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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

“All right, Juan. Just so long as you got me away from those”—she paused because the invective she was about to use wasn’t for polite company—“horrible people I wouldn’t have cared if we had to crawl our way over hot coals.”

“They didn’t hurt you?” he asked.

“I was telling Linda that I didn’t give them a reason. I answered everything they asked me. What was the point of holding back information about a five-hundred-year-old ship?”

Juan’s face turned grim. “You probably hadn’t heard, but Argentina annexed the Antarctic Peninsula, and China is backing them. If they can find that shipwreck it will further solidify their territorial rights. This is also a bid for oil, and I’m guessing the reserves are substantial for such a big risk. Once that starts flowing, they can use the revenue to buy up votes in the United Nations. It’ll take some time, but I bet within a couple of years their seizure of the peninsula will be legitimized.”

“I didn’t tell them where the ship sank,” Tamara said. “Because I don’t know. They believed me.”

“There are other ways. I guarantee they’re looking for it as we speak.”

“What are we going to do?”

The question was almost pro forma, asked without really thinking. Just something a person says when faced with an obstacle. But to Juan, it was loaded with meaning. What were they going to do? He’d been wrestling with that since Overholt told him the White House refused to get involved.

This wasn’t their fight. As Max would say, “This dog don’t hunt.”

However, there was his sense of right and wrong. He certainly didn’t feel a responsibility to help out, that was never his motivator. Instead, he was bound by a code of ethics that he would never compromise, and it was telling him the right thing was to get involved—to take the Oregon down into those icy waters and take back what had been stolen.

The rest of his crew was looking at him as expectantly as Tamara Wright. Mark cocked an eyebrow, as if to say “So?”

“I guess we’re going to make sure they don’t find that ship.”

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-TWO

WELCOME TO THE CRYSTAL PALACE, MAJOR. I’M LUIS Laretta, the director.”

Jorge Espinoza stepped off the rear ramp of a big C-130 Hercules cargo plane and grasped the man’s outstretched glove. Laretta was so heavily swaddled, it was impossible to see his features or discern his stature.

Espinoza had made the mistake of not lowering his goggles before moving into the frigid air and he could feel the cold trying to solidify his eyeballs. The pain was like the worst migraine imaginable, and he quickly pushed the goggles into place. Behind him his men stood at attention, all of them kitted out for cold-weather combat.