Black Wind

by Clive Cussler

  Two hours later, they cruised beyond the large island of Catalina

  and the engines slowed as they neared their station point. At a slow crawl, the Deep Endeavor began patrolling a large north-to-south loop west of the island, using the ship's radar as surveillance eyes. A sprinkling of pleasure craft and fishing boats was all the radar detected, along with a Coast Guard cutter on patrol nearby to the north.

  "We are positioned well south of the main shipping lane to L.A. and not likely to catch much night traffic in this quadrant," Aimes said. "We'll get tossed into the fray in the morning when Icarus shows up for work. In the meantime, I suggest we take shifts and get some sleep."

  Dirk took the hint and walked out onto the bridge wing, inhaling a deep breath of sea air. The night was still and damp and the seas almost as flat as a pancake. As he stood in the darkness, his mind tumbled over his meeting with Kang and the less-than-implicit threat that the mogul had delivered to Summer and him. Another week and the South Korean Assembly vote would be history and the legal authorities could pursue Kang with full fury. That's all they needed. A week without incident. As he stared at the sea, a chilled gust of wind suddenly whisked his face, then fell away again just as suddenly, leaving a tranquil and seeming calm.

  By 9 p.m." the Odyssey had backtracked some three hundred miles and was now approaching the designated launch position calibrated in Inchon. Tongju, catching up on some lost sleep in Captain Hennessey's cabin, was startled awake by a rapid pounding at the door. An armed commando entered the room and bowed as Tongju sat up and began pulling on his boots.

  "So sorry to intrude," the commando said apologetically. "It's Captain Lee. He has requested that you return to the Koguryo at once. There is some sort of dispute with the Russian launch engineers."

  Tongju nodded, then shook off the cobwebs and made his way to the pilothouse, where he verified that the platform was still cruising north-northeast at 12 knots. Radioing for the Koguryo's tender, he made his way down the long flight of stairs on the forward piling and hopped into the idling boat that awaited him. A short ride took him to the nearby support ship, where Captain Lee was waiting for him.

  "Come with me to the Launch Control Center. It's those damn

  Ukrainians," the captain cursed. "They can't agree on where to position the platform for launch. I think they're going to kill one another." The two men made their way down a flight of stairs and along an interior passageway to the expansive Launch Control Center. As Lee opened a side entry door, a loud staccato of foreign swearing burst upon their ears. At the center of the room, a group of launch engineers were huddled loosely around the two Ukrainian launch specialists, who stood toe-to-toe with their arms in the air arguing violently with each other. The crowd of engineers parted as Tongju and Lee approached, but the Ukrainians didn't skip a beat. Looking on in disgust, Tongju turned and grabbed a padded console chair, then lifted it over his head and hurled it at the two jabbering engineers. The gathered spectators gasped as the chair flew into the two men, smashing into their heads and chests before ricocheting to the floor with a crash. The stunned Ukrainians finally fell silent as they shook off the blow from the flying chair and turned toward the two men. "What is the issue here?" Tongju growled.

  One of the Ukrainians, a goateed man with shaggy brown hair, cleared his throat before speaking.

  "It is the weather. The high-pressure front over the eastern Pacific, specifically off North America, has stalled due to the push from a low-pressure system in the south." "And what does this mean?"

  "The normally prevailing high-altitude easterly winds have, in fact, reversed and we are instead facing a strong headwind at the moment. This has thrown off our planned mission flight profile by a considerable margin." Shuffling through a file of papers, he pulled out a sheaf of algorithmic paper containing numerous calculations and trajectory profiles handwritten in pencil.

  "Our base mission plan has been to fuel the Zenit rocket first stage at fifty percent of capacity, which will produce an estimated down-range flight trajectory of 350 kilometers. Approximately fifty kilometers of this distance is over the target region, where the payload system will be activated. Thus, our planned launch position was three hundred kilometers west of Los Angeles, assuming normal local weather patterns. Given the present weather scenario, we have two options: either wait for the low-pressure front to yield to the prevailing winds or reposition the launch platform closer to the target."

  "There's a third option," the other Ukrainian grumbled irritably. "We can increase the fuel load in the Zenit to reach the target from the original launch position." As he spoke, his counterpart stood shaking his head silently.

  "What is the risk of that?" Tongju asked the doubter.

  "Sergei is correct in that we can adjust the fuel load to reach the target from the original launch position. However, I have grave doubts about the accuracy that we would achieve. We do not know the wind conditions for the entire flight trajectory. Given the current unusual weather pattern, the wind conditions along the entire flight path might vary significantly from what we can measure directly above us. The launch vehicle could easily be diverted north or south of the intended target by a large deviation. We could also overshoot the target by tens of kilometers or, alternatively, undershoot the target by a similar degree. There is just too much potential variability in the flight path from this distance."

  "A minor risk, compounded by speculation," countered Sergei.

  "How long before normal weather patterns return to the area?" asked Tongju.

  "The low-pressure front has already showed signs of weakening. We expect it to collapse over the next day and a half, with the dominant high-pressure system prevailing in approximately seventy-two hours."

  Tongju silently contemplated the arguments for a moment, then made his decision without debate.

  "We have a timetable to meet. We can ill afford to sit and wait for the weather to change, nor can we risk diluting the target strike. We

  shall move the platform closer to the target and initiate countdown as soon as possible. How far must we move to mitigate the atmospheric uncertainty?"

  "To minimize the impact of the adverse winds, we must shorten the trajectory. Based on our latest wind measurements, we must position ourselves here," the goateed Ukrainian said, pointing to a map of the North American seaboard. "One hundred and five kilometers from the coast."

  Tongju studied the position silently for a minute, calculating the added distance to cover. The proposed position was dangerously near the coastline, he observed, noting a pair of offshore islands in close proximity. But they could reach the spot and still launch within Kang's desired time schedule. As all eyes in the room waited for his command, he finally turned and nodded toward Lee. "Alter course at once. We will position both vessels at the new position before dawn and initiate launch countdown at daybreak."

  You've got to be kidding me. A blimp?" Giordino scratched his chin, then shook his head at Pitt. "You dragged me all the way across country to go for a ride in a blimp?"

  "I believe the preferred term is airship" Pitt said, throwing his partner a mock look of indignation.

  "A gasbag, by any other name."

  Giordino had wondered what Pitt had up his sleeve after the two arrived at LAX on an overnight flight from Washington. Rather than heading south from the airport, toward the Port of Los Angeles and adjacent Coast Guard Marine Safety regional command, Pitt had turned their rental car north. Giordino promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat as the head of NUMA drove them out of the Los Angeles metro area. Awakening later to find the specter of strawberry fields rushing past the window, he rubbed his eyes as the car entered the tiny Oxnard Airport and Pitt parked the vehicle near a large blimp moored to a truck-mounted vertical boom.

  Peering at the blimp, Giordino cracked, "I didn't think the Super Bowl was scheduled for another couple of months."

  The 222-foot long Airship Management Services Sentinel 1000 was, in fact, much larger
than the usual advertising blimps seen hovering over football games and golf tournaments. An enlarged version of the company's popular Skyship 600 series of blimps, the Sentinel 1000 was designed to lift a useful load of nearly six thousand pounds by way of an envelope that held ten thousand cubic meters of gas. Unlike the rigidly framed dirigibles of the twenties and thirties that relied on highly flammable hydrogen for lift, the Sentinel 1000 was a true non-rigid blimp that utilized the safer element of helium to rise off the ground.

  "Looks like a runt nephew of the Hindenburg" Giordino moaned, eyeing the silver-skinned airship warily.

  "You happen to be looking at the latest in surveillance and tracking technology," Pitt said. "She's fitted with a LASH optical system. NUMA is testing her out for possible survey use on coral reef and tide studies. The system has already been used successfully to track migrating whales."

  "What is a "LASH system?"

  "Stands for "Littoral Airborne Sensor-Hyperspectral." It's an optical imaging system that uses a breakdown in the color band to detect and track targets that the eye cannot see. Homeland Security is considering using it for border security and the Navy for antisubmarine warfare."

  "If we can give it a test run over Malibu Beach, then I'm all for it." A ground crewman wearing a NUMA identification badge climbed out of the gondola as Pitt and Giordino approached the airship.

  "Mr. Pitt? We've installed the radio set that the Coast Guard sent up, so you'll be able to conduct secure communications with their vessels. The Icarus has been weighed off for a landing equilibrium of plus-one hundred kilograms when your fuel supply runs down to five percent, so just don't run the tanks dry. The airship is also fitted with both a water ballast system and an experimental fuel dump release, should you need emergency lift."

  "How long can we stay aloft?" Giordino asked, eyeing a pair of ducted propellers jutting from either side of the gondola's aft section.

  "Eight to ten hours, if you go easy on the throttles. Enjoy your flight, she's a joy to fly," he said, bowing slightly.

  Pitt and Giordino climbed through the gondola door and into a spacious cabin that was comfortably outfitted to seat eight passengers. Squirming through a forward opening into the flight compartment, Pitt took up the pilot's controls while Giordino plopped into the copilot's seat. With a muffled roar, Pitt started the pair of turbocharged Porsche 930 air-cooled engines mounted on the rear flanks of the gondola, which served as propulsion. With the engines idling, Pitt obtained clearance to take off from the airport control tower, then turned to Giordino.

  "Ready for takeoff, Wilbur?"

  "Ready when you are, Orville."

  Launching the blimp was not a simple action handled solely by the pilots but rather a carefully orchestrated maneuver assisted by a large ground crew. Outside the gondola, the Icaruis support crew, all attired in bright red shirts, took up positions around the airship. A pair of ropes attached to the blimp's nose were pulled taut by three men standing off either side of the bow while four additional men grabbed onto side rails running the length of the gondola. Directly forward of the wide cockpit window that ran nearly to his feet, Pitt stared toward the crew chief, who stood at the base of the mobile mooring mast. At Pitt's command, the crew chief signaled another crewman, standing high atop the mooring mast, to release the nose tether. In unison, the ground crew then tugged at the weightless blimp, walking it away from the mooring mast several dozen yards to a safe launching point clear of obstacles.

  Pitt gave a thumbs-up signal to the crew chief, then reached over and pulled down a pair of levers protruding from the center console, increasing the throttle to the twin engines. As the ground crew let free of their clutches and moved clear, he gently pulled back on a center yoke control mounted in front of his seat. The controls manipulated the motor-driven propellers, which were each enclosed in swiveling ducts. As he pulled on the yoke, the ducts tilted upward, providing additional lift from the churning propellers. Immediately, the blimp began to rise, creeping forward as it climbed. Almost without the feeling of movement, the big airship rose off the ground and into the sky with its nose pointed high. Giordino cheerfully waved out an open side window to the ground crew below, who shrank to the size of bugs as the airship rapidly gained altitude.

  Despite Giordino's request for a low-flying pass over Malibu, Pitt steered the airship directly offshore from Oxnard after leaving the grounds of the airport and soon leveled the blimp off at a height of twenty-five hundred feet. The Pacific Ocean resonated a deep aqua color under a bright sun, and the men easily counted out the northerly Channel Islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel under the clear skies. As they floated east, Pitt noticed dew dripping off of the blimp, its fabric sides warming under the rays of the morning sun. He glanced at a helium pressure gauge, noting a slight rise in the needle as the helium expanded from the warming temperatures and higher cruising altitude. An automatic venting system would release any excess gas if the pressure rose too high, but Pitt kept the blimp well below its pressure height so as not to needlessly stave off helium.

  The controls of the Sentinel 1000 were heavy in his hands and he noted that the sensation of flying the blimp felt closer to sailing a twenty-meter racing yacht than piloting an airplane. Turning the huge rudders and elevators required some muscling of the yoke, which resulted in an anxious pause before the ship's nose would gradually respond. Correcting course, he absentmindedly watched the lines dangling off the blimp's nose sway back and forth. A boat bobbed into view beneath them, which he recognized as a charter fishing boat. The tiny-looking day fishermen on the boat's stern suddenly waved up

  at them with friendly abandon. There was something about an airship that always seemed to strike a warm chord with people. They captured the romance of the air, Pitt decided, offering a reminder of times past when flying was still a novelty. With his hands on the controls, he could feel the nostalgia himself. Floating at a leisurely pace over the water, he let his mind churn back to the days of the thirties when mammoth dirigibles like the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg shared the skies with the huge Navy airships Akron and Macon. Like the opulent cruise ships of the same era, they offered a certain relaxed majesty that simply no longer existed in modern travel.

  When they reached a distance of thirty miles offshore, Pitt angled the blimp south and began navigating a large, lazy arc off the Los Angeles metropolis. Giordino powered up the LASH optical system, tied into a laptop computer, which enabled him to spot the images of incoming surface vessels up to thirty-five miles away. The freighters and containerships came chugging in toward the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at a sporadic yet endless pace. The big vessels hailed from a variety of exotic-sounding home ports from Mumbai to Jakarta, though China, Japan, and Taiwan accounted for the largest volume of traffic. More than three thousand vessels a year entered the adjacent ports, creating a constant stream of traffic that crawled across the Pacific toward America's busiest port like ants to a picnic. As Giordino studied the laptop, he reported to Pitt that he could spot two large vessels inbound in the distance that figured to be commercial ships. Squinting out the cockpit window, Pitt could just make out the leading vessel on the horizon.

  "Let's go take a look," Pitt replied, aiming the nose of the airship toward the approaching ship. Flicking a button on the Coast Guard radio set newly installed in the cockpit, he spoke into his headset.

  "Coast Guard Cutter Halibut, this is airship Icarus. We are on station

  and preparing to survey two inbound vessels approximately forty-five miles due east of Long Beach, over."

  "Roger, Icarus" came a deep-voiced reply. "Glad to have you and your eyes in the sky with us. We have three vessels deployed and engaged in current interdiction actions. We'll await your surveillance reports on new inbound vessels as they approach. Out."

  "Eyes in the sky," Giordino grumbled. "I'd rather be the stomach on the sofa," he said, suddenly wondering if anyone had packed them a lunch aboard the airship.

  Throu
ghout the night, the Odyssey had churned west, inching her way closer to the California coast that she had departed just days before. Tongju returned to the platform after resolving the launch position dispute and stole a few hours of sleep in the captain's cabin before rising an hour before dawn. Under the first trickles of morning light, he watched from the bridge as the platform followed in the Koguryo's wake, noticing the shadow of a sizable island in the distance off the starboard bow. It was San Nicolas Island, a dry and windblown rock farthest from shore of all the Channel Islands and owned by the Navy for use primarily as an amphibious training site. They continued west for another hour before the radio crackled with the voice of Captain Lee.

  "We are approaching the location that the Ukrainian engineers have indicated. Prepare to halt engines, and we will take up position to the southeast of you. We will be standing by to initiate launch countdown at your direction."

  "Affirmative," Tongju replied. "We will set position and ballast the platform. Stand by for positioning."

  Tongju turned and nodded to one of Kang's undercover crewmen who was piloting the Odyssey. With skilled confidence, the helmsman eased off the platform's forward-propulsion throttles, then activated

  the self-positioning thrusters. Using a GPS coordinate as a fixed target, the computer-controlled system of forward, side, and rear thrusters was activated, locking the Odyssey in a fixed position as if parked on a dime.

  "Position control activated," the helmsman barked in a crisp military voice. "Initiating ballast flooding," he continued, pushing a series of buttons on an illuminated console.

  Two hundred feet below the pilothouse, a series of gate valves were automatically opened inside the twin pontoons and a half-dozen ballast pumps began rapidly pumping salt water into the hollow steel hulls. The flooding was imperceptible to those standing on the platform deck, as the computer-controlled pumps ensured an even rate of flooding. On the bridge, Tongju studied a computerized three-dimensional image of the Odyssey on a monitor, its catamaran hulls and lower columns turning a bright blue as the seawater poured in. Like a lethargic elevator ride, as the men on the bridge watched rather than felt, the platform sank slowly toward the waves. Sixty minutes passed before the platform gently dropped forty-six feet, the bottom of its twin hulls submerged to a stabilizing depth seventy feet below the surface. Tongju noted that the platform had ceased its slow swaying evident earlier. With its submerged pontoons and partially sunken pilings, the Odyssey had become a rock-stable platform from which to launch a million-pound rocket.