The incessant ringing rouses Edmund Loos from his sleep. He fumbles for the receiver, then clears his throat. “Captain here. Speak.”

“Sorry to wake you, sir. We’ve detected activity along the seafloor.”

“On my way.”

The sea has begun churning by the time the captain enters the Combat Information Center. “Report, Commander.”

The executive officer points to a light table where a real-time, cube-shaped holographic three-dimensional image of the sea and seafloor is being projected in midair. Positioned along the bottom of the ghostlike image, buried within the slate-shaded limestone topography is the ovoid alien object, color-coded luminescent orange. An emerald green circle of energy blazes atop the ovoid’s dorsal surface, causing a shaft of light to rise up through a vertical burrow leading to the seafloor. The image of the Boone can be seen floating along the surface.

As the captain and his executive officer watch in amazement, the green beacon appears to widen as an eddy forms. Within seconds, the swirling torrent of water tightens into a powerful underwater funnel, stretching from the hole along the seafloor clear up to the surface. “Christ, it’s like watching a tornado form,” Loos whispers. “It’s just as Gabriel said.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Nothing. Commander, keep us clear of the maelstrom. Have communications patch me through to NORAD, then launch our LAMPS. If anything emerges from that whirlpool, I want to know about it.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lieutenant First-Class Johnathan Evans dashes across the aft deck, helmet in hand, his copilot and crew already on board the LAMPS antisub helicopter. Huffing and puffing, he climbs into the Seasprite’s cockpit, then fastens himself in.

Evans glances over at his copilot as he struggles to catch his breath. “Damn cigarettes are killing me.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Bless you, my son.” Evans takes the Styrofoam cup. “Three minutes ago I’m lying in my bunk, dreaming of Michelle, the next thing I know, the XO’s yelling at me, asking me why I’m not airborne yet.”

“Welcome to the Navy adventure.”

Evans pulls back on the joystick. The chopper lifts away from the helopad, turning south as it climbs to three hundred feet. The pilot hovers the LAMPS directly over the swirling emerald sea.

“Hoi-lee shit—” Evans and his crew stare at the growing maelstrom, mesmerized by its beauty, frightened by its intensity. The vortex is a monster, a spiraling eddy straight out of Homer’s Odyssey, its walls oscillating with the force of Niagara Falls. Looking down upon the otherwise dark waters, the whirlpool’s glowing emerald eye resembles a luminescent green galaxy, its cluster of stars brightening as the mouth of the funnel opens wider.

“Good God. Wish I had my camera.”

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant, we’re snapping plenty of pictures back here.”

“Who cares about infrared. I want a real photo, something I can e-mail back home.”