Текст книги "The Storm"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

CHAPTER 51

THE SAME DARKNESS THAT RULED OVER EGYPT HAD ALREADY settled across the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, with one minor difference. The skies had cleared over Egypt but were clouding up over the ocean. Enough so, that two hours before dawn Kurt Austin could no longer see the stars.

That concerned him more than usual as he was standing on a fifteen-foot raft in the middle of the sea, navigating with a seventy-year-old sextant and a set of yellowed, moth-eaten charts left over from World War Two.

The boat was an outrigger-style craft. It resembled a cross between the famous Kon-Tiki raft and a Hawaiian five-man canoe. It had a raised bow, a wider central section and a squared-off stern. Its propulsion came from oars or, more preferably, a strange-looking triangular sail known as a crab claw that stuck out to one side.

The crab claw was an ancient sail, used for over a thousand years and very effective at propelling small boats without being ungainly. Ahead of it Kurt’s addition to the raft billowed in a ten-foot arc. The more modern-looking sail was a makeshift version of a spinnaker. It acted something like a wing and allowed the raft to sail closer to the wind.

Behind him, four similar rafts followed them. A flotilla from Pickett’s Island.

The plan was to sneak aboard and take over the floating island. With eighteen men plus Leilani and himself, five of the Pain Makers and forty rifles—the extras being brought along to arm the prisoners Kurt hoped to set free—it would almost be a fair fight, providing Kurt could lead them to the battleground.

He lowered the sextant.

“Any luck?” Leilani asked.

“No,” he said. “We’re sailing blind.”

Kurt stepped back from the bow and put the sextant away. He turned to Tautog. “Let’s stay on this heading for now.”

Tautog nodded. He and his nephew Varu were guiding the boat.

The fleet had been sailing for five hours. They’d been making good time because the winds had reversed direction, the way sea and land breezes alternated as day turned to night on the coast. The pattern was helpful, though it shouldn’t have been occurring in the open ocean. Kurt put it down to Jinn’s weather manipulation.

“You’re worried,” Leilani said, moving closer to him.

“I may have just sailed us all into oblivion.”

Kurt turned his gaze back to the John Bury’s old charts. Pickett had determined the island’s exact position and marked it on the map where there had been nothing but blue ocean. He’d also marked the other two islands and drawn a circle around them. The Bury Archipelagowas scribbled in faded pen along with the letters U.S.It seemed Pickett had claimed them for America.

Leilani looked over his shoulder. “Where are we?”

“Roughly here,” Kurt said, pointing to a spot on the map.

“And where’s Aqua-Terra?”

“That’s a very good question,” he said.

After discovering the Pain Maker, Kurt had immediately gone to the charts. After a series of estimations and calculations, he’d guessed at Aqua-Terra’s location, assuming, perhaps foolishly, that it would remain in the same general area. Judging from the wind and the distance from Pickett’s Island, he calculated that they could just about reach Aqua-Terra before dawn if they left right away.

Any real delay would have made it impossible and meant waiting until the next night, since approaching the island in daylight would have been suicide. And that twenty-four-hour hold meant leaving Paul, Gamay and the others in Jinn’s clutches. It meant another day for Jinn’s scheme to play out or for him to leave the island behind and disappear. Kurt considered those possibilities unacceptable, and the fleet had moved out with great haste.

As it turned out, the small boats had sailed better than Kurt thought they would, enjoying more favorable winds along the way. They were well ahead of his schedule, but also it seemed on the verge of being lost.

“When we last saw Aqua-Terra, it was sitting idle right here,” he said. “If it stayed that way, we should be right on top of it.”

“I see light,” Varu said. “Light off the port bow.”

All eyes swung to port. There, perhaps three miles away, was a dimly glowing apparition. It almost looked like a ghost ship floating in the fog, but it was Marchetti’s island. It was running dark, with only a few lights turned on here and there.

Leilani smiled. “You were saying?”

Kurt grinned. “Let’s turn to the northeast,” he said to Tautog and then pointed. “That way.”

Tautog and Varu shifted the rudder and the sails. The boat came around to a northeasterly heading. The rest of the fleet matched the turn.

“Why not sail toward it?” Leilani asked.

Kurt kept an eye on his bearings and began counting. “A half mile to the northeast and we can turn and run almost straight downwind toward the island. It’ll give us more speed and better maneuverability.”

“What if they spot us?” she asked.

“The island is two thousand feet long and twenty stories high in places and we almost missed it. We’re on a dark raft, with dark sails and coming at them in the middle of a foggy night. Even a lookout won’t be able to see us until we’re right on top of them. And according to Ishmael, Jinn has no more than thirty men on board, at least half of them have to be asleep. The chances of anyone noticing us are slim.”

KURT WAS THREE-QUARTERS CORRECT. Twenty of Jinn’s thirty men were asleep. A few others manned the brig and still others worked on the damaged engine room with the traitors from Marchetti’s crew. Only two lookouts were posted. They patrolled the island, but there was no way they could adequately watch what was essentially a mile of shoreline and a dozen acres of deck.

It was a lost cause. The men made their rounds with all the enthusiasm of underpaid security guards.

One guard who was lucky enough to avoid the long, boring walks found himself stationed in Aqua-Terra’s control room monitoring radar.

So far, not a single image had appeared on the screen. The quiet had lasted so long that when a couple of targets did appear for a moment, the guard didn’t see them. He wasn’t even really looking anymore, just trying to fight off the need for sleep.

The images vanished quickly and then appeared for the second time minutes later. Diagonal lines were drawn to them, indicating ranging mode had been activated. At this point the guard became confused. By the time he traced the lines to the targets, the return had disappeared again, replaced by a pop-up box that read contact lost.

The guard straightened in his seat.

A wave of suspicion flowed through him.

Had he just seen something? If so, where had it gone? How had it disappeared?The thought of American Stealth fighters ran through his head.

He looked out the window into the darkness, saw nothing and then returned his eyes to the set.

When the targets failed to reappear, he grew even more suspicious.

He grabbed a pair of large binoculars and stepped out onto the observation wing. Trying to focus in the misty gloom was difficult, and he didn’t see anything. Partly because he spent most of his time scanning the sky for aircraft or helicopters, but also because, even powered down for the night, the lights from the island put a soft glow out into the mist that made anything beyond the reach of the lights impossible to see. Had he looked directly toward the five bamboo rafts, he would not have seen anything but the white veil of the mist.

Frustrated, he went back to the radar and crouched over it, watching it closely like a cat guarding a hole in the wall where a mouse lives.

CHAPTER 52

AS KURT APPROACHED THE COLOSSAL ISLAND OF AQUA-Terra with his fleet of matchstick rafts, it loomed out of the mist like the Rock of Gibraltar. He felt like an ant attacking an elephant.

“It is gigantic,” Tautog said.

“Mostly empty,” Kurt reminded himself.

“What if they brought more people in since we left?” Leilani asked.

He turned to her with pursed lips, not exactly needing the voice of reason at this point. “You really have to meet Joe,” he said. “I think you two were separated at birth.”

Knowing that Marchetti’s brig lay near the aft end of the island, Kurt decided to make for it. He stepped to the bow, easing around the lower spar of the sail and unlashing a tarp from the Pain Maker’s sound box.

“Leilani,” he said quietly, “you and Varu start powering this up.”

She moved to the generator and flywheel near the aft end of the boat. It was a little ungainly to operate the hand-powered generator on the small craft, but once they got the flywheel up to speed the weight of the heavy disc spinning would provide most of the power.

Kurt heard the dynamo begin turning and saw the power needle edge up. They were almost within a hundred yards. He set the range dial, and the aperture of the speakers changed.

They were close enough now that the bulk of the island hid them from the two main towers and the control room and any radar beams. The only thing they had to worry about were guards on patrol. If Kurt spotted any, he would have to hit them with the blast. If that failed, a rifle he’d tested lay close by.

The windows of the lower deck began to appear more clearly. He counted. The last five windows belonged to the brig.

Kurt took out the old binoculars and stared through them. The five windows were dimly backlit. He couldn’t see any activity inside.

He thought about making for the ladder and the gangways near the aft, then changed his mind. If a permanent guard was posted anywhere, that might be a prime spot for it. Instead he’d try something else.

He held up a hand for the other boats to follow, and they angled toward the fifth window. At thirty-five yards, roughly the distance he’d been at when hit with the sound wave on the beach, Kurt flipped the switch to stand by, aimed the speaker box using a lever and locked onto the window.

With Leilani and Varu still providing the elbow grease to give it power, Kurt changed the range setting to thirty-five and flipped the switch from stand by to active. Instantly, the ethereal waves of noise began to issue forth.

With the Pain Maker aimed at the fifth window, Kurt saw the heavy glass begin to vibrate.

“More power,” he said.

Tautog took over for Leilani, and the power needle came up into the red. Kurt kept the beam focused on the target.

“What are you doing?” Leilani asked.

“Ever see the old Memorex commercial?”

She shook her head.

“Just watch that window.”

The window was vibrating, shaking back and forth with the sound waves like the skin of a drum. He could see the ripples catching the light. A strange noise began echoing out over the water like the ringing of a Tibetan Singing Bowl. Kurt worried it would give them away, but it was too late to stop, they were committed now.

“More power,” he whispered again, and then, realizing Varu was sweating and exhausted, he took the young man’s spot and put his own muscle into the effort. The boat drifted, but Leilani kept the Pain Maker focused on the glass.

It looked like they were going to fail, as if the hurricane-proof window was going to hold up against the vibration, when all of a sudden two of the other boats snapped their systems on and focused them on the same window.

The three combined beams of sound shattered the glass instantly. It exploded inward, an effect Kurt hadn’t counted on. He only hoped Marchetti and the Trouts were in the room and had been smart enough to back away from the vibrating windowpane.

INSIDE THEIR CELL, Gamay heard the sound first: a strange resonance that initially seemed only like her ears were ringing.

“WHAT’S THAT?” Paul asked.

Apparently it wasn’t her imagination.

“I have no idea,” she said.

Gamay stood, leaving her post at the door and poking about the dark quarters like a suburbanite looking through a quiet house for a chirping cricket.

The noise grew slowly in intensity, if not volume. Had there been a dog present, it would have been howling at the top of its lungs.

“Maybe we’re being abducted by aliens,” Marchetti suggested.

Gamay ignored him. The noise had brought her to the large window overlooking the ocean. She pressed her face against it. Out in the dark, barely illuminated by the few lights Aqua-Terra was running, she saw a collection of native-looking rafts. She recognized a figure on the lead boat.

“It’s Kurt,” she said.

Paul and Marchetti ran over.

“What on earth is he doing?” Paul asked, gazing at the strange goings-on. “And who are those people with him?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Gamay said.

As they watched, two of the other rafts aligned themselves with Kurt’s, and the strange resonance spiked an octave or two. A crash of shattering glass rang out somewhere to their left.

“I believe he’s trying to rescue us,” Marchetti said.

“Yes,” Gamay replied, proud and sad all at the same time. “Unfortunately, he’s breaking into the wrong room.”

OUT IN THE HALL, the men charged with guarding the prisoners heard the vibration for a moment, but it sounded to them like the massage chair on full tilt once again. The shattering glass was a different story.

They jumped to their feet.

“Check the prisoners,” the lead guard ordered.

Two of his men grabbed their weapons and ran down the hall. As they vanished, he picked up the phone and dialed up to the control room. After four rings, no one had answered.

“Pick up, already,” he grumbled.

The tinkling of more glass falling caught his attention. It was coming from the room across from him, not from down the hall.

He considered the possibility that the prisoners had escaped or the even wilder possibility that someone had broken in through the window. It occurred to him that he’d better check it out before he reported. He hung up the phone and stepped cautiously from the desk, drawing out his pistol as he approached the door.

He doused the lights in the hall and pushed the door open, swinging the gun forward.

He saw nothing but darkness. Then a breeze wafted across the room, and he saw the illuminated mist outside the shattered window.

He checked all around but saw nothing odd, and definitely no intruders. Still, something had to have broken the window.

He eased toward it, the glass crunching under his feet. Something was floating next to the hull. He stepped closer and saw a strange-looking sailboat. Another floated next to it. Neither looked like something the American Special Forces might use. He took another step, heard a strange buzzing noise and then felt his whole body tense up as if he’d been shocked with a high-voltage line.

Pain ran up and down his arms and torso. His neck stiffened, and he bit his tongue as his jaw clamped down on it. He fell to his knees, collapsing on the glass and dropping the pistol. The pain vanished as he hit the floor but the effect lingered.

A figure vaulted over the sill of the busted window, landing beside him.

The guard reached around for the gun he’d dropped, and then felt a heavy boot come down on his hand, crushing his fingers. He yanked his hand back, grunting, and then was knocked cold by the butt of a rifle that hit him in the side of the head.

FROM THEIR CELL GAMAY, Paul and Marchetti watched as Kurt and a couple of others tossed up grappling hooks and began climbing. They couldn’t see the broken window from their viewpoint, but Marchetti had no doubt it was one or two doors aft of where they were.

“Doesn’t mean they can’t get here,” he said. “All they have to do is get rid of the goons at the post and we’re home free.”

Commotion outside their door drew Gamay’s attention away. “Could it be them?”

“Too soon,” Paul said.

“Then it’s the guards.”

Gamay sprinted back toward her post beside the door. She heard the guard’s card key in the lock, heard the lock buzz and release. She dove across the floor and slid into the wall next to the power outlet just as the door began to swing open.

Paul’s plan to use the massage chair as a weapon depended on timing. As Gamay hit the wall, she grabbed the cord and jammed the plug into the outlet, hoping she wasn’t too late.

A shower of sparks blew out from the wall, while others snapped from the metal door. The guard, who still had his hand on the frame, received a heavy jolt and was knocked backward. The leads they’d pulled out of the chair and hooked to the door sparked and smoked, and a fuse blew somewhere.

Paul pounced on the guard and grabbed for the gun. A scuffle ensued, but Paul’s knee hitting the man’s groin was enough to end it quickly. He and Marchetti dragged the man back in, and Gamay unplugged the cord and grabbed the door, keeping it from shutting. A quick look told her the hall was empty.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Paul and Marchetti left the writhing guard on the floor, tied up with a bedsheet. They slipped out and went to the right.

KURT HAD REACHED the guard post in front of Marchetti’s brig. It resembled a spa’s reception area more than a post. A computer sat on one side of the stark white counter, a multiline phone on the other.

Tautog and Varu came in. Kurt pointed to a few secluded spots from which the hallway could be defended. “Watch for trouble,” he said.

He turned to run down the curving hall but spotted three figures shuffling up it toward him. To his surprise and relief, he recognized Gamay, Paul and Marchetti.

“Boy, are we glad to see you,” Gamay said. “We thought you were dead.”

Kurt pulled them behind the desk. “I was worried that you guys might be dead as well. What are you doing out of your cage?”

“We escaped,” Gamay said. “Just now.”

“And after I came all this way to rescue you,” Kurt said, smiling.

“Is Joe with you?”

“No,” Kurt said. “I put him on a truck in Yemen two days ago.”

“A truck to where?”

“That’s a good question,” Kurt said. The fact that Paul, Gamay and Marchetti had remained under lock and key rather than being rescued by some American Special Forces team told Kurt Joe wasn’t out of the woods yet. He knew Joe could take care of himself and though he’d feel better when he knew for certain that Joe was okay, there was little he could do about it now.

“What’s our situation?” he asked, focusing on the present.

“We took one guard out,” Paul said. “He’s locked in our cell now.”

“We took out the guy up here,” Kurt said.

“Who are your friends?” Gamay asked.

“I’m Leilani Tanner,” Leilani said. “The real one.”

Gamay smiled. “And the rest of the cavalry?”

“Pleased to meet you,” Tautog said. “I am the eighteenth Roosevelt of—”

“Save it for later,” he said. “Someone’s coming.”

The footsteps approached more casually this time. It was another guard, who Kurt realized must have been sent to check on the other prisoners. The guard rounded the corner, came face-to-face with several rifles and froze.

Kurt grabbed the man’s card key and his pistol.

“What now?” Paul asked. “Do we leave?”

“No,” Kurt said. “When the moment of victory appears, it must be seized.”

They stared at him.

“Sun Tzu,” Leilani told them as if she were an old hand.

“So what does that mean in English?” Gamay asked.

“It means now that we’re on board, we’re not going anywhere except to find Jinn, Zarrina and Otero. Once we have them, this thing is over.”

He turned to Marchetti. “Are your crewmen down here?”

“Most of them.”

“You and Paul take this guy and get your crew out. Lock him in the cell when you come out.”

Paul nodded and went to work.

Kurt turned to Tautog. “Let’s tie up the boats, get the rest of your men aboard. At this point we need all hands on deck.”

Moments later, with the prisoners and guards having traded places and the small flotilla tied up to a water pipe in the cabin with the broken window, Kurt commanded a force of thirty-seven armed men and women—Marchetti’s men knowing the island, Tautog’s trained in using the rifles and the Pain Makers.

Kurt had two of the machines brought aboard and found a pair of dollies to mount them on. One went with the group who was heading for the crew quarters, the other stayed with Kurt, Leilani and the Trouts. The four of them, along with Tautog and Varu, wheeled the bulky machine into the elevator like roadies moving amps backstage.

As the bulk of their force headed for the crew quarters, Kurt planned to find Jinn al-Khalif.

“Which floor for the Presidential Suite?” he asked.

“You mean my quarters?” Marchetti said.

“If yours are the most luxurious on the island, then yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Top floor of course,” Marchetti said, pressing the button.

As the elevator doors closed, Kurt patted the sound box and smiled a roughish grin.

“Time to wake the neighbors,” he said.