At times she forgot that underneath his boyish playfulness, lived a genius and a nerd. “How can you be so sure?”
“It would have been the heat that killed them. Now that the pumice and rest of the island has had time to cool and the hot gases dissipate, we should be perfectly safe.”
“What if the gas is still around?”
He made a show of taking a deep breath. “Do you smell any gas?”
“No.”
“Good. See, so it can’t be still lingering. Besides, look where we are. The expanse of the open ocean is too great for any toxic gas to remain.” His voice was confident, as his gaze swept their little island, before settling on her upset face. “Even so, we might head off, if you’d prefer.”
She nodded, but said nothing, as she followed Travis back to the pleasure cruiser. Travis ordered the Carpe Diem to set a course to San Diego. She watched as James input the course into the ship’s autopilot and the ship roared to life.
Travis turned to face her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Just shocked, more than anything.”
The boyish, playful expression of twenty minutes earlier was now replaced by sympathy and concern. He displayed a higher level of empathy than she expected. A level of warmth and comfort beyond his youth.
She smiled. In an instant, she realized that she could do a lot worse than marrying such a man. She made the conscious decision to say yes, if he ever asked.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked. “Something alcoholic, perhaps?”
She shook her head, feeling the start of a migraine coming on. “I think I might go to bed, I don’t feel too well.”
Chapter One
The US Air Force Lockheed C-5 Galaxy flew in a southeasterly direction until it reached a section of calm seas a few hundred miles east of New Zealand. The massive military cargo transporter had a high wing with a distinctive high T-tail vertical stabilizer fin. Its four TF39 turbofan engines were mounted on pylons beneath wings that were swept 25 degrees as it soared above the Pacific Ocean.
Above its plane-length cargo deck was an upper deck for flight operations and for seating 75 passengers, including the embarked loadmaster crew, all who faced to the rear of the aircraft during flight. Cargo bay doors could be fully opened at the nose and tail to enable heavy vehicles to drive through the fuselage for loading.
Sam Reilly sat in the additional third seat in the massive cockpit and stared through the windshield at the sea below. It turned from its distinctive midnight blue of deep ocean waters through to the rich azure of the relative shallows.
He smiled at the sight and shook his head. It seemed impossible that the vast submerged landmass of the 8th Continent had remained hidden for so many years. He closed his eyes and imagined the place that he and Tom had discovered not so long ago. It belonged in a Jules Verne novel — a secret world, buried beneath the sea. To access it, they needed to navigate a submersible into a large underground grotto that used to be a volcanic atoll, but in the past fifty years had sunk to a depth of eighty feet. The entire beach, protected by a strange obsidian dome, remained filled with air.
The Air Force pilot pointed to the GPS waypoint. It was flashing, indicating that they were in close proximity to their desired location. The pilot turned to Sam. “We’ll be overhead in ten minutes. Are you happy to be dropped in this water?”
Sam set his jaw firm and nodded. “Happy? No. Willing to out of necessity, yeah, why not?”
“Did you have another option, sir?”
“To reach the 8th Continent without others watching?”
The pilot nodded. “Yeah.”
Sam said, “If the Secretary of Defense could have waited another couple of weeks, we would have been diving off my own vessel.”
“You don’t like my C-5 Galaxy?”
“No. I like your aircraft plenty.” Sam suppressed a smile. “It’s knowing that I’m going to have to wait a long time out here in the Pacific Ocean to be picked up after I complete my mission that concerns me.”
The pilot shrugged. “I’m told you’re to set off your encrypted EPIRB and a fishing vessel will be sent to retrieve you.”
“That might take a few weeks.”
The pilot laughed. “Hey, it was your idea.”
“I know. I’ve been known to have some pretty stupid ideas every now and again.” Sam stood up and patted the pilot on the shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. Good luck.”
Then, to the copilot, Sam said, “You’re sure we’re high enough to deploy the Orcasub?”
“Certain, sir.”
“All right, let’s do this.”
Sam left the cockpit, climbing down the steep set of internal stairs from the upper deck to the cargo deck below.
The loadmaster greeted him with a firm handshake. “Mr. Bower is already on board the Orcasub. He says the submarine’s ready to be launched.”
“Very good.”
Sam followed the loadmaster aft, passed an Apache helicopter and two Military ATVs, before opening up to where the yellow sports submersible had been secured. The cargo crew were in the process of removing the MB-2 tie-down devices, rated at 25,000 pounds capacity each, in preparation for the airdrop.
Sam glanced at the submersible. Normally in the realm of multimillion-dollar toys of billionaires, it had become his predominant underwater reliable workhorse since the loss of the Maria Helena six months ago.
The loadmaster met his eye. “Good luck, sir.”
Sam said, “Thank you.”
He climbed on board and secured the hatch before moving forward into the cockpit.
Inside, he ran his eyes across the control settings. The buoyancy controls were all set to negative, meaning that the Orcasub would sink as soon as it hit the water. The batteries were all full and the power was switched on. All air tanks were within their highest boundaries.
He reached down and attached his headset, adjusting the mike so that it sat just below his mouth. Sam said, “How are we looking, Tom?”
“We’re all set. The bathymetric map is all ready, and programmed into the system. All you have to do is follow the directions.”
“Thanks.”
Up ahead, the aft cargo bay door opened vertically.
Cocooned inside the airtight and confined space of the Orcasub, he felt nothing of the strong gust of air that wisped around the inside of the C-5 Galaxy’s cargo deck. The aircraft reduced altitude until it looked like it was setting up to land on the calm water above the 8th Continent.
The loadmaster gave the thumbs up signal.
Sam reciprocated the signal and then on the internal radio, he said to Tom, “You’d better hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride.”
“Hey, I like the rides at Disneyland.”
Sam gripped the brace bar with his left and right hand. “I don’t think this is going to be like Disneyland.”
The light next to the open cargo bay door turned from red to green.
Sam swallowed and pushed his body as hard into the seat as possible in an attempt to brace himself. The C-5 Galaxy flared just above the sea. A second later the loadmaster released the drogue chute. It shot through the cargo bay door and pulled the extraction chutes out into the airstream, opening fully with the loud crack of a whip.
The force of the extraction chutes immediately overcame the remaining floor lock, and the Orcasub was pulled out like the release of a catapult.
Sam’s head jolted backward with the initial movement, but the landing was surprisingly soft, with the water absorbing much of the remaining force.
Behind them, the C-5 Galaxy was already climbing.
The submarine started to sink.