Текст книги "Devil's Gate"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Graham Brown,Clive Cussler
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

20

GAMAY TROUT TRIED HER BEST TO REMAIN CALM, to control her breathing and her emotions. Beside her, Paul continued a useless attempt to raise the Matadoron the underwater transceiver.

“ Matador, this is Grouper. Do you copy?” No response.

“ Matador, this is Grouper…”

He’d been at it for thirty minutes. What else could he do? Their only hope was for the Matadorto send down the ROVs and try to dig them out. That is, if they could be found and if they weren’t under a hundred feet of sediment.

So Paul continued to try. Matador, this isGrouper. Matador, please respond.And each time he spoke the words, the sound grated on her nerves like some form of Chinese water torture.

There had been no response for thirty minutes. There would be no response in the next thirty, or the next thirty thousand, if he tried. Either the antenna had been torn off in the landslide or they were buried too deep for any signal to get out.

Taking another calming breath, she rubbed his shoulders.

“They might be able to hear us,” Paul told her. “Even if we can’t hear them.” She nodded, twisted herself around in the other direction, and checked on their air status. They had nineteen hours of air left. Nineteen hours of waiting to die. In a manner she’d never felt before, Gamay was suddenly aware of how tight the confines of the Grouperwere. It was a coffin. A tomb.

A wave of claustrophobia swept over her so powerfully that she began to shake, began to wish they’d been killed in the landslide or that she could just open the hatch and let the water pour in and crush them. It was irrational, it was panic, but it was astoundingly real to her.

“Matador, this isGrouper … Do you read?”

She held herself together, fighting back tears that were threatening to break through.

Uncomfortable sitting with her head bowed in the cramped vehicle, she lay down and closed her eyes, resting her face against the cold metal of the floor like one might rest on the tiles of the bathroom after a heavy night of drinking.

It calmed her nerves a bit, at least until she opened her eyes and noticed something she hadn’t seen before: a drop of water trickling down the side of the metal plating. Any hope of it being condensation was erased as another drop quickly followed, and then another.

Drip… Drip… Drip…

Perhaps they wouldn’t have nineteen hours after all.

“Matador, this isGrouper …”

There was no point in telling Paul. He would know soon enough, and there was nothing they could do about it anyway. At 16,000 feet, the pressure outside was almost 6,800 pounds per square inch. The slow little drips would quickly become faster drips as the water forced the plates apart, and at some point it would start spraying, blasting them with a jet of ice-cold water powerful enough to cut a person in half. And then it would all be over.

Gamay glanced around the cabin for other leaks. She saw none, but something new caught her eye: light emanating from the tiny screens in her virtual reality visor.

She grabbed it. The screens were still functioning. She saw a metallic wall and sediment floating around. The particles swirled and caught the light.

“ Rapunzelsurvived,” she said quietly.

“What was that?” Paul asked.

“This is a live shot,” she said. “ Rapunzel’s still functioning.” Gamay pulled the visor on and then her gloves. It took a moment to orient herself, but she quickly realized that Rapunzelwas floating freely. She had the little robot do a 360-degree turn. Open water beckoned through the same gaping hole that Rapunzelhad used to enter the ship.

“I’m bringing her out.” “How are we still in contact with her?” Paul asked.

“Her umbilical cables are eight feet long where they hit the Grouper. They must be sticking out of the sediment.” “That means we’re not buried too deep,” Paul said. “Maybe she can dig us out.” Gamay maneuvered Rapunzelout of the ship, while Paul began to watch the monitor on his control panel.

“Take her up,” he said. “We need a bird’s-eye view.” Gamay nodded and had Rapunzelascend. She rose vertically for a hundred feet, high enough to get a better view but still close enough that her lights and her low-light camera could make out the ship and the seafloor.

The avalanche had changed everything. The Kinjara Marunow rested on her side like a toy that’d been knocked over. The bow was almost buried in sediment, and the ground underneath was flatter and smoother. Gamay guessed that the avalanche had moved the ship a hundred yards or so.

“Any idea where we are?” she asked.

“We were headed to the bow,” he said. “No idea what happened after the landslide hit.” Gamay guided Rapunzeltoward the bow of the ship and then out over the field of sediment. After ten minutes of up-and-back passes, neither she nor Paul had seen any sign of themselves.

In some corner of her mind, the oddness of the situation struck Gamay. How strange, she thought, to be consciously looking for yourself with no idea where you might be.

After another pass she asked. “You see anything?” “Nothing.”

The cables that were signaling Rapunzeland receiving her signal had to be sticking out, but a foot or two of cable would be hard to spot on a seafloor now littered with debris.

Still lying on her back, Gamay started Rapunzelon another pass. As she did, the touch of icy water reached her elbow. She lifted the visor for a second. A small pool was forming beside her, maybe two tablespoons’ worth. The drip was coming faster.

She pulled the visor back down. They had to hurry.

“Maybe if you were closer to the seafloor,” Paul said.

It would increase the resolution but narrow the field of view, the difference between looking for a contact lens that had fallen out of your eye from a standing position or crawling around on the floor, scanning the tile inch by inch. She didn’t think they had that much time.

“I’m taking her higher,” she said.

“But we can barely see as it is.” “Blow some of the air,” she said.

Paul did not immediately answer.

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “Even if they didn’t hear us, the Matadorknows were in trouble. They’ll have ROVs down here pretty soon.” “It will help us,” she said.

Still, he hesitated.

“Even if they send ROVs, they’re going to need to know where we are,” she said.

“Okay,” he said finally, perhaps responding to the desperation in her voice, perhaps realizing that she was right.

“Get Rapunzelto whatever depth you think is best,” he added. “Tell me when, and I’ll vent the cylinder we’ve been drawing off of. It’s half empty.” Gamay guided Rapunzelback out over the sunken freighter’s bow and let her rise to the very brink of visibility. It gave them the widest field of view.

“Ready,” she said.

Paul turned a lever and locked it. With his other hand he reached over and pressed the emergency vent switch. There was a hiss of air through the lines, the sound of bubbles exploding and then turbulent water churning. It lasted for about fifteen seconds and then slowly waned. The silence that followed was eerie.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

Gamay was guiding Rapunzelforward, turning her head left and right, looking for what should have been a telltale rush of bubbles catching the light. It should have been easy to see and unmistakable, but neither she nor Paul caught it.

“It has to be there.” “I don’t see anything,” Paul said “Vent another bottle,” she said.

He shook his head. “Two cylinders is a quarter of our air.” “It’s not going to matter,” she said.

“Of course it matters. If we’re buried, it’s going to take a while for them to dig us out. I don’t want to suffocate while they’re still digging.” For the first time she heard real stress in his voice. So far, he’d been business as usual. The strong, silent Paul she knew. Perhaps that was for her. Perhaps he was as afraid as she was. She had to tell him the truth.

“We’re leaking back here,” she said.

Silence first, and then, “Leaking?” She nodded.

“How bad?”

“Not bad yet,” she said. “But we’re not going to last long enough to worry about the air.” He stared at her for a moment and then finally nodded his agreement. “Tell me when.” She pulled the visor back down and brought Rapunzelback to the bow of the freighter. This time, she picked the port side to scan.

“Okay,” she said.

Paul turned the lever on cylinder number 2, locked it, and vented the second air tank. The turbulent sound of escaping air shook the Grouperagain, and Gamay strained her eyes looking for any sign of it. She turned, stared, and turned again.

Nothing. Nothing in any direction.

A new fear crept in. What if they weren’t near the bow at all? What if the avalanche had swung the Kinjara Maruaround or taken them so far from the ship that they’d be virtually impossible to find? The freighter could even be sitting on top of them at this point.

The view screens in front of her eyes flickered and shook. For a second she feared that they were about to lose the video feed. But then the screens stabilized except for one area near the very top. Something was distorting the camera’s picture.

She hoped it wasn’t a crack in the glass, which would be as fatal to Rapunzelas the leak in the Grouper’s side would soon be to them. But the camera continued to operate, and Gamay realized the distortion wasn’t a crack. It was caused by something else: a bubble that had been caught on the lens.

She played back the video of the flicker and slowed it down. Sure enough, it was a rush of bubbles passing by Rapunzel. She rotated the small ROV to look straight down. There, almost directly below, sat the oblong shape of the Grouper. Not buried, as they’d suspected, but planted facedown in the silt, with metal debris from the Kinjara Marupiled on top.

Paul saw it too. “Have I mentioned how much I love my wife?” he said excitedly.

“I love you too,” she said, already guiding Rapunzeldown toward them.

“Does Rapunzelhave a cutting torch?” She nodded, and as the small robotic machine reached them Gamay snapped the acetylene torch on and began slicing through one of the metal beams that had landed on top of the Grouper.

The torch burned through the beam in two minutes flat. It broke in half and fell away with a resounding clang. The Grouper, now at full upward buoyancy, shifted as the weight was released.

It felt as if the little sub was trying to float free. But something still held them.

“You see the cables near our tail?” Paul asked. “Were tangled in them.” Gamay saw the cables, maneuvered Rapunzelone more time, and brought the torch to bear. This section of debris was lighter but more cumbersome. As Rapunzel’s torch cut through each length of steel cable, she had to pull them away to keep them from entangling the Grouperagain.

As the last section of cable was dragged away, the Groupertwisted and began to rise. Sliding through the rest of the loose debris, it moved upward.

Inside, it sounded like metal garbage cans being knocked about in the middle of the night. But as the last clang died away and strands of cable slid off them with a scraping sound, they were free.

“We’re ascending,” Paul shouted.

Gamay put Rapunzelinto auto surface mode and flipped her visor up.

To see water streaming past the view port instead of a pile of sand and silt was beautiful. To feel the vertical acceleration as the little sub rose was intoxicating.

She took a deep breath, relaxed for a second, and then heard a crack, like a plate of glass had been snapped in two. She turned her head.

The trickle of water forcing its way in had suddenly become a steady stream.

21

THE RESTAURANT WAS NAMED ESCARPA, which was a way of saying “cliff top” in Portuguese. The name fit, as the low, wide building made of mortar and native stone sat high up in the hills above Santa Maria, three-quarters of the way to the top of the Pico Alto. An eight-mile drive on a twisting mountain road had brought Kurt and Katarina to its doorstep.

On the way, they’d passed open fields, tremendous views, and even an outfit that rented hang gliders and ultralights to tourists. Only a dozen times during the ride had Katarina put the wheels of her small rented Focus onto the gravel during a turn. And if Kurt was honest, only three of those times seemed likely to end in certain death, as the guardrails, which had been intermittent the whole way up, were nowhere to be seen.

But having watched the young woman shift and break and mash the gas pedal at just the right moments, Kurt had decided she was an excellent driver. She’d obviously been trained, and so he figured she was just trying to test his nerve.

He chose not to react, lazily opening the sunroof and then commenting on how incredible the valley looked with nothing standing between them and a trip down into it.

“Enjoying the drive?” she’d asked.

“Immensely,” he’d said. “Just don’t hit any cows.”

Having gotten no reaction out of him only seemed to make her drive harder. And Kurt could barely contain his laughter.

Now at a table, watching the sun drop over the island and into the ocean, they had an opportunity to order. She deferred to him and he chose the island specialty: Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, Portuguese salt cod with potato casserole, along with fresh, locally grown vegetables.

Kurt took a look at the wine list. Despite several excellent French and Spanish choices, he believed a local dish was best accompanied by a local wine. The Azores had produced wine since the sixteenth century, some of it known to be very good. From what he’d been told, most of the grapes were still picked by hand. He felt it a shame to let such work go to waste.

“We’ll take a bottle of the Terras de Lava,” he said, picking a white to go with the fish.

Across from him, Katarina nodded her approval. “I get to choose dessert,” she insisted, smiling like a trader who’d just gotten the best part of the deal.

He smiled back. “Sounds fair.”

Guessing he would be finishing that dessert before he learned her secret, he chose a different subject.

“So you’re here on behalf of your government,” he said.

She seemed a little prickly about that. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. As if you’re not here on behalf of your government.”

“Actually, I’m not,” he said. “Joe and I were here for a competition. We just stuck around at the request of the Portuguese and Spanish governments. To keep the peace between them.”

“Quite a distinction,” she said, taking a bite from one of the appetizers. “I believe the last time they got in an argument it took the Pope drawing a line across the world to settle it.”

Kurt had to laugh. “Unfortunately, we have no such powers.”

The wine came. He tasted it and nodded his approval.

“Why did they send you here?” he asked.

“I thought you’d be more discreet,” she said.

“Not my strong suit.”

“I work for the Science Directorate,” she explained. “Of course they’re interested in this discovery. A dozen wrecks believed to be dragged down to the depths by the powerful magnetism of this rock. Who wouldn’t be?”

That made sense, even if some of her other actions didn’t.

“No one’s suggesting they were dragged to the bottom by the magnetism,” he said. “Only that during and after their sinkings, the current and the magnetism combined to slowly draw them in.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know. But isn’t it more romantic to imagine this place like the sirens of Greek mythology?”

“More romantic,” he said. “But less accurate.”

The gleam of adventure shone from her eyes. “Are you sure? After all, this part of the ocean has claimed an inordinate number of ships and planes over the years.”

Before he could interject she began a list. “In 1880, the HMS Atalantawent down in these waters. The survivors reported waves of dizziness and sickness and seeing bizarre things. These sights were later called hallucinations and attributed to a shipboard epidemic of yellow fever. But as it was 1880, and the diagnosis was made well after the fact, no one really knows.

“In 1938, a freighter named the Anglo-Australianand its crew vanished within sight of the island chain. No wreckage was ever found. In 1948, an airliner known as the Star Tigerdisappeared after taking off from here. There was no Mayday or distress call issued. No wreckage was ever found. In 1968, after having unexplained radio troubles, one of your submarines, the USS Scorpion, vanished not far from here. As I understand it, the wreckage suggested she exploded from within.”

Kurt knew some of the stories. The fact was the Star Tigerdisappeared well to the west of the Azores, perhaps a thousand miles from here, and the Scorpionwas believed to have suffered a catastrophic failure at depth. There were some in the Navy that insisted she’d been rammed or hit by a Russian torpedo in retaliation for the accidental ramming of a Russian sub in the Pacific. He decided not to relay that theory.

“This place is much like the Bermuda Triangle,” she said. “Can’t we let it be mystical for just a moment?”

“Sure,” he said. “But you should know, U.S. Coast Guard studies have found no significant difference in the rate of ships and planes disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else on the seas. The oceans of this world are dangerous places wherever you decide to go.”

Looking disappointed again, she took a sip of wine. “You know, they’re calling it the Devil’s Gate.”

“Who is?”

“The other scientists,” she said. “Maybe the press.”

That was the first he’d heard of it. “I haven’t seen any press, not since the first day,” he said. “And I’m not sure I understand the reference.”

“The wreckage down there,” she said. “It lies in a wedge-shaped slice, narrowing from the west to the east and pointing toward the tower. At the closest end is a narrow gap through which the current accelerates and then spills over into the deeper waters. At the far end, the presumed entry point, there’s a wider gap between two distinctive raised sections of rock that look something like pillars.”

“And that’s the gate,” he said.

She nodded. “‘Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,’” she said. “That’s from Matthew. Chapter seven, verse thirteen. The theory I’ve heard tossed around is that the ships and planes and other wreckage have been dragged through the wide and crooked gate and cannot get through the straight and narrow. A graveyard of the damned: the Devil’s Gate.”

Kurt had to admit it sounded far more exciting than North Central Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly, or whatever it had officially been named.

“The ships check in but they don’t check out,” he said.

“Exactly,” she said, smiling at him.

“None of which explains why you were diving on a wrecked aircraft at the entrance to that gate,” he said.

“No,” she agreed, not attempting to defend her actions or even offer a reason for them. “Nor does it explain why an aircraft made of aluminum – a nonferrous, nonmagnetic metal – would be drawn in by this decidedly magnetic anomaly.”

She had a point, one that hadn’t dawned on Kurt before. As her words sunk in, she took another sip of the wine.

“Very good wine,” she said. “Would you excuse me? I’m just going to freshen up.”

Freshen up? After trying on three different outfits, she’d spent half an hour in the bathroom of her hotel room fixing her hair and makeup. How much fresher could she get?

Kurt stood politely as she walked away. The truth was, she looked fantastic in a simple black cocktail dress and red high-heeled shoes. Especially in contrast to his somewhat disheveled state. He was still in the clothes he’d been wearing this morning, with a change into dive gear, a quick change back, and no shower in between.

He watched her leave, thought about what she’d just said, and took the opportunity to grab his phone and send a text to Joe.

He typed furiously.

I need anything you can find about this Katarina Luskaya. Why she’s here. Who she’s worked for in the past. And anything about that old plane she was diving on. I need it quick.

A text came back from Joe seconds later.

I must be a mind reader. Already on it. Here are a few links. FYI: the plane was listed as lost out of Santa Maria in 1951. There’s a Civil Aeronautics Board file and a crash report. There’s also a CIA stub on it, but I can’t get access to any of the data.

A CIA stub. Kurt guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. He started looking over the links Joe had sent, dividing his attention between the entrance to the restrooms and the phone.

IN THE LADIES’ ROOM, Katarina lingered in front of the mirror, hovering over a marble sink. She wasn’t looking at her makeup or her hair or anything besides her own phone.

“Come on,” she urged as the download proceeded sluggishly.

Finally, the screen changed, and a bio of sorts on Kurt Austin appeared. It held more than she expected, more than she had time to read. She scanned the main points, texted a reply to Command saying she’d received it, and slid the phone back into her purse.

A quick check of her hair told her it was as good as it would get, and she turned and walked out.

KURT GLANCED TOWARD THE RESTROOMS, then back at his phone, then back toward the restrooms. He saw the door swing open, read one more line, and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

He stood and pulled out her chair as she arrived.

“You look so much fresher,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you,” she replied. “Sometimes it’s hard to feel pretty enough.”

Kurt sensed some unintentional truth in what she’d said. He pinned it on a lifetime of competing in a sport that was judged as opposed to one where you scored or you didn’t. Too much subjectivity had a way of making people uncertain of themselves.

“You look stunning,” he said. “In fact, everyone here is wondering why you’re having dinner with a scruffy guy like me.”

She smiled, and Kurt detected a slight blush.

By now the sun had disappeared. They made small talk till the entrées came, and then, after another glass of wine, Kurt decided to reopen the earlier conversation.

“I have a question,” he said. “Why did you dive on that plane alone? You had two sets of tanks on board. Don’t you have a partner?”

“That’s two questions,” she said, again smiling. “I came to Santa Maria with another representative of the government. But he is not part of the Science Directorate. The assignment is my own,” she added. “The tanks came with the boat.”

Kurt guessed that other representative would be a handler of sorts, to watch over her, to keep her both in line and out of trouble.

“Your turn,” he said, taking another bite of the fish.

“I think I might like this game,” she said, then fired away. “You seemed awfully angry when we came up,” she said. “What made you so mad? Was it my violation of your precious ‘exclusivity zone’ or the fact that I never registered in the first place?”

“Neither,” he said. “I don’t like to see people get hurt. You could have been killed down there in that wreck. Another five minutes and you would have been.”

“So Kurt Austin is a man who cares?”

“Absolutely,” he said, offering an intentionally warm smile.

“Is that why you’re in the salvage business?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Any fool can blow up a boat and send it to the bottom,” she said. “But it takes skill and dedication and far greater risks to bring one back up again. I can see you doing it for exactly those reasons: because it’s harder andbecause it’s better. And because you like saving things.”

Kurt had never thought of it quite that way, but there was some truth in what she’d said. The world was full of men destroying things and throwing them away. He took pride in restoring old things instead of tossing them out.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she added. “I’m guessing you dove down to salvage me.”

He hadn’t been sure she was in trouble when he’d gone in the water, but he’d been glad to pull her out alive instead of dead. He considered her motivation for taking such a risk in the first place.

“And you’re a competitor,” he said, taking his turn at amateur analysis.

“It has plusses and minuses,” she said.

“National competitions, world championships, the Olympics,” he said. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to prove to coaches and judges and the audience that you’re worthy of their scores, that you even belong in the arena in the first place. Despite a partially torn ligament, you nearly got the bronze in Torino.”

“I nearly won the gold,” she corrected him. “I fell on the last jump. I finished the program on one foot.”

“As I recall you couldn’t walk for a couple of months afterward,” he said, a fact he’d just read on Joe’s update. “But the point stands. A different skater would have backed down, saved her leg for another day.”

“Sometimes you don’t get another day,” she said.

“Is that what drove you on?”

She pursed her lips, studying him and twirling her fork in her angel-hair pasta. Finally, she spoke. “I wasn’t supposed to medal,” she said. “They almost gave my spot to another skater. Most likely, I would never get another shot.”

“You had something to prove,” he replied.

She nodded.

“And this whole thing – an assignment outside your laboratory – I’m guessing this is new to you,” he said. “You must have people back home to impress, maybe you feel you have something to prove to them. Or you might not get another shot.”

“Maybe,” she admitted.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “We all want our bosses to be impressed. But there are places on this earth where you don’t take chances. The inside of a wrecked aircraft a hundred forty feet below the surface is one of them.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to show someone they were wrong about you?”

Kurt paused, and then spoke a half-truth. “I try not to worry about what other people think about me.”

“So you have no one to prove anything to?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that,” he replied.

“So there is someone,” she said. “Tell me who. Is it a woman? Is there a Mrs. Austin, or future Mrs. Austin, waiting for you back home?”

Kurt shook his head. “I wouldn’t be here if there was.”

“So who is it?”

Kurt chuckled. The conversation had certainly turned. “Tell me the secret you’re holding, and I’ll give you the answer.”

She looked disappointed again. “I suppose dinner ends as soon as I give you that?”

Kurt didn’t want it to end, but then again… “Depends on the secret,” he said.

She picked up her fork as if she could stall him just a little longer and then she put it down dejectedly.

“Yesterday you rescued a French diver,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said. “The guy had a hundred pounds of weight on his belt. Where you were reckless, he was just an idiot.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“It was a setup,” she said. “While you and your partner were pulling him out of the water, another member of the French team was drilling a four-foot core sample out of the side of that rock. They’ve been bragging about it already.”

Kurt felt an instant burst of anger. He exhaled sharply and then grabbed his napkin and threw it on the table.

“You were right,” he said. “Time to go.”

“Damn,” she said.

He stood, left a handful of bills on the table, and took her by the hand. They headed for the exit.

“But what about your secret?” she said.

“Later,” he said.

With Katarina in tow, Kurt pushed the door open and stepped through. Something moved in the shadows. An object swung toward him from the right. He tensed himself in the instant he had, and then a bat or a club or a pipe of some kind slammed him in the gut.

Despite his strength, the blow jarred Kurt and knocked the wind out of him. He doubled over and crumpled to his knees.