Black wind

the hoist hook and gave Yoshida the thumbs-up sign. Ever so gently, the crane operator pulled up on the hoist line, the thick cable drawing tight as it wrapped around a drum behind the cab. Slowly, Yoshida raised the twenty-four-ton submersible to a height of fifty feet, hesitating as he waited for its twisting motion to halt before swinging it over to a waiting pad on the Baekje’s rear deck. But he never got the chance.
    Before it could be seen, and almost before it physically started, Yoshida’s experienced hands could feel something wrong through the controls. One of the cables had not been properly secured to the submersible and the tail suddenly slipped down and through a loop in the cable. In an instant, the rear of the sub lunged down and the white metal capsule hung vertically at a grotesque angle, clinging precariously to the single cable wrapped around its nose. Yoshida didn’t breathe, and, for a moment, it looked like the dangling submersible would stabilize. But before he could move it an inch, a loud twang burst through the air as the lone securing cable snapped. Like a toon of bricks, the submersible dropped straight to the dock below, landing on its tail with an accordion like smash before plopping over on its side in distress.
    Yoshida grimaced, already thinking of the grief he would suffer at the hands of Takagai, as well as the reams of insurance paperwork he would be forced to fill out. Thankfully, no one was hurt on the dock. As he climbed down from the crane’s cab to inspect the damage, Yoshida glanced at the bald man on the gangway, expecting to see a seething fury. Instead, the mysterious man looked back at him with a cold face of stone. The dark eyes, however, seemed to pierce right through him.
    The Shinkai three-man submersible was heavily mashed on one end and clearly inoperable. It would be shipped back to its home at the Japanese Marine Science and Technology Center for three months’ worth of repairs before it would be seaworthy again. The two dockworkers did not fare as well. Though not fired, Yoshida noticed that the two men did not show up for work the next day, and, in fact, were never seen or heard from again.
    Twenty hours later and 250 miles farther to the southwest, an American commercial jetliner touched down at Osaka’s modern Kan-sai International Airport and taxied to the international gate. Dirk stretched his six-foot-four frame as he exited the plane, relieved to be free from the cramped airline seating that only a jockey would find comfortable. Passing quickly through the customs checkpoint, he entered the busy main terminal crowded with businessmen hustling to catch their flights. Stopping briefly, it took just a momentary scan of the terminal before he picked out the woman he was looking for from the mass of humanity.
    Standing nearly six feet tall with shoulder-length flaming red hair, his fraternal twin sister Summer towered like a beacon in a sea of black-haired Japanese. Her pearl gray eyes glistened and her soft mouth broke into a grin as she spotted her brother and waved him over to her.
    “Welcome to Japan,” she gushed, giving him a hug. “How was your flight?”
    “Like riding in a sardine can with wings.”
    “Good, then you’ll feel right at home in the cabin berth I scraped up for you on the Sea Rover” she laughed.
    “I was afraid you wouldn’t be here yet,” Dirk remarked as he collected his luggage and they made their way to the parking lot.
    “When Captain Morgan received word from Rudi that we were to terminate our study of pollutants along the eastern coast of Japan to assist in an emergency search-and-recovery mission, he wasted no time in responding. Fortunately, we were working not far off Shikoku when we got the call so were able to reach Osaka this morning.”
    Like her brother, Summer had possessed a deep love of the sea since childhood. After obtaining a master’s degree in oceanography from the Scripps Institute, she’d joined her brother at NUMA following a uniting with their father, who now headed up the undersea organization. As headstrong and resourceful as her sibling, she’d gained respect in the field with her knowledge and hands-on abilities, while her attractive looks never failed to turn heads.
    Leading Dirk past a row of parked cars, Summer suddenly stopped in front of a tiny orange Suzuki subcompact parked by itself.
    “Oh, no, not another knee-crusher,” Dirk laughed as he surveyed the tiny vehicle.
    “A