"Eli Zebo," I repeated, blinking and trying to clear my head. He stood a few feet away from me, flanked on either side by stern men. "You look pretty good for a dead guy."

He laughed. "Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, as the old cliché goes. I still love it when I get a chance to say that."

"Where am I?" I asked groggily.

"We'll ask the questions here," snapped one of the men behind him.

"It's all right, Thompson," Zebo said amiably, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. "You're on the coast of British Columbia, Mr. Raho, on a scenic little bit of trees and rock called Quadra Island. Or to be more precise, you're in it. This is an underground military facility, quite old, quite abandoned, and quite secret. A few years before World War II spread to the Pacific, certain echelons in the U.S. Navy authorized the construction of a whole series of these and other hidden bases along the entire West Coast at great expense. Ironically, they were never needed, and after the war they were sealed up and all records of their existence destroyed. Except for the records I obtained."

While he was speaking I had taken stock. We were in a gigantic cavern that resembled an airplane hangar, except that it was full of water. Light blazed in from a huge opening at the far end that showed ocean and sky beyond. There were two huge docks on either side. A series of boats of varying sizes were tied along one side, the largest a fair-sized yacht being serviced by a number of men who were loading something on board. The side we were on had only a hulking wreck of a ship, a freighter, derelict and heavily damaged, looming over us like a haunted house. From somewhere up above, a winch cable hung over the water to about eye level with the men on the dock. A massive anchor was suspended from its end. I was chained to it quite securely.

"Want to show me around the joint?" I said.

"Certainly, Mr. Raho," Zebo replied. "The tour is a short one: it starts right here and goes straight to the bottom of this little harbor." He stepped forward. "Now, please satisfy my curiosity and answer my question. What were you doing in our lab? What do you know about Project M?"

I looked at the man behind him holding the control box for the winch. The man looked back at me. I shrugged, a difficult thing to do with your arms pinned behind you and wrapped in heavy chains. "I know you've been fooling around for 10 years with something called lithotrophs and developing a strain of them that eats solid metal. But I don't know why. How about satisfying my curiosity, too?"

"What, is this where the villain reveals his diabolical master plan to the doomed hero?" he said, his smile returning. A few of his flunkies chuckled to themselves.

"Yeah. Are you the brains behind Okabashi Industries or what? These clowns sure aren't." The chuckling stopped mighty fast and everybody looked mean again, except for Zebo.

"Yes," he said. "I'm the brains behind a lot of things, Mr. Raho. Okabashi is only one of several seeds that are just now starting to bear fruit, but this one has been a very long time developing. Some of these seeds were planted even before I partnered with that fool Tungsten to form the SOB. I had high hopes for him and our little unit, but in the end I realized I was simply wasting my time. He had neither the imagination or the will to do what needed to be done, and we disagreed on a great many things besides. So I decided to terminate our partnership. Only he was smarter than I gave him credit for. He saw it coming, and he was the one who did the terminating. He almost succeeded." His eyes narrowed. "I lay low in Buenos Aires for a while and then picked up where I had left off."

"He's on to your little science project," I said. "And by now he knows everything I do. You're busted."

"Oh, I've been busted for quite some time, Mr. Raho." Zebo sighed. "He knows I'm alive, and he's known about the lithotrophs for years, from the very beginning when the Columbia River community was discovered. In fact, he can't wait to get his hands on them! He's been watching, waiting, and biding his time until we've finished the hard work for him. Just like the lazy buffoon he's always been."

My jaw went to stone. The lights they had hit me with in the helicopter: ultraviolet lights to kill the lithotrophs and decontaminate me. They had known exactly what to expect. Doulak was just a pawn, just like everyone else in the SOB except perhaps for a select few who formed Tungsten's inner circle.

"What for?" I muttered. "Why?"

"The usual. Money, power, and all that comes with it. But more of both than anyone has ever possessed, Mr. Raho. I'm talking about the power to shape the world. To control governments. Real power." He smiled. "Okabashi Industries has been very busy over the past decade, buying stock options here, launching a back-room takeover there. Through our various fronts and subsidiaries, we now have a controlling interest in over 80 percent of global plastic development and production. Once the lithotrophs are perfected, we'll unleash them upon the world. A new era in the history of civilization will begin. And a world without metal will be a world that needs plastic."

A long, stunned pause hung in the air.

Finally I recovered the capacity for speech. "You're joking."

"No, I am not."

"Well, you're nuts then. That has got to be the dumbest master plan I ever heard. Plastic? Control the world? You look like you have trouble controlling your appetite," I roared, rolling my eyes. He tried to speak, but I drowned him out with a huge raspberry. "Whatever! It'll never work."

Zebo's face was livid. He opened his mouth again to speak.

"Yes it will," said a voice that wasn't his. Everyone's heads turned as one to look down the dock.

There stood Al Tungsten, dripping wet, looking like a life-sized action figure in his jet-black wet suit and rebreather. His submachine gun didn't look like a toy, though. And his friends obviously hadn't come to play games either; similarly armed and equipped, they had all silently risen from the depths and were quickly and silently rounding up the Okabashi men at the boats on the far side. Two more stood by Tungsten's side, their weapons leveled at Zebo and his entourage.

If I was startled, Zebo was agog. He rocked back on his heels, the surprise obviously hitting him like a physical blow. "You!" he wheezed.

Tungsten was looking ticked, and it was not a pretty sight. "Nice to see you again, Eli. Surprised to see me here? Or just surprised I'm still in one piece?" he snarled. "Your boys mucked it up back in Seattle. I suppose I shouldn't talk, all things considered, but I'll make sure I do the job right this time."

"Not much of a secret base you've got here," I chimed in.

Zebo completely ignored me. He had regained his composure. "What do you want?" he asked Tungsten.

"You know what I want. The lithotroph cultures. I know they're here. Arbaty destroyed the only other stockpile."

At last the clouds parted to reveal the true sky. "So he was working for you," I said.

"That's right, Raho," Tungsten snapped. He was locked in a staring contest with his old nemesis. "The idiot was supposed to steal them, only he caused a containment failure and released them all. Then he walked straight into your fist. I blew the whistle hoping to salvage something. All I got was you. But you served your purpose. We followed you when you went back to the lab and then straight here." He ripped back the bolt on his weapon for emphasis.

"Enough talk. Where are they?"

His answer was the crack and whine of a bullet ricocheting off the concrete near his feet. An Okabashi man had emerged from a stairwell on a platform behind Tungsten overlooking the docks, taken in the situation, and had decided to break things up by squeezing off a shot. I had seen him from my front-row anchor seat, as had Zebo's bunch, and they were ready. Out came the guns - my, but there were a lot of them. In an instant there was chaos as men fired, ran, and dove in every direction, taking cover behind crates and drums and other things or brawling with their fists and feet. In the meantime I dangled out in space, observing all the action and feeling rather helpless.

And then two struggling men careened in front of me and one of them stepped on the forgotten control box. He must have hit the right button. I had just enough time to suck in a huge gulp of air before I plummeted under the waves.

But not before I had flexed my wrist hard and felt the lithotroph vial snap in two.

There was a tremendous splash, and then all was quite and peaceful. Zebo had been right about one thing: the tour was a short one. The water wasn't too deep, and the anchor thudded to the bottom in a few short seconds, remaining upright as the tip lodged in the rocky bottom. It was crystal clear and there was plenty of light to see by. But for how long? Were the lithotrophs fast enough to eat through the chain before the ambient sunlight killed them? Could they survive underwater? I knew I couldn't. I strained at the chains on my arms and legs. Harder. Nothing. It hadn't worked.

I gathered every ounce of strength I had and tried to pull my arms apart.

Keep trying. Harder. Harder. It's got to work.

My lungs were burning now. Deadly silence. Don't quit. One more try.

I could hear the crunch as the links gave way. My arms jerked and spread wide. Struggling desperately, I worked my legs free of the chain and kicked for the surface, chasing the rising bubbles escaping from my tortured chest.

My head burst above the water and I sucked in breath after breath of beautiful air, clinging to the side of the speedboat. The battle was still raging above and around me. Somebody had tossed a smoke bomb to add to the fun and the haze had billowed out across the water, obscuring almost everything and filling the air with a choking fog.

I struck out for the yacht. It was a short swim, and nobody saw me as I clamped my hands on a short ladder mounted on the stern. At that exact second, the engine rumbled to life. Whoever was at the throttle threw it wide open and the boat lunged forward, the wake almost sweeping me away. While the yacht banked in a wide turn and headed out, I hung on and struggled to pull my legs out of the water that tore at them, hauling myself up the rungs and rolling over onto the deck.

Crouching, I rushed forward into the cabin. It wasn't a big yacht, but it was lavish. I paused to peer down a stairwell leading to the hold. It was full of about a dozen crates labeled OKABASHI INDUSTRIES. Moving on, I climbed up through a hatch and emerged on the bridge behind Zebo. He was steering intently at the wheel as he threaded the gap of the entrance and made for the open ocean.

I stalked up behind him. "Permission to come aboard?" I said over the roar of the engine.

He jerked around and beheld the dead arisen and soaking wet. I allowed him a second or two of stunned disbelief before letting him have the edge of my hand in my best secret-agent neck chop. He reeled back, letting go of the wheel, and I grabbed him by the lapels and tossed him sprawling to the floor. Killing the throttle, I rolled him over while he was still dazed and tied his hands behind his back with a length of electrical cord that had been hanging beside the hatch.

"Listen to me," he groaned. "The lithotrophs in the hold. They're the last of the viable strains. I'll cut you in. I'm telling you, they're worth billions! We'll dominate the world, Raho! Don't be a fool!"

"Not interested. Maybe you can come up with another plan while you're doing a stretch in the slammer."

His response was a stream of appalling language. "Don't try anything funny, or over you go," I warned him, as I stepped to the wheel and got my bearings. All I saw was looming islands, coastline, and mountains off in the distance. Surely there was a town or a harbor somewhere nearby. I swept the throttle forward and plucked the radio mike from its hook.

Now it was my turn to be bushwhacked. The radio was unexpectedly swatted out of my grasp and I was hurled backward off my feet by a pair of powerful hands before I had any chance to react. I crashed to the deck and raised myself up on my elbows.

The towering figure was calmly pushing the throttle back to idle as he turned around, forcing the yacht to settle back into the water. It was a blonde giant in wetsuit leggings, his rippling upper body gleaming like bronze in the sun and twinkling with diamond-like beads of seawater. His eyes were like chips of ice, the pale, piercing blue of a winter sky at the horizon. Huge and dark on his chest and abdomen, winding completely around his torso, was a tattoo of a hideous dragon-like creature - the Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology, if I wasn't mistaken.

"Now who is this?" Zebo demanded from where he reclined on the deck.

"Zebo, Adrian Arbaty. Adrian, Eli Zebo," I said, my stomach sinking. "You've got real interesting timing."

"I've been looking forward to meeting you, Raho," Arbaty said.

"This is supposed to be a secret base, dammit!" Zebo screeched. His face was purple with rage.

On my feet now, I backed slowly away from the man reputed to be the one you least wanted to have angry with you in the entire world. He took a few easy strides, moving like a panther as I circled around, trying to keep as much distance as possible between us.

"There is nowhere you can hide from me," he said. His voice was oily, his expression one of pure menace. "I have tracked you here to exact vengeance for my brother. Where he is, I am never far away. I have no interest in your petty business with these men. Now you will deal with me. In the spirit of fair play I invite you to make the first move."

This did nothing for my morale. If half of what I had heard about him was true, Arbaty was the best and fastest on the planet and totally without fear. And totally skipping without a rope. There weren't many organizations that would work with him, and those that did kept him at arm's length. Which was literally about all I had between him and me at the moment.

Still, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Putting every ounce of skill and speed I had into it, I made my move.

Except that when I struck, he wasn't there.

Zebo, having worked his hands loose from their bonds, had taken the opportunity to get to his feet behind Arbaty, and at that exact instant he hurled himself like a charging linebacker toward his closest target, which happened to be Arbaty's back. I barely managed to dodge aside as their two bodies hurtled past me and crashed like a piledriver into the controls.

Instantly I was flung off balance as the throttle was rammed forward to full. Stumbling, reeling backward across the deck, my legs hit a railing and I saw sky, then water, then sky, and then I was in the drink yet again.

I broke the surface, spitting and treading water, and looked around. The yacht was tearing away at full speed, swinging into a gentle curve. I could see the two men struggling desperately on the bridge. I watched and wondered: Could Zebo overcome him? Would all his years of planning and effort - and the thought of billions of future dollars - give him the strength and will to defeat his opponent? The strait we were in was a narrow one, and a towering rock face stood directly in the runaway yacht's path. The boat cut through the water toward it like a knife. This is going to be ugly, I thought.

It was. The explosion was large and loud, smiting the air with a crack of thunder that rumbled back and forth between the islands as a roiling ball of smoke and debris rose up into the air. Debris rained down around the shattered, burning wreck that had impaled itself on the rock.

I took it all in for a moment before swimming for the shore near the remains and crawling up onto the stones. I could see boats and a town around the point of Quadra Island. I sat back, letting the sun beat down on me as I slipped the two halves of the lithotroph vial out of my sleeve and turned them over in my fingers.

It wouldn't be long before the police showed and eventually rounded up everyone back in the base. I wasn't sure how I was going to make them believe any of it. It was going to take nerves of steel to look them in the eye and tell the truth.

"Nerves of steel," I laughed. I liked that.