Sandecker fought advancing age with a passion. Now in his early sixties, he was a fitness nut who jogged, lifted weights and engaged in any kind of exercise so long as it brought about sweat and an increased heartbeat. The results of strenuous workouts and a nutritious diet were readily apparent in his honed and trim shape. He was slightly under what would be called average height, and his flaming red hair was still full, cut close and slicked down, with a razor-edge part on the left side. The taut, narrow shape of his face was accented by piercing hazel eyes and a Vandyke beard that was an exact match in color for the hair on his head.
Sandecker's only vice was cigars. He loved to smoke ten grandly large cigars a day, specially selected and wrapped to his personal taste. He stepped into the conference room in a cloud of smoke as if he were a magician materializing on a fog-shrouded stage.
He walked to the head of the table and smiled benignly at the two men seated to his left and right.
"Sorry to keep you so late, gentlemen, but I wouldn't have asked you to work overtime unless it was important."
Hiram Yaeger, the chief of NUMA's computer network and overseer to the world's most expansive data library on marine sciences, leaned his chair back on two legs and nodded toward Sandecker.
Whenever a problem needed solving, Sandecker always started with Yaeger. Unperturbed in bib overalls and a ponytail, he lived with his wife and daughters in a ritzy section of the capital and drove a nonproduction BMW. "It was either respond to your request," he said with a slight twinkle in his eye, "or take my wife to the ballet."
"Either way, you lose," laughed Rudi Gunn, NUMA's executive director and second in command. If Dirk Pitt was Sandecker's ace troubleshooter, Gunn was his organizational wizard. Thin with slim hips and narrow shoulders, humorous as well as bright, he peered through thick horn-rimmed glasses from eyes that suggested an owl waiting for a field mouse to run under his tree.
Sandecker slid into one of the leather chairs, dropped an ash from his cigar into a dish made from an abalone shell and flattened a chart of the Weddell Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula on the surface of the table. He tapped his finger on a marked circle with a series of small red crosses drawn within its circumference and labeled by number. "Gentlemen, you're all familiar with the tragic situation in the Weddell Sea, the latest in a series of kill sites. Number one is the position where Ice Hunter found the dead dolphins. Two, the seal kills off South Orkney Island. Three, Seymour Island, the site of mass slaughter of men women, penguins and seals. And four, the approximate position of Polar Queen when the scourge struck."
Yaeger studied the perimeter of the circle. "Looks to be about ninety kilometers in diameter."
"Not good," Gunn said, a deep frown creasing his forehead. That's twice the size of the last kill zone, near Chirikof Island off the Aleutians.
"The count was over three thousand sea lions and five fishermen in that disaster," said Sandecker. He lifted a small remote control from the table, aimed it at a panel in the far wall and pressed a button. A large screen slowly dropped from the ceiling. He pressed another button and a computer-generated chart of the Pacific Ocean appeared in three-dimensional holograph. Several blue, neonlike globes, displaying animated fish and mammals, were projected seemingly from outside the screen and spaced in different areas of the chart. The globe over Seymour Island off the Antarctic Peninsula as well as one near Alaska included human figures. "Until three days ago," Sandecker continued, "all the reported kill zones have been in the Pacific. Now with the sea around Seymour Island, we have a new one in the South Atlantic."
"That makes eight appearances of the unknown plague in the past four months," said Gunn. "The occurrences seem to be intensifying."
Sandecker studied his cigar. "And not one lead to the source."
"Frustration is mine," Yaeger said holding his palms up in a helpless gesture. "I've tried a hundred different computer-generated projections. Nothing comes close to fitting the puzzle. No known disease or chemical pollution can travel thousands of miles, pop up out of the blue and kill every living thing within a limited area, before totally vanishing without a trace."
"I've got thirty scientists working on the problem," said Gunn, "and they have yet to stumble on a clue indicating a source."
"Anything from the pathologists on those five fishermen the Coast Guard found dead on their boat off Chirikof Island?" asked Sandecker.
"Preliminary postmortem examinations show no tissue damage from poison, inhaled or ingested, nor any fast acting disease that's known to medical science. As soon as Colonel Hunt over at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center has completed his report, I'll have him call you."
"Dammit!" Sandecker burst out. "Something killed them. The skipper died in the wheelhouse, his hands gripped on the helm, while the crew went down on deck in the act of bringing in their nets. People just don't drop dead without cause, certainly not hardy men in their twenties and thirties."
Yaeger nodded in agreement. "Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. It has to be something we haven't considered."
Sandecker idly stared at his cigar smoke as it spiraled toward the paneled ceiling. He seldom laid all his cards on the table, preferring to turn them over slowly, one at a time. "I was talking to Dirk just before our meeting."
"Anything new at his end?" asked Gunn.
"Not from the biologists on board Ice Hunter, but Dirk has a theory, pretty farfetched he admits, but one none of us had thought of."
"I'd like to hear it," said Yaeger.
"He came up with a type of pollution."
Gunn looked at Sandecker, his eyes skeptical. "What type of pollution could he possibly suggest that we missed?"
Sandecker grinned like a sniper sighting through his scope. "Noise," he answered flatly.
"Noise," repeated Gunn. What kind of noise?"
"He thinks there might be deadly sound waves that travel through water for hundreds perhaps thousands of miles, before they surface and loll everything within a certain radius." Sandecker paused and studied his subordinates for their reaction.
Yaeger was not a cynical man, but he inclined his head and laughed. "I'm afraid old Pitt is hitting his special brand of tequila too hard and too fast."
Oddly, there was not a hint of doubt on Gunn's face. He peered intently at the projected image of the Pacific Ocean for a few moments. Then he said, I think Dirk is onto something."
Yaeger's eyes narrowed. "You do?"
"I do," Gunn replied earnestly. "Rogue underwater acoustics might very well be our villain."
"I'm happy to hear another vote," said Sandecker.
"When he first laid it on me, I thought Dirk's mind was sluggish from exhaustion. But the more I considered his theory, the more I came to believe in its possibilities."
"Word has it, said Yaeger, "that he single-handedly saved Polar Queen from running onto the rocks."
Gunn nodded. "It's true. After Al dropped him from a helicopter onto the ship, he steered it away from certain destruction."
"Back to the dead fishermen," Sandecker said, returning the conference to a more somber note. "How long before we have to turn their bodies over to local Alaskan authorities?"
"About five minutes after they learn we have them," replied Gunn. "The crewmen on the Coast Guard cutter that discovered the ship drifting in the Gulf of Alaska will surely talk once they dock at their station in Kodiak and come ashore."
"Even after their captain has ordered them to remain quiet," said Sandecker.
"We're not at war, Admiral. The Coast Guard is highly regarded in northern waters. They won't enjoy being party to a cover-up against men whose lives they are committed to saving. A couple of drinks at the Yukon Saloon and they'll break the news to anyone who will listen."
Sandecker sighed. "I suppose you're right. Commandant MacIntyre was not happy about the secrecy.
It wasn't until he received a direct order from the secretary of' defense that he caved in and turned the bodies over to NUMA scientists."
>
Yaeger gave Sandecker a knowing look. "I wonder who got to the secretary of defense?"
Sandecker smiled slyly. "After I explained the seriousness of the situation, he was most cooperative."
"Much hell will erupt," Yaeger prophesied, "once the local brotherhood of fishermen and the dead crew's family members discover that the bodies were found and autopsies performed a week before they were notified."
"Especially," Gunn added, "when they learn we shipped the bodies to Washington for the postmortem."
"We were too early in the hunt for the news media to play havoc with wild stories about how an entire crew and their pet parrot were found dead on a ship under mysterious circumstances. At the time, we didn't need another unexplained-phenomena blitz while we were groping in the dark ourselves."
Gunn shrugged. "The proverbial cat's out of the bag now. There's no hiding the Polar Queen disaster.
After tonight it will be the lead news story on every TV news program around the world."
Sandecker nodded at Yaeger. "Hiram, you delve into your library and extract every piece of data dealing with underwater acoustics. Search out any experiments, commercial or military, involving high-energy sound waves through water, their cause and effects on humans and underwater mammals."
"I'll start on it immediately," Yaeger assured him.
Gunn and Yaeger rose from their chairs and left the conference room. Sandecker sat there, slouched in his chair and puffing on his cigar. His eyes moved from sea battle to sea battle, lingering for several moments on each before moving to the next. Then he closed his eyes tightly as he collected his thoughts.
It was the uncertainty of the dilemma that clouded his mind. After a while, he opened his eyes and stared at the computer-generated chart of the Pacific Ocean. "Where will it strike next?" he spoke aloud to the empty room. "Who will it kill?"
Colonel Leigh Hunt sat at his desk in his basement office-he disliked the more formal administration offices on the upper floors of Walter Reed-and contemplated a bottle of Cutty Sark. Out the window, darkness had settled over the District of Columbia, the streetlights had come on, and the rush-hour traffic was beginning to dwindle. The postmortems on the five fishermen fished from the cold waters of the Northwest were completed, and he was about to head home to his cat. The decision was whether to take a drink or make a final call before leaving. He decided to do both at the same time.
He punched the numbers on his telephone with one hand while he poured the scotch into a coffee cup.
After two rings, a gruff voice answered.
"Colonel Hunt, I hope that's you."
"It is," replied Hunt. "How'd you know?"
"I had a gut feeling you'd call about now."
"Always a pleasure to talk to the Navy," said Hunt affably.
"What can you tell me?" asked Sandecker.
"First, are you sure these cadavers were found on a fishing boat in the middle of the sea?"
"They were."
"And the two porpoises and four seals you also sent over here?"
"Where else would you expect to find them?"
"I've never performed postmortem examinations on aquatic creatures before."
"Humans, porpoises and seals are all mammals under the skin."
"You, my dear admiral, have a very intriguing case on your hands."
"What did they die from?"
Hunt paused to empty half the cup. "Clinically, the deaths were caused by a disruption of the ossicular chain that consists of the malleus, incus and the stapes of the middle ear, which you may recall from your high school physiology class as the hammer, anvil and stirrup. The stapedial foot plate was also fractured.
This caused debilitating vertigo and extreme tinnitus, or a roaring in the ears, all culminating in a rupture of the anterior inferior cerebellar artery and causing hemorrhaging into the anterior and middle cranial fossae inside the base of the skull."
"Can you break that down into simple English?"
"Are you familiar with the term ìnfarction'?" asked Hunt.
"It sounds like slang."
"Infarction is a cluster of dead cells in organs or tissue that results from an obstruction, such as an air bubble, that cuts off circulating blood."
"Just where in the bodies did this thing take place?" inquired Sandecker.
"There was swelling of the cerebellum with compression of the brain stem. I also found that the vestibular labyrinth--
"Come again?"
"Besides relating to other bodily cavities, 'vestibular' also pertains to the central cavity of the bony labyrinth of the ear."
"Please go on."
"The vestibular labyrinth appeared to be damaged by violent displacement. Somewhat as in a fall into deep water, where the hydraulic compression of air perforates the tympanic membrane as water is forced into the external ear canal."
"How did you arrive at this conclusion?"
"By applying a standard protocol to my investigation, I used magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography, a diagnostic technique using X-ray photographs that eliminate the shadows of structures m front of and behind the section under scrutiny. Evaluation also included hematologic and serologic studies and lumbar puncture."
"What were the symptoms at the onset of the disorder?"
"I can't speak for the porpoises or seals," explained Hunt. "But the pattern among the humans was consistent. The sudden and intense vertigo, a dramatic loss of equilibrium, vomiting, extreme paroxysmal cranial pain and a sudden convulsion that lasted less than five minutes, all resulting in unconsciousness and then death. You might compare it to a stroke of monster proportions."
"Can you tell me what caused this trauma?"
Hunt hesitated. "Not with any degree of accuracy."
Sandecker was not to be put off. "Take a wild guess."
"Since you've put my back to the wall, I'd venture to say your fishermen, the porpoises and seals expired from extreme exposure to high-intensity sound."
January 22, 2000
Near Howland Island, South Pacific
To the crew lining the rails of Mentawai, an Indonesian freighter bound from Honolulu to her next port of call, Jayapura in New Guinea, the sight of an awkward-looking craft in the middle of the ocean was highly unusual if not downright remarkable. Yet the Ningpo-design Chinese junk sailed serenely through the one-meter-high swells that rolled against her bow from the east. She looked magnificent, her brightly colored sails filled with a southwesterly breeze, her varnished wood sparkling under a golden-orange rising sun. Two large eyes that I crossed when sighted head-on were painted on her bows, born from the traditional faith that they would see her through fog and stormy seas.
The Tz'u-hsi, named after the last Chinese dowager empress, was the second home of Hollywood actor Garret Converse, never a nominee for an Academy Award but the biggest box-office action hero on the silver screen. The junk was twenty-four meters in length with a beam of six meters, built from top to bottom of cedarand teakwood. Converse had installed every amenity for the crew's accommodations and the latest in navigational technology. No expense was spared. Few yachts were as luxuriously embellished. A master adventurer in the mode of Errol Flynn, Converse had sailed Tz'u-hsi from Newport Beach on a round-the-world cruise and was now running on the final leg across the Pacific, passing within fifty kilometers of Howland Island, Amelia Earhart's destination when she disappeared in 1937.
As the two ships plodded past each other on opposite courses, Converse hailed the freighter over the radio.
"Greetings from the junk Tz'u-hsi. What ship are your"
The freighter's radio operator replied, "The freighter Mentawai out of Honolulu. Where are you bound?"
"Christmas Island, and then to California."
"I wish you clear sailing."
"The same to you," Converse answered.
The captain of Mentawai watched the junk slip astern and then nodded toward his first officer. "I never thought I'd see a junk this deep in the Pacific
."
The first officer, a man of Chinese descent, nodded disapprovingly. "I crewed on a junk when I was a young boy. They're taking a great risk sailing through the breeding grounds of typhoons. Junks are not built for heavy weather. They ride too high and have a tendency to roll crazily. Their huge rudders are easily broken off by a rough sea."
"They're either very brave or very mad to tempt the fates," said the captain, turning his back on the junk as it grew smaller in the distance. "As for me, I feel more comfortable with a steel hull and the solid beat of engines under my decks."
Eighteen minutes after the freighter and junk crossed paths, a distress call was heard by the United States container carrier Rio Grande, bound for Sydney, Australia, with a cargo of tractors and agricultural equipment. The radio room was directly off the spacious navigation bridge, and the operator had only to turn to address the second officer, who stood the early morning watch.
"Sir, I have a distress signal from the Indonesian cargo freighter Mentawai."
The second officer, George Hudson, picked up the ship's phone, punched a number and waited for an answering voice. "Captain, we've picked up a distress signal.
Captain Jason Kelsey was about to take his first forkful of breakfast in his cabin when the call came from the bridge. "Very well, Mr. Hudson. I'm on my way. Try and get her position."
Kelsey wolfed down his eggs and ham, gulped half a cup of coffee and walked through a short passageway to the navigation bridge. He went directly to the radio room.
The operator looked up, a curious look in his eyes. "Very strange signal, Captain." He handed Kelsey a notepad.
Kelsey studied it, then stared at the radio operator. "Are you sure this is what they transmitted''"
"Yes, sir. They came in quite clearly."
Kelsey read the message aloud. "All ships come quick. Freighter Mentawai forty kilometers south-southwest of Howland Island. Come quick. All are dying." He looked up. "Nothing more? No coordinates?"
The radio operator shook his head. "They went dead, and I haven't been able to raise them again."