Piranha

Juan nodded. “It relates to an investigation of our own. The good doctor here implied that this was no accident.”

“No way. The Navy’s initial conclusion was that the drone locked onto the control signal emitted by the boat’s ante

“Why not?”

“Because we found that the cable to the ante

“Do you know how it did that?” Eric asked.

Locke produced a charred piece of equipment. “By homing in on this. It’s a beacon that was hidden inside a laptop. We think someone used it to guide the drone no matter what was done to dodge it.”

Juan took the destroyed circuitry and turned it over in his hand. It was easily small enough to smuggle inside a computer case. “Do you think the saboteur was someone on the project team?”

“More than that,” Westfield said, “we think it was someone on the boat. Whoever redirected the drone had to do it from a workstation on board.”

“Pearson was on the boat at the time?”

“Four people were,” Locke said. “The boat’s captain and the three project leaders: Douglas Pearson, Frederick Weddell, and Lawrence Kensit. We found the bodies of only two of them, the captain and Weddell. Weddell was on deck at the time of the explosion and the captain was on the bridge. The control center was hit dead-on by the drone.”

“Because of the intense heat, we were lucky to find any remains inside the boat after it sank,” Westfield said. “Just a few bones, but it was enough for DNA testing of the marrow.”

“I’m guessing you only found DNA evidence for Kensit,” Juan said, “and Pearson’s bones were nowhere to be found.”

“That did seem to be the case,” Locke said. “But we found a big inconsistency when we simulated the impact.”

“‘Simulated’? You mean you can reconstruct what actually happened at the moment of the explosion?”

Locke nodded. “My company, Gordian, developed the software. We create three-dimensional models of the craft involved. Then we input the deformities caused by the impact and explosion, the speed at which both craft were traveling, and the approximate locations where the pieces were recovered from the seabed floor, and the program crunches the numbers to produce a crude simulation of the event.”

Westfield handed him the tablet and Locke tapped on it until the screen was showing a surprisingly detailed representation of the boat frozen atop the water’s surface, trailing a wake behind it. The drone was suspended above it, poised in a dive.

“The video is slowed by a factor of one hundred.” Locke pressed the PLAY button and the drone inched toward the boat until its nose crumpled against the deck. It continued to deform until it erupted in a fireball. Fragments of the boat flew away before it, too, exploded. The video ended when all of the airborne pieces had fallen in the water. Juan was amazed they could have recovered anything at all, let alone the substantial portion they’d fitted back together.

“Now that you know what the impact looked like from the outside,” Locke said, “let’s take a look at it from inside.”

He pulled up another video, this one showing a re-creation of the control center that was nearly photo-realistic. Only one figure was in the room, a generic representation sitting in a chair.

“Where are the rest of them?” Eric asked.

“The captain is on the bridge, and Weddell had gone up to disco

“Pearson must have jumped overboard before the drone hit,” Juan said.

“The DNA evidence did show that it was Kensit in the center,” Locke said, “but watch this.”

He started the video, and at the moment of the drone’s impact, the person and chair were flung backward, smashing into the opposite wall, before disintegrating in the fireball.

Juan didn’t see anything unexpected. “I must be missing something.”

“Douglas Pearson weighed two hundred and fifty pounds,” Locke said. “Kensit was one-sixty. If Kensit were the one in the chair, the impact profile would have been significantly different, at least six inches higher than where we found pieces of chair and DNA embedded in the equipment we recovered from that side of the boat. Kensit didn’t die in that room, Pearson did.”

“Are you sure?”

“I estimate the probability at eighty percent,” Westfield said. “We had a photo of the interior to work with, but we can’t be sure of the exact configuration that day.”

“But the Navy said the DNA evidence was a match for Kensit,” Juan said.

“If Kensit was the one responsible for reprogramming the drone,” Eric said, “someone with that level of expertise could certainly fake his own death by breaking into the computer records and switching the DNA profiles. I know Murph and I could do it, given enough time.”

“That’s exactly what our report is going to suggest,” Westfield said. “The Navy should check the actual stored DNA sample, if they still have it. It’s highly unlikely Kensit could have tampered with the original. They’re kept in a secure deep freeze in Rockville, Maryland.”

“When do you think the sample will be retested?” Juan asked.

“You know DoD bureaucracy. It could take weeks.”

“We don’t have that kind of time. Can it be expedited?”

Locke shrugged. “That’s up to the Navy, although you must have some pull just to get in here. We’ll deliver our preliminary conclusions before we leave tomorrow morning. We need to go to Cairo on an urgent project, so we won’t be able to follow up for a week or two.”

Westfield rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why we can’t go back to Seattle first. The Great Pyramid is five thousand years old and it can’t wait another few days?”

“In the meantime, Mr. Cabrillo,” Locke continued, “I would operate under the assumption that Lawrence Kensit is still alive. What he’s doing now or where he went, I couldn’t tell you. But if you’re after him, I recommend you proceed with extreme caution.”

“Why do you say that?”

The grim expression on Locke’s face was chilling. “Kensit is a meticulous pla

“Right,” Eric said, “to sell the Piranha sub technology to the highest bidder without anyone realizing he was the one who’d stolen the plans.”

Juan caught Locke and Westfield exchanging worried glances. “I’d be surprised if that was why he did it,” Locke said. “We interviewed everyone on the drone project in the course of our investigation. Every single one of them said two things. First, Kensit, who earned Ph.D.s in both physics and computer science, was the most brilliant person they’d ever met, and this coming from some of the brightest minds in weapons development. Kensit and his intelligence weren’t challenged on a project like this, they said. He disdained others for their inability to keep up with his mental acuity, but he stayed on the project anyway.”

“And the second thing?” Juan prodded.

“Kensit didn’t hide his contempt for how America was wasting its opportunity to fix the planet and squandering its technological superiority, specifically its advantage in weaponry. He thought world leaders were too corrupt or weak or beholden to uneducated constituencies to solve the problems that he felt had simple solutions. Crime, war, famine, pollution, disease, energy and water shortages—all of those issues could be solved if one person with the right technology, intelligence, and ruthless vision unencumbered by sentimentality could focus on the big picture and force leaders to do what he thought was best for the planet. One guess who that person should be.”