Blue & Gold

by Clive Cussler

  “We could spend all day searching this place,” Austin said. “Let’s see if we can find a guide.”

  They descended stairs that took them back onto the main floor and hid behind a large pipe. Standing before a large console were three technicians. The figures had their backs turned, obviously engrossed in their task.

  Two technicians moved off, leaving the third alone. With a quick glance to make sure he was unobserved, Austin swiftly closed on the unsuspecting figure and hooked his thick arm around the person’s throat.

  “Don’t make a sound, or I’ll snap your neck,” he growled, then dragged his catch back behind the pipe. “Meet our new guide,” he said.

  Zavala stared at the technician. “We’ve already met.”

  Austin spun the technician around. Francesca. The terror in her face turned to relief. “What are you doing here?”

  The pleasure at seeing Francesca overcame Austin’s surprise. “We had a date, remember?” he said with a grin. “Time and place to be announced.”

  Francesca smiled through her nervousness. Calmer now, she glanced around and said, “We can’t stay here. Follow me.”

  They wound their way through the labyrinth into a small room furnished with a plain plastic desk and chair. “I asked for this space so I could work quietly. We’ll be safe for a few minutes. If anyone comes, pretend you know what you’re doing.” She shook her head in wonder. “How in God’s name did you get in here?”

  “We took the bus,” Austin said. “Where’s Gamay?”

  “This is the desalting facility. She’s in the main compound. They have her in a heavily guarded cell on the first level.”

  “How do we get there?”

  “I’ll show you. There’s an elevator that takes you from the lab. It goes to a tram. The car goes through a tunnel to the main compound. Then an elevator will take you up to her level. Do you think you can rescue her?”

  “We won’t know until we try,” Zavala said with a slight smile.

  “It will be very dangerous. You may have a chance, though. The guards are preoccupied. There’s some kind of meeting planned. You must move quickly before people start coming here.”

  “What kind of meeting?” Zavala asked.

  “I don’t know, only that it’s extremely important. I have to have this facility up and working by then, or they’ll kill Gamay.”

  She glanced out of the office to see if the coast was clear. Then she led them to the elevator. Austin thought that she looked exhausted. There were black circles under her red-rimmed eyes. She wished them well and disappeared into the network of pipes.

  Wasting no time, they stepped into a strange egg-shaped elevator. The elevator rose through the water to the tram room Francesca had described. They got aboard the tram car and sped along the tunnel to its terminus. From the tram room they stepped into a passageway. The elevator door was a few paces away. The light over the door indicated that the elevator was moving down.

  “Do we go naughty or nice?” Zavala asked.

  “See if nice works.”

  The door opened, and a guard stepped out. A machine pistol was slung from his shoulder. He looked at Zavala suspiciously, then at Austin.

  “Pardon me,” Zavala said politely. “Could you tell us where to find the woman from NUMA? Can’t miss her. Tall with red hair.”

  The guard began to raise his machine pistol. The move brought Austin’s ham-sized right fist crashing into the man’s midsection. He made a sound like a deflating balloon, and his legs went limp.

  “I thought we were going to try nice,” Zavala said.

  “That was nice,” Austin replied. He grabbed the man’s arms, and with Zavala holding the feet, they dragged the guard into the elevator. Zavala brought the elevator halfway to the next floor and locked it in place. Austin kneeled and lightly patted the guard’s cheek. The man’s eyes rolled, then popped wide open when he saw Austin’s face.

  “We’re feeling generous today. You get a second chance. Where’s the woman?”

  The guard shook his head. Austin wasn’t in the mood for stalling. He brought the gun muzzle to the bridge of the guard’s nose, so close that the man looked cross-eyed at it.

  “I’m not going to waste any time,” Austin said quietly. “We know she’s on the first level. If you don’t tell us where she is, we’ll find someone who can. Understand?”

  The guard nodded.

  “Good,” Austin said. He pulled the man to a standing position by the scruff of his neck, and Zavala hit the button for the next floor. Nobody was waiting for the elevator. They pushed the guard out into the deserted hall.

  “What’s the security like ahead?”

  The guard shrugged. “Most of the guards are upstairs taking care of the big shots coming in for the meeting.”

  Austin was curious about the purpose of the meeting and who the VIPs were, but he was more concerned about Gamay. He stuck the gun in the guard’s ribs. “Fetch,” he said.

  The guard reluctantly led the way down a corridor and stopped in front of a door with a keypad lock. He hesitated, wondering if he could stall by saying he didn’t know the combination, but one look at the thunder and lightning on Austin’s brow told him he’d better not try. He punched out the code, and the door opened. The room was empty.

  “This is her room,” the guard said. He looked worried.

  They pushed him inside and looked around. The small room was evidently used as a cell because it could only be opened from the outside. Zavala went over to the bed, plucked some thing off the pillow, and grinned.

  “She was here.” The dark red strand he held in his fingers was unmistakably Gamay’s.

  Austin turned back to the guard. “Where did they take her?”

  “I don’t know,” the guard answered sullenly.

  “Make believe that the next thing you say may be your last words, and think very carefully about it.”

  The guard knew that Austin would shoot him without hesitation.

  “I’m not protecting those creeps,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Kradzik brothers. They had her taken to the Great Hall.”

  “Who are these guys?”

  “Couple of killers who do the boss’s dirty work,” he said with obvious disgust.

  “Tell us how to get there.”

  The guard gave them the directions. Austin told him to expect a return visit if he sent them on a wild goose chase. They left him in the room and locked the door, then bolted down the hall to the elevator. They didn’t know who the Kradzik brothers were, and they didn’t care. One thing they could be certain of. Whatever was planned for Gamay couldn’t be good.

  Chapter 38

  The fifty men gathered around the table on the deck of the Gogstad ship were dressed in dark business suits rather than cloaks and armor, but the scene could have been taken from a thousand-year-old pagan celebration. Torchlight glinted off the sharp metal edges of the medieval armaments lining the walls and cast flickering shadows on the men’s faces. The theatrical effect was not accidental. Brynhild had designed the entire chamber as an elaborate stage set with herself as director.

  The Gogstad board of directors was made up of some of the most prominent individuals in the world. They came from many countries and every continent. Their ranks included the chief executives of multinational corporations, trade representatives whose secret negotiations gave them more power than some governments, and politicians, past and present, who owed their careers to the plutocracies that were the real ruling class in the countries they came from. The men represented every race and color, but despite the differences in their physical stature and skin complexion, they were bound together by a common denominator: their insatiable avarice. With every disdainful facial expression and gesture, they projected the same polished arrogance.

  Brynhild stood on the deck of the Viking ship at the head of the table. “Welcome, gentlemen,” she said. “Thank you for coming on short notice. I kn
ow many of you traveled a long way, but

  I assure you, the journey will have been worth it.” She looked from face to face, glorying in the greed she saw lurking behind the practiced smiles and the knifing eyes. “We in this room rep resent the heart and soul of Gogstad, an invisible government more powerful than any the world has ever seen. You are more than a corporate elite; you are priests in a secret society, like the Knights Templar.”

  “Pardon me for interrupting your stirring pep talk right at the start,” said a fish-eyed English arms dealer named Grimley. “You’re not telling us anything new. I hope I didn’t just fly six thousand miles to hear you tell us what an extraordinary group this is.”

  Brynhild smiled. The directors were the only people on earth who could talk to her as equals.

  “No, Lord Grimley, I called you together to inform you that our plans have been drastically accelerated.”

  The Englishman was still unimpressed. His long nose sniffed the air as if he smelled an unpleasant odor. “You were originally talking of years to gain the monopoly on the world’s water supply. That has been changed to months, I take it?”

  “No, Lord Grimley. I’m talking a target date of days.”

  There was a low murmur around the table.

  An unctuous smile crossed Grimley’s face. “Disregard my earlier comment,” he said. “Please go on.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Brynhild said. “As you know from my monthly reports, our plans have been moving smoothly but slowly. Every day we have acquired another water source, but it has taken time to build up our tanker fleet. The huge storage bags that would be used to transport water across oceans have been a problem. Only now has the technology to construct the bags been achieved. And most recently our project has elicited interest from the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

  An American real estate baron named Howes was the first to pounce on the significance of her last sentence. “NUMA? How did they come to know about us?”

  “It’s a complicated story. You will all be provided with reports detailing NUMA’s interest. Suffice it to say for now that their people are very persistent and lucky.”

  “This is serious,” said the American. “First the newspaper investigation, now this.”

  “The newspaper will not be running the story, nor will any one else. All the investigative records have been destroyed. In regard to NUMA, that situation, too, has been neutralized.”

  “It’s still damned worrisome,” Howes said. “We’ve spent mil lions keeping our activities secret. This whole thing could un ravel in no time.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” Brynhild replied. “We have done everything possible to preserve our privacy, but an operation of this size and duration could not go undetected forever. The facade we erected to hide our activities from public view is be ginning to crack. It was only a matter of time, so I’m not surprised, but it did suggest the need for haste.”

  “Are you saying that you are rushing our plans because of NUMA?”

  “No. Only that there has been a fortunate turn of events.”

  A German banker named Heimmler was the first to catch on. “There is only one way the plan can be advanced so dramatically,” he said with the expression of a boa constrictor presented with a live rabbit. “You have perfected the Cabral desalting method.”

  Brynhild waited for the buzzing around the table to die down. “Better still,” she said triumphantly. “Dr. Cabral is perfecting the process for us.”

  “Cabral,” the German said. “I read press reports that she was still alive, but-“

  “Alive and quite well. She has agreed to work with Gogstad since we control the only supply of anasazium. At this moment she is in our laboratory where she is preparing a demonstration. In a short time I will show you this miracle. I spoke to Dr. Cabral before our meeting. She said she would be ready in an hour. In the meantime you are invited to enjoy the refreshments we have prepared for you in the dining room. I must check on transport arrangements and will see you shortly.”

  As the directors filed out of the Great Hall, Brynhild went to the front entrance of the main complex. Several dark green Suburbans were lined up in front of the spacious porch. A driver and armed guard stood next to each vehicle.

  “Is everything ready?” she asked the guard standing by the lead vehicle.

  “Yes, ma’am, we can move the guests whenever they are ready to go.”

  The underground tram was the fastest way to get to the lab, but it was built mainly to shuttle small parties of technicians back and forth. It was quicker to transport a large group, such as the board of directors, in vehicles. Brynhild left nothing to chance. She got in the passenger side of the lead vehicle and ordered the driver to take her to the lake. A few minutes later the SUV pulled up at the edge of the low hill that overlooked the water. She descended a short stairway to the pier and went in side the boathouse. The structure was actually a cover for the elevators that serviced the lab. She walked past the fast egg-shaped lift and into the large freight elevator. Moments later she was striding across the lab toward the main core. There was a discernible air of excitement in the dome-shaped structure.

  Francesca was working at the control console. When she saw Brynhild she said, “I was just about to call you. I can perform the demonstration earlier than I anticipated.”

  “You’re absolutely sure it will work?”

  “I can give you a preview now if you’d like.”

  Brynhild considered the offer, then said, “No, I can’t wait to see their faces when they observe how our process works.”

  Francesca ignored the use of the plural possessive in describing ownership of the process. “I’m sure they will be surprised.”

  Brynhild used her small belt phone to order the shuttles to start transporting the directors. In less than half an hour the en tire board was gathered in the lab around the core container. Brynhild introduced Francesca. There was a murmur of admiration when the lovely Brazilian scientist stepped forward. Even as she smiled at the hard-faced men gathered around her, Francesca thought how much they resembled hungry reptiles gathered around a water hole. She didn’t have to remind herself that their quest for more power and money was responsible for her years in the rain forest. While she lived with the Chulo awaiting rescue, possibly millions of people who could have benefited from her work died from thirst.

  Francesca had never seen so much evil gathered in one room, but she covered her loathing well. “I don’t know how many of you have a scientific background, but technical knowledge is not necessary to grasp the basic principle behind what you are about to see. While my process is difficult in execution, it’s rather simple in concept. Desalting methods have been around since the time of the ancient Greeks. But those techniques always used a physical process, heating the water to steam, treating it with electricity, pushing it through membranes to screen out the salt the way a child sifts through shells at the beach. I reasoned that it might be easier in some respects to change the molecular structure of the chemicals in salt water at an atomic and subatomic level.”

  The smooth-faced German banker said, “Your process sounds somewhat like alchemy, Dr. Cabral.”

  “That’s a very appropriate analogy. Although alchemy never achieved its goal, it set the stage for the science of chemistry. Like the alchemists, I, too, was trying to transform a base metal into gold. In my case it was blue gold. Water. More precious than any mineral on earth. I needed a sorcerer’s stone that would make that possible.” She turned to the anasazium core. “Contained here is the catalyst that makes the process work. The salted water is brought into contact with this material which purifies the water.”

  “When will we get a demonstration of this miracle?” said Lord Grimley.

  “If you would step this way,” she said, leading the way to the console. Her hands danced over the keyboard. There was a muffled growl of pumps and the sound of rushing water. “That’s the salt water coming through the main over your heads.
It is flowing into the container. It takes a few minutes.”

  Francesca herded the group to the other side of the catalytic container. She said nothing for several moments as the suspense built. Then she checked a gauge and pointed to another main. “This is the outtake pipe that carries the fresh water. You can feel the heat produced during the transformation.”

  The American said, “As I understand it, that heat can be used to produce energy.”

  “That’s correct. Right now the water is being pumped into the cold waters of the lake where the heat is dissipated, but with a few adjustments this facility could be modified so the heat comes back as power to run the plant. There would even be surplus energy that could be exported.”

  There was a murmur from the board. Francesca could almost feel the aura of greed that emanated from the men as they tallied the billions to be made, aside from the water, by producing cheap energy.

  She went over to a vertical set of coils that hung down from the freshwater pipe. At the base of the coil was a tap and beside it a stack of paper cups. “This is a cooling unit that removes heat from the water,” she explained. Turning to a technician, she said, “What has been the quality of the water produced by the process before today?”

  “Brackish at the very best,” the technician said.

  Francesca opened the tap and filled one of the cups. She held the cup to the light like a wine connoisseur, took a sip, then downed the contents. “A little warm still, but quite comparable to any spring water I’ve had.”

  Brynhild stepped forward, poured herself water, and drank it.

  “Nectar of the gods,” she said triumphantly.

  The directors pushed their way to the tap like thirst-crazed steers. There were cries of amazement with each cup sampled. Before long everyone was talking at once. While the directors gathered around the tap as if it were the fountain of youth, Brynhild guided Francesca away from the babble of voices.

  “Congratulations, Dr. Cabral. It seems that the process is a success.”