Zero Hour (9781101600559)

by Cussler, Clive; Brown, Graham

  Kurt glanced out into the generator room. She was right. The last charge of C-4 had knocked the generators off-line, they were winding down on their own.

  “How do we stop it, then?”

  “We can’t. It’s like a car skidding out of control, overcorrecting back and forth. It will stop only when it finally crashes. When a large enough surge of energy overwhelms the wave and collapses it.”

  “The rift giving way,” Kurt said.

  She nodded.

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There had to be a way. He looked around. His gaze fell on the Russian nuclear bomb. “What if it found some other source of energy? A closer source.”

  She turned toward the bomb. “That might do it,” she said. “From this range, that might just be enough to collapse the wave.”

  Kurt moved to the bomb and opened the case. “Gregorovich. How do I set this?”

  “It’s a simple timer,” the Russian managed. “Set the time, press INITIATE, and it will blow at zero.”

  Kurt looked for the timer. The control panel had been smashed. He flipped the timer switch to the on position. Nothing happened. He toggled it several times. “The timer is shot,” he said.

  “Then you have to set it off manually,” Gregorovich said.

  Kurt looked to Joe and Hayley. “You two, get out of here,” he said. “Take the vertical shaft. Get to the ship, if you can.”

  “No,” Hayley said. “You can’t stay.”

  “Not alone anyway,” Joe said.

  The click of a pistol being cocked sounded.

  All three of them looked up to see Gregorovich aiming his gun their way. “All of you will leave,” he said. “I will detonate the device.”

  Kurt stared at him.

  “Look at me,” he said. “I’m not going home.”

  “All right,” Kurt said, well aware that Gregorovich was dying. He slid the bomb over to where Gregorovich sat against the wall.

  “Remove the timer,” Gregorovich said.

  Kurt pulled the timer off. A simple detonation switch rested underneath.

  “Arm it.”

  Kurt turned the switch to the armed position. “Are you sure you can do this?”

  “It’s a simple process,” Gregorovich said. “All I have to do is press the button.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I finish what I start,” Gregorovich said.

  “Eight minutes,” Hayley said, looking at the computer screen. “At that moment the wave will be about to crest. It will be at its most unstable. Blow it then. No later or Australia will be in ruins.”

  Gregorovich nodded as a new tremor shook the room.

  Kurt noticed that this one felt different. Stronger.

  It was time to go.

  He offered a hand, and Gregorovich shook it. By the time he let go, Joe and Hayley were already climbing down the scaffolding. He went to follow them.

  “You were right,” Gregorovich called after him. “Even pawns come in useful every once in a while.”

  Kurt nodded and ducked out. He raced to the shaft and began climbing down. Halfway to the bottom, the cave shook again as if something solid had hit it. Cracks began snaking their way up and down the walls, and frigid, icy water began pouring in from above.

  The tremors had caused a series of fissures to open at the base of the volcano. As magma and scalding heat flowed upward, the underside of the glacier began to melt. It shifted and slid forward. By the time Kurt reached the bottom of the shaft, an icy waterfall was pouring down on him.

  He ran out from under it, catching up to Joe and Hayley as they reached the harborlike cave.

  A strange black ship sat at the end of a narrow dock.

  “Come on,” an Irish voice shouted from the deck. “I’m not bloody well leaving anyone behind this time.”

  Kurt was tremendously happy to see that Devlin had ignored his suggestion. He ran with Joe and Hayley. They climbed on board as the ship began to move. Inside, they found a few of Thero’s men at the controls, guarded by Masinga and the other prisoners.

  “Take us out,” Devlin ordered. “And open the gates.”

  As the cave shook, a stream of rubble fell from the roof. Fist-sized rocks pelted the Voyager, clanging off her decks, and a huge boulder crashed into the water only yards away. Seconds later, the Voyager was under way, submerging and heading for the slowly widening gap between the two doors.

  “Increase the power,” Devlin ordered. “Let’s go!”

  The helmsman did as he was told, and the Voyager began to push forward.

  “Isn’t this how Captain Nemo met his end?” Joe mentioned.

  “Allegedly,” Kurt said. “Allegedly met his end.”

  Hayley gripped Kurt’s hand, and everyone on the bridge held their breath as they stared at the slowly parting doors. The Voyager stabilized its depth and continued to pick up momentum. It passed through the gap in the doors, scraping badly against the right-hand plate.

  “I’d give it full power, if I was you,” Kurt said.

  “You heard the man,” Devlin ordered. “Flank speed ahead.”

  The helmsman didn’t need to be told twice. He jammed the throttle lever to full. The big ship shuddered as the propellers increased their revolutions.

  “We’re much faster on the surface,” the helmsman suggested.

  “Take us up,” ordered Devlin.

  The crewman reached over and blew the tanks, and the Voyager began to rise. It breached the surface with a minute to go.

  • • •

  BACK IN THE CONTROL ROOM, half the ceiling had collapsed. A gap opened up between the control room and the level above, allowing the slush and water from the melting glacier to come pouring in.

  This frozen mixture swept Gregorovich across to the far side of the control room, slamming him into the wall before its force lessened and sloughed away.

  Gregorovich looked at his watch. He didn’t know anything about waves or orders of magnitude in the zero-point field, all he knew was the promise he’d made. Eight minutes. He was supposed to detonate the bomb in eight minutes no matter what happened.

  He tried to pull himself up. He had thirty seconds. He found he couldn’t stand, the freezing water and slush was slopping around him, slowly filling the room.

  He crawled through it, pushing floating debris out of the way. His eyesight was fading. His mind blurring. He thought back to the pain and the cold of the bog his father had once tortured him in and rose up, unwilling to give in.

  He pushed forward through the flooding and made his way to the bomb. The secondhand on his watch hit zero, and he slammed his fist down on the detonator.

  • • •

  KURT STARED through the Voyager’s windows as the sea began flashing its brilliant white. He knew what was coming.

  He looked back toward the island as a shock wave of energy erupted from the lagoon behind them. He saw a ball of white-orange flame. It raced outward as if it would engulf them and then just as suddenly collapsed back in on itself, like a bubble imploding at a great depth. A booming echo reverberated past them, and moments later a thin sheet of debris and water droplets pelted the Voyager like hail. But there was no fire, no heat. No angry flashing sea to be feared. Everything had gone dark and quiet.

  At first, it seemed too good to be true. For a moment, no one spoke a word. Finally, Kurt asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Is it over?”

  Hayley looked up at him and then back outside. The ship was rising and falling on the swells. The sea looked normal. The shuddering vibration was gone.

  “I think so,” she said. “I think he did it.”

  Kurt continued to stare. Gregorovich had done exactly what he said he’d do. He’d finished the job.

  “Somebody point me to a radio,” Kurt said. “We need to find out if Australia is still in one piece.”

  Eight hours after the explosion, the Voyager rendezvoused with the Gemini and the MV Rama. Kurt, Joe, Hayley, and the other survivo
rs were taken aboard the Gemini to a warm welcome led by Gamay Trout, who’d never met a celebration she didn’t like. Amid the laughter, the iron words of Commander Matilda Wallaby were told and retold until Gamay was thoroughly embarrassed by it all. The story of Paul’s home-built turret and his bluffing of the MV Rama received similar treatment, and both were sure to go down in NUMA lore.

  “Remind me not to invite you guys to poker night,” Joe kidded.

  For his part, Kurt remained quiet. Too many lives had been lost on his journey to feel anything but relief that it was over. And late one night he made his way to the radio suite and used the Gemini’s equipment to make a long-distance phone call.

  “Hey, Dad,” Kurt said as his father picked up the phone. “Hope it’s not a bad time.”

  It had been half a year since Kurt had seen his father and months since they’d had anything more than a cursory conversation. Life might have been busy, but that was far too long.

  While the rest of the ship slept, Kurt and his dad spoke of old adventures and made firm plans for new ones in the near future.

  A few days later, they finally docked in Perth. Debriefing and interrogations for the Russian commandos and the MV Rama’s crew followed. Eventually, the Australians released the impounded ship and allowed the Russian commandos to leave by air. They were flown to Tokyo and from there to Vladivostok, where they were repatriated and no doubt interrogated further by their own superiors.

  Attempts to recover anything useful from Heard Island proved futile. On a teleconference with Dirk Pitt, Kurt explained.

  “They’ve used ground-penetrating sonar to study the area where the tunnels and Thero’s lab were located. There’s no sign of any open spaces remaining. We’re pretty sure the nuclear explosion vaporized Thero’s lab and everything in it. It seems as though the concussion wave blew apart the structure of the natural cave, causing whatever remained to compress down upon itself. The rock below is now radioactive and will be for some years to come. Making any attempt at study even more problematic, the tremors and the explosion caused the underside of the Winston Glacier to liquefy. It surged forward. Whatever might be left down there has not only been vaporized but is now buried under several million tons of rock and ice.”

  On-screen, Pitt nodded thoughtfully. “Not altogether a bad thing.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Kurt said.

  Pitt turned to Hayley. “A UN treaty is being drawn up, banning the study of this type of energy. The sensors you developed are going to be a big part of enforcing that ban.”

  “Good to know I’ve done something positive for a change,” she said.

  “You may have prevented millions of deaths,” Pitt replied. “It doesn’t get more positive than that.”

  She smiled.

  “It was close,” she said. “Apparently, they had a string of earthquakes out in the never-never. We’re still feeling aftershocks, but there are less of them each day. And the rift appears to be stabilizing.”

  “Good to hear,” Pitt said. “Now, about these missing crates of diamonds. I’ve been asked by Cecil Bradshaw of the ASIO to inquire as to their possible whereabouts. As they came from Heard Island, they are, in fact, Australian property.”

  Kurt, Joe, and Hayley nodded.

  “Any idea what happened to them?”

  “I heard a rumor,” Kurt said. “That Devlin—”

  “Captain Devlin,” Joe corrected.

  “That’s right,” Kurt said. “Captain Devlin and his intrepid first mate, Masinga, arranged for those diamonds to be divided up among the surviving miners and the families of those who were lost. But it’s just a rumor. And as Captain Devlin is no longer on Australian soil, I’m not sure it’ll ever be more than that.”

  “Suits me fine,” Pitt said. He turned to Joe. “In other business, I have a new job for you, Mr. Zavala.”

  Joe’s eyebrows went up. “I’m on vacation,” he said.

  “By my calendar, your vacation just ended,” Pitt said. “And your first mission back on the clock is to fly out to Cairns and explain to poor Ms. Harrington of the Dooley Elementary School District why you disappointed her class and didn’t show up for their scheduled field trip out on the reef.”

  “Was she angry?” Joe asked.

  Pitt nodded. “Apparently. But she’s willing to forgive you if you’ll accompany her on an unsupervised field trip of her choosing. I believe you’ll be needing a dinner jacket.”

  Joe sighed and then perked up. “The things I do for this agency,” he announced. “I really should be getting a PR check in addition to my regular pay.”

  Kurt laughed. “Imagine that. All this talk about aliens, and a fifth-grade teacher is the one abducting you.”

  “As long as it’s in the name of science,” Joe said.

  Pitt laughed. “I’m proud of you all,” he said. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

  As Pitt signed off, Joe turned to Kurt and Hayley. “I guess I’m out of here,” he said.

  Hayley stretched up and hugged him. “Travel safely,” she said with a laugh.

  “Shall do.”

  Kurt embraced his friend. “If you’re still in Australia when I get back to that side of the country, I’ll look you up.”

  “When do you think you’ll get there?”

  Kurt glanced at Hayley. “Depends how long it takes to walk across the continent.”

  Joe laughed. “I won’t wait up,” he said, and then ducked out the door.

  Left alone with Hayley for the first time since they’d met, Kurt took her by the hand and kissed her.

  “Come with me,” he said, leading her out into the hall.

  “Where are we going?” she asked suspiciously.

  “On a little trip,” he said.

  She stiffened. “I think I’ve done quite enough traveling for a while.”

  He continued leading her down the hall. “Your friend Bradshaw sent me some tickets to the rugby match at the Perth Oval tonight.”

  She dutifully followed him but seemed confused. “Tonight, under the lights?”

  He nodded.

  It was just past noon. “Aren’t we leaving a little early for that?”

  “Not really,” he said, “considering the form of transportation I’ve chosen.”

  He opened the door for her and stepped outside. There, waiting by the curb, was a Victorian-style carriage with a docile chestnut-colored horse standing patiently in front of it.

  “This is Inchworm,” Kurt said, patting the glossy brown animal on the shoulder. “I’m promised he’s the slowest, most sure-footed horse in all of the western territories.”

  Hayley grinned broadly and scratched the horse behind the ears. He whinnied and seemed to like it.

  “Nothing wrong with being slow and sure-footed,” she said to the animal. “Or thoughtful,” she added, turning to Kurt.

  He held her hand as she climbed in. “Watch your step,” he said. “Inchworm has never lost a passenger, and we don’t want to start with you.”

  She settled in, smiling so brightly her cheeks hurt. Kurt climbed in beside her and took the reins as she investigated the picnic basket he’d packed.

  “How long do you think it will take to reach the stadium?” she asked.

  “How long do you have?”

  “All day,” she said. “And all night.”

  Kurt nodded. “In that case, we’d better take a shortcut.”

  He pulled on the horse’s reins, and Inchworm began to move, plodding slowly and living up to his name. Hayley slid over to Kurt, wrapped an arm around his waist, and laid her head against his shoulder.

  “This is my kind of speed,” she said.

  Kurt put an arm around her and pulled her close. It suited him just fine as well.

  • • •

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