Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

He perused the remaining documents in the file, nearly overlooking a one-page letter on White House stationery dated 1908. It was clearly misfiled, he thought, recognizing the sweeping signature of the President at the bottom. But perusing the shortly worded Executive Order, he felt a tightening in his throat.

An hour later, he bundled the Lee papers and carried them to the return counter, where Martha was finishing with another customer.

“I am most grateful for your assistance, Martha,” he said. “That should conclude my studies for today.”

“Find anything astounding that will bring you back tomorrow?”

“Indeed.” Perlmutter’s eyes were aglow. “A whole new cause for the Spanish–American War.”

36

It might be meaningless, but I thought it was worth passing along.”

Rudi Gunn’s blue eyes glistened on the ship’s video conference monitor as he waited for a reply a thousand miles away.

“Any input is helpful,” Pitt said, “when you’re chasing gremlins.”

“When you told me about the depressions at the heart of the toxic zones,” Gunn said, “I had Dr. McCammon in the geology department scan the region for seismic events. Within the past six weeks, there has been an event near each of the three sites, measuring 4.0 on the moment magnitude scale, or just under 3.0 on the Richter scale.”

“That sounds significant,” Giordino said, pacing in front of the screen.

“Not necessarily. There are about a thousand seismic events a day around the world, but in this instance there appears to be a correlation.”

“I assume the seismic readings could be registering an underwater explosion,” Pitt said.

“Absolutely. About six hundred to eight hundred pounds of TNT could produce an equivalent reading. Dr. McCammon showed me similar readings from known land-based mining operations.”

“That’s another shred of evidence that someone is blasting open the thermal vents,” Pitt said.

“There are a limited number of underwater mining systems in operation,” Gunn said, “but we haven’t tracked one to the Caribbean yet. Most seem to be deployed in Indonesia.”

“Given the environmental damage they’re causing,” Pitt said, “it’s little wonder they are flying under the radar.”

“One more thing,” Gunn said. “You mentioned you were headed back to the site of the sunken drill ship?”

“That’s right. Al and I noticed some bottom tracks that matched with marks we found around the vents.”

“We checked that area for seismic events and found there was a small rattle in the region just four days ago,” Gunn said. “Your hunch may be a good one.”

“We’re nearly there, so we’ll know soon enough. Thanks, Rudi.”

Gunn nodded and his image vanished from the monitor. Pitt turned to Giordino seated next to him. “Is the Starfish prepped for business? I’d like to start with another look at those tracks we saw near the Alta.”

“Standing by and ready to go.”

Twilight had settled over the ocean when the Sargasso Sea arrived at the spot of the Alta disaster. The surface waters were surprisingly crowded. Less than a half mile away, the lights of another vessel could be seen, standing on station. A second vessel appeared to be just east of it.

Pitt turned to the research ship’s captain. “Do we have identification of the vessels?”

The captain peered into a large radarscope, which typically provided a neighboring vessel’s name with its location and heading via a satellite tracking syste

m called AIS. He looked up at Pitt and shook his head. “No identification is registering. They must have their AIS systems turned off.”

Pitt nodded. “Try them on the radio and advise them we will be deploying a submersible in the area of the wreck.”

The captain hailed the nearby ships but received only radio silence. “Do you want to wait and deploy in the morning?”

“No, we’ll go as soon as you are on station. After all, it’s always dark on the bottom.”