Fire Ice (NUMA Files 3)

“Noah's flood," Austin said.

"Some people think so. The people who lived around the lake fled for their lives." Gamay smiled. "I can't say whether they did it on an ark. The salt water effectively smothered the lake. River nutrients pouring into the sea have only made the situation worse." She signaled to Paul, who projected a profile of the sea onto the screen.

"This gives you an idea of the incredible depth. A continental shelf that's probably the remnant of the old shoreline runs around the perimeter. It's the widest off the Ukraine, then it plunges down for seven thousand feet. The thin layer near the top is rich with life. But below the five-hundred-fifty-foot mark, there is no oxygen and the sea is lifeless. It's the biggest body of dead water in the world. Even worse, the depths are loaded with hydrogen sulfide. One breath of the stuff can kill you. If that mass of poison ever rose to the surface, it would release a cloud that would kill every living thing in and around the sea."

"The Turks weren't kidding about the sea of death," Zavala said.

Paul projected a map that had a dotted line running around the inner edge of the sea. "Kreisman said the ship was found around the four-hundred-foot level. That would put it at the edge of the continental shelf. Any deeper and ship wouldn't be there. Wooden vessels are perfectly preserved in the depths, because there is no oxygen to sustain wood-boring worms, but the chemicals eat away at metal."

"The ship would have been reduced to its basic molecules," Austin said.

"That's right. That gorge he talked about is probably an extended riverbed. The continental shelf is smooth and gradually dips seaward, pretty much like the ensign's description. The decay from all those organisms has formed pockets of methane gas. Presumably, a diver could be insulated from that type of thing, but there might still be some danger in diving in a poisonous environment."

Gunn had been absorbing the discussion. He rose from his seat and borrowed the laser pointer.

"Let's see what we've got. The NR-1 was hijacked here." He ran the red dot from the Aegean through the Bosporus. "This is where they heard sounds of ship traffic." He moved the pointer along the edge of the continental shelf. "Here's our mystery ship, according to the GPS."

Using his cursor, Paul drew an X at the location Gunn indicated.

"Someone went to a great deal of trouble to salvage that ship," Austin said. "Maybe it holds the key to unraveling this whole mess."

Gunn turned to the captain. "How soon can we haul anchor and get moving?"

Atwood had kept silent throughout the ensign's presentation and the NUMA team's discussion. He smiled and said, "You people have been so engrossed in the Black Sea, you didn't notice me calling the bridge. We're on our way. Should be on-site in the morning."

The faint vibration of the engines came through the deck under their feet. Gunn got up. "I'm going to hit the sack. Tomorrow could be a long day." Austin got directions to his cabin, then told Joe that he'd catch up with him later. When Austin was alone, he sat at the table and stared at the lines and squiggles of the Black Sea map projected on the screen as if they were letters of an unknown language whose secret could be unlocked by a Rosetta Stone. His eye fastened on the X that marked the position of the mystery ship.

He sorted through the events that had brought him to this place on a NUMA vessel in pursuit of what? He felt like someone making his way through a snake pit, trying to pick out the nonpoisonous snakes from the vipers. He snapped off the lights and left the conference room. As he made his way to his cabin, he had a depressing thought. Maybe they were all poisonous.

20

THE GRAY DAWN light streaming through the cabin porthole woke Austin up. He glanced over at Zavala, who was in the next bunk, no doubt lost in a dreamworld of red Corvettes and beautiful blond statisticians. He envied his partner's ability to drop off to sleep, snooze soundly through the night and wake up fresh and ready for action. Austin's own slumber had been fitful, disturbed by churning thoughts, as if his brain were searching for answers hidden in the maze of his subconscious.

Levering himself out of bed, Austin went over to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. He dressed quickly, pulling on jeans, a heavy sweatshirt and a windbreaker, and stepped out of the cabin. A cool morning breeze from off the water smacked him in the face and blew away the lingering shreds of sleep. The sun's eyebrow was starting to peek over the eastern horizon, its soft rays bathing the clouds in a reddish gold light.

With the Argo steaming at fifteen knots, Austin hung over the railing and stared out at the opaque surface of the sea, listening to the soothing hiss of the waves against the hull. Seabirds skimmed the foam like windblown confetti. It was hard to believe that a few hundred feet below was the most lifeless place on the planet. The Black Sea was a big puddle of dead water, but Austin knew that an abyss with far more reason to be feared was the remorseless evil that lurked in the depths of the human mind. Austin shivered, not entirely from the cold, and headed back into the ship.

As he stepped through the door into the warmth of the mess hall, the mouth-watering bouquet of coffee, fried eggs and bacon provided an antidote for his morbid mood, and his spirits improved. Except for the blue sea visible through the windows, the ship's dining area could have been a smaII-town breakfast hangout where the locals have coffee mugs with their names on them. Sleepy-eyed crew members coming off the night watch occupied a few tables.

Austin grabbed a coffee to go. On his way to the bridge, he encountered the Trouts, who had come down for break- fast earlier and taken a tour of the ship. Together they climbed up to the wheelhouse, where the wraparound windows gave a wide view of the bow and deck.

Rudi Gunn, an early riser going back to his navy days, stood near a bank of instruments and monitors, talking to Captain Atwood. He smiled broadly when he saw his colleagues. "Good morning, everyone. I was about to go looking for you. The captain was going over his plans for the wreck site."

"Looking forward to hearing them," Austin said. "How soon will we be on-site?"

Atwood pointed to a circular gray screen with white concentric circles etched into the glass. Specks of gray indicated the GPS readings from an antenna that picked up information from the network of twenty-four satellites orbiting the earth at a height of eleven thousand miles. A digital readout next to the screen displayed current latitude and longitude. The system could place the ship within thirty to forty-five feet of its target.

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"We should be on-site in about fifteen minutes if the navigational coordinates from the sub sailor's Dick Tracy wrist-watch are on the mark."

"You weren't joking when you said we'd be there first thing this morning," Austin said.

"The Argo may look like a workhorse, but she's got racing genes in her blood."

"What are your plans for the initial survey?"

"We'll map out the general area with side-scan sonar using our new UUV, then take a closer look. The crew is down on the deck getting things ready." The Unmanned Untethered Vehicle, or UUV, was one of the hottest developments in undersea exploration.