“Are you saying this jellyfish is the source of the compound you’re trying to synthesize?”

“Uh-huh. The tiniest amount of the medusa’s venom is fatal to humans, but the entire fate of millions of people could rest on the lowly creature in that tank. I can fill you in after you’ve had a chance to rest.”

Dr. Lee’s scientific mind was hungry for details.

“I don’t need any rest,” she insisted. “I want to start now.”

Song Lee’s roselike delicateness hid thorns that had been sharpened by her dealings with a stonehearted Chinese bureaucracy. Despite the seriousness of their conversation, Kane couldn’t prevent the faint smile that came to his lips.

“I’ll introduce you to the staff,” he said.

Kane guided Lee through the labs, introducing her to the other talented scientists who were working on the blue medusa project. She was particularly impressed with Lois Mitchell, Kane’s first assistant and project manager. But jet lag eventually caught up with Lee, and she caught a good night’s sleep in her comfortable cabin. When she awoke the next day, she threw herself into her work.

In the days that followed, Dr. Lee rose early and worked late. Her daily kayak paddle through the mangroves was the only recreational break in her ferocious schedule. Then, one day, she and the rest of the scientific staff were asked to attend a meeting in the dining room. To applause, Dr. Kane announced that the compound they had been looking for had been identified. He and a handpicked team of volunteers would go into seclusion to put the final touches on the synthesis at a new lab. He could not say where the lab was located, only that it was nearer to the resource. Lee agreed to stay on at Bonefish Key with a skeleton crew so she could finish her epidemiological analysis and lay out an immunization production and distribution plan.

The quarantine was holding, but Lee knew that it was only a matter of time before the virus got loose. As she analyzed the clusters of the virus outbreak, she kept China’s experience with the SARS virus in the back of her mind. All suspected or probable cases had been placed in negative-pressure rooms, shut off from the outside world by two airtight doors, every breath they took filtered. But the disease still managed to spread, demonstrating the difficulty in sealing off the virus.

In the weeks that followed the exodus of the key scientific staff, reports filtered back to Bonefish Key from the secret lab. The most exciting news was the report that the toxin had been synthesized, the prelude to developing a vaccine.

Spurred on by the successful research, Lee had hurried to develop a plan to administer the antidote and to contain the epidemic before it developed into a pandemic.

Dr. Huang had asked to be kept informed of Dr. Lee’s progress. The only place on the island where cell-phone service was available was at the top of an old water tower. Every day after her work, Lee climbed the tower and summarized the progress of the project for her old friend and mentor.

There was no way she could have known that her every word was being relayed to unfriendly ears.

BERMUDA, THREE MONTHS LATER

THE TAXI DRIVER WARILY EYEBALLED THE MAN STANDING on the curb outside the arrival gate at Bermuda’s L. F. Wade Airport. His potential fare had an unruly ginger beard, and hair pulled back in a short pigtail that was tied with a rubber band. In addition, he wore faded jeans, high-top red sneakers, Elton John sunglasses with white plastic frames, and a rumpled tan linen suit jacket over a T-shirt with a picture on it of Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead.

“Please take me to the ship harbor,” Max Kane said. He opened the door, threw his duffel bag in the backseat, and then slid in beside it. The driver shrugged and put the taxi in gear. A fare was a fare.

Kane sat back and closed his eyes. His brain was about to explode. His impatience had ballooned with each mile traveled over the past twenty-four hours. The long flight from the Pacific Ocean to North America and the two-hour trip from New York were nothing compared to the dragging minutes it took for the taxi to get to the waterfront.

Kane directed the driver to stop near the gangway of a turquoise-hulled ship. The distinctive color and the letters NUMA emblazoned on the hull below the ship’s name, WILLIAM BEEBE, identified the vessel as belonging to the National Underwater and Marine Agency, the largest ocean-study organization in the world.

Kane exited the cab and shoved a wad of bills at the driver, then slung the duffel over his shoulder and briskly climbed up the gangway. A pleasant-faced young woman wearing the uniform of a ship’s officer greeted Kane with a warm smile.

“Good afternoon,” the woman said. “My name is Marla Hayes. I’m the third mate. May I have your name?”

“Max Kane.”

She consulted a clipboard and put a check mark next to Kane’s name.

“Welcome to the Beebe, Dr. Kane. I’ll show you to your cabin and give you a tour of the ship.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ve come a long way and I’m anxious to see the B3.”

“No problem,” Marla said, leading Kane toward the ship’s fantail.

The two-hundred-fifty-foot-long search-and-survey ship was the marine equivalent of a professional weight lifter. With its stern-ramp A-frame crane and wide deck, the fantail was the business end of the ship. It bristled with the winches and derricks that scientists used to launch underwater vehicles and devices that probed the depths. Kane’s eyes went to a large tangerine-colored globe resting in a steel cradle beneath a tall crane. Three portholes that resembled short-range cannons protruded from the sphere’s surface.

“There it is,” Marla said. “I’ll come by in a little while to see how you’re doing.”

Kane thanked the young woman and cautiously approached the globe, treading softly as if he expected the strange object to bolt on the four legs attached to the bottom. He walked around to the other side of the sphere and saw a man in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts standing in front of a circular opening slightly more than a foot in diameter. The man’s head was inside the globe, his right shoulder angled through the hatch as if he were being devoured by a bug-eyed monster. The string of salty curses that echoed from inside the globe sounded as if they were coming from a pirate cave.

Kane set his duffel bag down, and asked, “Tight quarters?”

The man bumped his head as he backed out of the opening, prompting a few more colorful oaths, and brushed away a shock of steel-gray hair from eyes that were the blue of coral under flat water. He had a broad-shouldered frame that was an inch over six feet, and he must have weighed two hundred pounds. He grinned, showing perfect white teeth against features that had been bronzed by years at sea.

“Very tight. I’d need a shoehorn and a can of grease to get me into this antiquated refugee from a marine-salvage dump,” he said.

A dark-complexioned face poked from the hatch, and its owner said, “Give it up, Kurt. They’d have to baste you with WD-40 and pound you in with a sledgehammer.”

The broad-shouldered man made a face at the unpleasant image. He extended his hand in introduction. “I’m Kurt Austin, project director for the Bathysphere 3 expedition.”

The man in the sphere wriggled out feetfirst and introduced himself. “Joe Zavala,” he said. “I’m the engineer for the B3 project.”

“Nice to meet you both. My name is Max Kane.” He jerked his thumb at the sphere. “And I’m scheduled to dive a half mile into the ocean in this antiquated refugee from a marine-salvage dump.”

Austin exchanged a bemused glance with Zavala. “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Kane. Sorry to cast doubt on your sanity.”