MacInnis unfastened the electronic combination lock to the cabinet holding the weapons. A light on the keypad blinked green, and MacInnis quickly opened the door. He pulled out three electron-mag hand weapons.
"That's all?" Dell said.
"There are some standard firearms," MacInnis said. "I-I'll get those out too."
"Good idea," Dell snorted.
MacInnis handed one of the electron-mag weapons to-Dell, one to Marie Thibaud, and the other to Rodriguez.
"I've never fired one of these." Marie said.
"No problem, my dear. Only make sure that the targeting tracer is on." Dell leaned close to Thibaud. "Throw the switch thusly, and you should be all set. A slight squeeze, and you'll get a tracer beam. Pick up your target, pull the trigger, and bang!"
"Take out some of the other guns," Rodriguez said.
MacInnis nodded and pulled out a few handguns and a box of shells.
Dell looked up. "Just be careful who you give them to, eh?"
Thibaud looked nervous. Maybe, MacInnis thought, that's because she's the only one who really understands what we're up against.
"Okay, we're armed. Everyone stay calm," MacInnis said. "Let's get to the communications center and see how far away the seaQuest is."
"While we hold down the fort..." Dell said.
The group followed Maclnnis out of the locked supply room and walked toward the center of the station.
"Where's Admiral Noyce?" Bridger asked Bachmann.
"I don't know, sir. I show that we're linked up, linked to UEO headquarters. We should be through to—"
Noyce's assistant, Captain Gerry Wilson, appeared on the screen. Wilson was smiling with all the sincerity of a hungry wolverine, Bridger thought.
"Captain—" Wilson said. "We didn't expect you to contact us until you reached the station."
"Put Admiral Noyce through," Bridger said testily.
"I'm afraid that the Admiral is busy right now. If you have a question..."
Bridger felt as if he might jump out of his seat.
"Put the Admiral through now, damn it, or I'll stop the seaQuest and turn back. And you've got two minutes before I give that order."
Wilson's face took on a sick expression. Good, thought Bridger. He was eager to confront the Admiral and ask him why he had lied.
Everyone on the bridge was going about their jobs—Crocker, Ford, Ortiz—but Bridger knew that they all had their eyes and ears cocked for what was going to happen.
And then Noyce was there, looking every bit as discomfited as Bridger had imagined he would.
"Admiral—I've just learned some interesting information about the Azores station."
Noyce shifted in his seat. No gallon of ice cream was going to bail the Admiral out this time. Sucker me once, shame on you. Sucker me twice—
"What's that, Captain?"
He was aware that this was being watched, thought Bridger.
"Does the name Geoffrey Harpe mean anything to you. Admiral? Geoffrey Harpe, Harpe WorldWide Enterprises?"
Noyce shook his head. "So you know about the station. Who got that information for you—Lucas? He should know—"
Bridger leaned forward in his chair. "Why didn't you tell me that Harpe was involved?"
Noyce shook his head. "Because... because if I told you, then I could be damn sure of one thing, Nathan."
"Which is?"
"That you'd want to have nothing to do with taking Dr. Ernst there."
Bridger nodded. The Admiral was most assuredly right. But now there was another card to be played.
"And how come you didn't tell us anything about what's really going on there?"
"What do you mean?"
"The worms. Admiral. These new worms. Something damned strange is going on at the station."
Now it was Noyce's turn to lean forward. "Nathan, can we go private on this?"
Bridger looked over at Bachmann. The Captain leaned down and picked up his VR goggles from the side of his chair. "Okay, Mr. Bachmann."
The words "private communication" flashed inside the goggles.
"It's just between us now, Bill."
"I knew, Nathan... Noyce took a breath. "I knew that if I told you that the Azores station was a joint project of Harpe and the UEO, you'd want no part of it."
"Go on..."
"And it was vital to get Ernst to the station... except I didn't know how vital."
"I don't understand."
"In the time since you picked up Ernst, something has happened in the station. There's been an incident involving a minisub. Some station crew were killed. We're still trying to get a handle on what's happening."
"How could you get into bed with a predator like Harpe?"
"I didn't 'get into bed' with him. The scientific board was strapped for capital to construct a large deep-sea station. Harpe's research division was interested in spin-offs. It was a 'done deal' by the time I came aboard as the UEO director."
Bridger waited, letting Noyce stew. This was a crossroads, Bridger knew. If Noyce didn't tell him something this time, it could happen again.
"Er, how's Darwin?"
"Much better. He should have his communication rig back on in a few hours."
"Good, I'm glad—"
"Admiral, what are we heading into?"
Noyce licked his lips. "That's just it, Nathan. We don't have a clue. We're getting reports from the station, and Harpe has communicated with some of his employees. But—near as we can figure it—one of the worms was brought in—"
"Alive?"
Noyce nodded. "Alive, and—we don't know—it killed someone."
Bridger looked away. In other words, he thought, the situation was a disaster. And he was only learning about it now...
"Nathan, what are you going to do?"
Bridger laughed. What could he do, resign his commission? The paperwork was barely done. He looked right at his old friend Bill Noyce.
"What do you think I'm going to do. Bill? I'm going to finish my job. And we can talk about this later."
"Good, I was—"
"But I want everything you have on the station, the life forms at the event. Double-check everything Lucas has to see if there's anything else we should know."
"You got it."
"And Bill—"
"Yes?"
"Next time, don't lie to me."
Bridger pulled off his goggles. "Mr. Bachmann, alert Lucas that we'll be getting a download from UEO."
"Yes, sir."
"Captain," Ortiz said through the intercom. "We're thirty minutes cruising time from the Azores station. I've got some WSKRS data coming in."
"Mr. Ford, keep a watch on what Junior and Mother pick up. And how about a live cam shot on VR number two? Oh, and ask Dr. Ernst and Terry McShane to come to the conference room."
Bridger slid out of his chair. "Let's learn as much as we can before we enter the hot zone."
"Aye, aye, sir," Ford said, and Bridger walked off the bridge with a sick feeling growing in his gut.
The unknown, that's what this feeling was, Bridger thought. The unknown... and—maybe—the dangerous.
Rafael Vargas, lying on the bunk in his cabin, listened to the hum of the Skipjack's engines.
His cabin was the same size, the same dimensions, as that of any other crewman on the modified ship.
But there had been many modifications to the ship. Vargas's Skipjack—El Muerto—was fitted with a trio of hydrogen turbines that powered two giant silent screws that could move the Skipjack almost as fast as the seaQuest itself.
While not armed with nuclear weapons—that would be too risky, too easily detected by satellite surveillance—the Skipjack was modified with additional torpedo tubes fore and aft.
There were also laser guns mounted on the deck, and an enlarged access bay for launching, minisubs—the two-man attack subs that were also armed to the teeth.
There were other subs with more power...
Still, it was early in Vargas's career.
Vargas thought of Mary Knox. Though he couldn't say he loved her—how could you love someone that dangerous, that deadly?—still he would miss her. Miss her golden hair, her porcelain skin, her intelligence, and her terrible cool.
Grace under pressure.
With Bloody Mary dead, there would be a hole in the Vargas organization, a hole that would be hard to fix. But not, he thought, hard to revenge.
The blame was easy to place. Captain Nathan Hale Bridger and his seaQuest must die. And it must happen soon.
Vargas smiled at the thought. And yes, Mary Knox would like that idea too, the giant flagship sub of the UEO destroyed, its three hundred people gone. And there would be no ransom money asked.
This act would be non-negotiable. Sudden, terrible... vicious.
An old-fashioned hit.
It was a long trip to the Atlantic, to where the seaQuest sailed.
But there will be no hiding for you, Captain Bridger, Rafael thought. No hiding from El Muerto.
No hiding from your own rendezvous with death.
"Now, listen up. Listen up, damn it."
The assorted station crew were gathered in the communications pod. MacInnis saw the fear in their eyes.
"The seaQuest is only minutes away, and they'll get us out of here. But we have to keep our cool, and—"
One man, a computer technician, yelled out, "What if they don't come here? What if they stop? What if they want to know what's going on?"
The crowd started murmuring at that, a nasty sea of anxiety and fear that threatened to go out of control.
"They'll come. But we can't scare them, scare the UEO. We've got the problem solved, contained..."
"But that's not true!" It was another man, one of the submersible engineers. "Sure, those two spokes are closed off—"
"Yes, and no one can—"
"But they've already linked up, they're going back and forth, between the two wings. You can see the movement on the board here."
A master station board showed the layout of the entire research base. Motion detectors recorded all movement and even identified, via computer ID chips, who was where.
MacInnis looked at the board and saw figures moving over there, in the sealed-off spokes, moving like ants, back and forth, communicating, planning.
He licked his lips.
"We've got guns," MacInnis said.
Someone laughed. "A lot of good they'll do," the sub engineer said. "We've seen the destroyed sub, MacInnis. Remember. We've seen the bodies."
Again, the noise of the crowd swelled. And MacInnis started yelling, begging them to quiet down. If there was panic down here, he thought, the seaQuest would never come.
"Please, please," he begged, but the crowd was breaking up into smaller groups, of three, and four, angry, yelling.
MacInnis couldn't do a thing to quiet them.
Then someone at the communications desk shouted.
"Hey, wait a minute. Wait. I'm getting contact from seaQuest."
Instantly, the crowd became quiet.
MacInnis nodded. He looked down, suddenly aware that his hand was on a revolver. He didn't admit to the others that he'd never fired a gun.
The communications operator turned to MacInnis.
"They want to speak with someone, Mr. MacInnis. And they want visuals."
MacInnis shook his head. "Tell, them no visuals. Tell them... that there's some problem down here. But tell them I can speak to them."
Morton Dell came close. "Best talk from one of the lab rooms, MacInnis. Just in case the crowd gets... rowdy."
MacInnis nodded. "Tell them I'll speak to the Captain... in a minute."
The crowd was quiet as MacInnis got down and made his way through it. They were subdued now because, MacInnis knew, they all realized that this was their only shot to get out of there.
He hurried to one of the labs.
"Let me see it," Harpe said in the darkness.
The giant screen in front of him came to life, with a freeze-framed high-definition image of Admiral William Noyce.
A voice said, "First, we have a sample of original material, Mr. Harpe."
"Okay."
And the image came to life, Noyce ordering—ordering!—Harpe to cease private communications with the Azores station.
It was unpleasant to listen to. Then the image froze again.
"Okay, now what?"
"Now, sir, you'll hear the text as you wrote it."
The image started moving again.
"Captain Bridger, Admiral Noyce here. The UEO board wants you to send a team into the station immediately."
Harpe searched the recreated image for any evidence of flickering, any juggling, any clue that Noyce's image had been digitized, that the words were being constructed from a memory bank of Noyce's sibilants and consonants, blends and vowels.
Harpe grinned. I can make the old man say anything I want to, he thought.
Like... Look at me, boys and girls, I'm a circus clown.
It was an amazing display. Where was the line between reality and illusion?
Well, that line didn't exist anymore.
The digitized Noyce continued. "Secure the main labs and specimens. Captain Bridger, and await further instructions..."
Again, the image came to a freeze.
"Anything else, sir?" the voice over the speakers asked.
"No... no. It was... wonderful."
And now, Harpe thought, all we do is wait.