Passing through the hatch, he shivered against the cold and pulled the door closed behind him. Once out of the wind, he shook the rain from his clothes and straightened to find a large form approaching.

“Commander Spangler,” Admiral Houston said in greeting, stopping before him. Dressed in a nylon flight jacket, Mark Houston filled the passage. David found himself rankling at the man’s air of superiority.

“Aye, sir.”

“Have you heard the newest?” Houston asked. “The magnetization of the airplane’s parts?”

David’s thin lips sharpened to a frown. Had everyone been informed before him? He forced down his anger. “I’ve heard, sir,” he said stiffly. “I went to check it myself.”

“Has Edwin been able to formulate any explanation?”

“No, sir. He’s still investigating it.”

Houston nodded. “He’s anxious for more parts, but another storm is blowing our way. No diving today. It looks like Jack and his crew will get the day off.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “Sir, speaking of Kirkland, there’s something I wanted to bring to your attention.”

“Yes?”

“The Navy’s submersible and divers from the Deep Submergence Unit are due to arrive tomorrow. With our own men here, I see no need to keep Kirkland, a freelancer, on-site. For security purposes—”

Houston sighed, giving David a hard look. “I know of the bad blood between you two. But until the Navy’s sub is tested at these depths, Jack and the Deep Fathom are remaining on-site. Jack is a skilled deep-sea salvager, and his expertise will not be wasted because of your past conflicts.”

“Aye, sir,” David said between clenched teeth, seething at the admiral’s support of Kirkland.

Houston waved David out of his way. “As a matter of fact, I’m heading over to the Deep Fathom right now.”

David watched the admiral leave, numb to the cold wind blowing through the open door. It clanged shut, but David remained standing, staring at the closed door. His limbs shook with rage.

Before he could move, booted footsteps sounded behind him.

David forced a calmer composure as he turned. To his relief, he saw it was another of his men. Omega team’s electronics expert, Gregor Handel.

The man stopped. “Sir.”

“What is it, Lieutenant?” David snapped at the young man.

“Sir, Director Ruzickov is on the scrambled telecom line. He wishes to speak to you ASAP.”

With a nod, David strode past Handel. It must be the call he had been waiting for these past three days.

Gregor followed, in step behind him. David strode quickly through to his own room. Leaving Handel outside, he closed the door. On his desk rested a small briefcase, opened. Inside was an encoded satellite phone. A red light blinked on its console. David grabbed up the receiver. “Spangler here.”

There was a short pause. The voice was filled with static. “It’s Ruzickov. You have the green light to proceed to stage two.”

David felt his heart beat faster. “I understand, sir.”

“You know what you must do?”

“Yes, sir. No witnesses.”

“There must be no mistakes. The security of our shores depends on your action these next twenty-four hours.”

David had no need for this pep talk. He knew the importance of his mission. Here was a chance to finally grind the last major Communist power under the heel of American forces. “I will not fail.”

“Very good, Commander Spangler. The world will be waiting for your next call.” The line went dead.

David lowered the receiver back to its cradle. At last! He felt as if a heavy stone had been lifted from his shoulders. The waiting, the kowtowing, was over. He swung around to the door and opened it. Handel waited. “Get the team together,” he ordered.

Handel nodded and turned sharply on a heel.

David closed the door and crossed to his bunk. Bending over, he hauled out two large cases from under his bed. One was packed with C-4 explosives, detonators, and electronic timers. The other held his newest prize. It had just arrived this morning by special courier. He rested his hand atop the case.

Distantly, thunder echoed from outside. The promised storm bore down upon them. David smiled. By nightfall his true mission would begin.

George Klein sat buried in the ship’s library, lost in his research, oblivious to the rocking and rolling of the ocean. For the past twenty-four hours the historian had holed up here, going over old charts and stories, searching for some clue to the origin of the strange script written on the crystal pillar. Though he had achieved no success, his research had revealed something disturbing. The discovery had kept him from his bed all night.

On the teak desk, George had splayed out a large map of the Pacific. Tiny red-flagged pins speared the map, dates scrawled on each flag. They marked ships, planes, and submarines lost in the region, going back a full century: In 1957, an Air Force KB-50 disappears near Wake Island; in 1974, Soviet “Golf II” class submarine vanishes southwest of Japan; in 1983, the British Glomar Java Sea is lost off Hainan Island. So many. Hundreds and hundreds of ships. George had an old report from the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency, listing boats lost with no trace ever found.

George stood, moving back. He studied the pins. Having sailed in these waters for years, investigating shipwrecks, he had heard of the term the “Dragon’s Triangle.” It extended from Japan in the north to Yap Island in the south and trailed to the eastern end of Micronesia, a triangle of catastrophe and missing ships, not unlike the region known as the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean. But he had never given these tales much thought until now. He’d attributed the vanishings to ordinary causes: pirate activity, wicked weather, deep-sea quakes.

But now he was not so sure. He picked up an old report from a WWII Japanese commander of a Zero fighter wing, Shiro Kawamoto. The aged commander told a curious tale, the story of the disappearance of a Kawanishi Flying Boat during World War II off the coast of Iwo Jima. Kawamoto quoted the final words of the doomed pilot over the radio: “Something is happening in the sky…the sky is opening up!”

He returned the report to its pile. Jack had related the details of Air Force One’s transcript to him last night after it was clear the news had already been leaked to the press. The cockpit recording had struck a chord in him, sending him to his library. It had taken him an hour to dig up Kawamoto’s recounting. The similarity was too striking. It took him the rest of the night to construct the model before him.

George returned to his map. Red pencil and ruler in hand, he charted the Dragon’s Triangle upon the map. He worked deftly, striking the lines cleanly. Once done, he stood back again. All the tiny pins fell within the boundary of his lines, all within the infamous triangle.

The old historian sat down. He did not know the significance of his discovery, but he couldn’t stop a feeling of dread from settling in his chest. Over the long night, he had read countless other stories of ships gone missing in these seas. Stories extending far into the past, to records of ancient Imperial Japan, countless centuries.

But these stories were not what disturbed him the most. They were not what kept him working all night. Instead, among the cluster of red flags, in the exact center of the marked triangle, was a single blue flag.

It marked the grave of Air Force One.

At the bank of computers, Karen worked alongside Miyuki. On a tiny monitor, she watched a computer flash through various connections, winding through an Internet maze. Finally, the University of Toronto logo appeared on the active window. “You did it!” Karen said.