Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

“Mining has had a poor track record, but there’s no reason that can’t change. Are you a congresswoman?”

“I represent the Seventh District of Colorado.”

“Of course, Representative Loren Smith. I’m afraid I was out of town when the U.S. congressional delegation toured. My misfortune, I should say. What was your interest in the operation, if I may ask?”

“I serve on the House Subcommittee on the Environment, and we are examining new ways of managing our natural resources.”

“Please let me know if there is any way I can be of help. We’re always looking at safe ways to mine the earth.”

“That’s very good of you.”

Pitt picked up Loren’s folding chair and placed it in the rear of the Bentley. “Mr. Ramsey, would you care to join us for dinner?”

“I’m afraid I have to catch a plane to Miami to meet with some clients. Perhaps next time I’m in Washington.” He eyed Pitt with a dare. “I’d like another go at you and your Bentley.”

Pitt smiled. “Nobody has to ask me twice to get behind the wheel.”

Pitt climbed in and restarted the Bentley. Loren joined him a moment later.

Ramsey shook his head. “You don’t have a trailer?”

“The Bentley’s as good on the street as it is on the track,” Pitt grinned, gunning the car forward. Both occupants waved as Ramsey stared back.

Loren turned to Pitt and smiled. “I don’t think Mr. Ramsey was too impressed with your maintenance crew.”

Pitt reached over and squeezed his wife’s knee. “What are you talking about? I’ve got the sexiest crew chief on the planet.”

He collected his winner’s trophy at the gate, then rumbled out of the Manassas, Virginia, track grounds. Passing the nearby Civil War battlefield site, he turned onto Interstate 66 and made a beeline toward Washington, D.C. The Sunday afternoon traffic was light, and Pitt was able to cruise at the speed limit.

“I forgot to tell you,” Loren shouted over the roar of the open car, “I got a call from Rudi Gunn while you were on the track. He needs to talk to you about a situation he’s monitoring in the Caribbean.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“He called from the office, so I told him we’d stop by on the way home.” Loren smiled at her husband, knowing his disinterest was only a bluff.

“If you say so.”

Reaching the suburb of Rosslyn, Pitt turned onto the George Washington Parkway and followed it south along the Potomac. The white marble edifice of the Lincoln Memorial gleamed in the fading sunlight as he turned into the entrance of a towering green glass building. He drove the Bentley past a guard station and parked in an underground garage near a keyed elevator, which they rode to the tenth floor.

They had entered the headquarters of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, the federal department tasked with stewardship of the seas. As NUMA’s Director, Dirk Pitt oversaw a large staff of marine biologists, oceanographers, and geologists who monitored the oceans from a fleet of research ships across the globe. The agency also used ocean buoys, gliding submersibles, and even a small squadron of aircraft, all linked to a sophisticated satellite network, that allowed constant monitoring of weather, sea states, and even oil spills in nearly real-time fashion.

The elevator doors opened onto a high-tech bay that housed the agency’s powerful computer center. A quietly humming IBM Blue Gene supercomputer system was concealed behind a high curved wall that faced Loren and Pitt. Extending across the face of the wall was a massive video display, illuminating a dozen or more color graphics and images.

Two men were engaged at a central control table in front of the video wall. The smaller of the two, a wiry man with horn-rimmed glasses, noticed Loren and Pitt enter and bounded over to greet them.

“Glad you could stop by,” Rudi Gunn said with a smile. An ex–Navy commander who had graduated first in his class from the Naval Academy, he served as Pitt’s Deputy Director. “Any luck at the track?”

“I think I would have made the late W. O. Bentley proud today.” Pitt smiled. “What brings you boys into the office on a Sunday?”

“An environmental concern in the Caribbean. Hiram can tell you more, but there appears to be a pattern of unusual dead zones cropping up south of Cuba.”

The trio stepped over to the control table, where Hiram Yaeger, NUMA’s head of computer resources, sat pecking at a keyboard.

“Afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Pitt,” he said without looking up. “Please grab a seat.”

An ardent nonconformist, Yaeger wore his long hair wrapped in a ponytail and dressed like he had just staggered out of a biker bar. “Sorry to intrude on your weekend, but Rudi and I thought you might want to be aware of something we picked up on satellite imagery.”

He pointed to the top corner of the video wall where a large satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea dominated the screen. “That’s a standard photographic view. Now we’ll go to a digitally enhanced image.”