Piranha

Nothing seemed to threaten the town today except the squall that was churning up waves in the harbor and pelting the town with rain. Mt. Pelée’s silent peak, its slopes lush with the vegetation that had rushed back from its fertile soil, was veiled in gray clouds, but blue skies were forecast for the afternoon.

As dawn lightened the leaden sky, Max watched the local harbormaster return to shore in his tiny launch. Normally, Juan handled the local constabulary, but this time it had been up to Max and he thought he’d done a pretty decent job convincing the harbormaster that the Oregon’s crew was going to enjoy the scenery while they waited for their cargo to arrive at their berth in Fort-de-France.

In actuality, the Oregon’s crew had already been hard at work for two hours exploring the wreckage of the Roraima, acting as fast as they could while they had the dive site to themselves. Once the squall ceased, they’d have to suspend operations so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion from the recreational scuba tours that would begin diving on the wreck in the afternoon.

Max took the stairs down to the moon pool, which was buzzing with activity. The latest group of divers was just surfacing through the keel doors. Mike Trono removed his mask and climbed out.

“Any luck?” Max said.

Mike shook his head and began to peel off his wetsuit. “The decks on the Roraima were all wooden. They rotted away years ago and collapsed. A lot of it was either destroyed by the volcano blast or crushed when the superstructure caved in. All that’s left now is the steel frame and that’s full of holes. Portions of the hull could collapse on us, if we’re not careful. We’re still looking through the section of the ship where Perlmutter told us the cabins would have been, but there’s been a ton of coral growth over the last century so it’s a slow search. The box could be buried in ten feet of debris.”

Max smiled. “On the bright side, that means it might be intact. No hits on the Geiger counter?”

When Juan had mentioned that Lutzen’s work had been about radioactivity, Max checked his history books and found out that radiation had been discovered only seven years before the eruption on Martinique, so it would have been a relatively new science at the time. If Lutzen had brought something radioactive with him and it was still with his belongings, detecting it might lead them to the photos. The Oregon was equipped with two Geiger counters, so Max sent one of them down with the divers, who were scouring the sturdier parts of the ship.

“Not a blip,” Mike said. “If anything radioactive is buried down there, the radiation might not be able to penetrate the debris.”

“Normally, that would be a good thing, but not in our case. Get something to eat before your next dive.” Mike looked like he could use some shut-eye, too, since they’d been pla

“In that order,” Mike agreed, and lurched toward the mess hall.

Max went to the op center, where Hali flagged him down.

“We got a hit on the Chairman’s assassin,” he said. “The CIA was very helpful.”

“Finally some good news,” Max replied.

Before the explosion went off in New York, Juan’s glasses had been recording while he was looking down at the bomber. He sent the video to Max, who recognized the man immediately as the same person who’d attacked Reed’s fishing charter. The guy definitely got around. Identifying him had been Hali’s top priority ever since.

“Who is that unmasked man?” Max asked.

Hali handed him a printout with the key info. “He’s a mercenary named Hector Bazin, a Haitian like all the others who tried to kill us in Jamaica. Former French Foreign Legion commando. Trains his own private security force now from a base somewhere outside Port-au-Prince. That’s why they had both the skills and resources for an assassination attempt.”

“Would he be the one tapping our communications?”

Hali pursed his lips in frustration. “I still don’t even know how they’re doing it, let alone who is doing it. We’ve got the most secure comm system possible. The NSA would have trouble breaking our encryption.”

“Bazin is just the muscle” came a comment from across the room. Murph didn’t even look up from his screen or take his hands off the joysticks he was manipulating. “Kensit has got to be the brains behind this.”

“Email the info about Hector Bazin to Juan.”

“Even if it could be intercepted?”

“If you got the info from the CIA, then Bazin might already know he’s been compromised. I don’t want Juan doing whatever he’s doing completely blind. At least he’ll know what he’s up against.” Max walked over to Murph. “Did you ever meet Kensit while you were working for the DoD?”

“No, but I heard about him. Everybody in weapons research did. Off-the-charts smart, but a real oddball.” Murph looked away for the first time. “I wonder if they say the same about me now.”

“Would it make you feel better if they did?”

“Probably.”

“Then I’m sure they do. Now, do you have any theories about what this Moriarty’s secret surveillance weapon is, Sherlock? Bazin’s appearance in Manhattan just when Juan was paying that translator a visit couldn’t be a coincidence.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

“He knows everything we’re doing.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Well, that part’s obvious.”

“Which means he is able to hear what we’re saying.”

“You mean when we’re on the phone?”

“Possibly. But that doesn’t explain how he knew where we’d be in Jamaica. The only time we discussed that was on board the Oregon.”

“Oh, come on! You mean Kensit has the Oregon bugged?”

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

“We’ve swept the ship three times. No listening devices.”

“Talk to Arthur Conan Doyle, not me,” Murph said.

“In any case, I’m glad Juan didn’t tell us where he’s going. It’s time for us to get a leg up on Lawrence Kensit.”

“We’re still not done searching here.”

“Have you seen anything?”

Murph rubbed his eyes. He’d been going for three hours straight without a break. “Except for a few broken teacups and a pair of eyeglasses, nothing.”

He was piloting the smallest remotely operated vehicle they had on the Oregon, the ROV called Little Geek. Murph was using it to explore the parts of the ship that were too dangerous for the divers to search.

An umbilical fed the video signal back to the Oregon. Even at a depth of one hundred and fifty feet, the vibrant colors illuminated by the ROV’s lights were astonishing. Sea whips, urchins, sponges, butterfly fish, triggerfish, and a host of other sea creatures had taken up residence on the artificial reef. More than a hundred years of exposure to the warm seawater had rusted holes in the steel where it hadn’t been covered by coral. The only traces of humanity that remained untarnished were the occasional ceramic or glass object, both materials that were impervious to the corrosive effects of saline.

Max thought Perlmutter’s assertion that a photo container could still be intact was dubious at best. Their only hope was that the glass photo plates had been stored in tins with a zinc layer sufficiently oxidized to prevent the underlying metal from disintegrating.

Max watched as Murph steered the ROV through a tight cavity with little expectation of finding anything useful. He hoped Juan’s end of the search would yield actionable data. He just wished he had a clue what Juan was looking for.

“Huh,” Murph said, which got Max’s attention.

“Did you see something?”

“A dull reflection. Let me back up.”

He edged the ROV backward and turned it to the left. The camera pa