“Your AI system is scanning them all?”
“That’s right. The images can be fed into the system, and the AI program, designed to search for a particular shape or constellation of shapes, determines which images are most likely to match up with what we’re searching for. The program itself is pretty basic, but what AI can do with it is invaluable, yet terrifying and startling at the same time.”
Pauline’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“The AI program can extrapolate enormous amounts of information from very little data, things that no human could possibly achieve.”
“Such as?”
“Say you’re looking for a plane that went down in the ocean. My system can simultaneously look at hundreds of thousands of images, and by picking up the movement of flotsam, debris, and other floating materials, it could extrapolate where an object floating in the Atlantic Ocean might have originated.”
“You’re saying we find a wing in the Atlantic Ocean, but your AI program can tell us that the wing most likely came off a plane that crashed in the Southern Ocean?”
Elise nodded. “That’s right. Something just like that.”
Pauline placed her hands akimbo. “So what’s the down side?”
“What?”
“You said that’s the benefit of AI in search and rescue, so what’s the downside?”
Elise made a dramatic sigh. “Well, like all technology, it could be used for good or evil. Depending on what the user was trying to achieve, it could be used to locate individual people to spy, track, or locate them anywhere in the world. Thus, we’re opening a Pandora’s Box of privacy problems. Think about it. Say you’re in trouble, your life’s at stake, and you’ve entered a witness protection program and moved overseas. Well, given this sort of AI technology, theoretically, someone could locate you anywhere in the world.”
“Can they actually do that?”
“It would be hard. The person of interest would need to be outside at the time, without a hat on their head, or looking up at the sky when the satellites came overhead, but yes, with current AI technology, it’s possible. You have to remember, it might not locate them on the first run, but the satellites circle the Earth more than twice every twenty-four hours. If they don’t capture him today, there’s always tomorrow, or the next. Either way, eventually, a person of interest will be found.”
“Scary stuff,” Pauline said. “So why hasn’t it located the Phoenix?”
Elise held her gaze with defiance. “It’s not perfect. There’s nothing it can do if cloud covers vital pieces of the puzzle. Even so…” her voice faded.
Pauline said, “What?”
Elise smiled. “Even so, I have another theory.”
“What’s that?”
“I think my AI system hasn’t located the wreckage of Phoenix Flight 318, because the aircraft never crashed — or certainly didn’t in any ocean throughout the world.”
Veyron and Matthew loaded the last crate onto the deck.
Pauline scanned what amounted to nearly a ton of equipment. “What is all that stuff?”
“Mostly dive gear.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And?”
Veyron unlatched the watertight locks, and opened a gray case. Inside was a pair of M2 Browning Heavy Machineguns and five Israeli made open-bolt, blowback-operated, Uzis.
Pauline frowned. “Good God! What are they for?”
Sam turned to pacify her. “Whoever’s responsible for whatever’s going on, has gone to great lengths to cover up the loss of the Phoenix, including exhuming more than four hundred bodies, and faking a massive air crash. They went to the trouble of scuttling the San Juan before a Navy ship could intercept it. That means whatever’s on board incriminates them with this operation. I have no doubt they’re willing to kill to protect it.”
Tom said, “I still don’t know what they could possibly have left behind down there that they’re so worried would lead us to the Phoenix?”
Elise grinned. “How about an AIS beacon?”
AIS stood for automated identification system.
Tom laughed. “You’re right. They could have turned off their system, but inside, it would still register its position. Find its unique tracking identifier and we can locate where the ship’s been since the day it was first launched.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Moonlight Sonata motored slowly away from the Italian island of Capri, coming to a stop roughly five hundred feet to the south. The graphic display of the depth sounder depicted the clear outline of the large cargo ship of the San Juan resting on the seabed some 130 feet below.
Tom spotted the image and grinned. “In an area with an average depth in excess of four thousand feet, they sure messed up when they scuttled the ship in just one-hundred and thirty!”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, according to the attaché from the Italian Navy, they were in the process of heading toward the deeper water, when the Navy approached. Afraid to get caught with incriminating evidence, they opened the seacocks and flooded the ship!”
“What happened to the crew?”
“They offloaded onto a high-powered skiff and raced toward the shore along the coast of Sorrento.”
“No one caught them at Sorrento?”
Sam shook his head. “A car was waiting for them, and the crew split up…”
“Someone knew exactly what they were doing.”
Sam sighed. “And we’re going to find out who.”
Sam and Tom worked quickly to set up their SCUBA equipment. Sam slid into his wetsuit. They were diving on trimix — a unique combination of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen designed to allow a diver to reach extraordinary depths.
The plan was to reach the bridge and remove the AIS hard drive. Failing that, if they could locate the ship’s unique AIS code, they might be able to retrospectively locate where the ship had been over the months leading up to the loss of the Phoenix. Either way, they wouldn’t know until they were inside the wreckage.
Tom glanced at the schematics. Speaking to Elise, he asked, “Are you sure the hard drive’s going to work after being submerged in saltwater?”
“Certain. Cyber criminals have been trying to work out how to permanently destroy data from hard drives since the first personal computer was invented. It’s much harder said than done.”
“Really? I didn’t know.”
Elise nodded. “Saltwater, fire, smashing with hammers… generally result in them still being able to be retrieved by technicians with enough know-how.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “So what do we need when we want to wipe a hard drive?”
“A magnet.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It wipes everything from the hard drive, rendering any data useless.”
Sam said, “That’s fascinating. I’ll keep it in mind next time I want to erase my hard drive.”
Tom shrugged. “Hey, I’m good to go.”
“All right, all right.” Sam picked up his full faced dive mask with a built in push to talk radio transmitter. “We’ll see you in an hour, Elise.”
Enjoy,” she replied with her eyes still fixated on her laptop screen. “I’ll see if I can find the aircraft that flew using the Phoenix Flight 318’s transponder code.”
“Good luck.”
Sam stepped off the aft deck of the Moonlight Sonata into the warm waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. He and Tom quickly checked their gauges and dive computers.
Everything was in order.
Sam turned to Tom, and asked, “You good to dive?”
“All good buddy, let’s go see what the San Juan is hiding from the world.”
They made the descent quickly.