Frozen Fire (10 page)

Sealed inside the bulky, jointed “robot suit,” he’d been strapped onto a small platform affixed to the outside of a deep-diving submersible as if he were a piece of machinery rather than a live man dependent on rebreathers and meticulously sealed joints for his survival. The submersible had been lowered from the research boat into the warm, sparkling waters off the Florida coast and released. Unencumbered by any tethers to surface ships, the small, rotund craft had descended steadily through the graduated light and then indescribable darkness to the seafloor eleven hundred feet below the surface.

Once the craft had settled gently onto the silty seafloor, Dennis had been released from his bonds and had taken one step, then another into a world in which he was the alien and the locals were unafraid.

Given the relative distances involved, it was inconceivable to him that more people had “walked” in outer space than on the bottom of the sea at such depths. Dennis’s experience had changed his life by awakening him to the realization that the sea wasn’t the barren, underwater desert so many assumed it was. It was brimming with life and an energy he couldn’t describe.

He’d spent two hours walking in the shifting circle of brilliant light cast by the submersible’s headlamp. When he’d arrived back at the surface, Dennis hadn’t known how to parlay what he’d just been through into something useful. What he did know was that his time on the seafloor had changed his life’s purpose irrevocably.

It was no longer about accumulating money.

It was no longer about facing a challenge.

It was about mastery. Conquering what others declared unconquerable and changing the way the world worked.

Dennis started reading everything he could find on deepwater research. He attended conferences where he was the only one without a string of letters and honorifics after his name. He funded off-the-wall research that earned him public ridicule instead of private riches. He didn’t care. He had enough of the latter.

And then a request from a small business looking for an angel investor landed on his desk. The firm was investigating the feasibility of excavating methane hydrate—something he’d never heard of until then—from the seafloor for use as a new, clean fuel.

Dennis hadn’t granted them the money. He’d bought the firm outright, knowing instinctively that this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for.

For decades, the big oil companies had raped and plundered the earth and held much of her population in thrall, all the while enjoying profits that became more obscene with each passing year. They weren’t alone. Much of heavy industry nurtured Big Oil like a doting aunt, and the financial markets were eager toadies. And now Dennis had the opportunity to destroy oil’s stranglehold. The very thought of it induced a feeling in him that was more heady than the finest wine, the best weed, or sex with a porn star.

It was power. Pure, uncomplicated, and it intoxicated him.

He slowed the submersible’s speed as it neared the surface and glanced at Victoria. “You can open your eyes now. We’re approaching splashup.”

Her eyes snapped open, then blinked rapidly when brilliant sunlight streamed into the cabin as the sub crested the surface. “Thank God.”

Dennis maneuvered the craft to the submerged platform and landed it.
He signaled to the wet suit–clad technicians that they could tie it down.

As soon as the vehicle was secured, the docking platform rose to the level of the walkway, and Dennis began the sequence that would release the air pressure and allow the hatch to open.

“All right, come to papa,” he said with a grin as he helped a pale and wobbly-kneed Victoria step onto the dock.

She said nothing, just held on to him for a moment.

“Got your mojo back?” Dennis asked softly. When Victoria nodded, with the faint beginnings of a smile, he released her and they began to walk to the nearby building that housed his office.

At the sound of someone shouting, Dennis’s head snapped up. Victoria’s assistant was coming toward them at a dead run. When she reached them, she had only to gasp four words—“The plane’s gone down”—for both Dennis and Vic to break into a hard sprint headed straight for the offices.

10:38
A.M.
, Saturday, October 25, Taino

Micki Crenshaw, undersecretary for national security and Victoria’s second in command, sat stone-faced in front of a bank of television monitors in Dennis’s office. A small telephone headset hung, forgotten, from her left ear. In accordance with the disaster response policies she and Victoria had established, Micki had already shut down all communications systems linking Taino to the outside world, with the exception of the one to their embassy in Washington, D.C.

Right now what mattered was responding to the situation at hand, without the world getting in the way.

Four of the monitors Micki faced were dark; the other two were live. One showed slowed-down satellite footage of a jet flying unremarkably through a blue, cloudless sky until, in the space of a frame, the plane exploded into a blur of smoke that billowed thickly in all directions. Within a few frames, the fuselage separated into two flaming pieces and began to freefall, one segment trailing pale smoke and one trailing black. Seconds later, each piece shattered again. Innumerable smaller objects—seats, luggage, bodies, the distance was so great they were impossible to identify—fell more slowly through the sky, some on fire or smoking, but most without any telltale trails.

In what seemed no time at all, the fiery rain of debris began to pock-mark the calm blue-green ocean, sending up graceful, arcing eruptions of white froth. Too soon, it seemed, Nature returned to equilibrium. Some
evidence that the aircraft had existed floated gently on the surface of the sea; most sank without a trace. Other than the places where the spilled jet fuel was burning, the easy morning swells swallowed the crash, leaving the scene of the impact almost unremarkable in its ordinariness.

The other monitor showed the head-on view, also slowed down, from the small control tower near the landing strip on Taino. Visual contact had been established only minutes before the accident. Captions along the bottom of the screen indicated the tower and the copilot had been acknowledging the plane’s final descent when the copilot’s words were cut off in mid-sentence, replaced seconds later by the pilot’s Mayday call. Then the plane exploded, breaking up in full view of the tower and anyone who might be on the beach or a nearby boat.

The full-frontal footage was spectacular, awe-inspiring, and it made Micki’s pulse throb with a dreadful excitement. At the same time, watching the loss of life made her stomach clutch and begin to rise into her throat. She’d anticipated that effect, however, and it faded quickly as a feeling simultaneously more primitive and more sophisticated took its place.

Triumph.

We did it. Our time has arrived
.

The time for vengeance had arrived, and the Earth
would be
avenged for all the heinous crimes committed upon Her in the name of progress, in the name of convenience. Garner would see to it. He always had. He always would, until he was returned to Her loving embrace to become one with Her again.

Micki closed her eyes and swallowed hard against the urge to laugh out loud at the joy of it. She knew the slightest hint of a smile now would be enough to tip off Victoria to the truth later, after Victoria had taken the time to re-create the event and retrace every movement the flight and ground crews had made. No, Micki knew that right now she had to be as shocked and horrified as the rest of the—

Her gaze shifted to the doorway and she felt the wind knocked out of her as both Victoria and Dennis burst through the door.

Dennis.

Small black pinpricks sparkled at the edges of her vision. Micki knew that in seconds she would faint.

The heady triumph drained out of her as she realized they had failed. Wendy had failed.

Dennis was alive.

I have to get a grip on myself
.

Focusing on an unmoving point on the far wall, she took several slow, deep breaths and let her vision clear before she met their eyes.

The expression Dennis wore was a mixture of cold fear and hot fury, and he was panting from either exertion or shock, maybe both. Victoria, as usual, looked unruffled, but her face was pale and her disturbingly blue eyes seemed too big for her small face.

Hiding her anger fed into a renewed strength of purpose. Micki rose slowly and dropped the remote control for the monitors onto the pristine surface of Dennis’s desk.

The games are about to begin
.

Victoria was two steps behind Dennis when he burst into the office. She was trying to formulate strategies though she had nothing but a single fact to go on: The plane was gone.

“Micki, what happened?” Dennis bellowed.

Micki seemed almost stunned for a moment as they entered the room, but quickly composed herself. Looking as calm as could be hoped for under the circumstances, she reached up to fiddle with and remove her earpiece. She gave Dennis and Victoria a level, detached stare as she came around the desk to meet them.

“Ten minutes ago we lost the
Gaia
, her crew, and all passengers on board, Dennis. It went down four miles inside our territorial boundary. That’s all I know,” Micki replied, her normally soft and musical Alabama drawl constrained with tension. “I initiated the Code Black response and immediately shut down all communication links between the island and the outside world, with the exception of the secure satellite link to the embassy. I’ve ordered a team to be sequestered to review the last twenty-four hours of all comms traffic, incoming and outgoing. I’ve scrambled a search-and-recovery team and ordered the
Sylvia Earle
and the
Wangari Maathai
to sail for the crash site,” she said, referring to two of the research vessels attached to the Climate Research Institute. “The
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
was already in the area and should reach the crash site at about the same time as the search team. They might be there already.”

Victoria was leaning against the wall, waiting for the adrenaline rush to subside, during Micki’s calm recitation of her actions. Micki had done exactly what she should have done, by the book. Victoria shouldn’t be surprised, really, considering that they’d run countless tabletop drills for all
possible emergencies. That Micki had handled everything so coolly and efficiently showed an extraordinary presence of mind under what were shocking circumstances. Her response was stellar.

Then why do I have chills running down my back?

Victoria kept her eyes trained on Micki, as if she couldn’t tear them away. But there was nothing out of the ordinary about Micki. Drawn but calm, she was standing stock-still in front of Dennis’s desk, watching him as he paced like a caged animal.

“Do we know what happened?” Dennis barked.

“All we know so far is what we can see,” Micki replied quietly, tilting her pretty blond head toward the flat screens mounted on the wall opposite Dennis’s desk.

He spun to face them as Micki aimed the remote control at the screens and let the short loops of footage begin.

The images were horrific and mesmerizing.

“What’s going on out there now? Can you pull up a live feed?” Victoria asked quietly.

With a nod, Micki pointed the remote at the next screen and clicked it, then pulled Dennis’s keyboard toward her and rapidly typed in a sequence.

One of the research boats was on the scene, surrounded by five or so wetsuited security teams on Jet Skis and a few more in inflatables. Bobbing easily on the calm sea, surrounded by debris and dark slicks of spilled fuel, some still burning, they appeared to be waiting for something. Or perhaps just absorbing the chaos.

“Jesus Christ Almighty.” Dennis took a short, hard breath. “Get the chopper. I’m going out there.”

He began moving toward the door. As he passed her, Victoria reached out and grabbed his upper arms in a grip that threatened to cut off his circulation. “Wait a minute.”

“Knock it off. I’m—”

“Dennis, wait,” she repeated, her mind racing in too many directions too fast. She looked up at him and knew he was fighting the same smothering confusion. “Nothing is making sense to anyone right now. Just wait for a few minutes. ’Til the fog in our brains clears away a little.”

“What the fuck does that mean, Vic?” he snapped. “I need to be out there.”

“You might think you need to be out there, but no one else will appreciate it, Dennis. It’s your need you’re thinking of, not theirs,” she pointed out,
meeting his glare as calmly as she could. “No one out there needs
you
. Not right now, anyway. You’ll only get in their way. It’s too chaotic. Even they are still figuring out what to do. There’s fire, a fuel spill, a huge debris field—let them assess the situation. It’s what they’re trained to do. They’ll let us know what they need. And I guarantee the last thing they need is a he li cop ter out there churning up the crash site.”

He was breathing as if he’d just finished a sprint. “I’m going out there, Vic.”

She clenched her teeth and put as much fire into her eyes as she had in her. “No, you’re
not
. You’re staying here, Dennis. I swear to God, if I have to pin you down and tie you up,
you are staying here with me
.”

“The fuck I am.”

Dennis’s face, contorted with tension and suffused with anger, let her know his heart rate was approaching the red zone.

“You can’t. I won’t let you, Dennis. You’re the pres—”

He tried again to shrug her off but pulling away didn’t dislodge her hands. Hers was a death grip.

“God damn it. Back off, Vic. It was my plane, my people. I’m—”

“Stand down, Dennis,” she snapped and gave him a hard shake. “For God’s sake,
you were supposed to be on that plane
. Think about that. Whoever planned this didn’t know you weren’t on board. No one knew except you and me and the pilot who brought you here before dawn.” She paused to take a shaky breath and continued in a slightly calmer voice. “Dennis, we don’t know what brought the
Gaia
down and we have no idea what’s waiting for us out there. There could be other—”