The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

“Yes, you would,” Sandecker said. “So get what information you can out of this video and we’ll see what we can do. With something more than murky pictures to go on, we might be able to act. At least we’d be able to bring the truth to light. Just determining that China is behind this would be a step in the right direction. But we need to know how they caused it, why and how bad it’s going to get.”

“Could we sneak a submarine in there for a more detailed look?”

“Not a chance,” Sandecker said. “The Chinese have doubled their patrols since Paul and Gamay made this recording. We’d be risking a direct military confrontation if we violate their waters again.”

“And making the political situation worse,” Rudi said. “I understand.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the foyer, where Rudi stopped and spoke his mind. “I’m not leaving them out there to die.”

Sandecker didn’t blink. “I share your concern, Rudi. I brought Paul and Gamay on board. Sent them out on their first assignments. But you have to accept reality. We may not have any choice in the matter.”

Rudi had spent a career leaning on the wisdom of James Sandecker. For the first time in his life, he found himself in utter disagreement with the Admiral. “I’m not leaving them.”

“Then you’d better find a way to get them back here without making things worse.”

33

NAGASAKI

KURT LISTENED to the news about Paul and Gamay calmly. Rudi Gunn was blunt as he delivered it. There was no hand-wringing or pronouncements of mea culpa from either of them, nonetheless both felt the weight of responsibility.

“Can you get them home?” Kurt asked.

“I’m looking for an angle to exploit now,” Rudi said. “In the meantime, we’ve been analyzing the data. Even though the mounds in the video look like volcanoes, they’re not. They’re spewing nothing but water. No sulfur, no arsenic, no carbon, nothing that you’d expect to find from volcanic action. Only hot freshwater and minute amounts of trace elements.”

“How big are they?” Joe asked. “It’s hard to tell from the video.”

“According to the sonar data, the closest one is the size of a twenty-story building,” Rudi said. “We’re less certain of the others, but they appear similar in scale.”

“How much water are they venting?” Kurt asked. “Enough to cause what we’ve seen?”

“Based on a three-dimensional study of the geyser closest to the camera and an estimate of the velocity and volume of the ejected water, we’ve calculated a discharge rate of nearly half a million cubic feet per minute. To put that in perspective, ten of those jets are equal to Niagara Falls on a rainy day.”

&

nbsp; “How many are there?” Joe asked.

“We don’t know,” Rudi admitted. “In the snippet of video Paul and Gamay sent, we counted about forty, but the time index on the recording shows that they’ve edited the video. It was originally much longer.”

“Just giving us the highlights,” Joe said.

“Seems that way,” Rudi admitted. “We’re pulling satellite data now, but the preliminary indication is a bulge of water forming in the East China Sea and flowing outward. It’s wreaking havoc with the standard currents. Under normal conditions, a large northbound current enters the area between Taiwan and Okinawa. That current has been deflected nearly due east and replaced with an outflow heading southward. The combined effect has unsettled the normal weather patterns, bringing fog to normally clear areas, storms to normally dry areas and early snow over parts of China.

“Outflows to the north are so large, we’re detecting salinity and temperature changes all the way up to the Bering Strait. The Sea of Japan is being desalinized so rapidly, in another month or two it will be little more than a freshwater lake.”

“Where is all this water coming from?”

“We’re trying to figure that out now,” Rudi said. “But to come up with any real answer—not to mention any hope of stopping this or at least estimating how bad it will get—we need to know exactly what the Chinese were doing down there. Which brings me to my next question: are you making any progress?”

Kurt explained the convoluted path they’d taken to get to Walter Han and the fact that he’d been unable to shake the man with a direct face-to-face confrontation. “We don’t have anything on him other than the word of a Yakuza underling trying to keep himself alive.”

“You may have more than you think,” Rudi said. “I’m looking through your report now. It says here that his company designs and manufactures robots.”

“That’s right,” Kurt said.

“I’m sending you a still shot from the video Paul and Gamay managed to transmit.”

Kurt glanced at the computer screen and waited. The link appeared and he clicked on it. There, in black and white, was the robotic arm, shoulder and cranium that the Remora’s cameras had recorded.