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“What?” Datuk frowned at her. “How?”
She pointed to the sonar screen, which showed a forward-looking scan of the far wall. The sounding showed a patchwork of solid rock and black spaces that failed to return a ping.
She pointed to the largest. “That’s got to be a tunnel. It’s heading in the direction of the coordinates that Monk sent us for Raoul Island.”
“You think it’ll lead us there?” Bryan asked.
“Maybe. That account spoke of the Aboriginal myth of the Rainbow Serpent, how it could travel around the globe via a secret watery world.” She waved to encompass this cavernous space. “From waterhole to waterhole, from one thin spot to another.”
“And Raoul Island is its legendary home,” Adam said.
“Then—like Rome—all roads must lead there.”
“But how can we be sure we pick the right path?” Datuk asked. “It could be a maze once we leave this cavern.”
Phoebe shrugged. “We either try—”
“Or we die,” Adam said, finishing her thought.
6:17P.M.
With a walkie-talkie in hand, Monk crossed the stern hold of theTitan X. Its rear door lay open to the sea. Ahead, the western side of Raoul Island filled the view. The yacht had dropped anchor a mile off the coast. Two spits of land reached toward them, framing a wide bay.
Directly ahead, a tall volcano seethed and boomed. Lava bombs blew in huge fiery arcs from its flaming caldera. They slammed into the bay with sizzling blasts or crashed into the gutted forests. The island had once been a lush atoll covered by dense jungle and dotted by tiny lakes. It was now a flaming coal in a dark sea. Blackened trunks prickled its slopes. Solitary torches burned in the smoke-shrouded gloom.
To the south, volcanos marched off into the distance, heading toward the coast of New Zealand. The closest was as fiery as Raoul, but the others faded with distance into smoldering glows.
Monk stepped out onto the apron of decking.
Kowalski waited to one side. “Don’t want to go swimming out there,” he warned, knocking red embers from his cigar into the sea, adding to the thick layer of ash. Several patches of the sea flickered with flames.
But it wasn’t the pall or fires that concerned the big man.
Across the bay, hundreds of spiky balls spun through the ash. Gray had warned them about those fiery mines and the dangers they posed.
Monk raised his walkie and radioed the bridge. “Kokkalis here. I’m in position. Do you copy?”
Byrd responded. “All set at our end. On your word, we’ll pipe that recording through the ship’s sirens and emergency speakers. It’s going to get loud. You sure you want to be out in the open?”
“Light the cannon,” Monk said and lowered the walkie.
He intended to be on hand to witness any change.
Kowalski was down here on a smoke break.
A moment later, a low roaring rose around the ship, echoing over the sea. It quickly rose in volume. Monk winced at the noise. Kowalski clamped his large hands over his ears.
It grew into a resounding alarm. The noise reverberated throughoutthe ship. It vibrated the decking underfoot and shivered the layers of ash in the water.
TheTitan Xhad become the world’s largest tuning fork.
The noise shook through Monk’s frame, prickling his skin.
He took a step deeper into the hold, trying to escape the onslaught.
Some frequency in that roaring spasmed his prosthetic. The EW module burned under his palm, hot enough he thought it might melt through his skin. His head throbbed. The pain lanced across his scalp, rising from the scar behind his ear that marked where his cortical implant had been placed.
Monk remembered how Gray had mentioned that the ELF signal had knocked out the electronics in a lunar lander and maybe the Chinese nuclear submarine.
