After the divers returned to the ship, she saw and felt the drill ship be repositioned. Then around sundown the activity picked up again, as shouting voices and the whir of a crane drifted up from the deck below. She was startled when the door to the storeroom suddenly burst open and she was greeted by a bullnecked thug with crooked teeth. At his prodding, Summer followed him onto the bridge and over to a chart table, where Tong was examining a diagram under a bright swivel light. He looked up and gave her a condescending sneer as she approached.
"Miss Pitt. My divers have confirmed that your excavation was most thorough. And you did not lie.
Most of the ship lies under the lava. There is work ahead to confirm her true designs."
He waited for a response, but Summer just gave him a cold stare, then raised her hands, still tied together at the wrist.
"Ah, yes. Very well, I suppose there is no place for you to run now," he said, nodding at Bull Neck. The underling pulled out a knife and quickly sliced through the ropes. Rubbing her wrists, Summer casually looked around the bridge. A lone helmsman stood by the forward window, gazing at a radarscope. The rest of the bridge was empty, save for her two immediate companions. Tong motioned for her to take a seat next to him, which she did hesitantly.
"Yes," Summer spoke quietly. "As we told you aboard the Mariana Explorer, which is due back any minute now, we have removed all of the artifacts from the lava-free sections of the wreck, which were in fact a fairly small quantity."
Tong smiled at Summer, then leaned over and put his hand on her knee. She wanted to slap him and run from the table, but she did neither. Instead, she just gave him an icy glare, fighting her hardest to hide her fear and revulsion.
"My dear, we passed the Mariana Explorer outside of Hilo," he leered. "She should be near her destination of Leleiwi Point by now, on the opposite side of the island," he added, laughing with a wicked grin.
"Why is this wreck so important to you?" she asked, hoping to steer his attention away from her.
"You really have no idea, do you?" he replied incredulously. Then he removed his hand from her knee and turned back to the chart of the table. It was a sonar image of the seabed, showing the site of the wreck excavation and the adjacent lava field. An X was marked on the chart near the center of the lava flow.
"Have you penetrated the lava field in your excavations?" he asked.
"No, of course not. I don't know what you are after, Dr. Tong. The artifacts have been removed and the rest of the wreck is sealed under lava. There is nothing you or anyone else can do about that."
"Oh but you see there is, my dear, there is."
Summer stared at Tong with fear and curiosity, wondering what these mercenary looters had up their sleeve.
Tong left Summer under the guard's eye and marched onto the bridge wing and down a flight of stairs.
Moving aft, he opened a side hatch and entered a large open bay. Racks of computers and electronic panels lined the walls, in a quantity that duplicated the test chamber at the family compound in Mongolia.
A short man with steely eyes stood next to a large desk lined with color monitors, gazing over the shoulder at the chief operator's display. He was the same man who had headed up the aborted search efforts in the Khentii Mountains after killing the Russian seismic survey team. He nodded as Tong approached.
"We have identified a minor fault and have the coordinates targeted," he said in a husky voice. "It is in close proximity, but may not be sufficient to create the desired fissure in the lava field. What you ask for is an impossible request, I'm afraid. We should not waste time here but proceed to Alaska as your brother requested."
Tong did not let the affront bother him. "A day or two's delay is worth the gamble. If we are successful and it is in fact the royal Yuan vessel, then the mission to Alaska will appear a mere trifle in comparison."
The short man nodded in deferral. "I recommend four or five incremental detonations, then send the dive team down to check the results. That should tell us if there is any hope of rupturing the lava."
"Very well, proceed with the acoustic bursts. We will work through the night. If there is no success, then we will abandon the site in the morning and proceed to Alaska."
Tong stood back and let the technicians take over. As in the Persian Gulf, a seismic acoustic array was lowered through the ship's moon pool to the lava field below, where the framed and weighted device stood upright on the seafloor. A nearby subterranean fault was pinpointed and targeted, then the computer processors and signal amplifiers activated. With a click of the computer, the first massive electrical pulse went shooting through the three transducer arrays five fathoms below. A second later, the muffled blast of the acoustic shock wave resonated up to the ship with a subtle vibration.
Tong stood watching the blast with an expectant grin, hoping the voyage would bring two successes.
***
A mile away, the low-riding catamaran skirted into the cove under a black nighttime sky. Dirk and Dahlgren resumed their prone positions on the surfboards and paddled their way along the high rocky shoreline. Spotting a shallow ledge just above the water level, they ground the boat beneath a nearly vertical wall of lava. Dirk stood and eyed the bright lights of the nearby drill ship, then dismantled the mast and sail to improve their stealth profile.
The two men sat and rested as they studied the ship, spent from their long day on the water. They were close enough to see a dozen or so men scurrying about the derrick on the illuminated stern deck. They watched as a tall tripod device was lowered through the deck into the water.
"Do you think they're actually trying to drill through the lava to get to the wreck?" Dahlgren postulated.
"Can't imagine what they would expect to recover that way."
The two men downed their supply of food and water and stretched their tired limbs. Slightly refortified, they were contemplating a plan of attack when a low-pitched rumble sounded near the ship. It was a muffled noise, as if emitted from deep within the ship or beneath it.
"What the Sam Hill was that?" Dahlgren drawled.
"Underwater explosion?" Dirk muttered. He looked at the water surface surrounding the ship, anticipating a rising burst of spray and bubbles, but nothing appeared. The surface water in the cove showed barely a ripple.
"Odd that it didn't affect the water. Must have come from within the ship," he said.
"Doesn't seem to be causing any excitement aboard," Dahlgren replied, noting that the deck crew had mostly disappeared and that the ship appeared calm. "How's about we take a closer look?"
They started to drag the catamaran back into the water when a second muffled boom erupted. Like the first, it made no impact to the waters in the middle of the cove. As the two men contemplated the strange detonation, a new, more thunderous noise began rumbling beneath their feet. The noise rose up as the ground began shaking violently, nearly knocking them off balance. Small chunks of loose lava and debris began raining down from the steep cliff face above them.
"Watch out!" Dirk shouted, spotting a nearby boulder break free and slide toward them. The two men barely dove out of the way as the rock rolled past them and over a corner of the catamaran before splashing into the water.
The ground vibrated for several more seconds before fading away. A few frothy waves stirred up by the earthquake slapped violently against the cliffside, then the waters of the cove fell calm.