Текст книги "The Silent Sea (2010)"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Cabrillo swallowed. They had different code words for when someone came into a building. He mentally cursed Jorge Espinoza's foresight, as he frantically ran though the names of all the native South American animals he could remember. Llama. Boa. Anaconda. Um, Sloth. From there, he drew a blank.

A half second had passed, and the sentry was about to become suspicious. Capybara is to Jaguar as what is to a Caiman? Predator and prey. Caimans eat fish. It's a fish. Which one? He said the only one he could think of. Piranha.

The soldier lowered his weapon, and it took all of Cabrillo's self-control not to show his relief.

You know you aren't supposed to be in here.

Just for a second. I need to warm up a little.

Sorry. You know the Major's orders.

Come on, man. It's not like he's around right now.

The soldier thought for another second, then a look of compassion crossed his face. All right, go ahead inside. But five minutes, and if Espinoza or Jimenez shows up I'm gong to tell them you've been hiding in there since before I came on duty.

Five minutes. Promise.

Juan moved past the guard and walked into the overheated facility. He had to pull back his hood and unzip his parka. Machinery hummed as it processed the natural gas flowing in from the offshore pipes, while, on the other side of the yawning space, the blast furnaces were hard at work keeping the bay from freezing over. Cabrillo was again amazed at the size and complexity of the Argentine facility.

Max, I'm in. Go for it.

Juan found one of the main trunk lines for incoming gas. He pulled out a small explosive and set the motion sensor. It wasn't particularly sensitive, but for what was coming it didn't need to be.

He turned to go just as four men entered from the vestibule. They had removed their arctic coats, and at once Cabrillo recognized Major Espinoza. With him was the Sergeant who'd been aboard the Oregon and two other NCOs. Juan moved behind a piece of machinery before they spotted him.

We saw you come in here, Espinoza shouted above the industrial din. Don't make it harder on yourself. Come out now, and I won't charge you with desertion.

Cabrillo looked at the bomb, then back at the burly soldiers staying by the door while Espinoza and Sergeant Lugones started fanning out to find him.

Max, he whispered urgently. I might be blown, but don't stop. You read? I'll get out somehow.

Roger, Max said tersely, knowing full well that the Chairman was lying about the last part.

HANLEY STARED INTO SPACE for a moment and then forced himself into action. Mr. Stone, bring us up to five percent, and set some tension on the cable, if you please.

Aye. Eric dialed up the Oregon's unrivaled engines and moved her forward at a quarter knot.

A tech stationed in the fantail locker where the cable drum was located called out when the line started showing stress.

Even with wind and waves pummeling the ship, Eric didn't need to be told when she was pulling against her tether. He knew how she responded in almost any circumstance.

Tension on, Mr. Hanley, he said with customary op center formality when a mission was under way.

Okay, steady acceleration. One hundred feet per minute. Don't jerk the thing, lad.

Aye, sir.

A mile astern of them, the cable looped around the pier and back to the bow of the Admiral Brown became as rigid as a steel girder when the magnetohydrodynamics encountered the cruiser's deadweight. The forces in play were massive. Imperceptibly at first, the big cruiser started to move, but not so much that her crew thought it was anything other than a swing of the wind pushing against her stern.

One foot became two, then ten. And then she came up hard against her anchor.

Eric kept piling on more power, causing the Oregon's stern to dig deep as water rocketed through her drive tubes. But the stubborn lynchpin that Juan had so carefully sabotaged refused to give that last fraction of an inch.

One of his welds holding a pad eye popped, increasing the strain on those remaining. The Oregon pulled harder still, and a second pad eye popped off the hull, leaving only six. Metal ground against metal as the stubborn anchor pin struggled to do its job.

It released, and the energy stored in the carbon fiber during that frantic tug-of-war was suddenly discharged. The Admiral Guillermo Brown went from a virtual standstill to six knots, fast enough to knock crewmen to their knees. The captain happened to be on the bridge at this early hour, and he looked up from the report he was perusing. He knew immediately what had happened, while his less experienced crew looked confused.

Good God, the anchor chain's snapped. Helm, give me power. All back one third.

All back one third, aye.

With a pair of gas turbine engines capable of a combined twenty thousand shaft horsepower, he felt confident he could best whatever wind was thrown at him. But when he checked the gauge of their speed over the bottom, it wasn't slowing but rather accelerating.

Helm, all back one half. Quickly, man! The dock was only a half mile away, and it looked as though they were headed toward one of the processing plants. In seconds, he realized that the wind was stronger than anything he'd ever experienced. Full power!

The Oregon could handle the cruiser's twenty thousand horses without breaking a sweat. Eric had them up to eighty percent and noted with satisfaction that they were now pulling the Admiral Brown at sixteen knots. Over the distance and the storm, he could hear a klaxon begin to scream out a collision warning.

The cruiser was as helpless as an unmasted schooner as she arrowed straight for the gas plant. Her captain was at a loss to explain it. He'd ordered left full rudder to sheer them away from a direct collision, and the boat responded by simply crabbing sideways in the wind. Fate or destiny was going to slam her where she wanted to go, and to him it seemed the desires of man counted for nothing. A moment before impact, he looked again at their speed over the bottom and was aghast at how wind could push his warship at almost twenty knots.

FOR CABRILLO, THERE WAS NO TIME for subtlety. Whatever happened in this building and the evidence it left behind would be incinerated when the Admiral Brown came barreling through the front wall. He deftly fitted a silencer on his FN Five-seveN and waited until Espinoza and the Sergeant were out of view.

He used the tangle of pipes as cover and crossed closer to the door. The two guards were on the constant lookout, their eyes never at rest, but the massive hangar-sized space was poorly lit, and Juan had more than ample cover. He kept looking back to make sure the others hadn't inadvertently flanked him. He was lining up to take his shot when a pressure-release valve directly behind him hissed out a jet of steam into the air. The guards both looked in his direction, and one of them must have spotted him because his gun came up and he loosed a three-round burst.

How the spray of rounds didn't puncture a critical valve and immolate them all was a miracle.

Juan ducked but came up almost instantly and dropped one of them with a double tap to the chest. The sentry who had let Cabrillo into the building burst through the door, his weapon held high and tight against his shoulder. The second guard had dived flat behind a clutch of fifty-five-gallon drums.

Cabrillo fired twice more, and the sentry collapsed. The doors closed behind him.

In the distance, he could hear Espinoza barking orders.

The guard peered out from around the barrels. Juan put a round two inches from his eye to keep him pinned in place and then charged with everything he had. The distance was less than twenty feet. He reached the barrels and pumped up in one easy bound. The guard was still flat on his stomach, never hearing the assault or expecting it.

Juan's mistake was assuming that because liquid poured from the side of the barrel where the high-velocity round had punctured it, all the kegs would be full. They weren't.

His foot touched down on the lid of one of the barrels, and his momentum toppled it and the three right next to it. He fell in the middle of the clanging mess and for a second had no idea what happened. The guard came to his wits an instant quicker. He got to his knees and swung his machine pistol toward Cabrillo. Like a greenhorn, Juan had dropped his pistol when he landed, so he kicked out with one foot and pushed one of the barrels into the guard, fouling his aim. His three-round burst pinged off the I-beam rafters.

Cabrillo grabbed the empty barrel in a bear hug and threw himself at the guard. When they collided, the soldier went down, and Juan used his impetus to drive his full weight, plus the barrel, into the man's chest. Ribs snapped like twigs. The man was down but not out. Juan frantically searched for his automatic, and was bending to retrieve it from between two more barrels when the wall behind him was stitched with a string of 9mm holes.

Espinoza recognized him immediately. His eyes went wide and then narrowed with satisfaction when he realized that the man who had caused him so much difficulty and shame was twenty feet from him and unarmed.

I know you are alone, he said. Sergeant Lugones appeared at his side. Sergeant, if he moves a muscle, shoot him dead.

Espinoza set his machine pistol onto an electrical-transformer housing and pulled his sidearm from its holster and placed it beside it. He came up to Juan with a smug look, the look of a bully who had cornered the weakest neighborhood kid. He didn't stop even when a nautical horn sounded an alarm outside.

I don't know who you are or where you came from, but I assure you that your death is going to be especially enjoyable.

Juan fired off a lightning right jab that caught Espinoza square in the nose and rocked him back a pace. You talk too much.

The Argentine charged in a blind range. Cabrillo let him come, and as they were about to collide chest to chest he turned to the side and shoved Espinoza in the back as he went past. He crashed into the wall hard enough to make the metal ring.

And you fight like a girl, Juan taunted.

Lugones, shoot him in the foot.

The Sergeant didn't hesitate. The single shot was especially loud, and Juan went down hard, clutching at the ruined member and screaming in agony.

Okay, now let's see how you fight, Espinoza sneered. On your feet, or the next shot takes out a knee.

Juan tried twice to stand on his own and both times he collapsed back onto the cement floor.

Not so tough now, is he, Sergeant?

No, sir.

Espinoza moved to Juan's side and yanked him to his feet in a savage thrust. Cabrillo swayed drunkenly and fought to keep from crying out. Espinoza kept one hand on Juan's arm and fired two powerful punches into his gut. Juan sagged, and nearly dragged the Argentine down to the floor with him.

Pathetic, Espinoza said.

He reached down again for a repeat performance. Juan sat meekly until Espinoza's head was a foot away. Then he reached out with both hands, one on the man's chin, the other on the occipital bulge at the back of his skull. From a disadvantaged position on the ground, he still managed to generate enough torque that when he twisted Espinoza's head, the spinal column snapped cleanly.

The corpse went rubbery as it fell, and nearly blocked him from picking up the Five-SeveN. He raised it and fired before Sergeant Lugones's brain had processed what had just happened. The first round blew through his stomach and emerged on the other side, the second caught him in the forehead.

The horn sounded again, one long, continuous blast of sound that originated not fifty feet from where Juan sat. He managed to get to his feet, his prosthetic leg undamaged by the bullet, and he'd started for the door when a titanic crash seemed to rock the building's foundation and the knife-edged prow of the battle cruiser Guillermo Brown exploded through the wall of the processing plant.

Six seconds later, the shock waves generated by collapsing steel and crushed concrete was enough to detonate the bomb.

The building started to go up like the Hindenburg over Lakehurst.

The Silent Sea

Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

LINC AND EDDIE WERE IN POSITION UNDER THE PRISON when the ship's horn began to blare. The wind made the mournful sound warble like the dying cry of a ravaged animal. They waited a beat, and, sure enough, one of the guards stuck his head out the door to see if he could find the cause of the noise. Of course, he couldn't see more than a dozen feet, and he quickly withdrew.

Franklin used a small cordless drill to create a hole in the floor above him no more than an eighth of an inch in diameter. From their earlier reconnaissance, he'd approximated where the furniture was and had drilled under a threadbare sofa so the hole wouldn't be seen by the guards. Into this, Eddie inserted the nozzle of a gas canister. The gas was a potent knockout agent that would render the average person unconscious in about five minutes, with the effects lasting up to an hour depending on the concentration. They'd earlier disabled the building's ventilation system by merely unplugging the exterior unit.

Very soon, the muffled voices of the guards' idle chatter grew quieter and quieter until there was the crash of bodies hitting the floor and then silence.

The two men crawled out from under the structure and entered through the vestibule. Eddie had the parkas in a vacuum-sealed bag, to cut down on its size, while Linc carried the bag of bones. They hadn't brought eighteen complete skeletons but rather just enough to convince the Argentines. The sack still weighed in at over two hundred pounds, yet he struggled far less than Eddie, with his sixty pounds of coats.

Once they had their gas masks on, they hurried through the door that gave access to the guard area so as to not dilute the gas. There were four of them. Two slumped over on the couch, one on the floor, and the other at a desk with his head down as if to take a nap. Eddie released a little more of the gas below each man's nose to keep them down, and then he and Linc rushed into the back, making sure to unlock the door first.

The rear section of the building was divided into six rooms by a central hallway. It had been housing for oil workers before the scientists were kidnapped from their research stations. Linc stayed on guard near the door so he could hear any of the soldiers stirring.

Eddie opened the first door on his right and flicked on the switch. Three women stared up at him from the floor. Their days of captivity had rendered them numb, so they just stared blankly. He was relieved to see that the jailers had left them their shoes. Seng peeled off his gas mask, and when they saw he was Asian their interest grew.

My name is Eddie Seng, and I'm going to get you out of here. When no one said anything, he asked, Do any of you speak English?

Yes, a stocky woman with straw-colored hair replied. We all do. We're Australian. Who are you?

We're here to rescue you. He flicked open a pocketknife and cut the seal that had kept the parkas flattened. The bag expanded to three times its original size.

You sound American. Are you with the Army?

No. It's not important now. Are any of you hurt?

They've treated us all right. I don't think they've hurt anyone.

Good. Help me free the others.

Minutes later, all six cells were open, and the eighteen scientists were free. Eddie was bombarded with questions about why they'd been captured, and he did his best to answer them. The questions died, however, when he opened the second bag and pulled out a human skull.

We need the Argentines to think you all burned in a fire, Eddie explained before anyone could ask. There are severe diplomatic repercussions if they suspect you escaped.

The horn on the Admiral Brown began blasting a long, single note. Eddie quickened his pace. He salted the right number of remains in each room while Linc went to give the guards one last dose of gas. Next came smearing the walls and floor with a purple jellied fuel. They couldn't carry as much as they would have liked, but Eddie was more than adept at arson and knew the best patterns to lay out so the building would burn completely.

Hold your breath when we go through the next room, he cautioned. And once outside, stay in a tight group and follow me.

A massive explosion filled the night.

WHEN THE WARSHIP HIT the processing plant and set off the bomb, the blast ruptured the undersea gas line coming in from the rigs. The drop in pressure registered instantly, and check valves on the offshore platforms closed to prevent a dangerous blowback. The impact of the Admiral Brown had damaged the shoreside valves so that as the great ship was dragged farther into the structure, the gas in the pipes wasn't contained. With a fireball mushrooming over the facility, flame licked at the gas in the conduits and ignited it.

The bay erupted.

Miles of gas lines lit off in a cataclysmic blast that sent sheets of water soaring into the night, while the flash lit up the sky from horizon to horizon. Three of the disguised rigs were blown off their piers.

Secondary and tertiary explosions rippled the exterior walls of the gas factory until they were blown flat and sent flaming debris out across the bay and over the buildings of the station.

Aboard the Admiral Brown, the ship's heavy armor protected all of her crew except the men on the bridge. They could have saved themselves by simply ducking but to a man had stood in awe as their cruiser caromed into the plant. They were sliced to ribbons when all the windows imploded, turning the bridge into a hail-storm of glass.

Unnoticed in the maelstrom of fire, another small charge exploded under the cruiser's bow. It was the device Juan had clamped over the tow cable to release it. When it went, the carbon fiber was pulled free of the remaining pad eyes, and the Oregon no longer had her in tow.

AS SOON AS THE PLANT BLEW, Mark Murphy toggled the explosives Mike Trono and his team had planted in the glacier overlooking where the Silent Sea had been sunk by Admiral Tsai Song five centuries earlier. They had drilled deeply into the ice and repacked the holes with water that had frozen solid so as to contain the blast. The multiple explosions were timed precisely and built a harmonic resonance that was powerful enough to shear off a massive slab of ice as neatly as a knife. The newly calved berg was the size of a Manhattan office tower. Two hundred and fifty thousand tons of ice slammed into the bay and actually fractured when it crashed against the seafloor. The wave it spawned encompassed the entire water column and swept from shore to shore. Its momentum was such that anything caught in its path was borne away like leaves in a gutter. The magnificent Treasure Ship, so long preserved in its frigid realm, was no exception. The wave tumbled it across the seafloor and onto the long slope that led down into the deep waters of the abyssal plain. When the waters finally calmed, there wasn't a trace that it had ever existed at all.

ERIC STONE FELT IT the second the ship was free, and he cut the power to the drive tubes.

That's it, he said, staring at the big monitor on the front wall of the op center.

The camera that was mounted in the nose of an unmanned aerial drone revealed hell on earth, with fire shooting a hundred feet and higher over the processing plant and pockets of gas above the bay still aflame. It looked as if the very seas were burning. Gomez Adams was at the tiny plane's remote controls, and he used a joystick to fly it across the sprawling facility. It was a testimony to his skills as a pilot that he could keep the unstable craft flying through the storm. Small pockets of fire dotted the landscape where debris blown from the gas plant continued to burn. But another fire drew his attention. A building well away from the blast had flames licking through its roof.

Looks like Eddie and Linc are making their move, he said.

A second later, Eddie's panting voice filled the high-tech room from ceiling-mounted speakers. Eighteen present and accounted for.

Max Hanley couldn't care less. Have you heard or seen the Chairman?

Negative. Last I knew, he was in the plant. He hasn't gotten word to you?

No, damn it! All he said was, he'd find his own way out.

What do you want us to do?

As much as Max wanted to delay, he knew that Eddie and his group of freed captives would eventually draw attention. Get to the submersible as fast as you can. Maybe Juan's already on his way. His radio could be dead.

We're moving.

Hanley tried calling Cabrillo on every preset frequency their radios picked up. He got no response. He knew in his gut that Juan hadn't gotten clear when the gas processor blew. There hadn't been enough time. He'd sacrificed himself to stick to their plan.

THE SCENE ON THE GROUND was absolute pandemonium. Lieutenant Jimenez couldn't find the Major, and the discipline they had drilled into their men seemed to have evaporated. This was the start of the American attack and yet many of his troopers abandoned their positions to gawk at the conflagration. He screamed at them to return to their posts and get ready for the assault. Noncoms added their snarls, and slowly they started getting the soldiers to pay attention to their duty.

Oil workers ignored the curfew and poured from their dormitories to see what had happened. When Jimenez yelled at them to return indoors, he was met with derision. Within minutes of the blast, a hundred men or more were outside.

A Corporal approached and saluted. Lieutenant, it's not the Americans.

What? What did you say?

It's not the Americans, sir. The Guillermo broke free from her mooring and drifted into the big processing plant. That's what caused the explosion.

Are you certain?

I saw it myself. It looks like a quarter of the ship is buried inside the building.

Jimenez couldn't believe it. An accident caused all this? Have you seen Major Espinoza?

No, sir. I'm sorry.

If you see him, tell him I'm investigating the plant.

Sir. Yes, sir.

Jimenez was about to start across the complex when he heard the unmistakable chatter of an automatic weapon. This was no accident. He took off at a run toward where the gunfire originated.

WHEN THE EXPLOSION ROCKETED into the storm-torn sky, Linc started hustling the prisoners out to the entry vestibule while Eddie used a lighter to ignite the flammable jelly. It went up even better than he'd hoped. The wood paneling was the cheapest product available and was made of sawdust and glue that burned furiously. In seconds, the top layer of space was a dense cloud of smoke.

He made sure he was the last person out. He rushed across the room where the guards still slept. They left the door open so fresh air would revive them, though the reason behind this was to feed the fire and not offer these men any humanity.

As Cabrillo had predicted, the Argentines had temporarily lost control of the situation. Soldiers had left their patrol sectors, and civilians were mingling in with the troops.

A half mile away, the fire at the gas plant glowed orange and yellow through the curtain of blowing snow. Eddie didn't have to see it to know the building was a total loss. Without that facility, the men had no way of powering their base. In one fiery instant, the Corporation turned the Argentines from masters of the Antarctic Peninsula to people who were going to need rescuing within days or risk freezing to death. Their hope of annexing this region was over. The world would not sit idly back and let them rebuild.

All that remained now was, getting away with it.

He didn't like that they were such a big group. Large numbers attract attention; however, no one seemed to be paying them heed. Most were making their way closer to the huge blaze to see what had happened.

He made his report to the Oregon, and was as troubled as Max about Juan's disappearance. But he knew the Chairman and had a pretty good feeling that he was boarding the minisub this second.

They kept moving at a pace that wasn't quite a jog but more than a walk. The buildings were packed tightly together, and it was only a matter of time before they rounded a blind corner and ran into a sentry.

Linc had given the point position to him so that once they reached the Nomad, Eddie could go directly to the cockpit without having to climb over their guests.

The guard had his back turned when Eddie saw him. In the distance, he could see where the white ground gave way to the black ocean. The pier was less than a hundred yards away.

Sensing more than hearing anything, the soldier spun in place, his weapon held ready. Jaguar, he challenged.

Capybara, Eddie returned.

The soldier asked a question. Seng spoke no Spanish, and realized Linc should have stayed on point. Eddie cupped his glove to his hood as if to say he didn't hear the question. Ignoring Seng's pantomime, the sentry moved closer to look at the people with him. Though they were shapeless under the heavy parkas, there was no disguising that three of them were much shorter than average. Short enough to be women, something the complex had none of.

He went straight for the blonde, whose name was Sue, and pushed back her hood to reveal her cherubic face. He whipped up his H&K and aimed it point-blank between her eyes. No one would ever know if he intended to fire. Linc dropped him with a three-round burst.

In a fit of inspiration, Eddie raised his own machine pistol and loosed an entire magazine into the air. The soldiers were nervous, had no information about what was going on, and had doubtlessly been told since their arrival that American commandos would be hitting them any day. Even the most seasoned veteran would be panicky right about now, so a moment after Eddie's burst some young recruit on the other side of the base saw a shadow he was certain was a Green Beret and opened fire. Like opening a flood-gate, men began shooting indiscriminately, the chatter of autofire rising above the roar of the burning gas plant and the shriek of the wind.

Linc got it immediately. He toed the corpse. This poor sap got hit by his own guys.

That's how it'll read. I'll be surprised if they actually don't shoot a few of their own themselves.

They took off again and made it to the dock moments later. The gunfire didn't let up one bit, which worked to their advantage right until the instant a stray bullet caught one of the scientists in the leg. He crashed to the ground, clutching at the wound and moaning.

It wasn't a life-threatening wound, at least at that moment, so Linc picked him off the snow and threw him over his shoulder with barely a break in stride.

The Nomad had drifted a bit out from under the dock, so Eddie had to haul it back on its line. He jumped aboard and opened the hatch.

Juan? he called, even as he lowered himself into the craft. The Chairman wasn't back yet.

Eddie, Linc said from the top of the hull. Help me here.

The former SEAL lowered the injured man through the hatch. His pant leg was stained with blood, and more of it dripped from the wound. His femoral artery had been nicked. He laid the injured scientist on one of the padded benches and was about to get to work on the wound when another of the prisoners leapt down into the submersible and shouldered him aside.

I'm a doctor.

Eddie didn't need to hear anything further. He scrambled forward to the cockpit and threw himself into the pilot's seat.

Max, can you hear me? he said into his mike, while he got busy prepping the sub for its return to the Oregon.

Any sign of Juan? Hanley asked.

No. We're loading onto the Nomad now. He isn't here.

The silence stretched to fifteen seconds. Twenty. Max finally asked, How long do you think you can hang there?

I don't think at all. One of the scientists was shot. Looks like he could bleed out. He needs to be in the OR as fast as we can get him there. Whenever there was a mission under way, Dr. Huxley and her staff were standing by in Medical ready to treat anything that came their way.

Eddie glanced over and down the length of the submersible. Already the bench seats were full, and people were starting to sit on each other's laps. It didn't help that the wounded man took up four places while the doctor worked to save his life. They remained quiet, but all of them threw smiles Eddie's way when they caught his eye.

Doc, Eddie called. It's going to take a half hour to reach our ship, but there's a level-one trauma team standing by. What are his chances? Another man's life might depend on your answer.

The physician, a Norwegian on sabbatical down there in Antarctica because of his thirst for adventure, took his time and considered all the variables. If it is as you say, this man will live if we leave in the next five minutes.

Eddie turned back to his radio. Max, I can give Juan ten minutes, then we have to go. He figured the doctor would have given himself a little cushion.

Every second you can spare. You hear me? Every second.

Twelve minutes later, the sub sank into the black waters of the bay.

Cabrillo hadn't shown.