“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” Adler said with relief. “I thought I was going crazy.”

A thought occurred to Austin. “Joe wondered if the Trouts' work might shed some light on this mystery,” he said.

“Sure, I remember. You mentioned that a couple of your NUMA colleagues are working on another research project in this area.”

Austin nodded. “South of our position. They're with a group of scientists on the NOAA ship Benjamin Franklin, looking into the biological implications of the giant eddies in the Atlantic Ocean.”

“As I said, I wouldn't rule anything out. It's certainly worth looking into.”

“We can talk to them about their findings when we get back to port.”

“Why wait?” Adler said.

Adler's fingers played over the keys and a Web site popped up on the screen, followed by a satellite image showing the mid-Atlantic coast. “The ocean satellite taking this picture can pick up an object as small as a sardine.”

“Amazing,” Austin said, leaning close to the screen.

Adler clicked the computer mouse. “Now we're seeing ocean water temperature. That wavy band of reddish brown is the Gulf Stream. The blue area is cold water, and those circular blobs in tan are warm water eddies. I'll zoom in on our ship.”

He worked the computer mouse so that one of the tan-colored swirls filled the screen. The outlines of two vessels were now visible near the whorl.

“That blip is the Throckmorton. The other one must be your NOAA ship. Wow! This stuff still amazes me.”

Austin leaned over Adler's shoulder. “What's that smaller circle in the southeast quadrant?”

Adler enlarged the image. “It's a separate eddy. Acting real funny. The numbers in the little boxes show water movement speed and level. The level within the swirl seems to be dropping while the water is moving at increasing speed.” Adler's eyes were glued to the screen. The swirl, now almost a perfect circle, continued to grow. “Migod,” he said.

“What's the problem?”

The professor tapped the screen. “We seem to be looking at the birth of a gigantic whirlpool.”

NUMA 6 - Polar Shift

7

GAMAY MORGAN-TROUT carefully lowered the Van Dorn sampler over the port rail of the NOAA survey ship and watched the nine-liter plastic cylinder sink beneath the foam-flecked waves. She played out the thin connecting cable as the sampler plunged hundreds of feet to the ocean bottom.

After the bottle filled with water and automatically sealed, she began to winch it back on board with the help of her husband. Paul Trout hauled the dripping bottle the last few feet from the water, detached the sampler from the cable and held it to the light, as if he were testing the color of a fine glass of wine.

Trout had a twinkle in his hazel eyes. “This is absurd,” he said.

“What's absurd?”

“Consider what we're doing.”