“What’s wrong?”
Her eyes remained on the inflated chamber. “We seem to have sprung a leak,” she said.
“A leak?”
She nodded. “Not water coming in. Air … going out.”
CHAPTER 38
KURT HELD THE BOAT ON A WESTERLY HEADING WHILE Leilani looked for the source of the leak and any way to fix it.
“What do you see?”
“Half a dozen little pinpricks,” she said. “I can feel the air leaking through them.”
He waved her to the back. “Drive the boat for a second.”
She came back to the transom, and Kurt took a look at what she’d found. Eight little holes, some of which were so small he could press the rubber together and the air stopped escaping.
“What do you think happened?” Leilani asked.
The holes were spread out in a weird pattern, almost a spray pattern, running from front to back. “Shrapnel from the plane,” he guessed, “or even tiny drops of burning kerosene. The rubber looks singed in a spot or two.”
Kurt ran his hands along the other air chambers, which were basically inflated rubber tubes, eight feet long and seventeen inches in diameter. The boat had four total, two in the front that ran straight and then angled together to create the blunt nose of the boat, and two in the rear, one on each side. The back of the boat was a metal transom on which the outboard was mounted.
He found two more pinpricks, both in the front right chamber. Worse yet, he could see little dots here and there that looked like they might have been additional impact zones for shrapnel or fuel. He wondered how long until those opened up.
“How does it look?” Leilani asked.
The prisoner seemed anxious to know as well. He might have been gagged, but his ears weren’t blocked.
“The port side seems okay,” Kurt said. “But that’s not going to help us if the whole starboard side goes flat.”
Two small lockers rested in the deck near the front. He opened both, only to find a single life jacket, a couple of flares, a small anchor and some rope.
“Rubber boat without a pump or a repair kit,” he mumbled. “Somebody’s going to hear from my lawyer.”
“Maybe we should turn around,” Leilani said, “go back to that floating island and surrender.”
“Not unless you want to be a prisoner again,” he said.
“No,” she said, “I don’t want to drown either.”
“We won’t drown even if both of them go flat.”
“But we’ll be stuck clinging to the other side like shipwreck survivors,” she said.
“Better than waiting for Jinn to shoot us,” he said. “Besides, I have a bet to win. All we have to do is push on until we find some help.”
“And if we don’t find help?”
“We will,” Kurt insisted, feeling confident.
He reached into the locker and pulled out the flares, which he stuffed into his breast pocket next to the binoculars. He grabbed the life jacket and handed it to Leilani.
“Put this on,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s just a precaution.”
Next he pulled out the anchor—a fifteen-pound fluke anchor hooked to an anchor rope by a large carabiner. He detached the anchor from the rope and hooked it onto the cord that bound the prisoner’s feet. The man looked up at Kurt in terror.
“Also just a precaution,” Kurt told him.
The man’s face showed little faith in that statement.
Kurt pulled the gag off the man’s face. “I know you understand when we talk,” he said. “Do you speak English as well?”
The man nodded. “I speak … some.”
“I don’t suppose you know the story of the little Dutch boy?”
The man stared at him blankly.
“This boat is sinking,” Kurt explained, “losing air. I can either throw you overboard to lighten our load or you can help us.”
“I’ll help,” the man said. “Yes, yes, I definite want to help.”
“The anchor is on your feet to keep you from trying anything stupid,” Kurt explained, and then he pointed to the forward section. “I need you to cover up these two holes and keep the air in.”
The man nodded. “I can do that. Definite, big-time.”
“Good,” Kurt said. “’Cause if you don’t, you’re going to hit the bottom of the sea faster than the rest of us.”
Kurt loosened the ropes around the man’s wrists and pulled them free. “What’s your name?”
“I am called Ishmael,” the man said.
“Great,” Kurt mumbled. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. Let’s hope we don’t encounter an angry white whale.”
With his legs still tied together and hooked to the anchor, Ishmael twisted and slithered a foot or so until he reached the prow of the boat. He placed his hands on the two leaks Kurt had pointed out.
“Press and hold,” Kurt said.
Ishmael pressed his fingers on the two spots and held them down. After a few seconds, he looked back, smiling.
“Perfect.”
“What about the other leaks?” Leilani asked.
“I’ll take first shift,” Kurt said, trying to spread his fingers like a piano player, “you keep us pointed west.”
Kurt and Leilani switched positions twice in the next three hours, but the rear chamber continued to deflate and the boat began to list to starboard and the aft corner settled. From time to time seawater washed over the top, soaking whoever was trying to stem the leak and weighing them down even further.
Fortunately, the Indian Ocean was the calmest of the world’s major seas and the swell was very small, only a foot at most. Kurt found that lower speeds kept the breaches to a minimum and he backed off the throttle just a bit.
As noon approached, they still hadn’t encountered anything resembling help, not even a trail of smoke on the horizon. With the sun high overhead, the outboard began to sputter and Kurt had no choice but to shut it off.
“Out of gas,” Leilani guessed.
“We have a gallon or so in the reserve tank,” he said, pointing to a stopcock on the fuel line that could be turned to access the reserve. “But we need to save that.”
“Save it for what?”
“Suppose we see a ship on the horizon,” he said. “We’ll need to intercept it, to get in front of it or at least alongside.”
She nodded. “Sorry.”
He smiled. “It’s okay.”
In the absence of the droning outboard, the silence felt oppressive and ominous, like a sign of their eventual doom. There was no wind. The only sound that could be heard was the light chop slapping against the sides of the boat.
Bathed in this silence, they bobbed up and down, wallowing in the low swells, three people aboard a sixteen-foot inflatable boat in a million square miles of ocean.
“Now what?” Leilani asked.
“Now we wait,” Kurt said patiently. “And see what fortune holds for us.”
CHAPTER 39
JOE ZAVALA HAD SPENT FIFTEEN HOURS IN THE CARGO HOLD of an unknown ship with only a group of trucks and untold billions of microbots for company. Another man might have gone stir-crazy and given himself up, banging on the doors just to get out. Joe had put the time to good use.
He’d searched each truck thoroughly. He’d found three bottles of water, drinking two of them and saving the third. He’d also discovered a plastic Ziploc-style bag filled with some type of jerky. Beef it wasn’t, but goat or camel or lamb it might have been. He ate as much as he could and put the rest back.
He’d also measured out the confines, took a look under the hoods of the trucks and come up with several alternate plans of action. He’d even considered sabotaging the engines, pulling out distributor wires, tampering with the carburetors or attempting to loosen the oil plugs so the big rigs either wouldn’t start or would break down shortly after they got going.
He chose not to. If the trucks couldn’t go, he couldn’t get off the ship. If they moved an
d then broke down twenty miles into whatever land they were heading to, Joe might be stuck somewhere worse than Yemen—and surrounded by angry militants to boot.
He considered breaking out. The huge doors were still pinned shut, but Joe was pretty certain he could bash them open with all the horsepower he had available. But then what? Based on what he remembered about their entry into the freighter and the thick layer of tire marks on the floor, he figured he was near the back end of some kind of dedicated transport. Almost like an auto ferry.
It wasn’t a roll on/roll off ship because there was no front exit, but it was definitely designed for vehicles. From the way it wallowed and swayed he didn’t think it was all that large either, which meant they probably weren’t taking him too far.
He decided not to break out. The only thing that would lead to was going overboard. Instead he waited, took a nap in the bed of the lead truck and woke to the sound of shouting on the decks above.
It felt as if the ship was slowing and maneuvering in smaller increments.
The sound of horns and whistles from other ships suggested they were near a port or harbor somewhere. Joe sensed the time for action approaching. If the ship docked in this mystery port, he was finding a way off even if this wasn’t the truck’s final destination.
Finally the sound of rattling came from the rear doors. Someone was working a heavy padlock. Moments later light spilled into the hold as the doors began to slide open.
CHAPTER 40
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. THE SUN WAS SETTING IN THE western sky. Jinn had secured his ownership of the floating island, bringing on board thirty men, heavy machine guns, RPGs and even a dozen ground-to-air missiles, minus the one he’d used against Kurt Austin.
The flying boat sat, fueled and waiting, in the marina in case he had to leave quickly. He felt safe, he felt secure. He would not have to concern himself with Xhou or the other members of the consortium here, nor would he face any repercussions from the Americans who were still in the dark as to his methods and goals.
Such success had put him in a boasting mood. He stood on the observation deck that jutted out from Aqua-Terra’s control room. The annoying Americans and the Italian billionaire stood near the edge, hands cuffed to the rail in front of them. Zarrina and a couple of Jinn’s men stood behind them. Otero sat just inside the door of the control room, his fingers on the keys of a laptop.
“I suppose you’re wondering why you’re still alive,” he said to his three most important prisoners.
“We’re alive because you need us to keep up the façade,” the tall man said, apparently speaking for the others. “To pretend everything is smooth as silk here if anyone calls in. Which will happen soon and which we’re not going to help you to do.”
A smirk crossed Jinn’s face. They weren’t stupid, but they were certainly not up on current events. Jinn approached the tall man from behind.
“Paul, is it?”
“That’s right.”
It bothered Jinn that this man Paul was so much taller than him. He remembered Sabah telling him that a king’s throne was always the tallest chair in the room and that the Shah of Iran used to hold court in a room with only one chair, his. All others had to stand while he sat a full head higher than them.
Jinn swung his leg, bringing the pointed toe of his boot across the back of the American’s knees, chopping him down.
The man let out a grunt of pain and surprise. He dropped straight down, hitting his chin on the rail as he fell. He bit a chunk from his lip, and blood filled his mouth.
“That’s better,” Jinn said, towering above the man now that he was on his knees. “Don’t bother to get up.”
“You bastard,” the woman said.
“Ah, the loyal wife,” Jinn said. “This is why I know you will do as I say. Because if either one of you disobeys, I will cause excruciating pain to the other.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Marchetti begged. “I’ll pay you for our release and the release of my crew. I can give you a fortune. I have millions, close to a hundred million in liquid assets, money that Matson and Otero don’t have access to. Just let us leave.”
“A long time ago I heard someone make a similar proposal,” Jinn said. “All that I have for one child. I now realize why the offer was denied. Your bid is a drop in the bucket. It is meaningless to me.”
Jinn turned back toward the control room, making eye contact with Otero. “The time has come. Signal the horde, bring it to the surface.”
“Are you sure about this?” Zarrina asked.
Jinn had waited long enough already. “Our ability to affect the weather had been limited by keeping the horde beneath the surface. To fulfill our destiny, not to mention our promises, we need to cool the ocean more quickly.”
“What about the American satellites? If the effect is noticed, we’ll have bigger problems to deal with than these people from NUMA.”
“Otero has plotted the paths, altitudes and transits of every spy and weather satellite that crosses this section of the ocean. By directing the horde from here, we can signal them to rise and drop back at far more precise intervals than we could from Yemen. They will appear when no one is watching. They will disappear again before the eyes of the world ever turn their way.”
“Sounds complicated,” she said.
“Less so than you would think,” Jinn insisted. “This is the open ocean. Aside from the occasional warship, there’s not much worth looking at. The world’s spy satellites are aimed a thousand miles to the north, watching the armies and oil of the Middle East. They study Iran and Syria and Iraq, they count Russian tanks and aircraft near the Caspian Sea or American battle groups in the Persian Gulf.”
He looked to Otero. “How long is the current window?”
Otero checked his computer. “We have fifty-three minutes before the next satellite comes in range.”
“Then do as I command,” Jinn ordered.
Otero nodded and brought up the control screen and typed in Jinn’s nine-digit code. The line-of-sight transmission would be broadcast all the way to the horizon. From there the bots would signal one another like dominoes.
He hit the enter key. “Signal processing now.”
Jinn stared out across the water, waiting to catch sight of the display. It took a minute before the first sign appeared, but then the ocean’s surface began to change quickly.
There had been no wind to speak of throughout the day, and the sea was glassy around them. But as the bots surfaced, the smooth appearance took on a grainy look, like a secluded bay choked with algae.
Jinn watched as the effect spread in all directions, running into the distance. It soon reached the limits of his vision, but he knew it went far beyond, at least fifty miles in every direction. Thinner wisps of his creation stretching for a hundred miles beyond that, spreading forth like the arms of a galaxy.
“Direct them to spread their wings.”
Otero began tapping away once again. “Order encoded,” he said. “Transmitting … now.”
Jinn slipped a pair of expensive sunglasses from his pocket. He expected the dark lenses would be necessary in a moment or two. He slid them over his eyes as the surface of the sea began to evolve once again.
A wave seemed to travel through it, almost like a tremor. The color went from a leaden gray to a dull gloss and then began to brighten until the sea around them shimmered with a mirrorlike finish. With the afternoon sun still high overhead, the effect was blinding even through the shield of polarized glass.
Jinn saw the prisoners staring in wonder and then turning away as the glare became painful to look at.
Jinn squinted and stared for just a moment, his chest swelling with pride.
Out on the surface of the sea, trillions upon trillions of his tiny machines had unfolded mirrored wings, hidden until then under shells like those on the back of a beetle. The act tripled the surface area of each microbot. The reflective surface of the wings quadrupled the amount of sunlight bounced
back into the upper atmosphere and away from the ocean.
It was as if a reflective blanket had been pulled across five thousand square miles of the Indian Ocean.
Gamay made the connection first.
“The temperature change,” she said. “This is how it’s being done.”
“Yes,” Jinn said. “And the cooling trend will now accelerate. These waters are already four degrees colder than the coldest temperature ever measured here at this time of year. Based on my calculations, the surface temperature will drop another full degree by nightfall. Each day, the effect will deepen. Soon, a giant well of chilled water will occupy the center of this tropical ocean while in another section of the ocean the microbots are doing the exact opposite, absorbing heat, keeping the ocean warm. The temperature differential will create winds, for some it will bring storms, for others it will smash all hope of avoiding a monstrous famine.”
“You’re insane. You’ll kill millions of people.”
“The famine will kill them,” he corrected.
She fell silent. Neither of the other two spoke. All three of them kept their eyes turned away from the blazing reflection.
Jinn bathed in the crystalline light as if it were glory itself. Certainly it was vindication, and proof of the godlike powers he now held in the palm of his hand.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Paul said.
“And just who is going to stop me?”
“My government, for one,” Paul added. “The Indian government, NATO, the UN. No one is going to let you starve half a continent. Your little force here won’t last long against a squadron of F-18s.”
Jinn stared at Paul. “You operate from a fundamental misunderstanding of power,” he said. “True, I and my people are inconsequential in the global scheme. But power does not exist only in your nations. It exists in balance all around the world. Once the rainfall begins to feed Chinese mouths, the Chinese will not allow the UN or your government or the men in New Delhi to redirect their newfound bounty so quickly. They will veto any resolution to act, frustrating your desires to proceed. They will be joined by the countries of the Middle East and Pakistan and the Russians, all of whom will benefit from what I’ve wrought and who will pay me and protect me for what they receive. It will be an easy thing to play them against your nation. If you believe otherwise, you are hopelessly naive.”
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