When he heard the voice of his friend and colleague, Zavala's reaction was a happy one. A slight smile cracked the ends of his lips "Buona sera, Kurt, old amigo. How's your vacation?"

"Over. So is yours, I'm sorry to say."

Zavala's smile faded and a pained expression came onto his darkly handsome features, as Austin laid out his plans for Joe's immediate future. With a mighty sigh, he replaced the phone, looked soulfully into the dreamy and compliant blue eyes of his date and said, "I'm afraid I've got bad news. My grandmother just died."

WHILE ZAVALA TRIED to cushion his date's disappointment with an improvised list of outrageous promises, Paul Trout's six-foot-eight figure was bent like a praying mantis over a lab counter at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, examining mud samples from the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the work was potentially messy, Trout's white lab coat was spotless. He wore one of his trademark bright bow ties, and his light brown hair was parted down the middle and combed back at the temples.

Trout grew up in Woods Hole, where his father was a Cape Cod fisherman, and he returned to his roots whenever he got the chance. He had developed friendships with many of the scientists at the world-renowned institute and often lent them his skills as a deep-ocean geologist.

Trout's intense concentration was broken by the sound of his name being called. Keeping his head lowered to the sample, he peered upward and saw a lab tech standing there.

"Call just came in for you, Dr. Trout," she said, handing him a phone. Trout's mind was still on the ocean bottom, and when he heard Austin's voice he assumed the head of the Special Assignments Team was at NUMA headquarters.

"Kurt, are you already back home?"

"Actually, I'm calling from Istanbul, where you'll be in twenty-four hours. I've got a job for you in the Black Sea."

Trout blinked his hazel eyes. "Istanbul. The Black Sea?" His reaction was the complete opposite of Zavala's. "I've always wanted to work there. My colleagues will be green with envy."

"How soon can you leave?"

"I'm up to my ears in mud, but I can leave for Washington immediately."

There was silence at the other end of the line as Austin pictured Trout in a pool of muck. Austin was used to Trout's Yankee eccentricities and decided he didn't want to know the details. He simply said, "Could you pass this along to Gamay?"

"Finestkind, Cap," Trout said, using an old fisherman's expression that spoke for itself. "See you tomorrow."

TWENTY FEET BELOW the surface of the water east of Marathon in the Florida Keys, Trout's wife, Gamay, was chiseling away with a dive knife at a big brain coral. She broke off a small piece and put it in a mesh bag hanging from her weight belt. Gamay had donated some of her working vacation as a marine biologist to a conservation group studying the deterioration of coral growth in the Keys. The news wasn't good. The coral was worse than the year before. The growth that had not been killed outright by the poisonous run-off from south Florida was brown and discolored, totally unlike the vibrant colors to be found in the healthy reefs of the Caribbean and Red Sea.

A sharp rapping sound filled her ears. Someone was signaling from the surface. Tucking her knife back in its sheath, Gamay increased the air in her buoyancy compensator, and with a few flips of her fins, her tightly shaped body rose from the coral. She surfaced near the chartered dive boat and blinked in the bright Florida sun. The boat's skipper, a grizzled old "conch" named Bud, after the beer he favored, was holding a ball-peen hammer he'd used to tap on the metal stern ladder.

"Harbormaster just called on the radio," Bud yelled. "Says your husband was trying to get in touch with you."

Gamay swam to the ladder, handed up her tank and weight belt, then climbed aboard. She wrung the seawater out of her dark red hair and wiped her face down with a towel. She was tall, and slim for her height, and had she cared to get down to an unhealthy weight, she would have had the figure of a fashion model. She dug the coral fragment from her bag and held it up for Bud to see.

He shook his head. "My dive business is going down the tubes if this keeps up."

The fisherman was right. It was going to take a massive commitment from everyone, from the conchs to the Congress, to bring the reefs back to life.

"Did my husband leave a message?" she asked.

"Yeah, says to get in touch with him pronto. That someone named Kurt called. Guess your vacation is over."

She smiled, showing the slight space between her dazzling white front teeth, and tossed the piece of coral to Bud. "Guess it is," she said.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

WASHINGTON SWELTERED UNDER a hot sun that combined with the humidity to transform the nation's capital into a giant steam bath. The driver of the turquoise Jeep Cherokee shook his head in wonder at the brave clusters of tourists ignoring the wilting heat. Noel Coward to the contrary, he thought, mad dogs and Englishmen weren't the only ones to go out in the midday sun.

Minutes later, the Jeep pulled up to the White House gate and the man at the wheel handed over a NUMA identification card with the name and photo of Admiral James Sandecker. While one guard used a mirror on a pole to check underneath the vehicle for a bomb, the other returned the ill to the driver, a trim man with flaming red hair and a Vandyke beard.

"Good day, Admiral Sandecker," the guard said, with a broad grin. "Nice to see you again. It's been a few weeks. How are you today, sir?"

"I'm fine, Norman," said Sandecker, "You're looking well. How are Dolores and the children?"

"Thank you for asking," the guard said, beaming with pride. "She's great. Kids are doing well in school. Jamie wants to work for NUMA when she gets out of college."

"Splendid. Make sure she calls me directly. The agency is always on the lookout for bright young people."

The guard let out a hearty laugh. "It won't be for a while. She's only fourteen." He jerked his thumb toward the White House. "They're all in there waiting for you, Admiral."

"Thank you for letting me know," Sandecker replied. "Please give my regards to Dolores."

As the guard waved him through the gate, Sandecker thought how being gracious had more than its immediate rewards. By dealing warmly with guards, secretaries, receptionists and others considered low in the bureaucratic hierarchy, he had established an early-warning network all over the city. His lips compressed in a tight smile. Norman's wink and nod signaled Sandecker that his arrival had been scheduled after the others so they could confer before he arrived. He had a well-earned reputation for promptness, a habit shaped at the U.S. Naval Academy and honed by his years of flag rank. He always arrived exactly one minute before a meeting.

A tall, dark-suited man wearing the sunglasses and granite expression that marked him as a Secret Service agent checked Sandecker's ill again, directed him into a parking space and whispered into his hand radio. He led the admiral to an entrance, where a smiling young female aide met him and escorted him down the hushed corridors to a door guarded by a lantern-jawed Marine. He opened the door, and Sandecker stepped into the Cabinet Room.

Warned by the Secret Service man that Sandecker was on his way, President Dean Cooper Wallace was waiting to ambush the admiral with a handshake. The president was known as the most eager flesh-presser to occupy the White House since Lyndon Johnson.