The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

“What about the numbers written beside each line?” Paul asked.

“Dates and strength indicators,” Kenzo insisted.

Unlike the American system of date notation, which went month/day/year, or the European system, which put the day first, the Japanese system placed the year first, then the month, then the day.

Once Kurt had accounted for that, he was able to make sense of the map. If Kenzo was correct, the Z-waves had been doubling in frequency and intensity every ninety days.

Kenzo was explaining exactly that when a light began to flash beside the stained-glass door of his machine.

He rushed over to it as a soft tone began to emanate from inside the box. Several of the golden strings could be seen vibrating ever so slightly. A printer that looked like it was made from an old phonograph scratched out a two-dimensional shape of the waves.

“Another event,” Kenzo said excitedly. “With the secondary group. This is our chance to find the epicenter.”

He rushed to a large desk and grabbed a nickel-plated microphone that belonged in the booth of an old radio station. Kurt could imagine Walter Winchell using it to broadcast his news program: “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea.”

After flicking several switches, Kenzo called out to someone.

“Ogata, this is Kenzo. Confirm you are receiving.” Letting go of the talk switch, he waited and then tried again. “Ogata, do you read? Are you picking up the event?”

Finally, an excited voice came back. “Yes, Master Kenzo. We’re picking it up now.”

“Do you have a direction?”

“Stand by. The signal is wavering.”

Kenzo looked up at his visitors. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. Your arrival is fortuitous.”

Very, Kurt thought.

Ogata’s voice returned over the speakers. “We calculate this as a level-three wave,” he said. “Bearing two-four-five degrees.”

“Stand by,” Kenzo said. He rushed back to his own machine and rotated it carefully, using a large brass lever. It turned smoothly on a pewter gimbal. “Two-six-zero,” he said, reading off the bearing marker.

Kenzo went to the map and placed the oversized protractor against it. From their current position at the castle, he marked a straight line running 260 degrees. It slashed down the length of Japan, crossed over Nagasaki and ran out into the ocean. Satisfied with this mark, he located Ogata’s position on another part of the island and then drew a line along the 245-degree bearing.

The lines crossed out in the East China Sea. The intersection was nowhere near the edge of the tectonic plate. As far as Kurt could tell, it was solidly up on the continental shelf, no more than a hundred miles from Shanghai.

Kenzo seemed just as surprised. With the mark in place, he rushed back to the large microphone. “Are you certain of those numbers? Please reconfirm.”

Ogata came back on the line. “Stand by for—”

He was interrupted by a stuttering noise.

“Was that—” Gamay said.

“Gunfire,” Kurt said, suddenly on alert.

“Ogata, are you reading me?” Kenzo transmitted. “Is everything okay??

?

Thick static came first and then: “There are men coming up the hill. They’re carrying—”

Additional gunfire cut him off, but the line stayed open long enough to hear shouting and then some kind of explosion.

“Ogata?” Kenzo said, clutching the microphone tightly. “Ogata!”

His face went white, his hand began shaking. His stricken appearance told Kurt that this wasn’t part of the show.