THE WESTERLY WINDS WHIPPED ACROSS VICTORIA Strait, kicking up whitecaps that washed over the sporadic chunks of floating ice. Forging through the dark waters, the bright turquoise NUMA ship appeared like a beacon in a colorless world. With the Royal Geographical Society Islands visible off its bow, the ship steamed slowly south into the first of Pitt’s search grids.

“Looks to be a vessel rounding the northwest coast,” the helmsman reported, eyeing the radarscope.

Captain Stenseth picked up a pair of binoculars and viewed a tandem pair of dots on the horizon.

“Probably an Asian freighter making an escorted attempt through the passage,” he said. He turned to Pitt, who was seated at the chart table studying a blue-print of the Franklin ships. “We’ll be approaching the finish line shortly. Any idea when your torpedo will pop up?”

Pitt glanced at his orange-f aced Doxa dive watch. “She ought to surface within the next half hour.”

It proved to be twenty minutes later when one of the crewmen spotted the yellow AUV bobbing to the surface. Stenseth maneuvered the ship alongside, and the AUV was quickly hoisted aboard. Giordino removed its one-terabyte hard drive and hustled the data to a small viewing room, where a computer and projection system awaited.

“You headed to the movies?” Stenseth asked as Pitt stood up and stretched.

“Yes, the first of two rather long double features. You have a fix on the transponders?”

Stenseth nodded. “We’ll go grab them next. They’ve actually been pushed quite far along, due to the strong southerly current here. We will have to make a bit of a dash for them before they pile up on the island rocks.”

“I’ll tell Dahlgren to be standing by,” Pitt replied. “Then we can go grab fish number 2.”

Pitt made his way down to the darkened viewing room, where Giordino already had the sonar’s collected data displayed on the screen. A gold-colored image of the seafloor was scrolling by, revealing a largely fla t but rocky bottom.

“A nice crisp image,” Pitt said, taking a seat next to Giordino.

“We boosted the frequency for a higher resolution,” Giordino explained. He handed Pitt a bowl of microwave popcorn. “But it still ain’t Casablanca, I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay. As long as we find something worth playing again, Sam.”

The two men sat back and stared at the screen as an endless swath of sea bottom began scrolling by.

Chapter 61

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