The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

“I couldn’t see.”

“Was it a security guard?”

Gamay shot him a look. “What part of ‘I couldn’t see’ made you ask that second question?”

“Sorry,” he replied. “Half asleep.”

He rolled up the blanket and pushed it beneath an equipment locker and stood, banging his head against the low ceiling for the umpteenth time. “Now I’m awake,” he said, stifling any expression of pain or anger.

Peering out through the front window, they scanned the lot for any sign of someone moving around in the darkness. They saw nothing.

A knock on the back door startled them both.

Paul reached for the door.

“Paul,” Gamay whispered in warning.

“What are we going to do?” he said, shrugging. “Besides, something tells me the secret police don’t knock.”

He flicked the lever to the unlocked position and the door swung wide. Instead of policemen or military personnel, the smiling, perfectly made-up face of Melanie Anderson appeared beyond.

She climbed inside and shut the door.

“Why did you knock?”

“You know, Miss Manners and all that.”

“Your mom would be proud,” Paul replied with a smile.

She placed an insulated cup down in front of them. “I brought coffee. You’ll have to share this, but it would have looked odd if I’d brought three cups out to the van for myself.”

“If you knew how much Paul has been dying for a cup, I’d think you were trying to steal him away from me,” Gamay said.

Paul took the first sip and looked as if he’d just sampled waters from the Fountain of Youth. “Oh, that’s good,” he said, handing the cup to Gamay.

The aroma was enough for her, at the moment. She turned back to Melanie. “You said you were coming at first light. Unless my eyes are going, it’s not morning yet.”

“Not my fault,” Melanie said. “My bureau chief called and told me to come in early. He said we’d been hacked again and that it had something to do with my last report.”

“But you weren’t hacked,” Gamay said. “We made all that up.”

“Which caused no small amount of worry on my part, let me tell you.” She held up a zip drive. “When I got down here, the chief handed me this and walked away. Said he needed to make some hasty travel arrangements in case he had to leave China early. He suggested I seriously consider doing the same.”

“What’s on it?” Paul asked.

“Don’t know,” she told them. “It’s encrypted. But the hack was done stateside. Our New York office was breached; our satellite was compromised for two minutes and then returned to our control after transmitting the information on here. It was the same satellite we used to get your signal out. So I’m guessing it’s meant for the two of you. Care to take a look?”

Gamay took the zip drive from Melanie’s hand, stuck it in the slot on the laptop and powered up. A few moments later, she was looking at a log-in window. She used her NUMA password and was rewarded with a list of files.

“It’s from Rudi,” she said, opening the first file. A presentation began on-screen.

Paul was incredulous. “He sent a PowerPoint presentation? Instead of fake passports, disguises and tickets for the Orient Express?”

Gamay laughed. “You know that train doesn’t come this far east, right?”

“I was being facetious.”

Gamay read through the first page of the file. “Sounds like Priya has been working with the geology team in your absence. They’ve been studying what we sent them and they believe they’ve figured out where the water is coming from. Han’s mining operation created a deep-earth fissure, releasing water from beneath the transition zone.”