“Are you sure you’ve got the correct location?” Coombs asked with irritation in his voice.
“Absolutely,”Casey said. “Look closer. You can see the big circular indentations in the sand. That’s where the lab’s support legs rested.”
“What’s this all mean?” Coombs demanded.
Casey gave him a bleak smile.
“Taking a wild guess, Mr. Coombs, I’d say this means that Davy Jones’s Locker has been hijacked.”
Kane still didn’t believe it.
“How could anything that big simply disappear?” he asked.
“You fellows figure out how this facility was hijacked under the nose of the U.S. Navy,” Coombs said. “I’m going to see that Dr. Kane does a similar vanishing act.”
Coombs raised his hand to cut Kane’s next question off, reached into his suit jacket for a cell phone, and hastily punched in a number.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said into the phone.
After a quick conversation, he hung up.
“You’re going to a safe house, Dr. Kane,” he announced.
When Kane protested, Coombs again cut him off.
“Sorry for the temporary inconvenience,” he said, “but someone wants you out of the picture. These attacks show that unauthorized people have found out about the lab even though we have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep it a secret. Even without the natural disaster you suggested, the political repercussions would be staggering if word of this research gets out.”
“I can’t see that happening,” Kane said. “Whoever tried to torpedo our research seems to like secrets too.”
“The difference is, we were prepared to go public once we had a vaccine,” Coombs said.
There was a quick knock at the door, and Jones stepped into the room. He was still wearing sunglasses. Kane felt as if he were being placed under house arrest. He said good-bye, then followed Jones out into the hall.
After Kane was gone, Coombs turned to the others.
“I’m going to recommend to the President that he prepare the country for a state of emergency,” he said. “We’ll contact the CDC and tell them this is the big one.”
“I’ll inform Vice President Sandecker directly,” Casey said. “He maintains contacts at NUMA and will enlist them in the search for the lab.”
“Good idea,” Coombs said. “Maybe their guy Austin can give the Navy some help doing its job.”
This parting comment was intended as another dig at the Navy, but Casey didn’t come back at Coombs as he had at the earlier jibes from the White House aide. He merely smiled.
“Maybe he can,” he said.
KANE TRIED TO GET a rise out of the man in black.
“Guess we’re going to the mattresses,” he said as they walked to the elevator.
“Huh?” Jones said.
“From The Godfather. . . Mafia talk.”
“We’re not the Mafia, sir.”
No, you’re not,Kane thought as he followed Jones from the room, but you might as well be.He couldn’t resist using another borrowed line from the movie.
“Don’t forget the cannoli,” he said.
CHAPTER 14
A FEW MINUTES AFTER ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AN inflatable pontoon boat softly bumped against the hull of the William Beebeand four figures dressed in black-and-green camouflage suits clambered up the side of the ship on rope ladders suspended from padded grapnel hooks. They vaulted over the rail one by one and dashed across the deck as silently as the shadows they resembled.
Except for the night-shift watch on the bridge, the crew was sound asleep in their cabins, recovering from the exertions of the bathysphere launch and rescue. Austin was awake, however, and after staring at the ceiling, his mind churning, he got up and got dressed and made his way to the machine shop.
He switched on the lights, and went over to examine the blade clamped in a table vise. He found a magnifying glass, placed a desk lamp directly over the blade, and examined the tiny ding near the hilt. Through the lens he saw that the flaw was actually a mark in the shape of an equilateral triangle with a dot at each point.
Austin drew the design on a pad of paper. He stared at it for a few moments but nothing jumped out at him. He set the pad down and went out onto the deck, thinking the cool air might blow away the cobwebs of sleep. He took a deep breath, but the sudden influx of oxygen produced a yawn instead. His synapses needed a stronger jolt.
He looked up at the bridge lights glowing in the window of the pilothouse. The night watch always kept a coffeepot brewing. He climbed the exterior stairs to the starboard bridge wing. A man’s voice came through the partially open door. The words were growled rather than spoken, and had an accent Austin couldn’t place, but one word stood out from the others.
Kane.
Austin’s well-honed instincts came into play. He moved away from the door, plastered his back against the outside wall of the bridge, and edged up to a window. He saw Third Mate Marla Hayes, a male crewman, and Captain Gannon standing together in the pilothouse. The captain must have been rousted from his bunk because he had a jacket on over his pajamas and slippers on his feet.
Four figures wearing commando outfits were gathered around the captain, the third mate, and the crewman. Hoods covered the faces of three of the commandos, the fourth having removed his to reveal an Asian face with jade-green eyes and a clean-shaven head. All four cradled short-barreled automatic weapons carried sidearms, and had long-bladed knives hanging at their waists.
“I’ll tell you again: Dr. Kane is no longer on this ship,” Gannon was saying. “He left hours ago on a seaplane.”
The unhooded commando reacted with the swiftness of a striking rattlesnake, his free hand shooting out in a short, stabbing blow to the captain’s solar plexus.
“Do not lie to me!” he snapped.
The captain doubled over, but he managed to gasp out a reply.
“Kane is not here,” he wheezed. “Search the whole damned ship, if you don’t believe me.”
“No, Captain,” his assailant said. “ Youwill search the ship. Tell everyone to come up to the deck.”
Still bent over in pain, Gannon reluctantly picked up a receiver connected to the Beebe’s public-address system. When he hesitated with the receiver at his mouth, his assailant forcefully jabbed a gun barrel into the captain’s side to show his impatience.
Gannon winced, but he stubbornly resisted the impulse to cry out. He took a deep breath and spoke into the receiver.
“This is the captain. All hands on deck. All officers and crew assemble on the fantail.”
Gannon’s assailant barked out an order, and then he and two of his accomplices herded their three prisoners toward the door leading out onto the wing. Austin saw the move and climbed up a ladder that provided access to the radio tower on the pilothouse roof. From his perch, he watched the group descend to the main deck. He climbed back down and peered in a window. One attacker had been left to guard the ship’s control center.
Austin descended the stairs to a lower deck, quietly opened the door to Zavala’s cabin, stepped inside, and poked the mound beneath the blankets. Zavala groaned, then pushed the covers aside and sat up on the edge of his bed.
“Oh, hi, Kurt,” he said with a yawn. “What’s up?”
“Didn’t you hear the captain tell the crew to gather on deck?” Austin asked.
Zavala rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“I heard him,” he said, “but I’m not crew, so I stayed in the sack.”
“Your skill at splitting hairs may have saved your butt,” Austin said.
Zavala suddenly came to life.
“What’s going on, Kurt?”
“Uninvited company. A bunch of heavily armed gentlemen in ninja suits.”