Medusa

by Clive Cussler

  Slowly shaking her head, Gamay said, "I'm not sure I understand. You said 'most' species. Didn't you say these were box jellyfish?"

  Dr. Mayhew realized that he had said more than he had intended.

  "I misspoke a moment ago," he said. "Actually, it's closely related to the sea wasp, but more highly developed and aggressive."

  "I've never seen a sea wasp quite that color," she said.

  "Nor I. We came up with all sorts of fanciful names before settling on blue medusa."

  "What is their potential pharmaceutically?"

  "We're in the early stages of study, but the chemical it produces is far more complex than anything we've encountered. Experimenting with this delicate creature is like riding an untamed stallion."

  "Fascinating," Gamay said.

  Mayhew glanced at his watch.

  "Thank you, Dr. Bennett," he said. "We'll leave you alone now with your poisonous friends."

  Gamay offered no resistance as Mayhew guided her out of the room and back into the main lab. He showed her some other species under study, then they left the resource-cultivation building and walked a short distance to another cinder-block structure.

  This lab had fewer tanks than the first one. Ocean scientists like to distinguish between wet labs, where specimens are housed and prepared, and dry labs, where computers and sensitive analytical instruments are kept. This was both, Mayhew explained. The wet part was where chemicals were extracted and placed with bacteria or viruses to see what the reaction might be.

  They spent more time in this lab than the first one, and by the time Gamay was out of questions it was nearly midday.

  "I'm as hungry as a horse," Mayhew said. "Let's break for lunch."

  The kitchen served up gourmet-quality hamburgers. Mayhew chatted nonstop about nothing in particular, and Gamay figured he was just stretching things out. After their long break, the tour continued to a third building, which contained almost all computers and no tanks.

  Mayhew said the computers were matching chemicals to diseases faster than could be done by human beings. Gamay glimpsed Dr. Song Lee. Her eyes were glued to a computer.

  The tour was over by midafternoon. Mayhew seemed relaxed for the first time since Gamay had met him. He excused himself, and asked if Gamay would mind if he didn't accompany her back to the lodge.

  "Not at all," she said. "See you at happy hour."

  As she left the lab building area, Gamay felt as if she had been given the bum's rush. Since setting foot on the island, she had been wined, dined, zipped through a packaged tour, and prepped to be sent on her way in the morning.

  Mayhew had been correct to fear the attention of a trained observer. She might have passed off his close attention to her every move as a clumsy attempt at hospitality, but there was no doubt that he had tried a verbal bait and switch concerning the jellyfish tank's occupants.

  Gamay had easily seen through Mayhew's smoke screen. The collegial little research group was a façade. No amount of bar-room cheer could hide the fact that the island was a secretive, hermetically sealed, pressurized environment. People laughed too hard, or, in the case of Mayhew, switched on his phony jaw-breaker smile.

  Gamay made her way to the dock to get some fresh air. Dooley Greene was painting a skiff. He saw her approaching and removed the cigar stub from his mouth.

  " ' Afternoon, Dr. Gamay. Dr. Mayhew give you a good tour of the labs?"

  "It was short but interesting," she said, keeping a poker face.

  Dooley picked up on the unenthusiastic response.

  "Thought so," he said with his jack-o'-lantern grin.

  "I saw Dr. Song Lee in one of the labs," she said. "Doesn't she go kayaking every afternoon about this time?"

  Dooley nodded. "Like clockwork. She'll go out later on."

  Gamay pointed to the kayak rack.

  "Could I borrow one of those, Dooley? I've got a few hours, and thought it might be nice to explore the mangroves."

  Dooley plunked his paintbrush into a can of turpentine.

  "I'd be glad to show you around in my boat, Dr. Gamay. You'll see a lot more and save yourself some paddling."

  Having nothing else to occupy her time, Gamay got into Dooley's boat. He headed away from the dock, and, once clear of the island, goosed the throttle. The double hulls cut through the flat water like scissors through silk. Within minutes, they entered a small bay enclosed by mangroves.

  Dooley stood at the steering console, dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Squinting because of the sun's reflection off the calm waters, he kept the boat pointed toward an old wooden cabin cruiser that lay off the tip of a mangrove island. The cruiser sat at an angle, with its stern in the water. The glass in the windows was missing, and there was a hole in the rotting wooden hull at the waterline that was big enough for a man to swim through.

  "Hurricane pushed that wreck up onto an oyster bar," Dooley said, slowing the boat to a fast walk. "Makes a good navigation point when you're cruising around the mangroves. It can get confusing out here at times, even with a GPS and compass."

  The boat had gone past the tip of Bonefish Key, a long, tapering point shaped like a shirttail. The marine center dock was no longer visible, and palmettos obscured the water tower. The low, monotonous islands offered no outstanding features that could be used as reference points, and perspective constantly changed.

  "You must know these waters like the back of your hand," Gamay said.

  Dooley squinted at the sun-dappled water.

  "It all looks the same, but you get so you can pick out little details that most people wouldn't see." He opened a storage box and pointed to a pair of goggles. "I cheat when I go out fishing at night," he said with a smirk. "Got these night vision gogs over the Internet. Got some spare ones back at the boathouse."

  "Where does Dr. Lee go kayaking?"

  "She paddles down the back side of the barrier beach. Lots of birds there. I'll show you."

  Dooley headed between two mangroves. The passage narrowed, funneling them to a dead end. Dooley brought the boat to a halt and handed Gamay a pair of binoculars. She raised them to her eyes and saw dozens of snowy egrets and great blue herons wading in the shallows, looking for food.

  Dooley pointed to a wooden stake that stuck out of the water a few feet from the shore.

  "That marks a path that leads across the island. Only a few hundred yards, and there's good surf fishing on the other side."

  Dooley powered up the outboard motor, and they sped out of the V-shaped cove and toward the wrecked boat. He made a sharp turn and headed back toward Bonefish Key. The water tower popped into view, and minutes later Dooley cut speed and expertly brought them alongside the dock. Gamay tied the boat off with a few turns of the bow and stern lines. She thanked Dooley and borrowed a chart of local waters, saying she wanted to see where they had been.

  She passed Dr. Lee, who was on her way for her daily kayak paddle. Gamay said hello, and got the same polite reception as the first time they met.

  She then stood at the top of the hill overlooking the marina and watched Lee until she paddled around a bend.

  When Gamay looked past the superficial beauty of the island, she saw that it had a beaten aspect to it. The mangroves were half dead, and even the high ground had never dried out after the hurricane, producing rank decay that overpowered the flowers and hung over the island in an invisible miasma.

  She wrinkled her nose.

  This place stinks in more ways than one, she thought.

  CHAPTER 21

  JOE Zavala sat behind the wheel of his 1961 Chevrolet Corvette, cruising along Interstate 95 to Quantico, Virginia, at a safe ten miles over the speed limit. The convertible top was down, the powerful V-8 engine under the hood purred like a contented tiger, a CD of Ana Gabriel was playing, the wind was blowing in his dark brown hair, he was on the NUMA payroll, and he was about to meet a beautiful woman. Life was sweet.

  Around forty miles southwest of Washington, he turned off the highw
ay onto a tree-shaded road and drove through countryside that first offered glimpses of military vehicles and structures, then led to a checkpoint manned by an armed guard. He showed the guard his NUMA credentials, had his name matched against a visitors' list, and followed the signs to the main building of the FBI Academy.

  Surrounded by three hundred eighty-five acres of woods, the Academy was built on the Marine Corps base in the 1970s under the reign of J. Edgar Hoover. The campus-style complex consisted of twenty-one buildings of a soothing honey color connected by a network of glass-enclosed corridors.

  Zavala went through the front entrance of the main building and walked past a bubbling fountain into the atrium lobby. He checked in at the reception desk, and said he had an appointment with Agent Caitlin Lyons. He was given a security badge with his name on it to wear. A young woman was assigned to guide him through the maze of buildings and corridors.

  He heard a commotion that sounded like a gunfight at the O.K. Corral and knew that he was near the shooting range. The guide ushered him in and pointed to a row of booths.

  "Number ten," she said. "I'll wait outside for you. Gets a little noisy in here. Take your time."

  Zavala nodded his thanks, and took some ear protectors from an attendant. Then he went over to a booth and stood behind a woman who was firing at a silhouette of a man. She stood with her pistol in both hands, slowly and methodically pumping bullets into the target, hitting it in spots that would have proved fatal had the bullets been perforating human flesh instead of paper.

  Zavala had no desire to startle a trained FBI agent while she had a gun in her hand. He stood behind her patiently until she turned and saw him. She beckoned for him to step into the booth. She replaced the spent magazine with a full one, handed him the pistol, and pointed toward the target.

  The Walther PPK was a favorite of Zavala's, and the grip felt comfortable in his hand. He raised it to eye level, flicked the safety off, and let off six shots in rapid succession. Every squeeze of the trigger found the center circle of the bull's-eye over the heart.

  He flicked the safety back on and handed the gun back to the woman. She pressed a button that brought the target to the front of the booth. She stuck her finger through one of the holes Zavala's bullets had made and said something he couldn't hear. He removed his ear protectors, and she said it again.

  "Show-off."

  She placed the pistol in a hip holster and pointed to her wristwatch. They made their way to the door, first dropping off their ear protectors. The guide was waiting in the hallway, but Caitlin said she would show Zavala to the lobby when their meeting was over.

  "Let's go for a walk," she said.

  They strolled along a shady path that was a world away from the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite in the shooting range.

  Caitlin Lyons was an attractive woman in her thirties, and if she hadn't been wearing black, short-sleeved coveralls with a sidearm on her belt she could have passed for a member of Celtic Women, the musical ensemble. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion, and the brows over her remarkable blue-green eyes were high and arched. Her dark blond hair was tucked under a black baseball cap with FBI on the front.

  "Not bad shooting, Joe. Ever think of joining the FBI?"

  "As soon as they have a navy," Zavala said.

  Caitlin laughed. "You were very brave to come up to me when I had a gun in my hand."

  "Should I have been worried?"

  "You know what they say about a woman scorned…"

  Zavala winced. His dark good looks and unassuming manner made him popular with many women around Washington. He had gone out with Caitlin, but their budding romance was interrupted by a mission for the Special Assignments Team. He had not gotten back to her until now.

  "Scorned is an ugly word, Cate. I was planning to get in touch with you after my last job."

  "How about abandoned, then? Jilted? Left in the lurch. Forsaken." She saw the distress on his face. "Don't worry, Joe," she said with a smile, "I'm not angry at you for leaving me to run off on another NUMA mission. I'm a cop, I might have done the same. And I wasn't looking for anything permanent anyhow. The FBI is as demanding as NUMA. Besides, if I need you, all I have to do is turn on the TV and I'll see those Latin good looks. I watched the bathysphere dive. Very exciting."

  "The most exciting part was what you didn't see."

  Caitlin gave him a quizzical look, and he pointed to a park bench alongside the walkway. They sat down, and Zavala told her about the attack on the bathysphere, Austin's close call, and the connection to the Pyramid Trading Company. When he was done talking, she took his hand and squeezed it.

  "You're a cad and a bounder, Joe, but I would have been devastated if anything had happened to you." She gave him a peck on the cheek. "Now, how can I be of help in solving an ocean crime? As you pointed out, I'm a landlubber."

  "You're also an expert on Asian crime, which I'm not." Zavala described the triangular mark Austin had discovered on the AUV's blade and the connection between the underwater robot that attacked the bathysphere and the fishing company owned by Pyramid Trading.

  She let out a low whistle.

  "Pyramid. The baddest of the bad. You couldn't have chosen a worse bunch to tangle with, if that's the case. You and Kurt are damned lucky to be alive."

  "What do you know about Pyramid?"

  "Let me give you some perspective," Caitlin said. "My job is to keep Asian crime as far from U.S. shores as possible and to solve crimes when they do occur. It's a losing battle. We've had Asian criminal enterprises in this country since the early 1900s, starting with the Chinese tongs."

  "Didn't the tongs originate the term hatchet man?" Zavala asked.

  "The hatchet men were the Chinese thugs who fought one another during the tong wars. The tongs started as social clubs but then became gangs. They are still thriving today as part of an international network that's dominated by the big criminal organizations known as Triads. That's why the triangle you described is so interesting."

  "In what way?"

  "The term Triad was coined by the British, who saw that the Chinese symbol for secret society was a triangle."

  Zavala's eyes narrowed.

  "You're right," he said, "that is interesting."

  "The triangle symbolized the unity of heaven, earth, and man," Caitlin said. "Pyramid uses it as a trademark for its legitimate enterprises. But it's still involved with extortion, murder, prostitution, drugs, loan-sharking, and money laundering."

  "The tried and true," Zavala said.

  "It's also got a worldwide network of gangs in every city. The names all start with Ghost: the Ghost Devils, the Ghost Shadows, the Ghost Dragons. You get the picture. They do the dirty work: intimidation, enforcement, murder. They're ready to go at a moment's notice."

  "What about the legal side?"

  "The criminal stuff is the bedrock, but it has evolved into a nontraditional organization with foreign affiliates and legitimate businesses: manufacturing, real estate, movies, phamaceuticals. And, as you discovered, commercial fishing. Some of its divisions have gotten into trouble for producing contaminated, dangerous products."

  "Does the Pyramid leadership have a human face?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact, it has three. The company is said to be run by a set of triplets."

  "That's an unusual arrangement."

  "Not when you consider the extent of their empire. Pyramid is like a country unto itself. It has a huge treasury, an army of thugs at its command, and a diplomatic corps that interacts with the Chinese government, which traditionally has supported the Triads. It has gangs in every major country, including the U.S. It's the biggest criminal organization in China, possibly in the world."

  "How do you fight something like that?" Zavala asked.

  "With great difficulty. Asian criminal groups are smart, rich, multilingual, and flexible. Advances in travel and communications have allowed them to operate on a global scale. We can make life tough for their street
gangs and nibble around the edges of their financial empire, but they've been impervious up to now."

  "What has changed?"

  "They are up against the only enemy who could do them harm: the Chinese government. It's trying to put Pyramid out of business."

  "Wait a second, didn't you say the government supported the Triads?"

  "That's history. There's a huge gray area between what is legal and what is criminal in China. That's where the Triads operate. The government hadn't clamped down before this because the Triads produce money, keep order, and are patriotic."

  "Why the sudden change of heart?"

  "The Chinese military has been in business with the Triads for years. Pyramid is particularly tight with the Army, giving it political muscle to defend its criminal interests, but the government is worried this cozy arrangement has given Pyramid too much power. They've put thousands of corrupt officials from the National People's Congress in jail, but they really began to push after the safety scandals. China lives on its exports. And anything that threatens them threatens the stability of the country and therefore its rulers.

  "Tell me about the triplets," Zavala said.

  "Not much to tell. Triads give their people numbers, according to rank rather than names. But they usually have someone to serve as their public face. Pyramid's front man is an immensely rich guy named Wen Lo. No one has ever seen the other two triplets. Triads are usually decentralized, but Pyramid has been strengthening its leadership, which also has the government worried." She paused. "Now it's my turn, Joe. Why would a Chinese Triad want to sabotage the bathysphere?"

  "Kurt thinks they were after Dr. Kane because of a secret research project he was involved in. Does that sound plausible?"

  "Anything is possible with this gang. What would you like me to do?"

  "I was hoping you might poke around and see what you can dig up."

  Caitlin cocked her head. "Not to be coy, but what can you offer me in return?"

  "A ride in my 'Vette, a romantic dinner at an old inn in the Virginia countryside."