Текст книги "Lost City"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Doughboy was learning as well. He slashed ineffectively at the sharp tip as he backed up in the face of Austin's resolute advance. He stopped with his back to the table that was piled high with helmets. Unable to retreat farther, he brought his sword up in preparation for a slashing counterattack. Austin beat him to the punch with a sudden forward lunge. The big man backed into the table and the helmets clattered to the floor.

Doughboy tripped over a helmet before regaining his footing. He roared like a wounded lion and came at Austin, slashing from every direction with wild swings that were practically impossible to anticipate. Sweat dripped into Austin's eyes, blurring his vision, and he retreated under the fierceness of the attack until he had his back to the wall.

Seeing that Austin could go no farther, Doughboy snarled in triumph and raised his sword, preparing to bring it down in a swing that used every muscle at his command. Austin saw the blow coming and knew he'd never be able to stop it with the ax or get in a swing of his own.

He went on the offensive. Holding the ax high, he surged forward and with astraight-armed thrust that drove the leveled shaft into Doughboy's Adam's apple, hit him broadside across the throat. The man's eyes bulged and he let out astrangled grunt.

Austin had checked the attack, but the move had put him in a vulnerable position. Doughboy was gasping for breath, but the fat around his thick neck had kept his windpipe from being crushed completely. He removed his left hand from the sword hilt and grabbed onto the ax shaft. Austin tried to jam the shaft into the man's throat again. When that didn't work, he jerked the weapon back, but the man had a lock grip on the shaft and wouldn't let go.

Austin lifted his knee and drove it into the man's crotch, but his opponent only grunted. He must have testicles of iron, Austin thought, and he used his two-handed leverage and attempted to twist the ax handle out of the man's hand. That ploy ended when Doughboy dropped the sword completely and grabbed onto the shaft with his right hand. They were like two boys fighting over a baseball bat, but the loser in this deadly game would go home in a casket.

Doughboy's superior strength and weight began to tell. His hands were on the outside of the shaft where he had the advantage of leverage as well. His manic grin changed to a feral croak of triumph and he twisted the ax out of Austin's hand.

Austin glanced around. There were weapons all over the workshop, but none within ready reach. Doughboy smiled and began to advance. Austin backed up until he was up against a wall and could go no farther. Doughboy smiled and raised the ax for a swing that would cleave Austin in two.

Seeing that the man's midsection was temporarily exposed, Austin used his powerful legs to drive his head into the man's gut with battering ram force. The man let out a sound like a squeezed bellows and the ax dropped from his hands.

Austin came out of his bounce with legs spread apart, ready to drive his fists into the doughy face. Austin's head butt had clearly hurt Doughboy. His pale face was even pastier than normal and he was gasping for breath.

He must have decided that whatever the pleasures of slicing and dicing Austin, dead was dead. He reached under his jacket and his hand came out filled with a pistol with a silencer mounted on the barrel. Austin braced himself for the impact of a bullet at close range. But the man's smile faded, to be replaced by a look of perplexity. A feathered stick had appeared like magic and was protruding from his right shoulder. The gun fell from his fingers.

Austin turned and saw Skye holding a crossbow. She had fitted another shaft to the weapon and was frantically winding back the bow string. Doughboy's eyes went to Austin, who was scrambling for the fallen gun, then back to Skye. He opened his mouth and bellowed. Stopping only to snatch a helmet from the pile of those littering the floor, he lurched toward the shop door and tore the curtain aside in his haste to escape.

With the pistol in his hand, Austin cautiously followed. He heard the tingle of the front door bell, but by the time he stepped out onto the sidewalk the street was deserted. He went back inside, making sure to lock the front door. Skye had cut Darnay's bonds.

Austin helped Darnay to his feet. The antiques dealer was bruised from being slapped around and stiff from kneeling, but otherwise he seemed all right. Austin turned to Skye and said, "You never told me you were a dead shot with a crossbow."

Skye had a stunned look on her face. "I can't believe I hit him. I closed my eyes and just pointed in the general direction." She saw his bloodstained shirt. "You've been hurt."

Austin expected the wound. "It's only a scratch, but someone owes me a new shirt."

"You wielded afauchard very well," Darnay said, as he dusted his knees and elbows.

"What did you say?" Austin replied.

"That weapon you handled so deftly. It's afauchard, a fifteenth-century pole arm similar to the glaive. There was a move to abolish

it in the Middle Ages because of the terrible wounds it produced. Your weapon was a combination between afauchard and a battle-ax. You look puzzled?"

"It's just that I've been hearing that name a lot lately." "I find this weapons discussion fascinating," Skye, said, "but could anyone suggest what do we do now?"

"We can still call in the police," Austin said. Darnay looked alarmed. "I'd rather not have the gendarmes here. Some of my dealings "

"Skye has already filled me in. But you're right; the police might have a hard time buying a story about a big bad man who attacked us with a sword."

The antiques dealer heaved a sigh of relief and glanced around at the wreckage. "I never thought my office would be used for a reenactment of the Battle of Agincourt."

Skye was inspecting the pile of helmets. "It's not here," she said, a bleak expression on her face.

Darnay replied with a smile, went over to a wall and pressed a wooden panel. A rectangular section swung open to reveal a large safe, which he opened with a few clicks of the combination lock. He reached inside and pulled out Skye's helmet. "This little item seems to produce a lot of excitement."

"I'm sorry I brought you into this," Skye said. "That awful man was waiting for me at my apartment and he heard your call. I never dreamed "

"It's not your fault. As I said on the phone, I need to examine this beauty further. I'm thinking that it might be prudent to close shop for a while and do business from my villa in Provence. I'd love to have you as my guest. I'd worry about you as long as that gros co chon is on the loose."

She thought about it. "Thank you, but I have too much work to

do. The department is going to be in chaos with Renaud gone. Keep the helmet as long as you wish."

"Very well, but consider spending the night at my apartment." "You might want to accept Monsieur Darnay's invitation," Austin said. "We can sort things out in the morning."

Skye thought about it again and said she would have to go back to her apartment first to pick up some clothes. Austin made her wait in the hall while he made sure her apartment was safe. He didn't think Doughboy would be feeling too frisky with the crossbow bolt in his shoulder, although the big man seemed to have a high pain threshold and a talent for the unexpected.

Skye was almost through packing her overnight bag when Austin's cell phone twittered.

Austin talked to someone on the other end for a few moments, and when he hung up he had a grin on his face. "Speak of the devil. That was Racine Fauchard's appointments secretary. I've been summoned to an audience tomorrow with the grand dame herself."

"Fauchard? I couldn't help noting your reaction when Darnay identified the poleax. What's going on?"

Austin gave Skye a quick reprise of his visit to the air museum and the connection between the Ice Man and the Fauchard family. Skye snapped her bag shut. "I want to go with you." "I don't think that's a good idea. It might be dangerous." Skye replied with a derisive laugh. "An old lady? Dangerous?" "It does sound silly," Austin admitted, "but this whole business with the body in the ice, the helmet and that goon who killed Renaud seems to go back to the Fauchards. I don't want to involve you."

"I'm already involved, Kurt. I was the one trapped under the glacier. It was my office and this apartment that man searched, obviously looking for the helmet I brought out from under the glacier. It was my friend Darnay who would have been killed if not for you." She

crossed her arms and made her strongest point. "Besides, I'm an arms expert and my knowledge might come in handy."

"Persuasive arguments." Austin pondered the pros and cons. "All right. Here's the deal. I introduce you as my assistant, and we'll use an assumed name."

Skye leaned over and pecked Austin on the cheek. "You won't regret this."

"Right," Austin said. He didn't sound convinced, although he knew Skye had some valid points.

Skye was an attractive woman and time spent in her company was never wasted. There was no direct connection linking the Fauchards and the violent man he had nicknamed Doughboy. At the same time, Grosset's warning about the Fauchard family echoed in his brain like a warning bell tolling in the night. It is said that they have a past.

THE FARMER WAS singing a tearful version of "Le Souvenir" when the red blur filled his windshield and his truck's cab reverberated with an ear-shattering roar. He jerked the wheel to the right and sent the heavily laden vehicle nose first into a drainage ditch. The truck slammed into an embankment, catapulting the load of wooden cages onto the ground. The impact smashed the cages into splinters and freed hundreds of squawking chickens. The driver extricated himself from the truck and shook his fist at the crimson plane with the eagle insignia on the tail. He scurried for cover amid an explosion of feathers as the aircraft buzzed his truck again.

The plane climbed into the sky and did a triumphant rollover. The pilot was laughing so hard he almost lost control of the aircraft. He wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve and flew low over the vineyards that stretched for hundreds of acres in every direction. With a flick of a switch he sent a cloud of pesticides spraying out from the twin pods under the plane's wings. Then he peeled off in a new direction. The vineyard valleys changed to brooding forest and dark-water lakes that gave the land below a particularly melancholy aspect.

The plane skimmed the treetops, heading toward four distant spikes that rose above the forest on a hill. As the plane drew nearer, the spikes became guard towers that anchored the corners of a thick, crenellated stone wall. A wide moat filled with stagnant green water surrounded the wall and was in turn bordered by extensive formal gardens and woodland paths. The plane buzzed the roof of the imposing chateau within the walls, and then it flew out over the woods, dropped down onto a green swath of grass and taxied up to a Jaguar sedan parked at the edge of the airstrip. As the pilot climbed from the cockpit, a ground crew materialized out of nowhere and pushed the plane into a small flagstone hangar.

Ignoring the crew, Emil Fauchard strode to the car, walking with an athletic grace, muscles rippling under his flying suit of black Italian leather. He whipped his goggles off and handed them to the waiting chauffeur along with his gloves. Still chuckling over the expression on the truck driver's face, he settled into the plush backseat and poured himself a shot of cognac from a built-in^ bar

Fauchard had the classic features of a silent film star and a profile the Barrymore family would have been proud of. For all his physical perfection, however, Fauchard was a repellent man. His arrogant dark eyes had all the warmth of a cobra's. With his handsome, almost perfect face, he was like a marble statue that had been given life but not humanity.

The local farmers whispered that Fauchard had the look of a man who had made a pact with the devil. Maybe he was the devil, others said. The more superstitious took no chances and made the sign of the cross when he passed by, a holdover from the days of the evil eye.

The Jaguar followed a driveway that ran under a long tunnel-like tree canopy, then ascended to the main entrance of the chateau. The car drove over an arched bridge that spanned the moat, then through the wall gate into an expansive cobblestone courtyard.

The Fauchard chateau was feudal in silhouette and had none of

the architectural finesse seen in castles of Renaissance design. It was a stolid, squatting edifice of great size, anchored in place by medieval towers at each corner, mimicking the placement of turrets in the outer wall. Large windows had replaced some of the arrow slits in the exterior, and low-relief ornamentation had been added here and there, but the cosmetics could not hide the brooding, militaristic aspect of the building.

A burly man with a shaved head and a face like a pit bull stood sentry in front of the chateau's ornately carved double doors. He had somehow crammed a body shaped like a refrigerator into the black suit of a butler.

"Your mother is in the armory," the man said in a rasping voice. "She has been expecting you."

"I'm sure she has, Marcel," Emil said, brushing past the butler. Marcel was in charge of the small army that surrounded his mother like a Praetorian guard. Even Emil couldn't get near her without being intercepted by one thuggish servant or another. Many of the scar-faced retainers who filled posts normally reserved for household servants were former enforcers for the French mob, although she favored ex-Foreign Legionnaires like Marcel. They stayed out of sight for the most part, but Emil always sensed they were there, watching, even when he couldn't see them. He despised his mother's bodyguards. They made him feel like astranger in his own house, and even worse, he had no power over them.

He entered a spacious vestibule hung with ornate tapestries and walked down a portrait gallery that stretched along one wall of the chateau and seemed to go on forever. Hundreds of portraits lined the gallery. Emil hardly glanced at his ancestors, who had no more meaning to him than faces on postage stamps. Nor did he care that many of those ancestors had died violent deaths in this very house. The Fauchards had been in the chateau for centuries, since assassinating its former owner. There was hardly a pantry, bedroom or dining hall

where some member of the Fauchard family, or one of their enemies, had not been garroted, stabbed or poisoned. If the chateau were still haunted by the ghosts of those murdered within its walls, every corridor in the vast edifice would have been crowded with restless wraiths. He went through a high arched door into the armory, an immense, vaulted hall whose walls were hung with weapons that spanned the centuries, from heavy bronze swords to automatic rifles, grouped according to time period. The focal point of the armory was a display of fully armored mounted knights in full charge against an unseen enemy. Enormous stained-glass windows that depicted warriors rather than saints lined one wall of the hall, imparting a religious atmosphere, as if the armory were a chapel dedicated to violence.

Emil went through another door into a library of military history that adjoined the armory. Light streaming through an octagon oculus illuminated the large mahogany desk at the center of the book-lined room. In contrast to the prevailing militant theme, the dark wood desk was carved with flowers and woodland nymphs. A woman wearing a dark business suit sat behind the desk going over a pile of papers.

Although Racine Fauchard was no longer youthful, she was still strikingly beautiful. She was as slender as a fashion model and in contrast to some women, who bend in on themselves as they grow older, she was as straight as a candle. Her skin was covered with fine wrinkles, but her complexion was as flawless as fine porcelain. Some people compared Racine's profile to that of the famous Nefertiti bust. Others said she looked more like the hood ornament on a classic car. Those meeting her for the first time might have guessed from her silver hair that she was of middle age.

Madame Fauchard looked up at her son's entry and gazed at him with eyes the hue of burnished steel.

"I've been waiting for you, Emil," she said. Her voice was soft but the unyielding authority in it was unmistakable.

Fauchard plunked into a fourteenth-century leather chair that was worth more than many people earned in a decade.

"Sorry, Mother," he said, with a careless expression on his face. "I was up dusting the grapes in the Fokker."

"I heard you rattle the roof tiles." Racine arched a finely shaped brow. "How many cows and sheep did you terrify this morning?"

"None," he said, with a satisfied smile, "but I did strafe a convoy and freed some Allied prisoners." He broke into laughter at her blank stare. "Well, all right. I buzzed a chicken truck and drove it into a ditch."

"Your aerial antics are most amusing, Emil, but I'm tired of paying the local farmers for the damage your exploits cause. There are more serious matters that deserve your attention. The future of the Fauchard empire, for one."

Fauchard caught the icy tone in the voice and straightened up in his chair, like a malicious schoolboy who'd been scolded for a prank. "I know that, Mother. It's just my way of blowing off steam. I thinly better up there."

"I hope you have thought about how you might deal with the threats to our family and way of life. You are the heir to all that the Fauchards have built up through many centuries. It is not a duty you should take lightly."

"And I don't. You must admit we have buried a potentially embarrassing problem under thousands of tons of glacial ice."

Racine's lips parted in a thin smile, revealing her perfect white teeth. "I doubt whether Jules would have liked being called an 'embarrassing problem." Sebastian deserves no credit. Due to his clumsiness, we almost lost the relic for all time."

"He never knew it was under the ice. He was intent on bringing out the strongbox."

"An exercise in futility." She flipped the cover open on the battered

metal box that sat on her desk. "The potentially incriminating documents in here were ruined by water leakage years ago." "We didn't know that."

She ignored his excuse. "Nor did you know the woman archaeologist escaped with the relic. We must get the helmet back. The success or failure of our whole enterprise now rests on its recovery. That fiasco at the Sorbonne was handled badly and brought in the police. Then Sebastian botched another attempt to retrieve our property. The helmet he brought us from the antiques dealer was nothing more than a cheap trinket manufactured in China for the theater." "I am looking into that "

"You must stop looking and act. Our family has never allowed failure of any kind. We can never show weakness or we will be destroyed. Sebastian has become a liability. He may have been seen at the Sorbonne. Take care of it."

Emil nodded. "I'll deal with him."

Racine knew her son was lying. Sebastian, was like a mastiff trained to kill on command and was loyal only to her son. Having a servant like that in the superheated pressure chamber that was the Fauchard family could not be allowed, for very practical reasons. She knew that familial ties had never blocked a fatal dagger blow or fended off a smothering pillow when power and fortune were at stake.

"See that you do, and make it soon."

"I will. Our secret is safe in the meantime."

"Safe! We were nearly exposed by a chance discovery. The key to the family's future is in the hands of astranger. I tremble to think how many other minefields are out there. Follow my lead. When my wayward chemist Dr. MacLean strayed from the reservation, I brought him back with a minimum of fuss."

Emil chuckled. "But, Mother, you were the one who had all the

project scientists except MacLean encounter 'accidents' before their work was done."

Racine pinioned her son with a cold stare. "A miscalculation. I never said I was infallible. It is a mark of maturity to admit mistakes and rectify them. Dr. MacLean is at work on the formula as we speak. In the meantime, we must retrieve the relic so we can make our family whole again. Have you made any progress?"

"The antiquities dealer, Darnay, has disappeared. We are trying to track him down."

"What about the woman archaeologist?" "She seems to have vanished from Paris."

"Keep looking. I have sent my personal agents to find her. We must move quietly. In the meantime, there is the threat to our larger enterprise. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is working with NUMA to explore the Lost City."

"Kurt Austin, that man who rescued the people from under the glacier, was from NUMA. Is there any connection?"

"Not that I know of," Racine said. "The joint expedition was in the works before Austin appeared on the scene. I'm concerned that the expedition could see the results of our work and questions would be raised."

"We can't afford that."

"I agree. That's why I have put a plan in place. The deep-sea vehicle Alvin is scheduled to make several dives. It will vanish on the first."

"Is that wise? It would provoke a large search-and-rescue effort. Investigators and reporters will swarm over the site."

A humorless smile came to Racine's lips. "True, but only if the disappearance is reported to the outside world. The support ship will vanish as well, with all its crew, before the Alvin's disappearance is reported. Searchers will have thousands of square miles of ocean to contend with."

"A vanished ship and crew! Your talents have always awed me, Mother, but I never knew you were a magician."

"Learn from me, then. Use failure as a stepping-stone to success. A ship is steaming toward the Lost City with a hold full of our mistakes. It will be remotely controlled by another vessel several miles away. It will anchor near the dive site. Once the submersible has been launched, the ship will call a Mayday, a fire aboard will be reported, the research vessel will send a boat over to investigate. The boarding crew will be greeted by our hungry lovelies. Once they have finished their work, the freighter will be moved hull to hull with the research vessel and the explosives aboard detonated by remote control. Both ships will disappear. No witnesses. We don't want a repeat of the situation with those television people." "A near disaster," Emil admitted.

"True reality television," she said. "We were lucky that the sole survivor is thought to be a babbling lunatic. One more thing. Kurt

Austin has asked for a meeting. He says he has information that might be of interest to our family regarding the body in the glacier."

"He knows about Jules?"

"We will find out. I have invited him here. If I see that he knows too much, I will place him in your hands."

Emil rose and came around the desk. He gave his mother a peck on the cheek. Racine watched him as he left the armory, thinking how well Emil embodied the Fauchard spirit. Like his father, he was brilliant, cruel, sadistic, homicidal and greedy. And also like his father, Emil lacked common sense and was impulsive. These were the same characteristics that had caused Racine to kill her husband many years before when his actions were about to jeopardize her plans.

Emil wanted to assume her mantle, but she feared for the future of the Fauchard empire and her carefully laid plans. She also knew that Emil wouldn't hesitate to kill her when the time came, which was one reason she had kept Emil in the dark as to the real significance of the relic. She would hate to have to dispose of her only offspring, but one had to be careful when a viper lived in the house.

She picked up the phone. The chicken farmer Emil had driven off the road must be found and compensated for the damage to his chicks and dignity.

She sighed heavily, thinking that a mother's work is never done.

BLESSED WITH smooth seas and fair winds, the research vessel Atlantis rapidly covered the distance from the Azores Islands and dropped anchor north of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over a submerged sea mountain called the Atlantic Massif. The seamount rises sharply from the ocean floor about fifteen hundred miles east of Bermuda and just south of the Azores. In the distant past, the massif protruded from the ocean, but now its flat top is some twenty-five hundred feet below the waves.

Alvin was scheduled to dive the next morning. After dinner, Paul and Gamay got together with the other scientists on board to discuss the dive. They decided to gather rock, mineral and plant samples in the area around the Lost City and to record as many visual observations as possible.

The Alvin Group, a seven-member team of pilots and engineers, was up at dawn and by six o'clock they were starting to go through a fourteen-page checklist. By seven, they were swarming over the submersible, checking its batteries, electronics and other systems and

instruments. They loaded still and video cameras on board along with lunches and extra warm clothing for the pilot and scientists.

Then they placed stacks of iron bars on the outside of the hull to make the submersible heavy enough to sink to the bottom. The Alvin trip to the ocean floor was more a free-fall descent than an actual dive. When it was time to come up, the submersible would drop the ballast weights and float to the surface. For safety purposes, the manipulator arms could be dropped if they became entangled, and if the submersible got into trouble it could jettison the fiberglass outer hull, allowing the personnel sphere to rise to the surface on its own. If the submersible got itself into dire straits, the crew had seventy-two hours of life support.

Paul Trout was a veteran fisherman who understood the quirky nature of the ocean. He had checked the weather reports, but he relied mostly on his own instincts and experience. He surveyed the weather and sea conditions from the deck of the Atlantis. The deep-blue sky was unmarred by clouds except for a few wispy mares' tails, and he had seen rougher seas in a bathtub. Conditions were perfect for a dive. As soon as it was light, the dive team had dropped two transponders to the ocean floor in the general area of the Alvin's dive. The transponders sent out a ping sound that allowed the submersible to keep track of its position in a dark world where there were no street signs and the ordinary techniques of surface navigation were practically useless.

Gamay stood nearby, engrossed in a phone conversation with Dr. Osborne. They were discussing the latest satellite photos of Gorgonweed infestation.

"The weed is spreading more rapidly that we calculated," Osborne said. "Great masses of it are headed toward the east coast of the United States. And spots have begun to show up in the Pacific."

"We're about to launch the Alvin," Gamay said. "We're in a quiet period, so the water should be relatively clear."

"You'll need all the visibility you can get," Osborne said. "Keep a sharp eye out for areas of growth. The infestation source may not be readily apparent."

"The cameras will be rolling every minute and we may pick up something when we look at the pictures," Gamay said. "I'll send photos back as soon as we have something."

After Gamay hung up, she relayed Osborne's words to Paul. It was time to go. A crowd of people gathered on the fantail to watch. One of them was a trim man with salt-and-pepper hair who came over and wished them well. Charlie Beck was the leader of a team that had been training the ship's crew in security procedures.

"You've got a lot of guts going down in that thing," he said. "The SEAL delivery vehicles always made me claustrophobic."

"It will be a little tight," Gamay said, "but it's only for a few hours."

When it wasn't diving, the submersible was housed on the aft deck in a special building known as the Alvin hangar. Now the hangar doors opened and the Alvin emerged, moving toward the stern on a set of rails, finally coming to a halt under the A-frame. The Trouts and the pilot climbed a set of stairs and walked across a narrow bridge to the sub's red-painted top, or "sail," as it was called. They took their shoes off and squeezed through the twenty-inch hatch.

Two escort divers climbed onto the submersible and attached a winch line from the A-frame. While this was happening, a small inflatable boat was launched over the side. Controlled by an engineer on the "Dog House," a small room atop the hangar, the A-frame winched the eighteen-ton vehicle off the deck and lowered it into the ocean with the escort divers still hanging on. The divers removed the lines securing the tool basket at the bow end of the submersible, made one last check and said their good-byes down the hatch, then they swam to the inflatable to be taken back to the ship.

They took their seats in the submersible's tight cabin, a titanium pressure sphere eighty-two inches in diameter. Practically every inch

of the sphere's interior was covered with panels that contained switches for power activation, ballast control, monitors for oxygen and carbon dioxide, and other instruments. The pilot sat on a low raised stool where she could control the vehicle with the joystick in front of her.

The Trouts squeezed into the tight space on either side of the pilot, sitting on cushions that provided a modicum of comfort. Despite the tight quarters, Trout was excited. Only his New England reserve kept him from shouting with joy. For a deep-ocean geologist, the cramped quarters of the Alvin were better than a deluxe stateroom on the QE2.

Since its construction for the U.S. Navy in 1964, the Alvin's exploits had made it the world's most famous submersible. The stubby twenty-five-foot-long little vehicle with the singing chipmunk's name could dive as deep as fourteen thousand feet. The vehicle had made international headlines after it found a lost hydrogen bomb off the coast of Spain. On another expedition, it transported the first visitors to the grave of the Titanic.