Sea of Greed

by Clive Cussler

The argument ended and Kurt checked the orange-faced Doxa watch on his wrist. They’d spent six of the eleven minutes they had before needing a decompression stop on the way up.

  Time to go.

  Kurt moved back the way he’d come, but another crewman was heading his way. He veered off and took the stairs onto a catwalk that allowed for inspection of the second level of the stacked tanks.

  The catwalk took him around the back half of the sphere, the long way around. He moved quickly, glancing at the gauges on the tanks as he went. Every pressure reading was in the red. The needles on some of the gauges had already crossed the max pressure line.

  No wonder Millard was worried—he was working in a room with forty ticking bombs.

  At the far end of the catwalk, Kurt reached a second stairway and made his way down. At almost the same moment, two men came past one of the large pumps and stepped onto the stairway, coming up toward him.

  It was Kurt’s intention to pass them with a polite nod, but the nearest of the two had his eyes locked onto Kurt.

  “What are you doing up here?” he asked. “This area’s off-limits to . . .”

  “Checking the pressure,” Kurt said, pointing to the clipboard.

  Kurt saw the lack of recognition in his eyes. With a crew of only twelve, every face was familiar. “Who are you?”

  Kurt acted instantly, jamming the clipboard into the man’s chest, shoving him backward and down the stairs.

  “Intruder!” the second crewman shouted. “We have an intruder!”

  Kurt slugged him and sent him sprawling, but the alarm had been raised.

  Volke and several others rushed toward them. Kurt couldn’t punch his way through them all. He raced back up the stairs and along the catwalk, but two men appeared on the far end with oversized wrenches in their hands.

  Both groups closed in and Kurt leapt over the railing, jumping down between the cylindrical tanks and rushing for the exit.

  It was not to be.

  Volke jumped from the catwalk and tackled Kurt with a flying leap.

  The two men rolled to the ground, got up simultaneously and charged at each other. Grasping Volke’s arm with one hand, Kurt threw an uppercut toward Volke’s jaw. The punch connected but only with a glancing blow as Volke turned his face away.

  A brief separation allowed Volke to throw a counterpunch. Kurt ducked but was forced on the defensive as Volke pulled out a hunting knife.

  He slashed at Kurt once, cutting through the overalls Kurt had stolen, then lunged forward with a much more dangerous stabbing motion.

  Kurt caught Volke’s arm and bent it back, but Volke spun free, turned and forced Kurt to retreat farther.

  “Millard,” Volke shouted, “get some more crewmen down here.”

  Kurt knew he was trapped, but he also knew that the more men who came to subdue him, the less remained out in the sphere to discover Joe. He planned on prolonging the fight for as long as his body could take it.

  Another crewman moved into the maze of tanks. A third came in behind Volke.

  Kurt feinted one way, got them moving to intercept him, then dove over a set of cross-feed pipes that led to the next tank. Hitting the ground, he rolled, sprang up and dashed forward, disappearing behind the next row.

  Volke moved slowly. There was no need to rush. He had six men working with him surrounding the area.

  “Spread out,” Volke said. “Push him toward the back wall.”

  Kurt kept quiet, moving from one hiding place to the next. The acoustics of the sphere and the industrial lighting mixed with dark shadows made it easy to hide and change position. But he would run out of room in a moment.

  In need of a weapon, he glanced around but saw nothing that could help him.

  “Who are you?” Volke called out. “How did you get in here?”

  Kurt said nothing.

  “Don’t be shy,” Volke said. “Surely you want to boast about how you found us. If ever there’s a time to brag, this is it. You won’t be able to talk much after I’ve cut your throat.”

  Kurt moved again but was now coming up on the back end of the sphere, with only one more row of cylinders between him and the wall.

  Instead of going back, he climbed up onto one of the tanks and lay flat, squeezing between the first layer of tanks and the second. He began to sweat instantly. Both tanks were hot to the touch, a sure sign that they were overpressurized. The heat wasn’t scalding, but it was close enough to walking on blacktop in the Arizona sun that he didn’t look forward to remaining longer than necessary.

  One of Volke’s men walked past him. Another passed by in the next row over. If they would just keep on moving . . .

  The beam of a flashlight passed over Kurt. “Over there,” someone shouted. “Between the tanks.”

  Kurt looked up to see a man on the catwalk. He’d been spotted from above.

  Without delay, Kurt pushed out from between the tanks and dropped to the floor, where he was instantly surrounded.

  One man swung a pipe wrench at Kurt’s head, but Kurt ducked and it clanged noisily off the tank beside him. Kurt kneed the man in the stomach and then clubbed his wrist. The man cried out and dropped the wrench to the floor, pulling back and clutching his hand protectively.

  Kurt grasped at the wrench, but someone grabbed him and pulled him back. A second man joined in and Kurt’s arms were soon pinned.

  With the two men restraining Kurt, a third crewman rushed forward. “Hold him up,” the new arrival shouted. “I’ll knock him out.”

  The captors hoisted Kurt to his feet and a mighty punch was thrown, but it missed Kurt completely and coldcocked one of the crew.

  The man fell to the ground like a sack of rice while his partner looked on in shock. His expression changed as Kurt pulled loose, gut punched him and slammed him headfirst into one of the storage tanks.

  “Thanks for the assist,” Kurt said to Joe. “But I was keeping them busy so that you could escape.”

  “And swim back all on my own?” Joe said. “I prefer the buddy system.”

  “That’s not going to help us much now,” Kurt said.

  He plucked the oversized pipe wrench off the floor, took a step forward and stopped. Two of the men who’d captured Kurt were out of the fight, but Volke and the rest of the crew had surrounded them. It was now six against two, with Millard and another crewman watching from the catwalk.

  “You’ll never get out of here,” Volke said.

  “Neither will you,” Kurt replied.

  With a quick turn, he raised the heavy wrench and brought it down on one of the cross-feed pipes. It hit with a thunderous stroke, denting the pipe, bending it in the middle. Volke and his men froze in their tracks.

  “Don’t!” Millard shouted, his shrill voice echoing around the room. “You’ll kill us all.”

  “That’s the general idea,” Kurt shouted, lifting the wrench above his head. “I know what you’ve filled these tanks with. One more hit and we’ll all be out of our misery, so back off.”

  The rest of the crew moved backward, but Volke stepped forward with a smug grin on his face. “He’s bluffing.”

  “Take one more step and you’ll find out if that’s true.”

  Even Volke stopped now. “You don’t really want to die here.”

  “Who does?” Kurt replied. “But if it’s between getting captured and killed by you and your men or blowing this ship to kingdom come and dying as a couple of heroes . . . well, then, I think you know which one of those I’m going to pick.”

  Around Volke, the men started retreating. They were chemical engineers, former roughnecks and people from other assorted backgrounds. They wanted nothing to do with Kurt and the dented pipe.

  Volke was different. He was a killer and he hadn’t gotten where he was by playing it safe. He regripped the knife and stepped forwar
d. “And our options are life in prison or charge you and test your mettle. I think you can imagine which one I’m going to pick.”

  Kurt saw instantly that Volke was ready to die rather than give in.

  “So be it,” Kurt said. He brought his arm down, slamming the pipe once again. Sparks flew and everyone dove for cover, but there was no detonation, only a further bending of the pipe followed by a shrill whine as a tiny jet of high-pressure gas escaped from a pinprick-sized hole in middle of the dent.

  Kurt didn’t wait. He lunged in the other direction and dove for cover.

  Volke wasn’t as lucky. He turned and dove but was caught in the flash as the pipe blew itself apart and the escaping gas morphed into a twelve-foot jet of flame.

  40

  GREAT SOUND, BERMUDA

  PRIYA WAS BACK on the top deck of the Lucid Dream, sitting at her computer console. She remained in the dive suit—in case she decided to go out again—but had wrapped herself up in a luxurious robe of Egyptian cotton.

  Initiating the tracking program, she waited as the progress indicator crossed the screen from right to left. When it reached a hundred percent, a map of the world appeared, complete with a blinking dot in middle of the Atlantic.

  At first, Bermuda remained invisible, but as she zoomed in, the island appeared and then the fishhook curve and finally the islands dotting the Great Sound including Baker’s Rock.

  The blinking dot was clearly visible in the water next to one of the small islands, flashing on and off, exactly where it should be.

  Quite pleased with her work, Priya poured herself a glass of champagne. “Just try and hide from us now.”

  As she sat back, a chime sounded from inside the upper deck salon.

  Priya recognized it as the alarm indicator. She pulled up an interface on her computer that showed a schematic of the yacht. The aft doors had been forced open.

  It couldn’t be Kurt or Joe, they would have radioed in and she would have heard the rumbling Pavati as they drew near.

  A motion alarm on the lower deck sounded next. Onboard cameras showed a figure in the main passageway and another coming up the midship’s stairwell.

  Priya shut the laptop, put it on her legs and turned her wheelchair. With two quick thrusts of her arms, she propelled herself forward and into the salon, heading for the elevator.

  She didn’t make it.

  A man rushed up the forward stairs and grabbed her chair, stopping it in its tracks, just as the elevator doors opened. He loomed over her, broad-shouldered, with a bushy beard.

  “Where do you think you’re going, little lady?”

  He was leaning forward, his hands on the arms of the wheelchair. That put him in a vulnerable position. Priya made the most of it, grabbing the laptop and smashing him across the face with it.

  He fell back in shock and Priya did a quick one-eighty, heading for the aft part of the yacht. The man she’d struck rushed after her, grabbing her chair from behind just as she made it to the aft stairwell.

  Priya threw herself off the chair and down the stairs, crashing onto the landing and rolling. She crawled down the next flight, this time rolling on her shoulder and tumbling like a gymnast.

  She was on the middle deck now. She heard the broad-shouldered, bearded man curse and throw her chair aside before lumbering down the stairs.

  Her only hope was to get to the water. She pushed open the first door she came to and crawled into one of the cabins. Across the room was a balcony. Beyond that was the water.

  She crawled to the door, slid it open and crawled through. She was two feet from the rail when the man rushed, grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her back. Her chin hit the floor and she lost her grip on the laptop.

  “You squirm like a salamander,” he said. “Do you really think you’re going to get away?”

  Escape was too much to hope for now. All she wanted to do was toss the laptop overboard so they couldn’t hack into it.

  As the broad-shouldered, bearded man stood over her, two other men arrived. “The other cabins are empty,” one of them said. “There’s no one else aboard.”

  “What happened to you?” the second man said, looking at the blood on the bearded man’s lips.

  “Never you mind,” he snapped. “Check the engine room, check the galley, check every space on this boat. They wouldn’t leave a cripple here alone.”

  Priya seethed at the word cripple. “You’ll never find them. This yacht has a hidden panic room. By now, they’re calling the Coast Guard or the harbor police. You and your friends are all going to prison.”

  The burly man stood over her, laughing. “Give me that computer.”

  He reached for it, but Priya had one last trick up her sleeve. Reaching under the arm of the robe, she tapped the screen on the forearm of the dive suit, pressing the swim mode button to full strength.

  Her body flipped awkwardly as the artificial muscles in the suit squeezed. One leg went down, but the other flew upward, right into his crotch. The man dropped the computer and doubled over in excruciating pain.

  Priya rolled onto her stomach, grabbed the laptop and pulled herself toward the balcony once more. To her surprise, the strange swimming motion of the legs helped her move more quickly.

  She reached the railing, pulled herself up and was about to throw herself and the computer overboard when a hand grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back so forcefully that chunks of hair were ripped from her scalp.

  She landed against the bulkhead. A pale hand with long, thin fingers reached forward and grabbed her arm. The power to the suit was shut off and Priya’s legs stopped flailing. She looked up to see Tessa Franco standing over her. “What were you doing under my aircraft?”

  Priya suddenly felt foolish. She’d brought this on herself. She should have stayed put as Kurt and Joe had directed her to.

  She tried to play it off. “Hatcher wanted me to take pictures of the plane. He said no one knew how it got off the water so easily. You’re using high-pressure air for cavitation.”

  “You’re a very good liar,” Tessa said. “Where are Hatcher and that weird friend of his?”

  “Like I told the mountain man over there,” she said, “you won’t find them until the police get here.”

  Tessa didn’t hesitate. She slapped Priya across the face once and then added a backhand slap for good measure.

  Priya’s face burned, but she said nothing more. Just then, one of the other men returned. “There’s space for a powerboat on the lower deck, but the boat is gone.”

  As Tessa turned away, Priya took a chance. She threw her arm forward, punching the laptop. It skittered across the balcony, slid under the railing and dropped into the sea.

  Tessa looked down at Priya. “There must have been something on that computer she wanted to hide. Look around,” she said to her men. “Grab any other computers, phones or radios you can find. Anything that might be useful to us.”

  Priya wondered again if she’d done more harm than good.

  “And pick her up,” Tessa said to the broad-shouldered, bearded man. “She’s coming with us.”

  41

  LNG CARRIER, CONTROL SPHERE

  KURT WAS in midair, diving away from the pipes, as the heat of ignition flashed across him, singeing the hair on the back of his neck. Bits of pipe flew in all directions, clanging off the other tanks, while the echo of the blast traveled around the sphere like rolling thunder.

  Hitting the floor, Kurt rolled and popped up on one knee. Looking back, he saw a jet of flame pouring from the stub of the ruptured pipe. It shot outward and down, scorching the neighboring tank and rapidly beginning to melt the floor.

  The fire scattered Volke and his men. They ran and stumbled in every direction.

  “I didn’t think you would really do it,” Joe said, making his way to Kurt’s side.

 
“He left me no choice,” Kurt replied.

  A secondary explosion knocked everyone to the ground and the floor tilted as one of the supports gave way.

  Kurt and Joe rushed forward, jumping to the next section of flooring.

  “Look,” Joe said, pointing.

  The catwalk had fallen. The crewman with the flashlight fell, dropping through the suddenly open section of deck and into the bottom half of the sphere. Another figure in white overalls clung to the railing.

  “That’s Millard,” Joe said.

  “Let’s grab him and get out of here.”

  Working his way around, Kurt stretched out a hand, grabbed Millard by the back of his clothing and pulled him to safety.

  “You’re coming with us,” he shouted.

  The scientist did not protest. “The ship is going to explode, we have to get out of here.”

  The sphere shook with more tremors as a smaller tank exploded. They were all knocked off their feet.

  The sound alone felt as if it would bust Kurt’s eardrums, but it was the sudden pressure change that concerned him most. He turned back to see a rupture in the wall. Air and smoke were venting out and seawater was blasting in horizontally, crashing through the floor grating and swirling in the lower half of the sphere.

  Kurt saw a churning vortex of foamy water rising. Storage tanks had been ripped from their moorings, barely hanging on the scaffolding. Like the pipe Kurt had damaged, many of them were spraying fire.

  “I may have overplayed my hand,” Kurt said.

  “May have?” Joe replied.

  Up ahead, several crewmen had reached the hatch that led to the docking sphere. They were frantically trying to pull it open.

  “Stop!” Kurt shouted.

  His voice was lost in the clamor. The men at the hatch raised the lever. The door flew open with such violence that they were thrown back across the floor.

  With the control sphere losing pressure and the docking sphere at full pressure, that was the only possible outcome. That and the torrent of water that came blasting through the hatchway.