Sacred Stone of-2

by Clive Cussler

  Pilston stared up and caught sight of Truitt for just a second as he passed through a spotlight sweeping the sky near the volcano. Truitt made a 360-degree turn in the air then straightened out. He was ten feet above the sidewalk, twenty yards in front of the Jeep, racing away from them. Luckily the sidewalk was almost empty. This late at night most of the tourists were already in bed or bound tight to the gambling tables. Truitt continued in a straight line.

  Gunderson twisted the key on the Jeep and the engine roared to life. He slammed it into gear and raced forward after Truitt. Nine feet, eight feet, but Truitt was having trouble bringing it down to earth. He raced along, his feet still hanging free in the air.

  A pair of call girls stood ahead on the corner waiting for the light to change. They were dressed in latex dresses, perched on platform shoes, and their hairstyles were teased and high. One was smoking, one was receiving her next assignment over her cell phone. Truitt reached up and pulled the cords that allowed the air brake to remain inflated. With the air brakes disabled, he dropped to the ground like a rock. He just managed to windmill his feet before touching the sidewalk, and he ran along until he could regain balance and slow his forward movement. He was only five feet from the two ladies when he managed to slow to a walk.

  “Evening, ladies,” Truitt said, “nice night for a stroll.”

  Farther to his rear, a red SUV with the Dreamworld logo was pulling out of the driveway of the hotel. The security guard driving stomped on the gas and the tires chirped on the pavement.

  At just that moment, Gunderson and Pilston pulled alongside in the Jeep.

  “Get in,” Gunderson shouted.

  Truitt climbed onto the running board then up into the rear of the Jeep. As soon as Truitt was in back. Gunderson hit the gas and raced up the Strip. Truitt’s bag was sitting on the seat next to him. He unzipped it and reached inside, pulling out a metal box.

  “We’re being followed,” Gunderson shouted to the rear of the Jeep.

  “I noticed that,” Truitt said. “When I tell you to, place the Jeep in neutral and shut off the engine.”

  “Got it,” Gunderson said.

  They were racing along at ninety miles an hour but the red SUV was gaining. Truitt swiveled around on the rear bench seat and pointed the box at the SUV’s grille.

  “Now,” he yelled.

  Gunderson placed the Jeep in neutral and twisted the key off. The lights went dark, and the power steering ceased to operate, making the Jeep hard to steer. Gunderson was wrestling to keep it on the road. Truitt flipped a toggle switch on the box. A signal was sent out into the ether that fried the electrical control box on any vehicles that were operating nearby. The lights on the red SUV went dark and it started slowing. A few cabs that were on the road nearby also ground to a stop.

  “Okay,” Truitt yelled, “you can start her up again.”

  Gunderson twisted the key and the Jeep roared to life. He slid it into gear again and regained control. “Where to?” he shouted to Truitt.

  “Do you two have your bags?”

  “We just showered at the hotel,” Pilston said. “We left our bags on the plane.”

  “To the airport then,” Truitt said. “We’d better get out of Vegas.”

  MAX HANLEY STOOD alongside the computer in Michael Halpert’s office on board the Oregon. The two men were staring at the screen intently.

  “Then it cut off,” Halpert said.

  “How much data did we retrieve?” Hanley asked.

  “I’ll have to go through it all,” Halpert said, “but it looks like a lot.”

  “Start analyzing it,” Hanley said quickly, “and report back to me as soon as you find anything of value.”

  Just then Hanley’s communicator beeped and Stone’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Sir,” Stone said, “I just received word from the Gulfstream that they are departing Las Vegas.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Hanley said into the microphone.

  Hanley made his way quickly along the passageway then opened the door to the control room. Stone was sitting in front of the monitors; he turned as Hanley entered, then pointed at the screen. A map of the western United States was displayed with a flashing red light marking the position of the Gulfstream. The jet was just about to cross over Lake Mead heading east. Right then Hanley’s telephone rang, and he walked over to his console and answered it.

  “Hanley.”

  “Did you receive the computer files?” Truitt asked.

  “We got some,” Hanley said. “Halpert’s analyzing them now. It looked like the transmission was stopped midstream—did you run into problems?”

  “The target returned when I was doing the download,” Truitt said over the noise from the Gulfstream’s jet engines. “He probably broke the connection.”

  “That also means that he knows someone might be on to him.”

  “Exactly,” Truitt said.

  “What else have you got?”

  Truitt reached into his jacket on the seat across the aisle and removed the photographs he had stolen from Hickman’s office. He turned on the fax machine that was attached to the air phone and started to scan them into memory.

  “I’m sending you some photographs,” Truitt said.

  “Who are they?” Hanley asked.

  “That’s what I want you to find out.”

  31

  “ DAMN RIGHT IT’S a problem,” the president said to Langston Overholt.

  An hour earlier the British prime minister had informed the president that they had discovered a Greek ship captain with radiation burns at a location less than fifty miles from downtown London. As the president and Overholt spoke, the secure lines between the two countries were still burning with a flurry of transmissions.

  “We’ve been working with the Russians as well as the Corporation to recover the weapon,” Overholt said, “but it got into England anyway.”

  “Is that what you’d like me to tell our closest ally?” the president asked. “That we tried, but no cigar?”

  “No, sir,” Overholt said.

  “Well, if whoever is behind this mates the nuke with the meteorite, London and the surrounding area is going to be turned into a wasteland. And whatever you think you might be able to argue about the nuke, the meteorite is our screwup.”

  “I understand, sir,” Overholt said.

  The president rose from his chair in the Oval Office. “Listen to me carefully,” he said in a voice tinged with anger, “I want results, and I want them now.”

  Overholt stood. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Then he made his way to the door.

  “CABRILLO’S STILL TRACKING the meteorite,” Hanley told Overholt over the secure line, “at least according to our helicopter pilot who phoned in a few minutes ago.”

  “The president is up in arms,” Overholt said.

  “Hey,” Hanley said, “don’t blame us—the British jets were late to the party. If they’d arrived on time, the meteorite would be secure right now.”

  “The last communication the British sent mentioned that they had forced the Cessna down at Inverness and were preparing to search the plane.”

  “They won’t find anything,” Hanley said. “Our pilot said he and Cabrillo saw the pilot of the Cessna drop the package out the side.”

  “Why hasn’t Cabrillo telephoned in,” Overholt said, “so we can coordinate help?”

  “That, Mr. Overholt, is a question I cannot answer.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you speak to him?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hanley said as the telephone went dead.

  THE MG TC rode like a buckboard wagon filled with grain. The thin tires, lever-action shocks and ancient suspension were no match for a modern sports car. Cabrillo was in fourth gear with the engine wound to her highest RPM and the old car was only doing a little over seventy miles an hour. Holding the wood-rimmed wheel with one hand, he slapped the side of his satellite telephone again.

  Nothing. It
might have been the landing—despite his best efforts to protect the device, it had hit the dashboard when they finally touched down. It might be the power supply—satellite telephones burned through power like a fat man’s air-conditioning during a Phoenix summer. Whatever the case, Cabrillo could not get the green light to come on.

  Just then he caught sight of the van a few miles ahead as it crested a hill.

  EDDIE SENG GLANCED over at Bob Meadows as the car Meadows was driving neared the Isle of Sheppey. Plucked from the Oregon by the Corporation’s amphibious plane, the two men had been flown to an airport on the outskirts of London, where the armored Range Rover had been left by the British intelligence agency MI5.

  “It looks like we received the weapons we asked for,” Seng said as he picked through the nylon bag that had been left on the rear seat.

  “Now if we can just find where the Hammadi cell is hiding in London,” Meadows said confidently, “and locate the bomb and disable it while our chairman secures the meteorite, we can call it a day.”

  “Sounds reasonably difficult.”

  “I give it a seven on the ten scale,” Meadows said as he slowed to turn into the port.

  SENG STEPPED FROM the passenger seat as Meadows was still shutting off the engine. He walked over to a lanky man with strawberry-blond hair and extended his hand.

  “Eddie Seng,” he said.

  “Malcolm Rodgers, MI5,” the man said.

  Meadows was out of the Range Rover and approaching.

  “This is my partner, Bob Meadows. Bob, this is Malcolm Rodgers from MI5.”

  “Pleasure,” Meadows said, shaking his hand.

  Rodgers began to walk toward the pier. “The captain was found at a local pub just up the hill. According to the customs slip, he had docked that evening.”

  “Did the radiation kill him?” Meadows asked.

  “No,” Rodgers said, “the preliminary autopsy showed traces of a poison.”

  “What kind?” Seng asked.

  “Nothing we’ve been able to verify yet,” Rodgers said, “some paralytic agent.”

  “Do you have a phone?” Meadows asked.

  Rodgers slowed and removed a cell phone from his pocket then looked at Meadows.

  “Call your coroner and have him get in touch with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Ask them to send the toxicology profiles for Arabian Peninsula scorpion and snake venoms and see if they get a match.”

  Rodgers nodded then made the call. While he was on the telephone, Seng studied the port area below. There were several old cargo ships, three or four pleasure crafts, and a single catamaran whose upper decks bristled with antennae and two davits. The rear deck of the catamaran was crowded with crates and electronic gear. A man was hunched over a table on the rear deck with his arms inside a torpedo-shaped device.

  “Okay,” Rodgers said, “they’ll check.”

  The men continued walking down the hill and reached the dock. They walked out on the planks then turned and headed down another dock that abutted the first at a right angle. Three men were visible on the Larissa’s deck. You could be sure more were below.

  “We’ve searched every inch,” Rodgers said. “Nothing. The logs are falsified, but by interviewing the crew we learned that the cargo was picked up near Odesa in the Ukraine, and they steamed here without stopping.”

  “Was the crew aware of what they were transporting?” Seng asked.

  “No,” Rodgers said. “The rumor was that it was stolen artwork.”

  “They were just the delivery men,” Seng said.

  Meadows was staring back down the dock at the catamaran.

  “Do you men want to go aboard?” Rodgers asked.

  “Did anyone see the man leave the pub after he met with the captain?” Meadows asked.

  “No,” Rodgers answered, “and that’s the problem. We don’t know who he was or where he went.”

  “But the captain didn’t take the bomb with him to the pub,” Meadows wondered aloud, “so either someone on the crew made the switch, or it was stolen off this ship.”

  “No one saw the bomb at the pub,” Rodgers said, “and the captain died there.”

  “And you’ve grilled his crew?” Seng said.

  “What I’m about to tell you is classified,” Rodgers said.

  Seng and Meadows nodded.

  “What we did to the crew is illegal by world convention—they told us everything they know,” Rodgers said quietly.

  The British were not playing around—the Greeks had been tortured or doped or both.

  “And no one in the crew made the switch?” Meadows said.

  “No,” Rodgers said. “Whoever that man was at the pub, he had accomplices.”

  “Eddie,” Meadows said, “why don’t you board the Larissa and check it out? I’m going to wander over there and talk to the guy on the catamaran.”

  “We’ve already questioned him,” Rodgers said. “He’s a little odd, but harmless.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Meadows said, walking down the dock.

  Seng motioned to Rodgers and followed him on board the Larissa.

  “SIR, WE NEED to call it,” Stone said, “Atlantic or North Sea?”

  Hanley stared at the moving map on the monitor. He had no idea which way Cabrillo was headed, but the time to decide was upon them.

  “Where’s the amphibious plane?”

  “There,” Stone said, pointing to a blip on the map that showed the plane over Manchester and flying north.

  “North Sea, then,” Hanley ordered. “London is the target. Order the amphibious plane to Glasgow to support Cabrillo.”

  “Got it,” Stone said, reaching for the microphone.

  “Hali,” Hanley said over his shoulder to Kasim, who was sitting at a table behind the control chair, “what’s the situation on the fuel for Adams?”

  “I couldn’t get the airport in Inverness to make a delivery,” Kasim said, “so I contacted a gas station in Loch Ness to bring fuel out to the site in five-gallon cans. He should be arriving there shortly. As soon as he does, I’m sure Adams will report.”

  “Damn,” Hanley said, “we need George up there to support our chairman.”

  Linda Ross, the Oregon’s security and surveillance expert, was sitting at the table with Kasim. “I linked up with the British authorities and told them what we know—that we have a white van heading south on the road from Loch Ness that we think is carrying the meteorite, and that Mr. Cabrillo is chasing in an old black MG. They’re sending helicopters, but it will be an hour or so until they reach the area.”

  “Can the Challenger fly high cover and report?” Hanley asked the room.

  For a second no one spoke. Stone punched commands into his keyboard then pointed at the monitor. “That’s real time from the area,” he said.

  The blanket of fog looked like a gray wool sheet. On the ground in northern Scotland, visibility was being measured in feet, not yards. Help from the air would not be coming anytime soon.

  HALIFAX HICKMAN WAS fuming. After berating his security team, he turned to the head of the detail. “You’re fired,” he said loudly.

  The man walked to the door and exited the penthouse.

  “You,” he said to the fired man’s second in command, “where’s the thief that broke in here?”

  “Our men saw him land on the ground up the street from Dreamworld,” the man said. “He was picked up by two people in an open-topped Jeep. Two of my men were giving chase when their vehicle suffered a massive electrical failure. They lost them at that point.”

  “I want every person we have scouring this city to find that Jeep,” Hickman said. “I want to know who has the balls to break into my apartment on top of my hotel.”

  “We’ll get on it right away, sir,” the newly appointed head of security said quickly.

  “You damn well better,” Hickman said, as he walked up the hallway to his office.

  The security men filed out of the penthouse. And this time they
remembered to lock the door. Hickman dialed a number on the phone and spoke.

  IN HIS OFFICE on board the Oregon, Michael Halpert was cataloging the contents from Truitt’s transmission. The files were a jumbled mess of corporate documents, bank and brokerage records, and property holdings. Either there were no personal files or they had not been transmitted before the link was disabled.

  Halpert set the computer to search for keywords then stared at the photographs Truitt had faxed from the Gulfstream. Rolling his chair over to another computer, he fed the pictures into a scanner, then linked onto the U.S. State Department computer and began searching passport photos. The database was huge and the search might take days. Leaving the computers to work, he left the office and walked up the hall to the dining room. Today’s special was beef Stroganoff—Halpert’s favorite.

  “SIR,” THE VOICE said loudly over the phone, “we are being hailed by a United States Navy guided-missile destroyer.”

  “What do you mean?” Hickman said.

  “We’ve been ordered to heave to or be sunk,” the captain of the Free Enterprise said.

  Hickman’s plan was unraveling faster and faster.

  “Can’t you outrun them?” he asked.

  “No way.”

  “Then engage them,” Hickman ordered.

  “Sir,” the captain said loudly, “that would be suicide.”

  Hickman thought for a second before answering.

  “Then delay the surrender for as long as possible,” he said at last.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said.

  Hickman disconnected and sat back. The team on the Free Enterprise had been given a false story from the start. To get the team to cooperate, he’d told them that his plan was to use the meteorite, combined with a nuclear device, for an attack on Syria. Then he told them he was going to blame the attack on Israel and create a full-scale war in the Middle East. By the time it was all over, he’d said, the United States would control the region and terrorism would be snuffed out.

  His true plan was much more personal. He was going to avenge the death of the only person he had ever really loved. And God help those that stood in his way.