Bridger called the meeting for one hour after the resort was declared "secure."
There were no more explosives and no more terrorists, but there were loose ends to be tied up, storm reports coming in, and updates on Darwin's condition.
"I don't care where I am," he had told Shimura. "I want to know what's up with Darwin. Interrupt me and keep me posted about his condition."
Though Dr. Akira Shimura was the ship's doctor, the ship's human doctor, he was also experienced working with cetaceans.
"I even saved an Orca baby once, when the mother had been accidentally killed," Shimura said. "It was the most amazing thing... The mother had been rammed by a research ship... and I was able to deliver her baby. Incredible experience."
Shimura always touched his arm when he talked, Bridger knew, as if the doctor were constantly aware that the artificial skin that he had generated there wasn't really part of him.
Shimura brought a lot of compassion to his work with Darwin.
"It looks good," he told Bridger. "The wound isn't so bad."
Now Bridger sat in the SousMer director's conference room, around a rosewood table shaped like a breaking wave. It was important to get all the loose details locked up and send the UEO a nice, neat report.
He had even navigated the first hello to Terry McShane pretty well, he thought.
"Thanks, Terry," he had said. "Having you inside helped." He was also curious what she was doing inside... but that could wait for later.
Now, he found himself avoiding her eyes, perhaps avoiding some old feelings that hadn't died.
"I want to commend you for everything." Bridger started talking to the SousMer people and the seaQuest crew. "A major disaster was averted by your very brave action." He looked at Phillips and. especially, Ford—whose eyes still looked bright with the excitement of the shoot-out at the moon pool. "Commander Ford and Lieutenant Phillips... Ms. McShane of the UEO, your security crew. Monsieur Farrand..." Bridger took a breath.
"I think it's safe to say that we're all here, safe and sound, because everyone kept their cool. Now, I have a few questions, some details to go over for my report. Our words will be recorded for audio only, if you don't mind. And I'm afraid this may take a while, so if anyone wants to grab some coffee, or—"
He saw Ford grin. Bet he wishes he had a cold beer, like me, Bridger thought. Perhaps we'll crack some of the Captain's private stock when we get back...
"Okay, let's start with the initial security check. I suppose—"
Jacques Farrand looked discomfited. He raised his hand, and Bridger had to smile at the gesture. This wasn't third grade...
"Monsieur le Directeur?"
"Captain—I am sorry. But my staff tells me that the people, our guests... many of them want to leave SousMer immediately."
Bridger rubbed his chin. When's the next ferry due?
That was the trouble with an underwater resort... You couldn't simply hop a plane and fly back to the mainland.
"So—you are arranging passage?"
Farrand grimaced. "That is just it, Captain. This storm, this 'Mike.'"
Phillips laughed. Bridger shot him a glance. There was a lot of nervous energy to be blown off. Still, he didn't want his officers laughing at the poor man.
"The tropical storm?"
"Yes, it has closed all the facilities on the island. No one will get to leave for a couple of days, perhaps more—"
Bridger nodded. "So tell your guests. I'm sure"—now Bridger grinned at his exec—"Mr. Harpe will 'comp' them after being through a stressful experience."
Farrand nodded.
Bridger felt Terry watching him. Am I showing off for her? he wondered. Here I am, all of thirteen again. Look at me, I'm Captain of the biggest, baddest submarine in the world. I just saved six hundred people, and—God—
He thought, She still looks beautiful.
It bothered him then. Why was she here? It was doubtful that this was her idea of a vacation. And it seemed a bit convenient that a UEO security chief was at SousMer when the guano hit the fan.
"A few guests," Farrand went on timidly, "have suggested, that since you are here, that the seaQuest is here, it could transport them to Flamingo."
Flamingo on the Florida Gulf coast. The commercial sub base there catered to both undersea mining and the day-trippers out for a look at the abyss.
Bridger shook his head. "Sorry, Monsieur Farrand, the seaQuest may be many things—but it's not a commercial transport. I'm afraid your guests—"
"They are some very important people. Monsieur Captain."
I bet, thought Bridger. And some of them probably didn't want the world's eyes on them when they emerged with their mistresses and rent-a-hunks. He could see Senator Eleanor Bell, who, it was rumored, was on the guest list, emerging with a young stud in tow.
"Oh, he's only my personal trainer... "
And I'm Captain Nemo.
"I'm afraid it's out of the question, Monsieur Farrand. Now, Mr. Phillips, you have checked the facility for any other explosive material, of any kind?"
Phillips was whispering to Ford. He sat up straight to answer his captain's question.
"Er, yes, sir." And Bridger sat back to listen to Phillips's report.
"Mr. Harpe—"
Geoffrey Harpe looked out to the deserted pool, where no sign of his wonderful party remained. The Hawaiian sky was perfectly clear. A nearly full moon spread a milky white on perfectly cut glass, painting the palms gray.
"Mr. Harpe," his communications person said again.
It had been quite a day, and—he guessed—the ending wasn't too bad. The bullion was safe and sound. The resort saved. There was only one downside.
"I've got more messages for you, sir, from the UEO, and three more—all marked urgent—from Maclnnis."
Harpe nodded. The downside was that it was the seaQuest that had to rescue everyone, that Nathan Hale Bridger—once again—was the good guy.
What was the alternative? he thought. For everyone to die and take the bloody seaQuest with them?
I couldn't want that. I couldn't be that sick.
He turned to the communications tech. Maria... Marla... something like that. A native islander, and she was pretty, sitting in the light of the three VR monitors, a festive Christmas display of lights.
Very pretty, but Harpe made it a rule never to push that button with his employees. He wondered how long she had been working. Someone else would come soon to relieve her, to stand watch over his empire... someone else whose name he wasn't quite sure of...
"Do you want to view the messages, sir?"
Harpe nodded.
"Do you wish them to be private communications, sir?"
Again Harpe nodded, and he walked over to the console and picked up a pair of lightweight, wireless VR lenses and put them on.
"Okay. I'm ready. Put the UEO message on first."
Inside the lenses, the Harpe WorldWide Enterprises logo gave way to a three-dimensional image of Admiral Noyce.
"Mr. Harpe, what exactly were you doing out there, with that transport? You never told us that you turned the damned plane around. What if we hadn't been able—"
No need to hear any more of this, Harpe thought. "Next one," he said.
This only took a few seconds, and then Harpe saw Ralph Maclnnis talking to him from a site about two hundred miles west of the Azores... and over thirty-four hundred feet below the surface.
Maclnnis, Chief of Research, stood in his office.
He was a good scientist, but even better at looking at the bottom line.
"Mr. Harpe, I'm afraid I have bad news to report—"
The image flipped, and Harpe was looking at a hydrothermal vent field—rows of chimneys, black smokers gushing poisonous hydrogen sulfides, and stretching past them, fields of the giant tube worms, tree-trunk-thick bodies tinged with pink—
The pinkish color came from hemoglobin, Harpe knew.
That fact still blew Harpe's mind.
The view was from one of the research base's submersibles.
"We lost a sub in the area on your screen, Mr. Harpe. We're still checking into what happened. But there doesn't appear—"
Maclnnis's face was back, looking nervous.
Easy, boy, Harpe thought. Not every day you discover something brand new, a brand new life-form, something so ancient that it could—
Maclnnis rubbed his chin. Harpe wondered if perhaps this deep-sea pro were not the right man for the job. And Maclnnis better remember not to say anything, not through normal Net communications—
Maclnnis looked away worried. "Everything else... appears okay, Mr. Harpe. We're looking into what happened to the sub." The message was over.
"Reply?" the communications person asked.
"You say there's more?"
"Two more—they all came in while you were dealing with the SousMer situation, sir. We held them, as you requested."
"No reply to this. But let me see what else came in."
There was another blip inside the goggles, and then Maclnnis was there again—
Looking scared.
"God, Mr. Harpe. This is incredible. This is—"
Then there was a shot from the base's main sub pool, tight on the twisted wreckage of a submersible.
Harpe felt his heart start beating. And yes, he had to admit that what he heard, what Maclnnis proceeded to say, was truly... incredible.
Rafael Vargas looked at the live news feed from EarthNet.
"The UEO has not yet released the name of the terrorists who threatened the SousMer Underwater Resort of Geoffrey Harpe."
Ozawa, Rafael's first mate—formerly of the Japanese navy—stood close by.
"But it has been confirmed that the two terrorists inside the resort, a man and a woman, are dead. UEO director Admiral William Noyce has announced a worldwide search for the terrorists' accomplices, a group believed to be headed by Rafael Var—"
"Off," Rafael said.
The news feed vanished.
"Plot a course, Ozawa. Get us the hell out of this damned trench before they find that we're hiding here."
Ozawa nodded. "Yes, sir. Where are—?"
"Anywhere, Mr. Ozawa. Anywhere we won't be found..."
Ozawa started giving navigation orders to the crew of the modified Skipjack, a submarine loaded with plasma torpedoes.
Rafael promised himself: There would come a reckoning on this matter.
He couldn't imagine Mary dead. The iron woman.
How could anyone kill her? She was too strong...
Yes, there would come a reckoning... with the seaQuest... and with her captain, Nathan Bridger.
But—for now—that could wait.
"So," Bridger said, "that about wraps it up. We've got all the information from your computer, Monsieur Director."
Farrand looked surprised.
"We linked up before my men even came on board."
Bridger looked at McShane. There were questions he wanted to ask her, questions about what had happened here, why she was here—
Something else is going on here.
And other questions, about her life since they last met.
But those questions could wait.
"If there's nothing else, Captain, I'd like to attend to my guests."
Ford looked over and caught Bridger's eye. The lieutenant stood up. "Captain, I guess—if there's nothing else—we'd better get back to the ship."
Bridger nodded. Phillips stood up and, with Bridger's exec, headed for the door. "Oh—Mr. Ford... Lieutenant Phillips..."
The two men paused.
"Gentlemen—you did good."
"Thank you, sir," Ford said.
"Oh—and plot that course to the Canal. Might as well get back on our planned itinerary. San Francisco here we come..."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The two men left, and—Bridger was left alone with the only woman he ever had an affair with...
Harpe had replayed the three messages from Maclnnis before he spoke to the UEO. Noyce had left the office complex, Harpe was told, but the Admiral was reached in his car via a handheld unit.
And Harpe outlined the problem to him.
He told the Admiral what had happened in the Azores vent area. And what the problem was at the Azores Deep-Sea Research Base.
Harpe spoke quietly, softly...
"Admiral, this could go way beyond bomb threats... and six hundred lives—way beyond."
He saw Noyce's face turn grim while Harpe told him all the information that—until this moment—had been such a carefully guarded secret.
And where Harpe didn't know the answers to Noyce's questions, he made them up. Because, well, the important thing was to get the wheels in motion.
When Harpe was done, Noyce didn't need any more convincing.
Terry McShane stood up. "There are things I'd better attend to, Nate."
But he walked over to her and grabbed her arm, grinning.
"Now—wait a second. You don't walk away from this room without giving me some answers."
When his hand touched her arm, it was a strange, electric moment. In a flash, the years passed away—and he remembered the last time he had touched her.
Bridger always thought of it as an affair, and he had felt the requisite amount of guilt over it.
He and Barbara had been working apart. Their son was a young teenager—and growing more difficult by the day. Communication wasn't good. It happened, Bridger supposed, in every relationship...
But then he met Terry McShane. She had graduated to Naval Intelligence from the CIA's Internal Affairs Division. She didn't talk much about her job, but when they were alone. Bridger referred to her as a "spy" and she didn't exactly deny it.
They both shared a vision of the ocean as a new frontier, a new world that could be used for the benefit of the planet—or exploited by those who wanted to make a buck.
They were both passionate about the subject, and Bridger, working in Norfolk and commuting home to Washington on weekends, didn't see the telltale signs that something else was happening between them.
There were dinners, and drinks, and sharing life stories—and Bridger never saw the danger signs in Terry's blue-green eyes.
They only made love once.
Though he had relived that night many times since.
They had made love, and Bridger knew that they couldn't ever do that again. Not if he wanted to keep his life, his family. He didn't know that something else was going to take that all away from him.
He and Terry agreed to "stay friends." But he knew it was only his agreement, that Terry McShane had felt betrayed.
Somehow, she got transferred from Norfolk to the West Coast... and he never saw her again.
Though he had thought of her many times since then.
Now, here she was, and he was touching her arm.
She looked down at his hand.
"What do you want to know, Captain?"
"Oh, come on... Don't give me that 'Captain' stuff. And don't tell me that you were down here for a little vacation. This Disney waterworld for grown-ups with big bucks isn't your style."
"You know... I'm working for the UEO—same as you," she smiled. "That should be enough."
She hasn't forgotten or forgiven me, Nathan saw.
It was so cold in there it stung.
"Sure, we're coworkers... and that's why I'm asking what you're doing here."
"I don't think I can tell you."
Bridger studied her. But he knew that as much as he pushed, she wouldn't budge. "Okay... I understand. Security and all that." He shook his head and turned away. "I'll call up Bill Noyce and get him to tell me."
"I don't think—"
"Captain Bridger—"
Someone's voice—from SousMer Communications—was on the loudspeaker.
"Right here," he said.
"We have a request from a Chief Crocker for you to return to the bridge of the seaQuest. He says it's important."
"News about Darwin?" Terry asked.
"Could be... I'll let you know." Bridger turned and quickly left the conference room.