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surface. Looking at the net, Fisher said a silent thanks to EPA, which had years earlier urged the Navy’s secure facilities to change the gap width of its sea fences so the indigenous fish population could come and go freely. In this case, the gaps were a foot square, which made Fisher’s job much easier.
    He checked the time display in the upper-right-hand corner of his mask. Even as he did so he heard the chug of the patrol boat to his left. He flipped over and dove straight down, hand trailing over the fence until he reached the bottom. The boat passed overhead, spotlight arcing through the water and playing over the fence. Once it was gone, he ascended ten feet and went to work.
    From his harness he pulled a “burn tie,” an eight-inch length of magnesium primacord. Ignited, magnesium burned hot and fast at five thousand degrees Fahrenheit, cutting through virtually anything it touched like a scalpel through jello.
    He curled the tie around the cable before him, then jammed his thumbnail into the chemical detonator at the end and backed away. There was a half-second flash of blinding white light; the fence disappeared in a cloud of bubbles. When they cleared, Fisher swam ahead. The cable had been sheared neatly in two, turning the foot-wide gap into a two-foot-wide gap. He took off his rebreather harness, pushed it through the hole, then swam on.
     
     
     
    TEN minutes later he drew to a stop in front of shed’s steel door, a wall of corrugated metal painted battleship gray. He flipped himself upside down and finned downward. He switched on his task light.
    The muddy seabed appeared before his faceplate. He turned horizontal and banked right. He passed the right edge of the door and then, abruptly, there it was: a circular scuttle set into the wall. He reached out and tried the hand wheel. Predictably, it was locked and, according to Grimsdottir, alarmed. If he tampered with it, he’d find himself surrounded by patrol boats before he got a hundred yards away.
    “Anyone home?” Fisher radioed.
    “I’m here, Sam,” Grimsdottir replied.
    “I’m at the hatch.”
    “Okay,” Grimsdottir replied. “Give me thirty seconds. I’m hacked into the Shed’s control room, but they’ve got the locks on an eight-digit public key encryption—”
    “That’s nice, Anna, but maybe we save the technobabble for another day?”
    “Yeah, sorry, hang on.” She was back a minute later: “Okay, locks and alarms are disengaged.”
    “Going in,” Fisher replied.
    The hand wheel was well oiled and it turned smoothly under his grip. He spun it until he heard the soft clank of metal on metal, then gently pulled. The scuttle swung open. Arms extended before him, he swam through.
    His fins had barely cleared the opening when suddenly he heard the muffled shriek of alarm klaxons. In the distance, a water-muffled voice came over the loudspeaker: “Intruder alert . . . intruder alert. Security Alert Team to armory. This is not a drill! I say again: This is not a drill. . . .”

7
    GRIMSDOTTIR’S panicked voice was immediately in his ear: “Sam, I—”
    Fisher reached up and hit his transmit switch twice, then once, telling Lambert and Grimsdottir, Radio silence; wait for contact .
    In or out, he commanded himself. If he got out now, they’d lock the dock down and his chance would be lost. If he stayed on mission, he’d be facing a security force on high alert, hunting for an intruder. It was an easy decision. This is what he did.
    He quickly shut the scuttle, then pushed off the wall and finned downward, hands outstretched. When he touched the rough concrete of the dock’s bed, he rolled to the right and kept swimming. He had one chance and one chance only. The shed was divided by a main watercourse bracketed on both sides by working piers. If he could find a hiding place deep within the pier’s pilings, he might be able wait out the security sweep.
    Above him, the water went suddenly from dark green to turquoise as the