Joe Zavala sat at the control console piloting the boxy undersea robot with a joystick. Zavala was an experienced pilot who had logged hundreds of hours in helicopters, small jet and turboprop aircraft, but controlling a moving object hundreds of feet away required the deft hand of a teenage video game addict on the controls.
Keeping an eye on the video picture in front of him, Zavala guided the ROV as if he were sitting inside it. He used a firm yet gentle hand on the joystick, giving the vehicle subtle commands to compensate for shifts in current. With each move of the joystick, he had to be careful that the ROV didn't get tangled in its umbilical.
The mood was somber in the crowded remote sensing center. Crew and scientists had squeezed into the room after word of the Southern Belle'sdiscovery had spread throughout the ship. The silent spectators gazed at the ghostly images of the dead ship like mourners at a funeral bier.
Reality had set in after the initial excitement of the ship's discovery. Those who follow the sea know that the solid deck under their feet rests on an undulating liquid foundation of ocean water that is as treacherous as it is beautiful. Everyone on the Throckmortonknew that the sunken ship had become a tomb for its crew. All were aware that they could suffer the same fate. There was no sign of the men who had gone down with the Southern Belle,but it was impossible not to contemplate the last terrifying moments of the cargo ship's doomed crew.
Totally focused on his task, Zavala brought the ROV down to deck level and ran it over the deck from bow to stern. Normally, he would have to be careful that the vehicle didn't get tangled in the masts and radio antennae, but the Belle'sdeck was as level as a billiard table. The camera picked up ragged metal stubs where the cranes and booms used to handle cargo containers had been snapped off like toothpicks.
As the ROV soared over the aft end of the ship, its lights picked out a large rectangular opening in the deck.
Zavala murmured an exclamation in Spanish. Then he said, "The deckhouse is gone."
Austin was leaning over Zavala's shoulder. "Try searching the area immediately around the ship," he suggested.
Zavala worked the joystick, and the vehicle rose higher above the deck. It moved around the ship in an expanding spiral, but there was no sign of the deckhouse.
Professor Adler had been watching the show in stony silence. He tapped Austin lightly on the arm and led him to the far end of the room, away from the crowd clustered around the ROV monitor.
"I think it's time we talked," the professor whispered.
Austin nodded and returned to the control console. He told Joe he would be in the ship's recreation room, then he and the professor left the survey center. With the rest of the ship's complement working or watching the pictures of the Belle,they had the rec room to themselves. It was a comfortable space, with leather furniture, a television set and DVD, movie cabinet, pool table and Ping-Pong table, some board games and a computer.
Austin and Adler settled into a couple of chairs. "Well," Adler said, "what do you think?"
"About the Belle?You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce why it went to the bottom. The deckhouse was blasted off."
"We have the satellite pictures showing wave activity. There's no doubt in my mind that she was hit by one or more killer waves far bigger than anything we've seen before."
"Which brings us back to your theories. You were reluctant earlier to talk about them. Has finding the ship changed your mind?"
"I'm afraid my theories are out of the ordinary."
Austin leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. "I've learned that nothing is ordinary when it comes to the ocean."
"I've hesitated up to now because I didn't want to be labeled a humbug. It took years for the scientific community to accept freak waves as fact. My colleagues would rip me to shreds if they knew what I was thinking."
"We couldn't let that happen," Austin said reassuringly. "I'll respect your confidence."
The professor nodded. "When the empirical evidence of these waves became too strong to deny, the European Union launched two high-resolution-image satellites. The project was called Max Wave. The goal was to see if these waves existed, and examine how they might influence ship and offshore platform design. The European Space Agency satellites would produce 'imagettes,' covering an area just ten by five kilometers. Over a three-week period, the satellites identified more than ten freak waves all higher than eighty-two feet."
Adler went over and sat in front of the computer. He tapped the keyboard until an image of the globe appeared on the screen. The Atlantic Ocean was speckled with annotated wave symbols. "I'm using the census data from Wave Atlas. Each symbol denotes the location of a giant wave, its height and the date it was formed. As you can see, there has been an increase in wave activities over the last thirteen months. And in the size of these monsters as well."
Austin pulled up a chair next to the professor. He scanned the wavy symbols. Each symbol was annotated with the height and date of the event. The waves were randomly scattered around the world, except for several clusters.
"Do you notice anything unusual?"
"These four circular patterns are each spaced the same distance apart in the Atlantic, including the area we're in now. Two in the North Atlantic. Two in the South. What about the Pacific?"
"I'm glad you asked me that." He manipulated the globe until the Pacific Ocean came into view.
Austin whistled. "Four similar clusters. Strange."
"That's what struck me as odd too." A faint smile crossed his lips. "I've measured the clusters and found that they are exactly equidistant in each ocean."
"What are you saying, Professor?"
"That there appears to be a conscious plan at work here. These waves are the work either of man or God."
Austin pondered the implications of the professor's statement. "There is a third possibility," he said after a moment. "Man acting as God."
Arching a bushy eyebrow, Adler said, "That's out of the question, of course."
Austin smiled. "Not necessarily. Mankind has a history of trying to control the elements."
"Controlling the sea is another matter."
"I agree, although there have been crude but effective attempts. Dikes and storm barriers go back hundreds of years."
"I was a consultant on the Venice tidal gate project, so I know what you mean. Stopping the ocean involves a relatively simple concept. It's the engineering that becomes the challenge. The creation of giant waves would be far more difficult."
"But not impossible," Austin said.
"No, not impossible."
"Have you given any thought to means? Something like huge underwater explosions?"
"Highly unlikely," Adler said with a shake of his head. "You'd need an explosion of a nuclear level, and it would be detected. Any other ideas?"
"Not offhand," Austin said. "But it's definitely something that NUMA should investigate."
"You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that," Adler said with relief. "I thought I was going crazy."
A thought occurred to Austin. "Joe wondered if the Trouts' work might shed some light on this mystery," he said.
"Sure, I remember. You mentioned that a couple of your NUMA colleagues are working on another research project in this area."