that it's a deep-ocean mudscape.
Scattered across the layered silt are small irregular objects, some of them round, some of them long. A couple more seconds and my brain acknowledges that what my eyes are seeing is a watery field of skulls and femurs and ribs. I've got an idea that not all of them are entirely human.
"The Caribbean sea hides many secrets. This field of silt covers a deep layer rich in methane hydrates. When some force destabilizes the deposits they bubble up from the depths — like the carbon dioxide discharge from the stagnant waters of Lake Nyos in the Cameroon. But unlike Lake Nyos, the gas isn't confined by terrain so it dissipates after it surfaces.
It's not an asphyxiation threat, but if you're on a ship that's caught above a hydrate release, then the sea under your keel turns to gas and you're going straight down to Davy Jones's locker." Angleton clears his throat. "BLUE HADES have some way of replenishing these deposits and triggering releases. They use them to keep us interfering hominids away from things that don't concern us, such as the settlement at Witch's Hole in the North Sea ... and the depths of the Bermuda Triangle."
I swallow. "What's down there"
"Some of the deepest oceanic trenches on Earth. And some of the largest BLUE HADES installations we're aware of."
Angleton looks as if he's bitten into a lemon expecting an orange. "That isn't saying much — most of their sites are known to us only from neutrino mapping and seismology.
The portion of the biosphere we understand is limited to the surface waters and continental land masses, boy. Below a thousand fathoms of water, let alone below the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, it's a whole different ball game."
"The Moho-what"
"The underside of the continental plates we live on — below the discontinuity lies the upper mantle. Didn't you study geography at school"
"Uh ... " I spent most of my school geography lessons snoozing, doodling imaginary continents in the backs of exercise books, or trying to work up the courage to pass a message to Lizzie Graham in the next row. Now it looks like those missed lessons are about to come back and bite me.
"Moving swiftly on, let me see if I've got this straight. Ellis Billington has purchased a CIA spy ship designed for probing BLUE HADES territory. He's got a high enough security clearance to be aware what it's capable of, and his people are trying to suborn various intelligence organizations, like in Darmstadt. He's playing some kind of endgame and you don't like the smell and neither does the Black Chamber, which explains me and Ramona. Am I right so far"
Angleton nods minutely. "I should remind you that Billington is extraordinarily rich and has fingers in a surprising number of pies. For example, by way of his current wife — his third — he owns a cosmetics and haute couture empire; in addition to IT corporations he owns shipping, aviation, and banking interests. Your assignment — and Ramona's — is to get close to Billington. Ideally you should contrive to get yourself invited aboard his yacht, the Mabuse, while Ramona remains in touch with your backup team and the local head of station. Your technical backups are Pinky and Brains, your muscle backup is Boris, and you're to liaise with our Caribbean station chief, Jack Griffin. Officially, he's your superior officer and you'll be under his orders when it comes to nonoperational matters but you're to report directly to me, not to him. Unofficially, Griffin is out to pasture — take anything he says with a pinch of salt. Your job is to get close to Billington, remain in touch with us, and be ready to act if and when we decide to take him down."
I manage not to groan. "Why does it have to be me aboard the yacht — why not Ramona? I think she'd be a whole lot better at the field ops thing. Or the station chief guy? Come to think of it, why aren't the AIVD doing this? It's their territory — "
"They invited us in; all I
Scattered across the layered silt are small irregular objects, some of them round, some of them long. A couple more seconds and my brain acknowledges that what my eyes are seeing is a watery field of skulls and femurs and ribs. I've got an idea that not all of them are entirely human.
"The Caribbean sea hides many secrets. This field of silt covers a deep layer rich in methane hydrates. When some force destabilizes the deposits they bubble up from the depths — like the carbon dioxide discharge from the stagnant waters of Lake Nyos in the Cameroon. But unlike Lake Nyos, the gas isn't confined by terrain so it dissipates after it surfaces.
It's not an asphyxiation threat, but if you're on a ship that's caught above a hydrate release, then the sea under your keel turns to gas and you're going straight down to Davy Jones's locker." Angleton clears his throat. "BLUE HADES have some way of replenishing these deposits and triggering releases. They use them to keep us interfering hominids away from things that don't concern us, such as the settlement at Witch's Hole in the North Sea ... and the depths of the Bermuda Triangle."
I swallow. "What's down there"
"Some of the deepest oceanic trenches on Earth. And some of the largest BLUE HADES installations we're aware of."
Angleton looks as if he's bitten into a lemon expecting an orange. "That isn't saying much — most of their sites are known to us only from neutrino mapping and seismology.
The portion of the biosphere we understand is limited to the surface waters and continental land masses, boy. Below a thousand fathoms of water, let alone below the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, it's a whole different ball game."
"The Moho-what"
"The underside of the continental plates we live on — below the discontinuity lies the upper mantle. Didn't you study geography at school"
"Uh ... " I spent most of my school geography lessons snoozing, doodling imaginary continents in the backs of exercise books, or trying to work up the courage to pass a message to Lizzie Graham in the next row. Now it looks like those missed lessons are about to come back and bite me.
"Moving swiftly on, let me see if I've got this straight. Ellis Billington has purchased a CIA spy ship designed for probing BLUE HADES territory. He's got a high enough security clearance to be aware what it's capable of, and his people are trying to suborn various intelligence organizations, like in Darmstadt. He's playing some kind of endgame and you don't like the smell and neither does the Black Chamber, which explains me and Ramona. Am I right so far"
Angleton nods minutely. "I should remind you that Billington is extraordinarily rich and has fingers in a surprising number of pies. For example, by way of his current wife — his third — he owns a cosmetics and haute couture empire; in addition to IT corporations he owns shipping, aviation, and banking interests. Your assignment — and Ramona's — is to get close to Billington. Ideally you should contrive to get yourself invited aboard his yacht, the Mabuse, while Ramona remains in touch with your backup team and the local head of station. Your technical backups are Pinky and Brains, your muscle backup is Boris, and you're to liaise with our Caribbean station chief, Jack Griffin. Officially, he's your superior officer and you'll be under his orders when it comes to nonoperational matters but you're to report directly to me, not to him. Unofficially, Griffin is out to pasture — take anything he says with a pinch of salt. Your job is to get close to Billington, remain in touch with us, and be ready to act if and when we decide to take him down."
I manage not to groan. "Why does it have to be me aboard the yacht — why not Ramona? I think she'd be a whole lot better at the field ops thing. Or the station chief guy? Come to think of it, why aren't the AIVD doing this? It's their territory — "
"They invited us in; all I
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