Katherine's eyes narrowed. There was no telling where Lieberman might have gotten such an idea: it might even be true, as IRIS's main focus was on providing the resources for the survival of native populations, not spiriting individual families overseas to new lives. Most Africans did not want to live in another country, but rather wanted their own countries to have the same quality of life as those in the West.

'The court was persuaded to hear this case,' Macy went on, 'based on documents collected by the Uhungu family proving that IRIS claims of liberating countless lives in Somalia were falsified: that the monies provided by the taxpayer to IRIS has instead apparently vanished into thin air, and that IRIS has steadfastly refused to provide accounts that they claim show where the money was spent.'

With that, Macy Lieberman sat down.

The chief justice glanced across at Katherine.

'Will the defense stand?'

Katherine stood up and opened her casebook. Although she knew the case inside out, it was always good practice to have everything to hand. In the past some litigators she had faced had taken this as a sign of weakness. They had soon regretted it.

She cleared her throat, and began.

'Uhungu versus IRIS is a case built around the charge that the aforementioned company has failed in principle to uphold its duty of care to the extended family of the Uhungus, who were transported from East Africa to the United States. It is the position of my client, and the position that I intend to defend, that without the intervention of IRIS in the first place, these individuals would have no case to bring, as they would have neither the means nor the legal structure to do so.' Katherine let her gaze fall on the families in the gallery who had brought the case. 'In short, your honor, the complainants are lucky to be alive at all, and can only bring this case to the courts because of IRIS's generosity in saving their lives in the first place.'

'That's bullcrap!' A flabby, gray-haired old lady leapt up out of her seat and pointed a finger at Katherine. 'We din' wanna bring no case at all, but you forced us into it!'

The judge slammed a hammer down and glared up at the old lady, who Katherine recognized as Jala Uhungu, the matriarch of the family.

'Ma'am, may I remind you that this is a court. If I hear any further interruptions I will have the session dissolved and continue this case in private, is that clear?'

Jala Uhungu trembled with suppressed rage and tears quivered in her eyes, but she obeyed the judge and sat back down. Katherine watched as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and wondered at her audacity: that she could act so enraged and deprived when just years before she had been found by IRIS's representatives delirious with fever on a dusty street in Mogadishu, surrounded by her starving grandchildren.

'You may continue,' the Chief Justice said.

Katherine changed tack and turned the outburst to her advantage.

'It is not beyond our capacity as human beings to realize that, whilst one family has been saved, many others still suffer, and that this supposed injustice can create considerable outrage amongst those with a voice and a means to make themselves heard. But IRIS is just one company, and even were it to donate its entire assets it would be unable to make any noticeable difference to the sheer weight of suffering in the world. Contrary to the prosecution's claims, IRIS's charter is not designed to bring impoverished families from foreign countries back into the United States such acts only occur spontaneously when it is clear that the suffering of those families is such that they cannot possibly survive their predicament. Such was the case with the Uhungu family.'

Katherine paused, glancing down at her notes.

'IRIS's chief objective, as laid out in its charter, is to use government funds to enable the people of foreign countries to help themselves, to give them the tools and the resources to build their own future. In this, IRIS has been spectacularly successful. In ten years of operations, IRIS has committed over one hundred million dollars to rebuilding programs across Africa, the Middle and Far East and the Malay Archipelago. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved by vaccination programs, freshwater wells, family-planning and contraception initiatives and grain supplies organized and delivered by IRIS.' Katherine looked directly at the Uhungu family. 'I apologize, on behalf of the company, if you somehow feel as though your extended family have been cheated in life by our work, or even if the burden of regret you feel for having been liberated in preference to others who still suffer seems too heavy. But IRIS is not to blame for the ills of countless countries across the world. It is a force for good, and I say again, with the deepest respect, that without it, none of you would be sitting here today.'

Katherine stood back from the bar and walked quietly across to her seat. She had barely sat down when Macy Lieberman's petite voice tinkled across the court.

'An emotive performance, Mrs Abell,' she said, 'delivered with all the conviction of a woman married to the owner of IRIS himself.'

A ripple of laughs fluttered across the public gallery. Katherine did not react and simply read through her notes. Macy Lieberman's voice might dance lightly through the court but her words stung like a hornet.

'However, we have proof that of the 117 million dollars provided by government in approved contracts over the last five years, just twelve million dollars have reached the people who needed it most. The rest, it would appear, has simply vanished.'

Katherine sat bolt upright and looked directly at Macy.

'Where on earth did you drag that rubbish from?'

Macy Lieberman smiled and held up a slim blue folder.

'It would appear, Mrs Abell, that somebody in your company does not want Joaquin Abell's little operation to continue unchallenged any longer. Our prosecution has in the past been repeatedly blocked and hindered by IRIS's determination to prevent public access to its accounts despite considerable evidence on the ground in foreign countries of its failure to use those taxpayer funds for their assigned purpose. These extremely detailed files were received yesterday morning at my office, sent by UPS. They reveal the true extent of IRIS's fraudulent use of state money and provide the evidence we need to bring the company down.'

Katherine leapt from her seat, a weakness trembling in her knees as she stared at the blue file.

'Veracity?!' she demanded.

'They were provided, and signed, by a former employee of IRIS,' Macy smiled. 'A man you may even know. His name is Charles Purcell.'

22.

IRIS, DEEP BLUE RESEARCH STATION, FLORIDA STRAITS.

June 28, 11:12 Dennis Aubrey stood beside the control panel and watched as two security guards, their assault rifles strapped to their backs, opened the door to a chamber adjoined to the containment sphere. Joaquin stood to one side and directed their movements. One of the guards turned and picked up a robust-looking remote-control arm from the floor beside him and attached it to two rails secured to the floor of the chamber. The robotic arm carried a video camera attached just below a grappling claw at its head. The security guards closed the chamber's outer door and sealed it.

'Stand back, gentlemen.' The two guards backed away, and Joaquin looked up at Aubrey on the control platform.

'Over to you, Dennis.'

Aubrey took a deep breath and turned to his control panel. There, a television screen showed the view from the front of the remote-control arm. Aubrey checked the instruments and then pressed a button on the console before him. Instantly, the chamber's inner door whined open. Aubrey saw the air rush through the hatch in a whorl of vapor, ice crystals glistening in mid-air as they were whipped away into the main chamber, and then the plunging sphere of blackness within appeared on the screen, its attendant writhing coils of electrical energy snapping between the walls of the chamber.

'Chamber's open,' Aubrey announced. 'Advancing inside.'

He pressed forward on a simple joystick, and the robotic arm travelled along on the rails that prevented it from being hauled into the terrifying heart of the chamber. Slowly, the arm trundled along around the edge of the chamber, passing in front of the mounted cameras within.

'Camera number five,' Joaquin reminded him.

Aubrey considered reminding Joaquin that he could count for himself, but for some reason he feared any reprisal his new employer might concoct. Instead, Aubrey obediently guided the robotic arm to stand in front of camera five.

This camera, Aubrey had learned from Joaquin, was different from the others, in that it did not look at a televised newsfeed. Instead it watched a screen that showed the view from a small buoy bobbing on the surface of the ocean. There was no land visible nearby, nothing to betray where the camera was located.

Carefully, Aubrey used the arm's specially shaped grapple to dismount the camera from its base, and then placed the camera in a storage box on the arm's platform. Then, he picked up the spare camera and secured it to the mount within the chamber before turning it on.

'Well done,' Joaquin clapped. 'Now, let's bring it out shall we?'

Patiently, Aubrey guided the robotic arm along the rails and out of the chamber, making sure to wait for the automatic seal on the inner hatch to activate. As the camera waited in the entrance chamber, jets of steam hissed and enveloped the entire device in thick water vapor that poured onto the floor and drained away into narrow grilles. A precautionary measure, to wash away any particles irradiated by the immense energy within the chamber.

'Clear!' called one of the guards, who was monitoring a Geiger counter.

'Open the chamber!' Joaquin ordered.

The outer doors were opened and Aubrey guided the arm out. Immediately the camera was grabbed by Joaquin, who hurried up to the control panel alongside Aubrey and opened the device, handing him the USB hard drive within.

'Play it,' he ordered.

Aubrey slipped the drive into a player on the console before him, and watched as a pixilated image of the ocean far above appeared on the screen. Flares of white noise from the bursts of electrical energy within the chamber distorted the serene image of rolling waves beneath a cloud-specked blue sky.

'Fast forward,' Joaquin snapped. 'One hundred and twenty times faster.'

Aubrey obeyed, a swift mental calculation informing him that an hour on the camera's accelerated timeline would now pass every fifteen seconds. The rolling sea wobbled and bobbed crazily and the clouds above raced past as the sun arced through the sky. Day turned to night and then the sun returned again. Several minutes had passed before suddenly a white boat zipped into view and quivered on the waves in the center of the viewfinder.

Joaquin hit the 'Play' button. Aubrey watched as a small fishing vessel, maybe forty feet long, sat on the surface of the ocean with its anchor chain taut. He realized that the images were still moving at double speed, the same rate at which the camera recorded time passing outside of the chamber. Several figures milled rapidly about on the deck, and then quite suddenly two of them dropped overboard into the rolling blue waves.

They were wearing diving gear, Aubrey realized.

'Damn!'

Joaquin slammed a fist against the console and whirled to look at Aubrey.

'When will this happen?' he demanded.

Aubrey blinked, caught completely off guard by Joaquin's sudden agitation. 'When was the camera inserted into the chamber?'

'Twenty-four hours ago!' Joaquin raged. 'You're the physicist, do the math! Shall I fetch you a fucking abacus?'

Aubrey flushed red, as a sickening mixture of fear and anger swilled through his guts. His earlier ominous instinct about Joaquin's intentions now flared grotesquely. Joaquin had brought him down here along with ten armed guards. There was no escape except via the submersible. He was trapped. Aubrey's sense of self-preservation barged its way into his thoughts. Humor the guy, keep yourself out of trouble, and then get the hell out of here as soon as you can.

He looked at the camera image, his mind racing with numbers. The camera had been installed twenty-four hours earlier. The Schwarschild Radius of the object in the chamber and its attendant time dilation of one hour for every hour that passed meant that the camera had therefore seen a total of twenty-four hours into the future. They had then sped forward the first few hours before seeing the boat appear on the screen.

'It'll happen within an hour,' Aubrey said, before looking at Joaquin. 'Where is the camera that took this film?'

Joaquin did not respond. Instead, he turned to his security team.

'Get out there. I want those people gone before they can find anything, understood?'

The security guards dashed away, un-slinging their rifles as they ran. Aubrey watched them go and then turned to Joaquin. He mastered his revulsion and fear, his vocal cords tight as he spoke.

'Joaquin, if you want me to control this device of yours and do an effective job, then you need to tell me what the hell's going on here.'

'You're on a need-to-know basis,' Joaquin retorted as he walked away.

'You're looking into the future but you don't know what you're seeing!' Aubrey shot back, and for a brief instant was surprised at the force of his own outburst.

Joaquin turned slowly back to face Aubrey. 'What do you mean?'

For a moment, Aubrey wondered whether he should tell Joaquin anything. The arrogant fool was playing a dangerous game that could have far greater consequences than his narcissistic little mind could ever imagine. But then an image of Katherine and the two children popped into Aubrey's mind and he realized that he had no choice. Somehow, he had to get word out about what was happening.

'Time,' he said slowly, 'is not fixed. It can change.'

Joaquin's face twisted into a scowl of outrage and he leapt forward, grabbed Aubrey by the throat and pinned him against the console. Aubrey smelled a waft of expensive cologne as Joaquin's soft hands squeezed tightly around his throat and he leaned in close, a madman cloaked in the finery of a king.

'You think I have time for this? I know that time isn't fixed! Purcell explained it all to me!'

Aubrey, his skin sheened with sweat, decided not to tell Joaquin what Charles Purcell had clearly omitted. Instead, a plan began to form in his mind as he struggled to speak.

'I need more access to what these cameras are seeing!' he gargled. 'One image of the future means nothing. What if those people on that screen are just holidaymakers? You send your people in there with guns they'll do nothing but expose your operation!'

Joaquin, his grip still fixed on Aubrey's neck, peered sideways at the screen showing the boat on the ocean.

'They're not day-trippers,' he uttered. 'They're diving on a barren sandbar miles out to sea. There's nothing there.'

Aubrey managed to speak.

'Yes there is, and whatever it is you don't want it found, do you?'

Joaquin's gaze moved back to Aubrey. The anger in his eyes mutated into something new, a look of bemusement. Aubrey felt the vice around his neck slacken and he coughed to clear his throat. He heard Joaquin's voice above his own labored breathing.

'You surprise me, Dennis. For a while I believed that you were entirely spineless.'

Aubrey slid off the console onto his feet and staggered as he put one hand out to balance himself. With the other, he massaged his neck. Joaquin's grip had been tight, but not that tight. Aubrey faked another cough and stared at the deck as he considered what was on the screen. Joaquin's mention of Charles Purcell had sparked a flood of revelations in Aubrey's mind, none of them good. Purcell had been the previous chief scientist at IRIS's supposed coral-reef conservation project, and as a former NASA physicist with a history of studies into time itself, it didn't take much application of Aubrey's prodigious intellect for him to realize that Purcell had in fact been stationed here at Deep Blue. The fact that Purcell had recently vanished and that his family were dead suggested that his fate was less to do with a tragic mental breakdown and more to do with Joaquin Abell.

Aubrey recalled the loss of the chartered Bimini Wings aircraft, along with IRIS's entire scientific team, and a chill ran down his spine and sat, icy and cold, in the pit of his belly. That was probably what was below the water in the camera footage: Joaquin was planning to hide the wreckage. Joaquin Abell took a pace closer to him and pressed a finger hard into his chest.

'If you reveal anything, to anybody, ever, of what you've seen here, I'll make sure that you get a far closer look at that chamber than you'll be comfortable with.'

Aubrey nodded, finally getting his breath back, and glanced down at the control panel. If Joaquin Abell was responsible for multiple murders, then Aubrey had to get word to the outside world. He thought of Katherine, defending IRIS at trial in court, and of the costs associated with building something like Deep Blue. It's all a lie. IRIS is guilty, and my new employer is a mass murderer.

Aubrey looked again at the boat bobbing on the ocean. The stern of the little fishing vessel was pointing toward the camera, and he could read her name clearly.

Free Spirit.

23.

FLORIDA STRAITS, 14 MILES WEST OF SOUTH BIMINI.

June 28, 11:14 'Now we're moving!'

Scott Bryson hauled on a loose rigging line and secured it before ducking back into the wheelhouse. His voice was snatched away by the wind as the Free Spirit crashed through the rolling waves, thick clouds of white spray bursting over the bows to sparkle in the bright sunshine.

Ethan reveled in the fresh air as the little ship chugged her way busily out into deep water, her two diesel engines humming below decks. Most all people assumed that he and Lopez spent their time chasing down fugitives and bail runners on foot or in Lopez's Lotus, in the manner of Miami Vice or similar. In fact, most of Ethan's days were spent hunkered down behind a computer screen in their cramped office, or with a phone pressed to his ear as he called the fifteenth family member of a vanished convict, hoping for a break in the case.

When they did get out, it was most often to apprehend violent and dangerous criminals, many of whom had nothing to look forward to but decades of incarceration if caught. Needless to say they didn't go quietly. By comparison this was a vacation.

'What's our speed?' he called out to Bryson.

'Fifteen knots!' Bryson yelled back. 'Fastest you've been over water for a while, country boy!'

'We came down here at fifteen hundred knots,' Ethan replied. 'But hey, who's counting?'

Bryson shot him an uncertain look and turned his back as he guided the ship toward their destination. Ethan turned and watched as Lopez leaned over the port rail, her black hair rippling in the wind.