1515. Basque sea captain Diego Aguírrez escapes arrest from the always unexpected Spanish Inquisition in all of its Black Legend glory. In his ship he carries mysterious relics that will serve some day to rally up Basque nationalism against Spain.
2004. A confrontation between an US anti-whaling Soapbox Sadie group and Faroe islanders ends with the activists oddly losing control of their ship and savagely ramming a Danish cruiser. The resultant disaster requires the presence of Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala, heads of the National Underwater & Marine Agency's special assignement team, to rescue the survivors. Being required to investigate by the activists' legal adviser Therri Weld, Austin discovers somebody rigged to ship to be remote-controlled, with the sinister shadow of an Eskimo fish farming MegaCorp named Oceanus gliding all over it.
It has a small connection to the Dirk Pitt Adventures, whose 17th installment Trojan Odyssey was published the same year.
This book provides examples of:
- Animal Wrongs Group: Subverted with the Senteniels of the Sea, who block whaling expeditions and the like, but with mostly peaceful methods. They are only framed as being one of this by the bad guys. That said, they are surely led by a jerkass who loves the spotlight too much.
- Artistic License – Biology: The belief that Basques have the highest quantity of RH-negative blood in the world is dated science. The Portuguese, depending on the paper, either match or surpass them at this.
- Artistic License – Geography: Austin instantly recognizes Navarra as a Basque province. In real life, Navarre and the Basque Country are two separated autonomous communities in Spain. There are a lot of cultural connections between both, especially because they were both part of the Kingdom of Navarre until the 15th century, but calling Navarre a Basque land in modern Spain is to open a highly controversial and politically infused can of worms, about which Austin (and likely Cussler) doesn't seem to know much.
- Artistic License – History:
- In the novel, Spanish Inquisitor Ignacio Martínez arrests Aguírrez's wife on charges of witchcraft and tries to burn her in the stake, a plot point that in real life would have been impossible by a number of reasons, the first of them being that the real Spanish Inquisition officially disbelieved the existence of witches and had established that everybody claiming to be so was either a con man or clinically insane (the case of Spanish witch-burning everybody thinks of, the 1610 Zugarramurdi Witch Trials, was famous precisely for being a complicated exception). No less important is that in real life, only unrepentants would be executed, meaning that even in the unlikely case the victims here were declared guilty solely by the word of a clergyman, they would have escaped with only minor punishment.
- The story also concedes just too much power to the figure of a single high inquisitor, who can accuse and execute people basically at will, when in real life, the heavily bureaucratized structure of the Spanish Inquisition would have required either a long, comprehensive process of investigation (or a similar amount of Bavarian Fire Drill, such as the aforementioned case of Zugarramurdi, which would likely end the career of the inquisitor in question once he was caught).
- The reader is also informed that Inquisitor Martínez received the nickname Brasero ("brazier") for his many burnings in the stake, and that being the high inquisitor of the Basque lands was especially profitable, impliedly because he would be all the day burning witches and confiscating their properties. Presumably, this claim is the logical consequence of the previous point, as a fictional Inquisition engaged in witch-hunting hysteria might have had a field day in a backwards land with a lot of ancient traditions like the Basque Country. In reality, however, the Spanish Inquisition had little activity there compared to the southern parts of the Iberian Peninsule, as their main targets were Jews and Muslims, not witches.
- The presence of Basque nationalism against Spain in the 1515 is a delirious bout of Anachronism Stew. In real life, the first forms of nationalist thinking among Basques, with the clear goal to separate from Spain and compose their own sovereign country, wouldn't appear until the 1800s, at the heat of the Carlist Wars. Going further, few modern academics dare to speak about a true Basque nationalism before the times of Sabino Arana Goiri (1865-1903), the Spanish writer and ideologist that is considered the father of both the movement and the Basque identity itself. Placing any sort of precedent in the 16th century is especially bizarre given that back then, Basques produced many of the most important military men, navigators and conquistadores in the Spanish Empire, a role they were proud of (and many of them still are).
- The presumably secret "council of elders" that gives Aguírrez the sacred Basque relics is also an invention, unless it means some kind of secret society whose existence could be justified by the already large artistic licenses.
- Speaking of the relics, Roland is a historical character from the 8th century, earlier than even the Kingdom of Pamplona that preceded the aforementioned Kingdom of Navarre, and he was a Frank, not an Iberian. In fact, he was at the head of an army sent by Charlemagne to invade the Iberian Peninsula, and was killed by Vascones (ancient Basques) of all people in the battle referred to in the book. His legend has zero weight in the Basque cultural identity, or any Spanish identity at all, and with good reason considering he was just an obscure French invader that happened to die in a Basque mountain pass. The only legendary connections between Roland and Spain are located rather in Castile and León, and they amount to a couple of cities claiming popularly to have been in possession of his sword.
- The book also claims the Basques were fishing in the waters of North America decades before Christopher Columbus discovered it. Possibly true or possibly not, as this is sometimes maintained in academia even if there is no archaeological evidence about whether they reached so far, but even if we adhere to this theory, those operations were mostly limited to the coast of Terranova and some points of Canada.
- It's claimed in the novel that Basque cave paintings from 12.000 years ago (never named, but we can reasonably assume, by the year the book was published, it refers to the Santimamiñe site) match those found by Austin in the Faroe Islands. Aside from this being pure fantasy, most European paleolithic cave paintings are all pretty similar in real life, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to track a common ethnic creator so early in human history.
- Artistic License – Law: Aguírrez owns an attack helicopter he got when the Spanish government bought some, as well as yatch fitted with missile launchers and at least some qualified mercenaries. In real life, Spain is a first-world country with a pretty harsh gun control and a long story of terrorism, so there's almost no chance a private citizen would ever cram that level of military hardware; western Europe is simply not compatible with PMC shenanigans of that kind. The bit about the helicopter also leaves unclear if he just bought it from the same source or actually somehow snatched it from the Spanish government's batch, a case that would be just as scandalous as if it had happened in United States.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: It's interesting to note that, despite being part of a Basque separatist lineage, both Aguírrez and his sons have all very Castilian first names, instead of the idiosyncratic Basque names that are more popular in the Basque Country in real life, and especially among Basque separatists.
- Big Bad: Toonook, also known as Dr. Frederick Barker, chairman of Oceanus.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: A trademark of Cussler villains. The Oceanus fish farms in the Feroe islands have well-armed guards, but also a glaring hole in their security net through which Austin can sneak in with relative ease.
- MegaCorp: Oceanus corporation, a fish farm company. Aguírrez also seems to have an unnamed, mini-version of this given all the money he boasts.
