He went over to a rolltop desk and powered up his laptop computer. Using the Web site information from Dr. Adler, he called up the satellite picture of the giant wave area. The image showed that all was quiet. He backed up through the image archives to the date of the Southern Belle'ssinking. The two giant waves that had startled Adler were clearly displayed on the date the ship had disappeared. The ship itself was shown as a small blip that was there one minute, gone the next.
He zoomed the picture out so that it showed a greater area of ocean and saw something he hadn't noticed before. Four ships were clustered around the area of the sinking. There was one at each point of the compass, equidistant from one another. He stared at the image for a moment, then backed up a few days. The ships were not there. He jumped ahead to shortly after the sinking. There were only threeships. When he went to a day after the Bellewent down, no blips were visible.
He was like one of Plato's prisoners in the cave, trying to separate reality from appearance, but he had one advantage they didn't. He could call out for help. He picked up the thick NUMA directory next to the phone, scanned the listings and punched in a number on the phone. A man answered.
"Hello, Alan. This is Kurt Austin. I just got in from a cruise. Hope I didn't wake you."
"Not at all, Kurt. Nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?"
"Can you make a meeting at my place tomorrow morning around eight? It's quite important."
"Of course."There was a pause. "You know what I do?"
Alan Hibbet was one of the dozens of innocuous NUMA scientists who toiled anonymously in the heart of the great oceanographic organization, content to do research of vital importance in exotic subjects with little fanfare. A few months earlier, Austin had heard Hibbet speak at a NUMA symposium on at-sea communication and environmental monitoring. He'd been impressed with the breadth of the man's knowledge.
"I know very well what you do. You're a specialist in applied electromagnetism, with expertise in antennae. You're responsible for designing the electronic eyes and ears NUMA uses to probe the deep and maintain communications among its far-flung operations. I read your paper on the effect of ground plane size on the radiation patterns produced by reduced surface antennae."
"You did?I'm flattered. I'm basically a tinkerer. I think of the Special Assignments Team as swashbucklers." Austin and his team were legends around NUMA, and Hibbet was stunned at being asked to help.
Austin laughed ruefully. His arm muscles were still sore from rescuing Paul Trout and he was dog-tired. "I think there's more buckle than swash in the team these days. We could really use your expertise."
"I'll be glad to help in any way I can," Hibbet said.
Austin gave Hibbet directions to the boathouse, and said he looked forward to seeing him in the morning. He made some notes in a yellow legal pad while the thoughts were fresh in his head. Then he prepared a full pot of Kenyan coffee, put the coffeemaker on automatic and went upstairs to his turret bedroom. He undressed, slid between the cool sheets and quickly fell asleep. It seemed only minutes before he was awakened by the bright morning sunlight streaming into his bedroom window.
He showered and shaved, got dressed comfortably in T-shirt and shorts, and whipped together an order of scrambled eggs and Virginia ham, which he ate on the deck. He had just finished clearing away the dishes when Zavala knocked on the door. The Trouts showed up a few minutes later with Professor Adler. Al Hibbet arrived at the same time. Hibbet was a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair. He was almost painfully shy, and his skin was as pale as marble, both consequences of spending most of his days in a laboratory away from human contact and sunlight.
Austin handed each person a mug of coffee and herded them to a round, teakwood table on the deck. Austin could have called the meeting at his office in the green-tinted tower in Arlington that was the center of NUMA's operations. But he wasn't ready to answer questions or share his thoughts with anyone outside his innermost circle until he had gathered more facts. He pulled up a chair and gazed longingly at the sun-sparkled river where he usually spent his morning rowing for exercise, then glanced around the table and thanked everyone for coming. He felt like Van Helsing calling together a strategy meeting to battle Dracula, and was tempted to ask if anyone brought the garlic.
Instead, he got right to the point. "Something very odd has been going on in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans," he began. "The sea is being stirred up like eggs in a bowl. These disturbances have sunk one ship, and possibly two, that we know of, nearly sank another, and have scared a year's growth off some of the people seated around this table, including yours truly." He turned to Adler. "Professor, would you be kind enough to describe the phenomena we've witnessed, and hold forth with some of your theories."
"I'd be glad to," Adler said. He recounted the disappearance of the "unsinkable" Southern Belleand the successful search for the lost ship. He described the satellite evidence confirming the existence of giant waves in the ship's vicinity. Last, and with slightly less enthusiasm, he talked about his theory that the disturbances may not have been of natural origin. As he explained his thoughts, he looked from face to face as if he were searching for a hint of doubt. To his relief, he saw only seriousness and interest.
"Normally, we might attribute all this strange ocean activity to King Neptune kicking up his heels, but for a couple of things," he said. "Satellite imagery suggests that other areas of the oceans have been similarly disturbed, and that there is an unusual symmetry to the disturbances." Using Austin's laptop, he showed the satellite images of the killer wave concentrations.
Austin asked the Trouts to describe their descent into the maelstrom. Again, there was silence as Gamay and Paul took turns telling about being sucked into the vortex and their last-minute rescue.
"You say there was lightning at the time this whirlpool first materialized?" Hibbet said.
Gamay and Paul nodded.
Hibbet's reply was succinct. He only said, "Ah."
Zavala picked up the story thread, and told the group about boarding the resurrected ship. Hibbet was keenly interested in his description of the power plant and the damaged electrical framework on deck.
"I wish I could have been there to see it," he said.
"I can do the next best thing," Zavala said. Moments later, the digital photos he had taken of the mystery ship were displayed on the computer screen.
Austin asked Hibbet what he made of the images. The NUMA scientist stared at the screen with a furrowed brow, and asked for a second run-through of the photos.
"It's fairly obvious that a great deal of electrical power is being fed into a central point." He pointed to the cone-shaped framework. "It's hard to know what this apparatus is for in its present state."
"Joe described it as a giant spark plug," Austin said.
Hibbet scratched his head. "Probably not. More like a giant Tesla coil. Many of the circuits that make this thing tick are not visible. Where is the ship now?"
"It sank to the bottom of the sea again," Zavala said.
Hibbet's reaction wasn't what Austin expected. There was excitement in his gray eyes as he rubbed his palms together. "This beats fiddling around with antennae any day." He clicked through the computer pictures again, then he glanced around the table. "Anyone here familiar with the work of Nikola Tesla?"