Phelps pointed to a hemispheric shape in the center of the rectangle. “Is this where the surface shuttle came in?”

“That’s right,” Lois said. “The minisubs attached to the underside of the transit module are used for specimen collection in the canyon, but they can be used to evacuate the lab, and there are escape pods available as a last resort. The shuttle airlock is connected by reinforced passageways that give the staff access from any module and contribute to the structural strength of the complex.”

“What about the fourth module?” Phelps said.

“Top secret.”

“How many folks work in the complex?”

“Sorry, top secret again. I don’t make the rules.”

“That’s okay,” Phelps said with a nod. “This is one hell of a job of engineering.”

“We’re fortunate that the Navy had the facility readily available. The lab was originally planned as an undersea observatory. The components were built on land, fully equipped, and towed out here in special barges. The barges were then rafted together, and the setup was fitted together like an old-fashioned Tinkertoy and lowered into the sea in one piece. Luckily, we’re not at great depth, and the sea bottom is fairly level. It’s what they call a turn-key operation. The complex was not meant to be permanent, so it has compressed-air capabilities that allow it to attain negative buoyancy. It could be retrieved and moved to another location.”

Phelps said, “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to see the nonrestricted areas.”

Lois Mitchell frowned, signaling that she was doing this under protest. She picked up the intercom phone and called the control room. “Hello, Frank,” she said. “This is going to take a little longer than I expected. Anything new with Doc? No? Okay, I’ll keep in touch.”

She replaced the phone with more force than was necessary, and stood to her full height. “C’mon, Mr. Phelps. This is going to be fast and furious.”

FIFTY MILES FROM Davy Jones’s Locker, the rolling surface of the dark sea erupted in an explosion of foam and spray. A twenty-foot-long aluminum tube burst from the center of the churning geyser, sped skyward at a sharp angle, leaving a white fan-shaped trail behind it, and quickly dove back toward the waves in a curving trajectory.

Within seconds, the cruise missile had leveled out, until it was traveling twenty-five feet above the wave tops, so low that its passing left a wake in the water. Powered by its solid-fuel rocket booster, the missile quickly accelerated, and by the time it had shed its rocket and the fan-jet engines had kicked in it had achieved its cruising speed of five hundred miles per hour.

A series of sophisticated guidance systems kept the cruise missile on track as unerringly as if it were being steered by a skilled pilot.

The speeding missile’s unsuspecting target was a large, gray-hulled ship anchored near the red-and-white buoy that marked the location of the undersea lab. The name on the hull was PROUD MARY, and it was registered in the Marshall Islands as a survey ship. The Proud Mary was anchored near the buoy waiting for the shuttle sub to return with Phelps.

The ship’s owner was a shadowy corporation that provided vessels to international security companies in need of naval services. They supplied everything from small, fast, and heavily armed speedboats to ships large enough to land an army of mercenaries anywhere in the world.

Assigned to protect the undersea laboratory, the Proud Mary carried two dozen guards proficient in the use of every type of small arms as well as an array of electronic sensing gear that could pick up vessels or planes approaching the lab. The ship also served as a parking garage for the shuttle that ferried supplies and people to and from the lab.

In its leap from the ocean, the cruise missile had blipped on the ship’s radar screen for only a few seconds. Inactivity had dulled the operator’s edge, and he was engrossed in a motorcycle magazine when the missile made its brief appearance, before dropping from surveillance’s view. The ship also had infrared sensors, but even if the missile had been flying at altitude they would have failed to pick up the low-temperature heat from its engines.

Undetected, the missile streaked toward the Proud Mary carrying a half ton of high explosives in its warhead.

LOIS MITCHELL AND GORDON PHELPS were making their way along the connecting tube to the control room when they heard a loud whump that seemed to come from far over their heads. She stopped in her tracks and pivoted slowly, ears cocked, concerned that it indicated a systems failure.

“I’ve never heard anything like that before,” she said. “It sounded like a truck slamming into a wall. I’d better check to make sure all the lab systems are operating as they should be.”

Phelps glanced at his watch. “From the sound of it, things seem to be moving a little ahead of schedule.”

“I’d better check the situation in the control room.”

“Good idea,” Phelps said amiably.

They started walking toward the door at the end of the passageway. A few steps from the control-room module, the door hissed open, and Frank Logan burst through. His pale face was flushed with excitement, and he was grinning.

“Lois! I was coming to get you. Did you hear that weird noise-”

Logan stopped short, his grin vanishing. Lois turned to see what he was staring at.

Phelps was holding a pistol in his hand, dangling it loosely next to his thigh.

“What’s going on?” she said. “We don’t allow weapons in the lab.”

Phelps gave her a hangdog look. “Like I said, no security system is totally foolproof. Lab’s under new management, Dr. Mitchell.”

He was still soft-spoken, but his voice had lost the obsequious quality that Lois had found so irritating and now had an edge that hadn’t been there before. Phelps told Logan to stand next to Lois so he could keep an eye on him. As Logan complied, the control-room door hissed open again, and a lab technician stepped through. Phelps instinctively brought his gun around to deal with the interruption. The lab tech froze, but Logan, seeing Phelps’s momentary distraction, tried to grab his gun.

They struggled, but Phelps was younger and stronger and would have gotten the upper hand even if the gun had not gone off. The noise was muffled to a soft putt by a silencer on the pistol barrel, but a red stain blossomed on the front of Logan’s white lab coat. His legs gave out, and he crumpled to the floor.

The lab tech bolted back into the control room. Lois ran over and knelt by Logan’s motionless body. She opened her mouth in a scream but nothing came out. “You killed him!” she finally said.

“Aw, hell,” Phelps said. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

“What did you mean to do?” Lois said.

“No time to talk about that now, ma’am.”

Lois stood up and confronted Phelps. “Are you going to shoot me too?”

“Not unless I have to, Dr. Mitchell. Don’t do anything crazy like your friend. We’d hate to lose you.”

Lois Mitchell stared defiantly at Phelps for a few seconds before she wilted under his unrelenting gaze. “What do you want?”

“For now, I want you to round up all the lab folks.”

“Then what?” she said.

Phelps shrugged. “Then we’re going for a little ride.”

THE B3 PASSENGERS HAD DECIDED TO REPORT THEIR OBSERVATIONS like sportscasters. Joe Zavala would do the play-by-play, Max Kane would provide the color using William Beebe’s writings.

At two hundred eighty-six feet down, Kane announced, “The torpedoed ocean liner Lusitania is resting at this level.”

At three hundred fifty-three feet, he noted, “This was the deepest any submarine had ever gone when Beebe made his bathysphere dives.”