Clive Cussler was the author of more than eighty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA® Files, Oregon® Files, Isaac Bell®, and Sam and Remi Fargo®. His life nearly paralleled that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Civil War submarine Hunley , which was raised in 2000 with much publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collected classic automobiles. His collection featured more than one hundred examples of custom coachwork. Cussler passed away in February 2020. Ryan Pote is a twelve-year veteran Navy helicopter pilot who was part of a joint interagency special operations task force deployed throughout Central and South America combating drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations. After being medically separated from the Navy, he investigated prototype aircraft development programs for six years with the Department of Defense.

Before his time in the Navy, he lived and worked in Hawaii as a scuba diving instructor and a lab assistant conducting microbiological research for Shell Oil. He has a master's degree in history and lives with his wife and kids in Maine.