Andy cleared his throat. “Well, they have senses we don’t. Birds can detect a magnetic field, that’s how they migrate long distances even when there are no landmarks.”

“Is this something you’ve come across before?” Decker asked.

“In my fieldwork, I’ve come across highly magnetized soil deposits…and they can certainly throw off sensitive equipment. If it was more powerful, then it might just be creating some sort of magnetic field disturbance that affects the birds.”

Decker nodded. “Go on.”

“Well–”

“I’m not sure,” Tania cut in. “Look at the ocean shot again.”

All eyes turned to the screen. Tania flicked between surface and underwater shots.

After a few moments, Decker shook his head. “I don’t see anything else.”

“That’s right. I don’t either – where are the sharks and rays? These creatures have a highly developed sense of magnetic determination as well. If some sort of magnetic anomaly is strong enough to get the birds’ attention from the sky, then it should be an irresistible force for cartilaginous creatures below the surface.”

Decker grunted. “Yep.” He inhaled and exhaled slowly through his nose. “So, maybe not magnetic, and here we are, back at square one.”

“Maybe not,” Abrams said. “Captain, take us back to the time line, second to last.”

“Yes sir.” Tania called back up the second-to-last dot image of the country.

“Thank you, excuse me.” He took over, shrinking the image slightly and then calling up a page that had been scanned in. It too was a map of the North America, and red dots had been hand-drawn on it.

“We’ve been fielding a lot of calls from the concerned public, and theories that ranged from alien crop circles, mole-men, and death cults, to, well, you name it and we’ve been sent it. To date, the cover story for all the phenomena – the bird migrations, bad smells, and the sinkholes, is that they are all related to weather pattern changes due to climate change. It’s holding so far, but for how long is anybody’s guess.”

Tania motioned to the screen. “But then this came in. Notice where they positioned their red dots…and then.” He called up the final dot position of the country. Every dot hand-drawn on the map corresponded to an actual sinkhole location.

“As I said, this was sent before they occurred.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “Last week it meant nothing – this week, it is the most compelling lead we’ve seen.” He looked across to the general. “Someone has reached out to us…from Syria.”

“Jesus Christ. Is it a friendly, or are they doing this as a warning?” Decker ran a hand up through his hair.

“They’re a friendly, we think. Doctor Hussein ben Albadi – an academic – he checks out. He says the sinkholes are all part of some ancient prophecy. He also sent this…”

Abrams called up an image of a symbol. He paired it with the ones Tania had taken in the Iowa sinkhole: they were almost identical.