Medusa

“Nope,” Phelps said.

He handed the duffel bag to Zavala, who hefted it.

“Is this part of the complications?” Zavala asked.

Phelps nodded.

He told Zavala to suit up and left him alone in the cabin. Zavala opened the duffel and found a wet suit. He stripped out of his damp clothes and pulled on the neoprene top and bottom, then opened the door and stepped out.

Phelps was waiting in the passageway with two men, also suited up for a dive. He motioned for Zavala to follow and led the way through the labyrinthine i

“Escape chamber,” Phelps said, pointing to a hatch over their heads. “There’s one on the other side of the co

He opened a bulkhead locker and pulled out two complete sets of scuba gear that included full face masks with wireless-communications capability. When they were ready, Phelps climbed up a ladder into a cylindrical chamber. Zavala followed him up, moving slowly under the weight of the gear.

The escape chamber was a tight fit for two men in full scuba gear. Phelps hit a switch that closed the floor, and water poured in. Once the chamber was flooded, he opened the hatch over their heads.

Phelps let air into his buoyancy regulator and swam up the escape shaft. Zavala followed close behind. They emerged from the submarine at the base of the lofty co

The greenish light that filtered through the camouflage net bathed the black hull of the submarine in a spectral glow. Zavala had once seen a Typhoon at dock, when the hull was mostly submerged, and had been impressed by its size, but that was nothing compared with seeing the gigantic sub and its massive co

A ducklike voice quacked in his headset, and Phelps waved to get his attention.

“That’s enough sightseeing for now, Joe. Follow me. This is a technical dive. Three hundred feet plus, but you’ve got Trimix in your tank, so you’ll be okay.”

Phelps switched on a waterproof dive light. With a fluttering kick of his legs, he swam away from the deck, propelling himself through the water using expert form, and then angled downward. Zavala came next, with the two guards following his bubble trail.

They headed toward an amber cluster of sparkling lights. As they descended further, Zavala saw that the lights were on the outside of four large globes attached to each other with tubelike co

“Davy Jones’s Locker!” Zavala said.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?” Phelps said.

Zavala noticed something else. Ghostly blue forms were moving slowly in the shadows just beyond the reach of the lab’s searchlights.

“Are those blue medusae I see?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Phelps said. “You want to stay away from those puppies. They’re hot-wired. We can do a nature tour later. We’ve only got a few minutes to talk. We’re the only ones wearing communications gear, so don’t worry about those guys on your tail. I was go

“I didn’t expect one,” Zavala said. “How about you throwing me a lifeline?”

“I’ll do my best. I’ll let you know when I make a move. Meantime, be a good boy and don’t give those guys with the spearguns an excuse to use you for target practice.”

They were directly above the hemispherical-shaped structure at the hub of the lab complex. Zavala remembered it as the transit module where the airlock for the shuttle vehicle was located. Phelps swam under the transit module, past four minisubmersibles attached to the underside like feeding puppies, then up into a shaft that opened into a round pool at the center of a circular chamber.

Phelps removed his mask and communications unit, and Zavala followed his lead. The guards surfaced seconds later. By then, Phelps and Zavala had used a ladder on the side of the pool to climb out. The guards emerged from the pool, and all four men hung their air tanks and gear on wall hooks. The guards took their masks off to reveal hard Asian faces. They put the spearguns aside and produced machine pistols from their waterproof backpacks.

Phelps pressed a switch and a door slid open. He led the way along a tube-shaped corridor to another door that opened into a small room. Phelps told the guards to wait in the passageway, and then he and Zavala stepped inside.

Half of one wall was made of glass, allowing a view of a laboratory containing several workers dressed in white biohazard suits. The workers looked up when Phelps rapped his knuckles on the glass. All went back to work except one, who waved in acknowledgment and disappeared behind a door labeled DECONTAMINATION.

Minutes later, Lois Mitchell stepped into the room. She was wearing a lab coat and slacks, and her raven hair was still damp from the decontamination shower. Despite his predicament, Zavala signaled his appreciation of Lois’s striking good looks with a slight smile. Lois saw it, and the corners of her lips turned up.

“I know you,” she said.

Zavala did a fast mental check of the hundreds of women he had dated through the years and drew a blank.

“Have we met?” he asked cautiously.

Lois laughed.

“I saw you on TV,” she said. “You were the engineer from NUMA who made the dive with Dr. Kane in the bathysphere.” She furrowed her brow. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Zavala said.

Phelps said, “Dr. Mitchell, this is Joe Zavala from NUMA.”

“Lois,” the scientist amended, extending her hand.

“Hate to break up this party,” Phelps said, “but things are moving fast, Dr. Mitchell. My boss is on his way to the lab. My guess is that he wants to check on your project.”

“Actually,” she said, “he’s coming to get the vaccine.”

Phelps narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“While you were away, I told one of those people you have following me around that we’ve synthesized the toxin.” She turned and gestured at the glass partition. “This is our fermentation, cell-culture, and analysis lab. Your boss will be able to take the vaccine culture with him and go into full-bore production immediately.”

Scowling, Phelps said, “That’s not good.”

“Why?” Lois asked. “Wasn’t that the purpose of this whole project, to produce a vaccine that can be given to the world?”

“You tell her,” Phelps said with a shake of his head.

“Once they have the vaccine,” Zavala said, “they’ll let the epidemic run until they bring down their government. Then they’ll offer the cure to the rest of the world. Pay or die. You and your lab have become expendable.”

The color drained out of Lois Mitchell’s already pale features.

“What have I done?” she wailed.

“It’s what you’re going to do that counts,” Phelps said.

There was a hard knock on the door. Phelps opened it and one of the guards leaned in close and whispered in his ear. Phelps stepped back inside.

“You haven’t said what you want me to do,” Lois implored.

“Whatever we do, it better be fast,” Phelps said. “Chang’s chopper has left Pohnpei for his ship.”

Zavala’s head was still reeling from its encounter with the six-hundred-foot-long Typhoon, and he was suspicious of Phelps’s abrupt change from foe to friend. But the a