White Death

by Clive Cussler

  At a word from Barker, a guard went over to a cooler and ex- tracted a frozen cod around two feet long. He slid back the plastic lid covering one of the tanks and tossed the carcass into the water. Within seconds, the cod disappeared in a bloody froth.

  “I've made dinner reservations for you,” Barker said.

  “No thanks, we've already eaten,” Austin said.

  Barker studied the faces of the two men, but saw no sign of fear, only defiance. He frowned and said, “I'll give you and your partner time to think about your fate, to imagine what it feels like to be torn apart by razor-sharp teeth and scattered over the ocean. Our men will come for you shortly after we stop at our facility on the coast to re- fuel. Adieu, gentlemen.”

  Barker's men grabbed Austin and Zavala and hustled them down a corridor leading to a storage room. They were shoved inside, and the door was locked behind them.

  Austin tried the lock, then found a seat on a pile of cardboard boxes.

  “You don't seem very worried about being fed to the fishes,” Zavala said.

  “I have no intention of providing entertainment for that white- eyed freak and his cretinous henchmen. By the way, I liked your comment about Kiolyan women.”

  “It went against my grain. As you know, I love women of any kind. They have a lot to put up with, with their menfolk running around killing and sacrificing people. So, Mr. Houdini, how do we escape this little mess?”

  “I guess we bust our way out of here.”

  “Uh-huh. And assuming we can get beyond that door, what chance do the two of us have against a battalion of armed men?”

  “There are three of us, actually.”

  Zavala looked around. “An invisible friend, no doubt.” Austin peeled out of his coat and drew the sword from its scab- bard. Even in the faint light inside the storage room, the blade seemed to glow. "This is my friend-Durendal7'

  NUMA 4 - White Death

  38

  THE CATAMARAN CAME in like a marine landing craft, and the twin hulls slid partway onto the shore with a shriek of fiber' glass against gravel. The boat had no sooner come to a grinding halt than the people on board started to pile off. Ben Nighthawk was the first to hit the ground, followed by the Basques and the SOS crew. They helped the villagers climb down, and the group headed inland. Only Ben and Diego stayed behind.

  Jesse Nighthawk turned and saw his son lingering on the beach. He shooed the other villagers into the woods and walked back to where Ben was standing.

  “Why aren't you coming?” the old man said.

  “Go on without me,” Ben replied. “I've been talking to Diego. We have work to do.”

  “What do you mean? What sort of work?”

  Ben looked across the lake. “Revenge.” “You can't go back!” Jesse said. “It's too dangerous.” Diego, who had been listening to the exchange, said, “The heli- copter pilots who were shot down were our friends. Their death can- not go unanswered.”

  “Those people killed my cousin,” Ben said. “They beat and tor- tured my friends and family. They've raped our beautiful forest.”

  Jesse couldn't see his son's face in the shadows, but there was no mistaking the determination in Ben's voice. “Very well,” he said sadly.

  “I will see the others to safety.”

  Marcus Ryan emerged from the woods, trailed by Chuck Mercer and Therri Weld. “What's going on?” he said, sensing the somber at- mosphere.

  “Ben and this man are going back,” Jesse said. “I tried to stop them. They want to get themselves killed.”

  Ben put his hand on his father's shoulder. “That's the last thing I want to do, Pop. I can't speak for Diego, but at the very least, I want to wipe that big fake igloo off the face of the earth.”

  “That's a tall order for two men,” Ryan said. “You'll need help.” “Thanks, Mark, I know you mean well, but the others need you more than we do.”

  “You're not the only one who has a score to settle,” Ryan said. His voice gained a steely edge. “Barker killed Joshua, and he sank my ship. Now he's trying to kill the oceans. I owe him big-time. That thing on the other side of the lake is no grass hut. You're not going to blow it down with a huff and a puff.”

  “We know that. We'll figure it out.”

  “You don't have time for trial and error. I know how we can send that dome into the stratosphere.” Ryan turned to Mercer. “You re- member what we talked about?”

  “Yeah, I remember. We said we could give Barker a big hotfoot if we got the chance.”

  “Well, Ben, how about it?” Ryan said. “Are we in?”

  “It's not my decision alone.” He turned to Diego.

  The Basque said, "There are many of them and only a few of us.

  Pablo is out of action. We would have to be very lucky merely to stay alive."

  Ben hesitated. “Okay, Mark. You're in.”

  Ryan's mouth widened in a triumphant grin. “We'll need some ex- plosives. Our C-4 was taken away when we were captured.”

  “My brother and I have some hand grenades,” Diego said, reach- ing over to tap his backpack. “Three apiece. Enough?”

  In answer, Ryan glanced at Mercer, who said, “It could work if they're positioned in the right place.”

  “What can I do?” said Therri, who had been listening to the dis- cussion.

  “Ben's people are in pretty tough shape,” Ryan said. “They'll need your help, especially the kids.”

  “I'll do my best,” Therri said. She kissed him and gave Mercer and Ben a peck on the cheek as well. “Take care of yourselves.”

  As Therri made her way back into the forest, Ben and the other men pushed the catamaran off the beach and climbed aboard. The boat's twin hulls and powerful motors gave it a respectable speed. They scudded over the surface of the lake and soon reached the op- posite shore. Pablo and Diego rode shotgun in the bow as the boat coasted up to the pier. They quickly tied up and headed inland.

  Mercer made a stop at the boat shed and emerged with two reels of three-eighths docking line, some cord and a roll of duct tape. Walking single file, they detoured around the plaza. With Ryan in the lead, the group made its way undetected to the side of the dome.

  Ryan found what he was looking for: a tall, cylindrical fuel tank lo- cated in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. Painted on the side was a warning that the tank contained highly flammable contents. A steel pipe about six inches in diameter ran from the tank to the side of the building. Next to where the pipe entered the airship hangar was a locked door. Like the dome itself, the door was made of a plas- tic material and easily gave way to the strength and determination be- hind Diego's shoulders.

  Then he and the others stepped into a short passageway that ran parallel to the pipe for several yards. The conduit disappeared through a wall next to another door, this one unlocked. Ryan took the lead and opened the door a crack, giving him a view of the inte- rior of the airship hangar. Men milled around in the middle of the building, where the airship had been tied down. Others were coiling lines or moving gantries and scaffolding. A few guards were drift- ing out the hangar's main door.

  Ryan motioned for the others to stay put while he and Mercer stepped into the hangar. They crawled along the wall behind tall stacks of coiled hose until they came to where the pipe entered the building. Barker had gestured toward the hose when he had ex- plained why he used hydrogen rather than helium to fill the airship's gasbags. A valve controlled by a large hand-turned wheel allowed the flow of gas into the hose. Ryan turned the wheel on the pipe until they could hear the hiss of gas escaping through the nozzle.

  The escaping gas rose to the roof, where it wouldn't be detected, they hoped, until it was too late. With their work done, they slipped out the door and followed the passageway into the open. Ben and Diego had been equally busy. Following Mercer's instructions, they had taped the hand grenades onto the tank. Short lengths of cord had been attached to the safety-pin rings and ganged to the line from one of the spools. Ryan and Mercer inspect
ed the work, found it satis- factory, then walked back to the lake, uncoiling the line behind them. They tried to run the line straight back to the lake, keeping it clear of bushes and trees where it could snag.

  When they'd emptied one two-hundred-foot-long spool, they spliced the free end onto another spool. They were still a dozen yards short of the lake when that spool gave out, too. Mercer ducked into the boat shed and came out with several lengths and sizes of rope that they spliced together until the rope reached to the water's edge. When all was ready, Diego headed back to the plaza and took a position be- hind a thick tree.

  With their work inside the hangar done, Kiolyan men were streaming out into the plaza, some of them heading in the direction of their barracks. The Basque coldly took a bead on a guard and let off a short burst. The man fell to the ground. More guards came running from the direction of the barracks and began to fire indis- criminately into the woods where they saw muzzle flashes, but Diego moved after each kill and the bullets went far wide of their targets. When two more of their number were killed, the men in the plaza ran for the door of the giant igloo.

  Diego had counted on exactly this reaction. He had tried to pick off the men who were making a break for the woods. The effect was to herd the guards into the “protection” of the structure. He knew that, given time, they would emerge from other exits in the dome and fan out into the woods and try a flanking maneuver. But as the last man disappeared into the airship hangar, leaving the plaza deserted, Diego was already sprinting back to the beach.

  Waiting on shore, where he and the others had been alerted by the sound of gunfire, Ryan saw Diego running toward him and handed the end of the line to Ben.

  “Would you like to do the honors?”

  “Thanks,” Ben said, taking the line. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

  Ryan turned to the other men. “When Ben yanks on that line, dive into the water and keep your head under for as long as you can. Okay, Ben. Let'er rip!”

  Ben jerked hard on the line, then dropped it and dove with the others into the lake. They filled their lungs with air, then ducked below the surface. Nothing happened. Ryan poked his head out and swore. He sloshed out of the lake onto the beach, picked up the loose end of the line and gave it a tug. It tugged back as if caught on a branch.

  “I'll check. Must be hung up on something,” he called out to the others, and followed the line inland.

  Ryan was only partly right. The line was snagged on someone, not something. A stray guard had seen Diego bolt for the lake and had gone over to investigate. He was holding the line in his hand when he saw Ryan approach from the beach. Ryan was bent low, his eyes following the line, and he never saw the man level his gun. The first sign that he was not alone was the impact of the bullet hitting him in the shoulder like a fiery hammer blow. He dropped to his knees.

  The guard never got off another shot. Diego, who had been fol- lowing Ryan's trail, let off a burst that stitched its way across the guard's chest. The guard was thrown back by the impact, but his fingers clutched the line in a death grip. Ryan watched through filmy eyes as the guard fell, his weight pulling on the line. An alarm sounded in his brain, cutting through the pain and confusion, and he tried to rise, but his legs were made of rubber. Then he felt strong hands lifting him to his feet and guiding him back toward the lake. They were almost at the water's edge, when the lake lit up as if it had been sprayed with phosphorescent paint.

  When the guard had toppled over, the tug had been transmitted along the line to the grenade rings. They'd popped out, and the levers had gone flying, igniting the fuse train. Six seconds later, the grenades went off simultaneously. A millisecond after that, the hydrogen in the tank ignited. The fiery gas rushed along the short length of the pipe and exited through the nozzle as if it were expelled from the busi- ness end of a flamethrower. The spurting flames touched off the in- visible cloud of hydrogen hanging under the dome.

  The airship hangar became a hell for the Kiolyan guards. Satu- rated with hydrogen, the superheated air exploded inside the dome, instantly incinerating flesh and bone. The dome contained the heat for only a few seconds, glowing white hot, before the thick plastic cells that formed the walls evaporated. But the delay before the final explosion of flames gave Ryan and Diego the time they needed. They gained the water's edge and dove into the lake as the dome exploded and sent out sheets of flame that vaporized the surrounding forest and outbuildings. Blistering waves of heat rippled out in every di- rection.

  Hampered by his wound, Ryan had only taken a quick gulp of air before plunging into the lake, and his lungs were only partially filled. He saw the water light up and heard a muffled roar, and he stayed under for as long as he could before popping his head up. When he surfaced, thick smoke from the burning forest stung his eyes, but he paid no attention to the pain. He stared in awe at the mushroom cloud rising high in the sky from the field of orange-glowing embers that marked the place where he had last seen the dome. It made the Hindenburg explosion look like a candle flame.

  Like otters coming up for air, Ben, Mercer and Diego stuck their heads out of the water and shared his wonder. Each of them had lost a friend or a relative to the schemes of Barker and his Kiolyan henchmen. But there was no smugness or satisfaction at the de- struction they had caused. They knew that justice had been only partially served. The mad geneticist had been hurt but not stopped. By the flickering light of the burning trees, they swam to the cata- maran, the three of them helping Ryan through the water. Minutes later, the boat was moving across the water, leaving the smoldering funeral pyre in its wake.

  NUMA 4 - White Death

  39

  AUSTIN SAT ON the box offish antibiotics, holding the sword blade between his knees, his head bent against the hilt. A stranger would have seen this pose as one of dejection, but Zavala knew better. Austin would act when he was ready.

  Zavala was keeping himself occupied with a set of exercises that were part yoga, part Zen and part old-fashioned shadowboxing to loosen him up and focus his mind. He finished demolishing an imag- inary opponent with a left uppercut and a quick right cross, brushed his palms together and said, “I've just knocked out Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali in quick succession.”

  Austin looked up and said, “Save some punches for Barker and his pals. We're starting to descend.”

  Austin had been gambling that Barker was telling the truth when he said that he intended to feed them to his so-called pets and dump what was left into the Atlantic Ocean. A murderer like Barker would resort to any form of violence and duplicity to achieve his goals, but his inflated vision of himself extended to his godlike pronounce- ments of life and death. If Barker said he would kill them over the Atlantic, he meant it.

  Austin had been waiting for the refueling stop, hoping the zep- pelin's crew would be distracted as the great airship came in for a landing. The guards had taken the men's wristwatches, and it was impossible to keep accurate track of the passage of time. After see- ing that they were cut off from sight and sound, Austin had stuck the sword point into the floor and put his ear against the hilt. The sword picked up the engine vibrations like a stylus on a record player. In the last few minutes, the pitch had changed. The engines had slowed. He stood and walked over to the sturdy wood-paneled door. They had put their shoulders against it earlier, but all they had gotten for their trouble were bruises.

  Austin knocked softly on the door. He wanted to be sure no guard was standing on the other side. When there was no reply, he gripped the sword hilt in two hands, lifted the blade over his head and brought it down, putting all the considerable strength in his thick arms behind the thrust.

  The wood splintered, but the blade didn't go through the door.

  Using the point, he pried off a section as big as his hand, then enlarged it. Working furiously, he opened a hole big enough to slip his arm through. The latch had been padlocked. After several more minutes, taking turns hacking at the wood with Zavala, they cut
the latch off and pushed the door open. Seeing no guards, they cautiously made their way back to the fish hold. Austin leaned over the gangway.

  “Sorry to disappoint you boys,” he said to the milky shapes swim- ming around in the tanks, “but we have other dinner plans.”

  “They probably don't like Mexican food anyhow,” Zavala said.

  “Check out the water level.”

  The surface of the water was at a slant, indicating that the zeppe- lin was inclined at a forward angle. They were on their way down. Austin wanted to get into the control car but suspected it would be heavily defended. They would have to be more creative. Again he looked for an answer in Barker's psychotic personality. In his ram- bling discourse, Barker had revealed more than he should have.

  “Hey, Joe,” Austin said thoughtfully, “do you remember what our host said about the sluice gates?”

  “They keep the more aggressive fish separated. Otherwise, his lit- tle pets would chew themselves to pieces.”

  “He also said that the systems on this gasbag are hot-wired. I'll bet that when the sluice gates are removed, an alarm goes off. How would you like to create a little chaos?”

  Austin pulled up one of the gates. The fish on either side of the gate had come to the top of the tank, thinking that the presence of a human meant they were about to be fed. When the gate was re- moved, they all froze for an instant. Then their fins became a blur. There was a flash of silvery white and snapping jaws. Recalling the fate Barker had planned for them, Austin and Zavala watched the silent battle with a cold feeling in the pits of their stomachs. Within seconds, the tanks were filled with blood and fish parts. The creatures had ripped each other to shreds.