Текст книги "Black Wind"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

A lone sentry finally emerged in the distance, walking slowly along the shoreline. As he passed under a floodlight, Dirk could clearly see the glint of an assault rifle slung under the man's shoulder. Casually, the guard strode out onto the dock and alongside the three boats, pausing for several minutes near the large yacht. Growing bored, he strode back down the dock and onto shore, advancing along a stone walkway toward the estate elevator, where he deposited himself in a small security station at the base of the cliff.

“That's our man,” Dirk whispered. “As long as he stays in that hut, his view of the speedboat is overshadowed by the larger boats.” “Now's the time to steal it, before he makes the next round.” Dirk nodded and the two of them pushed away from the rocks and began swimming silently toward the dock. He kept an eye on the guardhouse while mentally computing how long it might take to hotwire the speedboat's ignition in the dark if the keys weren't conveniently left in the boat.

They swam well away from the dock, so as not to arouse suspicion until they were directly offshore of the speedboat, then slowly worked their way in toward it. With handcuffs still clasped to their wrists, their swimming motions felt clumsy, but they quietly kept their hands under the water as they stroked.

Furtively approaching the dock, they were blocked from view of the guardhouse until they reached the stern of the boat, where they again had a view of the shore. The guard was still in the security hut, where he could be seen sitting on a stool reading a magazine.

Using hand motions, Dirk directed Summer to remove the boat's stern line while he would swim forward and take care of the bowline. Moving along the boat's hull, he felt the looming presence of Kang's yacht towering over him as he crossed the smaller boat's bow. Stretching to grab the mooring line in order to pull himself to the dock, he suddenly heard a sharp click directly above him and he froze still in the water. A spark of yellow light erupted briefly, and, in the glow, he could see the ruddy face of a guard lighting a cigarette on the fantail of Kang's yacht no more than ten feet away.

Dirk didn't move a muscle, steadying himself with one hand clasped on the speedboat's prow, careful not to disturb the quietly lapping water. He watched patiently as the red ember of the cigarette rhythmically flared like a crimson beacon as the guard inhaled on the tobacco. Dirk found himself holding his breath, not for himself but for Summer, whom he hoped would avoid detection at the stern of the boat. The guard fully enjoyed his smoke, pulling at it for ten minutes before flinging the butt over the railing. The burning stub landed in the water just three feet from Dirk's head, extinguishing with a hiss.

Waiting until he heard the padded sound of footsteps move away from the railing, Dirk ducked underwater and swam toward the rear of the speedboat. Surfacing just astern of the boat's propeller, he found Summer waiting with an impatient look on her face. Dirk shook his head at her, then quietly pulled himself up the rear transom of the speedboat and peered toward the pilot seat. In the darkness, he could just barely make out the dashboard ignition, which winked back at him void of a key. He slunk back into the water and looked at Summer, then reached for the loose mooring line in her hands. She was surprised when he ducked underwater for a minute, then surfaced empty-handed, expecting that he was going to retie the line to the dock, instead him pointing offshore. Summer followed his finger and began swimming silently away from the boat. When they were safely out of earshot, they stopped and rested.

“What was that all about?” Summer asked with a tinge of annoyance.

Dirk described the guard positioned on the stern of Kang's yacht. “There wasn't much chance without the starter key. As close as the boats are together, he'd have seen or heard me trying to rummage around hot-wiring the ignition. Chances are, there's a guard or two on the catamaran as well. I think we're going to have to settle for the skiff.”

The small skiff that Kang's thugs had used to ferry Dirk and Summer into the cavern was pulled up onto the shore, adjacent to the dock.

“That's awfully close to the guardhouse,” Summer noted.

Dirk looked ashore, spotting the guard still sitting in the guardhouse, about twenty meters from the skiff. “Stealth it will be,” he said confidently.

Kicking back toward shore, they swam widely around the docked boats and approached the rocky beach from the east side. When their feet touched bottom, Dirk had Summer wait in the water while he crept slowly to the shoreline.

Inching his way out of the water, he crawled snakelike on his belly toward the boat, which was wedged between two rocks about twenty feet from the water. Using the boat as a shield between him and the guardhouse, he burrowed alongside the wooden skiff until he could peer over the side. A spool of line, coiled on the front bench and tied to a small bow cleat, caught his eye. Reaching over the gunwale, he unfastened the line and pulled the coil to his chest, then burrowed backward over the loose pebble beach to the boat's stern, which faced the water. Running his hand along the top of the transom, he felt a bolt-hole for attaching an outboard motor and ran one end of the line through, tying it securely.

Scurrying on his belly back into the water, he played out the line until he reached the end of its fifty-foot length. Summer swam over and they huddled together, hunched over in four feet of water with just their heads poking above the surface.

“We'll reel it in like a marlin,” Dirk whispered. “If anybody gets wise, we can duck back behind those rocks by the cavern,” he said, tilting his head toward the protruding boulders nearby. Placing Summer's hands on the line, he leaned back in the water and gradually began applying tension to the line. Summer tightened her grip and then threw her weight onto the line as it drew taut.

The small boat jumped easily from its perch, emitting a jarring grind as its hull scraped across its rocky berth. They quickly eased off the line and stared toward the guardhouse. Inside, the guard still had his nose stuck in the magazine, impervious to the noise made by the boat. They quietly took up the slack and continued to reel the boat toward them a foot at a time, stopping periodically to ensure they had not attracted any attention. Summer held her breath as the boat approached the water's edge, letting out a long sigh when they tugged it fully into the water, the scraping sound at last ceasing.

“Let's tow her out a little farther,” Dirk whispered, winding the towline over his shoulder and kicking toward the center of the cove. When they were a hundred meters from the shoreline, he tossed the line into the boat and pulled himself over the side, then grabbed Summer's hand and pulled her aboard.

“Not exactly a Fountain offshore powerboat but I guess she'll do,” he said, surveying the interior of the small boat. Spying a pair of oars under the bench seat, he popped the shafts into the side oarlocks and dipped the blades into the water. Facing the stern of the skiff, with Kang's compound illuminated in the background, he pulled heavily on the oars, propelling the small boat swiftly into the center of the cove.

“It's about a mile to the main river channel,” Summer estimated. “Maybe we can find a friendly South Korean naval or Coast Guard vessel on the river.”

“I'd settle for a passing freighter.”

“Sure,” Summer replied. “Just as long as it doesn't have a Kang Enterprises lightning bolt on the funnel.”

Glancing toward the shoreline, Dirk suddenly detected a movement in the distance and squinted to better see across the water. As his eyes focused, he grimaced slightly.

“I'm afraid it's not going to be a freighter offering us the first lift,” he said as his knuckles tightened their grip on the oars.

The dock side guard had grown bored with his magazine and decided to patrol the moored boats once again. A fellow guard stationed on Kang's yacht was from a neighboring province and he loved to harass the man about the lack of attractive women in his home region. Walking toward the dock, he at first failed to take notice of the empty beach, but then tripped as he stepped onto the dock ramp. Grabbing the side rail to steady himself, his eyes fell to the ground nearby, detecting the scarred indentation of a boat that had been dragged across the pebbly beach. Only, the boat was gone.

The embarrassed guard quickly radioed his discovery to the central security post and, in an instant, two heavily armed guards came running from the shadows. After a brief but heated exchange, several flashlights were produced, their yellow beams rapidly waved in a chaotic frenzy about the water, rocks, and sky in a frantic search for the missing skiff. But it was the guard on the stern of Kang's yacht who located the two escapees. Shining a powerful marine spotlight across the water of the cove, he pinpointed the small white boat lurching across the waves.

“Not a good time to be in the limelight,” Summer cursed as the rays of the distant searchlight fell over them. The clattering burst of an assault rifle rattled across the water, accompanied by the whistling of bullets that raced harmlessly over their heads.

“Get down low in the boat,” Dirk commanded his sister as he pulled harder on the oars. “We're out of accurate firing range but they could still get off a lucky shot.”

The small skiff was just midway across the cove and Dirk and Summer would be sitting ducks for a gunman in Kang's speedboat, which could be on them in a matter of seconds. Dirk silently hoped and prayed that nobody would notice the boat's stern line as they rushed to chase after them.

On shore, one of the guards had already jumped into the green speedboat and started the motor. Tongju, awakened by the gunfire, burst out of his cabin on the catamaran and began barking inquiries at one of the guards.

“Take the speedboat. Kill them if you have to,” he hissed.

The two other guards scrambled into the speedboat, one of them casting off the bowline as he jumped aboard. In the rushed moment, none of the men noticed that the stern line was dropped over the outboard side. The pilot saw only that the lines to the dock cleat were free. As the boat drifted clear of the dock, he jammed it into gear and pushed the throttle all the way to its stops.

The green boat surged forward for a split second, then mysteriously stopped dead in its tracks. The engine continued to scream with a whine, churning at high rpm, but the boat sat drifting lazily. The confused pilot pulled back on the throttle, unsure of what was causing the lack of forward motion.

“Idiot!” Tongju screamed from the deck of the catamaran with uncharacteristic emotion. “Your stern line is caught in the propeller. Put someone over the side to cut it free.”

Dirk's handiwork had paid off. Diving under the speedboat, he had tightly wrapped the stern line around the propeller and its exposed shaft, clogging its ability to spin freely. The heavy hand of the pilot on the throttle had only served to wind the line tighter, spinning it up and into the drive shaft coupling in a laborious mess. It would take a diver twenty minutes to cut and yank free the mass of coiled rope embedded in the driveline.

Realizing the speedboat's predicament, Tongju burst into the cabin of the catamaran's pilot.

“Start the engines. Get us under way immediately,” he barked. The groggy pilot, clad in a pair of red silk pajamas, nodded sharply and made his way quickly to the wheelhouse.

Three-quarters of a mile away, Dirk grunted as he pulled another stroke of the oars, his heart pounding fiercely. His shoulder and arm muscles began to burn from the strenuous effort to propel the skiff faster, and even his thigh muscles ached from pushing against the oars. His tired body was telling himself to slow the pace but his mental will pushed to keep rowing with all his strength. They had gained a few precious minutes by sabotaging the speedboat, but Kang's men still had two more boats at their disposal.

In the distance, they could hear the deep muffled exhaust of the catamaran as its engines were started and revved. As Dirk rowed in a controlled rhythm, Summer helped guide him through the inlet they approached at the far end of the cove. Kang's compound and boats suddenly drifted from view as they began threading their way through the S-curved inlet.

“We've got maybe five minutes,” he exhaled between strokes. “You up for another swim?”

“I can't exactly glide through the water like Esther Williams with these,” she said, holding up the two handcuffs that dangled from her wrists, “but I can certainly do without another dose of Kang's hospitality-” She knew better than to ask whether Dirk was up for a strenuous swim. Despite his exhausted state, she knew her brother was like a fish in the water. Growing up in Hawaii, they swam in the warm surf constantly. Dirk excelled at marathon swimming and routinely swam five-mile ocean legs for pleasure.

“If we can make it to the main channel, we may have a chance,” he said.

The inlet grew dark as they made their way past the first bend and the lights of Kang's compound became shielded by the surrounding hills. The otherwise still night was broken only by the faraway sound of the catamaran's four diesel engines, which they could detect were now throttled up. Like a machine himself, Dirk rhythmically tugged at the oars, smoothly dipping the blades in and out of the water in a long, efficient stroke. Summer acted as coxswain, offering subtle course changes to guide them through the channel in the shortest route possible while offering periodic words of encouragement.

“We're coming up on the second bend,” she said. “Pull to your right and we should clear the inlet in another thirty meters.”

Dirk continued his even stroke, easing off the left oar with every third pull to nose the bow into and through the bend. The beating drone of the catamaran's engines grew louder behind them as the speedy boat ripped across the cove. Though his limbs ached, Dirk seemed to grow stronger with the approach of their adversary, propelling the small boat even faster through the flat water.

The ebony darkness softened around them as they rounded the last bend of the inlet and rowed into the expansive breadth of the Han River. Patches of starry lights twinkled across the horizon, shining from small villages scattered along the river and hillsides. The faint lights were the only clue to the river's width, which stretched nearly five miles across to the opposite shore. In the late hour of the night, traffic on the river was almost nonexistent. Several miles downstream sat a handful of small commercial freighters, moored for the night while waiting to traverse the Han to Seoul at first daylight. A brightly illuminated dredge ship was slowly making its way upstream nearly across from Dirk and Summer but was still some four miles away. Upriver, a small vessel with an array of multicolored lights appeared to be moving down the center of the river at a slow pace.

“Afraid I don't see any passing water taxis,” Summer said, scanning the dark horizons.

As Dirk tried to row toward the center of the river, he could feel the current pushing them downstream. The river's flow was aided by an outgoing tide that pulled at the remains of the Han River as it dispersed into the dusky waters of the Yellow Sea. He eased off the oars for a moment to survey their options. The dredge ship looked appealing, but they would have to fight the crosscurrent to reach it, which would be near impossible once they took to the water. Peering downriver, he spotted a small cluster of yellow lights on the opposite shore twinkling fuzzily through the damp air.

“Let's try for the village there,” he said, pointing an oar in the direction of the lights, which were about two miles downstream. “If we swim directly across the river, the current should carry us pretty close.” “Whatever entails the least swimming.”

Unbeknownst to both was the fact that the Korean demarcation line ran through this section of the Han River delta. The twinkling lights downriver were not a village at all but a heavily garrisoned North Korean military patrol boat base.

Any further contingency planning was suddenly dashed by the abrupt roar of the high-speed catamaran as it burst out of the inlet. A pair of bright spotlights flared from beside the wheelhouse, sweeping back and forth rapidly across the water. It would be only seconds before one of the beams fell on the small white skiff heading across the river.

“Time to exit stage right,” Dirk said, swinging the boat around so that the bow pointed downstream. Summer quickly slipped over the side followed by Dirk, who hesitated a moment, flinging a pair of life jackets out away from the boat before he rolled into the water.

“Let's angle across and slightly upriver to put as much distance as possible between us and the drifting boat,” he said.

“Right. We'll surface for air at the count of thirty.”

The clatter of machine-gun fire suddenly tore through the night air while a seam like spray of bullets slapped into the water a few yards in front of them. One of the spotlights had found the skiff and a guard opened fire as the catamaran raced toward it.

In unison, Dirk and Summer ducked under the water, kicking down to a depth of four feet before angling into the current. The powerful flow of the river made them feel like they were swimming in place as they inched their way toward mid-river Gaining ground upriver was hopeless as the current overpowered them, but it pushed them downstream at a much slower pace than the drifting skiff.

The deep pulsations of the catamaran's diesel engines resonated through the water and they could feel the boat as it approached the skiff. Counting time with each breaststroke, Dirk hoped that Summer would not get separated from him in the darkness. Swimming at night in the black water, their only indication of direction was the tug of the river's current. As he approached the count of thirty, he eased slowly to the surface, breaking the water with barely a ripple.

Just ten feet away, Summer's face emerged from the water and Dirk could hear her breathing deeply. Glancing briefly at each other, then back toward the skiff, they quickly gulped a deep swallow of fresh air and resubmerged, kicking back into the river current for another count of thirty.

The quick glimpse Dirk made toward the skiff was a reassuring one. Kang's catamaran had barreled in on the skiff from upriver with guns blazing and was now creeping up close to assess the damage. No one on board had bothered to look across the river, assuming that Dirk and Summer were still in the boat. In their brief time in the water, they had already established a separation of nearly a hundred meters from the skiff.

As the catamaran approached the drifting boat, Tongju ordered his gunmen to cease firing. There was no sign of the two escapees, whom Tongju expected to find sprawled dead in the bottom of the bullet-ridden boat. Looking down from the upper deck of the catamaran, Tongju cursed to himself as they pulled alongside and shined a light into the skiff. The small boat was completely empty.

“Search the surrounding water and shoreline,” he ordered crisply. The catamaran circled around the skiff while the spotlights were splayed across the water, all eyes peering intently into the darkness. Suddenly, a gunman on the bow of the catamaran yelled out.

“There, in the water ... two objects!” he cried, pointing an arm off the port bow.

Tongju nodded at the words. This time they are finished, he thought with ruthless satisfaction.

After their fourth submerged interval, Dirk and Summer reunited on the surface and took a moment to rest. Fighting their way across the current, they had distanced themselves from the skiff by almost four hundred meters.

“We can swim on the surface for the time being,” Dirk said between deep breaths. “Give us a chance to see what our friends are up to.”

Summer followed her brother's lead and rolled onto her back, kicking into a backstroke that allowed them to watch the distant catamaran as they moved farther across the river. Kang's boat was idling near the skiff, its spotlights circling the immediate area around them. Shouting erupted from the catamaran and the boat suddenly raced downriver a short distance. Gunfire exploded again for a moment, then ceased as the boat stopped in the water.

Tongju had raced the catamaran toward the two objects spotted floating on the water and watched with disdain as his gunmen blasted away at the empty life vests that Dirk had tossed into the water. The boat idled around the life jackets for several minutes, waiting for the two escapees to surface in case they were hiding submerged nearby, before resuming the search. Dirk and Summer struggled toward midriver as they watched the catamaran begin making a wide-circle search around the skiff and life jackets. With each loop around the still-drifting skiff, the catamaran's pilot enlarged the circle in an ever-expanding spiral.

“Won't be too many more minutes before they work their way up and out our direction,” Summer lamented.

Dirk scanned the watery horizon. They had worked their way about a mile into the river but were still barely a quarter of the way across the vast waterway. They could turn back and try for the nearest shoreline, but that would entail crossing the path of the advancing catamaran. Or they could continue with their original plan of traversing the river toward the lights on the opposite shore. But fatigue was beginning to creep up on them, hastened by their long immersion in the cool water. Another three-mile swim would be a tall order, made more difficult by the repeated submergings they would have to perform to avoid Kang's boat. Whether they could in fact survive the game of cat and mouse with Tongju and his gunmen would be uncertain at best.

But there was a third option. The small vessel with the colored lights that they had earlier noticed upriver was approaching on a nearby path about a half mile away. In the darkness, Dirk had trouble identifying the boat, but it appeared to be a wooden sailing vessel of some kind. A small red sail, revealed under the white mast light to be square shaped in dimension, was raised near the bow, but the boat didn't appear to be moving much faster than the current.

Dirk gauged the path of the boat and swam another hundred yards toward the center of the river, then stopped. Summer swam past before realizing her brother had halted.

“What gives? We need to keep going,” she whispered after swimming back to him.

Dirk nodded downriver toward the catamaran. The sleek vessel had arced well out into the river as it circled downstream. He mentally calculated the trajectory of the yacht if it held its current circular course.

“They'll be within sight of us on the next upriver pass,” he said quietly.

Summer could see he was right. The bright beams of the searchlights would shine upon their position on the next loop. They would have to remain submerged for several minutes to guarantee their concealment.

Dirk took a quick glance upriver. “Sister, I think it's time for Plan B.”

“Plan B?” she asked.

“Yes, Plan B. Stick out your thumb and start hitchhiking.”

The large wooden sailboat creaked lazily down the river, its foremast sail and a small auxiliary motor pushing it along just 3 knots faster than the current. As the vessel crept closer, Dirk could see that it was a three-masted Chinese junk of about twenty-five meters in length. Unlike most dilapidated sailing boats in this part of the world, the junk appeared to be maintained in pristine condition. A string of multicolored Chinese lanterns hung gaily from bow to stern, lending a party like atmosphere to the boat. Constructed entirely of rich teak-wood, the highly varnished surfaces seemed to glisten under the swaying overhead lamps. Somewhere belowdecks, a pair of stereo speakers blared out an orchestral tune, which Dirk recognized as a Gershwin melody. Yet despite the festive atmosphere, there was not a soul to be seen on deck.

“Ahoy! We're in the water. Can you help?”

Dirk's muted shout went unanswered as the junk approached. He repeated the call, careful not to draw attention from the catamaran, which had completed a downstream turn and was now headed upriver. Swimming closer to the moving junk, Dirk thought he detected a shadowy movement on the stern, but, again, there was no response to his call for help. He tried a third time, failing to notice as he spoke that the muffled drone of the junk's motor audibly raised a note.

The junk's golden teak hull began gliding past Dirk and Summer, an ornately carved dragon on the prow eyeing them maliciously in the water less than ten feet from the starboard beam. Like a phantom in the night, the junk slipped by strangely impervious to the voices calling from the water. As the stern and rudderpost floated past, Dirk abandoned hope of rescue from the junk and angrily wondered whether the pilot was asleep, drunk, or both.

Peering toward the slowly approaching catamaran, he was startled by a sudden splash in the water near his head. It was an orange plastic float tied to a coil of rope, trailing back to the stern of the junk.

“Grab hold and hang on tight,” he instructed his sister, making sure Summer had a strong grip on the line before grasping it himself. As the line quickly drew taut, the force of the junk sailing faster than the river momentarily jerked them underwater. With a face full of water, they were dragged along the river's surface like a fallen water-skier who forgot to let go of the towline. Dirk slowly began pulling himself up the line hand over hand as his legs flailed out behind him. Reaching the high, blunt stern of the junk, he shimmied up the rope almost vertically until reaching the stern railing. A pair of hands emerged from the darkness, grabbing about his lapels and forcefully yanking him over the railing and onto the deck.

“Thanks,” Dirk muttered, paying little heed to a tall figure in the shadows. “My sister is still on the line,” he gasped, standing and grabbing the line at the stern rail and pulling at it. The tall man stepped up behind him and clasped the line, throwing his weight into it with Dirk. Together, they hoisted Summer up the railing like a gigged flounder until she flopped over the railing and onto the deck in a soggy heap. A high-pitched bark erupted from across the deck and, in an instant, a small black-and-tan dachshund raced over to Summer and began licking her face.

“Dark night for a swim, don't you think?” the stranger said in English.

“You're American,” Dirk stated with surprise.

“Ever since being born in the Land of Lincoln,” came the reply.

Dirk studied the man beside him for the first time. He stood six-foot-three, nearly matching his own height, though he carried a good twenty pounds more heft. A wave of unruly white hair and a matching goatee indicated that he was at least forty years his senior. The man's blue-green eyes, which seemed to twinkle with mischief under the hanging lights, touched a nerve with him. He felt as if he was looking at an older version of his own father, he finally decided.

“We're in great danger,” Summer injected, rising to her feet. She scooped up the small dog as she stood and rubbed its ears briskly, which produced a sharp wag of its tail. “Our research vessel was sunk by these murderers and they mean to kill us,” she said, nodding downriver toward the catamaran that was circling slowly in their direction.

“I heard the machine-gun fire,” the man replied.

“They intend to make another deadly attack. We need to alert the authorities,” she pleaded.

“Thousands of additional lives are at risk,” Dirk added somberly.

The white-haired man perused the odd pair up and down. Summer, soaked but elegant still in her ripped silk cocktail dress, appeared an unusual companion for Dirk, who was battered and bruised in a shredded blue jumpsuit. Neither attempted to conceal the handcuff shackles that dangled from their wrists.

A slight grin fell across the man's lips. “I guess I'll buy it. We better hide you belowdecks until we get past that cat. You can stay in Mauser's cabin.”

“Mauser? How many people are aboard?” Dirk asked.

“Just me and that fellow who's kissing your sister,” he replied. Dirk turned to see the small dachshund happily licking the water off Summer's face.

The junk's owner quickly led them through a bulkhead door and down a flight of steps that led to a tastefully decorated stateroom.

“There's towels in the bath and dry clothes in the closet. And here, this will warm you up.” He grabbed a bottle sitting on a side table and poured them each a glass of the clear fluid. Dirk downed a shot quickly, tasting a bitter flavor from the smooth liquor that clearly packed a high alcohol content.

“Soju,” the man said. “A local rice brew. Help yourself while I try to get us past your friends in the cat.”

“Thank you for helping us,” Summer replied appreciatively. “By the way, my name is Summer Pitt, and this is my brother, Dirk.”

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Clive Cussler.”

Cussler returned to the junk's exposed wheel and slipped the engine into gear, tweaking the throttle slightly higher while nosing the bow farther toward midriver It took only a few minutes before the catamaran approached from downstream, pulling alongside and washing the junk in a flood of spotlights. Cussler slipped on a conical straw peasant's hat and hunched his tall frame low at the wheel.

Through the glare of the lights, he could see several men pointing automatic weapons at him. As the catamaran crept to within inches of the port beam, an unseen man on the bridge barked a question across through the boat's PA system. Cussler replied by shaking his head. Another command echoed across from the catamaran as the spotlights bounced about the junk. Cussler again shook his head, wondering whether the waterlogged coil of rope and wet pairs of footprints across the deck would be detected. For several long minutes, the catamaran held steady at the junk's side as if waiting to board. Then, with a sudden blast of its engines, the catamaran roared away, resuming its river search closer to shore.