Sacred Stone of-2

by Clive Cussler

  A tall man carrying a lantern walked over to the altar, scooped up the meteorite and placed it in a box. Cabrillo had left the rifle in the Thiokol, so there was little he could do right now. Cabrillo would need to intercept the meteorite farther down into the cave.

  Gripping the metal hoop from the lantern in his mouth, the man carried the box out.

  Cabrillo waited until the light from the lantern petered out, then slowly walked down the cave with his chemical light held in front. He figured the men would be examining the meteorite somewhere else, and when he found them he’d make his move.

  Then he bumped into the ladder and nearly fell down the hole.

  Listening carefully to see if they’d heard the noise, Cabrillo waited and, when nothing happened, climbed down the ladder. At the bottom he stepped on Ackerman’s body.

  16

  AS SOON AS Hanley received confirmation that no Icelandic civilian or military helicopters had been in the air at the time of the emir’s abduction, it was child’s play to coordinate this information with the port records to see what ships had come and gone close to the time.

  It didn’t take him long to settle on the Akbar as their primary target.

  Accessing satellite records, he determined that the Akbar was steaming up the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. Immediately leaving port, he ordered the magnetohydrodynamic drives engaged as soon as they were clear of land. The Oregon was cruising at thirty knots and weaved through the icebergs like a slalom skier down an icy slope. He tried Cabrillo’s telephone again but there was no answer.

  At that moment, Michael Halpert entered the control room. “They dummied up the chain of ownership,” he said, “that’s why we missed the threat.”

  “Who is the true owner?” Hanley asked.

  “The Hammadi Group.”

  “Al-Khalifa,” Hanley said. “We knew he was planning a move on the emir, but if we’d known he had a yacht under his control it might have gone a lot different.”

  Eric Stone swiveled around in his seat. “Chief,” he said, “I have the link you requested established. The helicopter ident is on the screen. The make is a Eurocopter and the model an EC-130B4. I’m running the registration right now.”

  Hanley glanced over at the screen. “Why are there two blips?”

  Stone stared at the image then enlarged the screen. “That second return just appeared,” he said. “Just guessing, I’d say another helicopter is in the area.”

  CABRILLO HELD OUT his green light, reached down, and placed his fingers on Ackerman’s neck. He felt a faint beat. Then the archaeologist stirred and opened his eyes. His eyes were watery, his skin a ghastly gray, and his lips barely moved.

  “You’re not…,” he whispered.

  “No,” Cabrillo said, “I’m not the man who shot you.”

  Pushing Ackerman’s coat aside, Cabrillo took a knife from his pocket and cut away Ackerman’s shirt. The wound was bad, and arterial blood was pumping out of the opening like a fountain with too large a pump.

  “Do you have a first-aid kit?” Cabrillo asked.

  Ackerman motioned to a nylon bag near a folding table a short distance away. Cabrillo ran over, unzipped the bag and removed the kit. Opening the plastic case, he removed some gauze pads and surgical tape. He tore open the packets as he walked back toward Ackerman, then pressed a wad of pads over the wound and taped it in place. Then he reached over and placed Ackerman’s hand over the wound.

  “Keep your hand here,” Cabrillo said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “The Ghost,” Ackerman whispered, “the Ghost did this.”

  Turning on his heels, Cabrillo sprinted toward the entrance to the cave. As he peered out into the gloom he could hear the turbine of the Eurocopter winding up and see the outline of the flashing lights on its fuselage.

  Then a second set of blinking lights appeared in the distance.

  AL-KHALIFA WAS AN excellent helicopter pilot. A falsified student visa and $100,000 in fees, as well as a year at the South Florida flight school he had attended, ensured that. Looking through the windshield, he carefully scanned the terrain on Mount Forel. He had just caught sight of an orange snowcat off to the side of the mountain when the other helicopter came into view.

  Fate is funny—five minutes later and he would have missed his chance.

  A second later, Al-Khalifa had assessed the situation and formed his plan.

  CABRILLO SLID CAREFULLY out of the cave and then flopped down behind a rocky outcropping. He needed to make it to the Thiokol and recover his rifle, but the second helicopter was facing him directly. Sliding the satellite telephone from his pocket, he glanced at the readout. Now that he was outside the cave he was receiving a signal again. He hit the speed dial and waited until Hanley answered.

  “It looks like the fall of Saigon up here,” Cabrillo said. “I arrived to find a helicopter on site, and now another one has just arrived. Who are these people?”

  “Stony just identified one,” Hanley answered. “It’s a charter from western Greenland owned by a Michael Neilsen. We ran the owner for ties to any organizations but no hits yet, so I’d guess he’s just a pilot for hire.”

  “What about the second one?”

  Stone had been furiously typing on the keyboard. “It’s a Bell Jet Ranger leased by a Canadian mineral company.”

  “The second one’s a Bell Jet Rang—” Hanley started to say.

  “I’m staring at it right now,” Cabrillo said. “It’s not a Jet Ranger, it looks more like a McDonnell Douglas 500 series.”

  Stone typed in some more commands and a second later a picture of a wrecked helicopter filled the monitor. “Someone has stolen the registration and ident to avoid detection. Can Mr. Cabrillo see any tail numbers?”

  “Stone says we have a stolen registration,” Hanley noted. “Can you see any tail numbers?”

  Cabrillo removed a pair of small binoculars from his pocket and stared through the darkness. “Two things,” he said slowly. “The first is that there’s a weapons pod hung under the fuselage. The second is that the tail numbers aren’t visible, but I can make out letters painted on the side. There is an A, followed by a K, followed by a B.

  Then the rest are covered in ice. The next is maybe an A, I can’t be sure.”

  Hanley related to Cabrillo what they had uncovered about the yacht named Akbar.

  “It’s that son of a bitch Al-Khalifa?” Cabrillo blurted. “Who’s in the other helicopter? Al Capone?”

  NEILSEN HAD THE rotor blade up to speed and he pulled up on the collective, taking the Eurocopter into a hover just as the other helicopter appeared in the windshield.

  “Look there,” he said through the headset to Hughes.

  “Take off, now,” Hughes shouted.

  “I think we’d better set down and see what’s up,” Neilsen said.

  With a lightning-fast move, Hughes pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Neilsen’s head. “I said take off.”

  One look at Hughes and the pistol was enough; Neilsen moved the cyclic and the Eurocopter lurched forward. At that instant a flame erupted from the bottom of the other helicopter and a missile streaked toward where they had been hovering. The missile went wide and veered out into the frozen wasteland.

  STONE BROUGHT UP an image on the monitor in the Oregon’s control room. “This is a DOD satellite shot one hour ago,” he said quickly. “Helicopter number two came from a location offshore of eastern Greenland on a straight course for Mount Forel.”

  Just then Adams walked into the control room. “Our helicopter is armed and ready.”

  “Do you have enough range to make it from here and back?” Hanley asked.

  “No,” Adams admitted, “we’ll be thirty to forty gallons short on the return.”

  “What kind of fuel do you burn?”

  “One hundred octane low-lead.”

  “Mr. Chairman,” Hanley said over the satellite phone, “we have Adams ready to go, but we’re short fuel f
or the return trip. Do you have extra fuel on the snowcat?”

  “I have a hundred gallons or so left,” Cabrillo said.

  Hanley looked up at Adams, who had listened to the transmission carefully.

  “If I take along some liquid octane booster, we can bump the gas up so it might work. One way or another, I want to get over there and help the boss.”

  “I’ll call the mechanical shop and have the booster delivered to the flight deck,” Hanley said quickly. “You do your preflight and take off as soon as possible.”

  Adams nodded and raced for the door.

  “I’m sending in the cavalry, Juan,” Hanley said into the telephone. “He’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  Cabrillo watched as the second helicopter lined up on the Eurocopter to take another shot. “That’s good,” Cabrillo said, “because the helicopter with the fake registration just fired a missile at the chartered ship.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Hanley said in amazement.

  “That’s not all, my friend,” Cabrillo said. “I haven’t had a chance to deliver the really bad news yet.”

  “What could be worse?”

  “The meteorite is inside the chartered helicopter,” Cabrillo said. “They grabbed it before me.”

  INSIDE THE EUROCOPTER, Hughes was holding the pistol to Neilsen’s head with one hand and a satellite telephone in the other.

  “Fly west toward the coast,” he said, “there’s been a change in plans.”

  Neilsen nodded and made the adjustment.

  At the same time, Hughes pressed a button on the speed dial of the phone and waited.

  “Sir,” he said as Neilsen sped up and raced over the snowy terrain, “I’ve recovered the object and fired the caretaker, but now there’s a snag.”

  “What’s the problem?” the man said.

  “We’re under attack from an unidentified helicopter.”

  “You’re headed for the coast, right?”

  “Yes, sir, just like we planned.”

  “The team is there and waiting,” the man said. “If the helicopter follows you out to sea, they can deal with the problem nicely.”

  Before Hughes could answer, a second missile struck the tail of the Eurocopter and severed a blade on the tail rotor. Neilsen fought with the controls but the Eurocopter started into a death spiral toward the ground.

  “We’re going down,” Hughes managed to shout before the centrifugal force of the spinning Eurocopter flung his hand against the side window, cracking the glass and breaking the phone.

  AS THE HELICOPTERS had retreated into the distance, Cabrillo had made his way to the spot on the mountain above where he’d left his snowshoes. He was attaching them to his feet when the sound of the missile striking the Eurocopter caused him to look up. It was dark and he had a hard time making anything out for a second. Then, a few seconds later, a bright pulsing light appeared on the ground in the distance. It danced on the ground like an evil Northern Light, and then started to fade.

  Cabrillo finished attaching the snowshoes then made his way over to the Thiokol and drove it in the direction of the light. Ten minutes later, when he arrived at the site, the fires were still smoldering. The helicopter itself was lying on her side like a broken pinwheel. Cabrillo climbed out and forced the jammed door on top of the wreckage open. Both the pilot and the passenger were dead. Removing what identification he could find from the bodies and the helicopter, he searched the wreckage for the box containing the meteorite.

  But he found nothing. Only a set of footprints from parties unknown.

  AFTER THE LINK to Hughes had gone dead and could not be reestablished, Hughes’s employer called another number.

  “We’ve had a hitch,” he said. After he explained the situation, the other party answered.

  “Not to worry, sir,” he said confidently, “we’re trained for contingencies.”

  17

  AS SOON AS the snow and cold had started to extinguish the fire from the ruptured fuel tank, Al-Khalifa had pried open the door of the Eurocopter. A quick check of the bodies had revealed open, sightless eyes that seemed to indicate death had come quickly. Al-Khalifa had not bothered to try to identify the men—quite frankly he did not care who they were. They were Westerners and they were dead, and that was enough.

  His main concern was the recovery of the meteorite, and for that he’d needed to climb through the rear door to where the box had wedged itself against a seat. Removing the box and climbing out of the helicopter, he’d opened the latch and flipped open the top.

  The meteorite was inside, lying on foam and shielded by lead panels inside the box.

  Closing the box again, he made his way through the snow to the Kawasaki HK-500D, placed the box on the passenger seat and secured it in place with the seat belt. Then he climbed into the pilot’s seat, started the engine and lifted off. As he flew out over the snow-covered terrain, the box sat on the seat like an honored guest, not a deadly sphere of poison destined to sicken an unknowing populace.

  Reaching for the radio, Al-Khalifa alerted the crew of the Akbar he would soon be back on board. Once he reached the vessel, they could make their way to London and complete the mission. The wrath of the righteous would soon find flight.

  After that he could deal with the emir and the overthrow of the Qatari government.

  “GIVE ME SOME good news,” Cabrillo said as he turned his back to the increasingly strong winds.

  “We located the Akbar on the radar,” Hanley said. “We’re a couple hours away. I’m planning an assault now to get our man back.”

  Cabrillo was watching the signal strength on the telephone. He moved to receive a stronger connection. “I’m at the site where the Eurocopter went down,” he said. “It was shot out of the sky by the mystery chopper. The pilot and passenger are dead—and the meteorite is nowhere to be seen.”

  “Are you sure?” Hanley asked.

  “Positive. There’s a single set of tracks coming from a distance away. I followed them until I came to indentations in the snow from the other helicopter. Whoever shot down the Eurocopter now has the meteorite.”

  “I’ll have Stone try to track the course of the helicopter on radar,” Hanley said. “He couldn’t have gone far. If it’s an MD helicopter, we’re looking at a range of three hundred fifty miles in total. Since he couldn’t refuel, he’s somewhere within a one-hundred-seventy-five-mile radius of where you are.”

  “Tell Stone to try something else as well,” Cabrillo said. “I managed to sand the meteorite before it was stolen.”

  Sand was the slang name the Corporation used for the microscopic homing bugs Cabrillo had sprinkled on the orb in the darkness. They looked like dust to the untrained eye, but they emitted a signal that could be read by the electronics on the Oregon.

  “Damn, you’re good,” Hanley said.

  “Not good enough, someone else has our prize.”

  “We’ll track it down,” Hanley said.

  “Call me when you know something.”

  After disconnecting, Cabrillo started trudging back to the cave through the snow.

  EIGHTY MILES DISTANT and undetectable on the Akbar’s radar scope, the scene aboard the motor yacht Free Enterprise was more subdued. The men on board were infused with a fervor that rivaled the Muslims on the Akbar—they were simply more highly trained and not accustomed to grand shows of emotions. Each man was white, over six feet in height, and in excellent shape. Each had served in the U.S. military in one capacity or another. All of them had personal reasons for accepting this assignment. Each of them was ready to die for the cause.

  Scott Thompson, the leader of the team on the Free Enterprise, was in the wheelhouse awaiting a call. As soon as he received it, they would launch the assault. West and East were about to collide in an affair conducted in secret.

  The Free Enterprise was racing south through a thick fog. In the past hour the ship had come alongside a trio of icebergs, the tops of which had covered at least an
acre. Smaller floes were too numerous to count, and they bobbed on the seas like ice cubes in a highball glass. It was bitterly cold outside and the wind was increasing.

  “Active engaged,” said the captain.

  High up on the Free Enterprise’s superstructure an electronics package began capturing radar signals from other vessels. Then it broadcast the signals back at varying speeds. Without a consistent signal return, the other ships’ radars could not paint the Free Enterprise.

  The ship had become an unseen wraith on the black, tossing seas.

  A tall man with a crew cut entered the pilothouse.

  “I just finished running all the data,” he said. “Our best guess is that Hughes is gone.”

  “Then there’s a good chance that whoever was hunting Hughes recovered the meteorite,” the captain noted.

  “The big man is tracking the helicopter at one of his space companies in Las Vegas.”

  “And where is the helicopter headed?” the captain asked.

  “That’s the good part,” the man said, “right to our intended target.”

  “Sounds like we can kill two birds with one stone,” the captain said.

  “Exactly.”

  ADAMS WAS AN excellent pilot, but the growing darkness and wind were making his hands sweat. He’d been flying only on instruments since leaving the Oregon. Wiping his palms on his flight suit, he turned the cockpit heater down and studied the navigation screen. At his current speed he was due to pass over the coastline in two minutes. Increasing his altitude to clear the start of the mountain range, he scanned the instruments again.

  The lack of visibility made it like walking around with a paper bag over your head.

  CABRILLO WASN’T SURE if Ackerman was dead or alive.

  From time to time Cabrillo would feel what seemed like a faint pulse, but the wound was no longer bleeding—and that was a bad sign. Ackerman had not moved a muscle since Cabrillo had returned to the cave. His eyes were closed and the lids were motionless. Cabrillo propped him up so the wound was below his heart and then covered him with a sleeping bag. There was not much else he could do for him.