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  “Thank goodness submersibles don’t come with clutches.” She shook her head at the memory. “My left leg was sore for a week.”

  When the bottom came into view, Pitt adjusted the ballast and engaged the thrusters.

  “Is the wreck south of us?” she asked.

  “Unless it crawled away. Maybe we can spot it on the sonar. Al said he configured a new system on the Starfish.”

  Summer reached to an overhead panel and triggered a handful of switches, beating her father to the punch. “It’s a forward-looking, multibeam system with a range of three hundred meters,” she said. “Dirk and I tested it in the Mediterranean last month and it worked quite well.”

  A small monitor began showing a multicolored image of the seabed in front of them. Summer adjusted the sonar’s frequency to increase the range.

  Pitt shook his head. “I knew I’ve been spending too much time in Washington.”

  He adjusted the thrusters and sent the submersible skimming over the seafloor. As they traveled south, a dark smudge appeared at the edge of the monitor. A minute later, the Alta rose up before them. Her bow was crushed from colliding with the seafloor while her topsides were charred from fire.

  “Al and I saw the tracks off her opposite side,” Pitt said as he guided the submersible down the length of the wreck.

  “She sank due to the fire?” Summer asked.

  “An explosion in the forward fuel bunker sent her to the bottom. There’s a mystery as to what, or who, set it off.”

  He slowed the Starfish as they approached a hole in the lower hull a few feet back from the bow.

  “Pretty sizable blast,” Summer said. “Internal or external?”

  “Interesting question. I’m sure the insurer will be asking the same.”

  He maneuvered the submersible around the bow and across an undulating stretch of sand. The Starfish’s lights soon illuminated the set of tracks Pitt had seen on the earlier dive.

  “Do they look like the same tracks you saw by the thermal vents?” Summer asked.

  “They do. Let’s see where they lead.”

  Pitt accelerated forward, gliding over the tracks while startling an occasional deepwater fish.

  Summer watched the sonar monitor. “Multiple targets directly ahead.”

  “I see them,” Pitt said. He wasn’t looking at the sonar but at a sprinkling of lights that pierced the darkness ahead.

  The seafloor gradually descended and Pitt could see that the lights were centered at the base of a bowl-shaped crater. Two large vehicles came into view, both brightly illuminated. Each was creeping across the seabed, emitting large clouds of silt out their back ends. They were deep-sea mining vehicles, operated from the surface via thick, black power cables.

  “Those things are massive,” Summer said, “as large as a Greyhound bus.”

  “At least we caught them in the act,” Pitt said. “Now we can find out who’s causing all the damage.”

  Pitt turned off the lights of the Starfish and moved closer to the vehicles, the nearest of which was called a bulk cutter. It looked like an overgrown tractor with a giant roller for its snout.

  The roller was a rotating cutting drum affixed with tungsten carbide teeth that could chew apart rocks and hardened sediment. The tracked vehicle would ingest the rubble and expel it out a large tube in back. The second vehicle, similar in size but absent the roller drum, was a collecting machine. It would follow the bulk cutter and suck up the slurry, pumping it to the surface through a thick Kevlar hose.

  Pitt closed with the bulk cutter, admiring its robot efficiency as it churned across the seabed an inch at a time. Summer captured the image of the slate-colored vehicle with the onboard video camera, knowing that few manufacturers could build such a specialized machine.

  Pitt was edging alongside for a better view when a bang erupted from the rear of the submersible. The Starfish drifted laterally, knocking against the side of the cutter. Pitt reversed the submersible’s thrusters, resulting in a second clang from behind.

  Summer turned to peer out a small rear viewport. “It’s an ROV. It rammed us.”

  “It just took out our main thruster.” Pitt toggled a pair of side thrusters to maneuver out of the way.

  The submersible started to turn when another bang rang out and the Starfish was again shoved toward the bulk cutter.

  “It’s intentionally pushing us toward the bulk cutter,” Summer gasped.

  Pitt felt the effects through the steering yoke. The ROV had smashed into and disabled one of the remaining side thrusters. Before the ROV could strike again, Pitt pivoted the Starfish, spinning away from the bulk cutter. The ROV’s bright lights shone through the submersible’s canopy. Pitt could see it was a large, deepwater ROV, box-shaped and better than twice the size of the NUMA submersible. The vehicle came charging at them again.

  Striking the Starfish’s bow off center, it again drove the weakened submersible sideways, shoving it against the bulk cutter just behind the cutter drum.

  Pitt reached between their seats and pulled a grip toggle that released an emergency ballast weight. The submersible ascended at once, then came to a crashing halt.

  Near the top of the bulk cutter, a large manipulator had been extended. As the Starfish collided into it, the robotic arm moved down and pinned the submersible against its side.

  Pitt kicked the remaining side thruster and applied full reverse power. The Starfish just slipped from under the manipulator when the ROV came up from the side and smashed into their top. Their instrument lights flickered as the submersible keeled over.

  At the same instant, the manipulator dropped down and slid through the base frame of the Starfish. Its claw grabbed onto a section of tubing and closed shut.

  Pitt frantically worked the thruster controls, but they proved useless. The bulk cutter had a solid grip on them and there was nothing they could do about it.

  “It’s going to ram the glass!” Summer shouted.

  The ROV had repositioned itself directly in front of the Starfish and was rushing toward the acrylic viewport. At the last second, the ROV ascended, striking the top of the submersible and sliding along its roofline. The ROV then backed away, sporting a scruff of yellow paint and some dangling wires.

  Pitt looked at the wires. “It’s our emergency transponder. So we can’t communicate with the surface.”

  “Are they going to leave us here to die?” Summer whispered.

  “Only they know the answer to that,” Pitt said, staring out the viewport.

  Like an all-seeing apparition, the ROV floated before them, its lights glaring into the submersible in a blinding taunt of death.

  38

  We’ve lost contact with the Starfish.”

  “Be right there,” Giordino said.

  Hanging up a wardroom telephone, he called over to Dirk, who was examining the results of additional water samples while the submersible was on its dive. The two raced to a tiny control shack on the stern deck.

  A communications technician greeted them with a sober nod. “Both data and communications quit about five minutes ago. I’ve tried multiple frequencies and links but am getting no response.”

  “Any indication of trouble beforehand?” Giordino asked.

  “Negative. The last operating specs were fine. Summer radioed a few minutes earlier that they had located the Alta and were following some underwater tracks leading southeast.”

  “Give me a mark on their last telemetry.” Giordino moved to a monitor that displayed a chart of the area. The technician tapped into a keyboard, pulling up the submersible’s last-recorded coordinates, which appeared on the chart as a red triangle.

  “That’s about a thousand meters south of us.” Giordino motioned out a side window toward the lights of the ship in the distance. “In the same direction as our friends over there.”

/>   “I’ll call them from the bridge and find out what they’re doing and whether they have any resources in the water,” Dirk said, rushing out the door.

  “Have the captain reposition us over the Starfish’s last coordinates,” Giordino said. “I’ll have an ROV ready to deploy in five minutes.”

  It took ten minutes for the ship to be repositioned. Dirk hailed the nearby vessel but received only a brief rebuff. Without identifying itself, the ship replied that it was engaged in seabed testing, had not seen the Starfish, and ordered the NUMA ship to stay a half mile clear.

  The Sargasso Sea’s captain promptly ignored the request, rushing his ship within a quarter mile of its position in hopes of locating the submersible.

  Giordino lowered his ROV over the side, spooling out its lift cable as fast as the drive winch would allow. Dirk sat in the control shack, watching its video feed. Halfway down, the ROV’s camera briefly picked up some faint lights in the distance, then lost them.

  At six hundred feet, Dirk activated a joystick and navigated the ROV in a small circle as the seafloor came into view.

  Giordino stepped into the control shack a minute later. “See anything?”

  “Caught a flash of lights during the descent at about two hundred feet. Looked too dispersed to be the Starfish.”

  “That ship is up to no good. Take a look at those bottom tracks.”

  The ROV hovered over a slew of tread marks that crisscrossed the bottom. Dirk guided the ROV toward the heaviest concentration.

  “Something off to the right,” Giordino said.

  Dirk pivoted the ROV, its camera picking up a distant flicker of lights. “Let’s go have a look.”

  While Giordino remotely played out additional cable, Dirk powered toward the lights. It didn’t take long to see they didn’t come from the Starfish.

  The lights twinkled from the massive collecting machine that was designed to vacuum up crushed rock. The big vehicle sat idle, its bulk cutter partner nowhere in sight. Standing watch nearby was the large, square ROV, hovering a few meters off the bottom.

  As the NUMA probe drew near, the collecting machine rose off the bottom amid a cloud of silt. A thick pair of cables began hoisting the machine on a slow journey to the surface. Dirk tracked its motions for a short distance, then broke away as the other ROV came to investigate.

  The two ROVs eyed each other warily for a minute. The larger vehicle then turned and chased after the ascending machine to the surface.

  “Seabed testing, my foot,” Giordino said. “They’re absconding with most of the seafloor.”

  “Dad and Summer surely must have snuck up on their operation.”

  “Seems a little unusual that they suddenly packed up and headed for the surface. All we can do now is keep searching.”

  They piloted the ROV across the bottom for another two hours, repositioning the Sargasso Sea several times to expand the search area. They found no trace of the missing submersible.

  Giordino frowned. “I can’t believe we haven’t heard a peep from their emergency transponder.”

  “Is it external?” Dirk asked.

  “Mounted on the sub’s roof.”

  Dirk turned to the communications technician. “Have you been recording the ROV’s video feed?”

  “Yes, as per standard procedure.”

  “Replay the footage where we stared down the other ROV.”

  The technician rewound the feed.

  “Freeze it there,” Dirk said. He and Giordino crouched close to the monitor.

  “There,” Dirk said, “at the bottom of the ROV. There’s a couple of dangling wires that look out of place, and a small piece of plastic wedged just below.”

  Giordino tensed. “That looks like part of the transponder’s housing. And there’s yellow scuffing on the ROV’s frame.”

  A shadow of anger descended over Giordino’s normally jovial face. He stood and stepped toward the door. “Let’s get that ROV back on deck now! I think it’s time we pay our neighbors a visit.”

  39

  The churning cutter head, the internal pumps and conveyors, and the creeping steel tracks all came to a stop. The big mining vehicle spit out a final mouthful of gnarled rocks and fell silent.

  Peering out the Starfish’s viewport, Summer felt more unnerved than ever. After a minute, she turned to her father. “Do you think they’ll just hold us here until we run out of air?”

  Pitt shook his head as he focused on shutting down all nonessential systems. “It won’t happen. The Sargasso Sea will find us first. Dirk and Al will have an ROV down here before you know it.”

  “That monster ROV may try to disable it, too.”

  “We’ll just have to hope they see us first.”

  The chance never occurred. At the same moment Giordino’s ROV hit the water, the bulk cutter was yanked off the seabed, with the Starfish clutched to its side. Twin cables spooled around a massive drum winch on the surface ship pulled the vehicle up, giving Pitt and Summer the sensation of riding an elevator.

  Halfway to the surface, they noticed the lights of the NUMA ROV traveling in the opposite direction. Pitt grabbed a flashlight and clicked an SOS out the viewport, but the ROV quickly vanished from sight.

  A short time later, the bulk cutter broke the surface alongside the mining support ship. The large vessel had disengaged its dynamic positioning system after both mining vehicles had left the bottom and drifted over a mile from the Sargasso Sea. The ship turned its starboard side away from view of the NUMA ship.

  A massive A-frame, mounted amidships, hoisted the bulk cutter clear of the water. On the opposite side of the deck, a matching A-frame awaited the retrieval of the collecting machine.

  Pitt and Summer peered out of the submersible through the glare of dozens of work lights strung above the ship’s deck. Their arrival was met by curious stares from a handful of crewmen in hard hats who guided the bulk cutter across the deck and into a semi-enclosed hangar. A contingent of soldiers in green fatigues quickly surrounded the submersible, armed with AK-47s.

  “Not the welcoming committee I was hoping to see,” Pitt said.

  “Cuban Army soldiers?” Summer asked.

  “I believe so,” he said, noting a white star over a red diamond insignia on one of the uniforms.

  A soldier shone a flashlight into their faces, motioning them to exit the submersible. Pitt followed Summer to the hatch, stopping at a tool locker and slipping a small folding knife into his pocket before climbing out.

  They were greeted silently by the soldiers.

  Pitt countered by exploding in mock anger. “What have you done!” he yelled. Stepping to the rear of the sub, he pointed to the mangled thrusters. “Look at the damage. I want my ship notified at once.”

  The soldiers’ hesitation ended when a dog-faced officer appeared on the scene with an authoritative air. “Take them below and secure them!” he barked. Turning to one of the ship’s crew, he added, “Get that submersible concealed.”

  With their assault rifles drawn, four of the soldiers prodded Pitt and Summer away from the Starfish. As they passed the bulk cutter, Pitt saw a small red logo painted on the side: a grizzly bear carrying an ax in its teeth.

  They were escorted down a companionway into an open work bay that housed the now recovered ROV. A technician procured a pair of cable ties, which the guards used to secure the captives’ wrists behind their backs. Pitt and Summer were shoved to the floor with their backs against a bulkhead.

  The Army officer, a man named Calzado, appeared a short time later in the company of one of the ship’s officers. The two argued loudly while gesturing toward the captives. Then both left the bay.

  “What was that all about?” Pitt whispered. Though he understood the Spanish spoken, he had been blocked from view of the quarreling parties by one of the guards.

  “
I don’t think the ship’s captain is too happy that we were brought aboard. I caught something about breaching security on the project. I think they’re going to move us.”

  Summer’s words proved prophetic. A half hour later, the pair were marched back up to the main deck. An aged tugboat was tied alongside the mining ship, astern of a wooden barge stacked high with ore from the seabed. Pitt and his daughter were led aboard the tug and into a cramped cabin, where a guard kept watch with the door open.

  “Did you see the Sargasso Sea when we boarded?” Summer asked.

  “No. We must be turned away from her. I’m sure they’ll be looking for us by now.”

  “But they won’t know where to track us,” she replied in a down voice.

  They heard the tug’s motor rumble to life. A few minutes later, the stubby boat got under way, shoving the barge ahead of it through the rocky seas. Into the night they sailed, leaving the NUMA ship, and freedom, in their wake.

  40

  The large workboat cut its engines and slowed to a drift under a cloudy night sky. A few faint lights tickled the horizon far to the south, but the ocean around them was empty. The boat’s skipper checked the radar system to ensure there were no unseen vessels about. Satisfied they were alone, he picked up a handheld radio.

  “Bridge. We’re at the drop zone. You’re clear to deploy.”

  Standing on the open stern deck, James Maguire replied instantly. “Roger. Proceeding to deploy.”

  The mercenary turned to a tall, muscular man smoking a cigarette at the side rail. “Okay, Gomez. We’re clear to drop.”

  The two stepped to a large covered object strapped to the deck. They released the ties and pulled back a tarp to reveal a dilapidated coastal fishing boat powered by a small, rusty outboard motor. Or at least that’s how it looked.

  The boat was actually constructed with a Kevlar composite that made it virtually indestructible. The exterior had been molded and painted to resemble bleached wood suffering from rot.

  “Are we fully gassed up?” Maguire asked.