The Eye of God (Sigma Force 9)

Even with the poor reception, which only grew worse the deeper Duncan dove, she could tell there would be nothing to salvage here. The original satellite had been the size of a hot dog vendor’s cart, a beautiful synthesis of theory, engineering, and design.

She stared at the shaky image on her laptop screen.

All that was left was a scorched heap of wreckage the size of a minifridge. After the blazing heat of reentry, followed by the blast impact and water damage, all that remained was charred junk. She picked out a few details: a burned horizon sensor, a piece of the solar array melted into the outer casing, a shattered magnetometer. Any hope of recovering significant electronics or data was nil.

She had to admit that to herself—and to Duncan.

Needing air, he had resurfaced. He exploded from the lake, sluicing water from the hard planes of his body, his hair plastered to his head.

But he already knew the truth.

His face was a mask of defeat.

She imagined her own looked no better.

After coming so far, surviving so much . . .

She shook her head. Worst of all, the wreckage held no hope for answers, no solutions to the catastrophe looming on the horizon.

Duncan pointed his thumb down. “It’s resting about fifteen feet under me. I’m going to see if I can at least haul it up. I may have to do it piecemeal.”

She recognized that the guy needed to do something to keep busy, anything to stanch the sense of defeat.

“I’d better let Sigma command know,” Monk said, removing his satellite phone and stepping away to keep his grim conversation private.

Sanjar and Khaidu hung near the cliff’s edge, sensing their disappointment.

On the screen, Jada watched Duncan dive below again, kicking deep, reaching the satellite quickly. He tentatively reached his hands toward the wreckage, perhaps fearing it was still hot. As his fingers touched the outer casing, the image on the screen blacked out.

Lifting her head, Jada checked the lake. The antenna float bobbed like normal on the surface. She should still be getting feed from below.

“Duncan?” she radioed. “If you can hear me, I’ve lost the connection.”

After another thirty seconds of silence, with the chop of the lake from his dive smoothing out, she grew concerned.

She stood up, half turning and calling to Monk.

“Something’s wrong.”

5:38 P.M.

As soon as Duncan’s fingers touched the wreckage, he felt a familiar tingle in his fingertips, that sense of something pushing back, even through the pressure at this depth. The warm water went cold as he recognized that oily, black feel to the energy signature, the same field as he had sensed emanating from the relics.

If there was any question about the ancient cross being connected physically to the comet in some way, that was gone now. They clearly must share the same strange energy.

Dark energy . . .

He wanted to burst back up and tell Jada, but not without first recovering the remains of the satellite. He grabbed hold and tried to yank it up, but it wouldn’t budge. It seemed to be stuck to the rock beneath. He pictured its metal shell, still molten from the heat of reentry, cooling and fusing to the blasted rock.

Frustrated, he passed his hands over the surface, noting a gradient to the energy field. It pushed stronger near one end than the other. Probing with his fingertips, he found a crack in the surface, the edge of a steel plate, curled and bent from the force of the impact.

Maybe I could crack it open.

He tried using his fingers, but he couldn’t get good leverage. Recognizing the futility and running out of air, he pushed off the bottom of the lake and shot back up.

As he surfaced, taking in a big gulp of air, he saw Monk splashing into the water, fully clothed, a panic to his actions.

“What are you doing?” he called to shore, treading water.

Jada stood behind Monk. She lowered the hands that were at her throat. “We thought you were in trouble! We suddenly lost the feed and you were down there for so long—”

“I’m fine.” He swam for shore. “Just need some tools!”

Reaching the others, he began to rise out of the water, but the first frigid breeze drove him back into the warmth.

“Pass me that small crowbar,” he said. “I’m going to attempt to crack through that hard shell and search inside.”

Jada passed the length of steel to Monk, still knee-deep in water, who handed it to him.

“Why?” she said. “Nothing significant could have survived.”

“I’m feeling an electromagnetic signature off the wreckage. A strong one.”

Her brow furrowed, her expression doubtful. “That’s impossible.”

“My fingertips don’t lie. And I’m pretty sure I recognize the unique quality of this energy field.”

He looked hard at her, lifting an eyebrow.

“Like the relics?” Her eyes widened. “The skull and the book . . . ?”

“Same damned signatures.”

She took a step forward, looking ready to join him in the water. “Can you get the wreckage to shore?”

“Not all of it. The majority of its shell is melted into the rock. But I think I can break it open and gut out whatever is inside.”

“Do it,” she said.

He saluted her with the crowbar and dove back down.

5:42 P.M.

With the sun below the horizon but the skies still glowing to the west, Jada crouched by her laptop. For some reason, the feed had resumed after Duncan had surfaced. She again watched him descend toward the wreckage.

“Duncan, can you hear me?” she radioed, testing their connection.

He gave her a thumbs-up.

As he went deeper, the image on the screen grew sketchier, with pixel loss and cutouts.

Could it be the presence of the wreckage?

Urging caution, she told him, “I think the energy field off the wreck might be interfering with the feed.”

Monk shivered next to her in his wet clothes. “Tell him not to touch it. His ungrounded body might have acted like a conduit before and temporarily fritzed his gear.”

He was right.

“Duncan, keep back and let me see what you see. Show me where you feel the energy is the strongest, where you want to use the crowbar. We don’t want to damage anything that might prove vital later.”

Hearing her, he shifted to one end of the crashed satellite and pointed the tip of his crowbar.

“That end looks to be the main electronics module,” she radioed. “And you’re pointing to the thermal radiation door. If you can get it open, I can try to guide you from up here.”