He stared at the pale wake foaming the water and was listening to the motor fading into the night when there was a new sound on the deck behind him.

Footfalls.

Austin pivoted into a crouch, only to relax when he saw why the man had decided to bolt. Zavala had emerged from the control center and was trotting toward him. They both grabbed fire extinguishers from a bulkhead and sprayed the Humongous with foam.

“It sounded like World War Three out here,” Zavala said after they had the blaze under control. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece.”

“Thanks to your timely appearance,” Austin replied. “Wish I could say the same for the Humongous,” he added with a tinge of guilt in his voice.

Zavala gazed in wonder at the smoldering ROV, its components scattered around the deck.

“I can see now why the video died,” Zavala said.

“That’s not the only thing that died,” Austin said.

He went over to the bodies lying on deck. He removed the mask from the man who had tried to kill Marla, revealing a cruel face with Asian features. The second man was Asian as well. Austin surveyed the deck, which was covered with cartridge shells. The smell of cordite hung in the smoke-filled air.

“Now we know why the B3 was attacked,” he said. “Doc Kane . . . We’ve got to talk to him.”

“Good luck!” Zavala said. “Doc made it pretty clear that his work was none of our business.”

Austin’s lips tightened in the smile that, in Zavala’s experience, had always presaged trouble.

“That’s too bad,” Austin said in an even tone. “Because I’m making it our business.”

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 15

SHANGHAI, CHINA

THE LICENSE PLATE ON THE SILVER MERCEDES S65 AMG sedan that emerged from the parking garage under Pyramid Trading Company’s fifty-story building displayed only the number 2, suggesting that the car’s owner enjoyed extreme wealth. Vanity plates were auctioned off for millions of dollars to affluent and superstitious bidders who believed that the low numbers would bring good luck.

To reinforce that good luck, the car’s skin was fashioned from rocketproof armor plate and its tinted-glass windows were bulletproof. The underside was fortified against street bombs. The six-hundred-horsepower V-12 engine under the hood could push the car’s speed up to two hundred miles an hour.

An armed guard wearing denim fatigues sat in the front seat next to the driver. For added security, the Mercedes was sandwiched between two four-hundred-ninety-three-horsepower Mercedes G55 AMG SUVs. Each SUV carried a driver and five guards armed with Chinese-made, lightweight Type 79 submachine guns that had firing capabilities of five hundred rounds per minute.