says he won’t have time to get clearance from the Mexican government on short notice.”

 

“If anyone asks, we can say we were lost,” Austin said with feigned innocence.

 

Contos gestured at the glittering array of lights and dials on the ship’s console. “That might be a tough story to sell with all the electronics this vessel carries. The Sea Robin may be ugly, but she sure knows what’s going on in the world. We’ll let the State Department iron out any problems if we’re boarded. When do you want to leave?”

 

“We’ll pick up our gear and get back as soon as possible. The rest is up to you.”

 

“I’ll schedule a seven A.M. departure for tomorrow,” he said, and turned away to give the crew its new orders.

 

As Austin was walking back to the car he asked Zavala what Contos meant when he said he knew what Joe had been up to.

 

“We dated the same woman a few times,” Zavala said with a shrug.

   “Is there any female in the District of Columbia you haven’t dated?” – Zavala thought about it. “The first lady. As you know, I draw the line at married women.”

   “Relieved to hear that,” Austin said, getting behind the wheel.

   “But if she becomes divorced, well….”

   They got into the car, and as Austin started the engine he said, “I think this would be a good time for you to tell me about the guy in Nogales who was mauled by a burrito.”

 

Chapter 7

Under a cloudless western sky, the teal green McDonnell-Douglas helicopter cleared the rugged peaks of Squaw Mountain, dipped low over the alpine waters of Lake Tahoe, and darted like a startled dragonfly to the California shore. It hovered an instant, then dropped into a tall stand of Ponderosa pine, touching down on a concrete landing pad. As the rotors spun to a stop an elephantine Chevy Suburban lumbered alongside. The driver, who was wearing a uniform the same dark green as the helicopter and the SU~ got out to greet the rangy passenger who stepped from the chopper.

 

Taking an overnight bag from the passenger’s hand, he said, “Right this way, Congressman Kinkaid.”

 

They got into the vehicle, which headed along a blacktop drive through thick forest. Minutes later it pulled up in front of a complex of buildings that looked like a redwood version of the fabled Hearst castle of San Simeon. The late-afternoon sun threw the turrets, walls, and towers into fantastic silhouette. A whole forest of giant trees must have been leveled merely to pro vide the facing. The sprawling edifice was the ultimate log cabin, squared and cubed in size, a series of connecting outbuildings clustered around a three-story main house.

 

Congressman Kinkaid muttered, “This place is bigger than the Mormon Tabernacle.”

 

“Welcome to Valhalla,” the driver said noncommittally.

 

 He parked the vehicle in front, took the congressman’s bag, and led him up a wide stairway to a deck as long as a bowling alley, then into a large foyer paneled and beamed in dark, almost black wood. They followed a series of passageways done in the same dark paneling, finally stopping at a set of high metal doors cast in relief and shaped in a Gothic arch.

 

“I’ll take your bag to your quarters, sir. The others are waiting. You’ll find a nameplate designating your seat.”

 

The guide pressed a button on the wall, and the doors opened silently. Kinkaid stepped inside and sucked his breath in as the doors clicked shut behind him. He was in a massive, high ceilinged chamber. The great hall was lit by the fire from a huge hearth and blazing wall torches that vied for space with brightly decorated shields and pennants, spears, battle-axes, swords, and other instruments of death that recalled a time when war was an exercise in personal butchery.

 

The lethal artifacts paled next to the object occupying the center of the room. It was a Viking ship about seventy feet in length, its oak planking curved into an upswept bow and stern. The single square hide sail was set as if to catch a following breeze. A gang way near the stern allowed access to the deck and to a long table that ran lengthwise with the mast as its center point.

 

Kinkaid was a Marine veteran who had seen action in Vietnam and was not put off by the intimidating surroundings. Set ting his jaw in an unmistakable expression of determination, he crossed the hall to the ship and went up the gangway. Seated around the table were about two dozen men who halted their conversation and looked at him with curiosity. He sat in the last empty chair and glowered at the others. He was about to strike up a conversation with the man on his right when the double doors at the end of the hall were flung open.

 

A woman entered and strode toward the boat in the flickering light of the torches, her long legs quickly eating up the distance. As she made her way across the hall, her close-fitting green coveralls emphasized the athletic body, but it was her height that was most imposing. She was nearly seven feet tall.

 

 The woman’s body and features were unflawed, but she was beautiful in the way an iceberg is beautiful, and equally forbid ding. She could have sprung whole from the arctic permafrost. Her flaxen hair was pulled away from her face and tied in a bun, displaying to the fullest the marble skin and large eyes that were a hard glacial blue. She came up the gangway onto the ship and walked around the table. In a voice surprising for its softness she greeted each man by name and thanked him for coming. When she reached the congressman she paused, boring into his craggy face with her remarkable eyes, and shook his hand in a vise grip. Then she took her place in front of the high-backed chair at the bow end of the table. She smiled a smile that was as cold as it was seductive.

 

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, her voice rising to the rich tones of a natural orator. “My name is Brynhild Sigurd. Undoubtedly, you are wondering what sort of a place this is. Valhalla is my home and corporate headquarters, but it is also a celebration of my Scandinavian roots. The main building is an expanded version of a Viking long house. The wings are for specialized use, such as offices, guest quarters, gymnasium, and a museum for my collection of primitive Norse art.”

 

She arched an eyebrow. “I hope none of you is prone to sea sickness.” She waited for the laughter to subside, then went on. “This vessel is a reproduction of the Gogstad Viking ship. It is more than a stage prop; it symbolizes my belief that the impossible is attainable. I had it built because I admire the functional beauty of the design, but also as a constant reminder that the Vikings would never have crossed the sea if they had not been adventurous and daring. Perhaps their spirit will influence the decisions made here.” She paused for a moment, then went on. “You’re probably all wondering why I invited you,” she said.

 

A saw-edged voice cut her off. “I’d say that your offer to give us fifty thousand dollars or donate it to a charity of our choice may have had something to do with it,” Congressman Kinkaid said. “I’ve donated your offer to a scientific foundation that looks into birth defects.”

 

 “I would have expected nothing less, given your reputation for integrity.”

 

Kinkaid grunted and sat back in his chair. “Pardon me for interrupting,” he said. “Please get on with your, er, fascinating presentation.”

 

“Thank you,” Brynhild said. “To continue, you gentlemen come from all parts of the country and represent many different endeavors. Among your number are politicians, bureaucrats, academics, lobbyists, and engineers. But you and I belong to a common fraternity bound together by one thing. Water. A commodity we know to be in very short supply these days. Everyone is aware that we are facing what could possibly be the longest drought in the country’s history. Is that not so, Professor Dearborn? As a climatologist, would you kindly give us your appraisal of the situation?”

 

“I’d be glad to,” replied a middle-aged man who seemed surprised to be called upon. He ran his fingers through thinning ginger-colored hair and said, “This country is experiencing moderate to severe drought in its midsection and along the southern tier from Arizona to Florida. That’s nearly a quarter of the contiguous forty-eight states. The situation will probably get worse. In addition, water in the Great Lakes is at all-time lows. A prolonged drought of Dust Bowl levels is entirely possible. A mega drought lasting decades is not outside the realm of possibility.”

 

There was a murmur from around the table.

 

Brynhild opened a wooden box in front of her, dug her hand inside, and let the sand run through her long fingers.

 

“The party’s over, gentlemen. This is the bleak, dusty future we face.”

 

“With all due respect, Ms. Brynhild,” drawled a Nevadan, “you’re not telling us anything new. Vegas is going to be in tough shape. L.A. and Phoenix aren’t much better off.”

 

She put her hands together in light applause. “Agreed. But what if I told you there is a way to save our cities?”

 

“I’d like to hear about that,” said the Nevadan.

 

She slammed the cover down symbolically on the box.

 

 “The first step has already been taken. As most of you know, Congress has authorized private control over the distribution of water from the Colorado River.”

 

Kinkaid leaned forward onto the table. “And as you must know, Ms. Sigurd, I led the opposition to that bill.”

 

“Fortunately you did not prevail. Had the legislation gone down, the West would have been doomed. The reservoirs hold only a two-year supply. After that ran out we would have to evacuate most of California and Arizona and a good portion of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.”

 

“I’ll say the same thing I told those fools in Washington. Putting Hoover Dam in private hands won’t increase the water supply.”

 

“That was never at issue. The problem was not water supply but distribution. Much of the water was being misused. Ending government subsidies and putting water in the private sector means that it will not be wasted for the simplest of reasons. Waste is not profitable.”

 

“I stand by my basic argument,” Kinkaid said. “Something as important as water should not be controlled by companies that are unaccountable to the public.”

 

“The public had its chance and failed. Now the price of water will be set by supply and demand. The marketplace will rule. Only those who can afford the water will get it.”

 

“That’s exactly what I said during the debate. The rich cities would thrive while the poor communities die of thirst.”

 

Brynhild was unyielding. “So what of it? Consider the alter natives if the water continued to be distributed under the old publicly owned system and the rivers dried up. The West as we know it would become a dust bowl. As the man from Nevada said, L.A., Phoenix, and Denver would become ghost towns. Picture tumbleweed blowing through the empty casinos of Las Vegas. There would be economic disaster. Bond markets would dry up. Wall Street would turn its back on us. Loss in financial power means lost influence in Washington. Public works money would flow to other parts of the country.”

 

 She let the litany of disasters sink in, then went on. “Westerners would become the new ‘Okies,’ straight out of The Grapes of Wrath. Only instead of moving west to the Promised Land, they would pile their families into their Lexus and Mercedes SWs and head east.” With irony in her rich voice, she said, “Ask yourself how the crowded eastern seaboard would react to thou sands, millions of jobless westerners moving into their neighbor hood.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the people in Oklahoma refused to take us under their wing?”

 

“I wouldn’t blame them,” said a developer from Southern California. “They’d greet us the same way the Californians did my grandparents, with guns and goon squads and road blocks.”

 

A rancher from Arizona grinned ruefully. “If you Californians weren’t so damned greedy, there would be enough water for everybody.”

 

Within minutes everyone was talking at once. Brynhild let the argument go on before rapping the table with her knuckle.

 

“This fruitless discussion is an example of the squabbling over water that has gone on for decades. In the old days ranchers shot each other over water rights. Today your weapons are law suits. Privatization will end this squabbling. We must end the fighting among ourselves.”

 

The sound of clapping echoed in the hall. “Brava,” said Kinkaid. “I applaud your eloquent performance, but you’re wasting your time. I intend to ask Congress to reopen the whole issue.”

 

“That might be a mistake.”

 

Kinkaid was too agitated to detect the veiled threat. “I don’t think so. I have it on good authority that the companies that have taken over the Colorado River system spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence this awful legislation.”

 

“Your information is inaccurate. We spent millions.”

 

“Millions. You-?”

 

“Not personally. My corporation, which is the umbrella organization for those companies you mentioned.”

“I’m stunned. The Colorado River is under your control?”

 

“Actually, under the control of an entity set up for that ex press purpose.”

 

“Outrageous! I can’t believe you’re telling me this.”

 

“Nothing that has been done is illegal.”

 

“That’s what they said in Los Angeles when the city water department stole the Owens Valley river.”

 

“You make my point for me. This is nothing new. L.A. be came the biggest, richest, and most powerful desert city in the world by sending forth an army of water surveyors, lawyers, and land speculators to take control of water from its neighbors.”

 

Professor Dearborn spoke up. “Pardon me, but I’m afraid I agree with the congressman. The Los Angeles case was a classic case of water imperialism. If what you’re saying is true, you’re laying the groundwork for a water monopoly.”

 

“Let me pose a scenario, Dr. Dearborn. The drought persists. The Colorado River is unable to meet demand. The cities are dying of thirst. You wouldn’t have lawyers debating water allocation, you’d have gunfights at the water hole as in the old days. Think about it. Thirst-crazed mobs in the street, attacking all authority. The complete breakdown of order. The Watts riots would be a schoolyard fight by comparison.”

 

Dearborn nodded like a man in a trance. “You’re right,” he said, clearly troubled. “But, if you’ll pardon me . . . it just doesn’t seem right.”

 

She cut him short. “This is a fight for survival, professor. We live or we die according to our will.”

 

Defeated, Dearborn leaned back, arms folded, and shook his head.

 

Kinkaid took up the cudgels. “Don’t let her confuse the issue with her phony scenarios, Professor Dearborn.”

 

“Apparently I have not been able to change your mind.”

 

Kinkaid stood and said, “No, but I’ll tell you what you did do. You’ve given me some good ammunition for when I bring this matter up again before committee. I wouldn’t be surprised if antitrust action is merited. I’ll bet my colleagues who voted for the Colorado River bill would change their minds if they knew that the whole system was going to be under the thumb of one corporation.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Brynhild said.

 

“You’re going to be a damned lot more sorry when I get through with you. I want to leave your private amusement park immediately.”

 

She gazed at him with sadness. She admired strength even when it was used against her.

 

“Very well.” She spoke into a radio she had clipped to her belt. “It will take a few minutes to get your luggage and ready the helicopter.”

 

The door to the hall opened, and the man who had escorted Kinkaid earlier guided him from the chamber.

 

When they were gone, Brynhild said, “While some may consider this drought a disaster, it presents a golden opportunity. The Colorado River is only part of our plan. We are continuing to acquire control over water systems around the country. You are all in a position to influence the success of our goals in operations in your communities. There will be great reward for every one in this room, beyond your imagination in fact. At the same time you will be doing something for the common good as well.” Her eyes swept both sides of the table. “Anyone who wants to leave now can do so. I only request that you give your word to keep your silence about this meeting.”

 

The guests exchanged glances and some uneasily shifted their weight, but nobody accepted her offer of an exit visa. Not even Dearborn.

 

Waiters materialized magically, placed pitchers of water on the tables and a glass in front of each man.

 

Brynhild looked around the assemblage. “It was William Mulholland who was most responsible for bringing water to Los Angeles. He pointed to Owens Valley and said, ‘There it is. Take it.’ “

 

As if on signal, the waiters poured the glasses full and re treated.

Raising her glass high, she said, “There it is. Take it.”

 

She put the glass to her lips and took a long drink. The others followed suit as if in a strange communion ritual.

 

“Good,” she said. “Now for the next step. You will go home and wait for a call. When a request is made you will comply without question. Nothing that transpired at this meeting can be divulged. Not even the fact that you were here.”

 

She scanned each face. “If there are no more questions,” she said, making clear by her tone that debate had ended, “please enjoy yourselves. Dinner will be served in the dining hall in ten minutes. I have brought in a five-star chef, so I don’t think you will be displeased. There’s entertainment from Las Vegas after dinner, and you will be shown to your rooms. You will leave after breakfast tomorrow morning, in the sequence you arrived. I will see you at the next meeting, exactly a month from now.”

 

With that, she left the table, strode across the room and through the double doors she had entered by, walking down a corridor and into an anteroom. Two men stood in the room, legs wide apart, arms folded behind their backs, their deep-set black eyes glued to the flickering screens that took up one wall. They were identical twins dressed alike in matching black leather jackets. They had the same stocky physiques, high cheekbones, hair the color of wet hay, and dark, beetling brows.

 

“Well, what do you think of our guests?” she said with derision. “Will these worms serve their purpose and loosen the soil?”

 

The analogy was lost on the brothers, who had only one thing on their minds.

 

Speaking in an eastern European accent, the man on the right said, “Whom do you want . . .”

 

“. . . us to eliminate?” said the man on the left, finishing the sentence.

 

Their monotone voices were exactly alike. Brynhild smiled with satisfaction. The answer reaffirmed her conviction that she had made the right decision rescuing Melo and Radko Kradzik from the NATO forces that wanted to bring the notorious brothers before the World Court at the Hague charged with crimes against humanity. The twins were classic sociopaths and would have made a mark for themselves even without the Bosnian war. Their paramilitary status conferred semi-legitimacy on the murder, rape, and torture they carried out in the name of national ism. It was difficult to imagine these monsters ever having been in a mother’s womb, but somewhere they had forged the ability to intuit what the other was thinking. They were the same men, only in separate bodies. Their bond made them doubly dangerous because they could act without verbal communication. Brynhild had stopped trying to tell them apart. “Whom do you think should be eliminated?”

 

One man reached out with a hand whose clawlike fingers seemed to be made for inflicting pain and reversed the video tape. The other twin pointed to a man in a blue suit.

 

“Him,” they said simultaneously.

 

“Congressman Kinkaid?”

 

“Yes, he didn’t . . .”

 

 “. . . like what you said.”

 

“And the others?”

 

Again the video reversed and they pointed.

 

“Professor Dearborn? A pity, but your instincts are probably right. We can’t afford to have anybody with even the trace of scruples. Very well, cull him out as well. Do your work as discreetly as possible. I’m scheduling a meeting of the board of directors soon to go over our long-range plans. I want everything in place before then. I won’t tolerate mistakes the way those fools bungled their job in Brazil ten years ago.”

 

She whirled from the room and left the twins to themselves. The men remained there unmoving, their glittering eyes looking at the screen with the hungry expression of a cat choosing the fattest goldfish in the tank for his dinner.

 

Chapter 8

The river scenery had changed little since Dr. Ramirez waved good-bye from his dock and wished the Trouts a safe trip. The airboat followed mile after mile of the twisting and unbroken ribbon of dark green water. An unyielding wall of trees hemmed the river in on both sides and separated it from the eternal night of the forest. At one point they had to stop because the river was blocked by debris. They welcomed the break from the mind-numbing drone of the airplane engine. They tied lines around the entangled logs and branches and unclogged the bottleneck. The job was time-consuming, and it was late after noon when the leafy ramparts gave way to brief glimpses of open space and cultivated fields along the river’s edge. Then the forest opened up to reveal a cluster of grass huts.

 

Paul reduced speed and aimed the airboat’s blunt prow between several dugout canoes drawn up on the muddy banking. With a quick goose on the throttle, he slid the boat onto the shore and cut the engine. He removed the NUMA baseball cap he had been wearing backward on his head and used it to fan his face.

 

“Where is everybody?”

 

The unearthly quiet was in sharp contrast to Dr. Ramirez’s settlement where the natives bustled about their business throughout the day. This place appeared to be deserted. The only signs of recent human habitation were tendrils of gray smoke that rose from fire holes.

 

 “This is very weird,” Gamay said. “It’s as if the plague struck.”

 

Paul opened a storage box and pulled out a backpack. Dr. Ramirez had insisted that the Trouts borrow a long-barreled Colt revolver. Moving slowly, Paul placed the rucksack between them, reached inside, unclipped the holster, and felt the reassuring hardness of the grip.

 

“It’s not the plague I’m worrying about,” Paul said quietly, scanning the silent huts. “I’m thinking about that dead Indian in the canoe.”

 

Gamay had seen Paul reach into the bag and shared his concern.

 

“Once we leave the boat it might be tough getting back to it,” she said. “Let’s wait a few more minutes and see what hap pens.”

 

Paul nodded. “Maybe they’re taking a siesta. Let’s wake them up.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and came out with a loud “Hallooo!” The only reply was the echo of his voice. He tried again. Nothing stirred.

 

Gamay laughed. “They would have to be sound sleepers not to hear a bellow like that.”

 

“Spooky,” Paul said with a shake of his head. “It’s too damned hot sitting out here. I’m going to look around. Can you watch my back?”

 

“I’ll keep one hand on the cannon Dr. Ramirez gave us and the other on the ignition. Don’t be a hero.”

 

“You know me better than that. Any problem and I’ll come running.”

 

Trout eased his lanky form out of the seat in front of the propeller screen and onto the deck. He had every confidence in his wife’s ability to cover him. As a girl in Racine, she had been taught to shoot skeet by her father and was an excellent marks man with any kind of firearm. Paul contended she could shoot the eye out of a sand flea in mid-hop. He scanned the village and stepped onto the banking, only to freeze. He had seen movement in the dark doorway of the largest hut. A face had peered around the corner and disappeared. There it was again. Seconds later a man stepped out and waved. He shouted what sounded like a greeting and started down the slope toward them.

 

He arrived at the river’s edge and mopped his damp face with a sweat-stained silk handkerchief. He was a big man, and the high flat crown of a wide-brimmed straw hat added to his height. His baggy white cotton slacks were held in place around his corpulent belly by a length of nylon rope, and his long sleeved white shirt was buttoned up to his Adam’s apple. The sun reflected off a monocle in his left eye.

 

“Greetings,” he said with a slight accent. “Welcome to the Paris of the rain forest.”

 

Paul looked past the man’s shoulder at the sorry collection of hovels. “Where’s the Eiffel Tower?” he asked casually.

 

“Hah-hah. Eiffel Tower. Marvelous! Look there, it’s not far from the Arc de Triomphe.”

 

After the long river journey in the damp heat Paul had little appetite for witty repartee. “We’re looking for someone called the Dutchman,” he said.

 

The man removed his hat, revealing a tonsured mop of unruly white hair. “At your service. But I’m not Dutch.” He laughed. “When I first came to this blighted place seven years ago I said I was ‘Deutsch.’ I’m German. My name is Dieter von Hoffman.”

 

“I’m Paul Trout, and this is my wife, Gamay.”

 

Hoffman focused his monocle on Gamay. “A beautiful name for a lovely woman,” he said gallantly. “We don’t ~et many white women out here, beautiful or otherwise.”

 

Gamay asked why the village was so quiet. Dieter’s fleshy red lips drooped. “I suggested that the villagers go into hiding. It never hurts to be cautious with strangers. They will come out when they see that you are friendly.” The empty smile again. “So, what brings you to our poor village?”

 

“Dr. Ramirez asked us to come. We’re with NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency,” Gamay said. “We were doing some research on river dolphins and staying with Dr. Ramirez. He asked if we couldn’t come in his place.”

 

“I heard through the jungle telegraph that a couple of scientists from the United States were in the neighborhood. I never dreamed you would honor us with a visit. How is the esteemed Dr. Ramirez these days?”

 

“He would have liked to come, but he hurt his ankle and couldn’t travel.”

 

“Too bad. It would be nice to see him. Well, it’s been a long time since I had company, but that’s no excuse for being a poor host. Please come ashore. You must be very hot and thirsty.”

 

Paul and Gamay exchanged glances that said, Okay, but be careful, and stepped off the boat. Gamay slung the bag with the gun in it over her shoulder, and they started toward the cluster of huts arranged in a semicircle at the top of a rise. Dieter yelled in another language, and each hut disgorged a load of Indian men, women, and children. They came out timidly and stood at silent attention. Dieter gave another command, and they began to go about their tasks. Paul and Gamay glanced at each other again. Dieter did not suggest in this village; he commanded.

 

An Indian woman in her twenties came out of the largest hut, her head bowed. Unlike the other women, who were dressed only in loincloths, she had a red sarong of machine-loomed fabric wrapped around her shapely body. Dieter growled an order, and she disappeared into the hut.

 

A thatched roof stood in front of the hut on four poles. The roof shaded a rough-cut wooden table and stools carved from stumps. Dieter gestured toward the stools, sat in one himself, and removed his straw hat. He mopped his sweating head with his handkerchief and snapped an order at the open door of the hut.

 

The woman came out carrying a tray with three mugs made from sections of hollowed tree limbs. She set the mugs down and stood respectfully a few paces away with her head still lowered.

 

Dieter raised his mug. “Here’s to meeting new friends.” There was a distinct clinking as he swished the contents of his mug. “That’s right,” he said. “You are hearing the beautiful sound of ice cubes. You can thank the wonders of modern science for allowing me to have a portable gas-powered ice maker. There is no need to live like these brown-skinned Adams and Eves.” He slurped half his glass down in a single gulp.

 

Paul and Gamay took tentative sips and found the drinks cool, refreshing, and strong. Gamay looked around the settlement. “Dr. Ramirez said that you’re a trader. What sort of goods do you trade?”

 

“I realize that to an outsider this must look like a poor place, but these simple people are capable of artistic work that is quite sophisticated. I give them my services as a middleman in marketing their crafts to gift shops and the like.”

 

From the impoverished appearance of the village the middle man must take the lion’s share of the money, Gamay guessed. She made a show of looking around. “We also understand that you are married. Is your wife away?”

 

Paul hid his smile behind the mug. Gamay was very much aware that the native woman was Dieter’s wife and she didn’t like the way the Dutchman treated her.

 

Dieter flushed, then called the woman over. “This is Tessa,” he grunted.

 

Gamay stood and extended her hand in greeting. The woman looked at her in surprise, and, after a moment’s hesitation, she took the proffered hand.

 

“Nice to meet you, Tessa. My name is Gamay, and this is my husband, Paul.”

 

The fleeting ghost of a smile crossed Tessa’s dusky face. Sensing that Dieter would make Tessa pay for it later if she pushed too far, Gamay nodded and sat down. Tessa stepped back to where she had been standing.

 

Dieter covered his annoyance with a meaty smile. “Now that I have answered your questions . . . the purpose of your arduous trip?”

 

Paul leaned forward onto the table and looked up over the top of his nonexistent glasses. “The body of an Indian came ashore upriver in a dugout canoe.”

 

 Dieter spread his hands. “The rain forest can be dangerous, and its inhabitants are only one generation removed from savagery. A dead Indian is not unusual, I am sorry to say.”

 

“This one was,” Paul replied. “He was shot.”

 

“Shot?”

 

“There’s more. He was a Chulo.”

 

“That is serious,” Dieter said with a shake of his jowls. “Any thing to do with the ghost-spirits means trouble.”

 

“Dr. Ramirez mentioned that the tribe is led by a woman,” Gamay said.

 

“Ah, you’ve heard the legends. Very colorful, yes? Of course I have heard of this mythical goddess-chief, but I have never had the pleasure of meeting her.”

 

Gamay asked, “Have you ever run into members of the tribe?”

 

“I have no firsthand knowledge of them, but there are the stories . . .”

 

“What kind of stories, Mr. von Hoffman?”

 

“The Chulo are said to live beyond the Hand of God. That’s what the natives call the Great Falls some distance from here. They say the five cascading waterfalls resemble giant fingers. Natives who have gone too close to the falls have disappeared.”

 

“You said the forest was dangerous.”

 

“Yes, they could have been mauled by some animal or bitten by a poisonous snake. Or simply become lost.”

 

“How about nonnatives?”

 

“From time to time men come this way to seek their fortune. I have given them what poor hospitality I could, shared my knowledge of my surroundings, and, most important, warned them to stay away from Chulo territory.” He made a washing motion with his hands. “Three expeditions ignored my cautions, and three have vanished without a trace. I notified the authorities, of course, but they know the impossibility of finding some one once the trees have swallowed them up.”

 

“Were any of those groups looking for plants that could be useful as pharmaceuticals?” Paul said.

 

 “They came looking for medicine, for rubber, timber, treasure, and lost cities, for all I know. Few who pass this way share their secrets. I don’t ask questions.”

 

While Dieter rambled on, Tessa had silently raised her hand and pointed toward the sky. He finally noticed the strange gesture and the Trouts’ quizzical expressions. His face went rock hard, then the unctuous smile reappeared.

 

“As you can see, Tessa was most impressed by a group that passed this way not long ago in search of specimens. They employed a miniature zeppelin to move above the tree canopy. The natives were very much in awe of the machine, and so was I, I must admit.”

 

“Who were these people?” Gamay asked.

 

“I know only that they represented a French firm. You know how close-mouthed the French can be.”

 

“What happened to them?”

 

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I heard they moved on. Maybe they were captured and eaten by the Chulo.” He laughed heartily at the prospect. “Which brings me back to the purpose of your visit. I thank you very much for warning me, but now that you know the dangers that lurk here, I trust you will go back to Dr. Ramirez with my appreciation.”

 

Gamay looked at the lowering afternoon sun. She and Paul knew that in the tropics the sun drops with the swiftness of a guillotine blade.

 

“It’s a little late to be starting back,” she said. “What do you think, Paul?”

 

“It would be dangerous trying to navigate that river by night.”

 

Dieter frowned, then, seeing he was getting nowhere, smiled and said, “Well then, you will be my guests. Tomorrow you will get an early start after a good night’s sleep.”

 

Gamay half heard his words. Tessa’s head was no longer downcast. She was looking straight at Gamay, her eyes wide open, almost imperceptibly shaking her head. Paul caught the gesture as well.

 

 They thanked Dieter for the refreshing drink and his offer of a place to stay and said they wanted to retrieve some gear from the boat. As they walked toward the river the natives shied away as if the couple were surrounded by an invisible force field.

 

Gamay made a pretense of checking the engine for oil.

 

“Did you see Tessa?” she said. “She was warning us.”

 

“No mistaking the terror in those eyes,” Paul said, examining the dip stick.

 

“What do you think we should do?”

 

“We don’t have much choice. I’m not enthusiastic about spending the night here in Camp Happy, but I wasn’t kidding. It would be crazy to run this river in the dark. Do you have any suggestions?”

 

“Yes, I do,” Gamay said, watching a bat the size of an eagle flit across the river in the failing light. “I suggest that we don’t dose our eyes at the same time.”

 

Chapter 9

As Austin scudded through the blue-green Baja waters on the back of a mini-submersible, he wondered how a National Geographic photographer filming a whale migration would react if a man riding a giant boot suddenly appeared in his camera’s viewfinder. Perched outside, like a rumble seat passenger in an old roadster, Austin could see Joe’s head and shoulders outlined by the blue light from the control computer screen inside the watertight cockpit.

 

Zavala’s metallic voice crackled in the headphones of Austin’s underwater communicator. “How’s the weather out there, cap?”

 

Austin rapped on the Plexiglas dome and curled his finger and thumb in the okay sign.

 

“It’s fine. This beats muscle power any day,” he said.

 

Zavala chuckled. “Contos will be pleased to hear that.”

 

The skipper of the Sea Robin had beamed with pride as he showed Austin the new submersible sitting in its deck cradle. The experimental mini-sub was a marvelously compact vehicle. The operator sat in the dry, pressurized cabin like the driver of a car, legs stretched out into the extended eight-foot-long hull. Two pontoons flanked the miniature cabin, and on the back were the air tanks and four thrusters.

 

Austin had run his fingers over the transparent bubble dome and said, “I’ll be damned. This thing does look like an old boot.”

 

 “I tried to get you the Red October,” Contos said, “but Sean Connery was using it.”

 

Austin wisely kept his silence. NUMA people were known to form personal attachments to the high-tech equipment under their command. The uglier the gear, the more intense the relationship. Austin didn’t want to embarrass Contos by explaining how he knew the sub was being field-tested off California where the main components had been assembled. He had commissioned the design and building of the mini-submersible for the Special Assignments Team, and Zavala designed it. NUMA had subs that could go faster and deeper, but Austin wanted a tough little vehicle that would be portable, easily transported by a helicopter or boat. It would have to be unobtrusive as well, Austin specified, so as not to attract attention. Although he had approved the blueprints, this was his first glimpse of the final product.

 

Zavala was a brilliant marine engineer who had directed the construction of many manned and unmanned underwater craft. For inspiration, Zavala used the DeepWorker, a commercial mini-sub designed by Phil Nuytten and Zegrahm DeepSea Voyages, an adventure expedition cruise company. Zavala extended the range and power and added sophisticated testing capacity. He claimed the instruments aboard the submersible could tell what river or glacier a drop of ocean water came from.

 

The sub was originally named the DeepSee, an homage to its predecessor and to its intended function as an exploration vehicle. When Admiral Sandecker heard the designation he cringed at the pun. Shown the scale model, he grinned. “It reminds me of one of the brogans I used to wear when I was a kid,” he said, using the old slang term for high-topped workboots. The new name stuck.

 

The NUMA ship cruised south from San Diego into Mexican waters, staying well offshore. Near Ensenada the Sea Robin began to follow the coast more closely. The ship passed several fishing boats and a couple of cruise ships. Before long the vessel was about a half mile from the open mouth of the cove Austin and

Zavala had scouted out earlier from land. Austin scoured the rugged cliffs through powerful binoculars and studied the back of the tortilla factory. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Large signs posted on either side of the lagoon warned of dangerous hidden rocks. Highlighting the warnings were caution buoys strung across the opening.

 

The Sea Robin sailed beyond the cove and headed into a small inlet. As the anchor slid into the sea, Zavala eased into the mini-sub and made his last-minute checks. With the dome se cured the cabin was watertight and carried its own air supply. Zavala was dressed comfortably in shorts and his new purple Hussong’s T-shirt.

 

Austin, who would be immersed in water, was suited out in full scuba gear and extra air tank. He climbed onto the back of the Brogan with his fins resting on the pontoons and fastened a quick-release harness attached to the sub. The dome was latched tight. At his signal a crane hoisted the sub in the air, then lowered it into the sea. Austin unhooked the slack holding lines and gave Zavala the go-ahead to dive. Within seconds they were sinking into the sea in an explosion of bubbles.

 

The battery-operated thrusters kicked into action with a high-pitched hum, and Zavala steered for open water. The sub rounded the point of jagged sea-wet rocks and followed a course directly into the mouth of the lagoon. They stayed at a depth of thirty-five feet, moving well under Mach One at a comfortable five knots. They used a combination of Austin’s observations and the mini’s instruments to navigate. Austin kept his head low to reduce water resistance. He was enjoying the trip, particularly the schools of brightly colored fish that scattered like wind blown confetti at their approach.

 

Austin was glad to see fish for a less aesthetic reason. Their presence meant the water was still safe for living things. He had not forgotten that unknown forces killed an entire pod of huge creatures that were hardier and more adaptable to their marine environment than a puny human being. Although sensors in the sub’s skin automatically sampled and tested the ambient waters,

Austin knew that by the time he learned conditions were un healthy it might be too late.

 

‘Approaching the mouth of the lagoon. We’re going right up the middle,” Zavala reported. “Plenty of room on either side. Mooring line from a warning buoy off to starboard.”

 

Austin turned to the right and saw a thin black line running from the surface toward the bottom. “I see it. Notice anything funny?”

 

“Yeah,” Zavala said as they cruised by. “No rocks under the buoy.”

 

“Bet you a bottle of Cuervo that all the other warnings are phony, too.”

 

“I’ll take the bottle but not the bet. Someone wants to keep people out of here.”

 

“That’s obvious. How’s this buggy handling?”

 

“Getting into a little backwash from the water swishing out of the lagoon, but it’s still easier than driving on the Beltway,” Zavala said, referring to the highway that separates Washington from the rest of the country geographically and politically. “She handles like an-uh-oh.”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“Sonar is picking up multiple targets. Lots of them. About fifty yards dead ahead.”

 

Austin had been lulled into complacency by the tranquility of the trip. In his imagination he pictured a line of underwater guards waiting in ambush.

 

“Divers?”

 

“Sonar hits are too small. Little or no movement.”

 

Austin strained his eyes in an attempt to pierce the gauzy blue.

 

Thinking ahead, he said, “What’s the Brogan’s top speed if we have to get out of here in a hurry?”

 

“Seven knots, pedal to the metal. She was made more for vertical travel than horizontal, and we’re carrying a couple of hundred extra pounds of beef.”

 

“I’ll join Weight Watchers when we get back,” Austin said. “Move in real slow, but be prepared to make a dash for it.”

 

 They crawled ahead at half speed. Within moments dozens of dark objects materialized, stretching from the surface to the bottom and rolling off both directions in a great wall.

 

Fish.

 

“Looks like a net,” Austin advised. “Stop before we get snagged.”

 

The Brogan slowed to a complete halt and hovered in place.

 

Austin ducked his head in reflex as a streamlined silhouette glided in from above and behind him. The shark was only there for an instant, long enough for Austin to see its round white eye and to estimate the hungry predator’s length at more than six feet. Its toothy jaws opened then clamped shut to grab half a struggling fish in one bite before disappearing from sight with a flick of its high tail fin.

 

Zavala had seen the same thing. “Kurt, are you okay?” he shouted.

 

Austin laughed. “Yeah. Don’t worry. That guy doesn’t want a tough old human to chew on when he’s got a whole seafood buffet.”

 

“Glad to hear you say that, because he invited some of his friends for dinner.”

 

Several more sharks swooped in, grabbed a bite, then, wary of the sub, quickly left. It was less a wild feeding frenzy than a gathering of discriminating gourmands picking from the choicest items on the menu. Hundreds of fish were caught in the- fine mesh. They came in all sizes, shapes, and species. Some, still alive, were making fruitless attempts to free themselves, only to attract the attention of the sharks. Others had only their heads left, and bones marked the remains of many more.

 

“No one has been tending the net,” Austin said.

 

“Maybe someone hung it here to keep nosy guys like us out.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Austin said after a moment’s reflection. “That net is made of monofilament. You could cut your way through it with a nail clipper. No electrical wiring, so it doesn’t seem to have an alarm signal attached.”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

 “Let’s think about it. Whatever, sir! that lagoon killed a pod of whales. The locals would begin asking questions if they started seeing hundreds of dead fish. The folks who bring you Baja Tortillas don’t like attention. So they stick the net here to keep the fish out and any dead ones in.”

 

“Makes sense,” Zavala agreed. “What next?”

 

“Keep on going.”

 

Zavala’s fingers danced over the computer screen that con trolled the sub’s functions. Two mechanical arms on the front of the Brogan unfolded and extended like a telescope to within inches of the net. The claws at the end of each arm grabbed the mesh and tore it open like an actor parting a curtain. Pieces of fish in various states of decomposition drifted off in every direction.

 

The job accomplished, Zavala brought the metal arms back to their rest position and increased throttle. With Austin still on the sub’s back, they plunged through the hole and into the la goon. The thirty-foot visibility was cut in half by thousands of tiny particles of seaweed that had washed into the cove to be shredded by the razor-sharp rocks. The sub slowed to a walk, Zavala feeling his way like a blind man with a white cane. They didn’t see the huge object until they were almost on top of it. Again the sub came to a stop.

 

“What is that thing?” Zavala asked.

 

The cathedral light filtering down from the surface illuminated an enormous structure. It was about three hundred feet wide, Austin estimated, and about thirty feet thick, tapered at the ends like a huge metal lens and resting on four thick metal legs. The legs were hidden by boxlike structures where they sank into the sea.

 

“It’s either a big metal spider or a sunken UFO,” Austin said in wonder. “In any case, let’s take a closer look.”

 

At Austin’s direction, Zavala steered the sub off at an angle and cruised along the perimeter as far as they could, then re traced their path and went along the other side. The structure was almost perfectly round except where it butted up close to the undersea cliffs.

“Hey, this is amazing! I’m getting high heat readings.”

 

“I can feel the heat through my wet suit. Someone has cranked up the BTUs.”

 

“The instruments indicate that it’s coming from the pillars. Must be conduits as well as supports. Nothing dangerous. Yet.”

 

“Park this thing while I go in for a closer look.”

 

The mini dropped lightly to the bottom and rested on its pontoons. Austin unhooked the harness and peeled off with instructions for Zavala to turn on the positioning strobe light in fifteen minutes.

 

Austin swam toward the disk, then over it. Except for a circular skylight the odd structure was fabricated of metal painted a dull green, which would have been difficult to see from the surface. He dropped down onto the dome itself and peered cautiously through the skylight.

 

Below was a network of pipes and machines. Men in white frocks walked about the well-lit cavernous space. Austin puzzled over the function of the machines, trying to put what he saw together with the hot water discharges, but came up with nothing. He undid a portable waterproof video camera from his belt and filmed the scene below. Satisfied with his work, he decided to get an overview. He rose off the disk and was panning the camera when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

 

He froze, floating above the structure. The egg-shaped elevator Zavala had described descended from the shimmering surface. It moved along its track and disappeared into a circular hatch that was opening on the roof of the underwater structure closest to the face of the cliff. Austin resumed his camera work only to be interrupted again, this time by Zavala.

 

“Better get back here pronto! The water temp readings are shooting up.”

 

There was no mistaking the urgency in Zavala’s voice. “On my way!”

 

Austin threshed the water with strong kicks of his powerful legs maintaining a rhythm that ate up the yards. Zavala wasn’t

kidding about the heat buildup. Austin was sweating under his wet suit. He vowed never to boil a lobster again. “Hurry,” Zavala said. “The temp is going off the tracks!”