“The difference is, we were prepared to go public once we had a vaccine,” Coombs said.

There was a quick knock at the door, and Jones stepped into the room. He was still wearing sunglasses. Kane felt as if he were being placed under house arrest. He said good-bye, then followed Jones out into the hall.

After Kane was gone, Coombs turned to the others.

“I’m going to recommend to the President that he prepare the country for a state of emergency,” he said. “We’ll contact the CDC and tell them this is the big one.”

“I’ll inform Vice President Sandecker directly,” Casey said. “He maintains contacts at NUMA and will enlist them in the search for the lab.”

“Good idea,” Coombs said. “Maybe their guy Austin can give the Navy some help doing its job.”

This parting comment was intended as another dig at the Navy, but Casey didn’t come back at Coombs as he had at the earlier jibes from the White House aide. He merely smiled.

“Maybe he can,” he said.

KANE TRIED TO GET a rise out of the man in black.

“Guess we’re going to the mattresses,” he said as they walked to the elevator.

“Huh?” Jones said.

“From The Godfather . . . Mafia talk.”

“We’re not the Mafia, sir.”

No, you’re not, Kane thought as he followed Jones from the room, but you might as well be. He couldn’t resist using another borrowed line from the movie.

“Don’t forget the cannoli,” he said.

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 14

A FEW MINUTES AFTER ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AN inflatable pontoon boat softly bumped against the hull of the William Beebe and four figures dressed in black-and-green camouflage suits clambered up the side of the ship on rope ladders suspended from padded grapnel hooks. They vaulted over the rail one by one and dashed across the deck as silently as the shadows they resembled.

Except for the night-shift watch on the bridge, the crew was sound asleep in their cabins, recovering from the exertions of the bathysphere launch and rescue. Austin was awake, however, and after staring at the ceiling, his mind churning, he got up and got dressed and made his way to the machine shop.

He switched on the lights, and went over to examine the blade clamped in a table vise. He found a magnifying glass, placed a desk lamp directly over the blade, and examined the tiny ding near the hilt. Through the lens he saw that the flaw was actually a mark in the shape of an equilateral triangle with a dot at each point.