“What I’m about to tell you men is confidential,” he said. “Top secret, in fact. The NSA has developed a special kind of remote sensing array. It’s designed to locate nuclear explosions through the neutrino bursts and gamma rays they produce. The new detectors are far more sensitive than our satellite-based systems when it comes to studying underground nuclear tests and blasts. There are twenty-four of them located at various military bases around the world. For reasons unknown, several of them received an anomalous signal at 0735 GMT a month ago, immediately prior to the earthquake in Australia.”
“Which stations?” Pitt asked.
“Cape Town, Alice Springs, and Diego Garcia, with the strongest signal coming in at Alice Springs.”
“Can we get access to that data?” Pitt asked.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Sandecker replied.
“It sounds like it could be connected,” Kurt said. “Might help us narrow down the search zone.”
Pitt agreed. “What do you need to take your next step, Kurt?”
“I’ll need a few ships,” Kurt said, “as many as you can spare. We’d like to set up a picket line and listen for anything louder than a peep. And I’ll need some technical help. Paul and Gamay Trout should fit the bill, if you can pull them in. Also, I’m forwarding a list of high-tech equipment that Ms. Anderson has requested. If you can ship it to Perth, that would be great. We’ll arrive there in a couple of days.”
“A couple of days?” Pitt repeated. “Perth is no more than three hours from Alice Springs by air.”
“I know,” Kurt said, “but we’re not traveling by air. Joe and I have to escort Ms. Anderson. And she’s deathly afraid of flying. So, apparently, we’ll be traveling by train.”
Pitt would have preferred to send a jet for them, but it would take several days to get the ships and equipment in place anyway. “Understood,” he said. “Plan on shoving off the minute you arrive at the dock.”
“We’ll be ready,” Kurt said.
He signed off, and Dirk Pitt considered the task ahead of them. Pinpointing an experiment in the vast expanse of the Great Southern Ocean would not be an easy task even for a small fleet of high-tech vessels.
He turned back to Sandecker. “Do these neutrino detectors of yours have a directional-sensing component?”
“To some extent,” Sandecker admitted, “but not in a pinpoint-accurate kind of way, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Pitt’s gears were turning. “Any chance we could have them tuned to look for these waves? In case our friends do exactly what Kurt is suggesting but that this sensor Kurt’s scientist friend is building doesn’t pick them up?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Even if it’s a vague directional vector, three stations receiving a signal means we should be able to cross-reference and triangulate. That’ll help us narrow down the target zone.”
Sandecker grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
FIFTEEN
The NUMA vessel Gemini was a rakishly designed, hundred-and-fifty-foot vessel. In profile, she looked like a bulked-up yacht, thicker and heavier, designed to carry instruments and ROVs and a crew of scientists packed into tiny cabins.
At the moment, Gemini was moving due west, as the crew tested a new type of sonar designed to penetrate the seafloor.
With a walkie-talkie in his hand, Paul Trout moved to the very front of the forward deck. He leaned over the railing and gazed downward. Just aft of where the ship’s bow met the water, an eleven-foot triangular flange stuck out from the side of the hull. This protrusion, along with an identical one on the port side, gave the ship’s bow an odd shape, like the head of a stingray, and the crew had nicknamed it the Skate.
Perhaps it was appropriate. Like her namesake, the Skate was designed to scan the seafloor far below, searching for things hidden beneath eons of piled-up sediment.
It was expected to be a huge leap forward in the hunt for and development of underwater resources. But first, it had to work, which, so far, had proven hit or miss.
Paul pressed the talk switch on the radio. “Flange folded down and locked in place. The hookup bars are secured, the alignment indicators are matched up. The Skate is visually in the correct location.”
“Okay, Paul,” a female voice said over the radio. “We’re still getting an odd signal on the processor.”
The female voice belonged to Gamay Trout, Paul’s wife. She was in Gemini’s information center, monitoring the data stream from the Skate’s bell-like housing.
Paul preferred to be out on the deck, partly because the information center was cramped and tight and he was six feet eight inches tall, but also because the idea of signing up for a mission at sea and spending most of it in a darkened room surrounded by computers struck him as the height of absurdity.
“Do you see any dolphins?” Gamay asked.
“Dolphins?”
“During a test run, there were dolphins bow-riding with us, they seemed very interested in the Skate. They kept blasting it with their sonar. It was a similar kind of staccato display.”
Paul hadn’t heard that one before. He checked both sides of the ship. “No dolphins, no pilot whales.”
A long pause followed. Paul figured Gamay was running through a diagnostic protocol or something. He took the time to stretch out and marvel at the blue sky, the fresh breeze, and the warm sun.
After more silence, he decided to risk prodding her. “Everything okay?”
There was no answer, and Paul imagined the computers crashing and all manner of swearing going on in the control room. For the moment, he was doubly glad not to be down there.
He turned as a figure appeared outside the Gemini’s bridge and descended the stairs toward the main deck.
Paul smiled at Gamay as she approached. At five foot ten, she was relatively tall for a woman, but her proportions were such that she looked neither thin nor reedy the way many tall women do. Glamorous when she needed to be. For now, she was dressed like the rest of the crew, in khaki pants and a NUMA polo shirt. Her dark red hair was pulled sleekly back in a ponytail and tucked beneath a NUMA cap that read GEMINI in gold letters. She flashed a smile at him, and her blue eyes sparkled with a mischievous quality.
“Decide to join me for a stroll?” he said, a New Hampshire accent detectable in his voice.
“Actually,” she said, “I came to tell you the bad news. We have to pull up stakes and head south.”
“South? Why? I’m sure you can get the Skate back online.”
“It’s not the Skate,” she said. “We have new orders.”
Paul sensed the ship beginning a turn to port. “Not wasting any time.”
“Dirk wants us to go help Kurt and Joe with what he called a critical project.”
“Last I heard, Kurt and Joe were on vacation,” Paul reminded her. “Does this project involve bail money or sneaking them out of the country somehow?”
“You know Dirk,” she said, looping an arm around Paul’s waist. “He’s a man of few words. Said we’d be given more details when we arrived on-station.”
Now Paul became deeply suspicious. In addition to Gamay’s words, he could feel the Gemini picking up speed.
“Where exactly are we going?”
Gamay shook her head. “All I know is, Dirk told me we’d better break out the cold-weather gear.”
“So that’s why you’re out here,” Paul said.