The sound of approaching jet engines broke the early-morning stillness. Austin got up and went to the door. A NUMA jet was taxiing up to the hangar. The engines went silent, and three figures emerged and walked across the tarmac toward the Citation. Austin recognized Paul Trout’s tall, lanky form and Gamay’s red hair. The Asian woman walking by the Trouts’ side was a stranger to him.

Austin greeted the Trouts, and warned Paul to duck his head entering the cabin. He welcomed the Asian woman with a friendly smile.

“You must be Dr. Song Lee,” Austin said, offering his hand. “I’m Kurt Austin. This is Joe Zavala. We’re NUMA colleagues of the Trouts. Thank you for coming to Washington.”

“And thank you for sending Paul and Gamay to Bonefish Key, Mr. Austin,” Lee said. “I’d be dead if they hadn’t arrived when they did.”

Kurt’s eyes drank in Song’s flowerlike beauty.

“That would have been a shame, Dr. Lee,” he said. “Please have a seat. We don’t have much time. You must have many questions.”

Song Lee settled into the sofa and looked around in wonderment. With their imposing physical prowess, quiet competence, and easy banter in the face of danger, the Trouts had seemed larger than life. But this pale-haired man, with his broad shoulders and sculpted bronze profile, was even more intriguing. Austin’s courtly manner could not disguise the fearlessness and daring that she detected in his remarkable coral-blue eyes. And his dark-complexioned friend Zavala had the swashbuckling air of a pirate prince.

“The Trouts told me about the attack on the bathysphere,” Lee said. “Do you know where Dr. Kane is?”

“Safe in protective custody. I spoke to Kane last night, and he filled me in on the work at Bonefish Key and the undersea lab they called Davy Jones’s Locker.”

Lee’s jaw dropped.

“I was aware of the secret facility, of course,” she said, “but I had no idea it was under the sea!”

“The Pacific Ocean, to be exact. It was in Micronesian waters, three hundred feet below the surface.”

Lee had a dazed expression on her delicate features.

“I would expect Dr. Kane to be unconventional,” she said, “but I never dreamed it was anything like that.”

Austin went on.

“The lab’s work and location were tightly held secrets, but somehow it was hijacked along with the staff. Joe and I think that the lab’s disappearance, the bathysphere attack, and the attempt to kidnap you are all connected. Dr. Kane told me about the medusa project. What was the exact nature of your work at the Florida lab?”

“I’m a virologist trained in epidemiology,” Lee said. “I stayed on Bonefish Key to concentrate on the probable path an epidemic would take and how best to position our resources and the vaccine-production facilities.”

“That would make you an integral part of the project.”