The Storm (NUMA Files 10)

The man let out a grunt of pain and surprise. He dropped straight down, hitting his chin on the rail as he fell. He bit a chunk from his lip, and blood filled his mouth.

“That’s better,” Jinn said, towering above the man now that he was on his knees. “Don’t bother to get up.”

“You bastard,” the woman said.

“Ah, the loyal wife,” Jinn said. “This is why I know you will do as I say. Because if either one of you disobeys, I will cause excruciating pain to the other.”

“You don’t need to do this,” Marchetti begged. “I’ll pay you for our release and the release of my crew. I can give you a fortune. I have millions, close to a hundred million in liquid assets, money that Matson and Otero don’t have access to. Just let us leave.”

“A long time ago I heard someone make a similar proposal,” Jinn said. “All that I have for one child. I now realize why the offer was denied. Your bid is a drop in the bucket. It is meaningless to me.”

Jinn turned back toward the control room, making eye contact with Otero. “The time has come. Signal the horde, bring it to the surface.”

“Are you sure about this?” Zarrina asked.

Jinn had waited long enough already. “Our ability to affect the weather had been limited by keeping the horde beneath the surface. To fulfill our destiny, not to mention our promises, we need to cool the ocean more quickly.”

“What about the American satellites? If the effect is noticed, we’ll have bigger problems to deal with than these people from NUMA.”

“Otero has plotted the paths, altitudes and transits of every spy and weather satellite that crosses this section of the ocean. By directing the horde from here, we can signal them to rise and drop back at far more precise intervals than we could from Yemen. They will appear when no one is watching. They will disappear again before the eyes of the world ever turn their way.”

“Sounds complicated,” she said.

“Less so than you would think,” Jinn insisted. “This is the open ocean. Aside from the occasional warship, there’s not much worth looking at. The world’s spy satellites are aimed a thousand miles to the north, watching the armies and oil of the Middle East. They study Iran and Syria and Iraq, they count Russian tanks and aircraft near the Caspian Sea or American battle groups in the Persian Gulf.”

He looked to Otero. “How long is the current window?”

Otero checked his computer. “We have fifty-three minutes before the next satellite comes in range.”

“Then do as I command,” Jinn ordered.

Otero nodded and brought up the control screen and typed in Jinn’s nine-digit code. The line-of-sight transmission would be broadcast all the way to the horizon. From there the bots would signal one another like dominoes.

He hit the enter key. “Signal processing now.”

Jinn stared out across the water, waiting to catch sight of the display. It took a minute before the first sign appeared, but then the ocean’s surface began to change quickly.

There had been no wind to speak of throughout the day, and the sea was glassy around them. But as the bots surfaced, the smooth appearance took on a grainy look, like a secluded bay choked with algae.

Jinn watched as the effect spread in all directions, running into the distance. It soon reached the limits of his vision, but he knew it went far beyond, at least fifty miles in every direction. Thinner wisps of his creation stretching for a hundred miles beyond that, spreading forth like the arms of a galaxy.

“Direct them to spread their wings.”

Otero began tapping away once again. “Order encoded,” he said. “Transmitting … now.”

Jinn slipped a pair of expensive sunglasses from his pocket. He expected the dark lenses would be necessary in a moment or two. He slid them over his eyes as the surface of the sea began to evolve once again.

A wave seemed to travel through it, almost like a tremor. The color went from a leaden gray to a dull gloss and then began to brighten until the sea around them shimmered with a mirrorlike finish. With the afternoon sun still high overhead, the effect was blinding even through the shield of polarized glass.

Jinn saw the prisoners staring in wonder and then turning away as the glare became painful to look at.

Jinn squinted and stared for just a moment, his chest swelling with pride.

Out on the surface of the sea, trillions upon trillions of his tiny machines had unfolded mirrored wings, hidden until then under shells like those on the back of a beetle. The act tripled the surface area of each microbot. The reflective surface of the wings quadrupled the amount of sunlight bounced

back into the upper atmosphere and away from the ocean.

It was as if a reflective blanket had been pulled across five thousand square miles of the Indian Ocean.