Текст книги "Skeleton Coast"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

They were running late for their appointment. The man at the company who rented them the vehicle was also a volunteer with the Swakopmund police. He had been delayed because he’d been out arresting a group of Europeans stranded in the desert who were responsible for a kidnapping that took place in Switzerland.

The open-topped buggy crested a hill and Juan whipped them into a slide that dug furrows into the ground. The vehicle rocked on its suspension as the four passengers gaped at the valley below.

TheRove looked as though she was under way on an ocean of sand. Small dunes lapped at her hull like gently rolling swells. If not for her missing funnel and her broken cargo derricks and the fact that every fleck of paint had been scoured from her, she would have looked like she had before being buried for a hundred years by the worst sandstorm in a century.

A short distance from her was a huge cargo chopper painted a bright turquoise with the name NUMA emblazoned on its rotor boom. Near it were two small excavators that had been used to remove the thirty feet of sand that had entombed the ship and a cluster of workers lounging in the shade under a white tent canopy.

Juan leaned over to kiss Sloane’s cheek. “You were right. Congratulations.”

She beamed at the compliment. “Was there ever any doubt?”

“Tons of it,” Max said from the backseat. Sloane reached back and slapped his leg playfully.

Juan put the buggy in gear and raced down the side of the dune. Their appearance made the workers get to their feet. Two of them detached themselves from the others and started across the desert floor to where a ramp had been rigged to give access to theRove ’s main deck. One carried a box under his arm.

Cabrillo braked just shy of the ramp and killed the engine. The only sound was a gentle breeze that stirred the air. He unstrapped his belts and climbed from the bucket seat as the two men approached.

Both were solidly built and were maybe a year or two younger than him, though one had pure white hair and eyes that were as blue as his own. The other was darker, a Latino with a perpetually amused look on his face.

“I don’t know a whole lot of people in the world who truly impress Dirk Pitt,” the white-haired man from NUMA said. “So when I had the chance to meet one of them I took it. Chairman Cabrillo, I presume?”

“JuanCabrillo.” They shook hands.

“I’m Kurt Austin and this rogue here is Joe Zavala. By the way, thanks for getting us away from cleanup duty in Angola where NUMA’s leading a hand.”

“Pleasure to meet you. How’s it coming?”

“Better than expected. Our ship happened to be nearby on a survey mission. Joe was able to modify a suction dredge used to take samples into an effective oil vacuum. We can pump the crude directly to storage tanks onshore. With Petromax deploying everything they have from other facilities in Nigeria, the spill should be totally cleared up in less than two weeks.”

“That’s great to hear,” Juan said, then added with a touch of self-recrimination. “Had we been a couple hours earlier there wouldn’t have been a need for such a cleanup effort.”

“And a couple hours later would have doubled it.”

“True.” Cabrillo turned to his companions. “This is the president of the Corporation, Max Hanley.

Mafana here represents Moses Ndebele, and this is Sloane Macintyre, the reason we’re all standing eight miles from the ocean but looking at a steamship.”

“Quite a sight, huh?”

“Not that I’m complaining, but how did you find it so fast?”

Before answering, Joe Zavala produced bottles of Tusker lager from the box. The glass was icy cold and blistered with condensation. He popped the tops and handed them around. “It’s about the best way I’ve discovered to beat back the dust.”

They saluted each other and took long gulps.

“Ah!” Zavala breathed. “That’s the stuff.”

“To answer your question,” Austin said, wiping his mouth, “we turned the problem over to our resident computer genius, Hiram Yeager. He pulled together every scrap of information about the storm that hit the night theRove disappeared, gleaning it from old ships’ logs, memoirs of people living in Swakopmund, missionaries’ journals, and a report filed with the British Admiralty concerning navigational changes to the coast of South West Africa after it was over.

“He fed everything he could into his computer and then added meteorological data about this area for the century since the storm. About a day later Max spit out the answer.”

“Max?” Hanley asked.

“It’s what he calls his computer. It created a map of the coastline as it is today with a line running parallel to it, ranging from a mile to more than ten miles inland. Had theRove been close to shore, like to pick up passengers who’d made off with a fortune in diamonds, she would be buried somewhere along that line.”

“The distance variances are caused by different geological conditions and wind patterns,” Zavala added.

“Once we had our map we flew along the line in a chopper trailing a magnetometer.”

“I did the same thing for days,” Sloane told them, “but I was searching out at sea. Guess I should have done more research.”

“It took us two days to get a hit that could be theRove , and it was less than thirty feet from where Max said she’d be.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I’ve been trying to convince Hiram to make his computer predict lottery numbers for me,” Zavala quipped. “He says it can do it, but he won’t let me ask.”

“We used ground-penetrating radar to confirm it was a ship and not a mass of iron, like a meteorite,”

Austin went on. “The rest was just a matter of moving sand.”

Zavala opened a second round of beers. “Movinga lot of sand.”

“Have you been inside her yet?” Sloane asked.

“We were saving that honor for your arrival. Come on aboard.”

He led them up the gangplank and onto theRove ’s teak deck. They had done a masterful job removing the overburden, going so far as to sweep out the corners so the only sand on her was what blew with the wind.

“The bridge windows were smashed in, either by the storm or later when she was buried, so it was filled with sand. However…” He left the word hanging in the air and slapped a hatch. The metal echoed. “The desert never entered her crew’s quarters.”

“I’ve already loosened the dogging wheel,” Zavala said. “So Miss Macintyre, if you’d please.”

Sloane stepped forward and spun the locking wheel another half turn to disengage the latches. She pulled it open and a trickle of sand spilled over the coaming. The wardroom beyond was lit only by a couple shafts of light from small portholes along two walls. Other than the drifts of sand covering the floor, it looked as though a hundred years had never passed. The furniture was all in its place. A stove sat ready to warm the teakettle sitting on its top and a lantern hanging from the ceiling appeared to need just the touch of a match to glow.

But as their eyes adjusted they all saw that what at first looked like sacks of cloth draped over the table were actually the mummified remains of two men who’d died facing opposite each other. Their skin had turned gray as their bodies dried out and seemed as brittle as paper. One wore nothing but a loincloth around his waist and the stalks of feathers that had lost their fletching in a band around his skull. The other wore rough bush clothes and next to where he lay his head sat an enormous slouch hat that had been white eleven decades earlier.

“H. A. Ryder,” Sloane breathed. “The other must have been one of the Herero warriors their king sent to retrieve the stones.”

“They had to have attacked just as the storm hit,” Austin said, returning from down a short corridor.

“There are a dozen or more bodies lying in the cabins. Most looked like they died in a fight. Lots of stab wounds. The bodies of the Hereros don’t have a mark on them, so they probably died of starvation when theRove was buried.”

“But they didn’t kill him.” Juan pointed at Ryder’s corpse. “I wonder why?”

“From the looks of it, these two were the last of them, Zavala remarked. “Probably died of dehydration when the ship’s water supply ran dry.”

“Ryder was well known in his day,” Sloane said. “It’s possible they knew each other. They could have been friends from before the heist.”

“That’s one mystery we’ll never be able to solve,” Max said, stepping forward to reach for one of the bags placed under the table. “As to another one.”

When he lifted the saddlebag the dried-out leather split and a cascade of diamonds tumbled into the sand. Unpolished and in poor light, they still dazzled like bits of captured sunshine. Everyone began cheering at once. Sloane picked up a twenty-carat stone and held it to the porthole to plumb its depths.

Mafana scooped up handfuls of diamonds and let them sift through his fingers. His expression told Juan he was thinking not of himself but of what wealth these stones meant for his people.

The old sergeant broke open the other bags and began sorting through the stones, plucking out the largest and clearest. There were many to choose from because the original miners who’d brought the diamonds to their king had taken only the finest they had wrested from the earth. When his hands were brimming he turned to Cabrillo.

“Moses said that you gave him one handful of stones as a down payment,” Mafana said solemnly. “He ordered me to give you back two as our people’s way of saying thank you.”

Juan was overwhelmed by the gesture. “Mafana, this isn’t necessary. You and your men fought and died for these stones. That was our deal.”

“Moses said you would reply that way so I was then supposed to give them to Mr. Hanley. Moses says he is less sentimental than you and would accept them on behalf of your crew.”

“He’s got a point there,” Max said and held out his hands. Mafana gave him the stones. “Having played a master jeweler not too long ago I’d say there’s about a million bucks here.”

“You couldn’t have done a very good job of playing at it.” Sloane took the largest stone from the pile and showed it to him. “This one alone will fetch about a million when it’s cut and polished.”

Max just stared at it goggle-eyed, bringing a fresh round of laughter.

AN hour later, after everyone had explored the ship, Sloane found Juan standing at theRove ’s prow, his hands clasped behind his back.

“What’s that line?” she asked as she approached him. “Give me a tall ship and a star to sail her by.”

He turned and smiled. “Only look out for the sand dunes.”

“I’ve been reading the ship’s log. H. A. Ryder continued to write in it after they were buried. Kurt was correct about the Herero attacking at the height of the storm. They slaughtered the crew to a man, all except Ryder. The Herero leader had once worked for him as a guide and owed him his life following a lion attack. Not that it mattered. The reprieve was temporary.”

“What happened?”

“The storm raged for a solid week. When it was finally over they couldn’t push open any doors, including the one leading to the bridge, and the portholes were too small to fit through. They were trapped. There was enough food and water to last them nearly a month, but the end was inevitable. One by one they died off until only Ryder and the Herero chief remained. I have to assume that Ryder went next because there was nothing in the log about his companion succumbing.”

“That is definitely on my top ten list of ways not to die,” Juan said with a shudder.

“There was something else in the log that Ryder mentioned, something pretty interesting. He wrote that when he and his companions plundered the Herero’s diamonds they left behind four beer pots brimming with stones. I know from history that their king never used them to buy protection from the British against the Germans occupying his lands so the stones are still out there.”

“Forget it,” Juan said, grinning. “Last time I helped you I ended up stranded on a giant metal snake in the middle of the ocean and had a supertanker sink from underneath me. If you want to go looking for more diamonds, be my guest. I’m going to stick to something safe, like hunting terrorists.”

“It’s just a thought,” she said, teasing.

Cabrillo shook his head. “While we’re on the subject of diamonds there’s a couple of things I’d like to ask you.”

“Fire away.”

“Are you sure you’ll be able to get a good price for these stones?”

“My company will pay close to full market value for them just so they can maintain their monopoly. They won’t like it much that I didn’t bring them back myself, but in the long run they’ll have no choice. Don’t worry. Moses will get more than enough money to see the leaders of his country get sent packing.”

“That brings me to my second question. I assume that once the deal is done you aren’t going to win employee of the month any time soon. I was wondering if you’d consider changing careers.”

“Are you offering me a job, Chairman Cabrillo?” Her smile was brighter than any one of the diamonds they’d found could ever be.

“The hours are long, the work’s dangerous but, as you just saw, the pay can be pretty good.”

She stepped closer to him so that their chests were almost touching. “I had a chat with Linda not too long ago and I got a sense that there isn’t a whole lot of fraternization among the crew.”

“Office romances are tough enough. It’s even worse when you all live together.”

She ran a fingertip along his bare arm and looked into his eyes. “In that case there’s something I need to get out of my system first before I’d even consider going off and playing pirate.”

“What’s that?” he asked, his voice husky.

“This,” she said as their lips met.