Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

“High-energy discharges can cause the resistance in the air to break down and electrical energy to jump the gaps,” she said. “I’ve spent enough time with Kurt and Joe to know that that’s exactly what arc welding is.”

“Man-made lightning,” Smith said. “That’s why fuel and ordnance have to be handled in certain ways on base. Even a static-electric charge can ignite petroleum fumes.”

“The marks on that cable look like a lot more than a static discharge,” she said.

He nodded again, a sober look settled on his face. She guessed the doctor had a theory of what had happened. She guessed it would match what she was about to suggest.

“The lights blew,” she said. “The equipment failed, even the emergency beacon. Otherwise, someone would have heard a distress signal. The captain’s wife saw stars, and the poor crewmen on the upper levels were cooked from the inside out.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “That ship was hit with some type of massive electromagnetic burst. It would have to be of ultrahigh intensity to do the damage we’ve seen.”

“A thousand radar emitters turned on to full power wouldn’t do what we’ve seen,” the doctor said.

“Then it’s something more powerful,” she said.

Dr. Smith nodded, looking grave. “Has to be.”

She paused, trying not to let her thoughts run away with her. “Do we even want to consider that it might be naturally occurring?” she asked, thinking about the anomaly Kurt and Joe were investigating a few hundred miles to the east.

“And the pirates just happened upon the stricken ship in the right place at the right time? And then someone accidentally tried to kill you and Paul for investigating it?”

Of course not, she thought. “Then it has to be a weapon,” she said. “Something powerful enough to fry a five-hundred-foot vessel without any warning.”

Smith offered a sad smile. “I concur,” he said. “As if the world doesn’t have enough to worry about.”

She sensed it was she who was concurring with him, but it didn’t matter.

“I have to talk to Dirk,” she said.

Dr. Smith nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on Paul.”

27

Washington, D.C., June 23

THE VIEW FROM DIRK PITT’S OFFICE on the twenty-ninth floor of the NUMA headquarters building included much of Washington, D.C. From the generous rectangular window he could watch over a section of the shimmering Potomac, the Lincoln and Washington monuments, and the Capitol building, all of which stood lit up in brilliant white for the evening.

Despite the view, Dirk’s attention was directed elsewhere, toward the monitor of his computer, on which a three-way teleconference was proceeding.

In one corner, the smiling face of Hiram Yaeger, NUMA’s resident computer genius. Yaeger looked as if he’d just come off the road on a Harley; he wore a leather vest and had his long graying hair pulled back into a ponytail.

In the other corner of Pitt’s screen, a drawn and waifish version of Gamay Trout gazed up at him. Her deep red hair was also pulled back, but out of necessity rather than style. Occasionally, as she spoke, a stray lock worked itself loose and fell in front of her eyes. She would diligently push it back behind her ear or keep talking as if she didn’t notice.

Despite her obvious pain, and eyes Pitt had never seen so dark, she seemed to be holding it together. Certainly she’d helped them take a big step forward in solving the mystery of what happened to the Kinjara Maru.

As she explained a theory she and the Matador’s doctor had come up with, Pitt had to admire her tenacity and devotion to duty. Such qualities were in abundance at NUMA, but they always shone the brightest under the darkest circumstances.

While Pitt listened and asked what he thought were pertinent questions, Yaeger took notes and mostly grunted the occasional “Uh-huh” and “Okay.”

When Gamay was done speaking, Pitt turned to Yaeger. “Can you run a simulation on what she described?”

“I think so,” Yaeger said. “Gonna be a shot in the dark, to some extent, but I could put you in the ballpark.”

“Ballpark’s not good enough, Hiram. I want box seats down the third baseline.”

“Sure,” Yaeger said, drawing the word out slowly. “But the closest I can come is telling you what kind of power might be needed and how this might have accomplished it. So you might be on the third baseline, but you’re still gonna be up in the nosebleeds unless we get more data.”

“You start working,” Pitt said. “I’ll bet you a case of imported beer that we’ll get more data before you’re done with your first run-through.”