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Chapters (32)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE

While he wanted to run, his body simply wasn’t up to it. He had to settle for a loping trot that still made his knees scream in protest. It had taken him less than seven minutes to reach the coastline, but it took more than fifteen for the return journey.

Max expected to see Juan, but there was no sigh of the Chairman. To his dismay, the winch hadn’t reeled up the cable. He looked at the control box and realized he had hit the down button by mistake. A glance at the front bumper revealed that the cable drum had completely paid out the line.

He lowered himself onto the SUV’s rear seat and settled the headphones over his mouth. He frowned when he saw the feed from Juan’s camera showed nothing but electronic snow.

“Juan, do you copy, over?” Max should have been able to hear the Chairman breathing inside his dive helmet, but all he heard was silence, a silence with a sense of finality behind it. “Hanley to Cabrillo, do you copy, over?”

He tried three more times, his concern deepening with each unanswered hail.

He decided not to reel in the cable but instead jumped out of the Ford and hauled up the seperate fiber-optic line hand over hand. After just a few seconds, he knew it was no longer attached to anything. Thin filament tangled at his feet as he frantically yanked it from the earth.

When the end appeared at last, he held it up to examine the break. It didn’t look like it had been sheared cleanly. The plastic coating around the delicate cable was shredded, like it had been abraded between two rough surfaces. He’d seen the video himself. There was nothing in the Treasure Pit that could have caused such damage. This was when he engaged the winch and stood fretfully as the cable slowly rose from the depths. Like the fiber-optics, the braided steel appeared severed.

Max bellowed down into the dank shaft until his throat went hoarse, but all that returned was the echo of a very worried man.

FOURTEEN

FOURTEEN

AGAINST A BACKDROP OF TOWERING ICEBERGS THAT HAD been carved into fantastic shapes by wind and wave, and a sky stained red from horizon to horizon, the Oregon still managed to look like a garbage scow. Even this pristine Antarctic environment couldn’t add to the derelict tramp freighter’s tired façade. Even a beautiful frame can’t help an ugly painting.