He barely flinched. The diamond smile widened. “And very spirited.” His thumb moved slowly up her neck, stopping an inch below her chin-And pressed.

Something inside her throat collapsed with a sickening wet crunch. The young woman’s eyes bulged, her mouth opening in a desperate attempt to draw a breath that could never reach her lungs. Komosa released her. She reached up to her face, fingers twitching. A drop of blood ran from the corner of her mouth as she convulsed.

“And very dead,” said Komosa, voice like stone.

“You bastard!” roared Hamilton. He tried to charge at Komosa, but one of the other wet-suited men viciously clubbed him down with the butt of his gun. The commander dropped to the floor. Bremmerman fell too-but, unlike Hamilton, she didn’t get back up.

Komosa turned back to Raynes. “I will kill one of your shipmates every minute until you give me what I want. Their lives are entirely in your hands. Are your computer files really so valuable that you’re willing to let your friends die to protect them?” He aimed his gun at the head of one of the IHA scientists. “Fifty-eight seconds.”

Sweat beaded on Raynes’s face. “B-but even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could now! The security system, it-”

“I know about the security system, Doctor. Forty-nine seconds.”

Frantic, Raynes sat down at the computer and began working, his hand so slick with frightened perspiration that it slipped off the mouse. A password box popped up. He typed a string of characters and stabbed at the return key. The box vanished, replaced by an alert: THUMBPRINT VALIDATION REQUIRED. With a worried glance back at Komosa, he pressed his thumb against a black square set into the top right corner of the keyboard. A red light pulsed. The alert disappeared, replaced by another.

VOICEPRINT VALIDATION REQUIRED.

“Seventeen seconds to spare,” said Komosa, lowering the gun. “Well done.”

“I can’t get you any further. I can’t!” Raynes pleaded. “The voiceprint ID, it’s got a-”

“It has a stress analyzer, I know.” The giant moved over to the desk, his free hand reaching for something on his belt. “It denies access even to authorized users if they seem to be under duress. But don’t worry-in a moment, you’ll be perfectly relaxed.”

And with that, he jabbed a syringe into Raynes’s arm and pushed the plunger.

Raynes stared at the syringe in horror, opening his mouth to cry out… before a tremor ran through his entire body. He sagged, bones turning to jelly. What had started as a cry emerged as a long, almost orgasmic sigh.

Komosa leaned closer. “Now, Doctor, I know you can hear me, and I know you’re still lucid. There were seventeen seconds left on the clock. That is how long you have to enter the final code before I shoot your friend. Do you understand?” Raynes nodded, the muscles in his face slack. “Your time starts now.” Komosa aimed the gun back at the other scientist, taking Raynes by his shirt collar and lifting him closer to the computer.

Raynes cleared his throat, then spoke, voice low and dreamlike. “In this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire.” A small microphone icon flickered, acknowledging that the computer had heard.

Nothing happened. The man Komosa was aiming at whimpered. Then-

The screen lit up with a directory window. The satellite data link had been established. A few of the prisoners let out relieved sighs.

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Komosa, plugging the drive into a port on the computer. “I’ll take it from here.”

That was the signal.

The flat hissing thuds of dart guns filled the lab. Those people who weren’t hit by the first volley started to shout-only to fall silent within seconds as the guns were reloaded and a second round fired. Outside the main group, Hamilton jumped up with a roar of fury.

Komosa fired. The dart slammed deep into Hamilton’s right eye socket, unleashing a welter of blood. The commander instantly fell to the swaying deck, dead even before the toxins took effect.

Turning back to the computer as if nothing had happened, Komosa copied files to the drive before accessing a different directory. Even through the influence of the powerful muscle relaxant, Raynes managed a look of surprise when he saw the directory name.

Komosa caught his expression. He grinned. “Yes, IHA personnel records. Don’t worry, we’re not going to kill them.” The grin hardened as he selected two particular files and copied them to the drive. “Yet.”

The files transferred, Komosa pulled the drive from the computer and returned it to its pouch. He straightened, turning to his men. “Disperse the bodies throughout the command section-it needs to look as if they were on duty when the rig capsized. I’ll go to the bridge and flood the starboard pontoon-once the pumps start, we’ll have five minutes to get back to the sub.” They acknowledged and hurried out, dragging the paralyzed navy personnel after them.

Komosa tugged the zip of his wet suit back up to his neck and followed his men out of the lab, stepping over the slumped, helpless civilians.

All Raynes could do was stare at the computer screen as he waited to die. The names of the last two files Komosa had copied were still highlighted. He knew both of them.

CHASE, EDWARD J.

WILDE, NINA P.

1 New York City: Three Months Later

The lights of Manhattan shone like constellations of precision-aligned stars against the night sky. Eddie Chase gazed out at the spectacular panorama and sighed. He would much rather have been somewhere, anywhere, on the island-a restaurant, a bar, even a launderette-than here.

Not that the venue itself was a problem. The Ocean Emperor was their host’s pride and joy, a 350-foot motor cruiser on which absolutely no expense had been spared. Chase had been on luxury yachts before, but this one represented a whole new level of opulence. Had he just been with Nina and a group of close friends, he would have taken full advantage of the experience.

But apart from a handful of senior IHA staff, so far he didn’t know any of the hundred-plus guests. And he didn’t have anything in common with them either. Diplomats, politicians, titans of industry, all busy networking and deal-making with every handshake. Chase, on the other hand, was here merely as Nina’s “and guest.” This wasn’t his world.

It wasn’t Nina’s either, but she was doing everything she could to pretend it was, he thought with a frown. He knocked back the remaining red wine in his glass and turned away from the vista to face the crowd. Nina was standing with former U.S. Navy admiral turned historian Hector Amoros, the head of the IHA, and shaking hands with a tall, distinguished yet smug-looking man. Politician, Chase knew at a glance.

Nina glanced through the open doors in his direction. “Eddie!” she called, waving one hand to summon him. The champagne glass that had been in her other hand from practically the moment she boarded the yacht had been refilled again, he noticed. “Eddie, come here and meet the senator.”

“Yeah, coming,” he replied without enthusiasm, fingering his stiff and uncomfortable collar. A blast of noise and wind swept over the deck as he reentered the ship, another helicopter coming in to drop off more ultra-VIP guests on the yacht’s helipad. Chase and Nina had been brought to the Ocean Emperor by boat, as had most of the other guests. Even in the world of the superrich, there was still a pecking order. He imagined the only way to top arriving by helicopter would be to land in a Harrier jump jet.

Nina looked amazing tonight, he had to admit. The sweeping scarlet off-the-shoulder dress was a world away from the ruggedly practical clothes she had worn when he first got to know her a year and a half before, or even the Italian suits she’d adopted more recently in her role as the IHA’s director of operations. Her normally red hair had been dyed a richer, darker tone for the occasion, swept and styled to highlight her carefully made-up face.