Текст книги "Medusa"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“I’ll trust your judgment and that of your officers, Captain,” Austin said. “My main concern is getting into the lagoon undetected. Any idea what I’m likely to encounter?”

“We’ll have to assume that the atoll is protected by a sensor system,” Dixon said. “Night vision devices and radar are a worry, of course, but I’m most concerned about thermal sensors.”

“Any way we can get around those security measures?” Austin asked.

“A low-flying helicopter might be able to blend into the sea clutter on a radar screen,” Dixon said. “If the insertion was quick, there is a chance you could pull it off.”

Austin needed no further encouragement.

“That’s settled,” he said. “How soon can we leave?”

The captain glanced around at his officers, wanting to give them one last chance to pitch in.

“Gentlemen?” he asked.

Receiving no response, Dixon reached for a phone to pass along his orders. But by that time, Austin had already sprinted for the door.

WHILE KURT AUSTIN WAS debating strategy with Dixon and his men, Song Lee was in another part of the ship, sitting behind a table and staring at a blank screen.

“Just talk to the camera in a normal tone of voice, as if you were having a chat with an old friend,” the communications officer said. “The transmission should begin any second.”

Lee clipped the tiny microphone to her collar and arranged her hair as best she could. The officer made a call to inform the other participants in the teleconference that all was ready, then he left Lee alone in the room.

The screen fuzzed for a second and then an image appeared of six people sitting at a wooden table in a dark-paneled room. She recognized two people as being from the Ministry of Health, but the others were strangers to her. A silver-haired man wearing the greenish brown uniform of the People’s Liberation Army asked Lee if she could see and hear him.

When she replied in the affirmative, he said, “Very good, Dr. Lee. Thank you for this meeting. My name is Colonel Ming. Since time is short, I’ll spare the introductions and get right down to business.

“This committee is the counterpart of a similar group that we are working with in the United States. I have been asked to be the spokesman because the Army is at the forefront of the effort to contain the epidemic.”

“I have been out of touch,” Lee said, “so I know only that quarantine has been imposed around the area where the outbreak began.”

“That’s correct,” Ming said. “The Army was able to contain the epidemic for a time, but this is an enemy we are not equipped to fight. The virus is winning.”

“How bad is it, Colonel?”

Ming had expected the question, and a square appeared in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen showing a map of China’s northern provinces. Red dots were clustered around one village, with a few stray dots outside its perimeters.

“This shows the outbreak before the quarantine,” he said. “The clusters represent virus outbreaks.”

Another picture appeared. The dots were centered in one area, but scattered outbreaks were showing up in neighboring towns.

“This too represents outbreaks before the quarantine?” Lee asked.

“No,” Ming answered. “The quarantine is in full effect, but the virus has managed to spread despite all that we have been trying to do. I will reserve comment on the next few images.”

As the maps were thrown on the screen one after another, the red dots could be seen expanding over a greater part of the Chinese landscape. They clustered and then metastasized like cancer cells. More alarming still, the virus was dangerously close to Beijing in the northeast, and it was sending out spokes toward Shanghai along the southeast coast, Hong Kong to the south, and the sprawling city of Chongqing to the west.

“What is the period of time covered by these projections?” Lee asked, her throat so dry she could barely get the question out.

“One week,” Ming said, “ending today. The Ministry of Health projects that the spread of the virus is accelerating. It will hit Beijing first and then spread to the other cities less than two weeks later. You understand better than I what that means.”

“Yes, I do, Colonel,” she said. “In military terms, it would be like lighting a fuse leading to many different ammunition dumps. The embers thrown out by those explosions will ignite other fuses around the world.”

Ming pressed his lips together in a tight smile.

“I understand you were involved in planning for the worst-case scenario, as this appears to be,” he said.

“That’s correct, Colonel Ming. I drew up the plans to establish vaccine-production centers in locations where it could be best distributed. It’s a bit like you and your colleagues planning for a battle.”

“Tell me about the vaccine that has been under development in the missing laboratory.”

“The last I knew the vaccine was very close to being synthesized from the toxin.”

“That is very good news,” Ming said.

“True,” Lee said. “But the problem from the first was not only isolating the chemical that could kill the virus but producing millions of doses quickly to deal with it. The old method of producing vaccines in eggs was too slow and clumsy: you’d need millions of eggs, and production could take weeks. There was also the problem of a mutating virus. You might have to tailor a vaccine instantly to a different strain of influenza. Tech-based vaccines grown in an animal or human cell could produce three hundred million vaccines in a year.”

“The whole population of the planet could be wiped out in less time than that,” Ming said.

“That’s true,” Lee said, “which is why the lab was looking into the genetic engineering of vaccines. You don’t manufacture the vaccine but instead produce the molecule that makes it work.”

“And what were the results of this research?”

“I don’t know. The lab had moved to its new location by then. I didn’t have clearance for the final phase.”

“Dr. Kane would understand the procedure?”

“Yes, but he wouldn’t know the final test results, which he would have been informed of had he been able to return to the lab.”

“To put it bluntly, Dr. Lee, even if we find the lab and produce the vaccine, it may be too late?”

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

Colonel Ming turned to the others.

“Any questions? No? Well, thank you very much for your time, Dr. Lee. We will be in contact with you again.”

The screen went blank. Song Lee was terrified at being alone in the room with her thoughts. She bolted out the door and onto the deck, where she looked around frantically for a glimpse of Kurt Austin’s reassuring face. She needed an anchor to keep her from drifting over the edge. She climbed to the bridge, and asked Dixon if he had seen Austin.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Lee,” the captain said. “Kurt didn’t want to interrupt your meeting. He said to tell you that dinner has been postponed. He left the ship.”

“Left? Where?”

Dixon called her over to look at a chart and jabbed his index finger down on the wide expanse of ocean.

“Right now, I’d say that Kurt is just about here.”

CHAPTER 41

“WAKE UP, TOVARICH!”

Joe Zavala floated in a netherworld just below consciousness, but he was awake enough to know that the cold liquid being poured on his lips tasted like antifreeze. He spit the liquid out. The roar of laughter that followed his instinctive reaction jerked him into full consciousness.

Hovering over Zavala was a bearded face with a fourteen-karat grin. Zavala saw a bottle again being tilted toward his lips. His hand shot up, and he clamped his fingers in a viselike grip around the man’s thick wrist.

A startled expression came to the blue eyes at Zavala’s lightning-quick move, but the gold-toothed grin quickly returned.

“You don’t like our vodka?” the man said. “I forget. Americans drink whiskey.”

Zavala unclenched his fingers. The bearded man pulled the bottle away and took a swig from it. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Not poison,” the man said. “What can I get you?”

“Nothing,” Zavala said. “But you can give me a hand sitting up.”

The man put the bottle aside and helped Zavala sit on the edge of the bunk. Zavala looked around at the cramped quarters.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Where areyou?” the man said.

He turned, and, in a language Zavala recognized as Russian, translated the question for the benefit of three other similarly bearded men who were crammed into the tight space. There was laughter and the vigorous nodding of shaggy heads.

“What’s so funny?” Zavala asked.

“I told them what you said, and what my answer will be, that you are in hell!”

Zavala managed a slight smile, reaching out his hand.

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll take that vodka you offered me.”

The man handed the bottle over, and Zavala took a tentative sip. He felt the fiery liquor trickle down his throat, but it did little to alleviate the throbbing in his head. He put his hand to his head and felt a bandage wrapped around it like a turban. He still had the bruises on his scalp from his B3 adventure.

“Your head was bleeding,” the man said. “It was the best we could do.”

“Thanks for the first aid. Who are you guys?” Zavala asked.

“I am Captain Mehdev and these are my officers. You are on a nuclear-powered Akula missile submarine. We are what you Americans know as the Project 941 Typhoon, the biggest class submarine in the world. I am the commander.”

“Nice to meet you,” Zavala said, shaking the captain’s hand. “My name is Joe Zavala. I’m with the American National Underwater and Marine Agency. You’ve probably heard of it.”

Mehdev reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and produced Zavala’s laminated NUMA ID with his picture on it.

“Anyone who goes to sea is familiar with the great work of NUMA,” Mehdev said. “Your beautiful ships are known around the world.”

Zavala took the ID and tucked it into his shirt pocket, grabbed the blanket from the bunk, and wrapped it around him to soak up moisture from his clothes. He took another sip from the bottle and handed it back. One of the officers went over to a sink and got him a glass of water. Zavala washed away the vodka taste with it, and touched his head bandage again.

“No offense, Captain, but you should pay more attention to your driving. Your submarine surfaced right under me and my helicopter.”

Mehdev did another translation that his officers found hilarious, but when he turned back to Zavala he had a somber expression on his face.

“My apologies,” the captain said. “I was ordered to take the vessel to the surface and bring you aboard. Even for someone with my experience, it is difficult maneuvering a six-hundred-foot-long vessel with any degree of precision. You were floating in the water. We brought you on board. I am sorry too for the loss of your helicopter.”

“Who told you to take me prisoner?”

A frown came to Mehdev’s genial face.

“The same criminals who hijacked my submarine and have held me and my crew prisoners,” he said.

Mehdev launched with angry gusto into his fantastic story. He was a Navy veteran of the Typhoon service who had gone into civilian work. The Rubin Central Design Bureau, which designed the submarine, had come up with the idea to use decommissioned Typhoons to carry freight under the Arctic Ocean. The missile silos were replaced with cargo holds that had a capacity of fifteen thousand tons. A corporate buyer purchased the sub, and it was Mehdev’s job to deliver the vessel to its new owner.

The crew of seventy or so was half the normal complement, but without the need for weapons specialists it was large enough to do the job. They were promised big paychecks. The captain’s instructions were to surface for an at-sea rendezvous. But a Chinese freighter carrying armed men met them and took over the ship. They were told to sail the ship to the Pacific Ocean. Using a torpedo tube, the kidnappers launched a missile, targeting a surface ship. Then the Typhoon was involved in an operation to move the underwater lab off the ocean floor.

“Where is the lab now?” Zavala asked.

Mehdev pointed downward with his index finger.

“About three hundred feet beneath our hull, at the bottom of a submerged caldera,” he said. “There was an eruption many years ago and the volcano collapsed, leaving the caldera in place of the island that was once here. Coral grew on the rim, establishing the reef you came across.”

“How did your vessel break through the reef?” Zavala asked.

“We didn’t.We passed underit. The Japanese blasted a tunnel through the caldera, planning to use this place as a submarine base in World War Two. They were going to wait until the American fleet bypassed the atoll and come up behind them with German supersubs to sink their ships. A clever plan. But the Allies bombed the German submarine factories, and then the war ended.” Then Mehdev asked, “What do you know of this lab? It must be important.”

“ Veryimportant,” Zavala said. “The U.S. Navy has planes and ships out searching. I flew over the lagoon. The water is as clear as crystal. Why didn’t I see you?”

“We’re below a camouflage net stretched across the lagoon. It’s what you Americans call low-tech.”

“What about the island I landed on in the lagoon?”

“That is high-tech. An artificial platform on floats, kept in place through a propulsion system geared to a self-correcting navigational system. It provides an observation post to detect intruders. You were seen long before you landed.”

“Someone went to a lot of trouble to create a hideaway.”

“My understanding is, the people behind this scheme intended to use the atoll for transpacific smuggling.”

A pounding on the door interrupted their conversation. Then the door flew open, and an Asian man holding a machine pistol stepped into the cabin. Right behind him was Phelps. Phelps gave Zavala a lopsided grin.

“Hello, soldier,” he said. “You’re a long way from home.”

“I could say the same thing about you, Phelps.”

“Yes, you could. I see you’ve made friends with the captain and his crew.”

“Captain Mehdev has been very generous with his liquor cabinet.”

“Too bad the party’s over,” Phelps said. “The captain and his boys have work to do.”

Mehdev took the hint and ordered his crew out of the cabin. Phelps told his guard to escort them back to their posts, and then he pulled up a chair and put his boots up on a small writing table.

“How did you find this little hidey-hole?” Phelps asked.

Zavala yawned.

“Dumb luck,” he said.

“I don’t think so. Next question. Anyone else know about this place?”

“Only the U.S. Navy. You and your pals can expect a visit from an aircraft carrier any minute.”

“Nice try,” Phelps said with a snort. “The atoll would be swarming with ships and planes by now if the Navy knew about us. The camera on the island sent a picture of your pretty face directly to my boss, Chang. He’s the one who ordered Mehdev to grab you, even at the risk of being seen by someone. You’ve got yourself in a hell of a mess, Joe.”

Zavala’s lips turned up in a slight smile.

“It only looksthat way,” he said.

Phelps shook his head in disbelief.

“What do they give you NUMA guys to drink?” he asked. “Bull’s blood?”

“Something like that,” Zavala said. “Now, I’ve got a question for you: why did you give us the key to the handcuffs and return Kurt’s gun after our skirmish with your boss lady?”

Phelps slid his feet off the desk, put them back on the floor, and leaned closer.

“Actually, I’ve got threebosses,” he said. “Triplets. Chang is in charge of the rough stuff. He’s got a brother named Wen Lo who takes care of business. But the hologram you met back in Virginia is the top dog. Don’t know whether it’s a he or she.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes it’s a man image, sometimes it’s a woman. You never know.”

“What’s with the holograms?”

“They don’t trust anyone, not even one another. They’re crazy too, but you already know that.”

“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they’re not playing with a full deck, Phelps. How’d you get hooked up with this bunch of maniacs?”

“I’m an ex-SEAL. Crazy or not, they pay better than the Navy. I was going to retire after this gig.” Lowering his voice, he added, “Like I said, I’ve got family back home. You really think the virus the Triad came up with will hit the U.S.?”

“It’s only a matter of a very short time.”

“Damnit, Joe, we’ve got to stop this thing.”

“We?” Zavala scoffed. “I’m in no position to do much about anythingright now.”

“I’m going to change that. I’ve been thinking how to work this out. But I’m gonna need your help.”

Phelps’s cell phone buzzed. He answered the call, listened for a moment, said, “Okay,” then hung up. He told Zavala to stay put and slipped out of the cabin.

Zavala pondered his conversation with Phelps. The man was a hired gun and killer, not the type he normally would choose as an ally, but their goals coincided. They would have to smooth out the wrinkles in their relationship later.

Zavala got off the bunk and walked around the cabin. He went over to the sink and splashed water on his face, then walked some more. He was almost feeling normal when Phelps returned.

Phelps was wearing a black neoprene wet suit and carrying a big duffel bag. There was worry in his hound-dog eyes.

“We’re going to have to postpone our talk,” he said. “That was Chang calling.”

“What’s going on?” Zavala asked.

“Things just got more complicated,” Phelps said. “Feel like going for a swim?”

“I just had one,” Zavala said. “Do I have a choice?”

“Nope,” Phelps said.

He handed the duffel bag to Zavala, who hefted it.

“Is this part of the complications?” Zavala asked.

Phelps nodded.

He told Zavala to suit up and left him alone in the cabin. Zavala opened the duffel and found a wet suit. He stripped out of his damp clothes and pulled on the neoprene top and bottom, then opened the door and stepped out.

Phelps was waiting in the passageway with two men, also suited up for a dive. He motioned for Zavala to follow and led the way through the labyrinthine innards of the giant submarine. They encountered a number of crewmen who gave Phelps sullen looks. At one point, the guards split off, and Phelps stepped into a compartment at midship.

“Escape chamber,” Phelps said, pointing to a hatch over their heads. “There’s one on the other side of the conning tower that our two guard dogs will be using.”

He opened a bulkhead locker and pulled out two complete sets of scuba gear that included full face masks with wireless-communications capability. When they were ready, Phelps climbed up a ladder into a cylindrical chamber. Zavala followed him up, moving slowly under the weight of the gear.

The escape chamber was a tight fit for two men in full scuba gear. Phelps hit a switch that closed the floor, and water poured in. Once the chamber was flooded, he opened the hatch over their heads.

Phelps let air into his buoyancy regulator and swam up the escape shaft. Zavala followed close behind. They emerged from the submarine at the base of the lofty conning tower. The two guards were waiting for them. Each guard held a gas-powered speargun with a nasty-looking barb on the business end. Zavala ignored them and slipped his feet into his fins.

The greenish light that filtered through the camouflage net bathed the black hull of the submarine in a spectral glow. Zavala had once seen a Typhoon at dock, when the hull was mostly submerged, and had been impressed by its size, but that was nothing compared with seeing the gigantic sub and its massive conning tower in full.

A ducklike voice quacked in his headset, and Phelps waved to get his attention.

“That’s enough sightseeing for now, Joe. Follow me. This is a technical dive. Three hundred feet plus, but you’ve got Trimix in your tank, so you’ll be okay.”

Phelps switched on a waterproof dive light. With a fluttering kick of his legs, he swam away from the deck, propelling himself through the water using expert form, and then angled downward. Zavala came next, with the two guards following his bubble trail.

They headed toward an amber cluster of sparkling lights. As they descended further, Zavala saw that the lights were on the outside of four large globes attached to each other with tubelike connectors. He immediately recognized the lab from the diagrams he had studied.

“Davy Jones’s Locker!” Zavala said.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?” Phelps said.

Zavala noticed something else. Ghostly blue forms were moving slowly in the shadows just beyond the reach of the lab’s searchlights.

“Are those blue medusae I see?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Phelps said. “You want to stay away from those puppies. They’re hot-wired. We can do a nature tour later. We’ve only got a few minutes to talk. We’re the only ones wearing communications gear, so don’t worry about those guys on your tail. I was gonna keep you on the sub so we could work out a plan, but Chang said he wanted you in the lab. Didn’t say what he’s got planned, but, one thing’s for sure, he won’t be throwing you a welcome party.”

“I didn’t expect one,” Zavala said. “How about youthrowing me a lifeline?”

“I’ll do my best. I’ll let you know when I make a move. Meantime, be a good boy and don’t give those guys with the spearguns an excuse to use you for target practice.”

They were directly above the hemispherical-shaped structure at the hub of the lab complex. Zavala remembered it as the transit module where the airlock for the shuttle vehicle was located. Phelps swam under the transit module, past four minisubmersibles attached to the underside like feeding puppies, then up into a shaft that opened into a round pool at the center of a circular chamber.

Phelps removed his mask and communications unit, and Zavala followed his lead. The guards surfaced seconds later. By then, Phelps and Zavala had used a ladder on the side of the pool to climb out. The guards emerged from the pool, and all four men hung their air tanks and gear on wall hooks. The guards took their masks off to reveal hard Asian faces. They put the spearguns aside and produced machine pistols from their waterproof backpacks.

Phelps pressed a switch and a door slid open. He led the way along a tube-shaped corridor to another door that opened into a small room. Phelps told the guards to wait in the passageway, and then he and Zavala stepped inside.

Half of one wall was made of glass, allowing a view of a laboratory containing several workers dressed in white biohazard suits. The workers looked up when Phelps rapped his knuckles on the glass. All went back to work except one, who waved in acknowledgment and disappeared behind a door labeled DECONTAMINATION.

Minutes later, Lois Mitchell stepped into the room. She was wearing a lab coat and slacks, and her raven hair was still damp from the decontamination shower. Despite his predicament, Zavala signaled his appreciation of Lois’s striking good looks with a slight smile. Lois saw it, and the corners of her lips turned up.

“ Iknow you,” she said.

Zavala did a fast mental check of the hundreds of women he had dated through the years and drew a blank.

“Have we met?” he asked cautiously.

Lois laughed.

“I saw you on TV,” she said. “You were the engineer from NUMA who made the dive with Dr. Kane in the bathysphere.” She furrowed her brow. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Zavala said.

Phelps said, “Dr. Mitchell, this is Joe Zavala from NUMA.”

“Lois,”the scientist amended, extending her hand.

“Hate to break up this party,” Phelps said, “but things are moving fast, Dr. Mitchell. My boss is on his way to the lab. My guess is that he wants to check on your project.”

“Actually,” she said, “he’s coming to get the vaccine.”

Phelps narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“While you were away, I told one of those people you have following me around that we’ve synthesized the toxin.” She turned and gestured at the glass partition. “This is our fermentation, cell-culture, and analysis lab. Your boss will be able to take the vaccine culture with him and go into full-bore production immediately.”

Scowling, Phelps said, “That’s not good.”

“Why?” Lois asked. “Wasn’t that the purpose of this whole project, to produce a vaccine that can be given to the world?”

“You tell her,” Phelps said with a shake of his head.

“Once they have the vaccine,” Zavala said, “they’ll let the epidemic run until they bring down their government. Then they’ll offer the cure to the rest of the world. Pay or die. You and your lab have become expendable.”

The color drained out of Lois Mitchell’s already pale features.

“What have I done?” she wailed.

“It’s what you’re goingto do that counts,” Phelps said.

There was a hard knock on the door. Phelps opened it and one of the guards leaned in close and whispered in his ear. Phelps stepped back inside.

“You haven’t said what you want me to do,” Lois implored.

“Whatever we do, it better be fast,” Phelps said. “Chang’s chopper has left Pohnpei for his ship.”

Zavala’s head was still reeling from its encounter with the six-hundred-foot-long Typhoon, and he was suspicious of Phelps’s abrupt change from foe to friend. But the announcement that the Triad’s enforcer would soon arrive at the lab had been more effective than having a bucket of cold water thrown in his face.

Since he didn’t have many options, Zavala decided to put his money on his former adversary. He grabbed Phelps by the arm, and said, “We need to talk, soldier.”