Clive Cussler - Black Wind

“We might as well install a revolving door on the ice room,” he joked.

“I'll just be happy when the paperwork arrives to release them for transport back to Japan.”

“I hope that's their right home,” the assistant pathologist said, slowly sliding the bodies back into a refrigerated locker. “If you ask me, I still say they look like a couple of Koreans.”

After twelve hours at Sarah's hospital bedside, Dirk finally convinced the doctors at Seattle's Swedish Providence Medical Center to release Sarah the following morning. Though a broken leg didn't normally warrant an overnight stay, the cautious medical staff was concerned about trauma from the accident and kept her there for observation. She was fortunate in that the break to her tibia, or shin-bone, did not require any rods or screws to align. The doctors wrapped her leg in a heavy plaster cast and pumped her full of painkillers, then signed her release.

“Guess I can't take you dancing anytime soon,” Dirk joked as he pushed her out the hospital exit in a wheelchair.

“Not unless you want a black-and-blue foot,” she replied, grimacing at the heavy cast around her lower leg.

Despite insisting that she was well enough to work, Dirk took Sarah home to her stylish apartment in Seattle's Capitol Hill district. Gently assisting her to a leather couch, he propped her broken leg up on a large pillow.

“Afraid I've been called back to Washington,” he said, stroking her silky hair as she adjusted the pillows behind her back. “Have to leave tonight. I'll make sure Sandy checks in on you.”

“I probably won't be able to keep her away,” she grinned. “But what about the sick crew members of the Deep Endeavor? We need to find out if they are all right,” she said, struggling to rise from the couch. The drugs made her feel as if her mind and body were enshrouded in a coat of honey and she fought to remain lucid against the overwhelming desire to sleep.

“Okay,” he said, gently pushing her back down and bringing a portable phone to her. “You get one phone call, then it's lights out for you.”

As she called the Public Health Lab, he checked to see that her kitchen was stocked with groceries. Peering into a scantly filled refrigerator, he idly wondered why unmarried women always seemed to have less food in the house than the single men he knew.

“Great news,” she called in a slurred voice after hanging up the phone. “The tests on the sick crewmen all came back negative. No sign of the smallpox virus.”

“That is great news,” Dirk said, returning to her side. “I'll let Captain Burch know before I leave for the airport.”

“When will I see you again?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

“Just a quick trip to headquarters. I'll be back before you know it.”

“You better,” she replied, her eyelids drooping low. Dirk leaned over and brushed her hair aside, then kissed her gently on the forehead. As he stood up, he could see that she had already fallen asleep.

He slept soundly on his cross-country red-eye flight, popping awake well rested as the wheels of the NUMA jet touched down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport just after eight in the morning. An agency car was left waiting for him at the government terminal, and he drove himself out of the parking lot under a light drizzle. As he exited the airport, he cast a long glance toward a dilapidated-looking hangar situated off one of the runways. Though his father was out of the country, he still had the urge to visit the old man's hideout and tinker with one of his many antique autos stored there. Business before pleasure, he told himself, and wheeled the loaner car onto the highway.

Following the George Washington Memorial Parkway out of the airport, he drove north, passing the Pentagon on his left as he followed the banks of the Potomac River. A short distance later, he turned off the highway and angled toward a towering green glass building that housed the NUMA headquarters. Passing through an employee security gate, he pulled into an underground garage and parked. Opening the car trunk, he hoisted a large duffel bag over his shoulder, then rode the employees' elevator to the tenth floor, where the doors opened onto an elaborate maze of quietly humming computer hardware.

Established with a budget that would make a third world dictator whimper, the NUMA Ocean Data Center computer network was a marvel of state-of-the-art computer processing. Buried within its massive data storage banks was the finest collection of oceanographic resources in the world. Real-time inputs of weather, current, temperature, and bio diversity measurements were collected via satellite from hundreds of remote sea sites from around the world, giving a global snapshot of ocean conditions and trends at any given moment. Links to the leading research universities provided data on current investigations in geology, marine biology, and undersea flora and fauna research, as well as engineering and technology. NUMA's own historical reference library contained literally millions of data sources and was a constant reservoir of information for research institutes the world over.

Dirk found the maestro behind the vast computer network, sitting behind a horseshoe console munching a bear claw with one hand while tapping a keyboard with the other. To a stranger, Hiram Yaeger resembled a groupie from a Bob Dylan concert. His lean body was clad in faded Levi's and matching jeans jacket over a white T-shirt, complemented by a pair of scuffed cowboy boots on his feet. With his long gray hair tied in a ponytail, his appearance belied the fact that he lived in a high-end Maryland suburb with an ex-model wife and drove a BMW 7 Series. He caught sight of Dirk over a pair of granny glasses and smiled in greeting.

“Well, the young Mr. Pitt,” he grinned warmly.

“Hiram, how are you?”

“Not having smashed my car, nor destroyed an agency helicopter, I'd have to say I'm doing quite well,” he joked. “By the way, has our esteemed director been advised of the loss of one of NUMA's flying assets?”

“Yes. Fortunately, with Dad and Al still over in the Philippines the bite was tempered somewhat.”

“They've had their hands full with a toxic spill they ran across near Mindanao, so your timing was good,” Yaeger said. “So tell-me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Well,” Dirk hesitated, “it's your daughters. I would like to go out with them.”

The color drained from Yaeger's thin boyish face for a moment as he took Dirk's proposal seriously. Yaeger's twin daughters, finishing their last year of private high school, were his pride and joy. For seventeen years, he had successfully scared away any male suitors who had the remotest inkling of touching his girls. God forbid the giddiness they'd show over the rugged and charismatic Dirk.

"You so much as mention their names around me and I'll have you off the payroll with a ruined credit rating that will take five lifetimes to fix' Yaeger threatened.

It was Dirk's turn to laugh, chuckling loudly at Yaeger's vulnerable soft spot. The computer genius softened and grinned as well at Dirk's idle ploy.

“Okay, the girls are off-limits. But what I really want is a little time with you and Max before my meeting with Rudi later this morning.”

“Now, that I can approve,” Yaeger replied with a firm nod of the head. The bear claw now demolished, he applied both hands in a finger dance over the keyboard to conjure up his bionic confidante, Max.

No fellow computer programmer, Max was an artificial intelligence system with a virtual interface in the form of a holographic image. The brainchild of Yaeger to aid in researching voluminous databases, he had cleverly modeled the visual interface after his wife, Elsie, adding a sensual voice and saucy personality. On a platform opposite the horseshoe console, an attractive woman with auburn hair and topaz eyes suddenly appeared. She was dressed in a skimpy halter top that revealed her navel and a very short leather skirt.