“Lights won’t do much down here,” Greg said. “Too much dark depths, and without any points of reference or solid objects to illuminate, you’ll get nothing but black on black.”

Yegor snorted. “Maybe with American lights. Prusalka has most advanced LED technology on planet with titanium housing for long-term immersion durability.” He turned to Greg. “Tested to full trench-depth at twenty-six thousand feet.” His big brows went up.

“LEDs? I thought they were tiny things used in desk lamps,” Greg said, crowding closer.

“Not these babies.” Jack kept his eyes on the curved window. “New LED technology is far better able to tolerate depths by having an internal oil pressure compensation system.” Jack turned to Greg. “Added to that, a conventional incandescent light bulb emits around fifteen Watts of light, and standard fluorescent lights emit up to a hundred Watts. But, these Russian LEDs can give us up to three hundred Watts plus we have a spot light that can throw out a beam of over five hundred.” He shrugged. “But that generates a little too much heat to run for too long.” Jack turned to Yegor. “Sound about right, big guy?”

Yegor grinned in return. “You do homework. Good.” He nodded. “Like I said; Russian lights best in world.”

“Well, then…” Abby gripped Cate’s shoulder. “…let’s see what we’ve got down here.”

Cate felt Mironov sidle up behind them and lean his long frame forward to see over her shoulder. She turned from Jack to Yegor.

“Let’s do it.”

The big man’s hand reached for a bank of switches on the panel before him, flicking them up one after the other. Immediately a ring of high power LED lights around the outside of the convex glass window burst into life, opening a broad white path before them.

Cate slumped back into the seat. “Oh my god.”

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10

In Valery Mironov’s outer office, Sonya Borashev read the CIA report, and ground her teeth. She dropped it to the desk. Svoloch! She had warned Valery that this might happen. Their CIA contact had intercepted communication chatter between Kodiak Island, near Baranof Island, and the Russian mainland.

She had immediately dispatched a covert team to Kodiak Island, and they had found a body – murdered. There’d been a switch, and one of those Russian crewmen was not who he said he was.

Sonya looked at the bank of clocks on the wall, showing the time zone for every major city on earth. The submersible had dived and gone dark by now – she was too late to do anything about it.