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The captain led the way to the midship’s search-and-rescue center, just off thein front of co infor in from the ships and planes involved in the search

“How close are we to the actual lab site?” Zavala asked

Dixon pointed down to the deck at his feet

“It’s approximately three hundred feet directly under the ship’s hull We had been on standby patrol for the lab, acting as backup for the support ship, Proud Mary When we heard the Mayday, we got to the site within hours”

“Where is the support ship now?” Zavala asked

“A Navy salvage vessel is tohat’s left of her to a ship-yard, where the forensics folks can take a closer look at her We were busy taking care of the survivors, so it took so on the status of the lab When we couldn’t raise it on the radio, we erroneously assuot shot out We carry an ROV for hull inspections, and we got it down” He stepped over to a computer screen “Those circular depressions you see in the ocean botto the Locker”

“There are no drag marks,” Zavala observed “That indicates the lab was lifted off the site, which would have been possible with the Locker’s neutral buoyancy Can you show me the site on the satellite map?”

Dixon asked a technician to bring up asearched

“We’ve been using orbiting spy satellites that can zero in on an area as small as a square yard to look for infrared emissions,” Dixon said “Davy Jones’s Locker est of Pohnpei, between Nukuoro Island on the north and Oroluk Island to the south We’ve drawn lines from all three islands and dubbed our le”

“Those red squares must be the areas that have been searched,” Zavala said

“That’s right The squares designate the territory that’s been scoured with sonar The ships transrid of the ocean in squares, the ships move over each square parallel to one another in a line that stretches several miles across, and then they move on to the next square We can cover a lot of ocean that way in a very short ti visual checks”

“These would be the islands circled in red,” Zavala said

“Correct again They range froer than a thumbnail Most are deserted We’ve put choppers down on a few of them and talked to the inhabitants, but nobody’s reported anything suspicious The places we can’t get to by boat or air we’ve vetted pretty thoroughly with aerial surveys”

“The ensign said you’ve deployed sonobuoys,” Zavala said

Dixon nodded