Bridger sat in his command chair. The three VR screens dead ahead showed the dark images from Ford's and Phillips's headsets, a WSKRS scan of the resort, and information coming in from the Net.
The lights from the EVA team's headsets picked up the tiny particles of food and plankton drifting to the seafloor, a steady rain of material. One screen picked up a stingray startled by the divers. It glided away, flying underwater and showing its cloud-white underside.
"The tropical storm is due here in about two hours, Captain."
"Ortiz, any word on what effects—if any—we'll get down here?"
"Hard to tell, sir. But the way the resort is perched, on a bit of island shelf, sir, it could catch some currents. Might get turbulent for the EVA team."
"Commander Ford, do you copy that?"
Bridger watched the image caught by the microcamera in Ford's helmet. By a combination of leaping and tiny thrusts from the EVA suits' propulsion units, Ford and Phillips were climbing up a small underwater ridge.
"We copy, sir."
They couldn't see the resort yet.
"Ortiz—what has WSKRS picked up?"
"Just this, Captain—check screen two."
Bridger leaned forward in his chair. The probe had circled the resort, a small silent spy—hopefully undetected by anyone inside.
"I don't see anything." The resort's lights glowed eerily in the dark water.
Place looked damned gloomy...
"Captain, here it is." The image of the resort changed, as Junior swung under a large spherical wing. 'That's the main power and life-support plant. And—there!"
Bridger saw it — something stuck to the underbelly of the plant.
"Analysis?"
"Coming up, Captain. Same screen."
The resort disappeared, and there was a schematic of the disk-shaped object. It was, the information on the screen reported, a bio-explosive, one of the new generation of explosive materials that could not be detected by scanners. It would be read as organic material. Wear it close to your gut like a heating pad, and nobody would pick it up.
"Sir—there's also this."
A small chip appeared on the screen. "That's the detonator, sir. A small CPU in constant communication with whoever's got their finger on the button."
This explained how they'd gotten the stuff onto the resort.
"Lieutenant Bachmann—can you send this down to Lucas?"
But Wolenczak's voice was already in Bridger's ear.
"I'm getting the feed along with you, sir."
"And Darwin too?" Bridger said.
Bridger waited... and then he heard Darwin's electronic voice, growing ever more familiar.
"Yes—I see it!" Darwin said.
"Careful, Darwin," Bridger said.
Lucas's voice again. "I'm sending all the data right to Darwin, sir."
"How about getting into the SousMer computer, Mr. Wolenczak? You said that it would be—"
"No problem, sir. It's just that I'm hitting some ICE now, but nothing I can't handle."
The kid was nothing if not modest, Bridger thought.
"I don't want any alarms going off when the EVA team goes in."
"Don't worry, sir. I'm on the case. Don't worry."
Advice that Bridger ignored.
"What's the problem?" Mary said, poking Gooding.
"I'm waiting for clearance to leave."
"I don't like this," Cutter said.
"We're leaving. Get the sub moving," she ordered Gooding.
For a moment he didn't move. He sat there, sweating even more, frozen. Mary jabbed him with her gun.
"Now, I said—"
Gooding grabbed the stick of the sub. Mary saw that he pressed a button and the engine hummed. The stick he held looked as if it controlled the flaps on the sides. She felt the sub tilt downward.
I could fly this... she thought. Can't be any harder than piloting a Skipjack.
"Something's up," Cutter said. "I don't like it."
He really does chatter too much, Mary thought. There's got to be a solution for that... when this is over.
"Sit back and enjoy the ride, Mr. Cutter."
"What's this?" Terry McShane said to Farrand, pointing at a blip on her screen.
"One of the subs is moving, a maintenance man."
"But you told him to wait."
The SousMer director shrugged. "Perhaps he misunderstood."
Then there was another message, an intrusion alert, on the screen. Someone trying to enter the computer system.
The ICE's early warning system automatically kicked in. First, McShane thought it might be the terrorists, trying to make the system crash. But then—
The technician leaned over to her. "The sub, seaQuest, is linked up. And — boy — someone's working very hard to get into our system."
"Can you let them? Let them take over," Terry said.
"I can't disable all the systems. Not fast enough, anyway. But it doesn't matter—they're doing fine on their own..."
Ford stood next to Phillips on a rocky ledge made up of volcanic debris, probably hundreds of thousands of years old, he guessed. It was stuff left over from when the island chain was made.
Phillips pointed at the resort and made a gesture—There it is. It looked like a Christmas tree, lights flickering, seen through black sheets.
They were observing radio silence. seaQuest could pick up their video images, but there was to be no voice, nothing to indicate that they were going to try and get into the resort.
Ford waited a second, and then he pressed the small thrusters at the sides of his EVA suit. He glided off the volcanic mound, a gentle leap toward the seafloor... and SousMer.
Darwin swam by the explosive. Looking at it, wondering about it.
Bridger now watched the dolphin through the eyes of Junior, hovering a hundred meters away.
"That's it, Dar. Just hang in there. Wait for our signal."
Eight... ten seconds. That's what Hitchcock figured. That's all the time Darwin would have. It didn't seem like much.
It's funny, Bridger thought, so much power in this ship—but everything was happening out there.
Terry stood up. Something was up with that minisub.
"Get some of your security people. Monsieur Farrand. Can you keep access to the outside closed?"
"You mean, stop the sub? Well, yes, but Gooding is simply carrying out—"
"Then do it—"
McShane stood up. "And get everyone as close to the center of the resort as possible."
There could be another demonstration of how serious the terrorists were.
Ford watched Phillips jump ahead a bit, his jet-assisted leaps landing him only meters away from the surface of the resort.
Then Phillips was right there, touching the emergency door handle. Hitchcock had told them that she didn't have a clue how it worked—those specs weren't available. But it seemed to work on a compression system.
Pull the lever and a chamber on the other side opened to the sea.
If it worked.
And if Lucas could cover their tracks.
Ford made two short jumps to get close to the door. His landing sent up a smoky spray of seafloor sand. Phillips looked over at Ford—and the executive officer nodded... and watched Phillips pull on the handle.
Gooding piloted the sub smoothly toward the opening to the sea. The minisub's lights picked up the shiny silver walls of the chamber leaving the pool.
Then he saw that the launch gates were closed.
"They're closed," he said. "I don't know—"
The woman pressed her gun into his ribs. "What?"
"They're not letting us out."
"I knew this would happen," Cutter said.
"Shut up." Then the woman turned to Gooding. "Speak to them. Tell them you're ready to go outside. Tell them to open the doors."
Gooding turned on his radio.
"Er, Harry Gooding here. I'm ready to go outside. Please open—"
Gooding heard the tension in Kodei's voice. "Harry—come on back."
Gooding nodded. He looked up at the woman, searching for what her next move was.
She appeared stymied, looking around the cramped quarters of the sub, shaking her head. Then—
"Is there another way to get that damn gate open?"
"B-back at the sub pool. There's a control station. It's designed for emergencies, computer failure. Things like that. We could do it there."
"Okay—bring the sub back up, Harry. And then we'll show everyone why they'd better let us go."
Gooding, wishing he didn't feel so trapped, so scared, turned the sub around.
The storm curled past the thin continental shelf off eastern South America, picking up moisture and tremendous wind speed, until it finally became a full-blown tropical storm, a big one, an El Nino...
The UEO weather service had named it Mike.
Mike passed over an island named, whimsically enough, Hell, and summarily flattened expensive hotels and shacks with equal impunity.
Now, still growing stronger, it continued north, relentlessly heading toward St. Cat—