Medusa nf-8

by Clive Cussler

  He switched on a waterproof flashlight he had bought at the shop. Visibility was limited in the murky water, but the light picked out the broken basalt that had once been the islet’s foundation. Austin swam around the perimeter, then came back up to the rental boat.

  Whittles had suggested that the coral core supporting the temple had crumbled when the earthquake throttled the city, causing the building to sink to the bottom of the enclosure and the walls to collapse on top of it.

  Austin swam around the pile again, this time at a different depth, and saw an opening where basalt slabs had fallen down at an angle. He poked his flashlight into the cavity. The light petered out, suggesting that there was open space behind. Austin twisted through the tight space, banging his air tank against the basalt.

  Once he was through the passage, Austin swept the flashlight around and saw that he was in a cavelike chamber created when the inner and outer walls collapsed against one another. Even if the temple had not been destroyed, it was hidden behind the wreckage of the inner wall, which had fallen on top of and around it.

  Austin thought he had reached the end of his explorations and was preparing to retrace his route when he made another sweep of the chamber with his light. This time, there was something peculiar about the way the shadows fell on the debris to his right. He swam closer, and saw that a slab had fallen and was blocking some columns, thus creating a breach.

  Austin slithered through the breach, and, after swimming a few yards, came upon an almost perfectly rectangular entryway. The temple slanted down to the left, and the entry should have been plugged by debris except that its lintel had fallen in such a way that the opening was intact. He made a quick visual check to assure himself that the entryway wouldn’t collapse, then swam through it and into the temple itself.

  Austin’s flashlight immediately fell on the pool that Whittles had described. It was rectangular, about twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Debris had fallen in it, but Austin estimated it was around six feet deep. Playing his light against one of the walls, he saw that he was not alone.

  Carved on the wall were six male figures dressed in loincloths. They were standing in profile, each holding a basin over his head. Three figures faced one another on either side of a huge bell-shaped jellyfish whose tentacles dropped down to a three-by-six-foot waist-high stone dais built against the wall. Austin flashed the light around the room and saw identical carvings and daises on each wall.

  He moved in closer, tracing the contours of one of the jellyfish with his fingers, as if doing so would connect him with the ancient cult of healers. Then he backed off several feet and dug out the throwaway flash camera. He clicked off a dozen shots, then tucked it away.

  Eager to tell Lee what he had found, Austin swam out of the temple and wriggled through the outer and inner walls. Looking up to get his bearings, he saw the boat silhouetted against the shimmering surface. As he ascended, his ears picked up the muted buzz of a boat engine. The high-revving noise grew louder. Austin wondered why anyone would be speeding through the peaceful canal. Then an alarm went off in his brain.

  He followed the anchor line up. His head broke the surface a few feet from the boat. Pushing his mask up on his forehead, blinking into the bright sunlight, he saw an inflatable pontoon boat coming from the entrance of the canal and speeding his direction. It was too far away for him to see the passengers’ faces clearly, but the sun glinted off the shiny bald pate of Chang, the Triad’s gang leader who had attacked the Beebe. The needle on Austin’s danger meter swung into the red zone.

  Song Lee was sitting in the rental boat, oblivious to the looming threat. Austin yelled, pointed at the fast-moving inflatable coming in their direction. The smile Lee had greeted his reappearance with became a puzzled frown. Austin glanced back at the inflatable. He was close enough to see the grin on Chang’s face as he knelt in the bow with a weapon up to his shoulder. He would have been on them in seconds, but the kayaks seen earlier entered and blocked the way. The inflatable swerved to miss the kayaks, but its wash capsized two of them.

  Austin took advantage of the seconds lost in performing the tricky maneuver.

  “Jump!” he yelled to Lee.

  She put her hands on the boat’s gunwale and leaned over the water, not comprehending the danger she was in, until she saw the muzzle flashes and heard the rattle of gunfire. A line of geysers erupted across the water that led directly to her boat as inexorably as a buzz saw. She froze with fear.

  Austin pushed himself out of the water as high as he could go, reached up, and grabbed Lee by the front of her blouse and pulled her back down with him. She tumbled over the gunwale into the canal just seconds before Chang’s bullets ripped into the boat, sending up a shower of fiberglass splinters.

  Lee’s additional weight dragged them both down several feet. Austin then expelled air from his buoyancy compensator and they sank even deeper. He put one arm around her waist, as if leading her through a waltz step, and with his free hand pointed the flashlight at his face. She had reflexively taken a gulp of air before hitting the water but now had used up her supply and was flailing in panic. Austin released her, took a deep breath, then removed the regulator from his mouth and pointed to the bubbles streaming from the mouthpiece.

  Lee’s eyes were wide with fright, but she understood what Austin was trying to convey. She took the mouthpiece and clamped it between her teeth. As she filled her lungs, the panic in her eyes subsided. She then passed the mouthpiece back to Austin.

  Buddy-breathing would keep them alive, but there was still Chang and his men to deal with. This became abundantly clear when Austin saw a foamy splash in the water, then another. Chang’s men were diving off the boat.

  The men easily could have tracked Austin and Lee in the shallow waters of the canal by following their air bubbles on the surface. Eventually, Chang might get lucky, or he simply could wait until the two used up their air supply. But he was impatient.

  Austin drew air into his lungs, passed the mouthpiece back to Lee, and pointed with his index finger.

  This way.

  Taking Lee by the hand, he swam deeper, toward the entrance of the temple enclosure. Chang’s men were at a disadvantage without air and were quickly outdistanced. By the time their prey vanished through the temple wall, the men were swimming back to the surface. Chang’s boat moved back and forth, searching for telltale bubbles. Not seeing any, Chang assumed that his targets had slipped past him. He ordered that the inflatable move farther out into the canal. By then, Austin and Lee were inside the temple.

  Lee was buddy-breathing like a pro, but she almost gulped down a mouthful of water when Austin showed her the wall carvings. Like Austin, she too put her hand on the jellyfish. She shook her head in frustration at not being able to talk. Austin pointed to the camera clipped to his vest and signaled OK with his thumb and index finger.

  They perched on the edge of the temple pool, sharing the air supply and taking in the marvelous carvings. Austin checked the supply, then tapped his wristwatch and pointed toward the temple entrance. Buddy-breathing was using up the air in the tank twice as fast. Lee nodded in understanding. They swam side by side, as if joined at the hip, until they came to the outer wall. Austin signaled Lee to wait. He slipped out of his vest and swam out into the canal. All was quiet. He looked up at the surface but saw no sign of Chang or the rental boat.

  He heard the sound of a engine, but to his practiced ear it sounded different from the inflatable’s high-revving one. He decided to take a chance. Moving closer to the foundation of the islet, he surfaced and peered out from behind an outcropping where the basalt base had collapsed.

  A tour boat was moving along the canal toward the rental boat, which was submerged except for the bow, which stuck out of the water at an angle. More important, Chang and his men had vanished.

  Austin waved until someone in the tour boat saw him. When the boat turned his direction, he took a deep breath and went back for Song Lee. He gave her a thumbs-up,
then pointed upward. She repeated the OK, and together they slowly rose to the surface.

  CHAPTER 37

  SHORTLY AFTER THE SIKORSKY SEAHAWK LIFTED OFF FROM Pohnpei, Zavala had slipped a chart from the TOP SECRET pouch Austin had put in his safekeeping and matched the specks on it to the islands and atolls he could see from the helicopter. Ensign Daley tapped him on the shoulder and pointed directly ahead, where silhouettes of ships dotted the ocean sheen.

  “Looks like we’re coming up on an invasion fleet,” Zavala said.

  “We’re entering the search area,” Daley replied. “We’ve got six Navy ships working the waters around the lab site. A research vessel from NUMA has come in to help out. My ship is the command center. We’re coming up on her at twelve o’clock.”

  The Seahawk quickly covered the distance to the Concord, hovered over the stern for an instant, then dropped slowly onto the large circle painted on the deck. Zavala slid the helicopter’s door open and climbed out. He was greeted by a gray-haired man in a khaki uniform.

  “I’m Hank Dixon, Mr. Zavala,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m commander of the guided-missile cruiser Concord. Welcome aboard.”

  “Thanks, Captain. You can call me Joe. My boss, Kurt Austin, is busy in Pohnpei, but he’ll be coming along in a couple of hours. Ensign Daley told me that the Concord is acting as central control for the search flotilla.”

  “That’s right. C’mon, I’ll show you what we’ve been doing.”

  The captain led the way to the midship’s search-and-rescue center, just off the main deck. A dozen men and women, sitting in front of computer monitors, were processing information that was streaming in from the ships and planes involved in the search.

  “How close are we to the actual lab site?” Zavala asked.

  Dixon pointed down to the deck at his feet.

  “It’s approximately three hundred feet directly under the ship’s hull. We had been on standby patrol for the lab, acting as backup for the support ship, Proud Mary. When we heard the Mayday, we got to the site within hours.”

  “Where is the support ship now?” Zavala asked.

  “A Navy salvage vessel is towing what’s left of her to a ship-yard, where the forensics folks can take a closer look at her. We were busy taking care of the survivors, so it took some time before we got around to checking on the status of the lab. When we couldn’t raise it on the radio, we erroneously assumed at first that the communications buoy got shot out. We carry an ROV for hull inspections, and we got it down.” He stepped over to a computer screen. “Those circular depressions you see in the ocean bottom match the feet of the legs supporting the Locker.”

  “There are no drag marks,” Zavala observed. “That indicates the lab was lifted off the site, which would have been possible with the Locker’s neutral buoyancy. Can you show me the site on the satellite map?”

  Dixon asked a technician to bring up a map-and-satellite-image hybrid of the waters being searched.

  “We’ve been using orbiting spy satellites that can zero in on an area as small as a square yard to look for infrared emissions,” Dixon said. “Davy Jones’s Locker was west of Pohnpei, between Nukuoro Island on the north and Oroluk Island to the south. We’ve drawn lines from all three islands and dubbed our main search area the Pohnpei Triangle.”

  “Those red squares must be the areas that have been searched,” Zavala said.

  “That’s right. The squares designate the territory that’s been scoured with sonar. The ships transmit their sonar data to our computer network. We map out a grid of the ocean in squares, the ships move over each square parallel to one another in a line that stretches several miles across, and then they move on to the next square. We can cover a lot of ocean that way in a very short time. We’ve also got fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters making visual checks.”

  “These would be the islands circled in red,” Zavala said.

  “Correct again. They range from midsize islands to atolls not much bigger than a thumbnail. Most are deserted. We’ve put choppers down on a few of them and talked to the inhabitants, but nobody’s reported anything suspicious. The places we can’t get to by boat or air we’ve vetted pretty thoroughly with aerial surveys.”

  “The ensign said you’ve deployed sonobuoys,” Zavala said.

  Dixon nodded.

  “It took a while before we figured out the lab was gone and got acoustical sensors down,” he said. “We’ve got three antisub submarines equipped with electronic ears so sensitive they can hear a fish sneeze out patrolling the perimeters of the triangle.”

  “You might want to tell your subs to use their acoustical detectors to listen for the sound signature of a Russian Typhoon-class submarine. The Typhoons run quiet, but maybe you’ll pick something up.”

  Dixon gave Zavala an odd look.

  “You think the Russians are involved in this?”

  “No,” Zavala said, “but one of their old subs might be. Looks like you’ve got all bases covered. I’d like to go back to square one. I’ll contact the NUMA ship to see if I can borrow a submersible so I can get a look firsthand at the site.”

  “I’ll give them a call,” Captain Dixon said, then added, “I’m running out of ideas. You got any suggestions?”

  Zavala stared at the vast area represented by the satellite image. The Navy faced a daunting, almost impossible task. The Federated States of Micronesia consisted of more than six hundred islands scattered across a million and a half square miles of the Pacific. Actual land covered an area smaller than the state of Rhode Island, but, factoring in the ocean, the FSM was two-thirds the size of the United States.

  “The good news is, your search plan is terrific, Captain. Given enough time, I don’t doubt you would find the lab.”

  “Thanks.” The captain narrowed his eyes, and said, “What’s the bad news?”

  Zavala gave him a sad smile.

  “We don’t have time.”

  CHAPTER 38

  PAUL TROUT DROVE THE RENTED SUV INTO THE DESERTED back lot of a four-story mill that had been abandoned decades before when New Bedford’s textile business pulled out of the city. Silhouetted against the night sky, the granite building could have been a relic from a bygone civilization if not for the banner-sized sign advertising DISCOUNT FURNITURE. A security light over the front door illuminated a small wooden plaque: BRIMMER’S ANTIQUITIES, 4TH FLOOR.

  The mill was otherwise dark, except for the night lights in the showroom and a yellow glow in a fourth-floor window.

  “Look familiar?” Gamay asked.

  “Yes,” Paul said. “It’s the old Dobbs mill, the place Rachael showed us in that print back at the mansion.”

  Gamay pointed to the top floor.

  “Either Brimmer is up there,” she said, “or the ghost of Captain Dobbs is putting in overtime.”

  Paul reached for his cell phone and called Brimmer’s number.

  “Strange,” Paul said. “Light’s on but Brimmer’s not answering. Not even a recording. Are your antennae picking up the same something’s-not-right vibes that I’m getting?”

  Gamay wrinkled her nose.

  “More like a bad smell,” she said.

  Ticking the points off on her fingers, she said, “Brimmer tells us the logbook is a goner, then calls to say he knows where it is. Then he asks us to meet him at this overgrown haunted house instead of at his shop, or even a public place. Why all the secrecy?”

  “I’m getting a picture in my mind of a mousetrap,” Paul said. “Only instead of cheese, an old book is the bait. And we’re the mice.”

  “Maybe this creepy old building is making us paranoid,” Gamay said. “Brimmer isn’t the violent type. What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know if the information in the Dobbs logbook will help Kurt and Joe find the missing lab,” he said. “But, with lives involved, I say we go for it.”

  “Looking at this from a cost-benefit point of view, I’d have to agree with you. Let’s cut the risk fac
tor, though, and scout things out.”

  Paul parked the SUV in the shadows, and they cautiously approached the main entrance.

  “Unlocked,” Paul said. “Nothing suspicious there. Brimmer is expecting us.”

  “But he didn’t answer the phone,” Gamay said. “If he isn’t in his office, he wouldn’t leave the door unlocked. And that is suspicious.”

  They walked the length of the five-hundred-foot-long building, eventually coming to another door. This one was locked. Continuing on around a corner of the building, they came upon the black cast-iron fire escape that zigzagged up to the top floor.

  They climbed it and tried the door at each landing, but all were locked.

  Paul jabbed the doorjamb on the top floor with his car key. The wood was soft with rot. He took a step back and threw his shoulder against the door, felt it give, and slammed it a few more times until the latch ripped out of the jamb. Gamay produced a small halogen flashlight from her handbag, and they stepped inside.

  Their footfalls echoed as they walked across the dust-layered floor. The vast space where workers once tended hundreds of looms was as still as a tomb. They headed toward the far end of the room, where light was seeping under a door, and eventually came to a drywall partition. Cartons were stacked against it. BRIMMER was written in ink on the boxes.

  Paul picked up a two-by-four from a pile of debris, hefting it like a baseball bat, and whispered to Gamay to knock on the door. She did, softly. When there was no answer, she stepped aside, and he did his battering-ram imitation again. The door popped open at first nudge.

  The floor was littered with books and papers from the shelves, now empty, that lined the office. Sheets of paper hung from strings stretched across the room. The light visible outside through the window came from a goosenecked desk lamp on a table that also supported a computer, a small artist’s drafting board elevated at the back, and Brimmer’s body. The antiquities dealer was sprawled facedown, his hand stretched out toward a cell phone several inches from his fingertips. The back of his suit was perforated with a single bullet hole and stained red.