Chang scowled.

“We met unexpected resistance,” he said.

“We cannot afford any more slipups. We would not be dealing with this situation if you had kept a closer eye on things at your testing lab, Wen Lo.”

The third triplet had been enjoying the discomfiture of his brother, but now it was his turn to squirm in his chair under the cold gaze of the archvillain.

“I accept full responsibility. The laboratory guard who brought the virus to his home province did not follow the proper decontamination safeguards. I have tightened them and prohibited travel by any of our security people.”

“Has the virus spread further?” Fu Manchu asked.

“It has broken past the quarantine. The government is trying to contain it.”

“Not good,” Fu Manchu said. “Our plan was to release the virus selectively when we had a vaccine to control it. We are trying to destabilize the government and profit from the spread of the disease. Wiping out the human race would be rather counterproductive, don’t you think?”

“It would solve our country’s problem with population control,” said Wen Lo in a weak attempt at humor.

“I’m sure it would. Unfortunately, we are part of the population. Is there any word of Dr. Kane?”

“We checked Bonefish Key,” Chang said. “He never returned. We still have our feelers out, but he seems to have disappeared.”

“His disappearance doesn’t concern me as much as the possibility that he now is aware that he is a target. And that he may have conveyed that concern to others. Fortunately, he is no longer vital to the completion of the project. But the work cannot be allowed to regerminate at Bonefish Key.”

“The only one who can reconstitute the project, other than Kane, is Dr. Song Lee, the representative that the People’s Republic sent to work with U.S. scientists,” Chang said. “She is about to be removed and disposed of.”

“See that it is accomplished quickly and cleanly,” Fu Manchu said. “And you, Brother Wen Lo, what is the status of the vaccine?”

“The vaccine will soon be a reality, and we can proceed with the next phase. I have ordered our land lab closed and its contents liquidated.”

“Very good. Is that all?”

“For now,” Wen Lo said.

Fu Manchu bowed his head, folded his hands. His evil face began to disintegrate, falling apart into whirling motes that grew from dark to light and then vanished. Moments later, the second hologram vanished

Wen Lo rose from his seat and left the now-empty room. There was much to do.

CHANG REMAINED in his chair, brooding. After his attack on the NUMA ship had been rebuffed, he had boarded a fast powerboat that took him to the mainland. From there, he booked a private jet that flew him to the United States. He entered the country carrying the credentials of a trade representative and joined the holographic meeting with his siblings from a Virginia warehouse the Triad used as a cover.

After a moment of thought, Chang turned to a computer and typed in Kurt Austin’s name. The computer took him to the NUMA website and provided him with a short blurb that identified Austin as a project engineer. Austin’s photo also was posted.

Chang stared at the coral-blue eyes, and the smile that seemed to mock him, until he could stand it no longer. He pressed the OFF button and Austin’s face vanished. Chang glared at the blank screen.

The next time I encounter Kurt Austin, he vowed, I will make him vanish forever.

THE BERMUDA COAST GUARD CUTTER HAD RESPONDED quickly to Captain Gannon’s Mayday. After a quick look at the bodies and empty bullet casings littering the aft deck, the guards-men hurriedly called in the Marine Police Service. Within hours, a boat carrying a crime-scene investigation team arrived at the NUMA ship.

The six-man CSI team that stepped on board the research vessel’s deck looked like the car valets at a Nassau resort hotel. With the exception of Detective-Superintendent Colin Randolph, they were dressed identically in navy blue Bermuda shorts, light blue shirts, and kneesocks. As an officer, Randolph was allowed to wear a white shirt.

The men, in their spit-and-polish uniforms, stood in sharp contrast to Gannon, who was still wearing his pajamas when he welcomed Randolph and his team aboard. The captain led the way to the aft deck and introduced Randolph to Austin and Zavala, who had been talking to crew members about the night’s events. The inspector gave the NUMA men each a quick handshake, then turned his wide-eyed gaze to the bodies lying on the cartridge-littered deck.

The detective-superintendent was a round-faced man in his mid-forties who spoke with a lilt that hinted at his origins in Barbados, where he had been born.

He blew out his prominent cheeks like a puffer fish.

“Good Lord!” he said in astonishment. “Looks like a bloody war zone.” Then glancing at the bullet-riddled wreck of the Humongous, he said, “What’s that thing?”

“It was a remote-operated submersible vehicle designed to move along the ocean bottom,” Zavala said.

“Well, from the looks of it, that pile of junk won’t be moving anywhere soon.” He shook his head. “What happened to it?”

“Austin here was using the vehicle for cover, and the gunmen shot it out from under him,” Zavala said.

Randolph glanced at Austin, then gave Zavala a hard stare. Seeing nothing in either man’s face that suggested Zavala was joking, the detective-superintendent ordered his team to cordon off the crime scene with yellow police tape.

He turned to the captain.

“I’d be very pleased if you could tell me what happened on your ship last night.”

“Glad to,” Gannon said. “Around three in the morning, four armed men boarded the ship from a small boat and rousted me out of my bunk.” He plucked the front of his ratty-looking pajamas. “As you can see, I wasn’t expecting company. They were looking for Dr. Max Kane, a scientist who had been involved with the bathysphere project.”

“Did they say why they wanted Dr. Kane?”

Gannon shrugged.

“Their leader was a creepy guy with a shaved head. When I told him that Kane had left the ship, he rounded up my crew and threatened to kill them. He would have followed up on his threat if Kurt and Joe hadn’t intervened.”

Randolph turned back to Austin and Zavala.

“So you’re the ones responsible for this mess?”

“We didn’t have a lot of choice at the time,” Austin said.

“Do all NUMA research vessels carry armed security men?”

“Joe and I weren’t armed at first. We borrowed weapons from the gunmen. And we’re not security men, we’re NUMA engineers running the Bathysphere 3 project.”

Austin might just as well have said he was from France, like the Coneheads in the old Saturday Night Live skit.

Randolph’s eyes swept the scene, taking in the bodies, the weapons next to them, and the wrecked ROV. He was chewing his lower lip, and it was obvious that he was having a difficult time reconciling the blood-soaked deck with Austin’s explanation.

“Engineers,” Randolph repeated in a flat voice. Clearing his throat, he then said, “What kind of engineers?”

“I specialize in deep-sea diving and salvage,” Austin said. “Joe designs and pilots submersibles. He built the bathysphere.”

“And it was you two engineers who, against overwhelming odds, routed an armed band, using their own weapons to kill two of them in the process?”

“Three,” Austin corrected. “There’s another body on the bridge.”

“We were lucky,” Zavala pitched in, as if it explained everything.

“What happened to the fourth man, with the shaved head?” Randolph asked.

“He was lucky,” Austin said. “He got away.”

Randolph held a degree in police studies and was a veteran policeman, but even an untrained observer would have sensed something different about these two NUMA engineers. Relaxed and genial as he appeared to be, the broad-shouldered Austin had a commanding presence that went beyond his strikingly coral-blue gaze, thick gray mane of hair, and chiseled profile. And the handsome Zavala looked as if he just stepped out of some swashbuckling Hollywood epic.