Fire Ice (NUMA Files 3)

"I'd say they're plausible, sure. A drilling platform inadvertently cause a deposit to collapse, triggering a landslide."

Jenkins held his breath, then released it. "Inadvertently, yes. But could something like that be triggered deliberately?"

The tone grabbed their attention. Reed said, "What are you saying, Dr. Jenkins?"

Jenkins squirmed in his chair. "It's been driving me crazy. My gut instinct has been in conflict with my scientific training, which says gather all the evidence before coming to a conclusion, especially one as wild as this."

Reed scratched his chin. "Maybe, but as a scientist, I'm like you – I can't make that leap from conjecture to conclusion without a bridge of facts."

Yaeger got into the discussion. "Poetically said, Doc. Let's see if Max can help us. Were you eavesdropping, my love?"

The auburn-haired image of a woman reappeared. "It's hard not to listen in when I have six supersensitive microphones. Where would you like me to take you?"

Yaeger turned to the two scientists. "Gentlemen, it's all yours."

Reed had been giving it some thought. "Max, please give us an idea of the undersea methane-hydrate deposits along the U.S. coasts."

The face vanished and they were looking at a three-dimensional rendering of the sea bottom to the east and west of the United States, complete with mountains and canyons. Pulsating patches of crimson appeared in the shimmering blue sea off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

"Now let's isolate this to the East Coast." The shoreline between Maine and the Florida Keys appeared.

"Good. Please zero in on Maine and show us the continental shelf."

They were looking at the long irregular coastline of the Pine Tree state stretching from Canada to New Hampshire. A wavy line appeared off the coast, running through the red patches of hydrates.

"If I may," Jenkins interjected, "could you highlight Rocky Point?"

A cornflower blue bull's-eye indicated Jenkins's hometown. A close-up aerial view of the town showing its bay and river appeared in the lower right-hand comer of the screen.

"Not bad," Jenkins said, noting the extra touch.

“Thank you," purred a disembodied voice.

Jenkins gave Max his boat's position when he had first seen the nascent tsunami. A silhouette of a fishing boat appeared in the holographic sea.

"Now we need a diagram showing the major undersea faults."

A spidery network of white lines appeared. The boat appeared to be in between Rocky Point and a major fault due east of the town.

Yaeger said, "That was great, Max. While you're in profile mode, let's go back to the continental shelf at the epicenter of the shock."

Displayed on the screen was a cross-section of the ocean floor showing a wavy line representing the ocean's surface and a lower one that was the sea bottom. The continental shelf dropped off sharply. At the edge of the shelf was a thick fault that angled down. The fault intersected a variegated line that represented the methane-hydrate deposit under the limestone crust.

"There's our trouble spot. Show us what happens when methane hydrates are released." A methane plume rose from the ocean floor. The sea bottom along the slope of the continental shelf collapsed. A depression occurred in the water surface where the landslide occurred. The surface of the water cratered above the slide.

The water tried to stabilize, creating a bump that moved along the ocean surface.

"There's the genesis of the big wave," Reed said.

"Let me try something," Yaeger said. "You heard what Dr. Jenkins said about the Richter scale reading at that location. Please give us a simulation of what happened."

Ripples that represented waves began to travel out from the area immediately around the slide. Max zoomed in on the wave heading for Rocky Point. When the moving arc was close to shore, the close-up of Rocky Point enlarged to fill the whole screen. The wave could be seen rolling into the harbor, onto the shore and up the river.

Without being asked, Max split the screen showing the side view displaying the profile of the wave. The tsunami grew as it approached land, morphed into a giant watery claw, and crashed down on the sleepy harbor. There was silence in the room as Max repeated the scene again and again in fast and slow motion.

Yaeger swiveled in his chair and said, "Comments, gentlemen?"

"We've established effect," Jenkins said. "The big question is whether the cause was man-made."