He received replies from twelve of the twenty-two E-mails he had sent out. No one had reported any explosions in the region. He also learned that there had been at least one vessel in the region at the time of the explosion. It was named the Hosannah and was apparently owned by a gentleman named Arvids March. There was a reference to a court case that Herbert could not access. The vessel sailed under a Tasmanian flag and listed six ports of registry. Herbert searched the Tasmanian phone directory on-line. He could not find an entry for Arvids March. That did not surprise him. Ships from one country were often registered in another for tax reasons. Mr. March could be from anywhere. Or it could be a fake name for a fake enterprise. Herbert did a full Internet search for him and came up empty. He searched under A. March and found over ten thousand references, from “I love a March” to a hip-hop group Ides a March. He sent an E-mail to Op-Center asking them to see what they could find out about the man. A quick check turned up nothing. Obviously not a publicity-seeker or public figure.

Then Herbert took a break. A think break. He had spent hours on this search and had very little to show for it. That was frustrating. Worse, it was dangerous. Herbert knew too well what could happen when people went into a situation with zero intelligence. That was how the embassy in Beirut was hit.

Herbert went back to his computer. The rogue boat was out there.

He wanted to find it.

TWENTY - Cairns, Australia Friday, 7:58 P.M.

TWENTY

Cairns, Australia Friday, 7:58 P.M.

It was the largest privately owned collection of prehistoric fossils in the world.

Jervis Darling had developed a love and deep appreciation for prehistoric animals forty years before. When in his early twenties he read an article on the Australian Museum in one of his first magazines, Australian Insider, he had not realized what a successful reign the dinosaurs had on earth. Each new generation evolved into a more refined version of the last. The carnivores became perfect pack hunters as well as individual predators. The herbivores bonded in family units with complex forms of child care. They had survived over 100 million years. That was 100 times longer than humankind and its ancestors had walked the earth. It was probably 100 times longer than humans would continue to walk the earth.

Unless he had his way.