“If I may respectfully disagree, Mr. President. We can keep a tighter security lid on the event with the Navy.”

The President gave Jordan a smug look. “I understand your concern. But trust me. The National Underwater and Marine Agency can do the job without a news leak.”

Jordan rose from the couch, professionally annoyed that the President knew something he didn’t. He made a mental note to dig at his first opportunity. “If Dale will alert the admiral, I’ll leave for his office immediately.”

The President extended his hand. “Thank you, Ray. You and your people have done a superb job in so short a time.”

Nichols accompanied Jordan as he left the Oval Office to head for the NUMA Building. As soon as they were in the hallway Nichols asked in a low voice, “Just between you and me and the furniture, who do you think is behind the bomb smuggling?”

Jordan thought for a moment and then replied in an even, disquieting tone. “We’ll know the answer to that within the next twenty-four hours. The big question, the one that scares hell out of me, is why, and for what purpose.

7

THE ATMOSPHERE INSIDE the submersible had become rank and humid. Condensation was dripping from the sides of the sphere, and the carbon dioxide was rising into the lethal range. No one stirred and they seldom spoke, to conserve air. After eleven and a half hours, their life-preserving oxygen supply was nearly gone, and what little electrical power was left in the emergency batteries could not operate the CO, scrubbing unit much longer.

Fear and terror had slowly faded to resignation. Except for every fifteen minutes, when Plunkett switched on the lights to read the life-support systems, they sat quietly in the dark, alone with their thoughts.

Plunkett concentrated on monitoring the instruments, fussing with his equipment, refusing to believe his beloved submersible could refuse to respond to his commands. Salazar sat like a statue, slumped in his chair. He seemed withdrawn and barely conscious. Though he was only minutes away from falling into a final stupor, he could not see prolonging the inevitable. He wanted to die and get it over with.

Stacy conjured up fantasies of her childhood, pretending she was in another place, another time. Her past flew by in fleeting images. Playing baseball in the street with her brothers, riding her new bicycle Christmas Day, going to her first high school prom with a boy she didn’t like but who was the only one who asked her. She could almost hear the strains of the music in the hotel ballroom. She forgot the name of the group, but she remembered the songs. “We May Never Pass This Way Again” from Seals and Crofts was her favorite. She had closed her eyes and imagined she’d been dancing with Robert Redford.

She cocked her head as if listening. Something was out of place. The song she heard in her mind wasn’t from the mid-1970s. It sounded more like an old jazz tune than rock.

She came awake, opened her eyes, seeing only the blackness. “They’re playing the wrong music,” she mumbled.

Plunkett flicked on the lights. “What was that?”

Even Salazar looked up uncomprehendingly and muttered, “She’s hallucinating.”

“They’re supposed to be playing ‘We May Never Pass This Way Again,’ but it’s something else.”

Plunkett looked at Stacy, his face soft with compassion and sorrow. “Yes, I hear it too.”

“No, no,” she objected. “Not the same. The song is different.”

“Whatever you say,” said Salazar, panting. His lungs ached from trying to wrest what oxygen he could from the foul air. He grabbed Plunkett by the arm. “For God’s sake, man. Close down the systems and end it. Can’t you see she’s suffering? We’re all suffering.”

Plunkett’s chest was hurting too. He well knew it was useless to prolong the torment, but he couldn’t brush aside the primitive urge to cling on to life to the last breath. “We’ll see it through,” he said heavily. “Maybe another sub was airlifted to the Invincible.”

Salazar stared at him with glazed eyes and a mind that was hanging on to a thin thread of reality. “You’re crazy. There isn’t another deep-water craft within seven thousand kilometers. And even if one was brought in, and the Invincible was still afloat, they’d need another eight hours to launch and rendezvous.”

“I can’t argue with you. None of us wants to spend eternity in a lost crypt in deep ocean. But I won’t give up hope.”

“Crazy,” Salazar repeated. He leaned forward in his seat and shook his head from side to side as if clearing the growing pain. He looked as though he was aging a year with each passing minute.

“Can’t you hear it?” Stacy uttered in a low croaking voice. “They’re coming closer.”

“She’s crazy too,” Salazar rasped.

Plunkett held up his hand. “Quiet! I hear it too. There is something out there.”

There was no reply from Salazar. He was too far gone to think or speak coherently. An agonizing band was tightening around his lungs. The desire for air overpowered all his thoughts save one, he sat there and wished death to come quickly.

Stacy and Plunkett both stared into the darkness beyond the sphere. A weird rat-tailed creature swam into the dim light coming from inside Old Gert. It had no eyes, but it made a circuit of the sphere, maintaining a distance of two centimeters before it went on about its business in the depths.

Suddenly the water shimmered. Something was stirring in the distance, something monstrous. Then a strange bluish halo grew out of the blackness, accompanied by voices singing words too garbled by the water to comprehend.

Stacy stared entranced, while Plunkett’s skin crawled on the back of his neck. It had to be some horror from the supernatural, he thought. A monster created by his oxygen-starved brain. There was no way the approaching thing could be real. The image of an alien from another world crossed his mind again. Tense and fearful, he waited until it came nearer, planning on using the final charge of the emergency battery to switch on the outside lights. A terror from the deep or not, he realized it would be the last thing he’d ever see on earth.

Stacy crawled to the side of the sphere until her nose was pressed against its interior. A chorus of voices echoed in her ears. “I told you,” she said in a strained whisper. “I told you I heard singing. Listen.”

Plunkett could just make out the words now, very faint and distant. He thought he must be going mad. He tried to tell himself that the lack of breathable air was playing tricks on his eyes and ears. But the blue light was becoming brighter and he recognized the song.

Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid 

Down at the bottom of the sea. 

I forgot my troubles there among the bubbles. 

Gee but she was awfully good to me.

He pushed the exterior light switch. Plunkett sat there motionless. He was used up and dog-weary, desperately so. His mind refused to accept the thing that materialized out of the black gloom, and he fainted dead away.

Stacy was so numbed with shock she couldn’t tear her eyes from the apparition that crept toward the sphere. A huge machine, moving on great tractorlike treads and supporting an oblong structure with two freakish manipulator arms on its underside, rolled to a stop and sat poised under the lights of Old Cart.

A humanlike form with blurred features was sitting in the transparent nose of the strange craft only two meters away from the sphere. Stacy closed her eyes tightly and reopened them. Then the vague, shadowy likeness of a man took shape. She could see him clearly now. He wore a turquoise-colored jumpsuit that was partially opened down the front. The matted black strands on his chest matched the dark shaggy hair on his head. His face had a masculine weathered, craggy look, and the mirth wrinkles that stretched from a pair of incredibly green eyes were complemented by the slight grin on his lips.