The Lost Island by Douglas Preston

dropping away on their left. Soon they were cruising in open water.
    “Los Monjes is about fifty-five nautical miles away,” Amy said. “We’ll be there in two hours.”
    Gideon nodded. “Anything you want me to do, Captain?”
    She glanced at him. “Another espresso.”
    “Coming right up.”
    He made another espresso. While he didn’t particularly enjoy taking orders, he had to admit this was a cushy mission. It was also nice in a way, having somebody else making the decisions for a change. He brought up the espresso and she shot it down as quickly as the first.
    The boat thundered across the water, sending back a long, creamy wake. For the first hour of travel, the sea was dotted with other yachts, mostly sailboats, but as they went on, the vessels became less frequent until there was nothing but blue sea. So far he’d felt no symptoms of seasickness—thank God.
    Gideon did the rounds as he was instructed by Amy: cleaned the head, downloaded email, called up the weather on the Doppler radar, checked the sat-phone printer for messages from EES. Amy, while not exactly warm and friendly, was courteous and professional. And she was clearly very, very smart. Gideon liked that.
    On schedule, a distant hump appeared on the horizon, followed by another, farther away and to the north. They approached the more southerly island, a whitened, barren rock about a quarter mile long, with a ruined lighthouse on top, surrounded by cliffs and pounded by the sea. As they came around the end of the island, the Black Bottle appeared: a sea stack of basalt, standing about fifty yards off the tip of the island, roiled by white surf. Amy called up the tiny drawing of clue six from the Phorkys Map on her navigational computer. As the boat circled the island, the sea stack moved into position, the black rock standing out against the white rock of the island.
    Suddenly she reversed throttle and the boat rumbled to a stop.
    “Incredible,” said Gideon. He could hardly believe how perfectly they matched.
    “Get the camera, please, and take some pictures.” Amy seemed almost more surprised than he was.
    While Amy held the boat steady in the swell, Gideon snapped a number of photographs with a digital Nikon camera that EES had provided and took a short video.
    “I’ll download everything and send it to Glinn,” he said. “Along with a report.”
    “Good. And fill in the log the way I showed you, indicating position, engine hours, fuel, water, weather conditions, and a narrative entry. And then you might make us breakfast. Bacon and eggs, please.”
    “Aye aye, Captain.”
    Gideon went below. At the workstation in the galley, he emailed the photos and report to Glinn over the satellite uplink. He could feel the movement of the water becoming rougher, the boat pitching and yawing as it rode the waves. To his great dismay, he began to feel queasy.
    He stood up, put on a frying pan, and began cooking bacon. The smell filled the galley despite the fan and—rather than sharpen his appetite—made him feel worse. He cracked a couple of eggs, scrambled them, added some cheese and fresh chives from the well-stocked refrigerator. When it was done, he set a place for one at the kitchen table, put on the food, and went above.
    “Breakfast is ready.”
    “Good. You take the helm.”
    “ Me? ”
    “Yes, you. Use the wheel, not the joystick. The joystick is for maneuvering in the harbor. Keep the heading at two hundred and seventy degrees—the electronic compass is right here—and keep an eye out for floating debris. That’s the one thing you really need to worry about out here. We’re in deep water, no reefs, no other boat traffic. As we approach the mainland, you may note a change in the color of the water. I should be back before that.”
    With great trepidation, Gideon took the wheel while Amy went below. The boat rumbled along. The flow of air through the open windows was refreshing and began to drive away his incipient nausea. The