Deep Fathom (27 page)

“And you are so smitten. Go on. Make a move. I already checked him out. No ring, not even a girlfriend. And I think he sort of likes you, too.”

“He does not. He never even looked twice at me.”

Miyuki rolled her eyes. “Not when you would notice. It was like watching two teenagers, both of you sizing each up when the other's back was turned.”

“He was
not
checking me out.”

Miyuki shrugged and turned back to her computer.

Karen touched her shoulder. “Was he really?”

“Like a lovesick puppy. Now go on. Give that puppy's belly a rub and leave me alone for a few hours.”

“We're only going to dinner.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We're both professionals, colleagues in this matter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He's only going to be here for a couple more days.”

“Uh-huh.”

Karen grew frustrated and stormed away. “It's only dinner!” she called back to Miyuki.

As she exited, Miyuki's answer followed her. “Uh-huh.”

As they walked back from the Lucky Thai Restaurant, Jack bellowed out a laugh that had the smaller Japanese pedestrians glancing in his direction. Embarrassed, he leaned closer to Karen. “You've got to be kidding! You told the president of the British Anthropology Society to pull his head out of his ass?”

Karen shrugged. “He ticked me off. Him and his stick-in-the-mud ideas. What does he know about the South Pacific? My great-grandfather had traveled South Pacific islands for decades before that man was in diapers. What right did that pompous ass have in claiming my ancestor was a crackpot?”

“Oh, and I'll bet your response set him straight. He must think your entire family is nuts. No wonder you had to come all the way to Japan to teach.”

Karen glared up at him, but Jack could tell her anger was feigned. “I wasn't exactly expelled from Canada's shores. I chose to come here for my own research. Colonel Churchward,
my mother's grandfather, may have jumped to some ridiculous conclusions about a lost continent in the middle of the Pacific, but I came out here to prove that much of the accepted historical dogma of this region is wrong. And with what we both have been uncovering here, I'm beginning to think my ancestor's claims may not have been so off base.”

“A lost continent?” he scoffed.

“C'mon, Jack, think about it. Off the coast of Chatan an ancient city rises from the sea. And if Gabriel's translation of the star chamber's calendar is correct, it dates the construction around twelve thousand years ago. During that era, the seas were about three hundred feet lower than they are now. Who knows how many other landmasses and cities might be hidden in these waters? And what of your own pillar? Are you saying this lost race could dive to the ocean bottom and carve letters on a crystal pyramid?”

“I don't know what I'm saying. But after all you've shown me today, I'm learning to see things with a more open mind.”

Karen nodded, as if satisfied. “You really should see the ancient city and pyramids. That would help convince you.”

“To be honest, I wouldn't mind a trip out there.”

“If we have time, I'll take you. It's only a couple hours by boat.”

“I…I'd like that. It's a date.”

A long awkward moment arose between them. They continued in silence through the university's grounds. The scent of lavender and hibiscus colored the garden paths, but all Jack could smell was Karen's jasmine perfume. What was so captivating about this woman? Back on the
Deep Fathom
, Lisa had twice the physical attributes. Still, there was something exciting about Karen's passion and boldness.

During dinner, Jack discovered Karen was also her own woman. Her wit was as sharp as a knife blade, while her eyes shone with constant mischief. Her crooked smile both mocked and enchanted. Over dessert he had stopped seeing Jennifer and saw only Karen…and he wasn't disappointed.

“We're almost to the computer building,” Karen said quietly, breaking the silence.

Was there a trace of regret in her voice? Jack knew he felt it in his own heart. He longed to spend more than a few snatched hours with her in private. He found his steps inadvertently slowing.

She matched his pace. At the bottom of the stairs to the building, she stopped and turned to him. “Thanks for dinner. I had a nice time.”

“It's the least I could do for your putting me up for the night.”

They stood too close together, but neither moved.

“We should see if Miyuki has discovered anything new,” Karen said, half raising an arm to point toward the building. She climbed the first step.

Her face was now even with his. Their eyes met and held each other for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Jack leaned closer to her. It was foolish, inappropriate, juvenile…but he could not stop. He was not sure if she shared any of his feelings, so he moved slowly. If she pulled away, he would have his answer.

But she maintained his gaze. Only her lids lowered imperceptibly.

He began to reach his arms around her when a voice barked from the doorway. The pair were speared by a flashlight's beam.

Karen coughed in surprise and backed up a step, retreating.

The man called out to them in Japanese.

Half turning into the flashlight's glare, Karen answered in the same language.

As the light was turned aside, Jack saw it was one of the security men from the building. “What did he want?” he asked as the guard swung away.

Karen turned to him. “Miyuki warned him to watch out for us. She has news.” Karen led the way up the steps. Her voice grew excited, drowning away the passion from a moment ago. “Let's go!”

Jack followed, both disappointed and relieved. It was
ridiculous to start anything with this woman, especially since he was leaving in two days. Not that he had any rule against one-night stands. Though his heart was guarded, he had physical needs like any other man, and seldom had problems finding a willing partner during port calls. But in this case he knew any brief dalliance with Karen would hardly satisfy him. In fact, it would make matters worse.

He climbed the steps and passed through the doorway. Maybe for all concerned, he thought, it was best to leave their passions at the bottom of the stairs.

Across the lobby, Karen waved to him from beside the elevator bay. He stretched his stride to reach her just as the doors opened. With the guard escorting them, neither one spoke. Each stood in a cocoon of privacy.

When the doors whooshed open, they hurried down the hall. As they neared the door to the lab, it cracked open and Miyuki gestured them to hurry, saying, “It worked! Come see! I have all the glyphs catalogued.”

“All of them?” Karen said.

Jack understood her surprise. It had taken them hours to reach number forty in a list of discrepancies that numbered over three hundred. How had the computer scientist accomplished so much in so little time?

Miyuki didn't respond. Instead, when they had accompanied her into the lab and to her computer station, she pointed to the screen. Symbols were flashing past. “Gabriel is rechecking his data,” Miyuki said. “It will take another hour to double-check everything for accuracy, then he'll try decoding the various inscriptions.”

Karen just stood there shaking her head. “How? How did you do it?”

“As I mentioned before, Gabriel is an artificial intelligence program. He can learn from experience. While you were at dinner I had him study the first forty pairs of glyphs and incorporate why the three of us rejected or accepted various symbols as unique or not, then apply those parameters to the remaining couple hundred.” Grinning, Miyuki said, “He was able to do it! He
learned
from our examples!”

“But he's a computer,” Karen said. Jack noticed how she
whispered these words as if somehow afraid of hurting Gabriel's feelings. “How can we trust that his decisions were correct?”

Instead of her words dampening Miyuki's glee, she grew more excited. “Because after completing this exercise, he's been able to expand his rudimentary understanding of these people's lunar calendar and dating system.”

“What do you mean?” Karen asked, still skeptical. “What has he learned?”

“Buried in the text are hidden references to a specific site in the Pacific.”

“What site? I don't understand.”

“I'll let Gabriel explain, because frankly even I have trouble understanding it.” Miyuki glanced to the side, speaking to their invisible partner. “Gabriel, please explain your calculations.”

“Yes, Professor Nakano. From the celestial map and my understanding of their lunar calendar, I discovered a reference to a specific location, triangulated by the position of the moon, the sun, and the north star in the text.”

Jack was stunned by this revelation. “And you're able to do this even though you can't translate the language yet?”

“It's all astronomy and mathematics,” Miyuki explained. “Numbers and the movement of the stars are really a cosmic language. Such information is the easiest to translate since it is a relative constant across cultures. In fact, when archaeologists first attempted to decipher the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, the first thing they understood were the Egyptians' mathematics and celestial designations.” Miyuki pointed to the scrolling glyphs. “The same is true here.”

“So what did you find?” Karen asked, impatient.

“In the pyramid's inscription,” Miyuki said, “there are two references. Each mentions the same site in the Pacific. Gabriel, bring up the map on the second monitor, and highlight the location for us.”

A map of the Pacific appeared on the small screen. Jack had a flash of déjà vu. It reminded him of a similar discussion aboard his own ship, when George had related the mysteries of the Dragon's Triangle. Jack assumed the
mysterious site from the inscription was going to be the location of the crystal pillar—but instead a small red blinking dot bloomed farther south on the map, just north of the equator.

“Gabriel, zoom in on the location. Three hundred times normal.”

The map swelled, sweeping deep into the South Pacific. Islands, once so tiny they could not be seen, grew in size until names could be read: Satawal, Chuuk, Pulusuk, Mortlock. They were all islands of Micronesia. The red dot was positioned at the southeastern tip of one of them.

It was Pohnpei, the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia.

Karen sat up straighter. “Gabriel, can you pinpoint the location in any finer detail?”

Though Jack had known Karen less than a day, he sensed that she was on to something.

The other islands of Micronesia faded off the screen as the outline of Pohnpei filled the monitor. Individual villages and towns grew clearer. The blinking red marker hovered near the island's southeast coastline.

Jack leaned toward the screen. He could just make out a name written beside the red marker. “What does that say?”

Karen remained stiff in her seat. She was hardly looking at the screen. “It's Nan Madol.”

Jack glanced over at her. “A village?”

“Ruins,” she answered. “One of the most spectacular set of megalithic ruins in all the South Pacific. The site covers eleven square miles of coastline, an engineering marvel of canals and basalt buildings.” She turned toward him. “To this day no one knows for sure who built them.”

Jack sat back and nodded to the neighboring screen, where the glyphs continued to scroll. “Maybe now we do.”

“I have to know more!” Karen said, grabbing Miyuki's sleeve.

The computer scientist frowned. “I'm sorry. That's all I have. After Gabriel double-checks his own work, it'll still take at least a day to begin any significant decoding. With these new additions, the total number of individual glyphs is
now over five hundred, and the list of compound glyphs has grown into the range of ten thousand. This is no easy language.”

“How long do you think it'll take?” Karen asked, breathless.

“Try me late tomorrow afternoon,” Miyuki said. “I might—and I repeat
might
—have something then.”

“A whole day,” Karen groaned. “What am I going to do for a whole day?”

Jack knew the anthropologist needed something on which to focus her energy. “How about your promise to me?”

Karen's brows bunched up, not understanding.

“The ancient city off the coast of Chatan. You promised to tour me through there.”

She brightened, but not for the reason Jack had hoped. “You're right. If the ruins of Nan Madol are referenced, some other clues may still be hidden out at Chatan. It's worth investigating again.”

“And this time out, you'll have better company than me,” Miyuki added. “A strong man to guard your back.”

Karen looked at Jack, as if finally seeing him again. “Oh.”

In her green eyes, Jack recognized her burning passion for this newest mystery. He searched for something more…but came up empty.

He smiled weakly. So much for romance.

David Spangler glided his submersible in a slow dive around the steel support base of the deep-sea research station. Each of the frame's four alloy legs were solidly bolted to the seabed floor with ten-foot-long metal spikes. None of the stout legs even budged when the first section of the four-ton research station settled atop the landing base.

“Looking good from up here,” a topside technician radioed to him. “How's it looking down there?”

David continued his survey. The laboratory had the appearance of a twenty-meter-wide white doughnut sitting on a raised platter. He dove underneath the section, craning his neck to make sure the piece was properly seated, then keyed his transmitter. “All clear. Perfect landing. I'll unhook the winches and lines.” David goosed his thrusters and swung around, aiming for the four thick cables that had been used to lower and guide the laboratory section into place.

“No need. We're getting good video from the ROVs,
Commander. Our team has practiced this a thousand times. All we need you to do is monitor from there.”

On the seabed floor, David watched as a pair of boxy robots slowly lurched forward, churning up silt behind them. The pair, named Huey and Duey, were remotely operated by the topside technicians. They set about the task of latching the first section to its support base.

Over the next day, the team would lower the other two sections, secure them together, one atop the other, and then evacuate the water from the drowned labs. The plan was to pressurize the facility to one atmosphere, exactly matching the surface pressure, thus allowing the scientists to journey up and down in their own submersible without the need to decompress.

So far, everything was proceeding smoothly. David had to give some credit to the Mexican leader of the research team. With a fire lit under his ass, Cortez ran a tight ship himself. As such, perhaps the scientist deserved a bone tossed in his direction. Since yesterday, Cortez had not stopped nagging him for a closer peek at the crystal pillar. Perhaps it was time to oblige him a little.

After giving the developing station one final pass, David circled out in a widening spiral. About fifty yards away rested the graveyard of Air Force One, many of its parts still strewn across the seabed floor. In the distance giant flat-topped seamounts shadowed the site, while surrounding it all lay the twisted forest of lava pillars. David could not imagine a more inhospitable place on Earth.

He pushed the throttles on his sub and swept toward the wreckage site. In the center, the strange crystal obelisk thrust up from the seabed floor. He gave it a wide berth in the
Perseus
, still nervous about getting too close to the giant structure that had demonstrated such odd properties during Kirkland's dives. Even from ten yards away he could appreciate its size. The top of the spire disappeared into the inky gloom far overhead.

Hovering in place, David guided his lights along its length. Its faceted surface seemed to absorb his lamplight
and cast it back tenfold. Undoubtedly a marvel—and if his boss was correct, also potentially one of the world's most powerful energy sources.

With care, David maintained his distance. Using the touchpad on his video monitor, he zoomed in on the crystalline surface. Tiny scratches focused into row after row of small figures and geometric shapes, etched and shining silver. His eyes grew wide. It was writing!

“Goddamn you, Kirkland!” he mumbled.

“What was that, sir?”

“Nothing. Continue securing the station!” David thumbed off the transmitter. He needed to think. Jack Kirkland had not mentioned writing on the crystal in any of his reports, and David knew he'd been close enough to see this. He couldn't have missed it. The silver symbols practically glowed on the crystalline surface. So why hadn't he reported it? What was he up to? David gripped the throttles tightly. What else was Jack Kirkland keeping secret? Every instinct in him screamed with suspicion.

On his touchpad, he activated his private encrypted line to the surface. He had it implemented after running into problems communicating directly with his team through an open channel.

It was answered immediately by his second-in-command. “What is it, sir?”

“Rolfe, we may have a problem. I need access to all communication into and out of the
Deep Fathom
since it first arrived here.”

“Sir, we didn't tap the ship's communication system.”

“I know that. But it's a goddamn boat. Any telephone communication would've passed through a traceable satellite system. We may not know
what
he said, but I want to know
who
he said it to.”

“Yes, sir, I'll put Jeffreys on it right away.”

“I'm coming topside immediately. I want some answers by the time I'm on deck.”

“Aye, Commander.”

David switched channels and hailed the sub's technician.
He repeated his plan to surface earlier than scheduled. “Get Brentley suited up,” he finished brusquely. “The lieutenant can finish babysitting the robots down here.”

Without waiting for an assent, David flicked off the radio and blew the ballast on his sub. He shoved both throttles forward. The
Perseus
shot upward, its thrusters whining as they were fully engaged.

What was Kirkland up to?

With the sun hovering above the eastern horizon, Jack stood behind the wheel of the sleek nineteen-foot Boston Whaler. “I'll be damned,” he muttered as he cut the motor and glided around the headlands of Yonaguni Island.

Ahead, the small coastal city of Chatan lay nestled along the shore, a ramshackle village of cheap hotels and seaside restaurants. But it was not the town that captured Jack's attention. It was the pair of terraced pyramids towering above the waves offshore.

“Amazing, isn't it?” Karen said.

Beyond the pyramids, more of the ancient city appeared: basalt columns, roofless homes, sharp-edged obelisks, worn statues. The city spread toward the horizon, fading into the morning mists.

“ ‘Amazing' hardly describes this sight,” Jack said. “You told me what to expect, but to see it…” His voice dwindled away in awe. Finally, he settled back into the pilot's seat and throttled up. “It was worth the hassle getting here.”

“I told you it was.” Karen remained standing as the boat sped toward the city, her hair blowing back, her cheeks rosy in the wind as the boat bounced through the chop. Her figure was framed in sea spray.

Jack studied his companion from the corner of his eye. At the port of Naha, he had spent an aggravating hour scrounging up this boat. With the island's U.S. military bases at full alert because of the Chinese, sea traffic had been congested and chaotic. Jack was forced to pay an outrageous rental fee
for the day use of his boat. Luckily, they took his American Express. Still, as he watched Karen, he knew the trip was
definitely
worth the hassles.

As they neared the first pyramid, Jack cut the engine and slowed the boat into a gentle glide.

Karen settled into her own seat. “Once you see this city, how can you
not
believe that a prehistoric people once lived among these islands?” She waved her arm to encompass the spread of ruins. “This is not the work of early Polynesians. Another people, an older people, built this, along with the many other megalithic ruins dotting the Pacific: the canal city of Nan Madol, the lattes stones of the Mariannas, the colossal Burden of Tonga.”

“If these ancient people were so skilled, what happened to them?”

Karen grew thoughtful, eyes glazed. “I don't know. Some great cataclysm. My great-grandfather believed, from studying Mayan tablets, that a larger continent once existed in the middle of the Pacific. He called it Mu…after the Hawaiian name for this lost continent.”

“Your great-grandfather?”

“Colonel Churchward.” She smiled back at him. “He was considered…well, eccentric in most respectable scientific circles.”

“Ah…” Jack rolled his eyes.

Karen scowled good-naturedly at him. “Regardless of my ancestor's eccentricities, myths of the lost continent persist throughout the Pacific Islands. The Indians of Central and South America named these lost people the
viracocha
. In the Maldive Islands, they are the Redin, their word for ‘ancient people.' Even the Polynesians speak of ‘Wakea,' an ancient teacher, who arrived in a mighty ship with massive sails and oarsmen. Across the Pacific, there are just too many stories to dismiss it out of hand. And now here we have another clue. A sunken city rising again.”

“But this is just
one
city, not a whole continent.”

Karen shook her head. “Twelve thousand years ago these seas were about three hundred feet shallower. Many regions now underwater would have been dry land back then.”

“Still, that doesn't explain the disappearance of a whole continent. We'd know about its presence, even if it was under three hundred feet of water.”

“That's just it. I don't think the continent's disappearance was due
only
to a change in the water table. Look at this city. An earthquake shoved this section of coastline up, while in Alaska the entire Aleutian chain of islands sinks. There are hundreds of other such stories. Islands sinking or rising.”

“So you think some great cataclysm broke up this continent and sank it.”

“Exactly. Around the same time, twelve thousand years ago, we know a great disaster occurred, a time of major worldwide climatic changes. It happened suddenly. Mastodons were found frozen on their feet with grass in their bellies. Flowers were found frozen in mid-bloom. One of the theories was that a massive volcano or series of volcanoes erupted, casting enough smoke and ash into the upper atmosphere that it caused dramatic climatic shifts. If such an extreme seismic event truly happened, perhaps the quakes were bad enough to break up and sink this lost continent.”

As Jack listened, he remembered the crystal column six hundred meters under the sea. Could this have once been dry land? he wondered. A part of Karen's lost continent? He pondered her theories. They seemed far-fetched. But still…

Karen glanced at him, blushing. “Sorry, I didn't mean to bend your ear like that. But I've been buried in books and historical texts all week. It helps to voice some of my theories aloud.”

“Well, there's no doubt you've been doing your homework.”

“I'm just following up on my great-grandfather's research.” She turned her attention forward. “He may have been crazy. But if we can decode the language here, I believe we'll have our answer—one way or the other.”

Jack heard the frustration in her voice. He wanted to reach out to her, to reassure her. But he kept his hands on the boat's wheel. The best way to assist her was to help solve this mystery.

As he glided up to and between the two pyramids, he put
Karen's theories together in his mind: a lost continent sunk during an ancient cataclysm, an ancient seafaring race who demonstrated mysterious powers, and at the center of it, a crystal unlike anything seen before. As much as he tried to dismiss it all, he sensed that Karen was on the right track. Still, a critical question remained unanswered: How did any of this explain the downing of Air Force One?

He had no answer himself—but he knew this intriguing woman was closer than any of them to solving it. For now, he would follow her lead.

A whining roar cut above the rumble of their boat's engine. It drew their attention around. Low in the sky, a military jet sped toward them. Jack recognized its silhouette as it shot past and screamed south—an F-14 Tomcat—from one of Okinawa's military bases.

Frowning, Karen followed the path of the plane. “This war is gonna get ugly,” she said.

David stormed into his cabin. Two men jumped to their feet at his arrival: Ken Rolfe, his second-in-command, and Hank Jeffreys, the team's communications officer. In the center of the cabin, the table was covered with various communication tools: two satellite phones, a GPS monitor, and a pair of IBM laptops trailing both modem cables and T-lines.

“What have you learned?” David demanded.

Rolfe visibly swallowed. “Sir, we've traced all telephone communication from the
Deep Fathom
.” From the clustered worktable, he found a sheet of paper and looked at it, saying, “Calls were sent to First Credit Bank of San Diego…a private residence in the suburbs of Philadelphia…an apartment building in Kingston, Jamaica…a Qantas Airline office on Kwajalein Atoll, and—” Rolfe looked up at David. “—several calls to Ryukyu University on Okinawa.”

David held out his hand for the list.

Rolfe passed it to him. “We have it correlated by date and time.”

“Very good.” David scanned the list to the bottom.
Ryukyu University
. A woman's name was listed with the connection: Karen J. Grace, Ph.D. “Do we know who this woman is?”

Rolfe nodded. “We connected to the university's Internet site and downloaded a fact sheet on Dr. Grace. She's an associate professor of anthropology, visiting from Vancouver.”

“What's her connection to Kirkland?”

Rolfe flicked a nervous glance at Jeffreys. “We've been working on that, sir. We noticed the first communication between the
Deep Fathom
and the university was the day after the ship sailed from here.”

“Any idea why Kirkland was calling this woman?”

“Actually, that's what we were just working on when you arrived. It seems it was not the
Deep Fathom
that made the initial contact call, but the other way around. She called him.”