Sea of Greed

by Clive Cussler

  The problem Joe faced was stopping the SUV without causing a major accident. They had to inconvenience Warren, not injure him or anyone else on the road. At the moment, Joe could see additional mopeds in a loose line behind the Lincoln. He slowed down but made it impossible for the Lincoln to pass. This forced the mopeds to slow almost to a stop. Finally, the riders had had enough. They pulled wide, darting past the Lincoln, then Joe’s van, all in one quick move.

  With traffic gone, Joe accelerated, baiting the Lincoln into speeding up. Once Warren’s driver began to close the gap, Joe put his hand on a hastily installed toggle switch that was taped to the console.

  The switch was linked to a small set of explosives attached to the back doors of the van. When the explosives went off, the doors would blow open and allow the load of not-so-fresh fish to pour out the back, sliding down an angled ramp that Joe had wedged into place.

  Hidden in the bed of ice beneath the fish was a tube of soft vinyl irrigation line. Inside that tube were additional explosive charges. Just enough to blow holes in the run-flat tires that any new SUV would be using.

  It was a great plan, Joe thought. The explosives would blow the tires, the ice would smother the explosives and hide the residue. And the fish? . . . Well, that was just inspired window dressing.

  With a final look, Joe flipped the switch and a bang reverberated through the van. Blue smoke swirled forward as the cargo surged out the back, spreading across the road behind him. The Lincoln ran over the mess, triggering three small flashes that took out the tires. It skidded forward another thirty feet before coming to a stop.

  Joe slammed on his own brakes and brought the van to the side of the road. “Operation Fishmonger is under way. Getting out to make my apologies.”

  “I’m here when you need me,” Priya replied.

  Putting one earbud in and placing the phone in his pocket, Joe put the emergency flashers on and stepped out of the van. By the time he reached the Lincoln, the driver was outside studying the mess.

  “You idiot,” the driver shouted.

  “My load of fish,” Joe said. “It’s ruined.”

  “Who cares about your fish,” the driver said. “Look what you’ve done. Look at my tires.”

  Joe looked at the Lincoln. Two of the tires were blown off their rims. A third had a gaping hole in the sidewall. The fourth was untouched but a single spare wasn’t going to get the vehicle anywhere.

  “Oh, man,” Joe said. “That looks bad.”

  “Really bad,” the driver said.

  “I’m so sorry,” Joe said. “I don’t know what happened. Let me call my company. I’ll get you the insurance information.”

  Joe pulled out the phone and pretended to dial. By now, the stench of the old fish was becoming more noticeable. It covered the lingering smell of the explosives and soon had the Lincoln driver putting a hand over his mouth.

  Strangely, Joe could barely smell it anymore. He pretended to talk on the phone for a minute and then went silent. “I’m on hold,” he said. “Typical . . . Absolutely typical . . .”

  As Joe stood there, the back door of the SUV opened and a man got out. It wasn’t Warren. Had to be a bodyguard. He walked carefully toward Joe and the Lincoln’s driver, making sure not to step on any of the rotting fish.

  Warren got out as well but stayed by the Lincoln. “What is this ridiculousness?”

  “Just an accident,” Joe said. “No big deal. We’re going to fix everything. I’m calling my company now.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Warren said, looking at his watch. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The driver shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Warren. I’ll have to get you another car.”

  “Another car?”

  The driver pointed to the ruined tires.

  Warren looked down and then shook his head in disgust. “Make it quick,” he snapped. “The stench is killing me.”

  With that, Warren got back in the SUV, slammed the door and rolled the window up tight. Joe doubted that would protect him from the aroma. With all the rotting fish around, Warren might as well have been sitting in a bowl of day-old fish soup.

  Joe continued to remain on hold. “High call volume,” he said. “But my call is important to them.”

  The driver pulled out his own phone and called in for a replacement, but thanks to some highly inappropriate computer work, this call went not to the driver’s office but to Priya. Listening to his own phone, Joe heard very word.

  “Dispatch, this is Sherman in car six,” the driver said. “Hate to report this, but I’ve had an accident. We’re going to need a tow truck and a replacement car brought out for Mr. Warren as soon as possible. And I mean, as soon as humanly possible.”

  “I’ve got you at the intersection of Middle Road and Parson’s Lane,” Priya said, sounding authentically Bermudian with her British accent.

  “We’re a few hundred yards past that,” the driver said.

  “I’ll call for a tow and send another car,” she replied. “Please tell Mr. Warren to remain in the vehicle for safety reasons.”

  “Of course,” the driver replied. “Just hurry. It stinks down here.”

  The phone call ended. Joe gave the driver a false set of insurance papers, made his apologies, taped the back doors shut and drove off.

  Oliver Warren, his bodyguard and the Lincoln driver would wait a frustrating twenty minutes, call once more for another car and then wait further. After the second call—and realizing that the stench of fish had permeated his clothes—Warren contacted his secretary, had her reach out to Tessa Franco and cancel the date.

  He offered his apologies and suggested they reschedule, indicating that dinner any of the next three nights would be fine—as long as it wasn’t seafood.

  27

  TESSA’S COMPOUND, BERMUDA

  KURT STOOD over the security guard whom he’d thrown to the ground while raising his hands, not wanting to be shot by the second guard.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to the first guard. “You surprised me and I reacted out of instinct.” He offered a hand. “No hard feelings?”

  While the officer on the ground looked wary and confused, the second man was downright hostile. “Stay where you are,” he shouted, his weapon drawn and aimed at Kurt’s chest.

  “Relax,” Kurt said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Kurt raised his hands and the man on the ground got up and backed away, grabbing Kurt’s waterproof pack for good measure.

  “Let’s see what’s inside.”

  “Be careful,” Kurt said.

  The man unzipped the bag, rummaged through one pocket and then opened the main section of the pouch, pulling out a handful of melting ice. “What in the world?”

  The sound of a sliding door opening violently stopped him from searching deeper. All eyes turned and Kurt saw his deliverance, Tessa Franco, stunning in a beaded evening gown, casting a reflection that danced in the soft evening light as she walked barefoot across the veranda. Her eyes were wide as she approached, her face slightly flushed. She was spellbinding.

  “What, exactly, is going on out here?”

  “We caught him before he could get to the house,” the security guard said.

  The question wasn’t meant for him. Tessa was staring directly at Kurt. He shrugged. “I asked if you’d see me earlier tonight, you suggested perhaps another time. So here I am.”

  “I did suggest another time,” Tessa replied, “but this is decidedly not another time. This is, in fact, the exact time I told you I wouldn’t be available.”

  Kurt glanced at the security guards, who were rapidly getting the idea that he wasn’t a burglar or an assassin. He lowered his hands and turned back to Tessa.

  “True,” Kurt said. “You were supposed to
be otherwise engaged this evening. But plans have a way of changing and I was confident that yours would. After all, your last text referenced fate and I’m confident that fate meant for us to be together.”

  “You must be insane,” she replied. “Did you swim out here from Hamilton?”

  “No,” Kurt said. “My yacht, the Lucid Dream, is anchored out in the sound.”

  “Well, you got all that exercise for nothing,” she said. “There haven’t been any changes to my plans. Now, if you’ll kindly . . .”

  As she was talking, her digital watch beeped, flashing brightly as it delivered a message. Tessa rotated her arm and read the words flowing across the small screen.

  Kurt couldn’t see them, but from the look on her face, he knew Joe had succeeded in diverting Oliver Warren and sending him home to regroup. He tried not to look too pleased.

  Tessa read the message twice, tapped the screen to send off a preset reply and then paused. For several long seconds, she stared into the distance before slowly turning back to Kurt.

  “I don’t know whether to be aggravated, offended or flattered,” she said. “I’m feeling a little bit of each, to be honest.”

  “Why don’t we discuss your feelings over a drink?” he replied.

  Careful not to startle the guards, he reached toward the waterproof pack and pulled a bottle of chilled champagne from inside.

  Tessa took a good look at the bottle and then turned back to Kurt. The tension left her forehead and the corner of her lips turned up ever so slightly.

  “The driven soul will always succeed,” she said, quoting him from earlier in the evening. “Apparently, you’re a very driven man, Mr. Hatcher. Just how did you persuade Oliver Warren to break his date with me? He was very keen on being the first to talk business.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Kurt said. “Fate must have intervened. Now . . . shall we have a drink to fate . . . and anything else we can think of?”

  He offered the bottle for her approval.

  “Pol Roger,” she said, studying the bottle.

  “Favorite of Sir Winston Churchill,” he added. “Another driven soul.”

  She studied the bottle and the label. “What year is this?”

  “It was bottled for Churchill in 1940 as a celebration of his becoming Prime Minister of England,” Kurt said. “I recovered it from a wreck off the coast of Ireland. The seal has never been broken.”

  “You recovered it?”

  “Like you, I’m interested in history,” Kurt said. “I’ve salvaged a few ships in my time. Like you, I’m interested in changing the world. Unlike you, I prefer to remain anonymous. I think we might make a very good team.”

  The smile grew, making her lips seemed fuller. She turned to her security team, who were standing there dumbfounded. “Gentlemen, you can leave us now.”

  The men nodded and walked off.

  “You’re not exactly dressed for dinner,” she said.

  “Drinks by the pool?”

  “Which means, I’ll have to change.”

  “Don’t,” Kurt said. “You look stunning.”

  “And if we go for a dip?”

  “We can worry about that later.”

  An hour later, the twenty-thousand-dollar bottle of champagne was empty, replaced by a rare bottle from Tessa’s own private collection in a silver bucket of ice. The new offering was almost as expensive, if not nearly as exotic, as the Pol Roger, 1940.

  By now, talk of business and investments had given way to talk of changing the world.

  “The difference between you and me is obvious,” Kurt said. “You want to change the world for the sake of changing it. I’m only interested in change if it makes money. Lots and lots of money. You’re not making money at this point or you wouldn’t be looking for investors.”

  “We will be soon,” she said. “Price of oil is climbing, supply is dropping, demand is increasing. All at the same time. That combination of factors will propel Novum Industria to become one of the largest corporations in the world. Invest a billion, you’ll have ten more by the end of the decade.”

  Kurt poured more champagne. “That certainly qualifies as a lot of money. But every alternative energy company makes the same promise. Plenty of them have gone bankrupt doing so. I’m already wealthy, why risk it all on something so unproven?”

  “Because that’s how we keep score,” she said.

  “That’s greed,” Kurt said.

  With that, Tessa pushed her chair back and stood. “I make no apologies,” she said briskly.

  “I mean that as a compliment,” Kurt said. “Without a little greed, we’d still be living in the Dark Ages.”

  Kurt put his glass down, stood and stepped toward her. “Now tell me about your technology. Is it real or just pie in the sky?”

  “I’m not sure you’d be able to understand the technical explanation,” she said.

  “Try me,” he said, moving closer.

  “I’m not that intoxicated,” she replied. “You can see the designs after we have an agreement in place.”

  “Wise,” he said, moving even closer. He put his hand softly on her cheek, brushed her hair back and kissed her. Her lips tasted of champagne. Her hair had the scent of jasmine “So, if you can’t show me your technology, what can you show me?”

  “Why don’t we start with that swim?”

  28

  GREAT SOUND, BERMUDA

  JOE MADE IT BACK to the Lucid Dream, took a hot shower and then made his way up to the top deck. He found Priya watching Kurt through the high-powered camera.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Not bad,” she said, “if swimming with a beautiful woman fits that definition.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Joe said. “I have cats following me around, looking for a free meal, and Kurt is making out with our prime suspect. There’s no justice in this world.”

  “I only wish he’d activated the listening device,” Priya said. “I wanted to hear them talking.”

  Joe laughed. “You don’t strike me as the voyeuristic type.”

  “I’m not,” Priya said, “but I haven’t had a date in months.”

  Joe studied Priya. She was incredibly pretty and looking radiant in the moonlight. “If that’s not by choice, then there’s something with the men of Washington, D.C.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Joe picked up the binoculars and trained them on the pool.

  Kurt and Tessa had left the pool and toweled off. With Tessa in a robe and Kurt in his swim trunks, they walked toward the marble stairs that led down to the Monarch’s berth.

  “They’re heading down to the bay,” Joe said.

  “Maybe they’re going skinny-dipping?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  As Kurt and Tessa neared the water, she used a remote unit to extend a bridge toward the fuselage of the airplane. As soon as it bumped the side, she led Kurt across to it and opened the cargo door.

  Tessa went inside, but Kurt paused by the entrance, visibly running his hand over the doorframe before disappearing into the lighted interior of the aircraft.

  “Just when things were getting interesting,” Priya said.

  Joe lowered the binoculars. “For better or worse, Kurt’s on his own now.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “THIS IS ONE impressive piece of machinery,” Kurt said, admiring the Monarch as they went aboard. “Is it true you designed most of it yourself?”

  “It is,” Tessa said. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I had help, of course,” she replied. “But I came up with the initial design, did most of the aerodynamic research on my own and then hired a small army of engineers to do the actual work. We bu
ilt it in a shuttered factory in Poland that used to manufacture military transports.”

  Kurt knew all this already. “Why an amphibious plane? Just to be different?”

  “Why did Hughes build the Spruce Goose?”

  “He was trying to get a big contract to transport material across the Atlantic.”

  “I’m looking for the same thing,” she said. “Three-quarters of the earth is covered in water. And many rural regions have no airports other than dirt strips, but they often have lakes to land on. The Monarch is eminently practical. One day, the world’s leaders will see this.”

  They toured the aft section first, passing a boat and two automobiles protected beneath tarps. From the overall shapes and the low-profile tires sticking out, Kurt could tell they were performance cars.

  “Bugatti?” Kurt asked.

  “Ferrari, actually,” she said, “though I have a Bugatti at my house in France and I once owned a Formula 1 racing team. How about you? Have you ever raced?”

  “I wrecked an experimental Toyota in Japan once. Does that count?”

  “Did you win?”

  “Of course,” Kurt said. “I cheated a little. But if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

  She smiled with genuine glee. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  The tour continued toward the tail end of the aircraft. A pair of Jet Skis and a powerboat were stored there. Beyond them sat a large cradle with hydraulic lifting arms. It didn’t escape Kurt’s attention that the cradle was circular in shape and, whatever it normally held, it was empty now.

  He pretended not to notice, looked past it and studied the aft cargo door. The design of the door and placement of the hinges told him it could be lowered like a ramp. A conveyer belt system on the inside of the door could obviously be used to bring vehicles aboard and deposit them in the water.

  “A rather ingenious setup,” Kurt said. “And quiet. I don’t hear an auxiliary power unit humming. How do you run all of this equipment?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Tessa said. “But, let me show you.”