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  “Before you say a word, Jack, I want you to know I’m sorry our parting was . . . uncomfortable. I overreacted to your interest in my affairs. No hard feelings, I hope.”

  You’re trying to destroy my law firm, and you hope I don’t have hard feelings? It was obvious that Barbas’s fake apology was another build-up to get him to contact Gorton.

  “Forget it. I’m calling about my partner.”

  “Ms. Vanderberg. Yes, I remember her with great fondness.”

  He almost flared up but held it back. “She’s on her way to Chaos.”

  “Is she?”

  “The only way out there is on your helo, and that requires your permission.”

  “Question is, Jack, does she have your permission?”

  “She doesn’t need it, but I want to talk with her.”

  “She’s not here.”

  Is he lying? “If that’s true, she must be on the helo. Turn it around and send it back to Astoria.”

  “I don’t see why you’re upset. Chaos isn’t as luxurious as my mega-yacht, but I can still offer decent hospitality to my special guests.”

  Jack had a good idea of what Barbas’s hospitality was like. He pictured the young women on the schooner. “I’m telling you, send her back right away.”

  “Or what? You’ll come out here on a white horse to rescue her? That wouldn’t be wise.” Barbas’s tone had turned ugly. “Because of certain events that occurred after your first visit here, I’ve made this place a fortress. Look, Jack, I offered to make all your problems go away if you would just do one simple favor for me.”

  He waited for Barbas to continue, wishing they were in the same room so he could punch his lights out.

  “All you had to do was get President Gorton to make a few calls on my behalf. That would have cost you nothing. Don’t bother to figure out what to say, Jack. I won’t believe you anyway. So we’ll just let this play out. By tomorrow, I think you’ll help me in any way I want.” Barbas hung up.

  He’d seldom been in a situation where someone else held every high card. He tried again to reach Debra on her cell phone. No answer. Either they had confiscated it, or she was refusing to talk with him.

  Barbas hadn’t admitted she was coming to Chaos. If she did, was he enough of a sociopath to try to rape her? Lock her up? Hold her as a hostage? He couldn’t get aboard Chaos on his own. Law enforcement wouldn’t butt in even if it had jurisdiction—which it didn’t. Protecting Debra was up to him. At least he had one important ally to call on.

  “THIS IS JACK STRIDER. I need to talk with Steve Drake. It’s urgent.” He hoped Drake would have an idea of how to get Debra off Chaos.

  “Don Bradley here. I saw you come aboard Challenger a week or so ago. Got you coffee. Remember?”

  “I do. Is Steve there?”

  “He and Lou Potter took Pegasus for a deep dive.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I’m not allowed to say.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Since you know Steve, I guess it’s okay to tell you we lost communications with him two hours ago, and he’s overdue. All we can do is maintain our location. If he hasn’t lost his guidance equipment, he’ll know where to find us. If something more serious went wrong, well, we’re all damn worried.”

  “Are you near Barbas’s platform?

  “About ten miles south of it, which seems to be okay with those damned hornets he sends to stake us out.”

  “Don’t go any closer. Barbas is in a mood to shoot.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. We’ve had enough of that.”

  Obviously, Drake had made another dive to his HTV. He was such a pro he wouldn’t make a mistake, so something had gone wrong. Communications equipment failure? Isopods? Or Barbas might have programmed robots to attack Pegasus. Then the obvious hit him.

  “Don, did Challenger’s sensors detect an earthquake in the last few hours?”

  “Sure did.”

  “No tsunami?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Please ask Steve to contact me as soon as he shows up.”

  “Will do.”

  When he and Drake had gone down together, Pegasus had taken quite a buffeting from a small quake. He’d said later that an underwater quake doesn’t send a force radiating in concentric circles from a central point. It’s more like a shaped charge that explodes in one direction and doesn’t become a wave until miles away. So the quake Don reported might have had no effect on Pegasus. But if it had disabled Pegasus, her air supply would run out before anyone knew where she was.

  Chapter 28

  July 27

  9:30 p.m.

  Chaos platform

  PETROS GAZED WITH satisfaction around his private suite three levels above the Chaos platform’s main deck. Most of the furnishings were rosewood, walnut, or cherry, but he’d added a tall lattice made of fragrant agarwood from Bhutan and Homeric statues carved from Japanese keyaki. His work table was made from planks of fiddleback maple retrieved from a sunken clipper. There were models of his yacht and fleet of tankers in twenty-four-carat gold. The sound system and the cameras concealed in the corners were highest quality, as was the view through floor-to-ceiling one-way windows along both sides of the main salon. In some ways, he preferred this suite to his private club located between two embassies in the Kolonaki district in Athens.

  He looked out the window again, watching for the arrival of the helo bringing Debra Vanderberg to Chaos. Odd that he was so eager. He’d had other women flown out from time to time, but a stunning woman closer to his own status turned him on.

  He wondered again why she’d decided to come. Plenty of beautiful women had sought invitations to Chaos. Every one of them had claimed to want him, and everyone wanted something more. So what did Debra want? Sex? Money? A peace treaty? Unfortunately, knowing he was behind the attack on her law firm might make her a little prickly.

  Regardless, he’d get a good lay without too much hassle. The fact that Strider was infuriated about her coming made him smile. That was the point. More than the sex, this was about humiliating Strider. He doubted the guy was tough enough to cause him a problem. Very few men were.

  Maybe Debra would even turn out to be a good omen, a turning point in his fortunes. An old joke described a yacht as a hole in the water into which its owner poured money. What wasn’t funny was that the Chaos Project was a hole the size of the Grand Canyon that was sucking the life out of his empire. The cash flow from the gold and silver deposits was barely keeping it afloat. Only he and Renatus knew that the deposits had begun playing out. Even if another giant HTV existed and Renatus found it, he couldn’t afford to move his platform and start over. That meant his gamble on methane hydrate had to pay off fast.

  Testing Renatus’s extraction schemes had been expensive and futile. His most recent, applying an intermittent heat source directly to the methane hydrate deposits, had been the most promising—except that it still had major drawbacks. The first experiment had released a burst of methane that blew out the capture mechanisms and escaped as a huge “burp.” Several more attempts had triggered small earthquakes.

  He’d ordered Renatus to increase the scale of the attempt earlier today. The methane captured had been sizable, but the quake that followed had launched a minor tsunami. Another failure.

  In the beginning, he’d agreed to finance Renatus’s personal project having something to do with the HTV, but Renatus had already far exceeded the estimated cost. If Renatus had been producing, he would have ignored it. Instead, it was one more squeeze on his cash flow, pushing him toward bankruptcy.

  Lately, Renatus had acted as though the HTV was untouchable. That was a laugh. What he wouldn’t know until it was too late was that the Chaos Project was going to exploit the HTV itself. Fluids d
riven out of the top of the HTV’s chimney at 700° F cooled very quickly in the near-freezing ocean. But, captured in a pressurized environment, that heat would produce steam to drive turbines and create electricity. It would be an eternal source of energy. If necessary to fully exploit the HTV’s output, he intended to shatter its chimney and drive equipment deep into its core. If he had to, he’d detonate explosives in its bowels to release its full potential.

  If the primitive life forms it nourished were wiped out, that would be an acceptable price of doing business. Nothing new about that. The U.S. military frequently detonated explosives, maybe even nuclear weapons, underwater that they knew would kill all marine life in the area—and they went ahead. Some of the scientists who set off the first atomic bomb feared it might ignite a chain reaction that would destroy the planet—and they went ahead. The people who started up the Hadron supercollider in Switzerland in 2008 might have triggered a runaway reaction—and they went ahead. They all took big risks to achieve big goals. That’s what he intended to do.

  Thinking of Renatus, he was fed up. The day after Renatus’s solution for extracting methane worked, he’d exile him from the platform. If he complained or threatened, well, accidents happened on platforms.

  The law of the jungle was in his DNA. He was always the hunter, never the prey. He had learned to fight for everything, and never show weakness. When he felt wronged, he took revenge. Some people prevailed because of formidable physical strength, others because of a brilliant mind. He had both, plus overwhelming will power. He was feared and envied, but never loved.

  He recalled the time a woman had asked what he was afraid of. He’d scoffed and sent her away, but he’d never forgotten her question. Very rarely, in the nucleus of his being, he was afraid that if he let down even once, he’d be torn apart. He’d never admit it, but that was his core fear.

  He saw on his monitor that the helo was landing. Debra didn’t know it yet, but in the next few minutes she would decide Strider’s fate—and her own.

  Chapter 29

  July 27

  10:00 p.m.

  Chaos platform

  HE HEARD HIS Indian steward knock softly on the door. About damn time. He had no idea what to expect from Debra, but a lot of women had come through that door. He’d prepared for Debra the same way he had for most of them.

  “Send her in.”

  When Debra walked into the room, he felt the same jolt as when she’d come aboard the schooner in Sausalito. What was so captivating about her? Her green eyes projected intelligence and self-confidence. Her long ebony hair flowed down over a form-fitting leather peacoat. She stopped just inside the door.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Debra. I haven’t had a chance to tell you before, but I see you for who you really are. Not just Strider’s law partner. You’re incredibly talented in your own right. I get that.”

  What he’d “gotten” long ago was that a woman wanted a man to see all her strengths as she saw them herself. Playing that tune had worked for him many times. Her eyes told him he’d caught her by surprise.

  “Thanks. It’s nice to get together without the others around.”

  When she unzipped the peacoat, he stepped behind her, took it from her shoulders, and laid it across a chair near the door. He appreciated the way the fine cashmere of her pale gray cardigan defined her curves. The sweater had eight flowering roses made of coiled ribbons across the front, and the buttons were jeweled.

  The fact that she had come to Chaos alone showed courage—or was it some weakness he would exploit as soon as he figured out what it was? He studied her for any sign of hostility but saw none.

  He gestured at a small table between two Italian black leather chairs set at right angles to each other with a southerly view across the starlit ocean.

  “I had my chef prepare a few hors d’ oeuvres. But first, I’ll get drinks for both of us. I’m having Metaxa brandy. Perhaps you’d like ouzo or retsina?”

  “Nothing, thanks.”

  “Oh, I insist. Maybe a nice Vin Santo from Santorini?” It was a small test of wills. Was she willing to offend him in the first two minutes?

  “Vin Santo then—as long as you’ll join me and have the same.”

  “No. I prefer the brandy.”

  “Then nothing for me,” she said, taking a seat and turning to look into the dark night.

  “I’m forgetting my Greek hospitality. Of course I’ll join you.”

  He poured the wine, handed her one of the glasses, and sat on her right.

  She took it and said, “It’s an ancient Scottish custom for us to exchange glasses.” She extended hers to him.

  The bitch. She suspected him of spiking her drink. He was amused that she thought he’d do something so obvious. They made the exchange and he raised his glass. “Now a Greek custom. We drink the first glass at once and pour the second.” He drained his.

  She took only a sip, “I hope we can work through the disagreement between us. It started when you pressured Jack to get President Gorton to make sure the Senate does not ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.”

  “True.”

  “And he refused.”

  “Not outright, but he was stringing me along, planning to refuse later. I’ll just have to handle it another way. No big deal.” Like hell.

  “It was a big enough deal that you fired our firm, bought our building, and hired Stan Simms to have the offices adjoining ours ‘renovated.’ Jackhammers and pneumatic nailers pounding away all day long. We can’t think, much less deal with clients. That’s harassment. Even after we get an injunction, Simms will try something else.”

  He refilled his glass. She’d be even more steamed if she knew he’d told Simms to do a lot more than harass her firm. “I can see that’s a problem all right. Your people must be damned angry at Strider for bringing all that on the firm.”

  She gave him a hard look. “They’re angry all right—at you, especially for having Simms serve us with an eviction notice. You’re trying to put us out of business.”

  Now he knew why she was here. “We’ll talk about your firm, maybe come to some agreement, but first let’s calm down. Finish your wine and we’ll sample these hors d’ oeuvres. If we don’t, my chef will be devastated. This Barbajuan,” he pointed, “is better than they make in Monaco. I’m sure you recognize this veal Carpaccio. Here are Thai dumplings stuffed with crab meat, cream cheese, and garlic. Next, Caspian Sea Beluga Caviar. And this last one is Saganaki, a Greek favorite. It’s fried cheese, so it’s very high calorie.”

  He popped a Saganaki into his mouth, beamed, and looked at her expectantly. The odds were four to one against her. After being wrong in worrying about a spiked drink, she’d never suspect that he’d ordered the chef to lace every one of the hors d’ oeuvres—except the Saganaki that he’d steered her away from—with rohypnol, the date-rape drug. She’d lose her inhibitions and quickly become vulnerable to everything he’d planned. Later, she’d be incapacitated. He’d done this many times before, filming it all, and knew she’d wake up thinking she had a hangover, with no memory of what he’d done to her.

  She looked at each, chose the Carpaccio on a thin slice of toast and raised it to her lips, then set it on the corner of the silver service plate and took a sip of wine. “You’re right. We’re all better off if we talk this through. After all, we know much more about your operation than you realize.”

  Something in her tone made that sound slightly ominous. “What do you mean?”

  “When you became our client, I did quite a bit of research to find out about Odyssey Properties, your holding company, and this drilling project—everything we might need to help you. My research included a database that reports contacts with government agencies. A very interesting fact popped out. Quite some time ago, you filed an application with the Department of the Interior to get an exclus
ive license to exploit a section of the seafloor. That’s what I want to talk about.”

  Holy shit! He hadn’t known such a database existed and certainly hadn’t expected her to find out about his application. “That application is meaningless.”

  “No it isn’t. What caught my attention was that it applies to an area inside the U.S. two-hundred-mile continental boundary. Since Chaos is located well outside that limit, your application must not have anything to do with your mining operation.” She gave him a bright smile as though she were sharing a funny story. “Not only is that application still alive, meaning you continue to want it granted, but you recently amended it to expand it to twenty miles square. That’s four hundred square miles of ocean floor inside the two-hundred-mile limit. Of course the reason you want that license is to exclude competitors but, I kept asking myself, why that area?”

  He took a deliberately slow sip of wine—now he needed that brandy. No way she could know the answer to her question, but the fact that she’d asked it alarmed him. He’d badly underestimated her, but what he had in mind would shut her up.

  “Must have been something my lawyers did without notifying me,” he said, trying to sound indifferent.

  “Not likely. As of yesterday, your application hadn’t been approved or rejected. It’s hung up in bureaucratic limbo. Since you didn’t ask Jack for help, you must be counting on a political fix. Maybe you have a congressman you think can get to Harry Sneed, Secretary of the Interior. Or maybe you plan to bribe him directly. Either of those strategies can land you in jail. That would be foolish since I know a better way to get what you want. I have a proposal for you.” She leaned forward, scanned the hors d’ oeuvres, and picked up a square of the cheese-filled Saganaki. She swallowed it in two bites, leaned back, and crossed her arms.

  She was watching him closely, trying to read his thoughts. That was his game. He didn’t like her turning it on him.

  “Naturally, I’d never do anything illegal, but, out of curiosity, what’s your ‘better way’?”