Gamay answered his call. She and Paul had returned from Canada a few hours before, and dropped their luggage off at their town house. Then they had gone to NUMA headquarters to meet with Zavala, who was going to update them.

“Did you get inside the Oceanus operation?” Austin asked. “No,” Gamay said, “but we bumped into a few of their people.” Gamay was being a little too casual. “I know from personal expe- rience that when you bump into Oceanus, it bumps back. Are you and Paul all right?”

“We're fine. A slight concussion for me and a broken wrist for Paul. The cuts and bruises are healing nicely.”

Austin swore under his breath, angry at himself for putting his partners in danger.

“I didn't realize what I was getting you into. I'm sorry.” Don't be. You only asked us to see what we could learn about Oceanus. It was our decision to go flying off to Canada and poke our noses in where they weren't welcome. It was worth the trip, too. We wouldn't have learned about the devilfish otherwise."

The only devilfish Austin had ever heard of was the manta ray.

Are you sure that concussion is on the mend?"

“I've never been more clearheaded, Kurt. In all my years as a ma- rine biologist, I've never encountered anything like this before. Paul calls it 'white death.5 ”

Austin experienced a quick frisson as he recalled his brush with the large, toothy creature in the Oceanus fish tank. “You can fill me in when I get there.”

He hung up and punched out Gunn's number. “Hello, Rudi,” he said, without the usual exchange of pleasantries. “I think it's time we had a meeting with Sandecker.”

NUMA 4 - White Death

29

THE GIANT VIDEO screen in the conference room glowed blue for a second, then an image appeared. There was a flash of silvery-white scales in a net, and Mike Neal was heard shouting, “Hold on, folks, we've got a live one!” There was a blurred glimpse of a fish slamming against the deck and a close-up of a toothy mouth snapping a gaff handle in two. The handheld camera showed the same fish being clouted with a baseball bat. The astonished voices of the Trouts were audible in the background.

Paul Trout clicked the remote control and froze the picture. The lights blinked back on, and a crisp, commanding voice was heard to say, “It seems Jaws has formidable competition.”

Admiral James Sandecker, the driving force behind NUMA, sat at a long conference table, his head enveloped in a purple cloud that belched from the fat cigar in his hand.

“That thing up on the screen is in a class of its own, Admiral,” said Gamay, who sat at the table along with Austin, Zavala and Rudi Gunn. “The great white shark attacks when it's hungry or hunted. The creature we're looking at is more like Mack the Knife: just plain mean.”