Deception Point (50 page)

“Same principle. Oceans are usually colder and more dense near the bottom, but here the dynamics are reversed. The deepwater is heated and lighter, so it rises toward the surface. Meanwhile, the surface water is heavier, so it races downward in a huge spiral to fill the void. You get these drainlike currents in the ocean. Enormous whirlpools.”

“What’s that big bump on the seafloor?” Corky pointed at the flat expanse of ocean floor, where a large dome-shaped mound rose up like a bubble. Directly above it swirled the vortex.

“That mound is a magma dome,” Tolland said. “It’s where lava is pushing up beneath the ocean floor.”

Corky nodded. “Like a huge zit.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And if it pops?”

Tolland frowned, recalling the famous 1986 megaplume event off the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where thousands of tons of twelve hundred degrees Celsius magma spewed up into the ocean all at once, magnifying the plume’s intensity almost instantly. Surface currents amplified as the vortex expanded rapidly upward. What happened next was something Tolland had no intention of sharing with Corky and Rachel this evening.

“Atlantic magma domes don’t pop,” Tolland said. “The cold water circulating over the mound continually cools and hardens
the earth’s crust, keeping the magma safely under a thick layer of rock. Eventually the lava underneath cools, and the spiral disappears. Megaplumes are generally not dangerous.”

Corky pointed toward a tattered magazine sitting near the computer. “So you’re saying
Scientific American
publishes fiction?”

Tolland saw the cover, and winced. Someone had apparently pulled it from the
Goya
’s archive of old science magazines:
Scientific American,
February 1999. The cover showed an artist’s rendering of a supertanker swirling out of control in an enormous funnel of ocean. The heading read:
MEGAPLUMES—GIANT KILLERS FROM THE DEEP?

Tolland laughed it off. “Totally irrelevant. That article is talking about megaplumes in
earthquake
zones. It was a popular Bermuda Triangle hypothesis a few years back, explaining ship disappearances. Technically speaking, if there’s some sort of cataclysmic geologic event on the ocean floor, which is unheard of around here, the dome could rupture, and the vortex could get big enough to . . . well, you know . . .”

“No, we
don’t
know,” Corky said.

Tolland shrugged. “Rise to the surface.”

“Terrific. So glad you had us aboard.”

Xavia entered carrying some papers. “Admiring the megaplume?”

“Oh, yes,” Corky said sarcastically. “Mike was just telling us how if that little mound ruptures, we all go spiraling around in a big drain.”

“Drain?” Xavia gave a cold laugh. “More like getting flushed down the world’s largest toilet.”

•   •   •

Outside on the deck of the
Goya,
the Coast Guard helicopter pilot vigilantly watched the EMS radar screen. As a rescue pilot he had seen his share of fear in people’s eyes; Rachel Sexton had definitely been afraid when she asked him to keep an eye out for unexpected visitors to the
Goya.

What kind of visitors is she expecting?
he wondered.

From all the pilot could see, the sea and air for ten miles in all directions contained nothing that looked out of the ordinary. A fishing boat eight miles off. An occasional aircraft slicing
across an edge of their radar field and then disappearing again toward some unknown destination.

The pilot sighed, gazing out now at the ocean rushing all around the ship. The sensation was a ghostly one—that of sailing full speed despite being anchored.

He returned his eyes to the radar screen and watched. Vigilant.

O
nboard the
Goya,
Tolland had now introduced Xavia and Rachel. The ship’s geologist was looking increasingly baffled by the distinguished entourage standing before her in the hydrolab. In addition, Rachel’s eagerness to run the tests and get off the ship as fast as possible was clearly making Xavia uneasy.

Take your time, Xavia,
Tolland willed her.
We need to know everything.

Xavia was talking now, her voice stiff. “In your documentary, Mike, you said those little metallic inclusions in the rock could form
only
in space.”

Tolland already felt a tremor of apprehension.
Chondrules form only in space. That’s what NASA told me.

“But according to these notes,” Xavia said, holding up the pages, “that’s not entirely true.”

Corky glared. “Of course it’s true!”

Xavia scowled at Corky and waved the notes. “Last year a young geologist named Lee Pollock out of Drew University was using a new breed of marine robot to do Pacific deepwater crust sampling in the Mariana Trench and pulled up a loose rock that contained a geologic feature he had never seen before. The feature was quite similar in appearance to chondrules. He called them ‘plagioclase stress inclusions’—tiny bubbles of metal that apparently had been rehomogenized
during deep ocean pressurization events. Dr. Pollock was amazed to find metallic bubbles in an ocean rock, and he formulated a unique theory to explain their presence.”

Corky grumbled. “I suppose he would
have
to.”

Xavia ignored him. “Dr. Pollock asserted that the rock formed in an ultradeep oceanic environment where extreme pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock, permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse.”

Tolland considered it. The Mariana Trench was seven miles down, one of the last truly unexplored regions on the planet. Only a handful of robotic probes had ever ventured that deep, and most had collapsed well before they reached the bottom. The water pressure in the trench was enormous—an astounding eighteen thousand pounds per square inch, as opposed to a mere fourteen pounds on the ocean’s surface. Oceanographers still had very little understanding of the geologic forces at the deepest ocean floor. “So, this guy Pollock thinks the Mariana Trench can make rocks with chondrulelike features?”

“It’s an extremely obscure theory,” Xavia said. “In fact, it’s never even been formally published. I only happened to stumble across Pollock’s personal notes on the Web by chance last month when I was doing research on fluid-rock interactions for our upcoming megaplume show. Otherwise, I never would have heard of it.”

“The theory has never been published,” Corky said, “because it’s ridiculous. You need
heat
to form chondrules. There’s no way water pressure could rearrange the crystalline structure of a rock.”

“Pressure,” Xavia fired back, “happens to be the single biggest contributor to geologic change on our planet. A little something called a
metamorphic
rock? Geology 101?”

Corky scowled.

Tolland realized Xavia had a point. Although heat did play a role in some of earth’s metamorphic geology, most metamorphic rocks were formed by extreme pressure. Incredibly, rocks deep in the earth’s crust were under so much pressure that they acted more like thick molasses than solid rock, becoming elastic and undergoing chemical changes as they did. Nonetheless, Dr. Pollock’s theory still seemed like a stretch.

“Xavia,” Tolland said. “I’ve never heard of water pressure alone chemically altering a rock. You’re the geologist, what’s your take?”

“Well,” she said, flipping through her notes, “it sounds like water pressure isn’t the only factor.” Xavia found a passage and read Pollock’s notes verbatim. “ ‘Oceanic crust in the Mariana Trench, already under enormous hydrostatic pressurization, can find itself further compressed by tectonic forces from the region’s subduction zones.’ ”

Of course,
Tolland thought. The Mariana Trench, in addition to being crushed under seven miles of water, was a subduction zone—the compression line where the Pacific and Indian plates moved toward one another and collided. Combined pressures in the trench could be enormous, and because the area was so remote and dangerous to study, if there were chondrules down there, chances of anyone knowing about it were very slim.

Xavia kept reading. “ ‘Combined hydrostatic and tectonic pressures could potentially force crust into an elastic or semi-liquid state, allowing lighter elements to fuse into chondrulelike structures thought to occur only in space.’ ”

Corky rolled his eyes. “Impossible.”

Tolland glanced at Corky. “Is there any alternative explanation for the chondrules in the rock Dr. Pollock found?”

“Easy,” Corky said. “Pollock found an actual
meteorite.
Meteorites fall into the ocean all the time. Pollock would not have suspected it was a meteorite because the fusion crust would have eroded away from years under the water, making it look like a normal rock.” Corky turned to Xavia. “I don’t suppose Pollock had the brains to measure the
nickel
content, did he?”

“Actually, yes,” Xavia fired back, flipping through the notes again. “Pollock writes: ‘I was surprised to find the nickel content of the specimen falling within a midrange value not usually associated with terrestrial rocks.’”

Tolland and Rachel exchanged startled looks.

Xavia continued reading. “ ‘Although the quantity of nickel does not fall within the normally acceptable midrange window for meteoritic origin, it is surprisingly
close.’ ”

Rachel looked troubled. “How close? Is there any way this ocean rock could be mistaken for a meteorite?”

Xavia shook her head. “I’m not a chemical petrologist, but as I understand it, there are numerous chemical differences between the rock Pollock found and actual meteorites.”

“What are those differences?” Tolland pressed.

Xavia turned her attention to a graph in her notes. “According to this, one difference is in the chemical structure of the chondrules themselves. It looks like the titanium/zirconium ratios differ. The titanium/zirconium ratio in the chondrules of the ocean sample showed ultradepleted zirconium.” She looked up. “Only two parts per million.”

“Two ppm?” Corky blurted. “Meteorites have
thousands
of times that!”

“Exactly,” Xavia replied. “Which is why Pollock thinks his sample’s chondrules are not from space.”

Tolland leaned over and whispered to Corky, “Did NASA happen to measure the titanium/zirconium ratio in the Milne rock?”

“Of course not,” Corky sputtered. “Nobody would ever measure that. It’s like looking at a car and measuring the tires’ rubber content to confirm you’re looking at a car!”

Tolland heaved a sigh and looked back at Xavia. “If we give you a rock sample with chondrules in it, can you run a test to determine whether these inclusions are meteoric chondrules or . . . one of Pollock’s deep ocean compression things?”

Xavia shrugged. “I suppose. The electron microprobe’s accuracy should be close enough. What’s this all about, anyway?”

Tolland turned to Corky. “Give it to her.”

Corky reluctantly pulled the meteorite sample from his pocket and held it out for Xavia.

Xavia’s brow furrowed as she took the stone disk. She eyed the fusion crust and then the fossil embedded in the rock. “My God!” she said, her head rocketing upward. “This isn’t part of . . . ?”

“Yeah,” Tolland said. “Unfortunately it is.”

A
lone in her office, Gabrielle Ashe stood at the window, wondering what to do next. Less than an hour ago, she had left NASA feeling full of excitement to share Chris Harper’s PODS fraud with the senator.

Now, she wasn’t so sure.

According to Yolanda, two independent ABC reporters suspected Sexton of taking SFF bribes. Furthermore, Gabrielle had just learned that Sexton actually
knew
she had snuck into his apartment during the SFF meeting, and yet he had said nothing to her about it?

Gabrielle sighed. Her taxi had long since departed, and although she would call another in a few minutes, she knew there was something she had to do first.

Am I really going to try this?

Gabrielle frowned, knowing she didn’t have a choice. She no longer knew whom to trust.

Stepping out of her office, she made her way back into the secretarial lobby and into a wide hallway on the opposite side. At the far end she could see the massive oak doors of Sexton’s office flanked by two flags—Old Glory on the right and the Delaware flag on the left. His doors, like those of most senate offices in the building, were steel reinforced and secured by conventional keys, an electronic key pad entry, and an alarm system.

She knew if she could get inside, even if for only a few minutes, all the answers would be revealed. Moving now toward the heavily secured doors, Gabrielle had no illusions of getting
through
them. She had other plans.

Ten feet from Sexton’s office, Gabrielle turned sharply to the right and entered the ladies’ room. The fluorescents came on automatically, reflecting harshly off the white tile. As her eyes adjusted, Gabrielle paused, seeing herself in the mirror. As usual, her features looked softer than she’d hoped. Delicate almost. She always felt stronger than she looked.

Are you sure you are ready to do this?

Gabrielle knew Sexton was eagerly awaiting her arrival for a complete rundown on the PODS situation. Unfortunately, she also now realized that Sexton had deftly manipulated her tonight. Gabrielle Ashe did not like being managed. The senator had kept things from her tonight. The question was how much. The answers, she knew, lay inside his office—just on the other side of this restroom wall.

“Five minutes,” Gabrielle said aloud, mustering her resolve.

Moving toward the bathroom’s supply closet, she reached up and ran a hand over the door frame. A key clattered to the floor. The cleaning crews at Philip A. Hart were federal employees and seemed to evaporate every time there was a strike of any sort, leaving this bathroom without toilet paper and tampons for weeks at a time. The women of Sexton’s office, tired of being caught with their pants down, had taken matters into their own hands and secured a supply room key for “emergencies.”