They had met on a Scripps field trip to La Paz, Mexico, and were married after graduation the following year. NUMA’s former director, James Sandecker, had recognized their unique talents and asked them to join the Special Assignments Team under Austin’s leadership. After their last assignment, they had been invited to come back to Scripps and had jumped at the chance. Between their seminars and dives, they had spent their time revisiting familiar haunts and hooking up with old friends.

Trout ignored the grins that greeted his return to the seminar room and ran through the rest of his presentation. Gamay was waiting for him in the cafeteria when he was done. He was relieved to see that she had put her shift back on.

Gamay was a fitness nut and a fanatic about eating nutritious foods, but she had given up trying to fight the high-starch diet found on campus. She dipped a long French fry into a puddle of ketchup and popped it in her mouth.

“It’s a good thing I’m leaving this place,” she complained. “I must have put on twenty pounds since we got here. I’m blowing up like a tick.”

Paul rolled his eyes. Gamay was up at six every day for her five-mile run that burned off any possible trace of culinary excess. Although she was only two inches short of six feet tall, she carried no more than one hundred thirty pounds on her small-hipped frame, most of it muscle from her active lifestyle.

Paul eyed a tall glass that contained a frothy strawberry concoction.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have the frappe,” he said.

Gamay brushed a strand of dark red hair out of her eyes and flashed a dazzling smile that showed the slight gap between her two front teeth.

“Last one . . . promise.”

Her eyes had a dreamy expression as she took a long sip.

“Easy promise to keep, now that you’re leaving town. What do you know about Bonefish Key?”

Gamay dabbed the pink mustache off her upper lip with a napkin.

“Only what I’ve read in scientific journals or come across on the Internet. It’s on the west coast of Florida. They’ve made some discoveries that have led to patents in the field of biomedicine. There’s a great deal of interest in finding something in the wild that could be used to cure disease.”

“I remember the bioprospectors we met a while back in the Amazon rain forest.”

Gamay nodded.

“Same concept, but there’s a growing consensus that the ocean’s potential for pharmaceuticals and medicines dwarfs that of the rain forest. The organisms that grow in the ocean are far more dynamic, biologically speaking, than anything on land.”

Furrowing his brow, Paul said, “If Kurt is interested in the marine center, why not go through Kane?”

“I asked him the same question. He said not to expect help from Kane. That we’re on our own and that—”