the Silent Sea (2010) tof-7 Read online

  The marine transceiver was on a side table closest to the General, so he fielded the call.

  No, this isn't Mr. Laretta, he explained. My name is General Philippe Espinoza. I am in his office with him.

  General, it is an honor to speak with you, Lee replied. And let me extend the condolences from my government on the loss of your son. I knew him only briefly, but he seemed an excellent officer and a fine man.

  Thank you, Espinoza choked out, his voice a mix of shame and grief.

  General, it is not my wish to add to your burden, however, I have to report that the Silent Sea is no longer here.

  What?!

  There is a glacier overlooking the bay where she sank, and a large part of it broke off during the storm. One of my men believes the concussion of the explosion might have done it, but the reasons are not important. What is important is that the wave it created when it hit the water swept the wreck away from her resting spot. We have searched her most likely track and have found no evidence of the ship.

  You will keep looking. It was more question than statement.

  There was an apologetic pause before the Chinese surveyor replied. I am sorry, but no. I have contacted my superiors and apprised them of the situation. They have ordered me to call off the search and evacuate my team as soon as possible. With the loss of our submarine, the base so heavily damaged, and no solid evidence that my nation was the first to explore this region, they are unwilling to risk further international condemnation.

  Surely you can find the Silent Sea in a day or two. You know she's out there.

  We do, but the seafloor drops away just outside the bay to more than five thousand feet. It could take a month or longer, and we still might not find her. My government is not willing to risk our searching for that long.

  That was the final nail in the coffin. At dawn the next morning, the Hercules took off again for Argentina, carrying the first wave of men off the peninsula. Unlike Caesar, they had crossed the Rubicon only to be beaten back by what they thought was fate but in truth were Juan Cabrillo and the Corporation.

  A DARK PALL HUNG OVER the Oregon as she cruised northwest on her way to South Africa. They would be a couple of days late to provide security for the Kuwaiti Emir's state visit, but a quick renegotiation on their fee had settled the matter.

  The ship was like a zombie now. She could function, but she had no soul. Juan's presence was everywhere aboard her, therefore so was his absence. Four days had passed since his death, and the crew were no further along in their grieving than the first instant when they realized he wasn't coming back.

  Without Juan to lead it, there was talk of dissolving the Corporation altogether, talk that Max Hanley was doing nothing to quell.

  Mark Murphy was seated at his desk in his cabin, playing mindless games of Internet backgammon. It was well past midnight, but the thought of sleep was impossible. More than anyone, he feared for the future. His IQ had kept him socially isolated his entire life, and it wasn't until he'd joined the Corporation that he found a place where he not only fit in but flourished. He didn't want to lose this. He didn't want to return to a world where people thought he was a freak or used him as a walking computer, like when he'd worked in the defense industry.

  The people on the Oregon were his family. They embraced his idiosyncrasies, or at least tolerated them, and to Murph that was enough. If they cashed out, he had enough money socked away and would never need to work again, but he knew that the sense of isolation that had plagued him his entire life would come roaring back.

  He polished off another player, his eleventh in a row, and was about to start a new game when he saw his e-mail icon blinking. Hoping for a more interesting distraction than another round of 'gammon, he toggled to his e-mail page. Three messages. Their mainframe did a good job of filtering spam for the rest of the crew, but, for whatever reason, Mark allowed a lot through to his computer. Junk messages were better than none.

  One was spam. One was a move in a long-running series of chess matches he was playing against a retired Israeli professor. He'd have the man in mate in another four moves, and the old physicist didn't yet see it coming. He dashed off his reply, and glanced at the address for the final message.

  He didn't know anybody at Penn State, but the subject line looked intriguing. It read Lonely. Probably some lame college dating service, he thought, but he opened it anyway.

  Hi there. Remember me? Until recently, I was the chairman of a major corporation. Now I'm the king of a penguin colony here at the Wilson/George Research Station. My friends had to leave me behind. They didn't know I'd gotten clear of the gas plant and escaped in the confusion after it blew. I guess I shouldn't have broken my radio in a fight. I have spent the past four days hiking through the snow to reach this place, surviving on nothing but the protein bars I'd loaded into my smuggler's leg, the one with the hollowed-out calf. I've got the generator going and have plenty of food, so my main problem is loneliness. Any suggestions?

  Cabrillo had signed it, Abandoned in the Antarctic.

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  Document ID: c47a7895-1e79-4042-8120-27d84a354208

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  Document creation date: 12.5.2012

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  Clive Cussler

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