“I'll run them by you in due time, but I'd prefer to wait until we find the Southern Belle.”

“No hurry. Tell us about the Belle's disappearance. As I recall, she was sailing off the mid-Atlantic coast. She sent out an SOS, saying she was in trouble, then she vanished without a trace.”

“That's right. An intensive search was launched within hours. The sea seemed to have swallowed her up. It's been tough on the crew's families not knowing what happened to their loved ones. From a practical point of view, the owners would like to get their legal house in order.”

“Ships have disappeared without a clue going back hundreds of years,” Austin said. “It still happens, even with instantaneous and worldwide communication.”

“But the Belle wasn't simply any ship. It was about as close to an unsinkable vessel as possible.”

Austin grinned. “That sounds vaguely familiar.”

Adler raised his finger. “I know. The same thing was said about the Titanic. But the science of shipbuilding has made huge leaps since the Titanic went down. The Belle was an entirely new type of oceangoing cargo vessel. It was built strong enough to withstand the most severe weather. You said that this isn't the first time a well-made vessel vanished. Absolutely right. A cargo ship named the Munchen disappeared in a storm while crossing the Atlantic in 1978. Like the Belle, it radioed an SOS, saying it was in trouble. No one could understand what could have happened to such a modern ship. Twenty-seven crewmen were lost.”

“Tragic. Was any trace of the ship ever found?” Austin asked.

“Rescue attempts started immediately after the SOS. More than a hundred ships combed the ocean. They found some wreckage, and an empty lifeboat that provided a valuable clue. The boat would have hung by pins on the starboard side more than sixty feet above the waterline. The steel pins attached to the boat were found to be bent from forward to aft.”

Zavala's mechanical mind immediately saw the significance of the damage to the ship. “Easy call,” he said. “A violent force at least sixty feet tall knocked the lifeboat off its pins.”

“The Maritime Court said the ship sank when bad weather caused an 'unusual event.' ”

Austin chuckled. “Sounds as if the Maritime Court was dancing around the real conclusion.”

“The mariners who heard the court's findings would agree with you. They were outraged. They knew exactly what sunk the Munchen. Sailors had been talking for years about their encounters with waves eighty or ninety feet tall, but the scientists didn't believe their stories.”

“I've heard the stories about monster waves, but I've never experienced one firsthand.”

“Be thankful, because we wouldn't be having this conversation if you had run into one of these creatures.”

“In a way, I don't blame the Maritime Court for being cautious,” Austin said. “Sailors do have a reputation for stretching the truth.”