Текст книги "Polar Shift"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

"I wouldn't want to waste an opportunity like this sitting around and twiddling our thumbs. Maybe we'll come across some well-preserved specimens."

"I don't think preparing to repel a gang of desperate cutthroats qualifies as twiddling our thumbs, but I shouldn't be surprised. Once, when you were a child, I read you Alice in Wonderland.Not long after, I found you out in the yard trying to squeeze your head down a rabbit hole. You said you wished you had some tonic that would shrink you, like Alice."

"It must have been your fault for reading me such stories."

"Well, now it seems we have little choice," he said wearily. He picked up his pack and limped toward the opening. "Down the rabbit hole we go."

26

The chestnut stallion galloped across the verdant Virginia countryside as if it were racing neck and neck in the Kentucky Derby. Jordan Gant crouched in the saddle like an overgrown jockey and whipped his crop repeatedly on his mount's haunches. The horse had been running a punishing pace. Its eyes rolled, its sleek coat was shiny with sweat and its tongue hung from its mouth. Still, Gant showed no mercy. It was not so much cruelty, which would have assumed emotion on his part, but rather the disregard he held for anything that came under his control.

Gant crossed meadows and pastures, and rode along the edge of a driveway bordered by poplar trees until he came to a sprawling country house. He headed to a stable area near the house, and allowed the exhausted animal to come to a trot, then a walk and finally to a halt. Gant slid easily out of the saddle, took a towel from a waiting groom and carelessly tossed him the reins. The horse was limping as it was led away.

Gant strode up a stone walkway toward the front door. He was dressed for polo in a black short-sleeved shirt and jodhpurs. Gant had a muscular, athletic physique, and he would have worn his clothes well even if they weren't custom-tailored. He whipped his knee-high boots of cordovan leather with his crop as he walked, as if his arm had a mind of its own. The massive wooden front door opened at Gant's approach, and he stepped into an enormous foyer with a fountain bubbling in the center. Gant handed his gloves and towel to the cadaverous butler who had opened the door.

The butler said, "Your guest has arrived, sir. He's waiting in the library."

"A Bombay Sapphire martini, straight up, and the usual for me."

The butler bowed and disappeared down a long hallway. Gant went through a door off the foyer into a spacious chamber lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with the priceless volumes that he collected. Margrave stood near a set of French doors that overlooked manicured lawns that were as green as the top of a billiard table. He was perusing an antique book bound in red Moroccan leather.

"That's a rare edition of the Divine Comedypublished in 1507," Gant said. "There are only three known copies. I own them all."

"You've got quite the extensive collection of Dante."

"Actually, it's the best in the world," Gant said without pretense.

Margrave smiled and slipped the book back onto the shelf. "I would expect no less. Did you have a good ride?"

Gant tossed the whip onto a side table. "I alwayshave a good ride. The horse does all the work. The animal that I rode today is new to my stables. It's a stallion that needed to be shown who the boss is. I always take a new horse out for a test-drive. Those that survive are treated like royalty. Those that don't end up in a glue factory."

"Survival of the fittest?"

"I'm a great believer in Darwin."

The butler arrived carrying a tray with two drinks. Gant handed one glass to Margrave, and took the sixteen-year-old, double-matured scotch whisky on the rocks for himself. Margrave sipped his drink. "Perfect martini," he said. "You know exactly what I drink. I'm impressed."

"You forget that I'm in a business where deals are often lubricated with alcohol," Gant said. "Nothing makes a favorable impression like remembering someone's particular poison." He settled into a comfortable chair, and gestured for Margrave to take a seat. "What's the latest on our project?"

"On schedule. But I'm worried about Spider. I haven't heard from him since he left the island a few days ago."

"Barrett is a big boy," Gant said. "He can take care of himself."

"I don't care about his health; it's his mouthI'm concerned about. He's had an acute attack of conscience. I don't want to see him on 60 Minutestelling Mike Wallace about our project."

"You said he agreed to stay with the project until you made contact with Karla Janos."

"That's right. He wanted a fail-safe option that could shut the project down in a hurry."

"Then you have nothing to worry about. Barrett is probably off sulking somewhere. The main question is whether the project can proceed without him."

"That's not a problem. Spider has already laid the groundwork that made him indispensable. We don't need him anymore. All is proceeding according to plan. I worked up this presentation for you."

Margrave opened a carrying case and pulled out a portable DVD player, which he set up on a mahogany desk. He pressed the on button and the schematic profile of a ship appeared on the screen.

"This is one of the transmitter ships as originally designed. Here are the power plants in the hold leading to the electromagnetic low-frequency antenna, which can be lowered into the sea." He forwarded the picture. "This is the new ship that will do the work of our four experimental vessels."

"A small ocean liner. Ingenious. How soon will it be on-site?"

"The old transmitter vessels have left the Mississippi shipyard and are on their way to the debarkation point in Rio. They can still be useful as decoys for insurance. The name of the liner is the Polar Adventure.She'll be in Rio as well, but no one will suspect she is carrying the payload."

"You've made a final choice of a target site, then."

Margrave pressed a key on the player. A map of the Southern Hemisphere appeared on the screen. The map showed a reddish patch shaped like a flattened sphere that covered a good portion of the ocean between the coast of Brazil and South Africa.

"The South Atlantic Anomaly."

Margrave nodded. "As you know, the anomaly is a region where the earth's geomagnetic field flows the wrong way. Some scientists describe it as a 'pothole,' or a dip, in the field. There are sections where the field is completely reversed and weakened. Magsat discovered a North Polar region and a spot below South Africa where the magnetism has been growing extremely weak. Exploiting the weakness in the south ocean magnetic field will cause a similar reaction in the north pole region."

Gant chuckled. "That's the beauty of this whole scheme. We're not precipitating the event as much as we're hastening its arrival."

"True. The north and south magnetic poles have reversed themselves in the past without help, and the earth's electromagnetic field started collapsing on its own about a hundred and fifty years ago. Some experts say a shift is overdue. The earth's magnetism is already affected by the vortices in the molten layer under its crust. Stir up some additional turbulence and only a nudge will be needed to cause a shift. As you say, we're just helping the process along."

"Fascinating," Gant said. "I take it that there has been no change in our original expectations of the impact of this little flip."

"The computer models still hold. The main magnetic fields will weaken, and then almost vanish. For three days or so, there will virtually be no magnetic poles. Then they will return with opposite polarity. Compass needles that normally point north will point south. The electromagnetic battering will knock out power grids and satellites, confuse birds and mammals, send polar auroras flashing around the equator and widen ozone holes. That will be the period of optimum danger. The collapse of the field will temporarily eliminate the earth's defense against solar storms. In the longer term, there will be an increase in the number of people who develop skin cancer."

"Unfortunate collateral damage," Gant said without sympathy. "There's an extensive shelter under this house. You've taken similar precautions, I understand."

"The ship is shielded for radiation to protect us on the return trip. I've got a comfortable shelter under the lighthouse. I could live there in great comfort for a hundred years, although the period of danger should lessen after the initial bursts."

"Will the other members of Lucifer be keeping you company on the island?"

"Only a select few. Anarchists are good at creating chaos, but they don't have a clue about what to do once they're done smashing windows. The others will have served their purpose by then and are on their own."

"You're going to abandon Lucifer's Legion to a possibly painful death?" Gant said.

"You can invite them to yourshelter," Margrave said with a sardonic smile.

"I need room for my horses," Gant said.

"Understandable. What are your plans for the period following the big flash?"

"There will be confusion on a massive scale. People will be unable to communicate or navigate. Power will be out temporarily. Once communications are reestablished at great expense, we will broadcast a message to the world's leaders demanding an international conference to dismantle the instruments of globalization. For starters, we will call for immediate steps to disband the World Bank and the WTO."

"And if they don't do what we ask?"

"I don't think that will be a problem," Gant said. "We will point out the fragility of the global infrastructure and suggest that even if they rebuild it will be a simple matter to destroy it again. We can play topsy-turvy with the magnetic poles for as long as they like."

Margrave grinned. "How does it feel to be one of the gods on Mount Olympus?"

Gant took a sip of his drink. "Intoxicating. But even the gods have housecleaning matters they have to deal with. There's the matter of the woman, Karla Janos."

"The last I heard, we had a team on its way to Siberia to take care of her."

Gant rose from his chair and went over to the French doors. He gazed at the rolling lawns, lost in thought, then turned to Margrave.

"There's something going on and I'm not sure what it is. The assassination team never got any farther than Fairbanks, Alaska. They were all murdered in their hotel rooms."

Margrave set his drink aside. "Murdered?"

"That's right. They were all shot in the head. The killings were done quite professionally. These were crack members of our security company. There was no effort to dispose of the bodies. The executions were bold, even reckless, which makes me think that whoever put the plan together did it in a hurry."

"Who knew about the team?"

"You. Me. And the Russian Mafia, of course."

"You think the Russians are responsible?"

"They're capable of anything. But it doesn't fit. They knew a team was on its way, but had no idea who they were or where they were staying. They were passing themselves off as a television production crew and were due to leave for Siberia within hours when they were killed."

"Do the police have any leads?" Margrave asked.

"One. The charter pilot who was hired to transport the team said he talked to someone who may have been the last one to see them. In fact, he took their place on a charter flight to Siberia. He was an older man, probably in his seventies."

"Your original contact on Karla Janos, the one who killed two security men, wasn't he an older man as well?"

"Yes," Gant said. "My guess is that they are one and the same."

"Who isthis guy? We go looking for Karla Janos and we turn up a killer old enough to collect Social Security."

"When my men broke into his house, they found letters written to Janos on his computer and replies from the woman. He referred to himself as 'Uncle Karl.' "

Margrave frowned. "The dossier we compiled on the Kovacs family never said anything about any uncle."

"I wouldn't worry too much about him. When I let the Russians know that the team wasn't coming for Ms. Janos, they asked what they should do with her. I told them to kill her, and the old man, if they should come across him, as I expect they will."

Margrave nodded. "You've been busy."

"I don't like loose ends, like Kurt Austin, the NUMA man. I think he should be taken out."

"I thought we were going to watch and wait on Austin to see if he developed into a threat."

"When Austin first came into the picture, I looked into his background. He's a marine engineer and salvage expert with NUMA who has been involved in some high-profile missions. He saw the apparatus on Barrett's boat. He's in a position to cause us a great deal of trouble."

"It has the potential for trouble, but it's nothing we can't deal with."

"Are you saying that Austin could torpedo our project?"

"Not if he's dead. As Joseph Stalin said, '… no man, no problem.' Doyle was making plans to take care of Austin. Unfortunately, Mr. Austin left his house suddenly for an unknown destination."

"So what do we do?"

"We keep Austin's house under constant surveillance. When he comes back we solve our problem. In the meantime, I'd suggest that you do everything you can to expedite the technical end of the project."

"Then I'd better get going," Margrave said.

Gant walked his guest to his car. They shook hands and agreed to stay in touch. He was on his way back into his house when the groom came up to him.

"How is the new horse?" Gant said.

"He's lame, sir."

"Shoot him," Gant said. Then he went back into his house.

27

The rooms and passages of the cavern were like a dreamscape. Mineral curtains of soft orange and yellow draped the walls and the stalactites that ranged in size from pencil-thin rods to tall cascading columns as thick as a man's waist hung from the ceiling.

The ethereal beauty of his subterranean surroundings was lost on Schroeder. The bruise on his forehead throbbed like a tom-tom, and walking on the uneven floor of the cave aggravated his swollen ankle. He was struggling up a natural staircase when the exertion triggered a dizzy spell.

His vision swam and he began to see double. The loss of equilibrium made him nauseous. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead even though the air was cool. He stopped and pressed his head against the cave wall. The cold rock had the soothing effect of an ice pack.

Karla was right behind him. She saw him falter and went to his aid.

"Are you all right?"

"I cracked my head back there at the cave entrance. Probably suffered a slight concussion. At least it takes my mind off my sore ankle."

"Maybe we should stop and rest," Karla said.

Schroeder saw a low ledge. He sat down with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He felt as if he had aged twenty years. The dampness was working on his joints, and he was having a hard time breathing. His ankle was swollen so much that he couldn't even see the bone.

For the first time in his life, he felt like an old man. Hell, he wasan old man. He glanced at Karla, who sat beside him, and he was awestruck at how the baby he had awkwardly held in his arms on their first meeting had become a lovely and intelligent young woman. How sad he had never allowed himself to have a family. He consoled himself. Karla washis family. Even if he had not made a pledge to her grandfather, he would have done everything in his power to keep her from harm.

Their respite was short-lived. Muffled voices could be heard coming from the passageway they had just passed through. Schroeder was on his feet instantly. He whispered to Karla to turn the flashlight off. They stood in the darkness and listened. Distorted by the twists and turns in the cave, the echoes were like the mutterings of some troll-like creature. As the voices grew louder, they became more distinct. Men could be heard speaking in Russian.

Schroeder had hoped that he and Karla would not be pushed deeper under the mountain. He had been worried about finding their way back. Apparently, he had underestimated the determination of Grisha and his murderous band of ivory hunters.

Putting his aches and pains aside, he took the lead again. The passageway went down at a shallow angle for a few hundred feet before leveling out. The trek had taken its toll on Schroeder's ankle, and he had to lean against the wall a number of times to keep from falling. They were in danger of losing the race with their pursuers.

Karla was the first to see the cleft in the wall. Schroeder had been so intent on putting distance between them and their pursuers that he had walked by the wrinkle in the limestone where the wall folded in on itself, creating a narrow opening little more than a foot wide and five feet tall.

Schroeder's first instinct was to keep going. The hole could be a death trap. He stuck his head through and saw that the tunnel actually widened after a few feet. He told Karla to wait and he walked for fifty paces or so along the main cave. He placed his flashlight on the floor as if it had been dropped in haste.

The voices got louder. He went back to where Karla was waiting, squeezed his tall body through the cleft, then helped Karla through. They kept moving until they found a place where the cave curved slightly. He slipped the rifle off his shoulder and flattened his back against the wall. The first man through the hole would be dead.

They could see the ghostly glow of lights from the main tunnel. Grisha's harsh voice was clearly identifiable as he urged his men on with threats and jokes. The ivory hunters passed the crevice, and there was an excited yell. They had seen the flashlight. The voices receded.

Schroeder's intention was to slip back into the main tunnel and backtrack, but Grisha was no fool. He must have assumed that the flashlight's placement was too convenient to have been accidental. He and his men turned around and came back to the cleft in the wall.

Schroeder whispered in Karla's ear to get moving. As they hurried through the winding passageway, Schroeder decided their only course of action was to remain on the run. The flashlight beam was growing dimmer, indicating that the batteries were weakening. He would have to pick an ambush spot before they became lost or found themselves deep in the mountain with no light to show the way.

They walked for another ten minutes. The air was musty but it was still breathable, indicating that there was a flow coming in from the outside. The cave narrowed, and Schroeder saw a narrow fissure ahead. He stepped through the breach and his foot came down on thin air. He crashed down onto a slope and rolled several feet.

He crawled over, picked up the light and pointed it at Karla, who was peering from the fissure. The opening was about six feet above the floor. She looked bewildered. One second, Schroeder had been there, leading the way. The next, he had dropped out of sight, the flashlight had gone flying, and she had heard a thud.

"I'm all right," he said. "Be careful, there's a drop."

She eased out of the hole and picked her way down the slope. Schroeder tried to stand. The fall had aggravated his injured ankle even more, and shards of pain shot up his leg when he put weight on his foot. He leaned on Karla's shoulder.

"Where arewe?" she said.

Schroeder explored their surroundings with the flashlight. The tunnel was around thirty feet wide and thirty feet high. A section of the wall collapsed to uncover the hole. The ceiling was vaulted, and, unlike the cave they had come through, the floor was as level as a pancake.

"This isn't a cave," Schroeder said. "It's man-made." He aimed the light at the opposite wall. "Well, it seems we have company."

Life-size figures of men and women adorned the wall. They were painted in profile, as they marched along in a procession, carrying flowers, jugs and baskets of food and herding sheep, cows and goats with the aid of large, wolflike dogs.

The women wore long, diaphanous white dresses and sandals.

The men were dressed in kilts and loose, short-sleeved shirts. Trees and other greenery made a backdrop for the parade.

The people had medium complexions, high cheekbones and raven hair worn in a bun by the females, cut short for the men. Their facial expressions were neither solemn nor happy, but somewhere in between; they could have been out for a Sunday stroll. The colors were brilliant, as if the paint had only been applied the day before.

The murals covered both walls. No figure was repeated. Most were young, in their teens and twenties, but there was a scattering of children and old people, including gray-haired men who wore ornate headgear and could have been priests.

"It looks like a religious procession," Karla said. "They're carrying gifts for a god or a leader."

Schroeder leaned on Karla's shoulder as he limped beside her. As they continued through the tunnel, the figures began to number in the hundreds.

"It's good to have company, in any case," Schroeder said. "Maybe our new friends here will show us the way out."

"They're definitely headed somewhere. Look!"

The mural had changed in nature. There were new animals in the mural-large, lumbering creatures that resembled elephants except for the shaggy, grayish brown fur covering their bodies. Flowers had been twined into their fur. The animals had high-peaked heads, and trunks that were relatively stubby. Some had tusks, almost as long as their bodies, that curved like the runners on an old-fashioned sleigh. Men rode on the animals like Indian mahouts.

"Impossible," Schroeder said.

Spellbound, Karla stepped closer for a better look. In her eagerness, she forgot that Schroeder was using her for a crutch. He went down on one knee.

"I'm so sorry," she said, seeing his predicament. She helped him up. "Do you know what these pictures mean? People of an advanced civilization lived on this island thousands of years before the Egyptians built the Pyramids. Probably back when the island was connected to the mainland. That's astounding enough on its own. But the fact that they had domesticated wild mammoths is just stunning. My paper on man's exploitation of the mammoth is trash! I had primitive man depending on mammoths as a source of food, and utilizing bones and tusks to make tools and weapons. The reality here is that they had learned to use these wild creatures as beasts of burden. This is the scientific discovery of the century. We'll have to rewrite all the textbooks."

"I share your excitement," Schroeder said. "But I think we have to look on the practical side. No one will ever know of this discovery unless we get out of this place."

"I'm sorry, this is just so…" She tore her gaze away from the stunning murals. "What should we do?"

Schroeder flashed the light along the wall. "We will let our friends tell us. The pretty young ladies up there are carrying flowers intothe mountain. I propose that we determine where they came from and see if this tunnel leads outside. As you can see, I'm not ready to run in the Olympics, and our flashlight is dimming."

Karla cast a longing glance at the figures. "You're right. Let's go before I change my mind."

They started back. They had only taken a few steps when they heard men speaking Russian. Grisha and his thugs had found the opening into the main tunnel. Schroeder and Karla had to turn around and go the other way.

Schroeder broke into a loping run. The maneuver put pressure on his swollen ankle, but he gritted his teeth and kept moving. Leaning on Karla helped, but it slowed them down. He suggested that they turn off the flashlight. Its light was so dim now as to be almost useless, but it was bright enough to provide a beacon for their pursuers. Schroeder used his free hand as a guide in the dark, trailing his fingers along the wall. The tunnel seemed to stretch out with no end.

After a few minutes, the voices became louder. Grisha and his band of cutthroats were in full pursuit. Schroeder tried to take bigger steps, but the effort threw him out of synch and actually slowed their progress. He would have to stop soon and tell Karla to go on without him. He was formulating a reply to her expected protests, when Karla said, "I see light."

Schroeder blinked the sweat out of his eyes and squinted into the darkness. There was a paleness ahead that was only one shade removed from complete blackness. He was confused. Maybe he had been wrong about their direction and the wall murals had actually led them out of the mountain.

They kept on moving, and the floor sloped down in a long ramp. The tunnel fed into a vast cavern. The space was filled as far as the eye could see with two-story, flat-roofed buildings. The structures were built of material that glowed with a silvery green that cast the scene in a dusky light.

Rough voices came from behind and jerked them out of their trance. With a mixture of awe and apprehension, they began to descend the long ramp into the crystal city.