Medusa

Zavala took a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket and placed it on the diagrams.

“Imagine this pen is a submarine or large submersible,” he said. “They hook onto the lab, get it pumped up to neutral buoyancy, and tow it away.”

“Great minds think alike,” Austin said. “The Russian government has been trying to sell off its fleet of Typhoons for use as cargo carriers in the Arctic. Maybe they found a buyer.”

“That solves only part of the mystery,” Zavala said. “If this was such a big secret, how did the hijackers know Davy Jones’s Locker existed and where it was located?”

“The lab’s security was outsourced to a private contractor,” Austin said, “and that may have been the weak point. The Navy talked to the support-ship survivors. Lieutenant Casey said the crew got a request from their security company to shuttle a representative down to the lab a short while before the attack. They said he was a friendly guy with a Southern accent. Phelps, of course.

“Phelps admitted he hijacked the lab,” Austin continued. “What he didn’t say was that the company rep who authorized his visit was killed in a car crash. My guess is, he was coerced into getting Phelps an ID, then was eliminated.”

“A convenient coincidence,” Zavala said. “What was the lab’s last position?”

Austin dug a map out of the pouch and spread it on the coffee table. An area in the Pacific Ocean had been circled in black grease pencil near the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia.

Zavala sat back and laced his hands behind his head.

“Gee, that narrows it down,” he said with a sour expression on his face. “It could take months to find the lab.”

“Sandecker says we have to wrap it up in less than seventy-two hours,” Austin said.

“I’m surprised the old sea dog didn’t ask us to solve the problem of global hunger and the energy crisis in our spare time.”

“Don’t give him any ideas,” Austin said. “He’ll want us to clean up the oceans on our coffee break.”

The sound of approaching jet engines broke the early-morning stillness. Austin got up and went to the door. A NUMA jet was taxiing up to the hangar. The engines went silent, and three figures emerged and walked across the tarmac toward the Citation. Austin recognized Paul Trout’s tall, lanky form and Gamay’s red hair. The Asian woman walking by the Trouts’ side was a stranger to him.

Austin greeted the Trouts, and warned Paul to duck his head entering the cabin. He welcomed the Asian woman with a friendly smile.

“You must be Dr. Song Lee,” Austin said, offering his hand. “I’m Kurt Austin. This is Joe Zavala. We’re NUMA colleagues of the Trouts. Thank you for coming to Washington.”

“And thank you for sending Paul and Gamay to Bonefish Key, Mr. Austin,” Lee said. “I’d be dead if they hadn’t arrived when they did.”

Kurt’s eyes drank in Song’s flowerlike beauty.

“That would have been a shame, Dr. Lee,” he said. “Please have a seat. We don’t have much time. You must have many questions.”

Song Lee settled into the sofa and looked around in wonderment. With their imposing physical prowess, quiet competence, and easy banter in the face of danger, the Trouts had seemed larger than life. But this pale-haired man, with his broad shoulders and sculpted bronze profile, was even more intriguing. Austin’s courtly ma

“The Trouts told me about the attack on the bathysphere,” Lee said. “Do you know where Dr. Kane is?”

“Safe in protective custody. I spoke to Kane last night, and he filled me in on the work at Bonefish Key and the undersea lab they called Davy Jones’s Locker.”

Lee’s jaw dropped.

“I was aware of the secret facility, of course,” she said, “but I had no idea it was under the sea!”

“The Pacific Ocean, to be exact. It was in Micronesian waters, three hundred feet below the surface.”

Lee had a dazed expression on her delicate features.

“I would expect Dr. Kane to be unconventional,” she said, “but I never dreamed it was anything like that.”

Austin went on.

“The lab’s work and location were tightly held secrets, but somehow it was hijacked along with the staff. Joe and I think that the lab’s disappearance, the bathysphere attack, and the attempt to kidnap you are all co

“I’m a virologist trained in epidemiology,” Lee said. “I stayed on Bonefish Key to concentrate on the probable path an epidemic would take and how best to position our resources and the vaccine-production facilities.”

“That would make you an integral part of the project.”

“I like to think so. The vaccine would be useless without a strategy to deploy it. It would be as if a general sent his troops into battle without a plan.”

“What would have happened to the project if you had been kidnapped?”

“Not much,” she said with a shrug of the shoulders. “The plans are almost all in place, waiting for the cure to be synthesized into a viable vaccine. With the lab gone, there isn’t much chance of that happening.”

“Don’t give up hope, Dr. Lee. The lab is the object of a massive search. In fact, Joe and I are on our way to Micronesia to see if we can help the searchers.”

Lee dropped her gaze to the map lying on the table.

“You’re going to Pohnpei?” she asked.

“It looks that way,” Austin said. “Have you been there?”

“No, but the island was the epicenter of the deadly epidemic that struck the Pacific whaling fleet in the mid-1800s. This is extremely significant.”

“In what way, Dr. Lee?”

“At Harvard Medical School, I did a paper for a Professor Codman that was based on an article I came across in an old medical journal. The doctor who wrote the article had compiled statistics about a group of New Bedford whaling men who had been virtually disease-free for much of their very long lives.”

Austin tried to glance at his watch without being obvious. He had little interest in oddball medical phenomena. The whine of the Citation’s engines warming up provided a convenient out.

“It has been a great pleasure meeting you,” he said. “We’re going to be taking off soon . . .”

“Hear me out, Mr. Austin,” Lee said, raising her voice above the engines.

Austin smiled at the unexpected firmness.

“Go on, Dr. Lee, but please keep it brief.”

She nodded.

“The men in the study group had all crewed aboard the whaling ship Princess. They became ill after the ship stopped in Pohnpei.”

“I still don’t see the co

It was Song Lee’s turn to be impatient.

“It’s right there in front of you, Mr. Austin. The crew all survived! If that doesn’t get your attention, maybe this will. The symptoms of the disease were almost identical to those of this latest epidemic. The crewmen should have died, but instead they enjoyed robust health for the rest of their lives. Somehow, they were cured.”

“Are you saying that what cured the whalers might work for the new virus?” Austin asked.

“Precisely.”

Austin’s mental machinery kicked into gear. A bunch of whalers lived disease-free to a ripe old age after a trip to Micronesia, the same neighborhood where the blue medusa lives. He co

“The log of the Princess for that expedition would make interesting reading,” Paul Trout commented.

“I tried to track the 1848 logbook down through Harvard’s Widener Library,” Lee said. “My research led me to New Bedford. A dealer in antique books named Brimmer said he might be able to locate the book, but I was about to leave for home and had to put the whole thing aside.”