“Of course, you’re right!” Sam picked up his cell phone and made a call.
“What are you doing?”
Sam ignored the question. “Matthew! It’s Sam.”
“Hey Sam, any luck with your investigation into the Global Star?”
“A few leads. I’ll explain it all when I get back to the ship, but first I need you to do something for me.”
“Go ahead.”
“I need you to get Elise to hack into any local satellites overhead and search for a glowing light near the Bimini Road.”
“Okay, I’m getting her to do it now. What’s this all about?”
“It’s just a hunch but somehow the glowing plankton appears to be connected to the rogue waves. If I’m right, there should be an unusually large cluster somewhere to the east of Bimini Road — something big and bright enough so it can be easily spotted by our satellites, before another rogue wave forms.”
Sam released the collective, which adjusted the angle of the main rotor blade, and the helicopter took off into the air. They were forty minutes flight time away from the Maria Helena, but something in his gut told him that the sooner he was back on board the better.
“You still there Sam?” Matthew asked.
“Go ahead Matthew. What have you got?”
“Elise is just zooming into the bay at the east of the Bimini Road. There’s nothing obvious. It’s all dark there.”
“Look around, see if there’s anything further east. Try up to twenty or so miles away.”
“Okay, let’s see. What have we got?” Matthew said. “Hang on a second. I think we’ve found something.”
“What is it?”
“Oh shit! It looks like a glowing bay of fire — or a billion fireflies coming together. I have no idea what they’re doing, but they appear to be swarming together like ants.”
“I think I know what they’re doing there. Matthew, you have to leave — right now!”
“Jesus its firing up again!”
“Matthew, you need to get out of there.”
“Tom and Genevieve are on a night dive!”
“Are they close to surfacing?” Sam asked.
“They should be, but we haven’t heard from them yet. They entered a wreck and haven’t come out since. Now we can’t get any communication through to them.”
“Does Tom have a spare Heliox supply with him for when he gets out?”
“Yeah, I insisted he took twin tanks of Heliox as a backup. They’re currently sitting on the deck of the shipwreck.”
“Then don’t worry about him. He’s the best wreck diver on the planet. If he’s got a secondary supply of gas, you can count on him to look after Genevieve and himself.”
“Shit. Elise says her marker buoy just recorded a 120-foot wave pass over the Bimini Road!”
“Head south — away from the epicenter!”
Chapter Fifty Four
Matthew opened both throttles to full and swung the helm so that the Maria Helena was heading due south. The smooth twin 44, 000 Horse Power Rolls Royce powerhouses screamed into life. “Tom and Genevieve are going to need to look after themselves for a while.”
Next to him, Elise stared at the image on her laptop. It appeared as though swarms upon swarms of angry ants were all racing in the same direction — towards the Maria Helena. Each group of tiny glowing dots were collectively converging on the same spot, where a giant glowing pool swelled like the enormous belly of a beast. “If we don’t do something quick, I suggest joining them. Better to be below the surface than above it when this thing hits. We’ll lose the ship, but Sam can come pick us up out of the water.” Her voice was calm. She was speaking out of logic and science, rather than fear.
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that, but I’ll keep it in mind. How much time do you calculate we have?”
“If I gather correctly from your conversation with Sam, each of these glowing dots represent something that’s going to start moving towards us?”
“That’s what Sam and Veyron think.”
“And as they pass over the Bimini Road at speed they’ll create a rogue wave?”
“That’s what we’re worried about.”
Elise walked towards him on the bridge and carefully placed her laptop next to him. Matthew quickly scanned the satellite image.
“Would you say that the flock just started to move?”
“Oh shit!” Matthew held his hand on both throttles, hoping that in doing so, it might be able to drag some more precious horsepower out of the twin engines. His hand shook with the vibrations. He was glad Veyron wasn’t on board — the engineer would have killed him for abusing the ship’s engines. “Can you calculate a time to impact?”
“I’m working on it.”
Next to him, Elise was rapidly typing data into her laptop. Her fingers, hammering information with the grace and sensitivity of a concert pianist performing a rapid staccato. She then stopped and stared at the answer.
Matthew turned to her. His usual manner of superiority and confidence broken by the events. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense. How much time have we got?”
“Less than five minutes!”
“Shit!” Matthew picked up the onboard ship microphone. “All hands on board the Maria Helena. We are about to be hit by a rogue wave. Lock all hatches and prepare for impact!”
Elise crossed her arms and watched as the tiny glowing dots on her laptop monitor moved towards them.
“Do you think it’s going to hit us?” he asked.
Elise smiled and all he could see was her perfect white teeth. She carefully removed her glasses, safely placing them in their hard cover and then in her pocket. Matthew stared at her face. It was the first time he’d seen her without her glasses — revealing her startling emerald eyes, which betrayed her staggering intellect. She was probably the most intelligent person he’d ever met. At times, she appeared entirely mathematical and devoid of all emotions.
This was one of those times.
“Of course we will be struck by the oncoming wave — in just over four minutes. There’s nothing we can do to outrun that wave. The question, Matthew, is can the Maria Helena survive such a collision?”
Unlike her, Matthew had no idea of the answer. There was no mathematical formula to determine if a ship would survive a large strike from a wave. His heart raced. He didn’t want to die. And he didn’t want Elise to die. She’d been a pleasant inclusion on board the Maria Helena. Although little more than a child in her early twenties, she was intensely professional and capable. More importantly, she had brought a certain sense of wonder to life on board, and a type of youth and vivacity. Although she acted like a nerd, she was constantly fun. It was like having the most intelligent child in existence on board. The rest of them wanted to nurture her and show her things.
He wanted to reassure her as he would a child that everything was going to be okay, but she was too smart for that. She was the youngest person ever to obtain a Doctorate in mathematics from Harvard — she knew when she was being lied to.
Matthew handed her a lifejacket. “Here, put this on.”
She placed her head through the opening and tied the rest of the jacket around her waist. “I guess that’s a no then. Too bad, I was just starting to like your ship.”
“We haven’t been sunk yet,” Matthew said.
They stared at the glowing wave that approached on the computer screen.
“Here it comes!”
Ahead of the bridge, Matthew saw the towering wall of water approach. In an instant he knew with the same mathematical precision of Elise that they were doomed. There was no outcome in which the wall of water wouldn’t drown them entirely.