Edith Axler stands on the deserted coastline, staring at the gray horizon and the speedboat approaching quickly in the distance. Her nephew, Harvey, waves, then drives the boat right onto the beach.

“Any problems locating SOSUS?”

“No,” he says, carefully handing her what little remains of a large spool of fiber-optic cable. “The microphone was anchored just where you said it would be. But after all that black tide crap, it was a little spooky diving at night.”

He climbs out of the boat, following his aunt to the back door of the lab. Once inside, Edie powers up the SOSUS system while Harvey connects the fiber-optic cable to the mainframe.

“Will this allow us access to every microphone in the Gulf?” he asks.

“It’s an integrated system. As long as this cable holds, I don’t see why not. We won’t be on-line with the computer at Dan Neck, but we should be able to eavesdrop on that alien object buried off the Yucatan coast.”

Harvey smiles, finishing the connection. “Feels like we’re pirating free cable.”

Gulf of Mexico

6:41 A.M.

The squadron of joint strike fighters continues to circle in formation, their pilots edgy as they await the first rays of dawn. On the surface below, the John C. Stennis and her fleet have moved into position, forming a three-mile-wide perimeter around the glowing patch of sea.

Maneuvering in fifteen hundred feet of water, circling in darkness beneath the fleet is the Los Angeles-class attack sub, Scranton (SSN-756). In silent vigil, Captain Bo Dennis and his crew stand ready—their orders—pulverize anything that rises from the luminescent emerald hole.

Aboard the John C. Stennis, the deck of the aircraft carrier is electric with activity.

Tomahawk surface-to-air missile batteries in the bow and stern target the glowing patch of sea, their deadly payloads aimed skyward, preparing to launch at a moment’s notice. Three more Predator unmanned aerial vehicles launch to join a dozen others, all circling above the target zone.

The six thousand men and women aboard the floating city are a collective bundle of nerves. They have read the news and seen the riots on television. If the Apocalypse is really upon them, then it is they who stand upon its threshold. Confidence, wrought by thousands of hours of intensive training, has deserted them, a by-product of having barely averted a nuclear holocaust. Discipline keeps them at their battle stations, but it is fear and not adrenaline that fuels them now.

Dominique Vazquez is filled with a different kind of fear. For the first time in her life, she has opened her heart to a man, allowing herself to feel vulnerable. Now, as she searches the massive warship, her heart is gripped in physical pain, her mind panicking as she realizes Mick has abandoned her, and that she may never see him again.