Medusa

by Clive Cussler

  Floor-to-ceiling windows lined one long wall, but he paid no attention to Shanghai's tapestry of lights. He stood in front of a tall wall cabinet and barked a password. A microphone hidden in the cabinet filtered the password through a voice-identification device, and the cabinet rolled aside to reveal a metal door.

  Wen Lo pressed his hand against a panel that examined the whorls of his fingertips and the lines of his palm and the door opened with a click, admitting him into a room of about twenty feet square. The room was perfectly circular in shape, and the only furniture was a plastic-and-aluminum table and three chairs. Cones that looked like oversize swag lamps hung from the ceiling. The deceptive blandness of the room obscured its function as a sophisticated communications center, its walls and ceiling containing a complicated system of microphones, projectors, transmitters, and receivers.

  Wen Lo settled into a cushioned chair, looked across the table at the other two chairs, and uttered a single word.

  "Begin."

  The LED lighting in the ceiling dimmed except for a cone-shaped shaft of light that illuminated each chair. The air in one shaft seemed to shimmer as if superheated, becoming wavy, then darkening with tiny swirling motes, until a fuzzy silhouette formed, amorphous at first, then more solid, outlining first shoulders and then a head. Details filled in: eyes and nose, flesh and clothing. In short order, Wen Lo was looking at a three-dimensional laser projection of a man so real that he could almost touch it.

  The man's face was the mirror image of Wen Lo's, which was not surprising, because they were two of a set of triplets. They both had the same high forehead, beetled brow, and unfathomable eyes, but the projected man's scalp was clean-shaven. Where the menace in Wen Lo's face was quietly understated, the projected face had an unvarnished, street-thug toughness around the mouth and chin that suggested barely restrained violence.

  "Good evening, Brother Chang," Wen Lo said.

  "And good evening to you, Brother Wen Lo. Number One is about to join us."

  The air under the third light went through the same wavy sequence. The hologram that appeared in the chair was of a man dressed in a red silk robe and wearing a round, high-brimmed hat. The face was long and lean, with arched brows over a prominent forehead, cunning cat-green eyes, and a long, thin mustache that draped down below his chin.

  Wen Lo clapped his hands upon recognizing the apparition.

  "Bravo!" he said. "Dr. Fu Manchu, if I am not mistaken."

  The hologram responded with a knife-edged chuckle.

  "Congratulations, Wen Lo," Fu Manchu said. "You are looking at the master criminal who is preparing to unleash the Yellow Peril against the civilized nations of the world."

  The silken embodiment of evil was a clever illusion carved in light by the latest in computer and laser technology. Although the figure of the Chinese archvillain seemed solid, it had no more substance than the literary character created in the Sax Rohmer series. The system that brought the triplets together for their meetings could be manipulated, using data on figures real or imagined, to create any image desired. Past meetings had been presided over by such monumental figures as Mao or Genghis Khan.

  Although Fu Manchu was an illusion created by electronic ectoplasm that defined the smallest detail, the voice behind the leering archfiend belonged to a flesh-and-blood person who ran a criminal empire that Rohmer's villain could only have dreamed of.

  In the tradition of the age-old crime cults known as Triads, the triplets who ran the far-flung organization were ranked by numbers rather than names, given them according to their order of birth. Wen Lo was Two, and he directed the Triad's criminal enterprises behind a thin screen of respectability. Chang was Three, and he was in charge of the global network's security, including the gangs that infested Chinatowns in every major city. The triplet behind the Fu Manchu mask served as CEO, overseeing criminal and legitimate operations, a responsibility that went with the name One.

  "I enjoyed the hatchet man from the tong wars," said Chang.

  "I'm not surprised, given your efficient stewardship of our own hatchet men," Fu Manchu said. "However, I understand that this efficiency did not extend to your expedition in Bermuda. Dr. Kane escaped from the bottom of the ocean."

  "Our machine cut the bathysphere's cable. There was no way anyone could have saved it at that depth."

  "Apparently, someone did. His name is Kurt Austin. The television reports say he is an engineer with NUMA. Also, how do you explain your botched attack on the NUMA ship?"

  Chang scowled.

  "We met unexpected resistance," he said.

  "We cannot afford any more slipups. We would not be dealing with this situation if you had kept a closer eye on things at your testing lab, Wen Lo."

  The third triplet had been enjoying the discomfiture of his brother, but now it was his turn to squirm in his chair under the cold gaze of the archvillain.

  "I accept full responsibility. The laboratory guard who brought the virus to his home province did not follow the proper decontamination safeguards. I have tightened them and prohibited travel by any of our security people."

  "Has the virus spread further?" Fu Manchu asked.

  "It has broken past the quarantine. The government is trying to contain it."

  "Not good," Fu Manchu said. "Our plan was to release the virus selectively when we had a vaccine to control it. We are trying to destabilize the government and profit from the spread of the disease. Wiping out the human race would be rather counterproductive, don't you think?"

  "It would solve our country's problem with population control," said Wen Lo in a weak attempt at humor.

  "I'm sure it would. Unfortunately, we are part of the population. Is there any word of Dr. Kane?"

  "We checked Bonefish Key," Chang said. "He never returned. We still have our feelers out, but he seems to have disappeared."

  "His disappearance doesn't concern me as much as the possibility that he now is aware that he is a target. And that he may have conveyed that concern to others. Fortunately, he is no longer vital to the completion of the project. But the work cannot be allowed to regerminate at Bonefish Key."

  "The only one who can reconstitute the project, other than Kane, is Dr. Song Lee, the representative that the People's Republic sent to work with U.S. scientists," Chang said. "She is about to be removed and disposed of."

  "See that it is accomplished quickly and cleanly," Fu Manchu said. "And you, Brother Wen Lo, what is the status of the vaccine?"

  "The vaccine will soon be a reality, and we can proceed with the next phase. I have ordered our land lab closed and its contents liquidated."

  "Very good. Is that all?"

  "For now," Wen Lo said.

  Fu Manchu bowed his head, folded his hands. His evil face began to disintegrate, falling apart into whirling motes that grew from dark to light and then vanished. Moments later, the second hologram vanished

  Wen Lo rose from his seat and left the now-empty room. There was much to do.

  Chang remained in his chair, brooding. After his attack on the NUMA ship had been rebuffed, he had boarded a fast powerboat that took him to the mainland. From there, he booked a private jet that flew him to the United States. He entered the country carrying the credentials of a trade representative and joined the holographic meeting with his siblings from a Virginia warehouse the Triad used as a cover.

  After a moment of thought, Chang turned to a computer and typed in Kurt Austin's name. The computer took him to the NUMA website and provided him with a short blurb that identified Austin as a project engineer. Austin's photo also was posted.

  Chang stared at the coral-blue eyes, and the smile that seemed to mock him, until he could stand it no longer. He pressed the OFF button and Austin's face vanished. Chang glared at the blank screen.

  The next time I encounter Kurt Austin, he vowed, I will make him vanish forever.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Bermuda Coast Guard Cutter had responded quickly to Captain Gannon's Mayd
ay. After a quick look at the bodies and empty bullet casings littering the aft deck, the guardsmen hurriedly called in the Marine Police Service. Within hours, a boat carrying a crime-scene investigation team arrived at the NUMA ship.

  The six-man CSI team that stepped on board the research vessel's deck looked like the car valets at a Nassau resort hotel. With the exception of Detective-Superintendent Colin Randolph, they were dressed identically in navy blue Bermuda shorts, light blue shirts, and kneesocks. As an officer, Randolph was allowed to wear a white shirt.

  The men, in their spit-and-polish uniforms, stood in sharp contrast to Gannon, who was still wearing his pajamas when he welcomed Randolph and his team aboard. The captain led the way to the aft deck and introduced Randolph to Austin and Zavala, who had been talking to crew members about the night's events. The inspector gave the NUMA men each a quick handshake, then turned his wide-eyed gaze to the bodies lying on the cartridge-littered deck.

  The detective-superintendent was a round-faced man in his mid-forties who spoke with a lilt that hinted at his origins in Barbados, where he had been born.

  He blew out his prominent cheeks like a puffer fish.

  "Good Lord!" he said in astonishment. "Looks like a bloody war zone." Then glancing at the bullet-riddled wreck of the Humongous, he said, "What's that thing?"

  "It was a remote-operated submersible vehicle designed to move along the ocean bottom," Zavala said.

  "Well, from the looks of it, that pile of junk won't be moving anywhere soon." He shook his head. "What happened to it?"

  "Austin here was using the vehicle for cover, and the gunmen shot it out from under him, Zavala said.

  Randolph glanced at Austin, then gave Zavala a hard stare. Seeing nothing in either man's face that suggested Zavala was joking, the detective-superintendent ordered his team to cordon off the crime scene with yellow police tape.

  He turned to the captain.

  "I'd be very pleased if you could tell me what happened on your ship last night."

  "Glad to," Gannon said. "Around three in the morning, four armed men boarded the ship from a small boat and rousted me out of my bunk." He plucked the front of his ratty-looking pajamas. "As you can see, I wasn't expecting company. They were looking for Dr. Max Kane, a scientist who had been involved with the bathysphere project."

  "Did they say why they wanted Dr. Kane?"

  Gannon shrugged.

  "Their leader was a creepy guy with a shaved head. When I told him that Kane had left the ship, he rounded up my crew and threatened to kill them. He would have followed up on his threat if Kurt and Joe hadn't intervened."

  Randolph turned back to Austin and Zavala.

  "So you're the ones responsible for this mess?"

  "We didn't have a lot of choice at the time," Austin said.

  "Do all NUMA research vessels carry armed security men?"

  "Joe and I weren't armed at first. We borrowed weapons from the gunmen. And we're not security men, we're NUMA engineers running the Bathysphere 3 project."

  Austin might just as well have said he was from France, like the Coneheads in the old Saturday Night Live skit.

  Randolph's eyes swept the scene, taking in the bodies, the weapons next to them, and the wrecked ROV. He was chewing his lower lip, and it was obvious that he was having a difficult time reconciling the blood-soaked deck with Austin's explanation.

  "Engineers," Randolph repeated in a flat voice. Clearing his throat, he then said, "What kind of engineers?"

  "I specialize in deep-sea diving and salvage," Austin said. "Joe designs and pilots submersibles. He built the bathysphere."

  "And it was you two engineers who, against overwhelming odds, routed an armed band, using their own weapons to kill two of them in the process?"

  "Three," Austin corrected. "There's another body on the bridge."

  "We were lucky," Zavala pitched in, as if it explained everything.

  "What happened to the fourth man, with the shaved head?" Randolph asked.

  "He was lucky," Austin said. "He got away."

  Randolph held a degree in police studies and was a veteran policeman, but even an untrained observer would have sensed something different about these two NUMA engineers. Relaxed and genial as he appeared to be, the broad-shouldered Austin had a commanding presence that went beyond his strikingly coral-blue gaze, thick gray mane of hair, and chiseled profile. And the handsome Zavala looked as if he just stepped out of some swashbuckling Hollywood epic.

  "Is there any chance the men were pirates?" Randolph asked. "Bermuda does a big cruise-ship business, and rumors of piracy could be very damaging."

  "Piracy is possible but not probable," Austin replied. "This isn't Somalia, and these guys weren't interested in the scientific equipment that pirates normally go after when they hit a research vessel. They knew Dr. Kane had been aboard and they were looking for him."

  "Thank goodness! I'll put this down as an isolated attack, then."

  "Has the Coast Guard come up with any leads?" Austin asked.

  "They surveyed the area around the ship, and will continue to keep an eye out. I suspect that the boat carrying the men who attacked your ship is long gone. I'd like full statements from you gentlemen and every crew member on board. Any way I can reach Dr. Kane?"

  "We don't know his present whereabouts," Gannon said. "We can try to contact him."

  "Please do that, Captain. Could you also prepare a list of everyone on board?"

  "I'll get right to it, Detective-Superintendent. You can conduct your interviews in the mess hall."

  "Thank you very much for your cooperation, Captain."

  As Gannon hurried off to carry out Randolph's request, Randolph said, "Now, gentlemen, since you were so intimately acquainted with the events of last night, perhaps you wouldn't mind being interviewed first."

  "We'd be happy to tell you the whole story," Austin said.

  They shook hands all around. As Randolph walked off to supervise his team, he snorted like a horse.

  "Engineers," he muttered.

  Austin suggested that Zavala take the first interview while he tried to reach Kane. He walked a short distance from the activity on the aft deck, and called directory assistance on his cell phone, asking for the number of Bonefish Key Marine Center. A computer-generated voice informed him that the lab was not open to the public and referred callers to the center's website.

  After a moment's thought, he punched in another number from his phone list.

  A low, cool female voice answered his call.

  "Hi, Kurt," said Gamay Morgan-Trout, "congratulations. Paul and I watched the bathysphere dive on TV until the transmission got cut off. How was the briny deep?"

  "Briny and deep. I'll tell you about it later. Sorry to interrupt your sabbatical at Scripps, but I need a favor. I'd like you or Paul to wrangle an invitation to the Bonefish Key marine lab in Florida. They discourage visitors, but if anyone can get in it's you."

  "Didn't the director of Bonefish Key make the B3 dive with Joe?"

  "His name is Max Kane. But don't expect any help from him."

  "I'll give it a try, Kurt. What exactly should I be looking for?"

  "I don't know. Just keep your eyes open for anything that strikes you as funny."

  Gamay responded with a soft chuckle.

  "I love the crisp specificity of your directive, Kurt."

  "It's a management course they teach called Cover Your Ass 101. The first lesson in CYA is that if anything goes wrong, it's not your fault. Call me when you or Paul get to Bonefish Key. Joe and I will be on the Beebe for another day or two."

  Austin clicked off, then walked to the ship's railing. He was burning with impatience. He didn't like interrupting the sabbatical Paul and Gamay Trout were taking from the Special Assignments Team, but until he and Zavala managed to extricate themselves from the police investigation they would have to be the team's eyes and ears.

  He gazed at the sparkle of the morning sun on the water. He so
metimes joked that he was afflicted with what he called the King Neptune syndrome. He had spent so much of his life on or under the ocean that he had developed a proprietary attitude toward the two-thirds of the globe covered by water.

  Austin had conceived the Bathysphere 3 project as a way to instill respect for the sea in the young people who would someday become its caretakers.

  The faceless entity behind the attacks had almost ruined that.

  He knew his mortal limitations. Unlike Neptune, Austin couldn't raise a storm at the touch of a trident.

  A cold glint came to his eyes, and he compressed his lips in a tight, humorless smile.

  But he had shown numerous times that he could raise hell. He couldn't wait to get off the ship so he could rattle the walls of Hades.

  CHAPTER 17

  Paul Trout was near the end of the seminar he was leading on global warming when his cell phone began to vibrate. Without missing a beat, he reached into his sports jacket pocket, shut off the phone, and threw the next graph up on the projection screen, only to hear a soft ripple of laughter behind his back. He turned, curious at what could be so humorous about an ocean-salinity pie chart.

  No one was looking at the chart. Every eye in the room was staring out the window at an attractive red-haired woman in a two-piece bathing suit who was on the lawn outside the building. She was doing jumping jacks and waving a cell phone in the air at the same time.

  Trout's head dipped down, as if looking over his glasses in deep thought, and he tugged at the large, colorful bow tie at his neck.

  A seminar participant snickered.

  "Who is that crazy woman?"

  A faint smile came to Trout's lips.

  "I'm afraid that crazy woman is my wife. Please excuse me."

  A quiet gasp of disbelief followed Trout's exit from the room, but he was used to such reactions. He was a good-looking young man with large hazel-colored eyes and light brown hair neatly parted down the middle and combed back at the temples Gatsby style. In a tailored suit that draped his six-foot-eight physique perfectly, he was impeccably dressed as usual. But while he displayed a sly sense of humor, people often found his serious demeanor at odds with that of his more vivacious wife.