Cortez spun. Spangler must have been the one who had damaged the pump’s fuse—a trap to lure him down here. His only hope was to disable the remaining pumps’ engines. If he could remove the other three fuses…

He crossed toward the far wall and the abandoned toolbox. As he did, the pressure climbed in the room. It was getting hard to breathe. His vision narrowed. Gasping, he struggled onward.

Pain exploded in his head as his eardrums ruptured. He cried out, his hands flailing up, knocking his eyeglasses off. Blood ran down his neck.

And still the pressure built.

Stumbling, his vision dimmed; lights danced at the edges. Falling to his knees, he fought for breath. He collapsed to one hand, then another, as the pressure crushed him. Unable to breathe, he rolled to his side and fell. On his back, he was blind now, his eyes forced too deep into their bony sockets.

His fingers scrabbled at the floor, begging for mercy.

The large weight on his chest continued to grow. A flood of fire pained him as his ribs began to break, collapsing, ripping lungs that could no longer expand. And still the weight grew.

He quit struggling, releasing control. His wife, Maria, had given her life to the Neptune project before she died. It was somehow fitting that it should take his life, too.

Maria…honey…I love you.

Then at last, as if sighing out a final breath, his consciousness fled and darkness took him.

11:20 P.M.

Through the observation window, David stared out at the sprawled and broken body of the former research leader. He watched the man’s skull implode under the pressure, brain matter splattering out. As a diver, he had always known such a danger was faced by all who challenged the depths. But to witness it firsthand…

David turned away, swallowing back a twinge of queasiness. Horrible.

Rolfe stood by the control board. “Sir?”

“Flush this toilet.”

His second-in-command obeyed, flooding the bay.

19

Man o’ War

August 9, 5:02 A.M.

USS Hickman, East China Sea

Admiral Houston stood on the stern deck of the destroyer, the USS Hickman. Dawn had yet to rise, but to the south, fires raged, lighting the entire horizon.

He had never seen the ocean burn.

The nuclear strikes had been clean and decisive, destroying missile and air support installations along the blockade’s front. Batan, Senkaku Shoto, Lu wan: unknown to most of the world, these tiny outlying islands would soon become synonymous with Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Already, American forces were moving in to shatter the remaining blockade.

But not the Hickman. It was limping with the wounded back to the refuge of Okinawa. His right arm in a cast, Houston was counted among the injured. He had survived the sinking of the Gibraltar, escaping the ship just before the rain of missiles had torn her apart. Many had not. The dead and missing numbered in the thousands, including the C.O. of the ship and much of his command staff.

As he stood, he silently spoke their names…those he knew. There were so many more he did not.

“Sir, you shouldn’t be out here,” a lieutenant said softly at his side. The young Hispanic officer had been assigned as his aide. “We’re all supposed to be belowdecks.”

“Don’t worry. We’re far enough away by now.”

“The Captain—”

“Lieutenant,” he warned sternly.

“Yes, sir.” The young man fell silent, stepping back.

Houston felt a chill morning breeze slip through his loose flight jacket. With his arm in a sling, he couldn’t zip the jacket fully. He shivered against the cold. They would be reaching Naha on Okinawa within the hour, just as the sun rose. From there he was scheduled to ship back to the States.

Slowly, the fiery devastation sank beyond the horizon, becoming a fading glow. Dull booms occasionally echoed over the waters.

Houston finally turned his back. “I’m ready to go below,” he said tiredly.

The lieutenant nodded, offering an arm of support just as a klaxon blared. Both men froze. Radar warning. Incoming missile.

Then Houston heard it. A whistling roar.

The lieutenant grabbed his good arm, meaning to drag the admiral to the closest hatch.

He shook off the grip. “It’s heading away.”

As proof, the fiery trail arced high across the night sky, aiming north over the ship.

“An M-11,” Houston noted, moving to the starboard rail with the lieutenant in tow.

As they followed its course, another missile joined the flaming display…then another. The new rockets rose from the west, from China. Though coming from different directions, Houston could guess their target. Okinawa lay directly ahead. “Oh, God…”

“What is it?”

To the northeast new fireworks joined the show. A dozen thin flames streaked upward into the night, on intercept courses. The bevy of Patriot II missiles whistled skyward, like bottle rockets on the Fourth of July.

One of the Chinese missiles was struck a glancing blow. Its fiery arc became a tumbling fall, flaming out and disappearing. But the other two continued their course, vanishing over the dark horizon.

“What’s happening?” the lieutenant asked.

Houston just stared.

At first there was no sound. Just a flash of light, as if the sun itself had exploded beyond the horizon.

The lieutenant backed away.

A low sound flowed over the water, like thunder under the sea. At the horizon, the brilliant light coalesced down upon itself, forming a pair of glowing clouds, sitting at the edge of the world. Slowly, too slowly, they rolled skyward, pushed up atop fiery stalks. Brilliant hues glowed from the hearts of the caldrons: fiery oranges, magentas, dark roses.

Houston closed his eyes.

The blast wave, even from so far off, struck the Hickman like a hammer, burning Houston from the deck before even a last prayer could be uttered.

6:04 A.M., Nautilus

Dressed in an insulated dry suit, Jack climbed into the Nautilus as it bobbed in the small waves behind the stern of his ship. He wiggled himself down into the pilot’s seat and began running through one last systems check.

He knew it probably wasn’t necessary, and the press of time weighed upon him, but he used the routine to settle himself. He would not fail. He must not fail.

All night long, as the Deep Fathom continued to steam toward the site where Air Force One had crashed, his crew had labored at readying the sub for the long trek: charging the main batteries, topping off the oxygen tanks, changing the filters to the carbon dioxide scrubbers, lubricating the thruster assemblies. With a fresh wax and polish, it could’ve passed for new.

But it was all necessary. Today, Jack was about to take the Nautilus on its longest trip yet.

An hour ago the Fathom had dropped anchor on the lee side of a small island, no bigger than a baseball field. It lay some twenty nautical miles from the crash site. Jack’s plan was to sneak the sub in as close as possible, then coordinate with Dr. Cortez and Karen on a plan to free her from the sea base. It would take impeccable timing.

Jack gave a thumbs-up to Robert, who lowered the acrylic dome and used a portable power drill to screw the O-rings tight. This was normally Charlie’s job, but he had been holed up in his lab all night, working with the crystal.

Robert patted the side of the sub, the usual two-thump signal that it was okay to dive. Jack nodded to the marine biologist. Robert laid a palm atop the dome, silently wishing him good luck, then dove off the sub.

Jack glanced back. His entire crew had gathered along the stern rail. Even Elvis stood by Lisa’s side, the old dog’s tail slowly wagging.

He saluted them all, then hit a button, sucking ballast water into the empty tanks on either side. The submersible slowly sank. As the waterline rose over the dome, he felt a twinge of misgiving. He dismissed it as the usual predive jitters, but in his heart he knew that this time it was more.

In six hours the mother of all solar storms was going to strike the Earth—and if he and the others failed, it wouldn’t matter if Karen were rescued or not.

Jack let the sub sink under its own weight. He could have descended faster under thruster power, but he had to reserve his batteries. Around him the water turned a midnight-blue as he aimed for the fifty meter mark. Once there, he gave the thrusters the tiniest juice to push the Nautilus into a gentle glide, aiming away from the tiny island and out into open sea.

Slowly, the sub sank into twilight…one hundred meters…then full night…150.

Jack kept the ship’s xenon lamps switched off, preserving the batteries, guiding himself through the black waters with the computer alone. The region had been mapped by sonar when the Fathom first arrived and the information loaded into the sub’s navigation. He would switch to active sonar once he was near the bottom. He had also ordered radio silence between himself and the ship, maintaining as much stealth as possible.

Two hundred meters…small pinpoints of light began to appear. Bioluminescent plankton and other tiny multicelled bits of life.

Jack enjoyed the display. Even here, life found a way to survive. The sight gave him a flicker of hope.

Four hundred meters. He finally switched on the sub’s sonar for the final approach to the seabed. Where he was headed, it was too dangerous to fly blind. He watched both the analog depth meter and the sonar readings. With the deftest touches he manipulated the foot pedals to make tiny course corrections.

He watched the numbers climb. Five hundred meters. Finally, he thumbed the switch, and twin spears of light shot forward, penetrating the gloom, illuminating the landscape below.

Jack pushed a pedal and tilted the sub on its side, surveying the terrain below him. It was as perfect as he had hoped, the seabed maze of deep canyons. The section of broken landscape beneath him led all the way to the crash site. The plan was for him to use the sheltering cover to mask his approach, similar to the way he had used the sunken ruins to sneak up on David’s cutter. However, this time he hoped the end result would improve. Before, he had come back empty-handed.

As the depth gauge approached the six hundred meter mark, Jack angled the sub into a wide canyon between two ridges. He slowed his speed, balancing out his ballast to neutral buoyancy.