Celtic Empire

lt;b>Clive Cussler is the author or coauthor of more than 50 previous books in five best-selling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo. His nonfiction works include Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt, plus The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II. They describe the true adventures of the real NUMA, which, led by Cussler, searches for lost ships of historic significance. With his crew of volunteers, Cussler has discovered more than 60 ships, including the long lost Confederate ship Hunley. He lives in Arizona.

Dirk Cussler, an MBA from Berkeley, worked for many years in the financial arena and now devotes himself full-time to writing. He is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of Black Wind and Treasure of Khan. For the past several years, he has been an active participant and partner in his father s NUMA expeditions and served as president of the NUMA advisory board of trustees.

1

May 2020

Copapayo, El Salvador

Elise Aguilar watched with somber eyes as the funeral procession marched through the dusty village square. The four male pallbearers strode with downcast faces as they balanced a child's white casket on their shoulders. A small bouquet of yellow orchids had been slid across the lid, covering a hand-painted image of a soccer ball.

The dead child's family followed, weeping openly despite words of comfort offered by the townspeople.

Elise tracked the entourage until they disappeared around a bend thick with foliage. The town's tiny cemetery lay on a small hill just beyond.

She ignored a black Jeep that skirted the funeral procession as she turned and followed a worn footpath in the opposite direction. She walked past a handful of low-roofed, white stucco buildings that were home to the village's thirty residents. The path ambled downhill and opened onto an expansive view of a shimmering blue lake.

Cerr n Grande was a reservoir, the largest in El Salvador, built to supply hydroelectric power for the region. Hundreds of families had been resettled when the Lempa River was flooded in 1976, some to the hastily constructed village of Copapayo. Elise glanced at the lake. A fisherman in a canoe and a small workboat cruised across the waterway. To the right, a powder-gray concrete barrier marked the upper lip of the Cerr n Grande Dam that had created the lake.

Elise descended the path nearly to the water's edge. She stopped and wiped her brow in front of a large awning made from gnarled tree roots and covered with palm thatching. A half-dozen red tents were pitched in a semicircle around the awning's opposite side, facing the shaded interior. To either side lay a large tract of farmland, bursting with rows of green cornstalks.

Under the awning, fellow scientists from the United States Agency for International Development sat around makeshift worktables, performing experiments or computer analysis. The group wore shorts and T-shirts in the steamy climate.

A lanky man with thick glasses and a straggly beard looked up from a microscope. "Why the long face?" he asked in a heavy Boston accent.

"There's a funeral in the village today. The procession just passed."

"For the little boy?"

Elise nodded.

"Very sad. Rondi told me there was a sick boy from the village at the Suchitoto clinic. I didn't realize it was serious."

He shouted to a local teenage boy sorting stalks of corn from a bin. "Rondi, what happened to the little boy?"

The teen hurried over to the scientists. "He was enfermo for a short time. A doctor came and took him to the hospital last week, but they could not help him."

"What was the diagnosis?" Elise asked.

Rondi shrugged. "Un misterio. The doctors, they don't say. Just like the others."

"What others?"

"Three other children from the village have died in the past few months. Same thing. They get enfermo, and it is too late for the doctors to help them."

Elise looked at her colleague. "Phil, do you think it could be related to the food crops?" She pointed to the bin of corn Rondi had been sorting.

"Due to the genetically modified seeds we provided the farmers here last year?" He shook his head. "Not a chance. This variety is only engineered to withstand drought, and has been safely used all over the world."

She nodded. "It's just heartbreaking to see children get sick."

He shrugged. "We're agricultural scientists, Elise, not doctors." He glanced at the thriving cornfield. "And tomorrow, we need to pack up and move ten miles north."