Carefully closing the bedroom door behind him, Richard yawned and stretched his lean body contentedly.
Lit only by the still-flickering flames of the fireplace, the room was littered with the evidence of their lovemaking. Clothes lay scattered, glasses were overturned and pillows kicked aside. Though he had slept a mere five hours, his slumber had been deep and he felt more rested than he had in months. Still savoring the memories of their coupling, the Nose researcher grinned with satisfaction. Aware of a renewed stiffening in his loins, he fought the impulse to turn back to the bedroom. Only when he saw his briefcase, which was set beside the dish-covered dining-room table, did he redirect his thoughts back to his duty. Reluctantly, he flicked on the lights and clearing himself some work space.
His first priority was to work on the project Lansford had asked for. Since the recipient of this map would be none other than the Secretary of the Air Force, he proceeded carefully. After tracing his most accurate bathymetric chart of Point Arguello and the waters that lay west of it, he began the tedious job of drawing in the various curving depth lines. He extended these lines to a position eighteen nautical miles due west of the coastline. This portion of subterranean Arguello Canyon lay some 2,400 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. Next, he began sketching in the Titan’s supposed debris field. He had just finished indicating the position of the wreckage found during the Razorback’s preliminary sonar scan when a pair of moist lips kissed him on the back of his neck. At first startled by this unexpected intrusion, Richard turned and set his eyes on the smiling face of Miriam.
“Well, good morning, Dr. Fuller. Aren’t you the industrious one? Worked all through the night, have began?; you.
Realizing that he had been completely lost in his work, Richard caught sight of the clock that was hung over the fireplace. He could hardly believe that it read 6:45.
“Good morning to you. Princess,” he said.
“Actually, I’ve only been up a little less than two hours.
How did you sleep?”
“Like a kid again,” answered the archaeologist as she bent over to give him a peck on the lips.
“How about you?”
“What I lacked in quantity, I more than made up for in quality. Would you like some breakfast? There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen.”
Pulling Richard’s over-sized, white terry-cloth robe around her, Miriam nodded.
“That coffee sounds great. I’m still not much of a breakfast eater.”
As she began walking into the kitchen, she added, “What are you working on anyway?”
Richard’s response was hesitant.
“It’s a project for Lieutenant Colonel Lansford. I’m sure you’re aware that the Air Force lost a missile here the other day.”
Miriam was in the process of pouring herself a mug of coffee when she answered him.
“I’ll say. Me and my crew had a ringside seat for the whole thing. We only got out of Ocean Beach Park in just enough time to escape a cloud of toxic chemicals that fell from the skies.”
“Then I’m sure you know that the failed missile was an Air Force Titan. Because it exploded while arcing over the Pacific, I was called in to help determine the extent of the resulting debris field.
That’s what this chart is all about.”
Positioning herself at the dining room table’s side, Miriam sipped her coffee and looked down at Richard’s work.
“Sounds like you could use an archaeologist’s help.”
Richard winked.
“If we don’t do our job correctly this first time, it will probably be someone from your field who stumbles onto a piece of the Titan in a couple of decades or so. Since these positions are only the result of a hasty sonar scan, and have yet to be verified, who knows if some of them don’t turn out to be the wrecks of a fleet of Spanish treasure galleons.”
“If that’s the case, Richard Fuller, I expect to be one of the first ones to know of it. Now, I’d better jump in the shower and then get back to work myself.
We came across a fully preserved Chumash tomolo canoe at our new beach side excavation site, and I promised to be there later this morning when the crew attempts to pull it out.”
While Miriam continued on to the bedroom, Richard turned his attention back to the chart. He could hear the shower streaming in the background as he determined the exact spot where the Marlin had made the previous day’s surprising discovery. Marking this site with an X, he then drew a line eastward, to connect it with the rest of the debris field some seven and a half miles away. Wondering what could account for the unusual distance between these two sites, the Nose researcher could only hope that the Marlin’s luck held. Perhaps, even as he sat there, the brave crew of the DSRV was already preparing to get under way. If fate were still with them, perhaps this day’s findings would somehow help solve the puzzle that lay so visible before him.
Chapter Ten
Lieutenant Colonel Todd Lansford had been expecting this new day to be a full one, yet little could he have ever guessed how it was to start off. It all began with an emergency phone call that arrived at his home at 5:25 a.m. Awakened out of a sound sleep, Lansford groped for the telephone, and soon found himself on the line with the commander of Vandenberg’s Second Weather Squadron. The warning this serious-toned officer had to relate was unlike any that Lansford had ever received before. It was from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Honolulu office, and consisted of a tsunami alert.
Not yet fully awake, Lansford had to ask the commander to repeat himself. This time, the base’s senior meteorologist related the following facts. At approximately 5:01 A.M.” an earthquake registering 7.1 on the Richter scale had shaken the waters off Alaska’s Kodiak Island. As the two subterranean crustal plates comprising the Aleutian fault line had snapped with a tremendous release of stored force, a fan-like quiver of energy had surged out into the Pacific basin. To the north, this energy took the form of a massive earthquake. As a result, dozens of buildings had collapsed in nearby Anchorage.
Preliminary reports showed at least two dozen people dead and hundreds more injured there.
To the south, this un leased force was expressing itself in the form of a monstrous tidal wave. Traveling at a speed of over 500 miles per hour, this fifty-too thigh wall of water could hit the central California coastline as early as 10:00 A.M. that very morning.
By the time the commander had related these grim facts, Lansford was wide awake. A cold shiver of dread coursed through his body as he visualized the tidal wave crashing into Vandenberg’s western boundary.
Leaving the meteorologist with orders to give him updates on the half-hour, Lansford disconnected the line and then hastily dialed the apartment of Master Sergeant Vince Sprawlings. After explaining then-situation, he directed Sprawlings to meet him at his office at once. Accepting the master sergeant’s offer to pick him up on the way in, Lansford made one more call before sprinting to the shower. He found himself somewhat surprised to hear that the deputy commander of the 4392nd Security Police Group had already been informed of the alert. Though he had just been awoken from bed himself, the deputy commander was already sketching up a preliminary evacuation plan. Directing him to bring this blueprint over to base headquarters at once, Lansford ran straight from his bed into the bathroom. At it turned out, Vince Sprawlings was just pulling into his driveway when he emerged fully dressed from his front door.