The Tomb of Hercules_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  He gave her a shocked look. “You’re what?”

  “I didn’t do it! But we can’t just phone up Homeland Security—Corvus had friends in the government, they won’t send the Coast Guard to pull over his boat on an anonymous tip.”

  “Corvus is dead,” Trulli reminded her.

  “Yeah, but they don’t know that. Plus, if they do stop them …Sophia’ll kill Eddie. I know it.” She looked away from the computer, through the office window. “I’ve got to get on that boat.”

  “Even if we had a chopper, which we don’t, it wouldn’t have the range or the speed,” Trulli protested. “There’s no way we can catch them.”

  “What about that?” She pointed at the suspended submarine.

  “Huh?”

  “That. You said it was fast—how fast?”

  “In theory, anything up to four hundred knots, but—” Trulli froze as he realized what she meant. “No way, it’s still experimental! I’ve never tested it at full power!”

  “Well,” said Nina firmly, “now’s your chance.”

  “This is a really bad idea,” said Trulli as he operated the electric winch controls. The Wobblebug slowly descended into the still water of the dock, the surface rippling gently around its curving hull.

  “Noted,” Nina told him. “If we sink, you can say that you told me so.”

  “It’s not sinking I’m worried about. It’s blowing up.”

  Nina looked more closely at the submarine. In some ways it reminded her of a wingless jet fighter. Two gaping intakes near the bow, currently blocked by metal louvres, led back to much narrower rocketlike nozzles at the stern. The bow itself, however, was oddly blunt where she would have expected it to be streamlined, as if somebody had sliced off the tip of the pointed nose. “What do you mean, blowing up?”

  “It’s why I called it the Wobblebug. The original Wobblebugs were steam-powered cars from like a century ago.”

  “It’s steam powered?” Nina said in disbelief.

  “Yeah. It’s not like it burns coal, though!” He pointed at the intakes. “Seawater goes in the front and gets superheated by electric elements, and the steam blasts out of the back like a rocket motor. Most of the hull’s full of polymer polypyrrole batteries—it’s the only way to deliver enough juice short of using a nuclear reactor.”

  “Wait, it can do four hundred knots just using steam? So why isn’t everybody doing that? I thought submarines were pretty slow.”

  “They are.” Trulli stopped the winch, the Wobblebug now floating in the water, and hopped onto its casing to detach the cables. He pointed at the blunt bow. “But if you make the nose the right shape, when you hit a certain speed you get supercavitation—kind of a shock wave of air bubbles around the hull that cuts the drag from the water down to almost nothing. Like underwater warp drive. The Russians have had supercavitating torpedoes called Squalls for over a decade that can do two hundred and fifty knots, no problem.” The cables at the stern released, he made his way forward, balancing on the rocking hull with the ease of a tightrope walker. “The reason nobody’s used the technology for manned subs is that it’s really hard to get the design right.”

  “Until now.”

  “Well,” Trulli said pointedly, “that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” He unhooked the final cable and jumped back to the winch controls to raise the steel lines out of the way.

  Nina regarded the vessel. “But assuming it works—”

  “Which is a big assumption.”

  “—we should be able to catch up with the Ocean Emperor long before it reaches New York, right?”

  “We should. Just a couple of problems, though—first off, you’ve actually got to get aboard the Ocean Emperor from the Wobblebug.”

  Nina glanced over at the cagelike storage units beneath Trulli’s office, which among other items contained coils of rope. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Uh-huh. The second problem is that it’s a one-way trip. If the Ocean Emperor’s not where we expect, we’re screwed. There’s no going back.”

  “Why not?”

  “You need to get up to a certain speed before the supercavitation effect starts working. And the only way to do that’s with a rocket. A real rocket, not a steam-powered one.”

  Nina looked back at the Wobblebug’s stern. Recessed between the two nozzles of the steam jets was a third, broader opening. “A rocket?”

  “Yeah. It’s a solid-fuel rocket, like the kind they use to launch missiles from subs. Once it’s ignited it can’t be stopped—and it only lasts for thirty seconds. When the sub slows down below supercav speed, that’s it. It can’t speed up again. It’s got backup pump-jets so it can maneuver, but they can only do twenty knots tops. Twenty-five, if you’re not worried about them burning out.”

  “The only things I’m worried about right now are saving Eddie and stopping my home from being nuked,” Nina said.

  “Point taken.” Trulli switched off the winch and took the end of an electric cable from a reel, uncoiling it as he boarded the sub again. He opened the top hatch. “Okay, I’ll get everything prepped, and—”

  “Mr. Trulli!” They looked around to see the security guard, Barney, walking towards them. “Is everything all right?”

  “Er, yeah, mate,” Trulli said unconvincingly. “No worries. Just, ah …” He looked down into the open hatch. “Think my keys might be in here.”

  Barney gave Nina a suspicious glance, then walked past her to stand at the edge of the dock. “Looks to me like you’re planning to take this thing out.”

  Trulli adopted a cheesy grin. “Dunno why you’d think that.”

  “You know that Mr. Corvus has to give his personal permission for each launch.” Barney’s hand moved towards his holstered gun. “I think you should step back onto the dock and—unk!”

  He staggered, then fell to the dock. The fire extinguisher with which Nina had just hit him over the head clanked down beside him as she put her hands on her hips and addressed Trulli. “So, Matt. Are we good to go?”

  “You’ve changed since I first met you,” he muttered, then dropped into the hatch, the cable trailing behind him.

  Fifteen minutes later, the unconscious Barney had been tied up and locked inside one of the storage cages, and the large door at the end of the building raised. A cold wind blew in from the sea, the Wobblebug creaking against the fat rubber bumpers hanging over the side of the dock as waves lapped along it.

  Trulli’s head popped out of the hatch. “Okay, we’re ready. As we’re going to be, anyway. I’ve hooked up a GPS receiver to the onboard computer, but it won’t work until we surface, so if the Ocean Emperor changes course while we’re underwater, we’re screwed.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance.”

  Trulli seemed dubious, but held out a hand to her regardless. “Okay, then. Hop aboard. I warn you, it’s a bit of a squeeze.”

  She took his hand and stepped onto the Wobblebug’s hull. The sub wallowed under the extra weight. Once he was sure that she wasn’t going to slip, Trulli dropped back inside the cabin. Nina carefully lowered herself inside feetfirst.

  “Jeez, you weren’t kidding,” she said. The cabin was barely large enough for one person, never mind two. The small seat was crammed practically up against the controls. A steering yoke like that of a light aircraft jutted from the instrument panel, a fiendishly complex-looking bank of gauges and switches flanked by an LCD monitor screen with a keyboard duct-taped beneath it. Trulli was already in the seat, so she was forced to duck into the narrow gap to his side. “So where do I go?”

  “Right where you are, I’m afraid. You’ll have to lie down and sort of wrap yourself around the seat with your backside against the aft bulkhead.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Still want to do this?”

  Nina squeezed awkwardly into the tight space. “I don’t want to do it. But I’ve got to.”

  “I thought you’d say something like that.” Trulli flipped switches, checki
ng the various gauges. “Okay, the batteries are at full charge, and the booster’s primed and ready to fire. Last chance to get out.” Nina frowned at him. “Yep, I thought.”

  He shut the hatch. Once it was secured, he tapped the keyboard and a video image of the dock ahead appeared on the screen. “No room for a periscope,” he explained as he pushed a lever forward by a single notch. A soft vibration ran through the cabin, motors rumbling. On the screen, the walls of the dock slid past. Within thirty seconds, the Wobblebug was out in open water.

  Trulli pushed the steering controls forward, increasing speed as he did so. Nina took a firmer hold of the seat as the submarine began its descent. The hull creaked ominously. “How deep will we go?” she asked, suddenly nervous.

  “Supercav works best when it’s well clear of any surface turbulence, so probably around ten, twenty yards. Depends on the water conditions.”

  “Have you taken it that deep before?”

  Trulli hesitated before answering. “Would you feel better if I said yes?”

  “Oh boy.”

  He flicked through several windows on the monitor in rapid succession. “Okay, inertial guidance is set, I’ve got the waypoints programmed in. Hold on tight, it’ll be bumpy.”

  “How bumpy?”

  “You know how bumpy a really big roller coaster gets?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  He gave her a not entirely confident grin as he flicked up the protective metal cover over a particular button. “Way bumpier than that. Okay, on three!”

  Nina gripped the seat even more tightly.

  “Two!”

  She braced herself against the rear bulkhead. “One!”

  And cringed—

  “Warp speed!” Trulli cried, pushing the button. The response was immediate.

  A thunderous roar filled the cabin. Sudden acceleration shoved Trulli back in his chair. Nina shrieked.

  The Wobblebug shook violently as it surged forward. Nina had no idea how fast they were moving, but even through the roar of the rocket motor she could hear a rising hiss of water racing over the hull.

  “This is the tricky part!” Trulli yelled.

  “What do you mean?” Nina shouted back. She desperately wanted to put her hands over her ears, but if she let go of the seat she would be battered about like a pea in a whistle.

  “I’ve got to time everything right! The rocket’s only got thirty seconds of fuel, but if I open the seawater intakes too soon there won’t be enough ram pressure and the engines will choke!”

  “Too soon? What happens if you open them too late?”

  “The heating elements melt and the sub will explode!”

  “Perfect!” Nina wailed. The instruments were shaking too much for her to see any detail, but she could pick out a line of colored lights flicking on one by one.

  They advanced from blue into a zone of orange, approaching a single green light. Beyond it, the color went straight to red—again with just a single light.

  Presumably there wouldn’t be time for a second red light to come on before the sub blew up.

  “This is it!” Trulli gripped a lever.

  Orange, orange…

  Nina cringed again.

  Green.

  Trulli yanked the lever back as hard as he could.

  Nina heard a clunk as the louvres covering the intakes flicked open and seawater from the leading edge of the shock wave burst in to hit the heating elements. There was a colossal hissing shriek, a furious banshee beside her—

  The Wobblebug leaped again, another burst of acceleration crushing Nina deeper into the confined space. Even Trulli screamed.

  The roar of the rocket stuttered, then with an almost frightening abruptness cut out. But the piercing hiss of the steam jets continued steadily. The push of acceleration gradually eased as the submarine reached a stable speed.

  Nina opened her eyes, realization that she hadn’t been blown to pieces sinking in. “How … how are we doing?” she asked, voice shaking.

  “Hold on a sec,” said Trulli, sounding almost as surprised as she was that they were still alive. The sub was still shuddering, though not nearly as much as before. “Holy crap, we made it. We made it!” He whooped with delight. “We’re doing almost three-fifty knots! Suck it, Russia! Australia takes the record!”

  “And is everything working properly?”

  Trulli’s triumph quickly became more subdued. “Battery drain’s higher than I expected—must be from having two people aboard. The life support systems are drawing more power.”

  “Will we be able to catch up with the Ocean Emperor?”

  “I think so.” He double-checked the screen. “I hope so.”

  “So do I,” Nina said quietly.

  28

  The Atlantic

  Ocean

  Even before Chase opened his eyes, he could tell from the rhythmic pitching motion that he was aboard a ship.

  He could also tell there was someone else with him. “Hi, Sophia,” he groaned.

  “Again, I’m impressed,” Sophia said as he blearily forced his eyelids apart, fighting to overcome the nauseating aftereffects of the tranquilizer dart. She stood a few feet away, looking down at him. He tried to get up, but found that his arms had been handcuffed in front of him around a pipe running from floor to ceiling, in what appeared to be a cargo hold. “How did you know I was here?”

  “Your perfume. Chanel. It always was your favorite.”

  “Hmph.” Sophia tapped one of her high boot heels on the deck. “By the way, welcome aboard the Ocean Emperor. I seem to have inherited it from René. A shame I won’t be able to enjoy it for very long, but needs must.”

  Chase didn’t like the sound of that. “Where’s the bomb?”

  “Close by. Don’t worry. It’ll be even closer before long.”

  He liked that even less. “So what’s it all about, Sophia? What’re you going to nuke? And why?”

  She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Actually, I was rather intending to be the one asking the questions. Who helped you get out of Algeria? You might as well tell me—even you must realize by now that there isn’t time to stop me.”

  Chase brought his arm around the pipe to look at his watch. It was well after one in the morning—not much more than seven hours before the bomb was set to detonate. “No, there’s still time.”

  Sophia sighed. “Stubborn…to the last. Really, Eddie, Joe checked that pipe before he cuffed you to it. It’s rock solid. The only way you’re going to get loose is if you gnaw your own hand off. Who helped you?”

  He ignored her and gripped the pipe, then braced himself and yanked at it. As Sophia had promised, it was solidly fixed in place, not even rattling. He tried again, with the same lack of result. Sophia made a tsk! sound with her tongue. Defeated, Chase released the pipe and sank back to the deck. “The dead guy you left in that room full of spears had a radio,” he admitted. “I called MI6.”

  Sophia looked confused. “But it wouldn’t have enough range to… Oh, I see. One of Mac’s little tricks, I suppose. You couldn’t have got support from the upper echelons, though, otherwise they would have taken action already.”

  “They still might.”

  “No, they won’t.” She slowly circled him, a hint of victory in her smile. “You keep forgetting, Eddie—I know you. Deception’s not one of your skills.”

  “Unlike you,” Chase shot back.

  “It’s a useful talent, certainly. None of my ex-husbands realized that I was using them for my own ends, and that includes you.”

  “So what are your ends? I told you what you wanted to know, so now you can tell me—you owe me that much.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Except your life.”

  Although she tried to hide it, Chase could tell that his words had hit home. Sophia completed her circle as if about to exit the hold, then turned back to him. “All right, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. It’s only fai
r, since you’re at least partly responsible in the first place.”

  “How the hell am I responsible?”

  She crouched, staring intently into his eyes, malice burning in her gaze. “Because of you, Eddie, my family lost everything they had. All I have left is my title. Because of you.”

  Chase tried to work out what she was talking about, but came up with nothing. “Not quite with you there, Soph. You mind elaborating?”

  “My father was completely opposed to my marrying you.”

  “Well, yeah, I worked that out pretty early on. Like about five seconds after I met him.”

  “No,” she hissed. “You have no idea. He despised you, considered you on the level of vermin.”

  Chase snorted. “Now I don’t feel so guilty for buying him those cheap cuff links that Christmas.”

  She jumped up. “This isn’t funny, Eddie!” For a moment he thought she was going to kick him, but she wasn’t foolish enough to get within range of his hands or feet, even if he was cuffed to the pipe. “I never told you, but while I was with you, Father practically disowned me, cut me off financially. And you didn’t even notice, because you were so used to living on the cheap that it never even occurred to you just how much I’d been affected.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Chase sneered. “Poor little rich girl, Daddy cut up her credit cards?”

  Again, she seemed about to lash out at him before intelligence overcame anger. “You never did understand my family, what we did. Our business, our wealth, goes back generations, built up through diligence and reputation. We deserved it, it was our right. But then …” Her face twisted with disgust. “The world changed. Suddenly, reputation and right counted for nothing. It all became about pure greed, just money, numbers flying back and forth between computers. Legacies were destroyed for nothing more than a quarterly profit statement.”

  “Legacies like your dad’s, you mean.”

  “He was ill!” Sophia shouted. “He wasn’t thinking clearly, he made mistakes. Mistakes which if I’d been there to help him, he never would have made! But because I was with you, he was too proud to ask for my help—and when the jackals in the City and on Wall Street saw weakness, they charged in and destroyed him! They broke up his businesses, tore them apart to sell off piece by piece so that the banks and the stockbrokers and the lawyers could share it all out among themselves—and they left him with nothing! They left me with nothing!”