A sound from the right turned Khalif. One of the bandits was alive and trying to crawl away.
Khalif raised the curved knife, ready to finish the man, but then held himself back. “Kill him, Jinn.”
The shaking boy stared blankly. Khalif stared back, firm and unyielding.
“Your brothers are dead, Jinn. The future of the clan rests with you. You must learn to be strong.”
Jinn continued to shake, but Khalif was all the more certain now. Kindness and generosity had almost destroyed them. Such weakness had to be banished from his only surviving son.
“You must never have pity,” Khalif said. “He is an enemy. If we have not the strength to kill our enemies, they will take the waters from us. And without the waters, we inherit only wandering and death.”
Khalif knew he could force Jinn to do it, knew he could order him and the boy would follow the command. But he needed Jinn to choose the act himself.
“Are you afraid?”
Jinn shook his head. Slowly, he turned and raised the pistol.
The bandit glanced back at him, but instead of Jinn buckling, his hand grew steady. He looked the bandit in the face and pulled the trigger.
The gun’s report echoed across the water and out into the desert. By the time it faded, tears no longer flowed from the young boy’s eyes.
CHAPTER 2
INDIAN OCEAN
JUNE 2012
THE NINETY-FOOT CATAMARAN LOLLED ITS WAY ACROSS calm waters of the Indian Ocean at sunset. It was making three or four knots in a light breeze. A brilliant white sail rose above the wide deck. Five-foot letters in turquoise spelled out numa across its central section—the National Underwater and Marine Agency.
Kimo A’kona stood near one of the catamaran’s twin bows. He was thirty years old, with jet-black hair, a chiseled body and the swirling designs of a traditional Hawaiian tattoo on his arm and shoulder. He stood on the bow in bare feet, balancing on the very tip as if he were hanging ten on a surfboard.
He held a long pole ahead and to the side, dipping an instrument into the water. Readings on a small display screen told him it was working.
He called out the results. “Oxygen level is a little low, temperature is 21 degrees centigrade, 70.4 Fahrenheit.”
Behind Kimo, two others watched. Perry Halverson, the team leader and oldest member of the crew, stood at the helm. He wore khaki shorts, a black T-shirt and an olive drab “boonie” hat he’d owned for years.
Beside him, Thalia Quivaros, who everyone called T, stood on the deck in white shorts and a red bikini top that accented her tan figure enough to distract both men.
“That’s the coldest reading yet,” Halverson noted. “Three full degrees cooler than it should be this time of year.”
“The global warming people aren’t going to like that,” Kimo noted.
“Maybe not,” Thalia said as she typed the readings into a small computer tablet. “But it’s definitely a pattern. Twenty-nine of the last thirty readings are off by at least two degrees.”
“Could a storm have passed through here?” Kimo asked. “Dumping rain or hail that we aren’t accounting for?”
“Nothing for weeks,” Halverson replied. “This is an anomaly, not a local distortion.”
Thalia nodded. “Deepwater readings from the remote sensors we dropped are confirming it. Temperatures are way off, all the way down to the thermocline. It’s like the sun’s heat is missing this region somehow.”
“I don’t think the sun’s the problem,” Kimo said. The ambient air temperature had reached the high in the nineties a few hours before as the sun had been blazing from a cloudless sky. Even as it set, the last rays were strong and warm.
Kimo reeled in the instrument, checked it and then swung the pole like a fly fisherman. He cast the sensor out forty feet from the boat, letting it sink and drift back. The second reading came back identical to the first.
“At least we’ve found something to tell the brass back in D.C.,” Halverson said. “You know they all think we’re on a pleasure cruise out here.”
“I’m guessing it’s an upwelling,” Kimo said. “Something like the El Niño/La Niña effect. Although since this is the Indian Ocean, they will probably call it something in Hindu.”