“I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I arranged for a barge to leave Florida yesterday. On it were three massive concrete blocks. Large enough to act as a break wall at the point of the Bimini Road. It will never produce a rogue wave again.”
She smiled politely at him. “Well Mr. Reilly, I can see that you’ve got this situation under control. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going off to make a press statement and get the most out of this story for my campaign, while you go and save the day in secret.”
“Thank you Ma’am.” Sam was glad to get rid of her. There were some things he had to do to solve this current problem that would require delicate handling or years’ worth of red tape. And they didn’t have years. The destruction of Bimini Road wasn’t technically his to approve. It was inside the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas government. And that would take years to get approved. He knew the less his own government was aware, the better. The best type of plausible deniability, is the kind that governments really don’t know about.
She turned, about to leave.
Sam stood up to see her out. “By the way, you got here very fast.” It was almost an accusation.
She smiled. Like all politicians, she had the answer prepared before anyone had developed the question. “Yes, I was on my way to speak in Miami — ironically, I was supposed to be giving a speech about problems with the oil industry.”
“I guess you’ll be making that same speech, now with the backdrop of some dead marine animals, smothered by leaked oil.”
“Is it wrong to use the vivid imagery of a near disaster to highlight a message to the American people?”
“It depends. What’s the message?”
“That we need to invest in future technologies and energy sources if we’re to survive on this planet.”
“Is that what the American government’s doing?” It was the second time he’d confronted her position in a matter of minutes.
She smiled. Aware of his complaints about the government’s stance on global warming, and alternative energy sources. “It is if I become the next President of the United States of America.”
Sam was about to give his opinion, which he rarely did on politics.
Instead, Elise walked into the Mission Room. “Sam, Veyron just put the sample of the glowing seawater under a microscope. You’re both going to need to see this.”
Chapter Seventy
Sam followed Elise down three flights of stairs into the aft hold of the Maria Helena, where their science lab was positioned. Neither he nor Senator Croft spoke. They both simply followed. The room was large. Approximately twenty feet wide by thirty long. At the center stood a series of rectangular tables at a height comfortable for work while standing. There were no chairs in the room. On the tables were seven microscopes with a number of slides lined up and three Petri dishes. One laptop was opened and in the process of calculating something — the timer showed another eleven minutes remaining. Sam recognized it as Elise’s laptop.
Veyron ignored them as they approached. His right eye firmly fixed to the end of a microscope. His left hand tapping at the table. The rest of him rigid as though paralyzed. Sam knew that look. He’d seen it only once before — when he’d agreed to sacrifice his most prized submarine to save the lives of over a thousand Mexican workers.
Extracting his eye for a moment to fit a new slide under the microscope, Veyron noticed Sam and Senator Croft had walked in. His jaw was slightly clenched, but otherwise it could have been any other day at work. Sam had learned long ago that Veyron was often hard to read and more accustomed to relationships with his machines than the other members of the Maria Helena. Sam hoped that he’d misread Veyron’s stance today.
His initial impression was confirmed a moment later. Veyron ignored any pleasantries or acknowledgement of their arrival and simply started with their problem.
Veyron placed a new slide under the microscope. “Have a look what some idiot’s created! I’d say it’s a beautiful work of engineering, if it wasn’t so completely lethal.”
Sam bent over so that he could look into the eye of the microscope. With his right hand he adjusted the lens into focus.
“So it is phytoplankton,” Sam said with an uneasy enthusiasm. “There are two main types of phytoplankton, or algae that use photosynthesis to grow — dinoflagellates and diatoms.” Sam continued to explain, drawing on his experience in marine biology, so that they were all on the same page. “Dinoflagellates use a whip-like tail, or flagella, to move through the water and their bodies are covered with complex shells. Diatoms also have shells, but they are made of a different substance and their structure is rigid and made of interlocking parts. Diatoms do not rely on flagella to move through the water and instead rely on ocean currents to travel through the water.”
Vanessa lost her façade of patient control. “Scientists believe the Noctiluca flashes to startle or scare away its predators. The bioluminescence might also attract bigger predators to eat Noctiluca’s predators. We’ve already been through this, what’s the new discovery.”
Sam sighed. “I’m still looking. They look normal.”
“Do they? How many flagella do you see?” Veyron asked.
Sam increased the magnification and tried to focus on a single dinoflagellate. He then counted. “Holy shit, there’s eight!”
Veyron placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“So we’re looking at dinoflagellates — with eight flagella for propulsion?”
“That’s correct,” Veyron confirmed.
Vanessa pointed out what everyone in the room was thinking. “They’ve been genetically modified for faster movement and propulsion.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Veyron replied. “But nowhere near fast enough to create a rogue wave. Instead, I have a theory that Elise confirmed through computer modelling.”
“Well, don’t leave me in suspense,” Vanessa said.
“These dinoflagellates use their eight flagella to bind and join with others. They’re climbing.”
“Climbing?” she asked.
“Picture this — a hundred or two hundred foot wall of water and plankton, bound in a solid state.” Veyron waited long enough for her to close her eyes and imagine it.”
Vanessa closed her eyes. “Okay, got it.”
“Now, imagine if the plankton let go of each other simultaneously at one side of the wall, while the back of the wall maintained its structural integrity.”
“They could specifically target the direction of the movement of seawater.”
“Exactly. But even this alone would only cause one hell of a splash. Whoever designed these things would still need the Bimini Road to form the shape of the Rogue Wave.”
“Okay, so Sam here tells me that he’s arranged to block the Bimini Road permanently, which should stop this from being anyone’s problem. Would you agree, Veyron?”
Veyron ignored her question. “I’m not finished with the show yet.” He took a prefilled syringe and injected a single microliter, or one thousandth of a milliliter, onto the slide. “Now watch them grow, Sam.”
“Phytoplankton is renowned for its ability to procreate given the right conditions, those being warmth, sunlight, and nutrients. As a single celled organism, it multiplies through cellular division. Breaking into two cells every twenty-four to forty-eight hours, it can rapidly cover miles of seawater within weeks.”
“Just watch,” Veyron said.
Sam took a deep breath. “Oh, shit. We have a problem, don’t we?”
Chapter Seventy One
The otherwise dormant dinoflagellate cells became alive. Cellular division started immediately. Only they weren’t dividing every twenty-four to forty-eight hours. They were dividing fast, very fast. He couldn’t even begin to calculate how fast.