The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

She shrugged. “Impossible to say. No one’s ever seen this before. We don’t know exactly what is happening. All we know is, it’s getting worse. The rise in the sea level has accelerated in the last six months, again in the last ninety days and once again in the last five weeks. As for predictions . . . the basic math is simple. A five percent discharge is far more likely than a ten percent surge. Four percent is more likely still. Three . . . two . . . one . . . take your pick. A one percent discharge is exponentially more probable than a five percent release. But even at that level—even if just one drop in a hundred is forced out of the transition layer—the sea level will still rise four hundred feet.”

Henley chimed in with more doom and gloom. “You’d lose every major coastal city in the world, half the landmass of South America, most of Northern Europe, large swaths of America especially, in the south and along both urban coasts. Not to mention the most densely populated swaths of Asia and India. Two billion people would be forced to relocate. But there will be nowhere to put them and nothing to feed them, even if they could find somewhere to call their own. And as if that’s not bad enough—”

Rudi cut him off. He didn’t need Henley launching into depressing detail about what would happen to humanity. He needed them to find a way to stop it. “Is there a way for us to put a halt to this upwelling?”

“We can’t be sure,” Priya said. “We’d have a much better idea of what’s possible if we knew exactly what the Chinese did down there, but there is a possibility that they’ve released something that can’t be put back in the bottle.”

Rudi studied her face. Determination was mixed with a sense of grim acknowledgment. Better than any of them, Priya knew there were forces that human effort and engineering just couldn’t overcome.

“Put all the data into a report,” Rudi said. “In fact, give me two reports. One with all the technical data and a simpler version that laypeople and politicians can understand. I’ll need them both within the hour.”

“Are you going to go public with it?” Priya asked.

“No,” Rudi said. “Something far more dangerous. I’m going to send the information to China.”

41

NAGASAKI

KURT STARED at the map with great intensity, as if by force of will he could make it reveal the destination of Han’s helicopter.

“The helicopter was traveling on this course,” Joe said, using the mouse to draw a line on the screen. “It flew right over this building and out over the harbor in this direction.”

The line ran to the southwest.

“Maybe they’re taking him to China,” Akiko suggested.

“Odd course to take, if they were,” Kurt said. “Shanghai is the nearest city and most likely destination, and that’s due west.”

“Too far away,” Joe said. “That was a small helicopter. Short-range model. Shanghai is more than five hundred miles away. It couldn’t reach the Chinese mainland from here. Not in one hop.”

“What about refueling?” Kurt asked.

Joe sat back. “I didn’t see anything to suggest it could refuel in midair, but that doesn’t rule out landing on a ship.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Kurt said. “Which is why I brought up the ship tracker.”

At the touch of a button, the position and direction of every ship within a hundred miles of Nagasaki Harbor appeared on the screen. The map went out a hundred miles and could be expanded farther, if needed, but the problem became apparent rather quickly.

“There must be hundreds of ships out there,” Akiko noted.

“Doesn’t Han own a yacht?” Joe asked.

Kurt looked it up online. “Three, actually.”

“Seems like a good place to start.”

Kurt typed the identification numbers of Han’s yachts into the search window, requesting locations. He was given a worldwide map. “One yacht is in Monaco, one docked in Shanghai and the third is undergoing upgrades in Italy.”

“We can rule out his yachts,” Joe said.

Kurt brought the original screen back up. Typing quickly, he set a new search in place. Eliminating all ships under five thousand tons and deleting all vessels incapable of handling a helicopter. “That brings us down to forty-nine ships in a hundred-mile radius.”

“We can’t search forty-nine ships.”

“We can rule out some of them by nationality,” Kurt said, continuing to type. “Assuming Han wouldn’t land on an American- or European-flagged vessel cuts the number to twenty-six.”

“How many of them along that course line?” Joe asked.