"Highly unlikely," Adler said with a shake of his head. "You'd need an explosion of a nuclear level, and it would be detected. Any other ideas?"
"Not offhand," Austin said. "But it's definitely something that NUMA should investigate."
"You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that," Adler said with relief. "I thought I was going crazy."
A thought occurred to Austin. "Joe wondered if the Trouts' work might shed some light on this mystery," he said.
"Sure, I remember. You mentioned that a couple of your NUMA colleagues are working on another research project in this area."
Austin nodded. "South of our position. They're with a group of scientists on the NOAA ship Benjamin Franklin, looking into the biological implications of the giant eddies in the Atlantic Ocean."
"As I said, I wouldn't rule anything out. It's certainly worth looking into."
"We can talk to them about their findings when we get back to port."
"Why wait?" Adler said.
Adler's fingers played over the keys and a Web site popped up on the screen, followed by a satellite image showing the mid-Atlantic coast. "The ocean satellite taking this picture can pick up an object as small as a sardine."
"Amazing," Austin said, leaning close to the screen.
Adler clicked the computer mouse. "Now we're seeing ocean water temperature. That wavy band of reddish brown is the Gulf Stream. The blue area is cold water, and those circular blobs in tan are warm water eddies. I'll zoom in on our ship."
He worked the computer mouse so that one of the tan-colored swirls filled the screen. The outlines of two vessels were now visible near the whorl.
"That blip is the Throckmorton. The other one must be your NOAA ship. Wow! This stuff still amazes me."
Austin leaned over Adler's shoulder. "What's that smaller circle in the southeast quadrant?"
Adler enlarged the image. "It's a separate eddy. Acting real funny. The numbers in the little boxes show water movement speed and level. The level within the swirl seems to be dropping while the water is moving at increasing speed." Adler's eyes were glued to the screen. The swirl, now almost a perfect circle, continued to grow. "Migod," he said.
"What's the problem?"
The professor tapped the screen. "We seem to be looking at the birth of a gigantic whirlpool."
7
Gamay Morgan-Trout carefully lowered the Van Dorn sampler over the port rail of the NOAA survey ship and watched the nine-liter plastic cylinder sink beneath the foam-flecked waves. She played out the thin connecting cable as the sampler plunged hundreds of feet to the ocean bottom.
After the bottle filled with water and automatically sealed, she began to winch it back on board with the help of her husband. Paul Trout hauled the dripping bottle the last few feet from the water, detached the sampler from the cable and held it to the light, as if he were testing the color of a fine glass of wine.
Trout had a twinkle in his hazel eyes. "This is absurd," he said.
"What's absurd?"
"Consider what we're doing."
Still puzzled, Gamay said, "Okay, we've just tossed a fancy bottle over the side and hauled it up filled with seawater."
"Thank you for making my point. Look around at this ship. The Benjamin Franklin is loaded with cutting-edge research gear. We've got stuff like specialized echo sounders, multibeam and side-scan sonar and the latest in computer hardware and software. But we're no different from the ancient mariners who smeared wax on their sounding lead to check out the composition of the ocean bottom."
Gamay smiled. "And now we're about to collect plankton using an old-fashioned fisherman's net. I draw the line when it comes to transport. No rowboat. How's the Zodiac coming?"
"Ready to go," Trout said. He read the surface of the sea with an experienced eye. "Wind's freshening. Could get choppy. We'll have to stay sharp." He pronounced it "shaap," betraying his New England roots.
Gamay glanced at the whitecaps starting to dot the grayish blue water. "We might not be able to go out again for days if we wait."
"My thoughts exactly." He handed her the Van Dorn sampler. "I'll meet you at the Zodiac davit."