He stared back at her with a bemused interest. Then he reached down behind him, set a clipboard in his lap, and wrote something on a pad. After a few seconds he tore off a piece of paper and held it up to his view window.

Stacy’s eyes strained to focus on the wording. It read, “Welcome to Soggy Acres. Hang on while we connect an oxygen line.”

Is this what it’s like to die? Stacy wondered. She’d read of people going through tunnels before emerging into light and seeing people and relatives who had died in the past. But this man was a perfect stranger. Where did he come from?

Before she could match the puzzle pieces, the door closed and she floated into oblivion.

8

DIRK PITT STOOD ALONE in the center of a large domed chamber, hands shoved into the pockets of his NUMA jumpsuit, and studied Old Gert. His opaline eyes stared without expression at the submersible that sat like a broken toy on the smooth black lava floor. Then he slowly climbed through the hatch and dropped into the pilot’s reclining chair and studied the instruments embedded in the console.

Pitt was a tall man, firm muscled with broad shoulders and straight back, slightly on the lanky side, and yet he moved with a catlike grace that seemed poised for action. There was a razor hardness about him that even a stranger could sense, yet he never lacked for friends and allies in and out of government who respected and admired him for his loyalty and intelligence. He was buoyed by a dry wit and an easygoing personality—a trait a score of women had found most appealing—and though he adored their company, his most ardent love was reserved for the sea.

As Special Projects Director of NUMA he spent almost as much time on and under water as he did on land. His main exercise was diving—he seldom crossed the threshold of a gym. He had given up smoking years before, casually controlled his diet, and was a light drinker. He was constantly busy, physically moving about, walking up to five miles a day in the course of his job. His greatest pleasure outside his work was diving through the ghostly hulk of a sunken ship.

There was the echo of footsteps from outside the submersible, footsteps crossing the rock floor that had been carved smooth under the curved walls of the vaulted roof. Pitt dewed around in the chair and looked at his longtime friend and NUMA associate, Al Giordino.

Giordino’s black hair was as curly as Pitt’s was wavy. His smooth face showed ruddy under the overhead glow from the sodium vapor lights, and his lips were locked in their usual sly Fagan-like smile. Giordino was short, the top of his head came just up to Pitt’s shoulder line. But his body was braced by massive biceps and a chest that preceded the rest of him like a wrecking ball, a feature that enhanced his determined walk and gave the impression that if he didn’t come to a halt he would simply walk through whatever fence or wall happened to be in his path.

“Well, what do you make of it?” he asked Pitt.

“The British turned out a nice piece of work,” Pitt replied admiringly as he exited the hatch.

Giordino studied the crushed spheres and shook his head. “They were lucky. Another five minutes and we’d have found corpses.”

“How are they doing?”

“A speedy recovery,” answered Giordino. “They’re in the galley devouring our food stores and demanding to be returned to their ship on the surface.”

“Anyone brief them yet?” asked Pitt.

“As you ordered, they’ve been confined to the crew’s quarters, and anyone who comes within spitting distance acts like a deaf mute. A performance that’s driven our guests up the walls. They’d give their left kidney to know who we are, where we came from, and how we built a livable facility this deep in the ocean.”

Pitt gazed again at Old Gert and then motioned a hand around the chamber. “Years of secrecy flushed down the drain,” he muttered, suddenly angry.

“Not your fault.”

“Better I left them to die out there than compromise our project.”

“Who you kidding?” Giordino laughed. “I’ve seen you pick up injured dogs in the street and drive them to a vet. You even paid the bill though it wasn’t you who ran over them. You’re a big softy, my friend. Secret operation be damned. You’d have saved those people if they’d carried rabies, leprosy, and the black plague.”

“I’m that obvious?”

Giordino’s teasing look softened. “I’m the bully who gave you a black eye in kindergarten, remember, and you bloodied my nose with a baseball in return. I know you better than your own mother. You may be a nasty bastard on the outside, but underneath you’re an easy touch.”

Pitt looked down at Giordino. “You know, of course, that playing good samaritan has put us in a sea of trouble with Admiral Sandecker and the Defense Department.”

“That goes without saying. And speaking of the devil, Communications just received a coded message. The admiral is on his way from Washington. His plane is due in two hours. Hardly what you’d call advance notice. I’ve ordered a sub readied to head for the surface and pick him up.”

“He must be psychic,” mused Pitt.

“I’m betting that weird disturbance is behind his surprise visit.”

Pitt nodded and smiled. “Then we have nothing to lose by raising the curtain for our guests.”

“Nothing,” Giordino agreed. “Once the admiral gets the story, he’ll order them kept here under guard until we wrap up the project anyway.”

Pitt began walking toward a circular doorway with Giordino at his side. Sixty years in the past, the domed chamber might have been an architect’s vision of a futuristic aircraft hangar, but this structure covered no aircraft from rain, snow, or summer sun. Its carbon and ceramic reinforced plastic walls housed deep-water craft 5,400 meters beneath the sea. Besides Old Gert, the leveled floor held an immense tractorlike vehicle with an upper body housing shaped similar to a cigar. Two smaller submersibles sat side-by-side, resembling stubby nuclear submarines whose bows and sterns had been reattached after their center sections were removed. Several men and one woman were busily servicing the vehicles.

Pitt led the way through a narrow circular tunnel that looked like an ordinary drain pipe and passed through two compartments with domed ceilings. There were no right angles or sharp corners anywhere. All interior surfaces were rounded to structurally resist the massive outside water pressure.

They entered a confined and spartan dining compartment. The one long table and its surrounding chairs were formed from aluminum, and the galley wasn’t much larger than the kitchen on an overnight passenger train. Two NUMA crewmen stood on each side of the doorway keeping a tight eye on their unwelcome guests.

Plunkett, Salazar, and Stacy were huddled at the opposite end of the table in muffled conversation when Pitt and Giordino entered. Their voices stopped abruptly, and they looked up suspiciously at the two strangers.

So he could talk with them at their own level, Pitt planted himself solidly in a nearby chair and glanced swiftly from face to face as if he was an inspector of police examining a lineup.

Then he said politely, “How do you do. My name is Dirk Pitt. I head up the project you’ve stumbled upon.”

“Thank God!” Plunkett boomed. “At last, somebody who can speak.”

“And English at that,” added Salazar.

Pitt gestured at Giordino. “Mr. Albert Giordino, chief mover and doer around here. He’ll be glad to conduct a grand tour, assign quarters, and help you with any needs in the way of clothing, toothbrushes, and whatever.”

Introductions and handshakes were traded across the table. Giordino ordered up a round of coffee, and the three visitors from Old Gert finally began to relax.