Frozen Fire Read Free Page A

the black hat Victoria never stopped looking for. And it was a source of tremendous pride to Micki that she was able to create those vital, improbable gaps, leaving Taino’s computer and security networks riddled with hidden virtual tunnels.
    And today, in less than an hour, she would place the matched set of small explosives into critical fissures in the cliff walls that loomed above
Atlantis
, the top secret, deep-sea habitat and methane-hydrate mining operation on which Dennis Cavendish was staking the world’s future.
    Later, Micki would detonate the devices, triggering a submarine landslide that would destroy the entire installation. All of Dennis’s proprietarytechnological advances would be lost and his minions would be sacrificed—horrible but necessary deaths. Dennis Cavendish, the man who’d crowned himself a king and wanted to be a god, would be hated and reviled, his name cursed, his legacy ruined, his dreams literally crushed.
    The plan was so simple, so clean, so elegant that it had made Micki want to laugh out loud each time she’d thought about it over the past few months. When Garner had told her to get inside Dennis’s organization eight years ago, neither she nor Garner had had any idea that such an opportunity would present itself. All she was meant to do was simply spy on the organization: observe, dig around when and where she could, and report back. That she was hired to be in charge of so much internal security had been beyond either of their most ambitious fantasies. All they had hoped to do was discover what Dennis Cavendish and his Climate Research Institute were doing, and use that information against him. It had worked in small ways over the years by stopping some of his pet projects, but being able to disrupt not just Dennis’s machinations, but to impact the world’s future so dramatically was a gift from the gods, a mandate from Earth. Micki would not, could not, fail. That she’d come up with the plan to sabotage
Atlantis
herself, and that Garner had seized on it as viable, just added to the buzz in her bloodstream.
    “All set, Ms. Crenshaw?” The dive master’s voice came through the headphones clearly and Micki fought back a smile at the rush of excitement.
    “I’m ready when you are,” she replied, briefly nodding at the beautiful and still-furious Simon Broadhurst through the porthole in front of her.
    The dive master issued a command and Micki felt a low vibration begin as the ship’s winch was brought to life. Seconds later, the pod encasing her was lifted from the tender ship’s dive platform. The deck disappeared from her view as the dive tube swung slowly away from the ship to hang in midair above the surface of the calm early-dawn sea. She felt a brief shudder as the winch’s gear shifted and then the sensation of falling in slow motion took over.
    The splashdown was easy and controlled, and the dive tube’s motors started flawlessly when she initiated the ignition sequence. Less than ten minutes after she’d been given the captain’s grudging clearance to dive, she heard the loud metallic clunk as the tether released her and retracted, leaving her free to maneuver the sleek unit to her destination two thousand feet below the surface, and two thousand feet above the most daring mining operation ever undertaken.
    Pointing the nose down, Micki left the surface world. The first thing she did was switch off the communications link to the
Wangari
. With the faint radio static gone, the only noises she could hear were the muted hum of the pod’s motor and the sparkling rush of bubbles past the porthole. The sounds soothed her as she aimed the vessel away from the well-lit surface and toward the dark, dramatic cliff created by a tectonic shift thousands of years ago. Time seemed suspended as she moved quickly and effortlessly through the water.
    As she neared the shallow, twilit floor of the continental shelf, she cut her speed so she could enjoy what would be her last