“What do you want to do with it?” he asked.

“When we get back to the Concord, call Colonel Ming and give him the information. It’s his party from now on. Then fill in Paul and Gamay on what’s happened. Then go pour yourself a stiff shot of tequila, followed by another one, saving some cactus juice for me.”

“Aye, aye, sir. What are you going to do in the meantime?”

Austin rose from his chair and headed for the door.

“Take that long, hot shower I talked about.”

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 49

BONEFISH KEY, FIVE WEEKS LATER

SONG LEE WAS SITTING ON THE SUNLIT PATIO IN FRONT OF the lodge going over some notes when she heard the drone of an outboard motor echoing through the mangroves. Recognizing the sound of Dooley’s boat, she looked up and smiled at his impending arrival.

Dooley had been her main contact with the outside world since she had returned to the island to work on her medical text on ocean biomedicine. Returning to Bonefish Key had required determination. But the lab had been at the forefront of a science whose roots went back to the ancient culture of Nan Madol and the Micronesian islands, and it was the most compelling place for her to write.

Lee could not yet muster the courage to visit the barrier beach. She had no desire to see the cove where she had killed a man or to revisit the burned-out hulk of the cabin cruiser that had nearly been her funeral pyre. She still kayaked but stayed closer to the island. She went to bed early and was up with the sun, tapping at her laptop computer in the lab’s research library for hours on end.

The island was practically deserted. With the project at an end, Dr. Mayhew had returned to academia, and his team had scattered to the four winds. A small cadre stayed behind to tend to the specimen tanks, but the guards who had put in double duty as support staff had left. Dr. Lee enjoyed the camaraderie of a handful of technicians as they prepared their own meals.

Dr. Kane had visited the lab once. He had breezed in with a camera crew to film the lodge and lab buildings before he swept out again as if carried on the wind.

Although the governments of China and the United States were still nervous about telling the whole story of their secretive collaboration in stopping the near pandemic, the Herculean effort to stop the virus was big news around the world. Kane basked in his celebrity, flying from interview to interview, consulting with health experts and politicians around the globe. He was using his status as pandemic guru to pry money from Congress to support the type of ocean biomedicine research that had saved the world.