“Who would want to torpedo the B3 project?” Zavala said.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Austin said. “Let’s see if Doc is awake.”
KANE WAS NOT ONLY awake but quite chipper. He had showered, wrapped his body in a terry-cloth robe, and was sitting in a chair chatting with the medic.
“Now I know what it feels like to be a canned sardine,” he said. “Thanks for the rescue, Kurt. I can’t believe the cable broke.”
“It didn’t break,” Zavala said. “Kurt says that it was cut.”
“Cut?” Kane’s lower jaw dropped open. “I don’t understand.”
Austin showed Kane the video of the AUV, and said, “Can you think of anyone who would go through all this trouble to put the bathysphere on the bottom?”
Kane shook his head. “Nope. What about you?”
“Joe and I are as much in the dark as you are,” Austin said. “There’s no reason we can think of to scuttle a scientific and educational project.”
Gannon’s voice came over the ship’s intercom.
“Call coming in for Dr. Kane,” the captain said. “Can he take it?”
Austin plucked the intercom’s receiver from the wall and handed it to Kane.
Kane listened to someone on the line, and said, “That’s impossible! . . . Yes, of course . . . I’ll be ready.”
When Kane had clicked off, Austin asked, “Is everything all right?”
“Not really,” Kane said. His face had turned the color of cold ashes. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to talk to the captain.”
Kane asked the medic to help him get to the bridge.
Austin stared at the door for a moment, then shrugged and said to Zavala, “Come to the machine shop with me. I’ve got something to show you.”
The mandible Austin had wrested from the AUV had been wrapped in cloth and clamped in a padded bench vise. Using a set of thick work gloves, he removed the blade from the vise. It was about four feet long and six inches wide, curved along the inner edge and tapering to a point. He found the metal surprisingly light, and he estimated its weight at less then twenty pounds.
Zavala whistled softly. “Beautiful,” he murmured, “a metal alloy of some kind. Whoever built it didn’t expect it to be twisted where it joined the AUV. That was the weak spot. The edge on this thing is as sharp as a samurai sword.”
“You can see how a pair of these butter knives could ruin your day.”
“Too bad Beebe isn’t around,” Zavala said. “It might change his mind about the dangers of the deep ocean being exaggerated.”
“The ocean didn’t produce this thing. It’s decidedly man-made.” Austin carefully turned it over. The metal had been perfectly forged except for a single flaw the size of a pinhead a few inches from where the blade had snapped off the AUV.
Austin rewrapped the blade and clamped it back in the vise.
“You spent quality time with Doc . . . Did he say anything that might shed some light on this mystery?”
“He talked about jellyfish a lot, but one other thing stood out.” Zavala dug into his memory. “While we were stuck in the mud, I asked him about his research. He said he was working on some research that could affect every man, woman, and child on the planet.”
“Did he elaborate?”
Zavala shook his head.
“I asked him about specifics. He said that if he told me what he’d been working on he would have to kill me.”
The right side of Austin’s mouth turned up in a lopsided grin.
“He actually said that? Seems ironic, considering that you were minutes away from what the tabloids call a grisly death.”
“We had a good laugh about it, but I think he was sincere.”
Austin pondered Zavala’s reply, and said, “What do you make of that call Doc got a few minutes ago?”
“Doc looked as if a horse had kicked him in the stomach.”
“He was upset, no doubt about that.”
Austin suggested that they talk to Kane again. As they stepped out onto the deck, they saw Kane and the captain. Kane was still somewhat stiff-legged as he walked in their direction with Gannon by his side and he was carrying his duffel bag.
“We were on our way to see you folks,” said the captain, pointing to the lights of the approaching vessel. “That’s a U.S. Coast Guard cutter coming in for Dr. Kane.”
The cutter stopped around a hundred yards from the ship. Austin helped Kane put his flotation vest on and walked him to the ramp at the stern, where the Zodiac crew was waiting. He thanked Austin, Joe, and the captain for all their help.
“Sorry you have to leave, Doc,” Austin said.
“Not as sorry as I am to go.” He smiled, and added, “Beebe’s adventures pale by comparison to our dive.”
“Going back to Bonefish Key?”
“No, not for a while . . . I’ll be in touch.”
Kane got into the Zodiac. The inflatable pushed off into the chop and bounced over to the Coast Guard vessel, Kane was helped aboard, and it started to move away even before the inflatable made it back to the ship.
Austin, Gannon, and Zavala watched the cutter until it was out of sight, then Gannon turned to Austin and asked if he wanted to head back to port in the morning. Austin suggested that they try to retrieve the lost ROV. Gannon said the forecast called for fair weather after the gale blew itself out. He’d plan a salvage operation using the ship’s largest ROV, a mechanical monster nicknamed Humongous.
“We don’t really know very much about Doc,” Zavala said after the captain had left.
“It’s time we remedy that situation. I’ll ask the Trouts to check into Bonefish Key. In the meantime, British Navy regulations allow a second shot of grog.”
“This is NUMA, not the British Navy,” Zavala said. “And, technically speaking, tequila is not grog.”
“May I point out that we are in Bermudan waters and thus in British territory.”
Zavala slapped Austin on the back and said something in Spanish.
“My Espanol is a bit rusty, pal,” Austin said. “Please translate.”
Zavala lifted his chin and sniffed the air, as if he had smelled something unpleasant.
“I said, ‘Jolly good show, old chap.’”
CHAPTER 13
THE COAST GUARD CUTTER BROUGHT KANE TO THE MAINLAND, where a car drove him to a business jet waiting at the airport. Kane watched the lights of Bermuda fade in the distance, then turned away from the plane’s window and tried to make sense of the past twenty-four hours. His undersea ordeal had worn him out. His thoughts tripped over one another until, finally, he closed his eyes and dozed off. The jounce of the plane’s landing woke him up, and the pilot’s voice over the intercom informed him that they had touched down at Washington’s Reagan National Airport.
The plane taxied to an off-limits section reserved for VIPs. A strapping young man sporting a military brush cut greeted Kane as he stepped onto the tarmac. Aviator sunglasses shaded the man’s eyes, even though it was nighttime, and his black suit would have sent a conspiracy theorist into a swoon.
“Dr. Kane?” the man asked, as if there were some doubt.
The question irritated Kane, since he was the only passenger on the six-seat plane.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s me. How about you?”
“Jones,” the man said without a change in his expression. “Follow me.”
Jones led the way to a black Humvee, opened the rear door for Kane, then got in front next to the driver, who was also dressed like an undertaker. After leaving the airport, they raced along the George Washington Memorial Parkway as if there was no speed limit, skirted the city, and headed toward Maryland.
Jones had been silent during the drive, but as they entered Rockville he spoke briefly into a hand radio. Kane overheard something about a package being delivered. Minutes later, the Humvee pulled up to a large office building. The sign out front identified the building as the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters. The windows of the FDA were dark except for a few offices lit for cleaning crews.