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"I surf Internet catalogs in my spare time. I charged it to your wife's Neiman Marcus account."
"You wish." Yaeger smiled. Max was a hologram. There was no way she could order, wear or pay for material objects. He shook his head in amazement at Max's nebulous yet vivacious temperament. There were times when he thought that programming Max with his wife's appearance and personality might have been a mistake. "If you're through showing off, Wonder Woman, I have a little job for you."
"I'm ready, master," she replied, mimicking Barbara Eden in the old I Dream of Jeannie TV show.
Yaeger programmed the disc contents into Max's memory. "Take your time and see what you make of this."
Max stood unblinking for a few moments and then asked, "What do you wish to know?"
"The question is, what possible motive do Odyssey and the Red Chinese have for digging four massive tunnels across Nicaragua from the Atlantic to the Pacific?"
"That's easy. The conundrum doesn't even warm my circuits."
Yaeger looked at her apparition. "How can you have an answer? You haven't analyzed the problem yet."
Max patted her mouth in a yawn. "This is so elementary. I'm constantly astounded that humans can't think beyond their noses."
Yaeger was certain he had made a mistake in the program. Her response was far too quick. "All right, I'm eager to hear your solution."
"The tunnels were built to transfer a vast amount of water."
"I don't count that as a dazzling revelation." He began to feel she had gotten off track. "A series of tunnels leading into the oceans, and mounting huge pumps, makes that an obvious conclusion."
"Ah," Max said, holding up one hand with the index finger raised. "But do you know why they want to pump massive amounts of water through the tunnels?"
"For a huge desalinization program, an irrigation project? Hell, I don't know."
"How can humans be so dense?" Max said in frustration. "Are you ready, master?"
"If you would be so kind."
"The tunnels were created to divert the South Equatorial Current that flows from Africa into the Caribbean Sea."
Yaeger was confused. "What kind of environmental threat would that provoke?"
"Don't you see it?"
"There's more than enough water in the Atlantic Ocean to make up for the loss of a few million gallons."
"Not funny."
"What, then?"
Max threw up her hands. "By diverting the South Equatorial Current, the temperature of the Gulf Stream would drop almost eight degrees by the time its flow reached Europe."
"And?" Yaeger probed.
"An eight-degree drop in the water that warms Europe would send the continent into a weather pattern equal to northern Siberia's."
Yaeger could not immediately grasp the enormity of Max's words, nor the unthinkable consequences. "Are you sure about this?"
"Have I ever been wrong?" Max pouted.
"Eight degrees seems like an excessive decrease," Yaeger persisted, doubtfully.
"We're only talking maybe a three-degree drop in the water temperature as the Gulf Stream cuts past Florida. But when the icy Labrador Current moves down from the Arctic and meets it after the Stream arcs past the Canadian Maritime Provinces, the temperature drop is magnified. This in turn greatly influences a further temperature decrease across Europe, altering the weather patterns and causing a disruption in the atmosphere from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean."
The horrendous scheme suddenly became crystal clear to Yaeger. Very slowly, he picked up the phone and dialed Sandecker's office. The admiral's secretary put Yaeger right through.
