Dedication

  To Steve Berry, the best friend any author could wish for. We

  started in the trenches together, and I’m happy to still be

  fighting alongside you. Of course, I should temper such praise

  with an insult—but for once, I will not. And only this once.

  Epigraph

  Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.

  —attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

  All warfare is based on deception.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  “Earth must be warned!”

  —Claudie Haigneré, the distinguished French astronaut who spent weeks aboard both the Mir space station and the International Space Station. She shouted these words before attempting suicide in 2008.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Titan Station Complex

  Cast of Characters

  Notes from the Scientific Record

  Notes from the Historical Record

  Prologue

  First

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Second

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Third

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Fourth

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Fifth

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Sixth

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Seventh

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction

  Acknowledgments

  Rights and Attributions for the Artwork in This Novel

  About the Author

  Also by James Rollins

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  Titan Station Complex

  Cast of Characters

  Dutch East Indies

  COMMANDER LELAND MACKLIN—British captain of the HMS Tenebrae

  LIEUTENANT HEMPLE—second-in-command of the HMS Tenebrae

  MATTHEW—aboriginal cabin boy aboard the HMS Tenebrae

  DR. JOHANNES STOEPKER—physician/naturalist and member of the Royal Batavian Society

  SIR THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES—Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies and President of the Royal Batavian Society

  CAPTAIN HAAS—Dutch commander of the Indiaman cruiser, the Apollon

  DR. SWANN—ship’s surgeon of the Apollon

  THOMAS OTHO TRAVERS—aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-Governor Raffles

  DR. JOHN CRAWFURD—physician and fellow member of the Royal Batavian Society

  WILLIAM FARQUHAR—naturalist and governor of Singapore

  Titan Station Crew

  PHOEBE REED—marine biologist

  JASLEEN (JAZZ) PATEL—post-grad student working alongside Dr. Reed.

  WILLIAM BYRD—Australian CEO of ESKY and principal investor in the Titan Project

  JARRAH—station security chief

  ADAM KANEKO—geologist and member of Tako no Ude

  HARU KANEKO—vulcanologist, uncle to Adam Kaneko

  DATUK LEE—biochemist from the Universiti Sains Malaysia

  BRYAN FINCH—submersible pilot

  KIM JONG SUK—biologist, professor from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

  HENRY STEMM—captain of the Titan X

  Sigma Force

  GRAYSON PIERCE—current commander of field ops

  SEICHAN—former terrorist/assassin, now working alongside Sigma

  MONK KOKKALIS—specialist in medicine and bioengineering

  KATHRYN BRYANT—expert in intelligence-gathering operations

  JOSEPH KOWALSKI—specialist in munitions and explosives

  PAINTER CROWE—director of Sigma Force in D.C.

  JASON CARTER—computer tech at Sigma Command

  Duàn Zhī Triad

  GUAN-YIN—mother to Seichan and dragonhead leader of the triad

  ZHUANG—second-in-command

  BOLIN CHÉN—an apprentice (a “blue lantern”) with the triad

  YEUNG—a triad deputy

  Chinese Contingent

  CAPTAIN TSE DAIYU—commanding officer of the PLA research base in Cambodia

  LUO HENG—bioengineer and physician at base

  ZHÀO MIN—molecular biologist and aide to Dr. Luo

  SUBLIEUTENANT JUNJIE—worker at the base

  PETTY OFFICER WONG—patient at the base

  CHOI AIGUA—former lieutenant-general with the PLA Strategic Support Force, now a consultant with the China Academy of Space Technology

  CHOI XUE—major with the PLA Strategic Support Force (son of Aigua)

  CAPTAIN WEN—head of the Falcon Command Unit

  YANG HÁO—lieutenant with the PLA Navy

  Others

  AIKO HIGASHI—director of Tako no Ude

  DARREN KWONG—head of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum

  KADIR NUMBERI—director of the Jakarta History Museum

  VALYA MIKHAILOV—terrorist leader of the new Guild

  JACK PIERCE—son of Gray and Seichan

  PENNY AND HARRIET—daughters of Monk and Kat

  Notes from the Scientific Record

  Are we alone in the universe?

  It’s a question that has puzzled and challenged humankind since we first stared at the stars and wondered who, if anyone, was up there.

  In October 2021, a group of NASA scientists proposed a framework for assessing this question, compiling seven rigorous steps necessary to confirm the presence of “biosignatures” that might indicate extraterrestrial life.* They dubbed this list the “Confidence of Life Detection” scale.*

  In a nutshell, here are those steps:

  The detection of a signature of biological life

  Rule out contamination

  Rule out non-biological sources

  Prove that the signature could originate from such an environment

  Acquire additional observations

  Eliminate all alternative hypotheses

  Independent, follow-up observations

  Plainly, NASA is already modeling for that moment when extraterrestrial life is discovered or detected, whether that be out in the stars or elsewhere.

  In a similar vein, back in January 2021, the CIA declassified nearly three thousand pages of documents, known as the Black Vault, pertaining to UFOs and UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon). Likewise, in July of that same year, the Pentagon produced an unclassified report regarding 144 UAP cases noted by military pilots between 2004 and 2021. Of those cases, only one had an explainable origin (a deflated balloon). Perhaps it’s for that reason that the Pentagon established a new group in November 2021, to “detect and identify” unknown anomalies in restricted airspace, naming this outfit the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.

  With all the recent declassifications, the continuing slow leak of data, and the congressional hearings with Pentagon officials in 2022—all pertaining to the possibility of alien life—it raises two questions:

  What does the government already know?

  And from the uptick in all these releases: What are they trying to prepare us for?

  You’re about to find out.

  Notes from the Historical Record

  We live on a volatile planet. A geological powder keg that has challenged the permanence of life on Earth throughout its history.

  More than 250 million years ago, one of the greatest mass extinctions—the Permian-Triassic Event—wiped out 70 percent of life on land and 90 percent in the oceans. Based on this massacre, it has been dubbed the “Great Dying.” What caused it? Extensive volcanic eruptions throughout Siberia surged magma to the surface, pushing lava through rock, igniting gas and oil deposits. It covered a land area half the size of the United States. The clouds of gasses released raised surface temperatures 18 degrees above today’s average. It acidified oceans, disintegrated coral, and dissolved the shells of ocean creatures.* Life died around the planet, both on land and in the sea.

  And that geological event would not be the last to threaten all life.

  The Toba supervolcano erupted 74,000 years ago in Indonesia. It blasted two thousand megatons of sulfur dioxide and created a crater more than sixty miles wide by twenty long. The blasts resulted in a volcanic winter that lasted years and tore a massive hole in the ozone layer of the planet, frying life under ultraviolet radiation.* Humanity was driven to a thin population of only about 10,000 to 30,000, a bottleneck that nearly ended us.

r />   After that, Earth was not done trying to shake us off the planet. Almost seventy near-apocalyptic volcanic events followed, one of the last being the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. It was the largest ever in recorded history, witnessed by hundreds of thousands and shared with the world by British colonial ships plying the South Pacific. The blast was heard eight hundred miles away and was first attributed to cannon fire. It atomized the top three thousand feet of the mountain, sending a plume of ash and rock eighteen miles into the sky. Between the immediate explosion and the starvation that followed, 100,000 were killed in Indonesia alone, and millions more would die less than two weeks later when the ash cloud circled the equator, dropping temperatures in some areas as much as 20 degrees. It resulted in the infamous “year without a summer.”*

  Yet, under that smoky cloud, another story has been buried. It’s a tale that bears on the geological instability of our volatile planet—and on a future playing out today, one that will challenge all we know about our place in this world.

  Read on and find out the truth that’s been kept hidden from us all.

  Until now.

  Prologue

  April 11, 1815

  Off the coast of Sumbawa, the Dutch East Indies

  From the bow of the HMS Tenebrae, Commander Leland Macklin stared into the fiery mouth of Hell.

  Already it was high onto midday, but there was no sun. A low layer of ash and smoke fully cloaked the skies. The reek of sulfurous brimstone stung his eyes and burned his lungs. The only light came from the fiery island of Sumbawa. The coastline lay a half-mile off, but it remained indiscernible, except for the rivers of lava flowing down the blasted slopes of Mount Tambora.

  The silence of the grave hung heavy over the surrounding seas—what little could be seen of them. The waves around the ship were covered solidly in a foot of ash, interspersed with floating reefs of pumice rock. Still, it couldn’t hide the dead. Shoals of fish bloated in the hot ash, along with countless bodies. Hundreds of souls. Most were so burned and blackened that they were indistinguishable from the dark seas.

  “Best we retreat, Commander,” Lieutenant Hemple recommended with clear trepidation.

  Seven years his junior, the lieutenant had been Macklin’s second-in-command for more than a decade. Hemple was an abrupt, hard man with dark blond hair and beard, one seldom taken to histrionics. Presently, due to the stifling heat, he had shed his uniform jacket. He wore only his waistcoat, a white shirt, and blue breeches. Like all the crew, his nose and mouth were hidden behind a wrap of damp cloth.

  “We’ve taken on a tonnage of ash already, sir,” Hemple warned. “Some of it growing quite hot.”

  “We have indeed.”

  Macklin wiped a wet cloth across his steamy brow. He was similarly garbed to his lieutenant, except that he had kept on his blue jacket with its simple gold piping and gilt-brass buttons. He knocked ash from his black hat before replacing it over the salt and pepper of his hair.

  Macklin turned to evaluate the state of the Tenebrae. His ship appeared to be as petrified as the seas themselves, a dark hillock rising out of these cursed waters. Ash covered all her decks and riggings and blackened the sails of her three standing masts. Masked members of the crew set about sweeping, brushing, and shoveling the hot ash away, only to be confounded by showers of powder and feathery flakes that continued to fall.

  “Sir?” Hemple pressed him.

  “Turn us about,” Macklin ordered. “Back to Java. Lieutenant-Governor Raffles will be anxiously awaiting our evaluation. Still, keep the Tenebrae at half sail in these treacherous waters.”

  “Aye, Commander.”

  Hemple left to pass down his orders to the helm. Within minutes, the ship slowly swung away from the fiery island. As she did, the coarse pumice in the water scraped along her hull, sounding like the claws of the dead scratching to board the ship. A low hissing could also be heard in the distance, whispering eerily across the sea’s stillness, coming from where the volcano’s lava poured into the water.

  Macklin was cheered to see the fiery glow of Mount Tambora slowly disappear behind him. The first eruption had occurred six days before. The blasts had traveled the eight hundred miles to the island of Java, sounding like distant cannon fire. Many believed it marked a fierce pirate attack on a merchant vessel, but when black thunderheads of ash swept across the islands, followed by a swamping wave, all knew it for what it was: a volcanic eruption of Biblical might.

  At the time, the Tenebrae had been docked at Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies on the island of Java. Two days after the eruption, the ship had been commissioned by the lieutenant-governor to sail off and determine the source and the extent of the regional damage.

  The Tenebrae had been a good choice for such an excursion. She was a collier-class vessel, used for hauling cargo. She had a square stern, a broad bow, and a flat bottom perfect for sailing through shallow waters. The ship also had a wide main deck running from forecastle to quarterdeck, stretching to a total length of ninety-seven feet with a beam of thirty. And as these were pirate-infested waters, she sailed with six 24-pounder carronades on her deck and two 6-pounder guns on her forecastle.

  Macklin rested a hand on one of the latter, appreciating the cool iron and its strength. He was glad to be heading back to port, filled with an uneasy dread, which was only heightened by the stillness of these seas and the continual scraping of stones against the hull.

  Footsteps drew him back around as a tall, skeletal figure approached. Though the man’s face was covered in a wet rag, it was easy to recognize Johannes Stoepker, a naturalist with the Batavian Society. He had shed both his jacket and waistcoat, wearing only black trousers and a white shirt, which by now was nearly as dark as his pants. The man had been assigned to the ship by Lieutenant-Governor Raffles, who was president of the same learned organization, whose goal was to study, preserve, and foster interest in the historical and scientific significance of the East Indies. So, for such an undertaking of exploration as this, the Batavian Society had wanted a member on board the Tenebrae.

  Stoepker was shadowed by the ship’s cabin boy, Matthew. The twelve-year-old was an Aboriginal lad—dark of hair and skin and admirable of spirit—who also served as powder monkey whenever they employed the ship’s cannon, but during the past days, the boy had acted as the naturalist’s aide. Clearly happy with the assignment, Matthew grinned and hefted a heavy leather satchel over one shoulder, laden with pumice stones that the crew had netted from the water.

  “What is it, Mister Stoepker?” Macklin asked.

  The naturalist pushed his mask down to his bearded chin. “Commander, as we’re turning about, would it be possible to retrieve one of the bodies from the sea? Back in Java, there is an anatomist and surgeon with the Society who would be intrigued in the state of the dead.”

  Macklin grimaced at such a thought. “I won’t have it aboard my ship, Mister Stoepker. The ill luck of it all will have the men in revolt.”

  Stoepker frowned and bunched a brow. He spun a gold ring absently around a finger, in deep thought. The ring was adorned with a garnet stone, carved deeply with the letters BG, an abbreviation for Bataviaasch Genootschap, the Dutch name for the Batavian Society.

  Stoepker finished his contemplation and cleared his throat. “Commander Macklin, the Tenebrae has an iron-hulled tender for coursing over rocks and reefs. Could we lower it down, load a body into it, and have your ship drag both to Java?”

  Macklin considered this request, appreciating its cleverness. “It is a reasonable accommodation. I’ll allow it.” He turned to Matthew. “Boy, grab Landsman Perry and see about freeing the tender.”

  The lad nodded, set his bag down, and sped off.

  As they waited, Stoepker joined him at the rail and stared back toward the island’s glow as it faded behind the ship’s stern. “I never would’ve expected Mount Tambora to be the culprit, here. Maybe Mount Merapi or Klut. And if I were a betting man, I would’ve wagered Bromo, a peak that has been regularly smoking.”

  Macklin nodded grimly. “Everyone believed Tambora was dormant.”

  “Extinct, actually,” Stoepker corrected. “At least, that was the consensus until now. Though, I heard rumors that the natives of Sumbawa felt occasional shakes or heard deep-earth rumbles. Maybe we should not have dismissed such tales out of hand.”

  “Clearly.”