Free Polar Shift by Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos

simple. In 1995, the Queen Elizabeth II encountered a ninety-foot wave in the North Atlantic. In 2001, two tourist cruisers, the Bremen and the Caledonian Star, were slammed by ninety-foot waves far from the current. Both ships survived to tell the tale."
    "That would imply that the Agulhus current isn't the only place these waves occur," Austin said.
    "Correct. There were no opposing currents near these ships. We paired this information with the statistics and came to some unsettling conclusions. More than two hundred supertankers and containerships longer than six hundred feet had been sunk around the world over a twenty-year span. Freak waves seemed to play a major role in these losses."
    "Those are pretty grim statistics."
    "They're horrendous! Because of the serious implications for shipping, we have set out to improve ship design, and to see if forecasting is possible."
    "I wonder if the research project the Trouts are working on has anything to do with these steroid waves," Zavala said.
    "Paul Trout and his wife, Gamay Morgan-Trout, are our NUMA colleagues," Austin explained to the professor. "They're on the NOAA ship Benjamin Franklin, doing a study of ocean eddies in this area."
    Adler pinched his chin in thought. "That's an intriguing suggestion. It's certainly worth looking into. I wouldn't rule anything out at this point."
    "You said something about forecasting these freak waves," Austin said.
    "Shortly after the Bremen and Caledonian Star incidents, the Europeans launched a satellite that scanned the world's oceans. In three weeks' time, the satellites picked out ten waves like the ones that nearly sank the two ships."
    "Has anyone been able to figure out the cause of these killer waves?"
    "Some of us have been working with a principle in quantum mechanics called the Schr ö dinger equation. It's a bit complicated, but it accounts for the way things can appear and disappear with no apparent reason. 'Vampire wave' is a good name for the phenomena. They suck up energy from other waves and, voil à , we have our huge monster. We still don't know what triggers these things in the first place."
    "From what you've said, every ship whose hull is built to withstand seas based on the Linear Model could suffer the same fate as the Southern Belle."
    "Oh, it gets better than that, Kurt. Much better."
    "I don't understand."
    "The Southern Belle's designers incorporated the newer data on giant waves into their work. The Belle had a covered forecastle, a double hull and strengthening of the transverse bulkheads to prevent flooding."
    Austin stared at the scientist for a moment. Choosing his words carefully, he said, "That would mean that the ship may have encountered a wave larger than ninety feet."
    Adler gestured toward his computer screen. The image showed a series of wave lines and measurements.
    "There were actually two giant waves, one hundred and one hundred twelve feet high, to be exact. We captured their pictures on satellite."
    Adler had expected his dramatic pronouncement to make an impression, but both men responded with expressions of intense interest rather than the gasps of disbelief that he had expected. Adler knew he had done well in coaxing a favor from Rudi Gunn when Austin turned to his friend and, without missing a beat, calmly announced:
    "Looks like we should have brought our surfboards."

5
     
    Big Mountain, Montana
     
    The old man pushed off from the chairlift and skied with strong skating steps to the top of Black Diamond run. He paused at the brow of the hill, and his cobalt eyes took in the panoramic sweep of sky and mountain. From seven thousand feet, he had an eagle's-eye view of the Flathead Valley and Whitefish Lake. The snowy peaks of Glacier National Park glistened in the east. Stretching out to the north were the jagged teeth of the Canadian Rockies.
    No fog shrouded the bald summit. Not a wisp of cloud marred the luminous blue sky. As the warm sunlight toasted his face, he reflected on the