Domain (31 page)

Mick looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“What, you’ve never considered the possibility that maybe you’re wrong? Mick, your entire life has been devoted to resolving the Mayan prophecy and saving humanity. Your conscience, your very identity, has been influenced by the beliefs instilled in you by your parents—enhanced, I suspect, by whatever trauma you experienced that keeps haunting you in your dreams. It doesn’t take a Sigmund Freud to tell you that the presence you feel is inside of you.”

Mick’s eyes widen as her words sink in.

“What happens when the winter solstice comes and goes and all of us are still around? What are you going to do with your life then?”

“I … I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, I just never allowed myself to dwell upon it. I was afraid that if I did, if I thought about living a normal life, then I’d eventually lose sight of what’s really important.”

“What’s really important is that you live your life to its fullest.” She takes his hand in hers. “Mick, use that brilliant mind of yours to see inside yourself. You’ve been brainwashed since birth. Your parents condemned you to save the world, but the person who really needs to be saved is Michael Gabriel. You’ve spent your entire existence chasing white rabbits, Alice. Now, we have to convince you that Wonderland doesn’t exist.”

Mick lies back, staring at the late-afternoon sky, Dominique’s words echoing in his ears.

“Mick, tell me about your mother.”

He swallows, clearing his throat. “She was my best friend. She was my teacher and companion, my whole childhood. While Julius was spending weeks on end analyzing the Nazca desert, Mom was giving me her warmth and love. When she died…”

“How did she die?”

“Pancreatic cancer. She was diagnosed when I was eleven. Toward the end, I became her nurse. She became so weak … the cancer just eating her alive. I used to read to her to keep her mind off the pain.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Yes.” He sits up. “Her favorite was
Romeo and Juliet
. ‘Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.’ ”

“Where was your father during all this?”

“Where else? Out on the Nazca desert.”

“Were your parents close?”

“Very close. They always referred to each other as soulmates. When she died, she took his heart with her to the grave. Part of mine, too.”

“If he loved her so much, how could your father have left her when she was dying?”

“Mom and Julius told me their quest was more important, more noble than sitting around, watching death invade her body. I was taught at an early age about destiny.”

“What about it?”

“Mom believed that certain people have been blessed with special gifts that determine their paths in life. These gifts come with great responsibilities, staying on the path requiring great sacrifices.”

“And she believed you were blessed?”

“Yes. She said I inherited a unique insight and intelligence that was passed down from her maternal ancestors. She explained to me that those without the gift would never understand.”

Christ, Mick’s parents really screwed him up good. It’ll take decades of therapy to right his compass
. Dominique shakes her head sadly.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking about Julius, leaving his eleven-year-old boy to handle the burden of taking care of his dying mother.”

“It wasn’t a burden, it was my way of thanking her for all she’d given me. In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.”

“Was he there when she passed?” Her words cause Mick to wince.

“Yeah, he was there all right.” He looks up at the horizon, his eyes growing harsh at the memory—then suddenly focusing like a hawk. He grabs the binoculars.

An object has become visible, towering above the western horizon.

Mick points. “There’s an oil platform out there, a big one. I thought you said Iz reported seeing nothing in the vicinity?”

“He did.”

Mick refocuses the glasses. “It’s not a PEMEX rig, it’s bearing an American flag. Something’s not right.”

“Mick—” Dominique points.

He sees the incoming boat, focusing on it with the glasses. “Damn, it’s the Coast Guard. Cut the engines. How fast can we get that sub of yours into the water?”

Dominique hurries to the pilothouse. “Five minutes. You want to dive now?”

“It’s now or never.” Mick races to the stern, pulling the gray tarp off the capsule-shaped submersible. He starts the winch. “The Coast Guard will ID us. We’ll be arrested on the spot. Hey, grab some supplies.”

Dominique tosses cans of food and jugs of bottled water into a knapsack, then climbs down into the minisub as the cutter closes to a hundred yards, its commander blaring a warning across the water.

“Mick—come on!”

“Start the engines, I’ll be right there!” Mick ducks into the cabin, searching for his father’s journal.

“THIS IS THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD. YOU HAVE ENTERED RESTRICTED WATERS. CEASE ALL ACTIVITY AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.”

Mick grabs the journal as the Coast Guard cutter reaches the
Jolly Roger
’s bow. He hurries back to the stern, releases the winch’s cable—“Freeze!”

Ignoring the command, he jumps down into the protective internal sphere of the eighteen-foot-long minisub, balancing precariously on an iron ladder as he reaches up and seals the hatch. “Take us down, fast!”

Dominique is buckled in the pilot’s seat, trying to recall everything Iz had shown her. She pushes down on the wheel, the minisub submerging—as the keel of the Coast Guard cutter collides with the top of the submersible’s sail.

“Hold on—”

The sub descends at a steep forty-five-degree angle, the titanium alloy plates groaning in Mick’s ear. He leans down and grabs a diver’s air tank as it rolls precariously toward the bow. “Hey, Captain, you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Don’t be a backseat driver.” She eases the descent. “Okay, now what are we supposed to do?”

Mick squeezes past the ladder to join her up front. “We find out what’s going on down here, then head for the Yucatan coastline.” Mick bends down to take a peek through one of the eight-inch-diameter, four-inch-thick viewports.

The deep blue environment is obscured by a myriad of tiny bubbles rising up along the outer hull. “I can’t see a thing. I hope this tub has sonar.”

“Right in front of me.”

Mick leans over her shoulder to glance at the luminescent orange console. He notices the depth gauge: 344 feet. “How deep can this thing go?”

“This thing is called the
Barnacle
. I’m told it’s a very expensive French sub, a smaller version of the
Nautile
. It’s been rated for depths of eleven thousand feet.”

“You sure you know how to pilot it?”

“Iz and the owner took me out one weekend and gave me a crash course.”

“Crash, that’s what I was afraid of.” Mick looks around. The interior of the
Barnacle
is a ten-foot-diameter reinforced sphere situated within the rectangular hull of the vessel. Data-processing equipment lines the tight compartment like three-dimensional wallpaper. The control station for a mechanical arm and retractable isothermic sampling basket protrudes from one wall, high-tech underwater monitors and acoustic transponders from another.

“Mick, make yourself useful and activate the thermal imager. It’s that monitor above your head.”

He reaches up, powering up the device. The monitor switches on, revealing a tapestry of greens and blues. Mick pulls back on a stub-nosed joystick, aiming the exterior sensor at the seafloor.

“Whoa, what have we here?” The monitor reveals a brilliant white light appearing at the top of the screen.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. How deep are we?”

“Eleven hundred feet. What should I do?”

“Keep us moving west. Something massive is up ahead.”

Gulf of Mexico
1.1 miles due west of the
Barnacle

The Exxon oil rig,
Scylla
, is a free-floating, fifth-generation Bingo 8000-series semisubmersible oil drilling unit. Unlike platform rigs, the superstructure floats four stories above the surface (and three stories below) on eighty-two-foot-high vertical columns attached to two enormous 390-foot-long pontoons. Twelve mooring lines anchor the structure to the seafloor.

Three continuous decks sit upon the
Scylla
’s base. The open upper deck, as long and wide as a football field, supports a seventy-two-foot-high derrick that contains the drill string, made up of lengths of thirty-three-foot steel pipe. Two immense cranes are positioned along the northern and southern sides, with an elevated octagonal helo-deck covering the west deck. The control and engineering rooms as well as the galley and two-person cabins are located on the middle or main deck. The lower or machinery deck houses the rig’s three 3080-hp engines as well as the equipment necessary to handle a hundred thousand barrels of crude oil per day.

Although the superstructure is filled to its 110-person capacity, not a drop of oil flows through its drill string. The
Scylla
’s lower deck has been hastily gutted to accommodate myriads of NASA’s high-tech multispectral sensors, computers, and imaging systems. Support equipment, tether cables, and operator control boards for three ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) sit next to bundles of steel pipe stockpiled along the semienclosed lower deck.

Positioned at the very center of the concrete and steel decking is a twelve-foot-diameter circular hole, designed to accommodate the drill string. A soft emerald radiance rises from the sea, filtering through the gap to bathe the ceiling and surrounding work area in an unearthly green light. Technicians overcome by curiosity pause every so often to sneak peeks at the artificially illuminated seafloor, located 2,154 feet below the floating superstructure. The
Scylla
is positioned directly above a massive, tunnel-like aperture located along the bottom. Somewhere within this mysterious five-thousand-foot pit lies the source of the brilliant, incandescent green light.

Naval Commander Chuck McKana and NASA Director Brian Dodds huddle over the two technicians operating the
Sea Owl
, a six-and-a-half-foot ROV, attached to the
Scylla
’s winch by a seven-thousand-foot tether cable umbilical cord. They stare at the ROVs monitor as the small submersible reaches the fractured seafloor to begin its descent into the glowing vortex.

“Electromagnetic energy’s increasing,” the ROVs virtual pilot reports. “I’m losing maneuverability—”

“Sensors are failing—”

Dodds squints at the bright light glaring from the sub’s minicam monitor. “How deep is the ROV?”

“Less than a hundred feet into the hole—God dammit, there goes the
Sea Owl
’s electrical system.”

The monitor goes blank.

Commander McKana runs his stubby fingers through his graying crew cut. “That’s the third ROV we’ve lost in the last twenty-four hours, Director Dodds.”

“I can count, Commander—”

“I’d say you need to focus on finding an alternative way in.”

“We’re already working on it.” Dodds motions to where a dozen workers are busy rigging lengths of steel pipe to the derrick above. “We’re going to lower the drill string right into the hole. Sensors will be hooked up within the first length of pipe.”

Rig Captain Andy Furman joins them. “We’ve got a situation, gentlemen. The Coast Guard reports two people aboard a trawler just launched a minisub two miles east of the
Scylla
. Sonar shows them heading for the object.”

Dodds looks alarmed. “Spies?”

“More like civilians. The trawler’s registered to an American salvage company licensed out of Sanibel Island.”

McKana appears unconcerned. “Let them look. When they surface, have the Coast Guard arrest them.”

Aboard the
Barnacle

Mick and Dominique press their faces to the viewports’ reinforced LEXAN glass as the minisub approaches the eerie beacon of light, the beam blasting upward from the seafloor like a 168-foot-wide spotlight.

“What the hell could be down there?” Dominique asks. “Mick, you okay?”

Mick’s eyes are closed, his breathing erratic.

“Mick?”

“I can feel the presence. Dom, we shouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t come all this way just to turn back.” A red light flashes above her head. “The sub’s sensors are going crazy. There’s massive amounts of electromagnetic energy rising out of the hole. Maybe that’s what you’re feeling?”

“Don’t pass through that beacon or you’ll short-circuit every system on board.”

“Okay, maybe there’s another way in. I’ll circle the area while you complete a sensor sweep.”

Mick opens his eyes, scanning the stacks of computer consoles lining the cabin. “What do you want me to do?”

She points. “Activate the gradiometer, it’s an electromechanical gravity sensor rigged beneath the
Barnacle
. Rex used it to detect gravity gradients beneath the seafloor.”

Mick boots the system’s monitor, which reveals a tapestry of orange and reds, the brighter colors indicating high levels of electromagnetic energy. The hole itself blazes a brilliant, almost blinding white. Mick pulls back on the gradiometer’s joystick, widening the field to examine the rest of the seafloor’s topography.

The intense glow shrinks to a white dot. Hues of green and blue create a circular border around the reds and orange. “Wait a second—I think I found something.”

Encircling the crater-shaped area are a series of dark spots set in a precise, equidistant circular pattern along the mile-diameter perimeter.

Mick counts the holes. He feels his gut tightening, a cold sweat breaking out across his body. He grabs his father’s journal, leafing through the parched pages until he locates the June 14, 1997, entry.

He stares at the photograph of the nine-foot circular icon, located at the center point of the Nazca plateau. Within its circular boundaries Mick had found the original Piri Re’is map, sealed within an iridium container. He counts twenty-three lines extending outward from the Nazca figure like a sunburst, the last one, seemingly endless.