Shadow Zone by Iris Johansen, Roy Johansen Read Free Book Online

now.”
    Whump.
    Matthew shot an inquiring glance at Hannah.
    Hannah shook her head. “No. Keep going. We only have one shot at this.”
    Whump.
    Hannah pulled on a pair of 3-D goggles. Her view, generated by the video cameras mounted outside, changed with the degree by which she turned her head. She slipped her hands back into the controller gloves and flexed her fingers to activate the mechanical arms.
    “What are you doing?” Josh asked.
    “I’m going to try to swat them away.”
    “Good luck,” Matthew said. “Those dolphins weigh over a thousand pounds.”
    “Just keep going.” Through the goggles, Hannah could see four dolphins heading toward her from the right. She extended the right mechanical arm and waved it back and forth, effectively blocking the vessel’s side from another tandem blow.
    The dolphins swerved away at the last second.
    She blocked another blow from the left. And another after that. “Almost there, guys?”
    “Another hundred feet.”
    “Hurry. I think I spooked them with the mechanical arms, but it may not last.”
    After a few moments, Matthew’s eyes narrowed at the color monitor trained on the structures below them. “The GPS stamp says it happened around thirty feet from here. Does this look familiar, Hannah?”
    “You’re asking the wrong person.” Hannah spoke into her headset. “Melis?”
    “I think these were the gardens of a school,” Melis said. “An institute of higher learning.”
    Matthew chuckled, but there was still perspiration beading his brow. “University of Marinth.”
    “I see it,” Josh said. “It’s at ten o’clock. I’ll take us over.”
    Josh piloted the minisub over to the fallen wall that had almost crushed them the day before, then used a touchpad to aim a spotlight over the area. “There. There’s our trellis and colored glass. Are you getting this, Melis?”
    “Yes, that’s it. I can’t tell how much more there is under the silt. Got your leaf blower handy?”
    “I’m already on it.” Hannah extended the left mechanical arm and activated a compressed-air nozzle mounted on one of the steel fingers. Silt scattered across the trellis, exposing the intricately carved stone framework containing hundreds of interlocking pieces of colored crystal.
    For the first time, they were able to take a good look at the entire artifact. It measured approximately twelve feet by eight feet, cut from a dark brown slab of granite less than an inch thick. The bridges between the colored translucent pieces were approximately an eighth of an inch thick, and a few of them had broken, leaving gaping holes in the elaborate jigsaw puzzle.
    “Some restoration work needs to be done, but it’s fairly intact,” Hannah said.
    Whump.
    Another dolphin hit, this time from the rear.
    “Shit!” Josh yelled. “More coming!”
    Hannah whirled around. Ten to twelve dolphins were fast approaching from the left. Hannah raised the mechanical arm and repelled them with a blast of compressed air.
    “Look fast. I don’t mean to rush you, Melis, but things are getting intense down here.”
    “Just another few seconds, Hannah.”
    “No more than that.”
    Melis was silent for a moment. Hannah imagined she was leaning forward at her console, lips slightly moving as she read the ancient writings.
    “I’ll be damned,” Melis murmured.
    “Melis?”
    “It’s a gravesite. There was someone buried here.”
    Matthew exchanged a look with Hannah. “I thought you said this was a school.”
    “It was,” Melis said. “But the historian, the one who is telling the story of Marinth here, was a high-ranking offcial. He may have even been the top man. The dean, if you will. It was a sign of great respect, a tribute, for people to be buried at institutions they had founded. You guys photographed markers at the central marketplace and the courthouse, remember?”
    “I remember,” Hannah said. “What else does this mosaic tell us?”
    “I’ll need you to bring it up. There are