Austin passed Phelps's advice along to the pilot of each sub. He delegated the shuttle pilot to take the lead vehicle. Mitchell got in one of them and held the cooler with the real vaccine cultures in it tightly on her lap. Then, one by one, the subs detached from the underside of the hemispheric hub and followed the leader across the bottom of the crater and through the tunnel.
With the staff on its way, Austin turned to the next order of business: the Typhoon. As they got back in their wet suits, Zavala filled Austin in on the situation aboard the Russian submarine. Austin's view of the situation was less optimistic than Zavala's. Feeling was returning to Austin's right arm, but he still wouldn't be able to raise and fire the heavy Bowen revolver with any degree of accuracy. Phelps would be of limited help.
When Phelps tried to get into his wet suit, the snug neoprene top pressed painfully against his wound. Zavala used Austin's knife to cut the arm of the suit off and part of the chest area to relieve the pressure.
Phelps noticed that two sets of scuba gear were missing and surmised that the pair of guards who had escorted Zavala from the sub had gone back to join their comrades. More bad news: the guards were now back to their full complement.
Zavala helped Austin lower Phelps into the pool and guide him down the shaft to open water. With Austin on one side of Phelps and Zavala on the other, all three slowly rose from the bottom up toward the Typhoon, whose gigantic shadow loomed near the surface.
By prearrangement, Austin and Phelps entered the hatch on the starboard deck of the giant sail and Zavala used the port hatch. Once inside the escape chambers they closed the hatch, pumped out the water, then opened the lower watertight door and descended the ladder. They whipped their masks off to see Captain Mehdev standing there with a curious look on his face.
The captain had been in the control room when an alarm went off signifying the airlocks were in use. The two guards had returned earlier from the lab, so he went to see who had entered his submarine. He wasn't surprised to see Phelps and Zavala, but he raised a bushy eyebrow when he saw the broad-shouldered stranger.
Zavala said, "Kurt, this is Captain Mehdev, the commander of this incredible boat and keeper of the vodka cabinet."
Austin extended his uninjured left arm for a handshake.
"Kurt Austin. I'm Joe's friend and colleague at NUMA." Noticing the hostile glance Mehdev shot in Phelps's direction, he added, "Mr. Phelps is no longer working for the people who hijacked your sub. He is helping us now."
"Yes, but for how long?" Mehdev asked, making no secret of his skepticism.
"Good question," Phelps said. "Sorry, can't answer that. But I'm going to help you guys take your sub back."
Mehdev shrugged.
"What can my men and I do?" the captain said. "We are sailors, not Marines."
"Start by telling us where the guards are and what they are doing," Austin said.
"Three are asleep in the officers' quarters in the starboard hull," Mehdev said, "and the others are gambling in the wardroom or they're in the mess hall. They like to be close to the gym and the sauna, which were made off-limits to my men."
"I think it's time we end their little sojourn at Club Med," Austin said. "Let's take care of the snoozers first."
Phelps pretended to be guarding Zavala and Austin in case the four encountered a wandering guard. They filed through the control room, where Mehdev, who had been in the lead, whispered in Russian to the crewmen, who passed the word on to others, that it would be a good idea to stay out of sight. The captain then picked up some rolls of duct tape from the machine shop and continued through the labyrinth of pressurized compartments until they came to the first of the officers' state-rooms.
Three off-duty guards awoke in the first room to find themselves looking down the barrel of Austin's revolver. They were trussed up by Zavala, had their mouths taped, and were tucked back in their bunks.
The raiding party headed toward the smell of cooking food. Mehdev entered the mess hall alone and smiled at two guards who sat at a table drinking tea while watching Jackie Chan on DVD. They glanced at the captain only briefly, then went back to their DVD.
Mehdev spoke in Russian to the quartermaster, who was tending the steam table. He nodded in understanding and slipped out of the mess hall. Then Austin and Zavala stepped into the room, brandishing their weapons. The stunned guards were pushed, belly down, to the floor, then given the duct-tape treatment to keep them immobile and quiet.
With Mehdev again in the lead, Austin and Zavala kept moving through the sub until they came to the wardroom. The captain poked his face through the doorway and asked with a smile if anyone needed anything. One guard looked up from his cards and answered with a growl that needed no translation. Still smiling, the captain withdrew.
"Four places but only three players," Mehdev whispered to Austin and Zavala. "Half a bottle of vodka gone."
Austin didn't like having a stray guard wandering around the submarine, but he wanted to press his advantage. He nodded to Zavala, and they stepped into the wardroom with guns leveled. The slightly drunk guards were slow to react. Minutes later, they were facedown on the floor bound with duct tape. Then the hunt was on for the missing guard.
They found him a few minutes after that. Or, rather, he found them. As the men entered the compartment that housed the sauna, the door opened and the guard stepped out wearing only a bathing suit. This time, it was Austin and Zavala who were slow to react. The guard was young and fast, and he reached into a nearby locker, grabbed a holster with a handgun in it, and bolted through the hatch into the next compartment. Austin gave chase, but he tripped on some pipes and went down on one knee. He was up in an instant, but by then the guard had disappeared into the innards of the submarine.
Austin would have lost his prey if not for the crewmen who pointed him in the direction of the fleeing guard. With Zavala right behind him, he kept moving until he came to a closed door. He and Zavala were pondering their next move when Mehdev caught up to them.
"What's on the other side of that door?" Austin asked.
Huffing and puffing, the portly captain said, "The missile battery was replaced with a cargo hold. A freight elevator goes up to a loading hatch on the deck. A catwalk from the elevator crosses over the bays to another elevator on the forward side of the hold, which is filled with empty containers that were supposed to be used for cargo. You'll never find him in there. Just secure the door."
"Could he still cause trouble if we let him alone?"Austin asked.
"Well, yes," the captain answered. "There are electrical and other conduits that run through the hull. He could disable the sub."
"Then I think we should disable him," Austin said.
He asked the captain to have his men keep watch over the guards who had been neutralized, then plucked a flashlight off the bulkhead wall, turned the compartment lights off, and slowly opened the door. He stepped into the next compartment, flicked the flashlight on, and played the beam over the open elevator shaft. The elevator cables were thrumming inside the shaft. The elevator car then clanged softly to a halt at the top.
Austin went over and pressed the elevator's DOWN button. He and Zavala stood to either side of the doors with their weapons ready, but when the elevator car returned it was empty. Zavala took a fire extinguisher from the wall and stuck it between the doors to keep the car in place.
After a quick conference, Zavala climbed the stairs to the catwalk to drive the guard toward Austin, who then would cut him off at the other end of the hold. Austin had spent a lot of time at the shooting range using both hands and was confident that he could get off a reasonably accurate left-handed shot if he had to.
The vast interior hold, which had once housed missile silos and twenty city busters, took up almost a third of the sub's length. When the silos were removed, large loading-dock doors had been installed in the deck overhead and partitions installed to separate one cargo from another in their own bays.
Austin stepped into the fir
st bay and found a light switch. Floodlights hanging from the catwalk turned night into day. He made his way along a corridor between the metal containers until he came to a partition. He stepped through an opening into the next bay and repeated his search.
As Austin made his way through the hold bay by bay, Zavala kept pace along the catwalk. Austin had crossed the hold without incident until he came to the last bay. Haste made him careless.
Austin assumed that the guard was still ahead of him, caught in the pincers of their maneuver. But the prey had figured out the intention of the maneuver and had hidden in a narrow space between container stacks. He waited for Austin to pass and then silently emerged behind him. Moving quietly on bare feet, the guard lifted his gun with both hands and carefully took aim between Austin's shoulder blades.
"Kurt!"
The shout came from Zavala, who was peering over the rail of the catwalk. Austin glanced up and saw his friend's pointing finger. Without a backward glance, he ducked around a big metal container as a bullet twanged off its corner. Then another gunshot rang out, this one from above. A moment later, Zavala called down.
"You can come out, Kurt, I think I got him."
Austin peered around the corner of the container, then he waved up at Zavala. The guard lay dead in his bathing suit on the floor. Even shooting down at such a difficult angle, Zavala had drilled him through his chest.
Austin remembered then what Phelps had said about the Chinese fetish for numbers. He shook his head. When your number was up, your number was up.
CHAPTER 45
Chang was a classic psychopath. He didn't have a drop of human empathy or remorse in his squat, ugly body, and for him killing was as easy as crossing the street. The other Triad triplets had channeled his murderous impulses to their own ends. He displayed a real talent for organization, so they gave him responsibility for the network of gangs that operated in the world's big cities. The job slaked his blood thirst by allowing him to participate in assassinations for commercial advantage, retribution, or just plain punishment.
The job also had restrained Chang from tumbling into the abyss of sheer madness, as long as the other two triplets provided balance. But now he was on his own, far from the familial reins that had kept his barely restrained violence in check. The voices that sometimes whispered in his head were now shouting for his attention.
After leaving the lab, Chang had delivered the vaccine cultures to the freighter lying in wait near the atoll and then waited for a report from the submarine. The failure of the explosives to detonate, to destroy the lab and staff, had finally pushed him over the edge.
When the appointed time had passed, Chang got back in the shuttle with his most cold-blooded killers, and ordered the pilot to head back into the crater. As the shuttle emerged from the tunnel, the undimmed lights at the bottom seemed to mock Chang. A vein pulsed in his forehead.
Dr. Wu, sitting at Chang's side, had sensed his employer's growing fury, and he tried to will himself into invisibility. Even more disconcerting was Chang's sudden lightness of mood when he turned and said in an almost cheerful tone more frightening than his anger:
"Tell me, my friend, what would happen if someone were to fall, quite by accident, into the tank with the mutant jellyfish?"
"That person would be stung immediately."
"Death would be instant?"
"No. The nature of the toxin is to paralyze."
"Would it be agonizing?"
Dr. Wu shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"Yes," he said. "If the person didn't drown, he would be aware of every sensation in his body. In time, the jellyfish would begin to absorb him."
"Splendid!" Chang clapped Dr. Wu on the back. "Why didn't I think of this earlier?"
He announced that, since the lab hadn't blown up, they were going back for some "sport." Once they were aboard, they were to round up the scientists and kill them any way they wanted. The men he brought in the shuttle were his most cold-blooded killers. They were to spare Zavala, who would be thrown into the medusa tank. Dr. Wu would record his death on video so his final moments could be transmitted to Austin.
Carrying its cargo of murderers, the shuttle descended to the transit hub. The pilot activated the shuttle's airlock. Minutes later, Chang and his followers burst out of the airlock and almost stumbled over a box of C-4. A length of colored wires had been tied in a bow and placed on top of the carton. And resting against the bow was a white envelope with CHANG on it in big block letters.
The man who had set up the explosives picked up the cluster of wires.
"Nothing to worry about," he said. "These wires aren't connected to anything."
He handed the envelope to Chang, who ripped it open. Inside was a piece of stationery with a Davy Jones's Locker logo on it. The paper had been folded in three. Printed on the first panel was:
BANG!
Chang quickly unfolded the paper. There was a smiley face on the next panel and:
JUST KIDDING!
The last panel read:
I'M IN THE CONTROL ROOM
Chang crumpled the paper and ordered his men to search the complex. They came back a few minutes later and reported that the complex appeared deserted and that wires had been torn from all the C-4.
Chang stormed off to the control room, only to pause at the door. Suspecting that the room had been booby-trapped, he sent his men in first.
They scoured the room and reported back to Chang that it too was deserted and that nothing was amiss. He stepped in to see for himself. He glanced around, his scowl deepening. He wanted somebody to take his fury out on. He saw Dr. Wu filming the room.
"Not now, you fool!" Chang shouted. "Can't you see there's nobody here?"
A metallic voice issued from the wall speakers.
"You're right, Chang. You and your pals are the only ones on the lab."
Chang wheeled around, the stock of the machine pistol tight against his chest.
"Who's that?"
"SpongeBob SquarePants," the voice said.
"Austin!"
"Okay, I confess, Chang. You got me. It's Kurt Austin."
Chang's eyes narrowed to slits.
"What happened to the scientists?" he asked.
"They are no longer on the lab, Chang. They left in the minisubs."
"Don't toy with me, Austin. I destroyed the subs' power circuits."
A different voice came on the speaker: Phelps.
"Those were backup circuits you stomped on," he said. "The subs were fully operable, boss."
"Phelps?" Chang exclaimed. "I thought you were dead."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Chang. Austin ain't jerking you around. Dr. Mitchell and all the other scientists are long gone."
"I'll find them," Chang shouted. "I'll find you and Austin and kill you!"
"That's not very likely," Austin said. "By the way, the vaccine cultures they gave you are useless. The real ones are with the staff."
The voices in Chang's head began to rise in volume and number, reaching an evil cacophony. A white hate flowed through his bull-like body like a power surge. He ordered his men back to the shuttle. As it rose from the lab, he radioed the freighter, giving orders to start scouring the depths with sonar. A minute later, he got a reply. Sonar had picked up four shapes moving away from the atoll. Chang ordered the freighter to be on hand when the minisubs surfaced.
The shuttle went full speed toward the tunnel. Chang allowed a smile to cross his face, anticipating the looks on the scientists' faces when they saw the freighter bearing down on them. He was savoring the scene, imagining how they would react when he rose from the deep like Neptune, when he heard the pilot call out. Chang leaned forward in his seat and stared out the cockpit window.
A huge black shadow was bearing down on the shuttle.
The pilot recognized the massive blunt bow of the Typhoon hurtling right at them and he yelped like a frightened puppy. Chang yelled at him to turn, but the pilot's hands were frozen on the controls.
Uttering a feral snarl, Chang grabbed the pilot by the shoulders, pulled him out of his chair, and took his place. He yanked the wheel hard to starboard.
The shuttle's turbines continued to drive it forward, but after a few seconds the front came around to the right, narrowly edging the shuttle out of the way of a head-on collision with the six-hundred-foot torpedo hurtling its way. But the Typhoon was moving at twenty-five knots, and it clipped the tail end of the shuttle, demolishing its rudder and sending the shuttle into a wild spin. The violent impact caused the cargo door to fly open, and water began flowing in.
The weight of the inrushing sea dragged the shuttle's tail down, and the front of the shuttle angled upward like a dying fish. Chang's men grabbed onto the seats and pulled themselves up the slanting deck toward the cockpit.
Dr. Wu struggled to join the pack, but the stronger guards pushed him under the water and his flailing arms soon grew still. Chang was not about to share the pocket of air with anyone. He turned around, leaned his pistol over the back of the seat, and shot any man who tried to encroach on his space. Within seconds, he had killed all his guards and was alone in the cabin.
By then the weight of the water in the shuttle had shifted forward. Its nose leveled out, and the shuttle began to sink to the bottom of the crater. The cabin was plunged into complete darkness. Chang fought to keep his head up in the diminishing pocket of air, but the bodies swashing around in the blood-stained water made it difficult. As soon as he pushed one body out of the way, another body came along to take its place. At one point, he was eye-to-eye with dead Dr. Wu.
More water came in, diminishing the pocket of life-giving air even more. Chang pressed against the ceiling of the shuttle with only a few inches left. As water filled his mouth and nostrils, he looked up, saw the monstrous shadow of the Typhoon gliding overhead, and, with his last, soggy gasp uttered:
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