Zero Point

What readers are saying about Zero
Point

***

"A rollicking and engaging adventure to prevent a shocking cataclysm from the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean."

—
Dirk Cussler, New York Times Bestselling Author of Poseidon’s Arrow

***

"An evil mastermind…  A terrifying new weapon of mass destruction…  A clever young archeologist with
a  streak
of reluctant heroism…  An ancient secret that could change
everything
… 

Tim Fairchild’s breakout novel,
ZERO POINT
is pure white-knuckle adventure at its very best."

— Jeff Edwards, award-winning author of Sea of Shadows, and The Seventh Angel

Zero Point

1

2008, Bismarck Sea, New Guinea

J
osh Turner gazed upon the calm evening sea as the vintage cargo freighter
Southern Star
made
her way along the rugged New Guinea coastline. The evening air was thick with humidity from the day's torturous heat as he watched the sun descend behind the deep green canopy of the receding mainland.

One of the few World War II Victory ships still in service, the four hundred fifty-five foot
Southern Star
had picked up Turner after off-loading supplies at
the Port of Aitape earlier that afternoon. She was outward bound now, and after her next port of call, Turner would then return to Port Adelaide in Australia. There he would catch a puddle jumper flight to Sidney and then, at long last, home.

A mere mile away, Turner regarded the flickering lights from the small island of Tumleo, giving him the only hint of inhabitants along the sparsely populated northern coast of Papua.

He was exhausted from the arduous three-month archeology excursion with his young interns deep in the mountainous interior of Papua. His two ‘cub’ interns, as he dubbed them, Susan Hendrich and James Pond, were graduate students from the University of Melbourne.

The two students dove into the project with all the vigor of what Turner had termed a couple of bears merrily rummaging through a trash dumpster. Turner, on the other hand, had shown little interest from day one in excavating and cataloging the remains of a two hundred year old native village. Teetering on the verge of heat stroke during the day, then being devoured alive by insects at night was not on his bucket list. He had only done so at the insistence of his father, Eli Turner. It was just another favor to one of his father’s many fellow archaeologists worldwide.

Turner longed to be back on Tenerife in the Canary Islands with its dry, temperate days, cool nights, and many colorful festivals, all of which he enjoyed. He had just begun working on an ancient site once occupied by the island’s original inhabitants, the Guanche, before giving in to his father‘s wishes and coming to Papua.

I’m so glad this trip is over,
he thought, tasting the thick salt air and feeling the warm, gentle sea breeze blowing through his coarse, slightly graying hair. He closed his deep, piercing blue eyes for a moment, relishing the completion of this mission as he felt the ship’s engines vibrating the gray, steel decking beneath his feet. He missed his longtime friend
Samuel, and had discovered during this trip how much he really missed
Maria
.

Turner looked up at the bridge wheelhouse located amidships. In the fading light, he could make out the silhouette of the ship’s captain, Alfred Cleary, guiding his vessel through the narrow straights toward deeper waters.

Alfred Cleary had spent twenty-five years sailing these waters, and Turner felt a bit saddened at the prospect of the gruff captain’s ship being sent to the scrap yards at the completion of this voyage, and that Cleary would probably be forced into retirement.

He recalled listening to Cleary boast to the harbor master while unloading cargo at the pier in Aitape, saying, “The
Southern Star
is a fine ship and has never failed me through the long years. She’s sturdy and agile with her sixty-two foot beam and twenty-eight foot draft, making her ideal for these waters where many larger and newer vessels wouldn’t dare navigate.”

Turner made his way up the ladder to the bridge and entered the dimly lit wheelhouse. Thick with the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat, he stood by the doorway and received no acknowledgment from the captain who was intently focused on his task. Turner watched as Cleary skillfully guided his vessel through the dangerous Tumleo Straight.

“What is our current depth, Mr. Harkness?” Cleary asked his first officer.

“Seven point six fathoms, Captain, and falling away,” the younger officer replied. “We’re clear to navigate.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harkness; you have the bridge,” Cleary said, jotting down a few notes in his log. “Set a course for Wuvulu Island. That’ll be our final stop. We’ll take on a few passengers, then set course for home.”

“Aye, Captain,” the younger man replied, taking the wheel of the ship. Cleary simply grunted, causing Turner to smile. He turned, gave Turner a toothless grin, and then gestured with his hand toward the hatchway leading out to the deck.

Stepping out of the wheelhouse, the pair climbed down a flight of steps and began walking toward the bow of the ship. The gruff, unshaven captain lit a cigarette as they strolled. Reaching the bow, they looked landward to see the dim lights of Tumleo Island flickering in the darkness as the last vestiges of day faded into night. They felt the gentle, rumbling vibration of the six thousand horse power Allis Chalmers marine steam turbines turning the vessel’s eighteen-foot diameter propeller.

“Josh,” he asked after a long silence, “at my age, how in hell will I ever find another ship to master? I’m almost fifty-seven years old.”

“Maybe it’s time you start that charter fishing business in Adelaide. You once mentioned it to my father,” Turner responded, still eyeing the island lights in the distance. “I think you’d make a fortune from the tourists who vacation there. Some of the best sport fishing in the world, I’ve been told.”

“To tell you the truth, the more I think about it, the more I realize I couldn’t deal with those assholes, Josh. I know for damned sure I’d wind up in prison for tossing one of the sons-of-bitches overboard for telling me how to do my job,” he said, causing Turner to laugh. “But considering I still have to earn a living in order to
keep
beer in the fridge, I’ll keep your suggestion in mind, young Mr. Turner.” He then tossed his cigarette butt over the side, turned, and headed back toward the wheelhouse.

His eyes now adjusted to the evening, Turner noticed the form of Susan Hendrich, his intern, approaching him bathed in the soft glow of the old ship’s port running lights.

“Good evening, Dr. Turner,” she said happily, coming up to the rail beside him.

“Please don’t call me that, Susan,” he replied gruffly. “That’s my father’s title, not mine.”

“But you
do
have your doctorate in archeology, Josh. You should be proud of that.”

“I not impressed by titles, Susan. That’s my father’s gig. His view on archeology is cocktails with diplomats, or dinner with prospective sources of funding. Ever since he got the United Nations involved with his International Consortium for Artifact Preservation project, I‘ve been stuck doing most of the field work while he attends dinner functions with diplomats.”

“Josh, you should be proud of your father’s concept of ICAP. Involving so many nations with preservation, has
helped to curtail the black marketing of many artifacts that would have otherwise been lost to some rich collector and—”

“Whoa! What the hell is that?” Turner interrupted his young intern, pointing toward the eastern sky.

The two viewed a glowing object on the horizon that seemed to shimmer with an orange-yellow tint as it arced across the night sky trailed by flames. It rushed toward the west, and, as it approached, they could clearly make out a distinct roar; like that of a locomotive.

They watched the object in stunned fascination until of a sudden, it seemed to slow, then sharply turn downward and plummet into the sea some twen
ty miles distant. After a moment, there came a flash of light as bright as the sun followed by a thunderous boom. The two stared in silence as the night once again regained its normality.

Captain Cleary rushed out of the wheelhouse and onto the catwalk.

“Did you see that, Josh? It looked like a meteor, and a damned big one, too!” he yelled.

“I never saw a meteor slow down and turn on its own, skipper,” Turner replied.

All of a sudden, they heard and felt a rumbling followed by the sight of a fiery blast in the distance where the object had fallen just minutes before. The intense shock wave that followed the blast hit the ship before the two could react, knocking both Turner and Susan off their feet and onto the hard steel decking.

“Go to the staterooms, Susan, and get Pond up here with your life jackets,” Turner said as he got up. “If I’m right, we may have a big problem coming our way.”

As Susan ran off, Turner raced back up the gangway to the bridge to find Cleary staring out at the darkened sea while first officer Harkness was issuing an order to the engine room to slow to quarter speed.

“Was there any damage to the ship, Captain?

“I sent a man below to check, Josh.” Turner could sense the nervousness in the elder man’s voice.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Captain,” Turner said, staring out the window into the darkness.

“I’m way ahead of you, Josh. I’ve already directed her bow toward whatever it was.”

Cleary picked up the bridge intercom microphone and shouted to the engine room. “Mr. Mallory, I want all you can give me—full ahead.”

“Full ahead—aye, skipper,” the ship’s chief engineer responded from below.

“Did you get a fix on the flash point?” Cleary asked his first officer.

“Aye, sir, twenty degrees off our starboard bow.”

“Make for that heading, Mr. Harkness,” Cleary ordered, his eyes straining in the darkness.

“Aye, sir.”

As Turner stood in the wheelhouse, he felt the steel plating begin to rumble under his feet as the forty-four
hundred ton vessel shot forward like a thoroughbred bolting from its starting gate.

“What’s our present depth?” Turner asked, hoping that his fears were wrong as he watched the crescent moon rising on the horizon ahead of them.

“Six
point
zero fathoms and the bottom is rising, Josh,” the Captain replied, sweat now forming on his brow as he gazed at the depth finder.

“Damn it!” Cleary yelled. “We should be in deeper water by now.”

“Four point nine fathoms now, sir!”
First Officer Harkness yelled with rising panic in his voice.

“We should be over twenty-five fathoms at this point. Get to your people, Josh. You know what’s coming…hurry!”

Turner raced out of the wheelhouse and descended the gangway. Not sure what to do, he ran down the walkway toward one of the many small, inflatable Zodiacs located on the
Southern Star
and began frantically looking fore and aft for his two missing interns.

“Damn it!” he yelled, knowing time was short. “Where the hell are they?” His frustration was cut short by the sickening sound of the ship’s hull scraping sea bottom. His fear rising, he heard the tormented shriek of tons of steel as the
Southern Star
slowly began to spin on its axis. It finally came to a jarring stop, throwing Turner hard against the bulkhead.

Getting up, he quickly began to untie the ropes to the davits that held the small Zodiac against the ship’s side rail.
As Susan Hendrich came bounding out the door from the staterooms below deck, Turner could see the sheer terror in her eyes.

“Where’s Pond?” Turner asked angrily as he untied the last of the davits then lowered the inflatable to the deck.

“He went down to the hold to get the artifacts we brought with us, Josh. He thought it would be—”

“Damned fool,” He said, slamming his fist against the bulkhead in frustration.

The
Southern Star
then
began to roll precariously to starboard, finally coming to rest at a fifteen-degree angle. Turner, managing to keep his footing, moved to grab the outboard motor end of the Zodiac. He looked over the side, and, in the ship’s lights, he saw to his horror the sea below churning with foam as a raging torrent of water rushed passed the stranded ship headed away from land. For what seemed an eternity to Turner, the tortured metal of the aging ship groaned in protest as tons of pressure assailed the ship’s superstructure firmly wedged in the muddy sea bottom.

“What‘s happening, Josh?” Susan cried out in wide-eyed fear.

“There’s a tsunami coming, Susan,” he yelled back at her above the roar of the water below them. “The sea’s running outward, so it won’t be long before it hits. We’re sitting high and dry and the bow of this ship is no longer facing into the wave. If it hits us broadside, we’re done for!”

The torrent of rushing water beneath the
Southern Star
diminished, and, in the glow of ship’s emergency lights, Turner could see that they were now sitting on muddy sea bottom that was once a deep channel.

“Quickly, Susan, grab onto the front of the inflatable. We need to get it to the bow.”

“What about Pond?” the young intern asked tearfully.

“There’s no time left to go down and look for him, Susan. Hopefully he’ll find us in time.”

The two managed to get the small craft to the bow of the ship where they met First Officer Harkness coming down the companionway from the bridge as other crewmen ran hurriedly about.