Текст книги "Trojan Odyssey"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

42

When he awoke in the morning, Loren had already left for her apartment to shower and change for another day's battle in Congress. He felt a glow remembering her joyful embraces with her arms held tight around him through the night. Though he had a meeting to attend at the White House, he didn't feel in the mood to put on a business suit and play the role of bureaucrat. Besides, his mind was made up to retire so he felt he no longer had to impress presidential advisors. Instead he wore slacks, a golf shirt and a sport coat.

Another black Lincoln, driven by a Secret Service agent, was waiting when he walked from his hangar. The driver, broad-shouldered, but with a fairly substantial belt line, said nothing as he sat behind the wheel, letting Pitt open his own rear door. The journey to Al's condo was conducted in silence.

After Giordino eased into the rear seat next to Pitt, it soon became clear that the driver was not taking the normal route toward the White House. Giordino leaned over the front seat. "Excuse me, pal, but aren't you taking the long way around?"

The driver kept his eyes straight ahead and did not answer.

Giordino turned to Pitt with an expression of circumspection. "A real chatterbox, this guy."

"Ask him where he's taking us."

"How about it?" Giordino spoke directly into the driver's ear. "If not the White House, what's our destination?"

Still no answer. The driver ignored Giordino and steered the car as if he was a robot.

"What do you think?" Giordino muttered. "Should we stick an ice pick in his ear at the next stoplight and hijack the car?"

"How do we know he's actually with the Secret Service?" said Pitt.

The driver's face remained impassive as reflected in the rearview mirror. He reached an arm over his shoulder with his hand displaying his Secret Service identification.

Giordino peered at the ID. "He's genuine. He has to be with a name like Otis McGonigle."

"I'm glad it's not the White House," Pitt said, yawning as if bored. "The people inside are so drab and dreary. And what's worse, they think the country will go to the dogs without them."

"Especially those toadies who protect the president," Giordino added.

"You mean those deadheads who stand around with little radios in their ears wearing sunglasses that went out of fashion thirty years ago?"

"The same."

Still no response, not even a twitch of irritation.

Pitt and Giordino gave up trying to get a rise out of the agent and sat quietly for the rest of the trip. McGonigle stopped at a heavy iron gate. A guard in the uniform of the White House police recognized the driver, stepped into his guardhouse and pressed a switch. The gate swung open and the car rolled down a ramp into a tunnel. Pitt was familiar with the tunnels deep beneath Washington that led into most of the government buildings around the Capitol. Former President Clinton had often used them during his forays around the city nightspots.

After what Pitt estimated was nearly a mile, McGonigle stopped the car in front of an elevator, got out and opened the rear door.

"Okay, gentlemen, we've arrived."

"He talked," Giordino said, looking around the tunnel. "But how? I don't see his ventriloquist."

"You guys will never get hired at the Comedy Club," muttered McGonigle, refusing to be drawn in. He stood aside as the doors opened. "I'll await your return with bated breath."

"I don't know why, but I like you," Giordino said, slapping the agent on the back as he stepped into the elevator. He failed to see the response as the door closed before the agent could react.

The elevator did not go up, but descended for what seemed a quarter of a mile before it slowed and the doors noiselessly slid open. Here they found an armed Marine standing in dress uniform beside a steel door. He carefully checked Pitt and Giordino, comparing their faces with photographs. Satisfied, he pressed a code on the side of the door and stood aside as it swung open. He merely motioned for them to enter, without speaking.

They found themselves in a long conference room with enough technical communications equipment to support a major war room. TV monitors and visual displays of maps and photographs covered three walls. Sandecker rose from a chair and greeted them.

"Well, you two have really opened a Pandora's box this time."

"I hope the results of our investigation proved useful," said Pitt modestly.

"Useful is a major understatement." He turned as a tall, gray-haired man in a black pin-striped suit with a red tie approached. "I believe you know the president's security advisor, Max Seymour."

Pitt shook the outstretched hand. "I've met him on occasion at my father's Saturday-afternoon barbecues."

"Senator Pitt and I go back a long way," said Seymour warmly. "How is your lovely mother?"

"Except for arthritis, she's doing fine," replied Pitt.

Sandecker quickly made the introductions of the other three men standing around one end of the long table. Jack Martin, White House science advisor; Jim Hecht, assistant director of the CIA; and General Arnold Stack, whose exact job at the Pentagon was never fully revealed. They all sat down as Sandecker asked Pitt to report on what he and Giordino found in the tunnels and at the Odyssey development center on Isle de Ometepe.

After a secretary announced that her recorder was on and receiving, Pitt started off first, trading off every few minutes with Giordino, filling in what the other overlooked. They described the broad spectrum of events and scenes they had witnessed, enhanced by their conclusions. No questions interrupted their report until they wrapped up by telling of their escape off the island with the Lowenhardts and the murderous woman from Odyssey.

The president's men took a few moments to digest the enormity of the looming disaster. Max Seymour looked across the table with an icy smile on his face at Jim Hecht of the CIA. "Seems like your people dropped the ball on this one, Jim."

Hecht shrugged uncomfortably. "No directives were received from the White House to investigate. We saw little cause to send in operatives because our satellite photos showed no indication of a major construction project that could prove detrimental to the security of the United States."

"And the development facility on Ometepe?"

"We checked it," answered Hecht, becoming annoyed with Seymour's questions, "and found it was engaging in alternative power research. Our analysts saw nothing that revealed Odyssey was researching and developing weapons of death or destruction. So we moved on, since our main objective is observing and analyzing the Republic of China's penetration into Central America, in particular, the Canal Zone."

Jack Martin said, "I find it troubling that our best scientific efforts are still years away from producing an efficient fuel cell power system. Not only did Odyssey make an astonishing technical breakthrough, but the Red Chinese are already manufacturing millions of units."

"We can't lead the world in everything, every time," said General Stack. He nodded at Pitt and Giordino. "What you're telling us is that Odyssey lured away a number of the world's leading scientists who were conducting research into fuel cells, took them to the facility in Nicaragua and then coerced them into developing a practical and efficient product."

Pitt nodded. "That is correct."

"I can name at least four of our own scientists who left their research laboratories at universities and quietly disappeared," said Martin.

Hecht looked at Pitt. "Are you certain the Lowenhardts will cooperate and give us the technical data we require to re-create their advance in nitrogen fuel cells?"

"They agreed up and down the line after I promised them that their children would be flown under guard to the United States for a family reunion and protected from now on."

"Good thinking," said Sandecker with a glint in his eyes, "even if you did step beyond your authority."

"It seemed the honorable thing to do," Pitt came back, with a sly grin.

Jack Martin doodled on a notepad. "As soon as they've recovered from their ordeal and are rested, we'll begin interviewing them." He gazed at Pitt across the table. "What did they tell you about the cell's inner workings?"

"Only that after they determined that hydrogen was impractical as a fuel they began experimenting with nitrogen because it makes up seventy-eight percent of Earth's air. By drawing it out of the atmosphere along with oxygen, they ingeniously created a fuel cell that was self-sustaining and powered by natural gases, with only pure water as waste. According to Claus they engineered an ingeniously simple unit with less than eight parts. It was this simplicity that enabled the Chinese to produce so many units so quickly."

General Stack looked grim. "Such huge production numbers in such a short space of time is astonishing."

"Something of that magnitude would have called for a staggering amount of platinum to coat the anodes that separate the gas into protons and electrons," explained Martin.

Hecht replied, "Over the past ten years, Odyssey has accumulated eighty percent of the world's platinum-producing mines. A phenomenon that has cost the auto industry dearly since they rely on platinum for a number of engine parts."

"Once we have the Lowenhardts' blueprint in our hands," said Seymour, "we'll have the same problem of finding enough platinum to match Chinese production."

"They did say they had yet to design a fuel cell to power automobiles," Giordino commented.

Martin said, "By using the Lowenhardts' data and by making an all-out effort, we might get the jump on Odyssey and the Chinese in that field."

"Certainly worth a try," said General Stack, "now that the groundwork has been achieved and the technology laid in our lap."

"Which brings us to a plan about how to deal with Odyssey and the tunnels," continued Stack, his eyes straying across the table to Seymour.

"Sending Special Forces to block a series of tunnels is not the same as sending troops to subdue a dictator who has built up an arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons like Saddam in Iraq," Seymour spelled out. "I cannot in good conscience advise the president to use force."

"But the results of a terrible freeze above the thirtieth parallel could be just as deadly."

"Max is right," said Martin. "Convincing the rest of the world of the danger would border on the impossible."

"Regardless of how you approach the dilemma," Sandecker said, "those tunnels must be blocked and blocked fast. Once they are opened and millions of gallons of water from the Atlantic is flowing into the Pacific, they'll be much more difficult to destroy."

"How about sending in a small covert team with explosives to do the job?"

"They'd never penetrate Odyssey's security," counseled Giordino.

"You and Dirk made it in and out," said Sandecker.

"We weren't carrying a hundred tons of explosives, which is what it will take to do the job."

Pitt had left his chair and moved around the room, studying the monitors and maps on the walls. He found particular interest in a large satellite photo of the Odyssey R&D facility on Ometepe. He moved in closer and examined the slope of Mount Concepcion and a thought began to form. Finally, he turned and stepped back to the table.

"A B-fifty-two drop of two-thousand-pound penetrating bombs would do it," suggested Stack.

"We can't go around dropping bombs on friendly countries," said Seymour, "despite the threat."

"Then you admit the potential for a deep freeze is a threat to the nation's security," Stack cornered him.

"That part of the equation goes without saying," Seymour said wearily. "What I'm saying is there must be a logical solution that won't make the president and the United States government look like inhuman monsters to the nations of the world."

"And lest we forget," Hecht said with a tight, canny smile, "the political implications and fallout in the next election if we make the wrong decisions."

"There might be another approach," said Pitt slowly, while still looking at the satellite photo. "An approach that would satisfy everyone involved."

"All right, Mr. Pitt," said General Stack dubiously, "how do we destroy the tunnels without sending in the Special Forces or a squadron of bombers?"

Pitt held their attention, every eye was trained on him. "I propose we give the job to Mother Nature."

They all looked at him, waiting for an explanation, their minds beginning to think he may have lost some gray matter. Martin, the scientist, broke the silence.

"Could you please explain?"

"According to geologists, a slope of the Concepcion volcano on Ometepe is slipping. This was no doubt caused by the tunnel excavation under the outer edge of the volcano. When Al and I were in the tunnel closest to its core, we could feel a substantial rise in temperature."

"Well over a hundred degrees," Giordino added.

"The Lowenhardts told us that one of the scientists held hostage, a Dr. Honoma from the University of Hawaii—"

"One of the scientists on our list of the missing," interrupted Martin.

"Dr. Honoma predicted that a sudden slip was possible at any time that would cause the volcano's flank to collapse, with catastrophic results."

"How extensive would be the catastrophic results?" asked the general, not entirely sold on the report.

"The entire Odyssey research center and everybody in it would be buried under millions of tons of rock that would launch a tidal wave around the lake that would wipe out every town and village along the shoreline."

"This certainly isn't a situation we considered," said Hecht.

Seymour gave Pitt a long, considering gaze. "If what you say is true, the mountain will do the job for us and destroy the tunnels."

"That's one scenario."

"Then all we have to do is sit and wait."

"Geologists haven't witnessed enough volcanic slope collapses to form a timetable. The wait might last a few days or a few years. Then it would be too late to avert the freeze."

"We can't just sit on our hands," Stack spoke in a hard tone, "and watch helplessly as the tunnels go into operation."

"We couldsit on our hands," said Pitt, "but there is another way."

"Kindly tell us what you've got in mind," Sandecker demanded impatiently.

"Inform the Nicaraguan government that our scientists have monitored the slippage on Concepcion volcano by satellite, and its slope is ready to collapse at any hour. Scare the hell out of them. Describe a possible death toll in the thousands, then feed them the bait."

Seymour looked confused. "Bait?"

"We offer to provide massive aid in helping the people inside the facility and the inhabitants around Lake Nicaragua to evacuate the area and head for high ground. Once they are free and clear, you can drop a bomb into the side of the volcano from fifty thousand feet without anybody being the wiser, set off the slide and destroy the tunnels."

Sandecker leaned back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the surface of the table. "It sounds too simple, too elementary for such an enormous event."

"From what I know of the area," said Martin, "Mount Concepcion is still active. A bomb might set off an eruption."

"Dropping the bomb down the volcano's crater might induce an eruption," said Pitt. "But we should be safe if we guide it to explode below the base of the volcano's slope."

For the first time, General Stack smiled. "I believe Mr. Pitt has something. The simplicity is what makes it logical. I propose we investigate the possibilities."

"What about the workers below in the tunnels?" asked Seymour. "They wouldn't have a chance of escaping."

"Not to worry," replied Giordino. "They would have left a good twenty-four hours before the tunnels were to be opened to the sea."

"We can't waste time," Pitt cautioned. "I overheard the two women in Odyssey's headquarters say they were going to open the tunnels in eight days. That was three days ago. We're now down to five."

Hecht peered over a pair of reading glasses at Seymour. "It's up to you, Max, to get the ball rolling. We'll need the president's approval to proceed."

"I'll have that within the hour," Seymour said confidently. "My next job is to convince Secretary of State Hampton to launch immediate negotiations with the Nicaraguan officials to allow our rescue force to enter the country." He glanced at Stack. "And you, General, I'll rely on you to set up and direct the evacuation." Then it was Jack Martin's turn. "Jack, it will be your job to put the fear of God in the minds of the Nicaraguan government that the catastrophe is very real and imminent."

"I'll help on that score," offered Sandecker. "I'm very close with two of the country's ocean scientists."

Last, Seymour stared at Pitt and Giordino. "We owe you gentlemen a great debt. I only wish I knew how to repay it."

"There is something," Pitt said, grinning, exchanging looks with Giordino. "There is this Secret Service agent we know by the name of Otis McGonigle. Al and I would like to see him promoted."

Seymour shrugged. "I think I can arrange that. Any particular reason you've selected him?"

"We have great rapport," Giordino answered. "He's a credit to the service."

"There is one other favor," said Pitt, looking at Hecht. "I'd like to see your file on Specter and the Odyssey conglomerate."

Hecht nodded. "I'll have one of my couriers bring it to NUMA headquarters. You think there is anything in it that may prove useful to this situation?"

"I don't know," Pitt said honestly. "But I am certainly going to give it a hard look."

"My analysts have already studied it in depth, but no flags went up."

"Perhaps, just perhaps," said Pitt, "I might run across something that was missed."

43

Moreau, dressed in white shorts, white open shirt and high kneesocks, was waiting for Dirk and Summer at precisely nine o'clock as they exited the lobby of the hotel with the duffel bags containing their dive gear. The doorman set their bags in the trunk and they all climbed into the 525 BMW under a light rain deposited by a single cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky. The wind was gentle and barely fluttered the fronds of the palm trees.

The drive to the wharf where Moreau had arranged for their chartered boat to be moored was a short two miles down a winding road to the water. He pulled onto a narrow stone jetty that extended from the shore over water that altered from a yellow-green to a blue-green as it deepened. He stopped above a boat that was nestled against the dock like a duckling to its mother, fenders like feathers bumping from stone to fiberglass hull as she dipped in the gentle waves flowing in from the lagoon. The name in gold letters across her stern read:

DEAR HEART.

She was a pretty little sailboat, a masthead sloop with her mainsail and jib going to the top of the mast. Twenty-six feet in length with a nine-foot beam, her draft was only a few inches over four feet. She had three hundred and thirty-one square feet of sail area and a small ten-horsepower auxiliary diesel engine. Her cabin comfortably slept two with a head, shower and a small galley. As Moreau had promised, a Fisher metal detector and a Klein subbottom profiler were mounted and ready for operation in the cockpit. Dirk dropped down a ladder to the deck and caught the bags as they were dropped by Moreau, before carrying them down to the cabin.

"A safe voyage," said Moreau to Summer. "I shall keep my cell phone on my person at all times. Please call if you encounter trouble."

"We shall," said Summer confidently. Then she slipped lithely down the ladder and joined Dirk as he started the little diesel. At his signal, Moreau cast off the lines and stood on the dock, an expression of dire concern on his face as the little boat's diesel engine knocked across the lagoon and out into the sea.

Once they cleared the last buoy, Dirk ran the mainsail and jib up the mast, with Summer at the wheel. The canvas was crimson red against the blue sky. It flapped back and forth until set by the wind. The sail puffed out and the boat began to slip smartly across the growing swells rolling from offshore. Dirk looked along the deck. Everything was scrubbed and bright. Dear Heartlooked to be less than a year old, her brass work and chrome gleamed under the sun, and her deck looked well-scrubbed.

She was a sleek and smart sailer, slipping through the water and taking the swells like a cat running across a lawn. A random gust from a passing squall chopped the blue water and flecked the crests of the waves with foam. Then they were out of it and into smooth seas and dry air again. Beyond her bowsprit the sea stretched like a giant carpet.

"How far to Branwyn?" asked Summer, deftly heeling Dear Heartover on her beam to gain another knot in speed as the water seethed past her lee rail.

"About twenty-three miles," replied Dirk. "Put her on a heading due south. No need for a detailed course. The island has a distinctive light tower on the eastern end."

Dirk removed his shirt and trimmed the sail in his shorts. Summer had slipped off her dress and changed into a green bikini with floral designs. Her hands were poised and steady on the wheel and she steered the boat over the crests and troughs of the waves with a deft touch, keeping one eye on the islands looming on the horizon and the other on the compass.

Her flowing red hair blew free behind her head and she had the look of a sailor who was going on a day trip from Newport Beach to Catalina Island. After an hour, she lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes with one hand and stared into the distance. "I think I see the light tower," she said, pointing.

Dirk followed her extended arm and finger. He could not quite make out the tower, but a smudge across the horizon line soon became the low shape of an island. "That will be Branwyn. Steer straight toward it. The harbor lies on her south shore."

A school of flying fish burst from the water in front of the bow and flashed away in all directions. Some leaped alongside the boat as if hoping for food to be thrown over. Then they were replaced by five dolphins, who cavorted around the boat like clowns who wanted applause.

Now the island showed distinctly only three miles distant. The light tower was clearly visible, as was the three-story house on the nearest beach. Dirk picked up the binoculars and peered at the house. No human was visible and the windows looked shuttered. There was a dock running from a sandy beach, but no boat was moored alongside.

They changed places. Dirk took the wheel while Summer went up to the bow, hung on to the rigging and gazed at the island. It was ugly, as islands went. No thick underbrush filled with tropical flowers, no palm trees arched over the beach. Most islands have their own smell. The aroma of moldy vegetation, tropical plants and the scent of its people and their cooking, the pungent smell of smoke from burned fields mixed with that of copra and coconut oil. This island had an essence of death about it, as if it reeked of evil. Her ears picked up the distant rumble of surf as it struck a reef surrounding a lagoon in front of the house. Now she could see a low building on the end of a long runway that must have served as a hangar. But like Dirk, she saw no sign of life. Branwyn was like an abandoned graveyard.

Dirk kept well off the reef while keeping a wary eye over the side at the water that was as clear as water in a bathroom sink. The bottom came into view, a smooth sandy bottom clear of coral. He glanced at the echo sounder every few seconds to make sure the seabed didn't take a sudden rise toward the keel. With a firm hand on the wheel, he steered around the island until he came up on the southern end. He consulted his chart and made a slight course change before he turned and entered the channel as determined by the echo sounder. The rolling waves of the sea turned choppy here, as he sailed through a hundred-yard gap in the outer reef.

It was a tricky entrance. The current was pushing him to port. He thought that Odysseus and his crews must have found entering the harbor duck soup for mariners who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Their advantage in navigating unruly waters was that they could throw out their oars and row. Dirk could have started the engine, but like a pilot with an aircraft that could land by autopilot, he preferred to use his own skills and take her in himself.

Once through the straits, the water calmed and he watched the bottom slowly pass under the keel. He turned the wheel back over to Summer and dropped the sails. Then he started the little diesel and began inspecting the interior of the harbor.

It was small, no more than half a mile in length and half again as much in width. While Summer leaned over the side and inspected the bottom for any unusual anomalies, he leisurely cruised back and forth across the harbor, trying to get a feel for the current and imagining himself on the deck of one of Odysseus' ships, trying to predict where the ancient mariners might have anchored so many centuries ago.

Finally, he settled in an area that was sheltered from the prevailing winds by a rise on the island, a sandy mound that rose nearly a hundred feet above the shoreline. He shut off the engine and dropped the bow anchor by flicking a switch in the cockpit that lowered it by a winch.

"This looks about as good a place as any to go over the side and inspect the bottom."

"It looks flat as a dining room floor," said Summer. "I saw no humps or contours. It stands to reason that wood from a Celtic shipwreck would have rotted away thousands of years ago. Any pieces that survived have to be buried."

"Let's dive. I'll test the consistency of the sand and silt. You swim around and do a visual inspection."

After they put on their dive gear, Dirk checked the anchor to be sure it was snug on the bottom and wouldn't break loose and allow the boat to drift away. Not that it would go far in the harbor. Without the need for wet suits to protect their bodies from cold water temperatures or sharp coral, they went over the side in ten feet of water in only their bathing suits. The water was almost as clear as glass. Visibility was nearly two hundred feet, the temperature warm in the middle eighties, perfect diving conditions.

Forty minutes later, Dirk climbed up the boarding ladder to the deck and removed his air tank and weight belt. He had run a metal probe beneath the surface of the sand, checking for a harder clay layer beneath but found fifteen feet of soft sand before striking bedrock. He sat there for a few minutes, watching Summer's air bubbles travel around the boat. Soon, she was climbing aboard and paused on the boarding ladder to carefully set a coral-encrusted object on the deck. Then she stood with water trickling down her body onto the teak deck as she slipped out of her dive gear.

"What have you got?" asked Dirk.

"I don't know, but it feels too heavy for a rock. I found it a hundred yards offshore, protruding out of the sand."

Dirk scanned the shoreline, still seemingly deserted. He had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if they were being watched.

He picked up the object and gently chipped away the encrustation with his dive knife. Soon the object took on the look of a bird with outstretched wings.

"Looks like an eagle or swan," he said. Then the tip of his knife cut a small scratch that showed silver. "The reason it's heavy is because it's cast out of lead."

Summer took it in her hands and stared at the wings and the beaked head that was turned to the right. "Could it be ancient Celt?"

"The fact that it's sculpted out of lead is a good sign. Dr. Chisholm told me that, besides tin, one of the main attractions of Cornwall was its lead mines. Did you mark the site where you found it?"

She nodded. "I left my probe in the sand with a little orange flag on it."

"How far out?"

"About fifty feet in that direction," she said, pointing.

"Okay, before we dredge or probe with the water jet, we'll run over your site with the metal detector. The side-scan sonar won't be of much use if all the ship wreckage is buried."

"Maybe we should have had Rudi send a magnetometer."

Dirk smiled. "A magnetometer detects the magnetic field of iron or steel. Odysseus sailed long before the Iron Age appeared. A metal detector will read iron besides most other metals, including gold and bronze."

Summer turned on the Fisher Pulse 10 detector as Dirk connected the cable from the meter and audio readouts to the tow fish encasing the sensor. Then he lowered the tow fish over the side, leaving just enough cable so that it wouldn't drag on the bottom at slow surveying speed. His final task was to raise the anchor.

"Ready?" he asked.

"All set," answered Summer.

Turning over the diesel engine, Dirk began making closely spaced survey lines over the target area, mowing the lawn until they struck an anomaly. After only fifteen minutes, the needle on the meter began to zig and zag in unison with an increased buzzing sound over Summer's earphones.

"We're coming up on something," she announced.

Then came a slight zip in sound and a brief swing of the needle as they passed over Summer's metal probe that was sticking out of the bottom.

"Get a good reading?" asked Dirk.

Summer was about to answer in the negative when the needle began wildly sweeping back and forth, indicating a metallic object or objects passing under the keel. "We have a pretty good mass down there. What direction are we running?"

"East to west," replied Dirk, marking the target coordinates from his global positioning instrument.

"Run over the site again, but this time from north to south."

Dirk did as he was told, passing beyond the target for a hundred yards before swinging Dear Hearton a ninety-degree turn heading north to south. Again the meter and audio sound went wild. Summer penciled the meter readings in a notebook and looked up at Dirk standing at the wheel.

"The target is linear, about fifty feet in length with a broad dipolar signature. It looks to have a minimal but dispersed mass, similar to what you'd expect from a broken-up sailing vessel."