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Adam touched her shoulder very gently, as if fearful of her reaction. “What happened down there?
“It’s as I feared.”
“What?”
“A fissure must have opened under it. Swallowing the sub and a big section of the coral forest with it.” She glanced over at Monk and Adam. “I don’t know if the quake broke it open, or if it was always there. Maybe the radiation weakened a bridge of coral that had spanned the crack. Until it finally shattered, dumping everything below.”
Adam stared at the screen. “But what could be down there?”
Phoebe sighed her frustration. “It’s too deep to discern anything.”
“Could whatever we’re seeking—the cause of all this tectonic instability—be hidden in there?” Monk asked. “It’s right at the heart of the strange swarming of quakes.”
Phoebe stared over at the two men. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Adam closed his eyes, knowing what she meant. “Radiation or not, we have to go down there again.”
She slowly nodded.
One of the DriX units blasted its sonar again. She leaned forward as its scan appeared, hoping it might offer some further answers to what lay below.
Instead, a shape blocked the right edge of the image. It was the tip of a tapered object that sprouted a set of fins at its end. It hung at a depth of two hundred meters.
Phoebe knew what she was seeing. “You were both right.”
They waited out the next pass of the second DriX as it circled to the same position and pinged its sonar. The image on the screen was clear again. The tail of the submarine was gone.
“Does it know we found it?” she asked.
Monk shook his head. “No way of telling. The sub surely heard the ping, but hopefully those aboard just assumed that it was another of the units’ automated blasts. For us to have caught a glimpse of its tail,the sub’s captain must have let his guard down, overly confident that theTitan X—an unarmed research vessel—posed no threat to it.”
“So what do we do?” Phoebe asked. “Do we dare dive in theCormorantwith that shark patrolling these waters?”
Monk rubbed his chin. “Something feels off.”
Adam stepped closer. “What do you mean?”
“Why’s the sub just waiting out there? Circling theTitan X.”
“Maybe it’s come to guard the wreckage below,” Adam suggested. “Making sure no one else dives down there.”
Monk shook his head. “No, it’s waiting for something else.”
“What?” Phoebe asked.
Monk stared them down, certainty firming his voice. “Reinforcements.”
22
January 24, 2:45A.M.WIB
Jakarta, Island of Java, Indonesia
From the courtyard balcony of the safe house, Seichan stared out at the shrouded hellscape. Ash rained in a hot powder across the city. Low clouds hugged the island. Four fiery-sloped mountains glowed brightly beyond the city. The peaks were close enough that rivers of lava could be seen flowing down their sides.
She had learned the mountains’ names.
Salak, Gede, Cereme, Papandayan.
