“The Aral Sea?” Juan asked. “What about it?”

“Eerie boat.”

“I don’t understand.” Juan could see—all of them could see—that Borodin had seconds left.

“What about the Aral Sea and an eerie boat?”

“Find Karl Petrov—Pe-trov—” The syllables came further and further apart. Juan bent down so his ear was barely an inch from his friend’s bloody mouth. “Petrovski.”

The effort to get the name out was the last gasp of a dying man. His skin, if possible, looked even paler, more translucent, like the waxy rind of one of Madame Tussauds dummies.

“Yuri?” Juan called with a desperation he knew would go unanswered. “Yuri?”

Borodin’s Adam’s apple gave one final thrust, one more attempt to speak. With his lung so full of blood, there was hardly enough air to form his dying word. It whispered past his unmoving lips already laced with the icy touch of death. “Tesla.”

Julia pushed Juan out of the way, rolled Borodin onto his back, and leapt atop the gurney so she was astride her patient like a jockey on a horse. She was a curvy though petite woman, but when she started chest compressions she did it with strength and vigor. The orderlies took up positions to guide the rolling stretcher to the Level 1 trauma center within the labyrinthine corridors of the Oregon’s secret passages.

Cabrillo watched them disappear through a watertight door, blew out a long breath, and then moved to an intercom box mounted on a wall. He barely noticed the crewmen securing the boat garage from battle stations.

“Op center,” came the voice of Max Hanley. Not knowing the situation, Max wisely kept his usual repertoire of bad humor and sarcastic remarks to himself.

“Max, get us out of here,” Juan said, as if leaving the scene of the act could somehow bury the fact. “This mission was a bust.”

“Aye, Chairman,” Max replied gently. “Aye.”

Chapter Four

He sat slouched against the corner of his desk for the next fifteen minutes, his cabin lights dim, his eyes pointed at the floor but seeing nothing. The space had been his home for years. Its current inspiration was the set of Rick’s Café from the movie Casablanca and had been pulled off with some of Kevin Nixon’s Hollywood set-designing friends. Usually it was a place of solace for Cabrillo. Until the phone rang, it was merely a void.

The replica Bakelite phone trilled, and he snatched up the handset before the first ring ended. He said nothing.

“I’m sorry, Juan.” It was Julia Huxley. “I just called it. He’s gone.”

“Thanks, Hux,” Cabrillo said in a monotone. “I know you did all you could.”

He settled the heavy handset back onto its cradle.