Poseidon's Arrow

“You think Dad would mind if we borrowed one of his cars to run to the office?” Summer asked.

“He’s always given us a standing offer to drive what we like,” Dirk said. He pointed to a silver-and-burgundy roadster parked near a workbench. “He said in an e-mail before he left for the Pacific that he just got that Packard ru

He checked to see that it had plenty of gas while Summer opened a garage door. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he pulled the choke and adjusted the throttle lever mounted on the steering wheel and hit the starter button. The big straight-eight engine murmured to life. Letting it warm up for a moment, he pulled the car outside and waited for Summer to lock the hangar.

She jumped into the passenger seat with a travel bag in tow, not noticing a white van parked across an adjacent field. “What’s with the funky seats?” she asked.

The Packard roadster’s tight cockpit held two rigid seats. Summer’s passenger seat was permanently offset a few inches farther from the dash than Dirk’s driver’s seat.

“More room for the driver to turn and shift at high speed,” Dirk explained, pointing to the floor-mounted gear lever.

“I’ll gladly take the extra legroom.”

Built in 1930, the Model 734 Packard chassis carried one of the factory’s rarest bodies, a sleek boattail speedster. The trunk line tapered to an angular point, giving the car a highly streamlined appearance. Sporting dual side-mounted spare tires, the body gleamed with metallic pewter paint, contrasted by burgundy fenders and a matching body-length stripe. Narrow Woodlite headlights on the prow, combined with an angled windshield, added to the sensation that the car was in motion even while parked.

Dirk drove north onto the George Washington Parkway, finding that the Packard loped along easily with the highway traffic. It was only a ten-minute drive to the NUMA headquarters, a tall glass structure that bordered the Potomac. Dirk parked in the underground garage, and they took an employee elevator to the top floor and Rudi Gu

They found Gu

Summer smiled. “Us, too.”

“I thought we were going to have to sedate Rudi,” Yaeger said. “Your leg okay, Summer?”

“Just fine. I think the coach seat from Joha

Both men turned grim. “Unfortunately, there’s not much to report,” Gu

“They boarded the Adelaide about a thousand miles southeast of Hawaii,” Yaeger said. “A Navy frigate on exercise out of San Diego was scheduled to meet them when they neared the coast and escort them to Long Beach. The Adelaide never appeared.”

“Any sign of debris?” Dirk asked.

“No,” Gu

Dirk noted a white horizontal line begi

“Her AIS beacon provided her track to that point shortly after your dad and the SWAT team went aboard,” Yaeger said. “After that, the AIS signal went dead.”

“So she sank?” Summer asked, her voice breaking.

“Not necessarily,” Gu

“We’ve drawn a couple of big circles around her last reported position to see where she could have gone.” Yaeger replaced the ocean map with a split screen of two satellite ocean photos. At the bottom was overlaid a stock photo of a large green bulk carrier labeled Adelaide. “We’re looking at coastal satellite photos to see if she might have popped up somewhere.”

“Hiram has accessed every public and not-so-public source of satellite reco

“North, South, and Central America, for starters.” Yaeger stifled a yawn. “Should keep us busy till Christmas.”

“How can we help?” Summer asked.

“We’ve got satellite images for most of the major West Coast ports from the past four days. I’ll divvy them up and see if anyone can spot a ship resembling the Adelaide.”

Yaeger set up two laptops and downloaded the images. Everyone went to work, scouring the photos for a large green cargo ship. They worked all through the day, studying image after image, until their eyes burned. Yet hopes were raised as they pegged eleven ships from the sometimes fuzzy and obscured photos that appeared to fit the Adelaide’s profile.

“Three in Long Beach, two in Manzanillo, four to the Panama Canal, and one each to San Antonio, Chile, and Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica,” Yaeger said.

“I can’t imagine any of the Long Beach vessels would be ours,” Dirk said, “unless they ran to another port to off-load first.”

Gu

“Good thought,” Dirk said, standing and stretching. “I’ve run out of gas on a diet of airline food and coffee.”

“Just a second,” Summer said. “Before we break, I need a quick favor from Hiram, and then I’ll need your help in making a delivery.” She picked up her travel pack, which clinked with the sound of bottles inside.

“I’m pretty hungry. Can we grab a bite on the way?”

“Where we’re headed,” she said, “I can positively guarantee there will be something good to eat.”

53

THE PACKARD ROARED OUT OF THE PARKING garage and skirted past a white van at the edge of the outside lot before merging into the evening rush-hour traffic. Dirk crossed into Georgetown as an evening breeze tousled Summer’s hair in the open car. Turning down a shady residential street filled with elegant homes, Dirk stopped in front of a former carriage house that ages ago had been transformed into a courtly freestanding residence.

They had barely rung the bell when the front door was thrown open by a gargantuan man sporting an overflowing gray beard. St. Julien Perlmutter’s eyes twinkled as he greeted Dirk and Summer and invited them inside.

“I nearly ate without you,” he said.

“You were expecting us?” Dirk asked.

“Of course. Summer e-mailed me with the particulars of your Madagascar mystery. I insisted you both come by for di

Summer smiled sheepishly at her brother, then followed Perlmutter through a book-infested living room and into a formal dining area, where an antique cherrywood table sat overloaded with food. Perlmutter was a marine historian, one of the best on the planet, but he had a second love as a gourmand. His eyes lit up when Summer opened her bag and offered him three bottles of wine from South Africa.