Polar Shift Read online

  Austin gave him the thumbs-up, and called to Zavala, “What’s our altitude?”

  “Eight thousand feet.”

  “Good. Bring her down to four thousand, and then make a level pass directly over the ship. Let me know when we’re starting the approach to the target.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  As the plane dropped lower, the pilot had to contend with an unexpected burst of turbulence. He got the plane back on an even keel with some skillful flying. Zavala called to say that they were making their approach to the ship.

  Austin called out to Barrett to give it the juice. He hesitated with his hand over the power switch, and for a second Austin thought he hadn’t understood. Then Barrett stepped aside and put Karla’s hand on the switch.

  “This is in honor of your grandfather.”

  Karla replied with a broad grin and threw the switch. Power flowed into the antenna, where it was converted to pulses of electromagnetic energy. Austin had no precedent or experience to work with, so he was laying down a pattern of energy bursts in much the same way a sub hunter saturates the ocean with depth charges.

  They were over the ship an instant later. Austin ordered the pilot to repeat the procedure, coming in at another angle. The 747 wasn’t built for strafing runs, and the big plane seemed to take forever as it banked around in a wide turn and started back to lay down another series of charges.

  Again Zavala yelled out the five-hundred-yard mark. Again Karla laid on the power.

  Another pass, another barrage of electromagnetic pulses flowed into the sea around the ship.

  “How long do we need to do this?” Zavala said.

  “Until we run out of fuel, and then some,” Austin said with a steely determination in his voice.

  THE MOOD was euphoric on the observation platform of the Polar Explorer.

  Margrave and Gant gazed up through the glass-paneled ceiling, their faces bathed in the pulsating, multicolored light emanating from the aurora high above the ship. Margrave’s strange face never looked more satanic.

  “Spectacular!” Gant said in a rare show of emotion.

  Margrave stood behind the control consol. He had been gradually accelerating the dynamos to full power, and the console was lit up like a pinball machine.

  “The aurora indicates we’ve reached critical mass,” he said. “The electromagnetic waves have penetrated the ocean floor. They’ll change the electromagnetic flux and nudge the pole over. Keep an eye on the compass for the big flip.”

  Gant glanced at the compass dial, and then gazed out one of the big picture windows.

  “Something is happening to the sea.”

  The ruffled surface of the ocean immediately around the ship had gone flat.

  “We’re at the epicenter of the polar shift,” Margrave said. “A ring of giant waves will spin off from around the edge of an expanding circle. There will be some vortexes around the perimeter.”

  “Glad we’re not in the way,” Gant said.

  “It would be unfortunate if we were. The area of disturbance is pretty random. That’s what sank our transmitter ship. It’s like the calm at the eye of a hurricane. We’ll be fine here except for a slight mounding of the water.”

  Gant stared out at the rising sea. He had never felt so powerful in his entire life.

  AUSTIN’S MIND-SET was the opposite of Gant’s. He was like a doctor trying to bring a flatlining patient back to life, only in this case the lives of millions lay on the table. He peered out the window as the plane banked for another pass, unable to tell whether the antidote was working or not.

  Then he noticed a circular area immediately around the ship where the water seemed to go dull, as if it were being flattened by a helicopter downdraft. He could see striations on the surface of the sea like the grooves made by a strong current. Moments later, the water began moving in an unmistakable swirl with the ship at its center. Within seconds, the area of disturbed water was at least a mile across, bordered by a ring of foam on its perimeter. As the current’s speed picked up, the sea within the circle became lower than the surface around it.

  Austin was witnessing the birth of a giant whirlpool.

  THE Polar Adventure only rose around six feet above the surrounding sea level before it began to settle again.

  Gant noticed that a depression seemed to be forming in the ocean around the ship. “Is this another side effect?” he said.

  “No,” Margrave said. His puzzlement changed to concern when the surface became even more radically dish-shaped. White-foamed rips indicated the clash of strong currents. He snatched up the microphone connecting him to the bridge. “Full engine power. We’re sinking into a whirlpool.”

  Margrave shut down the dynamos.

  “What are you doing?” Gant said.

  “Something’s not right. There shouldn’t be this kind of reaction.”

  The ocean hollow was deepening and swirling currents had begun to form, but the ship was under power by then, and moving toward the side of the vortex. Its bow was slightly elevated, and it had to fight against the currents that wanted to drag it sideways, but the ship was making slow headway.

  The maelstrom was expanding at the same time, however. Margrave screamed at the bridge to give the engines more power, but the ship seemed destined to lose the race, not really moving from the center of the vortex.

  Then the character of the water changed again. The currents weakened, and the surface began to rise back to sea level. It was mounding again.

  “What happened?” Gant said.

  “A slight diversion,” Margrave said. He wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead, and he smiled as he again powered up the dynamos.

  As the ship rose higher in the air, the water around the vessel began to boil. The ocean liner was twenty feet in the air, then thirty.

  “Stop this from happening,” Gant said.

  Margrave killed power again but the ship continued to rise.

  Fifty feet.

  “You fool! What have you done?”

  “The computer models—”

  “Damn the computer models!”

  Margrave left the control panel and rushed to one of the big windows wrapped around the observation platform. Her stared with horror at the sea.

  The ship was at the top of a huge, fast-rising column of water.

  AUSTIN HAD seen the whirlpool grow until it was around ten miles wide. Now he watched in fascination as the vortex leveled out, changed into a seething pool of white steamy water, and began to mound into a watery cyclone.

  The mountainous mass sprouting from the center of the vortex grew in height and width as it spun like a whirling dervish.

  The plane was coming around for another pass. Austin dashed up to the cockpit.

  “Bring us up as fast and as high as you can. Get away from this area.”

  The pilot put the 747 into a steep climb.

  The water column reminded Austin of photos he had seen of the nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific.

  A panicked voice was crackling over the radio. “Mayday! Mayday! Come in, anyone! Mayday!”

  Austin borrowed the radio microphone. “Mayday received.”

  “This is Gant on the Polar Adventure.” He had to shout to be heard over the rumbling in the background.

  “Looks like you’re in for a roller-coaster ride,” Austin said.

  “Who is this? Where are you?”

  “Kurt Austin. We’re a couple of thousand feet above your head. Take a quick look because we won’t be around much longer. Dr. Kovacs sends his regards, though.”

  After a pause, Gant said, “What the hell is going on, Austin?”

  “We’ve given you a dose of the polar shift antidote. I’d say that you and your partner are all washed up.”

  Gant’s angry reply was unintelligible, lost in a thundering clamor.

  Austin peered out the cockpit window. The ship was at the top of the water column, where it spun like a top. Austin could only imagine the panicked scene
on board. But he had no sympathy for Margrave and Gant, who had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

  As the plane altered course and began to bear off from its target like a great lumbering whale, it encountered turbulence generated by the powerful forces that had been unleashed, but it was nothing compared to the earlier wind blasts. The plane continued to climb without incident to around twenty-five thousand feet, where it leveled off.

  Karla had her face glued to the window even though there was nothing to see other than the normal cloud cover. She turned to Austin, a dazed look in her eyes.

  “What happened back there?” she said.

  “Your grandfather was right on the money with his calculations.”

  “But what was that thing, that incredible waterspout?”

  Austin wasn’t sure what was happening but suspected that the push-pull of electromagnetic pulses from the ship and the plane had set into motion unimaginable forces.

  “Nature doesn’t like being messed around with. The combination of the antidote and the initial transmissions created a strong reaction.” He smiled. “It’s like taking something for an upset stomach. There’s always a last eruption or two before things settle down for the better.”

  “Then it’s over, finally.”

  “I hope so.” Austin called the cockpit, and asked, “How’s the compass doing?”

  “Normal,” Zavala said. “Still pointing to the north pole, more or less.”

  Barrett hadn’t moved from behind the control panel. When he heard Zavala’s report, he slapped his hands together. He came over and gave Karla and Austin big hugs.

  “We did it,” he said. “By God, we did it.”

  Austin replied with a weary grin. “So we did,” he said. “So we did.”

  43

  DOYLE WAS GLAD THAT this would be his last trip to the lighthouse island. He had never liked the place. He had grown up in the city, and the remote beauty was lost on him. He would be even happier once he had disposed of Lucifer’s Legion and left the island forever.

  He landed his plane near the island, tied up to a mooring buoy and rowed to the dock where one of the Lucifer creeps was waiting to greet him. He could never remember their names and told them apart by hair color. This was the red-haired guy who, because he most resembled Margrave, seemed to have an elevated status in the group, although he was short of being a leader, anathema to the pure anarchists.

  “Haven’t seen you since our car chase outside Washington,” the man said in a soft-spoken voice that sounded like the rustle of a snake in dry leaves. “Too bad your friends got away.”

  “There’s always another time,” Doyle said. “We’ll tend to Austin and his friends once we take care of the Elites.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. You should have let us know you were coming,” the man said.

  Doyle hefted a canvas bag he was carrying. “Tris wanted to surprise you.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy the legionnaire. He nodded, and accompanied Doyle to the elevator that whisked them to the top of the cliff.

  The other Lucifers were waiting on the lighthouse bluff, and when Doyle repeated his reason for coming to the island they gave him that unnerving grin. They all headed for the keeper’s house. Doyle led the way to Margrave’s kitchen. He got six glasses and a beer and placed them on the table.

  He pulled a bottle of champagne from the bag and poured it around. Then he opened the can of beer and held it high.

  “Here’s to the imminent destruction of the Elites.”

  The red-haired man laughed. “You’ve been hanging around with us anarchist types too long, Doyle. You’re starting to sound as crazy as the rest of us.”

  Doyle gave him a friendly wink. “Must be catching. Cheers.”

  He upended his beer and drank half the contents of the can. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, watching with pleasure as the Lucifers tossed down their champagne as if it were water.

  “By the way, Margrave wanted me to give this to you.”

  The package had come the day before. With it was a note, signed by Gant.

  The note said: “Plans for PS postponed until next week. Please give this gift to our friends in Maine after you share a special bottle of champagne with them. Say it’s a gift from Margrave. Very important to wait until they drink their champagne.”

  The red-haired Lucifer opened the package. It was a DVD disk. He shrugged and slipped it into the DVD player. A few seconds later, a still picture of Gant’s face appeared on the screen.

  “I want Lucifer’s Legion disposed of,” Gant’s voice said.

  “And how do you propose we go about doing that?”

  Impossible. It was the conversation he and Gant had after the foxhunt.

  “Go up to Margave’s island in Maine, tell them that you have a gift for them. Say it’s from Margrave. Send them to hell, where they belong, with a glass of the bubbly.”

  All eyes in the room were on Doyle.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, brandishing his most charming Irish smile.

  Doyle never had a chance. He’d been doomed the moment he got the disk. He would never know that disk came from Barrett, not Gant. And that the bug Austin had planted under the garden table had done its work well, picking up Gant’s instructions to murder the Lucifiers.

  He got up and tried to make a break for the door, but one of the Lucifers tripped him and he fell to the floor. He got to his feet, grabbing for the gun in an ankle holster, but he was pushed back to the floor and relieved of his weapon. He stared up at the six satanic faces ringed around him.

  He couldn’t figure it. The Lucifers knew he had poisoned them, yet they were smiling. Doyle would never understand that the opportunity to kill surpassed all other emotions, even fear of their imminent death.

  He heard the knife drawer slide open, and then they came for him.

  EPILOGUE

  TWO HUNDRED MILES EAST of Norfolk, Virginia, the NUMA research vessel Peter Throckmorton and the NOAA survey ship Benjamin Franklin cut their way side by side through the glassy green seas like a pair of modern-day corsairs.

  While the bows hissed through the water and the decks became soaked by flying spume, the atmosphere was subdued in the Throckmorton’s dimly lit remote-sensing control room. Spider Barrett sat with his eyes riveted to the Mercator projection of the world displayed on the screen in front of him. Although the center was air-conditioned, perspiration gleamed on Barrett’s tattooed head.

  Watching Barrett’s fingers fly over the keyboard were Joe Zavala, Al Hibbet and Jerry Adler, the wave expert Joe and Austin first met aboard the Throckmorton. Several of the ship’s technicians were gathered in the room as well.

  Barrett stopped and rubbed his eyes, as if he were about to admit defeat. Then his hands moved over the keys like those of a concert pianist. Blinking red dots began to appear on the world’s oceans. He leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face. “Gentlemen,” he said grandly, “we have liftoff.”

  The center echoed with applause.

  “Remarkable!” said Dr. Adler. “I can’t believe that there are so many breeding grounds for rogue waves.”

  Barrett clicked the cursor on a dot. A display of statistics appeared, representing sea, weather and current conditions at that particular location. The most important information that appeared was a threat assessment detailing the potential and probable size of a giant wave.

  The exercise brought forth another round of applause.

  Zavala took a phone out of his pocket and called the Benjamin Franklin. Gamay was waiting with Paul for his call in a similar control center aboard the NOAA ship. “Tell Paul that the eagle has landed,” Zavala told her. “Details to follow.”

  He clicked off and walked to a corner of the room where he had left a rucksack. He opened the rucksack and pulled out a couple of bottles of tequila and a stack of paper cups. He poured a round of tequila, and raised his cup in the air.

  “Here’s to Lazlo Kovac
s,” he said.

  “And to Spider Barrett,” Hibbet joined in. “Spider has made a force for destruction into something good. His work will save the lives of hundreds and possibly thousands of mariners.”

  Barrett had put his mind to work on the flight back from the South Atlantic Anomaly after he had seen the uncontrollable power that had been unleashed. He was trying to think of a way to use the Kovacs Theorems for beneficial purposes. After the plane touched down in Washington, he vanished for several days, then he showed up unexpectedly at NUMA headquarters and ran his idea by Al Hibbet.

  What he proposed to Hibbet was breathtaking in its imagination and scope, yet remarkably simple. His plan was to use watered-down versions of the Kovacs electromagnetic waves to detect anomalies below the ocean floor that were suspected of causing surface disturbances. Every oceangoing vessel of a certain size would be outfitted with a Kovacs sensor mounted on the prow. The sensors would constantly broadcast information, which would be compiled with satellite observations and global electromagnetic field readings.

  The data were fed into computers, analyzed and rebroadcast as warnings of breeding areas for giant waves. Ships could then chart courses around dangerous breeder areas. It was decided to conduct sea tests in the vicinity of the giant waves that had sunk the Southern Belle. Because of its interest in ocean eddies, NOAA was asked to participate, which got the Trouts involved.

  The two ships rendezvoused over the site of the sunken Southern Belle. A wreath was dropped into the water in remembrance of the ship’s crew. Then the field tests began over a period of several days. The tests uncovered several glitches, which were quickly remedied. Now, with the system an obvious success, the mood in the control room had become downright raucous—especially after it had been lubricated with generous shots of tequila.

  At one point, an ebullient and slightly inebriated Al Hibbet turned to Zavala and said, “It’s a shame Kurt can’t be here. He’s missing all the fun.”

  Zavala smiled knowingly. “I’m sure he’s doing fine.”