Serpent nf-1

by Clive Cussler

  The others tried to scramble for cover, only to be brought down by ,the merciless hail of lead before they could take a step. The metal walls echoed and reechoed with the ugly chatter and the mad whine of bullets ricocheting off the armored truck and the wall behind it. Even after it was quite clear that no one could have survived, the men with the guns continued to move forward, firing at the supine bodies.

  Suddenly all was silent.

  A purple pall of smoke hung in the air, which was thick with the smell of cordite and death.

  The killers methodically turned over each body. Angelo thought he would go mad. He stood flat against the bulkhead frozen with fear, cursing his luck. He must have stumbled onto a robbery! He expected the killers to start removing sacks of money from the truck. Instead they did a peculiar thing. They lifted the bleeding bodies out of the rising water, dragged them one by one around to the back of the truck. Then they stuffed them inside, slammed the door, and bolted it shut.

  Angelo felt a coldness at his feet that had nothing to do with fear. The water had risen to where he stood. He backed away

  from the truck, staying in the shadows. As he neared the door he'd come through, the water rose to his knees. Before long it

  was up to his armpits. He put on the life jacket he'd been clutch ing like a child's security blanket. Quietly breast stroking, he

  made his way to the door. He turned around in the water for one

  last look. One of the killers stared briefly in Angelo's direction. Then he and the others cast their weapons aside, waded into the water, and began to swim. Angelo slipped out of the garage, praying they hadn't seen him. The corridor was inundated, and he kept swimming until he felt steps under his feet. His shoes and clothes were leaden with water. With a strength born of unbridled terror, he vaulted up the stairs as if the dark, thin-faced killer who seemed to sense Angelo's presence were right on his heels.

  Moments later he burst into the Careys' cabin. "I couldn't get a lever," he sputtered breathlessly. "The garage" He stopped short.

  The bed frame had been pried away from the wall, and Carey was gently easing his wife out with the help of the ship's doctor and another crewman. Carey saw the waiter.

  "Angela, I was worried' about you."

  "She's gonna be all right?" Angela said with concern. Mrs. Carey's eyes were shut. Heir nightgown was wet with blood.

  The doctor was taking the, woman's pulse. "She passed out, but she's still alive. There may be internal injuries."

  Carey noticed the dripping clothes and empty hands. "These guys found me. I got a jack sent over from one of the rescue ships. Guess you didn't find anything in the garage."

  Angelo shook his head.

  "My God, man, you're 'soaked. I'm sorry you went through all that." .

  Angelo shook his head. "It was nothing."

  The doctor jabbed a hypodermic needle into the woman's arm. "Morphine for the pain," he explained. He tried to hide the worry in his eyes. "We've got to get her off the ship as soon as possible."

  They wrapped the unconscious woman in a blanket and carried her up, to the promenade deck on the lower side. The fog had miraculously disappeared, and a small flotilla surrounded the ship, blazing lights reflected in the sea. Coast Guard helicopters hovered above like dragonflies. A steady stream of lifeboats plodded back and forth between the stricken liner and rescue ships.

  Most of the lifeboat traffic was between the Doria and a huge passenger ship with the words Ile de France on its bow. Searchlights from the Ile were trained on the Doria. Word to abandon ship had never come down. After waiting for two hours, passengers simply went over the side on their own. Women and children and older people were being taken off first. Progress was slow because the only. way they could get off the boat was with ropes and nets.

  Mrs. Carey was strapped onto a stretcher that was carefully lowered with lines down the side of the ship to a waiting lifeboat, where friendly hands reached up to receive her.

  Carey leaned over the rail watching until his wife was safe, then turned to Angelo. '

  "Better get your butt off this ship, my friend. She's gonna go down."

  Angelo looked sadly around him. "Pretty soon, Mr. Carey I help a few more passengers first." Smiling, he said, "Remember what I say about my name." When Angelo first met the Careys he'd joked that his name meant "angel," someone who serves others.

  "I remember." Carey enveloped the waiter's hand in his. "Thanks. I can never repay you. If you ever need anything, I want you to come to me. Understand?"

  Angelo nodded "Grazie. I understand. Please say goodbye to the beta signora. "

  Carey nodded, heaved himself over the side, and slid down a rope into the lifeboat. Angelo waved goodbye. He hadn't told Carey or anybody about the wild scene in the garage. This wasn't the time. There might never be a right time. Nobody would believe a fantastic story told by. a lowly waiter: He remembered a Sicilian saying: The bird who sings in the tree ends up in tie cooking pot. .

  The death watch was almost over.

  The last survivors had been taken off the ship in the pinkish

  light of dawn. The captain and a standby crew stayed on the ship until the last minute to keep the liner from being claimed as salvage. Now they, too, slid down ropes into lifeboats.

  As the warm morning sun climbed into a cloudless sky, the ship's list became ever sharper. By 9:50 A.M. she lay on her starboard side at a fortyfivedegree angle. The bow was partially submerged.

  The Stockholm hove to about three miles away, her prow a twisted mass of metal. Debris littered the oily water. Two destroyer escorts and four Coast Guard cutters stood by Planes and helicopters circled overhead.

  The end came around ten o'clock. Eleven hours after the collision, the Doria rolled completely onto her right side. The empty lifeboats that had defied all the crew's efforts to launch them floated away on their free of their davits at last. Foamy geysers exploded around the perimeter of the ship as air trapped in the hull blew out under pressure through the portholes.

  Sunlight glinted on the huge rudder and the wet blades of the twin nineteenfoot propellers that had sent her steaming proudly across the ocean. Within minutes water engulfed the bow, the stern lifted at a steep angle, and the ship slid beneath the sea as if she'd been sucked under by the powerful tentacles of a gigantic sea monster.

  As she sank, more seawater rushed into the hull and. filled compartments and staterooms. The pressure tearing apart metal and rivets produced that spooky, almost human moaning that used to send chills up the spines of submariners who had just sunk a ship.

  The ship plunged toward the bottom in almost the same angle and position at which she sank. Two hundred twentyfive feet below, she came to a jarring stop, then settled levelly onto her sandy bier on her starboard side. Bubbles seething from hundreds of openings transformed the normally dark water around the wreck to a light blue.

  Rubbish whirled around a tremendous vortex for at least fifteenteen minutes. As the water returned to normal, a Coast Guard boat moved in and dropped a marker buoy where the ship had been.

  Gone from the world's sight was the twomilliondollar cargo of wines, fine fabrics, furniture, and olive oil.

  Gone, too, was the incredible artworkthe murals and tapestries, the bronze statue of the old admiral.

  And locked deep in the ship's interior was the black armored truck with the bulletriddled bodies and the deadly secret they had died for.

  The tall blond man came .down the gangplank of the Ile de France onto Pier 84 and made his way to the customs shed. Wearing a black wool sailor's cap and a long overcoat, he was indistinguishable from the hundreds of passengers who swarmed onto the deck .

  Discharging its humanitarian duty had put the French liner thirtysix hours behind schedule. It arrived in New York on Thursday afternoon to a tumultuous welcome, stayed long enough to unload seven hundred thirtythree Doria survivors. After accomplishing its historic rescue, the ship did a quick turnaround, steamed back up the Hudson
River and out to sea. Time was money, after all.

  ' "Next," the customs officer said as he looked up from his table.

  The officer wondered for a second if the man in front of him had been injured in the collision and decided the scar had healed long ago. ,

  "State Department's waiving passports for survivors. Just sign this blank declaration card. All I need is your name and U.S. address," the customs inspector said.

  "Yes, thank you. They told us on the ship." The blond man smiled. Or maybe it was just the scar. "I'm afraid my passport is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean." He said his name was Johnson and that he was going to Milwaukee.

  The officer pointed. "Follow that line, Mr. Johnson. The Public Health Service has got to check you for communicable diseases. Shouldn't take long. Next, please."

  The health inspection was brief, as promised. Moments later the blond man was through the gate. The crowd of survivors, relatives, and friends had surged from the steamship dock onto the street. There was a traffic jam of slowmoving, hornhonking trafficcars, buses, and taxis. He stopped at the curb and scanned the faces around him until a pair of eyes met his. Then two more and another. He nodded to acknowledge that he had seen his comrades, before they headed off' in different directions:

  He moved away from the crowd, toward Fortyfourth Street and flagged down a taxi. He was weary from the night's exertions and looked forward to the chance to rest.

  Their work was done. For now.

  June 10, 2000

  The Moroccan Coast

  1 NINA KIROV STOOD AT THE TOP OF the ancient stairway, eyes sweeping the nearly stagnant green waters of the lagoon, thinking she had never seen a coast more barren than this isolated stretch of Moroccan shoreline. Nothing stirred in the oppressive, ovenlike heat. The only sign of human settlement was the duster of puttycolored, barrelroofed tombs that overlooked the lagoon like seaside condominiums for the departed. Centuries of sand drifting through the arched portals had mingled with the dust of the dead. Nina grinned with the delight of a child seeing presents under the Christmas tree. To a marine archaeologist, these bleak surroundings were more beautiful than the white sands and palm trees of a tropical paradise. The very awfulness of the mournful place would have protected it from her biggest fear: site contamination.

  Nina vowed to thank Dr. Knox again for persuading her to join the expedition. She had refused the initial invitation, telling the caller from the University of Pennsylvania's respected anthropology department that it would be a waste of time. Every inch of Moroccan coastline must have been explored with a fine-tooth comb by now. Even if someone did discover an underwater site, it would have been buried under tons of concrete by the Romans, who invented waterfront renewal. As much as Nina admired their engineering skills, she considered the Romans Johnny-come-lately spoilers in the grand scheme of history. ,

  She knew her refusal had more to do with sour grapes than archaeology. Nina was trying to dig herself out from under a mountain of paperwork generated by a shipwreck project off the coast of Cyprus in waters claimed by the Turks. Preliminary surveys suggested the wreck was of ancient Greek origin, triggering conflicting claims between these old enemies. With national honor at stake, the F16s from Ankara and Athens were warming up their engines when Nina dove on the wreck and identified it as a Syrian merchantman. This brought the Syrians into the mess, but it defused the potential for a bloody encounter. As the owner, president, and sole employee of her marine archaeological consultancy firm, MariTime Research, all the paperwork ended up in Nina's lap.

  A few minutes after she told the university she was too busy to accept the invitation, Stanton Knox called.

  "My hearing must be going bad, Dr. Kirov," he said in the dry nasal tones she had heard a hundred times issuing from behind his lectern. "I actually thought I heard someone tell me you were not interested in our Moroccan expedition, and of course that can't be true."

  Months had passed since she had talked to her old mentor. She smiled, picturing the, snowy shock of hair, the near manic gleam behind the wirerimmed spectacles, and the roue's mustache that curled up at the ends over a puckish mouth.

  Nina tried to blunt the inevitable charm offensive she knew was coming.

  "With all due respect, Professor Knox, I doubt if there's a stretch of the North African coast that hasn't been overbuilt by the Romans or discovered by somebody else."

  "Brava! I'm glad to see that you recall the first three lessons of Archaeology 101, Dr. Kirov."

  Nina chuckled at the ease with which Knox donned his professorial robe. She was in her thirties, owner of a successful consulting business, and held almost as many degrees as Knox did., Yet she still felt like a student within his aura. "How could I ever forget? Skepticism, skepticism, and more skepticism."

  "Correct," he said with obvious joy. "The three snarling dogs of skepticism who will rip you to pieces unless you present them with a dinner of hard evidence. You'd be surprised at how often my preaching falls on deaf ears." He sighed theatrically, and his tone became more businesslike. "Well, I understand your concern, Dr. Kirov. Ordinarily I would agree with you about site contamination, but this location is on the Atlantic coast well beyond the Pillars of Melkarth, away from Roman influence." '

  Interesting. Knox used the Phoenician name for the western end of the Mediterranean where Gibraltar bends low to kiss Tangier. The Greeks and Romans called it the Pillars of Herakles. Nina knew from bitter classroom experience that when it came to names, Knox was as precise as a brain surgeon.

  "Well, I'm terribly busy"

  "Dr. Kirov, I might as well admit it," Knox interjected. "I need your help. Badly. I'm up to my neck in land archaeologists who are so timid they wear galoshes in the bathtub. We really need to get somebody into the water. It's a small expedition, about a dozen people, and you'd be the only diver.".

  Knox's reputation as a skilled fly fisherman was not undeserved. He dangled the Phoenician connection under her nose; set the hook with his sympathetic appeal for help, then reeled her in with the suggestion that as the only diver she would get sole credit for any underwater finds.

  Nina could practically see the professor's pink nose twitching with glee. She shuffled the folders on her desk. "I've got a ton of paperwork to finish . .

  Knox cut her off at the pass. "I'm well aware of your Cyprus job;" he said. "Congratulations, by the way, for averting a crisis between NATO partners. I've taken care of everything. I have two highly competent teaching fellows who would love to gain experience in dealing with the red tape that is such a substantial part of archaeology these days. This is a preliminary survey. We'll only be a week or ten days. And by then my trusted young Myrmidons will have .dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's.

  You don't have to decide this minute. I'll fax you some material. Take a peek at it and get back to me."

  "How long do you need, Dr. Knox?"

  An hour would do. Cheerio."

  Nina put the phone down and laughed out loud. An hour.

  Almost immediately, paper began to spew from the fax machine like lava from an erupting volcano. It was the project proposal Knox submitted with his funding request. He wanted money to survey an area for GrecoRoman or possibly other ruins. The standard Knox sales pitch, a tantalizing mix of facts and possibilities, designed to make his project stand out in bold relief from all the others competing for funds.

  Nina breezed through the proposal with a practiced eye and shifted her attention to the map. The survey locus was between the mouth of the Draa River and the western Sahara on the Moroccan coastal plain that stretched from Tangier to Essaouria. Tapping her teeth with the tip of her ballpoint pen, she studied an enlarged section of the area. The coastal indentation looked as if the cartographer had hiccupped while drawing the " shoreline. Noting the site's proximity to the Canary Islands, she leaned back in her chair and thought how she needed to get out into the field before she went insane. She picked up the telephone and dialed.

  Knox answe
red in midring. "We leave next week."

  Now, as Nina surveyed the lagoon, the lines and squiggles on a map translated themselves into physical features. The basin was roughly circular, embraced by two pincers of blasted brick red rock. Beyond the entrance were shallows that at low tide revealed rippling mud flats. Thousands of years ago the lagoon opened directly onto the ocean. Its naturally sheltered waters would have attracted ancient mariners who commonly anchored on either side of a headland to wait for good weather or daylight. Nearby was a dry riverbed, what the locals called a wadi. Another good sign. Settlements often grew near a river.

  From the lagoon a narrow, sandy path led through the dunes and eventually terminated at the ruins of a small Greek temple.

  The harbor would have been too tight for Roman ships and their massive jetties. She guessed the Greeks used the inlet as a temporary anchorage. The steep shoreline would have discouraged hauling goods inland. She 'had checked the old maps, and this site was miles from any known ancient settlement. Even today, the nearest village, a sleepy Berber encampment, was ten miles away over a rutted sand road.

  Nina shielded her eyes from the sun and stared. over the water at a ship anchored offshore. The vessel's hull was painted from waterline to superstructure in turquoise green. She squinted, just making out the letters NUMA, the acronym for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, emblazoned on the hull amidships. She idly wondered what a vessel belonging to a U.S. government agency was doing off a remote shoreline in Morocco. Then she picked up a large mesh bag and descended a dozen worn stone steps to where the water gently lapped the bottom stair.

  As she removed her UPenn baseball cap, sunlight glinted off braids the color of ripe wheat woven together behind her head. She slipped out of an oversized Tshirt. The floral bikini she wore underneath revealed a strong, longlegged body nearly six feet tall.