Chapter Eight
Research
From the time she first arrived on board Altuna, Jean Groff, who had more than a layman’s knowledge of naval architecture and design, remained puzzled about the yacht’s unusual design. After doing some relatively complicated math, taking a few measurements and pacing off the distances, she arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that a substantial portion of the yacht was missing…as much as twenty or twenty-five percent of the boat’s massive hull appeared to be inaccessible from below decks. Groff sat on a small hatch near the stern and studied the deck. The double circular landing patterns for the helicopters, the safety nets rigged outboard around the pads and the sophisticated elevator that could lower the copters to the hanger deck below were all normal, as far
