Jack Du Brul - Deep Fire Rising

“How long was it gone?” Mercer asked, trying to get the conversation back from the abstract.

She looked at Ira, again seeking permission to divulge another secret.

He answered for her. “Almost twelve months.”

They’d had to wait for the earth to nearly circle the sun before they could return the boat to — Mercer didn’t know the right word — reality?

“The orbital calculations had to be unbelievably precise,” Briana Marie added with pride. “We had to factor in longitude, latitude and altitude. Getting it to return to a secure location like Area 51 meant it would refocus deep underground. That is why we needed miners to tunnel an access shaft. A delay of even a few seconds would have seen the sub return outside of Bakersfield, California, at an altitude of eight thousand feet. A few seconds earlier and it would have come back eleven thousand feet under Lake Powell, Utah.”

“Ah, how long ago did you bring it back?” Mercer asked, sensing he already knew.

Ira’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from the inside pocket of his coat and pushed his rolling chair out of immediate earshot. Dr. Marie answered for him. “Four months ago.”

Something happened out there, something not natural. It was Tisa’s voice Mercer heard in his head. He’d earlier dismissed her comments. Now they sounded like a warning. A bubble erupted in the earth, like a contained nuclear explosion that only lasted a second. Her group had detected the submarine reemerging from wherever it had drifted for the past year.

A thought struck him. Why the hell would they care?

They should have assumed the seismic jolt was just an earthquake. Surely other seismograph stations had recorded it and just as quickly discounted it. Central Nevada was a jigsaw of shallow fault lines. Why were they so focused on this single event? Focused enough to try to sabotage the tunneling operation. Was there a leak in Dr. Marie’s department, a whistleblower or a traitor who’d divulged the secret?

Mercer’s head pounded from the shortened decompression stops he and Sykes had been forced to take. He’d seen the proof of Dr. Marie’s work even if he couldn’t grasp the science behind it. For now he’d put that out of his mind. The questions that needed answering were about Tisa Nguyen and her group. Mercer had deliberately withheld how she had rescued him from the Luxor Hotel, but he knew now he’d have to tell Ira. If Dr. Marie’s team had a leak, it had to be plugged.

Ira had said little during his phone conversation. His expression was grim when he wheeled himself back to the table. “The navy just lost a ship in the Pacific, a cargo vessel. Preliminary search-and-rescue report no survivors. No debris either.”

Wait, I can give you some evidence. Something unusual is about to happen in the Pacific Ocean. Something involving your group? Mercer had asked. Yes , Tisa had replied.

Mercer lost all interest in what Dr. Marie had been telling him. “What happened?” His voice cracked in the sudden silence.

“Unknown. A civilian research ship heard the mayday and is just reaching the last known position. Preliminary intel from Pacific Command reports the ship hit an iceberg, but they were in tropical waters. I’m betting she was rammed by a submarine coming to the surface or maybe a large cargo container that had washed off a freighter. Her last radio call said the ocean had caught fire. I think a container carrying volatile materials split open when the ship hit it and ignited somehow.”

How do I convince you that the world is about to end? Again Mercer heard Tisa in his head. Obviously me just blurting it out won’t be enough, so I need to show you some kind of proof. And the only way to make that work is if I gain your trust through incremental steps. Are you with me so far?

This had been late in their conversation. At the time, Mercer still wasn’t sure what to make of the beguiling woman. She seemed rational and totally illogical at the same time. He supposed many mentally ill people sounded the same way. She was trying to convince him, yes, but she didn’t sound as if her world revolved around convincing others of what she believed. Conspiracy addicts needed affirmation to keep themselves from thinking they were nuts. That’s why they fed off each other so much and why the Internet was full of chat rooms concerning the paranormal. But Tisa wasn’t like that. She wanted Mercer to believe her, not because she couldn’t bear him disagreeing. More, it was like she wanted his help and the only way to gain it was to draw him into her world.

Tisa must have known this when she said something unusual was going to happen in the Pacific. By doling out information like breadcrumbs she could convince him to follow the trail to Santorini, where presumably he’d learn another truth, perhaps what she meant by “the world was about to end.” One thing was clear. He had to be involved with the search for the ship if he was to learn anything further.

“There’s another possibility,” he said slowly, looking Ira in the eye. “I held back some information about my escape from the Luxor Hotel. Something rather critical.”

It took fifteen minutes to fill in the details of how Tisa had rescued him, how she appeared to be on the run from her own organization and how she believed the end of the world was coming.

“I’m just as skeptical as you, Ira,” Mercer concluded. “I wouldn’t have even brought this up if too many coincidences hadn’t already fallen into place.” He ticked them off with his fingers. “The cave-in that killed most of your first work crew, which I suspect was Donny Randall’s handiwork, considering his attempt on my life. The fact Tisa knew when the sub re — what was your word? — refocused at Area 51. The gunmen at my hotel. Tisa’s well-timed rescue. And now a navy ship sinks in the Pacific under unusual circumstances.

“There are two ways to read this. Either someone on Dr. Marie’s staff leaked information about their experiment and it somehow fell into the hands of a group that wants to stop it for some reason…” Mercer trailed off.

“Or?” Marie and Lasko said as one.

“Or they detected the sub refocusing, knew the seismic disturbance wasn’t natural and sent a team to investigate. Judging by their organizational sophistication and logistical support, I don’t think this is a new group formed as a result of your work here. They’ve been around for a while, only we’ve never done anything that put us in their sights.”

“Why should my experiment ‘put us in their sights,’ as you say?”

Mercer leaned back in his chair. The wet suit was drying and his entire body itched. “I suspect the answer lies out there where the ship sank.”

“And in Greece?” Ira asked.

Mercer thought about it, considered the pattern Tisa had set out for him. “No, I think there I’m only going to find more questions.”

“You’re still going.” Ira made it sound like an order.

Mercer turned it into a bargaining chip. “Only if you get me to the Pacific to see for myself what happened to the navy’s ship.”

Ira didn’t hesitate. This was exactly the kind of mission he’d expected Mercer to tackle as special science advisor. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

“What happens here?” Mercer asked.

“We’ll finish pumping out the mine so Dr. Marie’s people can get to the sub. I guess then they all head back to their drawing boards and the navy writes off a hundred million dollar mistake.”

In the twenty hours since his conversation with Ira, Mercer bounced from Area 51 to Vegas for a commercial flight to Hawaii. From there he hitched a ride on an air force cargo plane headed to Guam. He was met there by navy aircraft carrying crew and mail to the carrier USS Ronald Reagan . An aged Sea King helicopter finished the last leg of his journey to the research vessel. Lasko’s name and position carried considerable weight with the military and the transfers had gone off without a hitch.