They climbed down to the deck and Austin suggested that they move forward on each side of the boat, keeping their weapons at the ready. Austin took the starboard deck and Zavala the port. They advanced cautiously, guns in hand. The only sound was the snap of pennants and flags in the warm breeze. They came out onto the foredeck at the same time.

Zavala's face wore an expression of astonishment. “Nothing, Kurt. It's like the Mary Celeste,” he said, referring to the famous old sailing ship that had been found adrift with no one on board. “Did you find anything?”

Austin gestured for Zavala to follow and led the way back along the starboard deck. He knelt next to a dark streak on the metal deck between the railing and a doorway into the ship. Austin gingerly touched the sticky stain and sniffed the coppery odor on his finger.

“I hope that isn't what I think it is,” Zavala said.

“If you said blood, you'd be right. Someone dragged a body, maybe more than one from the looks of it, across the deck and threw the corpse overboard. There's more blood on the rail.”

With a heavy heart, Austin took the lead and stepped through the door out of the hot sun into the cool interior of the ship. Moving methodically, he and Zavala checked out the mess hall, library and the main lab, then climbed to the upper lab and the bridge. The farther into the ship they got, the more apparent it became that the Sea Hunter had been transformed into a charnel house. Everywhere they looked they saw spatters or puddles of blood. Austin's jaw grew rock hard. He had known many of the crew and scientists on board.

By the time they got to the wheelhouse, their nerves were as taut as piano strings. The floor was littered with charts and paper and broken glass from the windows. Austin picked up the radio microphone that had been ripped from its connection. The mike would have been of little use, since the communications console was riddled with bullet holes.

“Now we know why they didn't answer their calls,” he said.

Zavala murmured softly in Spanish. “It looks like the Manson gang was here.”

“We'd better check the ship's quarters,” Austin said. They made their way down two levels in the tomblike silence and worked their way through the accommodations for the crew, officers and the scientists, finding more evidence of violence but no one alive, finally stopping outside a door marked STORES.

Austin pushed the door open, slipped his hand around the jamb and flicked on the lights. Cardboard cartons stacked several levels high were arranged in a rectangle on wooden palettes with a narrow aisle running around the outside. In one corner of the room was a service elevator used to haul supplies up to the galley.