Serpent nf-1

by Clive Cussler

  "My specialty. I'll see what I can dig up."

  Zavala glided toward the back of the armored trick "Cable cutters. What do those guys have?"

  "I don't know. I thought it was a spear gun. Now I'm not so sure."

  Zavala brandished the loppers. "If we can get close enough I can cut a few zippers."

  Austin's mind, which had been working at Mach speed, came to a screeching halt. He'd been staring past Zavala at the open door of the armored truck, mesmerized by the bright rectangle of light standing out against the inky blackness. He moved closer. The portable halogen lamps they had used during the slab removal brightly lit up the interior.

  "I may have a better idea," Austin said. "The Venus flytrap."

  Keeping an eye on the hull opening, Austin outlined his plan for Zavala.

  "Simple yet audacious," Zavala replied. "That takes care of one. What about the others?"

  "Improvise."

  Zavala raised the loppers like an Indian brave armed with a tomahawk about to do battle with the rifles of the cavalry and melted into the darkness on the far side of the truck, just beyond the engine compartment. Austin pried the lid open on two more jewelry chests.

  It was like opening boxes full of stars. Even underwater the glitter of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies was blinding. He arranged the strongboxes neatly in a row just inside the trick where they would be in plain view, propping up their backs. He added a few shills for dramatic effect, then moved away from the truck until he, too, was cloaked by the artificial night within the great ship. He hovered in the vast empty space, glancing back and forth between the truck and the hull opening above. Although the interior of the Hard Suit was dry and cool, he was sweating.

  There was a glow near the hull opening, then a pair of divers came into the ship like ferrets entering a rabbit burrow, their twin flashlight beams stabbing the murkiness, probing this way and that. Watching their cautious entry Austin recalled the tentativeness with which he and Zavala had first entered the wreck, their nervousness at the unknown, and the adjustment to a disorienting topsy-turvy world where up and down were no longer useful referents. He was counting on that initial confusion. And on the natural tendency of the eye to focus on the only visible object in the empty void. The armored truck, looking out of place and time.

  The divers moved back and forth, probably debating a course of action, whether they were walking into a trap. They approached the truck, staying dose to each other, adjusting to the current, drawing nearer until their burnished suits were semi-silhouetted in the doorway.

  Austin cursed. They were shoulder-to-shoulder. As long as they stayed that way his plan was dead, and maybe so were he and Zavala. Then human nature intervened. One diver muscled the other aside. He was framed directly in the truck's doorway, body at a forward slight angle, head bent into the truck. Austin's lips curled in a fierce grin. Pushiness doesn't pay, pal.

  He alerted Zavala. Assuming ram speed."

  "Cutting started," Zavala shot back.

  Austin kicked both thrusters into lateral full speed and aimed for the back of the truck. The suit accelerated slowly, then gathered momentum as its half-ton weight overcame the forces of inertia and water resistance.

  He flew directly toward the truck like a bowling ball trying to pick off the last pin, praying that the diver would stay put. He didn't want an eternity with Zavala reminding him how he spent his last earthly moments imitating an accordion.

  His luck held. The diver remained transfixed by the jewels, probably trying to figure out how he could carry them off.

  Austin focused on the suit's wide metal butt, just below the hard plastic shell covering the air tanks like a tortoise shell. Damn. He was coming in too low. He gave himself a slight vertical lift

  Back on target.

  "Now!" Austin yelled, knowing there was no need to raise his voice.

  As he hurtled forward he brought his feet up like a boy making a cannonball dive, trying to imagine himself on an invisible bobsled, but the best he could do with the metal joints that restricted his movement was to elevate his knees.

  Zavala was working feverishly. The pincher jaws had nibbled away at some of the strands .of the front cable holding the truck.

  He was afraid of cutting through too soon. At Austin's shouted command he put all the power of his shoulders, built up over many hours punching a body bag in his boxing days, into the lopper's s long handles. The center of the cable had some life in it, and there was slight resistance at first. Then the beak-like blades cut through the remaining strands as easily as a raptor ripping apart its prey.

  Austin fought to extend his feet straight out, but his metal knees slammed into the metal posterior of the diver ogling the jewels. Without the suit Austin would have popped his knee joints like a skier taking a backward spill, but the stiffness of the suit saved him. The diver was launched forward as if he had been tossed by a Brahma bull and flew headfirst into the truck. Austin bounced back and spun out of control.

  The other frantically tried. to back out of the truck, but his thrusters were caught on a shelf frame. Austin had his own problems. He tumbled through space trying to figure out the thruster combination that would stabilize him.

  He heard Zavala call out: "Bombs away!"

  With one cable cut the armored truck had dropped down at its front end and hung precariously off the wall at an angle, its headlights pointing almost straight down. For an instant it seemed to Zavala, who had moved a safe distance away, as if the vehicle would stay that way. Then the full weight of the truck proved too much for the remaining cable. The restraint snapped, and the truck dropped away from the wall. It plunged into the darkness, joining the automotive graveyard in a big explosion of silt, taking with it the bones of its defenders, the jewels, and the struggling diver.

  The whole sequence involved only a few seconds. The surviving diver had glimpsed Austin's attack and watched with astonishment as the truck disappeared, but he recovered quickly from his shock. Austin had finally regained stability and was fighting off the dizziness when the bright light from the diver's flash exploded in his fare. He nailed his down thruster, knowing that in the time it took to drop a few yards he'd be an easy target. He gritted his teeth and braced himself against the searing pain he knew would come. The blinding light stayed on him, then shot off at an angle, and he saw the other diver struggling wildly.

  Zavala!

  Seeing Austin's predicament Joe had come from behind and hooked his arm behind the diver's weapon arm, throwing him off balance. They wrestled in slow motion like two monstrous robots. In his left claw Zavala clutched the lopper, but it soon became clear to him that his opponent was not going to stay still long enough for Zavala to cut a zipper as intended. The half-baked arm lock was slipping, and Zavala was just plain weary from his morning's exertions.

  Improvise, Zavala remembered.

  He jammed the loppers into the gym suit's lateral thruster. The wire cutters were wrenched from his grip. The spinning propeller disintegrated in its housing. Zavala backed off. The diver hit both thrusters to get away, but the unequal thrust of one propeller sent him into an undesired spin. He whirled off into the darkness on a wobbling crash course.

  Weighted for neutral buoyancy, the diver's weapon floated until Austin grabbed it in his claw. The device was primitive in design but made of contemporary metals, a deadly instrument of death underwater where firearms were useless. Attached was a cradlelike magazine with room for six bolts. The short bolts had fins at one end and, at the other, four razorsharp blades that could have sliced through his aluminum suit like a can opener. The oversized controls were simplified so that even a mechanical claw could string a bolt in place for firing.

  Zavala glided closer. "What is that thing?" he said, panting from his wrestling match.

  "Looks like a modern version of an old crossbow."

  A crossbow! Last time it was dueling pistols," Zavala said with a combination of wonder and disgust. "Next we'll be throwing stones
at the bad guys."

  "Beggars can't be choosers, Joe. Wonder if this thing really works." Austin held the weapon's butt against his chest and aimed. "Lethal, but my guess is it's not terribly accurate except at close range."

  "You're about to get your chance to find out: We've got bogies at one o'clock."

  Twin gossamer lights floated through the open hull and into the ship. Two more divers, both armed and less prone to ambush than their predecessors.

  "I don't think we can sneak up on these guys as easily," Austin said. "They would have been talking to the others on their radios so they'll have an idea what to expect."

  "We've got a couple of points in our favor. They don't know we're armed. And for now they don't know where we are."

  Austin sorted through the options. They could run and hide, but eventually as they became more exhausted they'd screw up. The Hard Suits weren't made for the kind of demands being placed on them, and eventually they would run out of power or air.

  "Okay let's show them where we are. I'd flip to see who gets to be bait, but I don't have a coin. How are you at imitating a firefly?"

  "You just get your little crossbow ready Robin Hood."

  The intruders had paused, distracted by their spinning comrade who was bouncing erratically around the cargo space. Zavala turned on every light on his suit and flashed them on and off for effect. For a moment he hung suspended in the darkness like a bizarre road sign. Then he disappeared. That caught their attention. The attackers moved toward his last sighting. Only he wasn't there. He moved several meters off to the right. Flash. Clickclick. The chest and head lamps came on and off. He shifted again. Lights on. Lights off.

  The effect was startling even to Austin, who knew what was going on. Zavala clones seemed to be popping up all over the place.

  "Never thought I'd end up as a flasher," Zavala said.

  "Your mother would be proud of you; Joe. It's working. They're coming closer."

  It would be only a matter of time before they were on top of Zavala.

  "One more time, Joe," said Austin. "I'm right behind you."

  Zavala again blinked on and off like a Christmas tree. The attackers picked up speed and headed for the last place they had seen him. Directly toward Austin.

  He brought the weapon up to his shoulder. "Five seconds to get out of the line of fire, Joe," he said evenly. "Beat feet."

  "Going down," Zavala said in a parody of an elevator operator. He dropped several yards. Austin counted slowly, his sights transfixing the darkness behind the nearest approaching light. When he was sure Zavala was in the clear he squeezed the trigger mechanism and felt the crossbow kick slightly as it loosed the bolt. It was impossible to see the missile, but the shot must have been true because the light beam on the right jerked crazily.

  Austin levered the bowstring back for another shot, reloading a new bolt in its cradle, swearing at the clumsiness of the mechanism especially in the dark. By the time he brought the crossbow to his shoulder for another shot, the second attacker had figured out what was going on and snapped off his light. Austin let off a bolt anyhow but knew just from the feel of things that it had missed.

  "I nailed one of them, Joe. Missed the other guy. Let's see if we can find him. I've got the weapon, so I'll take the lead."

  He stared into the darkness. Useless! He'd have to take a chance. He flicked the lights on the front of his suit and his head lamp and saw a reflection. He headed for it.

  "He's making a break for the hole."

  "I see him," Zavala said. "I'm right behind you."

  They started after their quarry like two blimps on an attack run. Austin was pumped up with excitement, but even as he flew through the water with Zavala keeping pace, he couldn't help think that this must be one of the strangest battles of all time. Men encased in metal skins fighting to the death with ancient weapons in the massive cargo space of a mortally wounded ship.

  A shadow flitted through the opening and was gone.

  Damn. "Too late, Joe." Austin powered down. "He's in the open."

  "You said there were six. One went down with the truck. You nailed another, and the third is imitating a whirlagig. That leaves three."

  "That's my guess, but I wouldn't swear to it. You'll recall my miscount on the Nereus.

  "How could I forget it? Close enough for government work, as they say. Let's wrap this thing up," he said wearily. "I'm tired as hell, I have to take a leak, and I've got a date this Saturday with a beautiful agricultural lobbyist. She's got cactus flower eyes that are blue like you've never seen, Kurt."

  One day scientists would tap into Zavala's libido and unleash one of the strongest forces in the universe, Austin reflected.

  "I wouldn't want to stand between you and your sex drive, Joe. It might be dangerous. You're the weapons officer. Got anything up your sleeve?"

  "I think I see the torch hose." Zavala rose several yards and grabbed the dangling torch. "Got it. Don't know what use it is. Hey, the slab is gone."

  Austin rose until they were both almost directly under the huge hole in the ship's side. Where the stone slab had floated earlier on its airfilled pontoons, the bluegreen of water was impeded only by nosy fish.

  "They hijacked it while we were busy" Austin pictured the theft in his mind. "They'd need at least two guys to swim that load through the water. They'll have their hands full. They'll never expect us to go for them."

  "What are we waiting for?" Zavala shot back He threw the useless torch aside, and they both hit their vertical thrusters. They popped out of the ship into the open ocean. They were still deep beneath the cold dark Atlantic, but Austin was happy to escape the claustrophobic darkness inside the Doria's corpse.

  The diving bell was gone, and the only illumination was the filtered shimmer from the surface. The giant hull of the Andrea Doria stretched out in both directions, grayish near them and black beyond their immediate proximity. Austin saw a metallic glint in the distance, but it could have been a fish. He wished he could reach up and rub his eyes. The best he could do was squeeze them shut, then open them. No good. Only the unbroken bluish monotone.

  Wait.

  There it was again. He was sure of it.

  "I think I see them near the bow."

  They moved higher, then leveled out and glided toward the bow in fighter plane formation. Zavala saw a movement and called Austin's attention to it. The slab was being pushed along, floating on the pontoons. Two divers, one on either side. A tow line stretched off into the gloom ahead, probably being pulled by an unseen diver.

  "We'll try to bluff them. Give them a light show. I'll take a shot."

  The beams washed the slab and the divers on either side.

  The divers accelerated, as if they thought they could outrun their pursuers. Austin loosed a bolt, trying not to puncture a pontoon. He thought he saw the projectile bounce off the slab. The attackers shot off into the murk. The tow line went loose. The slab came to a slow stop above the old bridge wing of the Doria.

  "Let them go, Joe. We've got to tend to this thing."

  They swooped down and started to swim the stone back toward the hull opening where McGinty could find them with the bell. It was slow going because they were pushing against the current flowing over the ship.

  A voice crackled in Austin's earphones. "It's McGinty. Are you okay?"

  "We're both fine. Got the stone. We're moving it back to the work area. You can drop the bell anytime."

  There was a pause followed by a faint snort. "That might be a problem," the captain said, his voice burred with irritation. "We've lost the bow anchors. From the looks of the lines, they've been cut. Surface current's pushing us around. If we drop the bell, it'll swing like a big pendulum. Could knock us over."

  "Looks like our pals covered their escape, Joe."

  "I heard. Any chance of reattaching the anchor lines?"

  Austin and Zavala were dangerously tired. The Hard Suits were not designed for hand-to-hand combat, and the metal skins w
ith all their paraphernalia had become personal prisons.

  "It's doable, but not by us. It'll be easier just to wrassle this thing up on our own. And that's not going to be easy." He asked the captain if he could get the boat roughly into the same position and hold it there.

  "Not exactly, but close enough," McGinty said.

  They were approaching the hull opening. The Monkfish should be right above them.

  McGinty did a skillful job. The line they had used to lift the hull section dangled a short distance above the wreck. They attached the line to the slab, not easy without the fingers of the saturation divers to do the detailed work, then gave the captain the go-a-head.

  "Okay, Cap," Austin said. "We're coming up."

  45 AUSTIN HAD A GOOD VIEW OF THE impenetrable wall of fog bearing down on the Monkfish as he dangled like a hooked flounder over the ocean. The crane pivoted and lowered him onto the deck, where crewmen helped him out of the dripping gym suit like pages attending to an armored knight.

  Hauled aboard a few minutes earlier, Zavala looked strangely shrunken without the benefit of his form-fitting hull. Like those of an astronaut coming out of free fall, Austin's first steps were wobbly. Zavala handed him a mug of hot coffee. A few sips of the strong brew got his blood circulating. Then they dealt with their top priority, a stiff-legged race for the nearest head. They came out smiling, After changing into warm dry clothes they went back on deck.

  The trip up from the Andrea Doria wreck had been uneventful but tense, especially during the first few moments as the winch eased the strain with slow stop-and-go pulls and at the surface where the load lost its buoyancy. The skilled Monkfish crew attached more floats to make sure they didn't lose the stone, got it into a sling, then winched it aboard using the stern A-frame.

  Austin gazed at the innocuous-looking block, now lying on a wooden pallet, and found it hard to believe it had caused so much trouble and cost so many lives. The slab was shaped vaguely like an oversized headstone, which was appropriate given all the people who'd been killed for its sake. The object was a little longer than a tall man, almost as wide and as thick. Austin knelt on the deck and ran his hand over the surface, which was going from black to dark gray as it dried. He traced the hieroglyphics, but they made no sense to him. Nothing about this case made sense.