by Sean Blaise
"You have it?" Raul asked.
Dmitry slide the money case along the floor. The man popped the locks on the floor and glanced quickly inside. He reached into one of the stacks of cash at the bottom and pulled out a crisp hundred dollar note. A marker pen came swiftly out of his jacket and he checked the bill for counterfeits. It passed. He grunted, his pug face smiling as much as it could to be considered a smile. He looked up at the man holding Claire and nodded. The man released her arms and she flew to John. He grabbed her and held her sobs to his chest.
"Tell your boss, thank you. I look forward to next time," Raul said with a smirk.
Dmitry finally reacted. He slammed his hand down on the case. "My boss asked for your employer’s name."
Raul looked around. He didn't see any extra hands. And yet the Russian was threatening him when he had two of his own men standing behind him armed. He was suddenly afraid. He tried to hold the tremble in his voice to a minimum.
"Chung-Ho is the name, a Korean. It's all I know. He hired me to grab a crew member and force a trade for a case, which I have no idea what that it is."
Dmitry nodded. "Chung-Ho, did you ever see him?"
Raul shook his head, no, and stood up. John looked at Dmitry wondering if that was it. Was there no way to stop them? Dmitry just shook his head.
And with that Raul was gone. Dmitry looked over at the Asian businessman who had suddenly stood up too. The Asian man glanced at his watch with poor acting and headed for the door Raul had just excited. Dmitry had little doubt that it was the Chung-Ho that Raul had just mentioned. Dmitry stood up.
"John, take her in a cab, and go back to the Ivana, now."
John lifted the still sobbing Claire to her feet carefully.
"What are you going to do?" he began to ask when Dmitry looked straight at him.
"John, stop asking questions you don't want to hear the answers to."
Dmitry walked out the door less than a minute behind Raul and Chung-Ho.
Chapter 87
Dmitry slid back into the black Mercedes and turned the car on. He turned the A/C up and the radio down. He could hear the muffled sounds of the man he still had tied up in the trunk. Dmitry drove slowly down the street following Chung-Ho, who was following Raul.
After twenty minutes Chung-Ho stopped in front of a derelict building as Raul and his two men walked up the main entrance to their building. Dmitry could see Chung-Ho flip open his cell phone and make a phone call. Dmitry parked the Mercedes across from the building and got out.
He opened the trunk of the Mercedes and looked down at gagged street urchin who John had captured when Claire was taken. Dmitry had the knife in his hand as he reached down into the trunk. At the sight of the knife, that had removed half of his fingers, the man screamed into his duct taped mouth and tried to slink even further back into the trunk. Dmitry grabbed the man roughly and dragged him out of the trunk. Dmitry ripped the tape off the man's face and turned him to face the building.
Dmitry pointed at the building Raul had gone into. "Your gang lives there?"
"Yes." The man was incredibly forthcoming now that Dmitry had proven that he had far more to fear from the Russian than anyone else alive.
"Who is inside?"
"Just Raul and our guys. It's an abandoned building."
"We made a deal with your boss. We got our crew member back. You are free to go. Do not cross us again."
With that Dmitry cut the man's restraints. The man hesitated a minute, unsure if it was a trick until Dmitry pointed the knife at him and said, "go, before I remove something else."
The man took off at a sprint toward the building. Dmitry could still see Chung-Ho on the corner. Dmitry watched Chung-Ho stiffen at the sight of the bloodied man running up the steps to the building and he began talking even faster on his cell phone.
Dmitry got back into the car and reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a Glock 17. He screwed the metal silencer into the barrel and picked up the burner cell phone he had purchased in the port when they had arrived. Dmitry put the car in drive and slowly drove toward the building entrance and the corner Chung-Ho was still standing on.
As Dmitry approached the corner, he pressed the speed dial #1 on the burner phone with his gloved hand. The cell phone receiver inside the money case given to Raul rang once, sending electrical current to the Semtex explosive inside the case lid. The entire floor of the building exploded, vaporizing Raul and his gang inside. Chung-Ho was thrown to the sidewalk by the concussive blast.
Chung-Ho was completely disoriented by the blast. He was covered in dust and his ears were bleeding. He stumbled from the corner towards the street and away from the smoke that was billowing out of the building.
Just then a black Mercedes pulled up blocking the street in front of him. The window rolled down and Dmitry asked, "are you ok, Chung-Ho?"
There was no mistaking Chung-Ho's reaction to hearing his own name. He looked positively shocked. And even more surprised when Dmitry brought the Glock up point-blank and shot Chung-Ho three times in the heart. Dmitry tossed the burner phone at Chung-Ho's body and rolled up the window up and drove away.
Nobody touched Alexi's people and lived to tell the tale.
Chapter 88
The knock came on Alexi's cabin door earlier than expected. But Alexi knew it was time.
"Come in," Alexi said.
John turned the ornate gold handle and pushed the heavy, oak door open. He entered and closed it quickly behind him. Alexi was seated at his office desk, in a heavy leather chair that seemed to enshrine him. It made him look small, and weary, and heavy bags under Alexi's eyes showed severe exhaustion. He had apparently not slept much since Claire's abduction. John would normally have been concerned for Alexi's well-being; but he was convinced that Alexi was to blame for much of what had happened to the boat and crew recently, so his pity was nullified by anger.
Alexi could see in an instant that he would have to tell John everything. The man was too smart; and too angry to hold anything back. Alexi knew he couldn't let John go any further without letting him know what he was getting into. It would have to be John's choice to proceed.
"Have a seat," Alexi said.
"I'd rather stand,” said John.
"It will be a long story, I suggest you sit," Alexi replied.
John finally slumped down in the chair in front of Alexi's desk. His legs breathed a sigh of relief, and he was secretly happy to be sitting. The last few days of recovering, Claire had taken an enormous toll on his reserves, both mental and physical. He was worn out.
"How's Claire?" Alexi asked.
"As well as she can be.”
“She will recover fully."
"She had better, Alexi."
"Has she left already?"
John nodded. The truth was he was crushed. Seeing her that shaken up and vulnerable made him want to protect her even more. But she had gone through enough. He couldn't blame her. In only two weeks, she had crashed in a helicopter, nearly been killed, and kidnapped. John realized that he was somehow becoming immune to how crazy the last two weeks had been.
Alexi nodded knowingly. He understood John's feelings. To have a woman you cared for, harmed, and hurt was a difficult blow for a man to take. Especially, such men as Alexi and John: men that were used to controlling the world around them. They were used to having the world respect their wills. John had been made powerless by Claire's abduction; although he had fought valiantly to protect her. He had felt weak, and angry at his own inability to protect his woman. It reminded him of the World Ocean School fiasco when there had been a murder on his school ship Beagle. He hadn’t been able to protect her either.
How serious Claire and John were, was unknown to Alexi, but he knew it mattered little. Any intimacy at all that had been shared between them would have been enough to make John feel responsible for her, in some way. Alexi had a feeling that John and Claire would be closer now, if John could just forgive himself. Looking at John'
s dark brown eyes, that burned fiercely with raging questions and anger, Alexi doubted that forgiving himself would be easy at all. If it was even possible.
Alexi reached out to the gold encrusted globe of the world on his table. Each country was inlaid in a specific gemstone, giving the globe a glaring look of contrast between each country. It was worth a fortune. It was a gift from a Chinese businessman, with whom Alexi had built a shipping empire in Singapore. It opened in half, and inside were 2 crystal glasses, and a tumbler of vodka. The vodka was distilled over 30 times, giving it a smoothness of water, and a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a bottle.
He poured each glass well past the halfway mark before placing one glass in front of John.
"Za vashe zdorovye!" Alexi said, toasting his glass.
John nodded and downed a big gulp before looking squarely at Alexi. Alexi knew he could put it off no longer.
"Go ahead. Ask your questions, John."
"Why did you refuse to give up the case for Claire? I don't understand, the case is just the location of the ship and it's approximate. We don't even know if it's there. What is so damn important in that sunken ship that you're willing to let Claire die for? The gold? Is that it? Five hundred million in gold that we don't even know for sure is there?"
Alexi looked angrily at John. He was insulted that John thought that he would ever sacrifice one of his crew for money. Any amount of money. The opposite was true.
"John, you don't understand."
"Then explain."
"I will. We are no longer pursuing the Pearl. At least not that one."
"What do you mean, 'that one?' There are two Pearls?" John asked.
"Not exactly. Let me start at the beginning."
Alexi took a long drag from his glass before refilling it. He was searching for the right words, and the right information to give John without putting him in jeopardy. Alexi gave up. He knew that he had to tell John the whole truth.
"The Pearl, our sunken treasure ship, which we are currently searching for, is real. As our research has shown, it was laden with gold and did go down somewhere in the islands of French Polynesia. During that research, I tried to narrow the search parameters, so we didn't have to survey the entire South Pacific. I hired a Mr. Dubois, to do some research for me. He was an expert, obviously, in French history; but, also, the Government bureaucracy. He was able to get access to records that you and I could not."
"And?"
"He found something else. As he was digging, he found records pointing to something else known as the ‘Pearl’. He asked me if I wanted further information. Naturally, I thought it would be of interest. Of course, he wanted more money. Significantly more. I agreed to pay him, with conditions. The information was mine, and for my eyes only. He agreed."
"And lied."
Alexi nodded.
"I failed to hear from him for a while afterword. I figured he had found the exact location of the sunken ship and had found interested investors. Investors who had offered to cut him in on the share of the bounty; so he sold me out. It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last. I assumed that he would surface eventually. In the meantime, we still had plenty of data to launch our own expedition as we had already planned. I doubted that he was at that much of an advantage, since it would take a while for anyone other than us to mount such an expensive expedition. First, I had to close the oil refinery purchase in Yemen. Business must supersede the pleasure of hobbies, like treasure hunting."
"Of course," John said.
"It was during my time in Yemen that I was contacted by an old acquaintance, who informed me that he had been contacted by the very same Mr. Dubois selling valuable information. I, through a proxy, determined the following, that he was being very sloppy and contacting everyone in the black-market world. All in the effort to start a bidding war for the information. His sum was exorbitant; I knew that he could not possibly be selling information to just a shipwreck; this was something else. And the list of people he was contacting for bids were the type of people with more nefarious interests than my own."
Otter could feel his pulse starting to rise. He had the feeling that what he was about to hear wouldn't be unheard.
"Go on," Otter urged.
"So, I sent Dmitry to act as my proxy as Mr. Dubois had never met him before and would not recognize him. It was through Dmitry that I discovered that the Frenchman had found a second 'Pearl'.
"There were two ships?" John asked.
"No, not a ship, something far more dangerous," Alexi said.
Chapter 89
There weren’t two ships?" John asked Alexi, while sipping his vodka again. A slow, lethargic warmth was beginning to crawl down his spine.
"No. At first, I thought the same; but, later, I found out that the ‘Pearl’ was a code name, given to a project by the French Navy."
Alexi reached into the case John remembered Dmitry carrying when they evacuated the Ivana. He pulled out a folder and dropped it in front of Otter.
"You see, sailors are superstitious folk; and the legend of the Tahitian Pearl treasure galleon, was rich and fabled in South Pacific bars. Over too much wine, French Sailors would tell each other what they would do if they ever stumbled upon the wreck. It was so well known that it became the perfect name for a highly, top secret project."
"Which was?" John asked, as he opened the folder in front of him.
"A nuclear bomb. As you know, the South Pacific was the site of heavy underwater testing for nuclear weapons _ by many countries, including France."
"I remember reading something about it. They switched to underwater testing because it was more hidden and harder to track."
"Precisely, Mr. Otter. I am impressed, as usual."
Alexi paused and gave Otter an appraising glance. The kid never ceased to surprise him. He would be a formidable partner indeed.
"But what does that have to do with our lost treasure ship? How does this all tie together?" John asked impatiently.
"Nothing. Except sharing the common name. The ‘Pearl’ was a code name for an experimental French nuclear warhead. The Pearl Bomb was a special, new kind of weapon. It was a prototype that the French had been working on for years in secret. It was known as a Cascade Bomb. Basically, one core of plutonium would explode outward, and in the process, it would release super, high-powered neutrons. Do you remember your physics as well, Otter?"
"No, I always sucked at science."
"The neutrons are the catalyst to the nuclear reaction. They upset the balance of the atoms, breaking them apart releasing the catastrophic energy in an explosion. But in the cascade weapon, more neutrons were produced than normal. Enough to start multiple nuclear reactions at once. The core was designed to blast outward, sending tiny atoms at the speed of light away from the epicenter of the blast. These clusters, really minute cells, would stick together when a second explosion, or, rather, implosion of the shock wave of the initial detonation, would release a bombardment of neutrons. That would strike these clusters of plutonium now miles away from the epicenter. These clusters, would then react to the neutrons, setting off devastating smaller, nuclear explosions for miles around the original blast site. The devastation would be massive, an unprecedented scale at the time."
"Dropping one bomb wasn't enough, they wanted to drop one, that would in turn set off ten," John said.
"Unfortunately, yes. The French were looking for a weapon that would place them ahead of the Americans and the Russians. A sort of coup d'état, that would protect them from these two, growing superpowers. Naturally had the Americans or Russians found out about the weapon, they would have sought to destroy it or copy it. The French code named it after a local shipwreck legend, the Tahitian Pearl. A shipwreck that was always talked about, and never given any mind. Genius, hiding it in plain sight.”
"What happened to the bomb, did it work?" John asked.
"No. This is the irony of the story. The test failed. Someone sabotaged the project," Alexi said.
> "How?"
"When they tested nuclear bombs underwater, they would hang the bomb on a cable beneath a large barge. The barge would have the electricity to ignite the bomb and test equipment to monitor the explosion; and it would, of course, be destroyed by the blast. The bomb was down about 350 meters, when the cable snapped. The bomb, disconnected from its barge, fell into the deep. Local legend said that a great whale swam in and took the bomb away to the depths of the sea to protect Polynesia and its people. However, the French government suspected local islanders, working with sympathetic and interbred French Naval personnel, destroyed the weapon to stop the nuclear testing in the South Pacific for good."
"And did they?"
"Not all the testing; but the cascade bomb concept was finished. It had cost the French a fortune to build the prototype, and it became too costly to build a second one. The French stuck to the conventional nuclear weapons they knew and had already developed. They built up their arsenal numbers as a deterrent instead. And they let the whole idea of the cascade weapon lay where it was: in the very deepest parts of the Pacific."
"And the bomb?"
"You mean The Tahitian Pearl? John, that is what the Mr. Dubois found. He found the location of an unexploded nuclear bomb.”
Chapter 90
Pierre walked into France's office without knocking. Frances looked up from his crossword puzzle annoyed, when Pierre dropped Abdul's photo on his desk. Frances picked it up carefully.
"That's our man," Pierre said, dropping down in the chair in front of Frances’ desk.
Frances felt a twinge of anger. He had wanted Pierre to fail, finally. The familiar pang of envy plucked at his heart as he looked Pierre. "I assume you have proof?"
Pierre smirked. "Of course. He was located at the very same hotel on the very same night of Mr. Dubois’ death."
"As I'm sure any number of other persons were as well. Shall we round them all up?" Frances asked, throwing the picture back at Pierre.