“I don’t know a whole lot of people in the world who truly impress Dirk Pitt,” the white-haired man from NUMA said. “So when I had the chance to meet one of them I took it. Chairman Cabrillo, I presume?”

“Juan Cabrillo.” They shook hands.

“I’m Kurt Austin and this rogue here is Joe Zavala. By the way, thanks for getting us away from cleanup duty in Angola where NUMA’s leading a hand.”

“Pleasure to meet you. How’s it coming?”

“Better than expected. Our ship happened to be nearby on a survey mission. Joe was able to modify a suction dredge used to take samples into an effective oil vacuum. We can pump the crude directly to storage tanks onshore. With Petromax deploying everything they have from other facilities in Nigeria, the spill should be totally cleared up in less than two weeks.”

“That’s great to hear,” Juan said, then added with a touch of self-recrimination. “Had we been a couple hours earlier there wouldn’t have been a need for such a cleanup effort.”

“And a couple hours later would have doubled it.”

“True.” Cabrillo turned to his companions. “This is the president of the Corporation, Max Hanley. Mafana here represents Moses Ndebele, and this is Sloane Macintyre, the reason we’re all standing eight miles from the ocean but looking at a steamship.”

“Quite a sight, huh?”

“Not that I’m complaining, but how did you find it so fast?”

Before answering, Joe Zavala produced bottles of Tusker lager from the box. The glass was icy cold and blistered with condensation. He popped the tops and handed them around. “It’s about the best way I’ve discovered to beat back the dust.”

They saluted each other and took long gulps.

“Ah!” Zavala breathed. “That’s the stuff.”

“To answer your question,” Austin said, wiping his mouth, “we turned the problem over to our resident computer genius, Hiram Yeager. He pulled together every scrap of information about the storm that hit the night the Rove disappeared, gleaning it from old ships’ logs, memoirs of people living in Swakopmund, missionaries’ journals, and a report filed with the British Admiralty concerning navigational changes to the coast of South West Africa after it was over.

“He fed everything he could into his computer and then added meteorological data about this area for the century since the storm. About a day later Max spit out the answer.”

“Max?” Hanley asked.

“It’s what he calls his computer. It created a map of the coastline as it is today with a line running parallel to it, ranging from a mile to more than ten miles inland. Had the Rove been close to shore, like to pick up passengers who’d made off with a fortune in diamonds, she would be buried somewhere along that line.”

“The distance variances are caused by different geological conditions and wind patterns,” Zavala added.