The humming increased in loudness. Karla acknowledged the congratulations that followed, then stretched out on some empty seats and promptly fell asleep. Austin removed the screwdriver from Karla's fingers and tucked it on the seat beside her.

“Thanks,” Barrett said. “Now, if you'll excuse me.” Following Karla's example, he yawned and crawled onto the next row of sets where he, too, stretched out and immediately fell asleep.

Austin made a note of the longitude and latitude at the position on his computer, then went up to the cockpit to give the plane's navigator the coordinates. He asked how long before they would be on-site and was told it would be approximately two hours. Austin looked out the cockpit window at the layer of cottony clouds that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

The crew was made up entirely of volunteers who were fully aware that they were flying on a dangerous mission. While the navigator laid out a flight plan, Austin and Zavala returned to the passenger cabin.

“From what you said in the cockpit, we'll arrive on target about the same time as the ship,” Zavala said.

“It's an even tighter squeeze. We'll be in the same neighborhood. When we get there, we'll have to launch a search pattern. I don't know how long it will take to find the transmitter ship.”

“Any delay could be fatal. That low cloud cover won't help.”

“I've been thinking about that. The Trouts reported that they saw a lot of electrical activity in the sky minutes before their boat was sucked into the whirlpool.”

“That's right. And Al said there were celestial fireworks when the U.S. and the Soviets were fooling around with electromagnetic warfare based on the Kovacs Theorems.”

“Then there's every reason to think that we'll see the same phenomenon when Margrave and Gant gear up their zapper. I think we should be looking at the sky rather than the sea. The clouds might actually help us find the ship.”

“Brilliant! I'll alert the crew to look for fireworks.”

Austin reluctantly awakened Karla and Barrett. He gave them a few minutes to rub the sleep out of their eyes. As the plane sped toward the South Atlantic Anomaly, he brought them up to date on the situation. They agreed to split up when the time came, with Karla on one side of the plane, Barrett on the other. Austin would alternate back and forth and serve as liaison with Zavala, who would keep watch from the cockpit.