Rogue Wave Read online

  “Yes, but what they’re talking about isn’t a random set of events. They’re talking about creating one and targeting ships with it like a weapon.”

  “Perhaps they’re not creating them. Maybe they’re merely controlling the movements once they form naturally?” Sam said.

  “Even if they could control them, the likelihood that they happened to be near enough to identify the rogue wave when it naturally formed, is so small, that they would be better off leaving the entire thing to chance and hoping that a real rogue wave would form and kill their target. No, they must know how to produce them and control the rogue wave for it to work.”

  “Okay, so we have to at least examine the possibility the technology is feasible, even if no else has ever done so before.”

  Tom nodded his head.

  “All right,” Sam said. “Tell me. Why would someone go to all the effort of researching, producing and then using a rogue wave to kill someone like Luke Eldridge?”

  “What do you mean? I thought you said they were after this guy because he’d refused an offer to sell the rights to his discovery?”

  “Yes, but why not just kill him the old fashioned way?”

  Tom shrugged his shoulders. “With a gun? And then dump his body in the ocean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “According to Elise, Luke had real time satellite imaging monitoring his progress twenty-four hours a day. Someone knew that he was being watched.”

  Sam thought about it for a moment. “There’s more to it than that. Whoever was trying to blackmail Luke knew that they couldn’t just have him killed. Somewhere within Luke’s will, he advised that if the circumstances pertaining to his death were deemed suspicious, meaning murder was a possibility, his entire wealth and current research lines were to be given back to the state.”

  “And so they needed to devise of a way to kill him, without any chance of suspicion. A naturally occurring freak event that killed him?”

  “Yes. In this case, it was the perfect crime because Luke yacht, the Mirabelle, had a continuous electronic recording for promotional purposes. Meaning, the entire event of his death was recorded. Undisputed evidence it was an accident.”

  “Then who has access to that tape?”

  “Several people would have access to it by now. But Elise is in the process of hacking into the coastguard’s database to gain a copy. And then we’ll have some answers.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sam switched his laptop on and downloaded the most recent file regarding the series of rogue waves. His father had complained someone was targeting cargo ships from his fleet with rogue waves and had asked him to investigate it. Sam shook his head, recalling at the time that he didn’t believe a word his father had said about the attacks. He then clicked the on button of his remote and the large flat screen TV in front of him turned on. In a crystal clear image, a large cargo ship came into focus. On its side were the words: Global Star.

  His father owned Global Shipping, the largest shipping company in the world. Global Star was the biggest in his fleet. At 1405 feet in length, she had a gross tonnage that just surpassed the 200 000 mark, making her one of the largest cargo vessels afloat.

  At first examination the image appeared to show nothing more than the gargantuan cargo ship. The sort of thing that could sail through a battleship without noticing the collision. Then Sam saw what he was looking for. It was small enough to be easily overlooked by most people, with the exception of a naval engineer.

  The enormous steel chine which ran along the hull of the ship was bent inwards. It looked so small that it could be mistaken as purposeful change in the ship’s shape. But on closer examination, Sam realized he was looking at a slightly concertinaed hull.

  Tom noticed it a second later. “What in God’s name would cause that type of damage?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea. A ship this size would ride up even the largest rogue wave, but this looks more like it was struck by a solid wall of water. Let’s speak to her Captain – see if he can shed some light on it.”

  Sam nodded his head, and made the conference call.

  “Captain Miller?”

  “Speaking.” The old salt’s voice was slow, and laid back. The sort you’d expect from someone who’d spent two thirds of his life at sea.

  “Sorry to interrupt you while you’re on leave. My name’s Sam Reilly. Can you talk?”

  “Not a problem, sir.” Miller’s voice became crisp and professional. “Please, you can call me Leslie.”

  Sam smiled. Leslie had worked for his father as long as he’d been alive. He recalled warmly the pleasure of being taken under the old man’s wing for his first ocean crossing when he was still a boy. Even so, the man had never forgotten that he was the owner’s son.

  “As you know, the Global Star’s collision was the third in the past month to be struck by a rogue wave within the Bermuda Triangle. Considering it was the first collision in 25 years of any of his ships passing through the triangle it seems unusual all three should occur in the same month. My father was hoping that I could somehow make some sort of sense of it.”

  The Captain laughed. It was a big boisterous laugh. “That sounds like your father. Always trying to put order to everything in business. Science, is his religion. And the simple fact that all three of us were struck by a “one in a million” rogue wave randomly is seen by James as nothing more than sacrilege.”

  “I agree. I’m with you. Sometimes chance and luck have a strange way of showing their faces. Even so, you must admit it’s extremely unlikely three such events would occur within the same rough location, especially in the timeframe.” Sam grinned at the thought of his father and this weathered sailor clashing wits. “Oh, and it wasn’t a one in a million event. For a rogue wave approaching a hundred feet in height, the likelihood is approaching a one in a trillion event.”

  “True. But, does that make you more likely to place the cause of such an event at someone’s hand, as an intentional event?”

  “Funny you should say that, Leslie. Because someone recently came to me with just such an absurd theory.”

  “Someone intentionally created a rogue wave?” the old salt sounded intrigued.

  “From where I’m standing, it appears someone’s now created a total of four. Three of them damaged my father’s vessels beyond repair, and the fourth killed an old friend of mine who was racing in a sailing regatta at the time.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Tell me. As a man who’s spent his life at sea, is it possible that someone cracked the code and worked out how to create monster waves?”

  “As in a weapon?”

  Sam studied the damage to the ship. “A pretty deadly one by the looks of Global Star. Do you think it’s possible?”

  “Everything’s possible. It’s just unlikely that anyone’s gone to the lengths required to achieve it. And for what purpose, I couldn’t imagine. The only person to get anything out of this event was your father. He was paid well by the insurance companies, but he had no reason to want to sink his ships. As you know, he’s not struggling financially.”

  “No. That’s one thing I’m confident about. This wasn’t an elaborate plan concocted by my father.”

  Over the years, Sam’s father, James Reilly, had diversified into an inordinate and varied number of areas with great success, ranging from oil, to natural gas, through to innovations in science and technology and even clean, renewable energies. Sam’s father had an uncanny ability to pick the next BIG thing, and invest heavily in time to reap the rewards. That was process by which his father had continued to expand his fortune.

  At the back of his father’s fortune was the old man’s greatest expertise – shipping. He’d built his fortune on cargo ships, and it was the most stable income earner out of all of his investments. No, his father wasn’t behind this. There was no reason his father would want to sink his own fleet for the insurance claims.

  Sam stared up at the
image of the damaged cargo ship on the flat screen. “You’ve spent your life at sea. How would you do it?”

  “Me? You’re asking the wrong person. You need an engineer and a scientist. What I know about rogue waves is that they’re the stuff of legends. Often exaggerated by frightened sailors, thankful for being alive, and that although rare, they are a fact of the ocean. There’s nothing you can do about it. Even if they only occur once in every few million waves – the ocean is filled with billions of waves every single day. That means, somewhere out there, hundreds of rogue waves are forming and most are likely never being noticed.”

  “But how would you make one?”

  “You’re better off speaking to a hydrologist or at least an oceanographer. But in theory, you could do so in four ways. First, you create the single rogue wave as the result of a secondary event. For example, by dropping a large bomb into the water. Second, you could create an air pocket underneath the water – as air rises from the depth of the ocean, it doubles in size for every ten feet. Therefore, if you planted a bomb with a large air explosion at five hundred feet, the compounded size would lead to a massive volume of air reaching the surface. The subsequent waves would proportionally travel in an outward direction. Three, you use a fault in the earth’s tectonic plates to create a tsunami. Fourth, you take the waves that are already there and point them in the same direction – each one compounding the next.”

  “Do you have any idea how you would channel a number of waves together?” Sam asked.

  “You mean synchronizing?” Even over the phone, Sam could mentally see Leslie Miller rubbing his grizzled, gray chin whiskers while he thought.

  “Yes,” Sam confirmed.

  “I’ve never tried, but I could imagine if you have a predominant series of waves coming in a perpendicular direction, you could then build a waterway to channel the two into a collision. That would result in all that energy being built up together and either cancelling each other out, or joining into a larger wave. Of course, if you wanted it as a weapon, you would still need to then work out how you’re going to position your enemy in the precise location at the end of the channel. It seems pretty useless to me. Kind of akin to having a rocket launcher fixed in a precise position, so your enemies need to gather in the one spot to be attacked.”

  Sam thought about it. “An interesting idea.”

  “Like I said, I’m not the specialist you should be talking to if you want to build it.”

  “No, but a man with your experience on the ocean, must have some open ideas. And it was that which I wanted to explore with you.” The plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and Sam casually braced his hand on the secure desk. “All right, forget about building one for the time being, tell us about the one that you survived. By the looks of your ship, it must have been a real bitch.”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  “Okay, what can you tell me about that night?”

  “There isn’t really much to tell. The weather was relatively simple for this time of year. It was entering hurricane season, but there weren’t any dangerously low pressure systems at the time. We had a moderate following swell of four to five feet in height, the wind was gusting to twenty knots, and we were under motor making way at 24 knots. It was 1015 p.m. when we saw it. I had just enough time to sound the warning alarm when it struck. I’d say that the wall of water was at least a hundred foot high and surreal.”

  “Surreal?” Sam asked, surprised by the man’s use of the word. “How so?”

  “The phosphorescence was stronger than I’d ever seen it in all my years on the ocean. Within the powerful water of the rogue wave it gave the appearance of coming alive and taking control. Afterwards, the wave dispersed and the glow disappeared with it.”

  “Did it take long to sink?”

  “We didn’t sink. We limped into the Florida Keys, towed by a local tugboat and utilizing internal buoyancy devices to support us. The pumps worked through the night, and the emergency teams tried to block the multitude of holes in the hull. The ship will be sold for scrap metal, but at least it didn’t rest on the bottom.”

  “Really? My father didn’t mention that. I just assumed the photos I’d seen were taken from the lifeboats. I was told all three cargo vessels were destroyed.”

  “The other two ships sunk within minutes. I believe both had their hull broken in two. As for the Global Star, it didn’t sink, but it may as well have. There was so much damage done to every inch of her hull and inner frame that her repair costs would far outweigh the cost of a rebuild.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “On the dry stand in Fort Lauderdale – awaiting scrapping.”

  “Thanks. Oh, one more thing. I know you were coming past Bermuda at the time of the event. Can you tell me your specific location when the wave struck?”

  “Yeah, I was in line with South Bimini Island – exactly twenty miles west of it.”

  “Thank you Leslie. Enjoy your-hard earned leave time.” Sam ended the phone call and looked at Tom, “I’d say that’s an amazing coincidence where the rogue wave struck, wouldn’t you?”

  Tom grunted. “Oh no, I’m not buying into the whole Bimini Road conspiracy again!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sam contacted the next two captains. Each one gave a similar story, uneventful right up to the moment their gigantic ships were capsized and sunk by an unlikely rogue wave. The environment, the swell, the weather all appeared non-specific, unrelated and incapable of sinking a supertanker or even a major cargo vessel.

  “Well Tom, what do you make of that?” Sam said.

  “I don’t know what to make of it. It all sounds like one hell of a coincidence, but nothing more.”

  “You don’t think it’s all a little too convenient that all three vessels were attacked by a rogue wave within an area at sea of less than five miles?”

  “We’re calling it an attack now?” Tom teased.

  “Yes. It’s impossible to call this simply bad luck.”

  “I’m not saying it makes sense. I’m just saying that I don’t believe in your Bimini Road theory.”

  “I’m just following the evidence, and it tells me that I was right all those years ago about the true purpose of the Bimini Road.” Sam sighed. Even he knew it was a long shot. “Okay, so it’s an underwater formation of rectangular limestone rocks out from North Bimini Island that runs nearly half a mile in a northeast-southwest linear direction directly towards the site of the rogue waves. No one’s ever been able to prove the significance of the strange feature, but I’d say it worth at least looking at the prospect of the two strange events being connected.”

  Tom stood up. “You said yourself that the place has been proven beyond a doubt to be a natural formation of stones on the seabed.”

  “I did. And I believe it still. What I’m suggesting is that perhaps this was a natural occurring formation that lead to the right environment to produce rogue waves. The ancient seafaring tribes knew this and were able to use it to gain an advantage over cargo ships, pirates, and Man o’War ships during the 17th century.”

  “And yet, you’ve never found evidence of such a tribe or the many shipwrecks that you said they caused?”

  “No, but watch me find them now that I know where to look.”

  “You’re talking about diving where the other cargo ships were sunk?”

  “Yes. If I’m right, there will be a shipping graveyard below.” Sam brought up the image of the other two ships. The first one had broken in half and was still floundering in the water; while the second one had been almost entirely sunk, with the bow just sticking above the water. “Tell me, apart from their similar locations, what else did you notice about the stories that all three captains told?”

  “The story seems to get more ridiculous. Three highly experienced sea captains, each with more than thirty years experiences behind them. Each one giving the same basic story, and each one within ten nautical miles west of North Bimini Island.”

&n
bsp; “None of them telling us anything to help.”

  Tom smiled. “But each captain was certain of one thing.”

  “What?”

  “They’d never seen the phosphorescence so bright!”

  Sam grinned. Pleased to see that his friend had finally become taken by the story, if nothing else. “So they did. But of course, Bermuda is full of phosphorescent plankton, and it’s conceivable that if a rogue wave was to strike a sea full of phosphorescence the stuff is going to glow like it never had before.”

  “Yes, but doesn’t it strike you as odd that each captain was adamant he’d never seen the phosphorescence glow like that before. They almost described the plankton as sinister, as it ran towards them.”

  “Are you suggesting the plankton caused this?” Sam asked.

  “No, of course not. That’s the sort of crazy theory you’d come up with. I’m just saying that whatever condition is likely to cause the massive proliferation of bioluminescent plankton may also be the sort of condition that causes a rogue wave to develop.”

  “Of course!” Sam stood up from his desk. “What if Captain Miller was right about his theory? That the rogue wave generator was like having a rocket aimed at a fixed position. Only, it’s not just fixed at a certain position – the weapon doesn’t fire on demand. Instead whoever is in control can only use the increase in plankton to work out the trigger for formation of a rogue wave?”

  “And what sort of conditions cause the proliferation of plankton?”

  “Warm weather.”

  “And warm weather causes a change in the ocean’s swell. Find out what that change is and we might find out how these waves are being created.”

  “Find that and we might just be on to something.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sam Reilly knocked at the door. It was a small apartment building on the MIT’s university grounds, where Timothy Locke often taught. By the third knock, an elderly man opened the door. He was quite tall, at least Tom Bower’s height, although his frame appeared much frailer.