While the bows hissed through the water and the decks became soaked by flying spume, the atmosphere was subdued in the Throckmorton's dimly lit remote-sensing control room. Spider Barrett sat with his eyes riveted to the Mercator projection of the world displayed on the screen in front of him. Although the center was air-conditioned, perspiration gleamed on Barrett's tattooed head.

Watching Barrett's fingers fly over the keyboard were Joe Zavala, Al Hibbet and Jerry Adler, the wave expert Joe and Austin first met aboard the Throckmorton. Several of the ship's technicians were gathered in the room as well.

Barrett stopped and rubbed his eyes, as if he were about to admit defeat. Then his hands moved over the keys like those of a concert pianist. Blinking red dots began to appear on the world's oceans. He leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face. “Gentlemen,” he said grandly, “we have liftoff.”

The center echoed with applause.

“Remarkable!” said Dr. Adler. “I can't believe that there are so many breeding grounds for rogue waves.”

Barrett clicked the cursor on a dot. A display of statistics appeared, representing sea, weather and current conditions at that particular location. The most important information that appeared was a threat assessment detailing the potential and probable size of a giant wave.

The exercise brought forth another round of applause.

Zavala took a phone out of his pocket and called the Benjamin Franklin. Gamay was waiting with Paul for his call in a similar control center aboard the NOAA ship. “Tell Paul that the eagle has landed,” Zavala told her. “Details to follow.”

He clicked off and walked to a corner of the room where he had left a rucksack. He opened the rucksack and pulled out a couple of bottles of tequila and a stack of paper cups. He poured a round of tequila, and raised his cup in the air.

“Here's to Lazlo Kovacs,” he said.

“And to Spider Barrett,” Hibbet joined in. “Spider has made a force for destruction into something good. His work will save the lives of hundreds and possibly thousands of mariners.”

Barrett had put his mind to work on the flight back from the South Atlantic Anomaly after he had seen the uncontrollable power that had been unleashed. He was trying to think of a way to use the Kovacs Theorems for beneficial purposes. After the plane touched down in Washington, he vanished for several days, then he showed up unexpectedly at NUMA headquarters and ran his idea by Al Hibbet.