Medusa

“No debris or oil slick?” Austin asked.

“Nothing,” Dixon said. “But we’ll keep looking.”

“Thanks, Captain, but you can’t spend any more time looking for Joe. The lab is our top priority.” Noting the frustrated look on the captain’s face, he added, “Don’t worry about Joe. He pops up when you least expect him.”

Austin studied the atoll’s location, wondering what had attracted Zavala to the tiny speck of land, and then punched in the Trouts’ number on his cell phone. Gamay answered.

“Kurt! Thank goodness you called. We’ve been worried. What’s going on?”

“We had a run-in with one of the Triad leaders in Nan Madol. Guy named Chang. The Triad had an informant. We’re back on the Concord, but now Joe is missing. Captain Dixon said Joe borrowed a helicopter and went off to check out an atoll.”

“We gave him the atoll’s coordinates,” Gamay said. “It’s located approximately where Trouble Island was, the place Captain Dobbs stopped at with his whale ship a hundred fifty years ago.”

“You found the logbook?” Austin asked.

“No,” she said. “You’re not the only one who’s discovered that the Triad has a long reach. We contacted a book dealer who said he had a lead on the log, but someone killed him and tried to jump us. We got away by the skin of our teeth.”

“Glad to hear that,” Austin said with relief. “I’m puzzled, though. If you didn’t find the log, where did you dig up the information about the atoll?”

Gamay told Austin about Perlmutter’s lead to Caleb Nye, the visits to the Dobbs mansion and Brimmer’s store, and finding Brimmer’s body in the old mill. Austin fumed as he listened to the details of Brimmer’s murder and the attempt to ambush the Trouts. Even without Dr. Huang, the vast criminal organization seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere. He asked for the longitude and latitude coordinates from Nye’s diorama and said he would check them out immediately.

“What do you want us to do in the meantime?” Gamay asked.

“Call Sandecker and bring him up to speed,” Austin said. “I’ll get back to you when I know more.”

Austin signed off with a quick thank-you, then sat down in front of a computer and called up a satellite image on the monitor using Nye’s coordinates. Nineteenth-century navigation was not exactly precise, and the atoll Austin saw on the screen didn’t match the position on the map.

But a radar reading of Joe’s trajectory showed that he seemed to be heading directly for the atoll. Austin zoomed in on the tiny speck. The monitor showed a palm-studded, handkerchief-sized patch of sand encircled by a coral reef. Nothing unusual, except for a dark streak near one side of the lagoon. He ran through the possibilities: school of fish, coral, undersea vegetation, shadows . . . Nothing seemed to fit. He looked up earlier images of the island: the streak was larger then. He kept going back in time, hour by hour.

As he dug back into the satellite photos, he saw that the streak had disappeared. He went further back, and he stopped in his tracks. A cigar-shaped object had taken the place of the streak. The co

With growing excitement, Austin backed up in the photo file even further. There was no submarine in the lagoon now, not even a black streak. But he saw a dark spot which, upon enlargement, showed the unmistakable outline of a helicopter. Starting with that shot, he rapidly played the pictures forward like images in a nickelodeon: empty lagoon, helicopter, submarine, no helicopter, black streak shrinking in length.

“Thank you, Caleb Nye,” Austin said loud enough to be heard by Dixon, who leaned over his shoulder to study the computer monitor.

“Who?” the captain asked.

“He was a nineteenth-century whaler, and he just helped me find Joe.”

Austin ran through the series of satellite photos.

“Damn,” the captain said. “I think you’ve got something, Kurt.”

“We need to get in for a closer look. I’m going to need your help.”

Dixon picked up the microphone that co

“I’ll call the ship’s officers together immediately,” he said.

Five minutes later, Austin was in the wardroom, ru

Austin shook his head.

“A full-fledged naval raid is out of the question, in my opinion,” he said. “There simply isn’t enough intelligence available on which to base an attack. One miscalculation might result in a massacre of the lab’s scientific team.”

The officer didn’t like being rebuffed.

“Who’s calling the shots here, Captain?” he asked. “The U.S. Navy or NUMA? That lab is Navy property.”

“That’s true,” Dixon said, “but I’ve got orders from the Navy brass to let NUMA take the lead.”

“I’m not concerned about competence,” the officer said. “It’s a question of firepower. NUMA’s a research agency, last time I heard.”

“We’ll back it up as best we can,” Dixon said. He was becoming a

The last thing Austin wanted was an argument over strategy. He intervened to help the gu

“The officer makes a good point about firepower, Captain,” Austin said. “What about putting some ships within hailing distance? You could come to the rescue if I get in a jam.”

“Sure,” Dixon said. “We could position a few close by, with the rest ready to dash in if needed.”

“I’ll trust your judgment and that of your officers, Captain,” Austin said. “My main concern is getting into the lagoon undetected. Any idea what I’m likely to encounter?”

“We’ll have to assume that the atoll is protected by a sensor system,” Dixon said. “Night vision devices and radar are a worry, of course, but I’m most concerned about thermal sensors.”

“Any way we can get around those security measures?” Austin asked.

“A low-flying helicopter might be able to blend into the sea clutter on a radar screen,” Dixon said. “If the insertion was quick, there is a chance you could pull it off.”

Austin needed no further encouragement.

“That’s settled,” he said. “How soon can we leave?”

The captain glanced around at his officers, wanting to give them one last chance to pitch in.

“Gentlemen?” he asked.

Receiving no response, Dixon reached for a phone to pass along his orders. But by that time, Austin had already sprinted for the door.

WHILE KURT AUSTIN WAS debating strategy with Dixon and his men, Song Lee was in another part of the ship, sitting behind a table and staring at a blank screen.

“Just talk to the camera in a normal tone of voice, as if you were having a chat with an old friend,” the communications officer said. “The transmission should begin any second.”

Lee clipped the tiny microphone to her collar and arranged her hair as best she could. The officer made a call to inform the other participants in the teleconference that all was ready, then he left Lee alone in the room.

The screen fuzzed for a second and then an image appeared of six people sitting at a wooden table in a dark-paneled room. She recognized two people as being from the Ministry of Health, but the others were strangers to her. A silver-haired man wearing the greenish brown uniform of the People’s Liberation Army asked Lee if she could see and hear him.

When she replied in the affirmative, he said, “Very good, Dr. Lee. Thank you for this meeting. My name is Colonel Ming. Since time is short, I’ll spare the introductions and get right down to business.