Polar Shift (51 page)

"We're at the epicenter of the polar shift," Margrave said. "A ring of giant waves will spin off from around the edge of an expanding circle. There will be some vortexes around the perimeter."

"Glad we're not in the way," Gant said.

"It would be unfortunate if we were. The area of disturbance is pretty random. That's what sank our transmitter ship. It's like the calm at the eye of a hurricane. We'll be fine here except for a slight mounding of the water."

Gant stared out at the rising sea. He had never felt so powerful in his entire life.

Austin's mind-set
was the opposite of Gant's. He was like a doctor trying to bring a flatlining patient back to life, only in this case the lives of millions lay on the table. He peered out the window as the plane banked for another pass, unable to tell whether the antidote was working or not.

Then he noticed a circular area immediately around the ship where the water seemed to go dull, as if it were being flattened by a helicopter downdraft. He could see striations on the surface of the sea like the grooves made by a strong current. Moments later, the water began moving in an unmistakable swirl with the ship at its center. Within seconds, the area of disturbed water was at least a mile across, bordered by a ring of foam on its perimeter. As the current's speed picked up, the sea within the circle became lower than the surface around it.

Austin was witnessing the birth of a giant whirlpool.

The
Polar Adventure
only rose around six feet above the surrounding sea level before it began to settle again.

Gant noticed that a depression seemed to be forming in the ocean around the ship. "Is this another side effect?" he said.

"No," Margrave said. His puzzlement changed to concern when the surface became even more radically dish-shaped. White-foamed rips indicated the clash of strong currents. He snatched up the microphone connecting him to the bridge.
"Full engine power.
We're sinking into a whirlpool."

Margrave shut down the dynamos.

"What are you doing?" Gant said.

"Something's not right. There shouldn't be this kind of reaction."

The ocean hollow was deepening and swirling currents had begun to form, but the ship was under power by then, and moving toward the side of the vortex. Its bow was slightly elevated, and it had to fight against the currents that wanted to drag it sideways, but the ship was making slow headway.

The maelstrom was expanding at the same time, however. Margrave screamed at the bridge to give the engines more power, but the ship seemed destined to lose the race, not really moving from the center of the vortex.

Then the character of the water changed again. The currents weakened, and the surface began to rise back to sea level. It was mounding again.

"What happened?" Gant said.

"A slight diversion," Margrave said. He wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead, and he smiled as he again powered up the dynamos.

As the ship rose higher in the air, the water around the vessel began to boil. The ocean liner was twenty feet in the air, then thirty.

"Stop this from happening," Gant said.

Margrave killed power again but the ship continued to rise.

Fifty feet.

"You fool! What have you done?"

"The computer models—"

"Damn
the computer models!"

Margrave left the control panel and rushed to one of the big windows wrapped around the observation platform. Her stared with horror at the sea.

The ship was at the top of a huge, fast-rising column of water.

Austin had
seen the whirlpool grow until it was around ten miles wide.
Now he watched in fascination as the vortex leveled out, changed into a seething pool of white steamy water, and began to mound into a watery cyclone.

The mountainous mass sprouting from the center of the vortex grew in height and width as it spun like a whirling dervish.

The plane was coming around for another pass. Austin dashed up to the cockpit.

"Bring us up as fast and as high as you can. Get away from this area."

The pilot put the 747 into a steep climb.

The water column reminded Austin of photos he had seen of the nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific.

A panicked voice was crackling over the radio.
"Mayday!
Mayday! Come in, anyone!
Mayday!"

Austin borrowed the radio microphone. "Mayday received."

"This is Gant on the
Polar Adventure."
He had to shout to be heard over the rumbling in the background.

"Looks like you're in for a roller-coaster ride," Austin said.

"Who
is
this? Where are you?"

"Kurt Austin. We're a couple of thousand feet above your head. Take a quick look because we won't be around much longer. Dr. Kovacs sends his regards, though."

After a pause, Gant said, "What the hell is going on, Austin?"

"We've given you a dose of the polar shift antidote. I'd say that you and your partner are all washed up."

Gant's angry reply was unintelligible, lost in a thundering clamor.

Austin peered out the cockpit window. The ship was at the top of the water column, where it spun like a top. Austin could only imagine the panicked scene on board. But he had no sympathy for Margrave and Gant, who had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

As the plane altered course and began to bear off from its target like a great lumbering whale, it encountered turbulence generated by the powerful forces that had been unleashed, but it was nothing compared to the earlier wind blasts. The plane continued to climb without incident to around twenty-five thousand feet, where it leveled off.

Karla had her face glued to the window even though there was nothing to see other than the normal cloud cover. She turned to Austin, a dazed look in her eyes.

"What happened back there?" she said.

"Your grandfather was right on the money with his calculations."

"But what
was
that thing, that incredible waterspout?"

Austin wasn't sure what was happening but suspected that the push-pull of electromagnetic pulses from the ship and the plane had set into motion unimaginable forces.

"Nature doesn't like being messed around with. The combination of the antidote and the initial transmissions created a strong reaction." He smiled. "It's like taking something for an upset stomach. There's always a last eruption or two before things settle down for the better."

"Then it's over, finally."

"I hope so." Austin called the cockpit, and asked, "How's the compass doing?"

"Normal," Zavala said.
"Still pointing to the north pole,
more
or less."

Barrett hadn't moved from behind the control panel. When he heard Zavala's report, he slapped his hands together. He came over and gave Karla and Austin big hugs.

"We did it," he said. "By God, we
did
it."

Austin replied with a weary grin. "So we did," he said. "So we did."

43

Doyle was glad that
this would be his last trip to the lighthouse island. He had never liked the place. He had grown up in the city, and the remote beauty was lost on him. He would be even happier once he had disposed of Lucifer's Legion and left the island forever.

He landed his plane near the island, tied up to a mooring buoy and rowed to the dock where one of the Lucifer creeps was waiting to greet him. He could never remember their names and told them apart by hair color. This was the red-haired guy who, because he most resembled Margrave, seemed to have an elevated status in the group, although he was short of being a leader, anathema to the pure anarchists.

"Haven't seen you since our car chase outside Washington," the man said in a soft-spoken voice that sounded like the rustle of a snake in dry leaves. "Too bad your friends got away."

"There's always another time," Doyle said. "We'll tend to Austin and his friends once we take care of the Elites."

"I'll look forward to it. You should have let us know you were coming," the man said.

Doyle hefted a canvas bag he was carrying. "Tris wanted to surprise you."

The answer seemed to satisfy the legionnaire. He nodded, and accompanied Doyle to the elevator that whisked them to the top of the cliff.

The other Lucifers were waiting on the lighthouse bluff, and when Doyle repeated his reason for coming to the island they gave him that unnerving grin. They all headed for the keeper's house. Doyle led the way to Margrave's kitchen. He got six glasses and a beer and placed them on the table.

He pulled a bottle of champagne from the bag and poured it around. Then he opened the can of beer and held it high.

"Here's to the imminent destruction of the Elites."

The red-haired man laughed. "You've been hanging around with us anarchist types too long, Doyle. You're starting to sound as crazy as the rest of us."

Doyle gave him a friendly wink.
"Must be catching.
Cheers."

He upended his beer and drank half the contents of the can. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, watching with pleasure as the Lucifers tossed down their champagne as if it were water.

"By the way, Margrave wanted me to give this to you."

The package had come the day before. With it was a note, signed by Gant.

The note said: "Plans for PS postponed until next week. Please give this gift to our friends in Maine after you share a
special
bottle of champagne with them. Say it's a gift from Margrave.
Very important to wait until they drink their champagne."

The red-haired Lucifer opened the package. It was a DVD disk. He shrugged and slipped it into the DVD player. A few seconds later, a still picture of Gant's face appeared on the screen.

"I want Lucifer's Legion disposed of," Gant's voice said.

"And how do you propose we go about doing that?"

Impossible.
It was the conversation he and Gant had after the foxhunt.

"Go up to Margave's island in
Maine,
tell them that you have a gift for them. Say it's from Margrave. Send them to hell, where they belong, with a glass of the bubbly."

All eyes in the room were on Doyle.

"It's not what you think," he said, brandishing his most charming Irish smile.

Doyle never had a chance. He'd been doomed the moment he got the disk. He would never know that disk came from Barrett, not Gant. And that the bug Austin had planted under the garden table had done its work well, picking up Gant's instructions to murder the Lucifiers.

He got up and tried to make a break for the door, but one of the Lucifers tripped him and he fell to the floor. He got to his feet, grabbing for the gun in an ankle holster, but he was pushed back to the floor and relieved of his weapon. He stared up at the six satanic faces ringed around him.

He couldn't figure it. The Lucifers knew he had poisoned them, yet they were smiling. Doyle would never understand that the opportunity to kill surpassed all other emotions, even fear of their imminent death.

He heard the knife drawer slide open, and then they came for him.

Epilogue

Two hundred miles east
of Norfolk, Virginia, the NUMA research vessel
Peter Throckmorton
and the NOAA survey ship
Benjamin Franklin
cut their way side by side through the glassy green seas like a pair of modern-day corsairs.

While the bows hissed through the water and the decks became soaked by flying spume, the atmosphere was subdued in the
Throckmorton's
dimly lit remote-sensing control room. Spider Barrett sat with his eyes riveted to the Mercator projection of the world displayed on the screen in front of him. Although the center was air-conditioned, perspiration gleamed on Barrett's tattooed head.

Watching Barrett's fingers fly over the keyboard were Joe Zavala, Al Hibbet and Jerry Adler, the wave expert Joe and Austin first met aboard the
Throckmorton.
Several of the ship's technicians were gathered in the room as well.

Barrett stopped and rubbed his eyes, as if he were about to admit defeat. Then his hands moved over the keys like those of a concert pianist. Blinking red dots began to appear on the world's oceans. He leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face. "Gentlemen," he said grandly, "we have liftoff."

The center echoed with applause.

"Remarkable!" said Dr. Adler. "I can't believe that there are so many breeding grounds for rogue waves."

Barrett clicked the cursor on a dot. A display of statistics appeared, representing sea, weather and current conditions at that particular location. The most important information that appeared was a threat assessment detailing the potential and probable size of a giant wave.