Treasure of Khan

magnitude. And it was a shallow quake. Its epicenter was just a mile off shore, in a place called Keliuli Bay."

"What do the foreshocks look like?"

McCammon crinkled his brow. "Very similar to the ones we've seen before. Man-made in appearance.

I just fed the data to Max for assessment. Hope you don't mind me taxing her talents while you were away," he added.

Max was standing near a computer bank with her arms crossed, looking deep in thought. She turned and smiled at McCammon.

"Dr. McCammon, I am delighted to assist you at any time. It is a pleasure to work with a gentleman,"

she added with a slight tweak of her nose in Yaeger's direction.

"Good morning to you, too, Max," Yaeger said. "Have you completed the analysis for Dr.

McCammon?"

"Yes," Max nodded. "As Dr. McCammon can show you, there were two primary foreshocks recorded before the quake. Each had nearly identical seismic readings, though there was a slight increase in intensity with the second foreshock. And both foreshocks appear to have originated near the surface."

"How do they compare to the foreshocks recorded before the two Persian Gulf earthquakes?" Yaeger asked.

"The foreshocks show near identical signal characteristics to those that preceded the earthquakes at Ras Tanura and Kharg Island. Like those shocks, they originated near the surface."

Yaeger and McCammon looked at each other with grim silence.

"Hawaii," Yaeger finally said. "Why Hawaii?"

Then with a shake of the head, he added, "I think it's time we contact the White House."

-50-

Summer kept her hands gripped around Bull Neck's wrist, despite staring down the barrel of a Glock automatic pistol. Tong stood still in the doorway, trying to assess the situation. Behind him, a deep rumbling echoed across the water, but he ignored the sound while silently admiring Summer's skill at subduing one of his toughs.

On the opposite side of the bridge, the helmsman regained his tongue and nerve, while keeping a safe distance from Summer.

"The port thrusters are disabled," he shouted at Tong. "We will strike the rocks." Waving animatedly, he pointed toward the lava cliffs now materializing off the port beam.

Tong listened without quite comprehending, then followed the helmsman's motions and looked out the bridge wing. As he turned, an unseen pair of thick arms, clad in the black neoprene rubber material of a wet suit, reached out of the darkness and grabbed Tong around the torso. The Mongolian instinctively squeezed the trigger on his pistol, but the shot fired harmlessly through the roof of the bridge. Tong then turned to fight off his attacker by whipping the gun around as a club. But his movements came too late.

His assailant had already taken a step forward, pitching Tong off balance. Tong staggered forward, trying to stay on his feet, but only added momentum to his captor. The assailant capitalized on the momentum with a gyrating lift, sweeping Tong completely off his feet. With a staggering lunge, he heaved Tong up and over the side railing, then let go. The stu

On the bridge wing, the ex-calf roper Jack Dahlgren turned back toward the wheelhouse and gave Summer a quick wink and a grin. An instant later, Dirk rushed past him onto the bridge, wielding a gaff he had snared off the lower deck.

"You're all right," Summer gasped at the sight of the two men.

"Alive but soggy." Dirk smiled.

A jovial reunion was cut short by a jarring crash that knocked everyone to the deck. The four-thousand-ton drill ship, driven by the unabated power of its starboard thrusters, smashed broadside into the edge of the cove. The grinding impact of lava against steel echoed up from the waterline. The sharp volcanic rock sliced easily through the ship's hull, penetrating the lower hold in more than a dozen places. Seawater flooded in like a sieve, quickly tilting the ship to a port list. Somewhere in the darkened waters beneath the ship, the lifeless body of Tong swirled about, having found himself at the unfortunate point of impact between ship and shore.

The young helmsman was the first to find his feet, striking a ship's alarm bell, then fleeing out the starboard wing. Summer finally let go of Bull Neck's wrist, but the thug was in no mood to fight when Dirk jabbed the pike into his ribs and prodded him out the port wing door. Outside, the sound of men's shouts competed with the continued rumbling.

"Why did I have a feeling you had a hand in piloting the ship?" Dirk asked his sister with a grin.

"Desperate measures," Summer replied.

"Company on the way," Dahlgren said, peering off the bridge wing. Two flights down, a band of armed men were rushing toward the bridge.

"Can you handle a swim?" Dirk asked, leading the way up the sloping deck toward the starboard wing.

"I'm fine," Summer replied. "A dip was actually on my agenda before you arrived."

The threesome quickly scrambled off the bridge and down to the lower deck, where yells and shouts from the crew peppered the night air. On the bow, several crewmen were preparing to lower a lifeboat, though the water was already washing over the deck of the listing port side. On the opposite beam, Summer wasted no time in further encounters with the crew, climbing over the rail and sliding down the angled ship's flank until plunging into the water. Dirk and Dahlgren followed her in and quickly swam away from the ship.

The rumbling from the shoreline intensified until yet another earthquake rocked the ground. Stronger than the prior jolt, the quake rattled the unstable sections of the lava cliff face. All along the cove, chunks of lava were jarred free, tumbling down the cliffsides and crashing into the water with explosive eruptions of sea and foam.

The cliff towering above the drill ship shared in the instability, the quake carving out a large slice of volcanic rock. The huge piece tumbled once, bounding out from the cliff in free space before dropping directly onto the ship. The spire sliced through the rear of the bridge, collapsing the deck onto the computer room below. The base of the rock mashed into the port beam amidships, flattening a wide section of the ship. Panicked crewman dove into the water to escape the carnage, while the lone lifeboat finally broke free of the bow.

The rumbling from the quake finally fell away, and, with it, the crashing of the loosened rocks. The night air was now ruffled by the gurgling sounds of the dying drill ship, punctuated by the occasional shout of a crewman. A hundred yards away, Dirk, Summer, and Dahlgren treaded water while watching the old vessel's final minutes. "She'll make for a nice reef," Dahlgren noted as the ship tilted lower into the water.

A few moments later, the drill ship slowly rolled to her side, sliding off the rocks and disappearing under the waves to the seafloor seventy feet below. Only her tall derrick, sheared off during the roll and lying against the cliff wall, gave a clue to the ship's final resting spot.

"What did they hope to extract from the wreck?" Dirk asked.

"I was never able to find out," Summer replied. "But they were going to the extreme of ripping open the lava field to get to it."

"While generating a couple of earthquakes in the process," Dahlgren added. "I'd like to know what kind of black box they were using for that."

"I'd just like to know who they are," Summer said.