Sea of Greed

by Clive Cussler

  “One down,” Kurt said. “One to go.”

  The surviving helicopter crossed overhead, its own nose-mounted cannon rattling as it went.

  The Gryphon took several hits, noted by bowl-shaped dents in the armored roof and wall. Hairline cracks that spread from each one told Kurt all he needed to know about the shape of the armor.

  “We can’t take much more of this,” he said. “Paul?”

  “Radar is still jammed. I can’t get a lock.”

  “Just aim and fire,” Kurt said. “Maybe we can scare him off.”

  Paul checked the helicopter’s position on the camera system. “Target is to the south of us. Here goes nothing.”

  He selected a section of the sky, set an arbitrary target point as near to the helicopter as possible and launched a missile. It streaked from what looked like a supply locker on the side of the top deck.

  Kurt turned as soon as the missile fired. If the pilot took evasive maneuvers, he might get within Gamay’s range.

  Watching the video screen, he saw the missile racing into the dark. It went nowhere near the attacking copter, but, as Kurt had expected, the helicopter took an evasive course anyway. It turned to the right, setting itself up broadside to the Gryphon. Gamay opened fire, holding the trigger button down and filling the sky.

  The Gryphon raced under the helicopter, which continued past and then turned to come back once more.

  “What do we have to do to get rid of this guy?” Kurt said.

  “Radar is up,” Paul said. “You must have hit something.”

  On-screen, the helicopter’s nose turret began flashing. More dents appeared and the panel guarding the left window was torn away. Glass blew into the wheelhouse. Kurt and Gamay ducked, but Paul was locked in and so was the radar.

  He fired a second missile as the helicopter flew past, this one tracked it, turned and scored a direct hit on the engine compartment. The helicopter burst into flames and spiraled into the sea.

  “Nice work!” Kurt said.

  “Are we clear?” Gamay asked.

  Paul looked at the radarscope. “Clear,” he said, turning toward them.

  He had blood coming down the side of his face where shattered glass had hit him and his hair was whipping in the breeze.

  Kurt backed off the throttle, let the Gryphon level off. A search for survivors proved fruitless. And with the distinct possibility that they might be attacked again foremost in everyone’s mind, Kurt powered up and took the Gryphon west with the night.

  58

  CENTRAL KAZAKHSTAN

  TESSA LOOKED OUT through the dusty, pitted window, nine stories up in the old air traffic control tower. The windstorm had passed and, with the air now clear, the entire base stretched out before her. The view was a sea of derelict planes, discarded machinery and junked vehicles, including tanks and trucks and armored personnel carriers, all stripped of their guns, tracks and wheels. At the far end, a giant smelter worked twenty-four hours a day melting down the scrap, which was shipped out and sold as recycled steel.

  She turned to Volke, who stood off to one side. “During the Cold War, this base was home to hundreds of frontline Russian aircraft and two Special Forces brigades. Now it’s a boneyard.”

  He nodded slightly. “Your point?”

  “Things are discarded when they’re no longer needed. A situation we seem to be falling into.”

  “I thought this was our moment of triumph,” Volke said. “The price of oil is going through the roof, the news media are reporting on the crisis twenty-four/seven. Buran is finally coming to pay us. Not to mention the IPO.”

  It was true. When viewed from the outside, everything Tessa had promised seemed to be coming true in spectacular fashion. But up close, each glittering reality faded like a mirage.

  “The American government is holding up the IPO,” she said. “They haven’t blocked it outright. But until it’s approved, the private investors will never bite. Even if the American SEC relents, the longer it takes, the more difficult it will be to get the money we hoped for.”

  He grew agitated. “Why is that?”

  “Because the fuel cells don’t work,” she said. “More accurately, they don’t work for long. They’re fragile, easily overloaded and twice as costly to manufacture as our worst-case estimates.”

  “Aren’t Yates and his design team working on that?” Volke said.

  “Yates is dead,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “He was going to quit and tell the world what I just told you,” Tessa explained. “I had no choice.”

  Volke put the dominoes in order. “Without the fuel cells, no one is going to invest. Without Yates, there won’t be any redesigned, operative fuel cells. Any more good news?”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s enough. We’re dead in the water.”

  She nodded. He stared. The silence lingered.

  “Now I see why this meeting is so important to you,” he said. The edge grew sharper in his voice as he spoke. “Except Buran is the one element in this equation that we’ve never been able to control. Now you’re telling me he’s our only hope of getting anything.”

  “It would seem that way.”

  Volke shook his head in disgust. “And just how do you propose to force a man who’s already gotten what he wants to give us anything at all?”

  “I’m not sure. Yet,” she said. “But I will. Your job is to be ready when he resists, as he most certainly will.”

  Silence followed. She knew what she had in Volke. He was easy to motivate. He would do anything to get the payout he’d been waiting for two years. Her other problem would be Woods. He would have to be dealt with, too.

  “I’ll be ready,” Volke said. “But you should know Buran is not our only problem. Austin and his crew have survived.”

  “How could they?”

  “I have no idea,” Volke said. “But according to an update in the NUMA location system, they’re heading west at high speed.”

  “I’d have preferred to hear that they were dead, but if they’re running for cover, at least that’s something.”

  “They’re not running for cover,” Volke said. “They’re looking for the Minerve.”

  She tilted her head as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “The Minerve? Are you telling me they’ve learned in three days what took us three years to put together?”

  “They live up to their reputation,” he said. “Regrettably.”

  “They cannot be allowed to find that submarine,” she said. “If they pull the antidote off that ship, it will destroy everything we’ve done.”

  “I’m not sure we can stop them,” Volke said. “All the more reason we need to close this deal and get out of here.”

  “I’m not settling for a pittance,” she said.

  “Better than nothing.”

  Tessa had a feeling it wouldn’t be quite that easy.

  She looked out the window as the sound of helicopters approaching reached them. Shading her eyes against the sun, she looked across the base. From out of the northwest, a pair of helicopters came in low, crossing slowly above the rusted-metal bones of their ancestors.

  “We’ll have to worry about Austin later,” she said. “Buran and his people are here.”

  She and Volke left the high ground and descended the tower. By the time they reached the ground floor, the helicopters had landed in a swirl of dust. As the dust dissipated, Arat Buran and his honor guard stepped from the lead helicopter and strode toward the base of the tower.

  Tessa studied Buran as he approached. Muscular and strong beneath his dark blue overcoat, he appeared much as he had when Tessa had first met him years before. The same eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, giving him a serious, glum look that she had found so appealing. His thick, dark mustache brought Stalin to mind,
but Buran was no communist. In the years since Kazakhstan had gained its independence, he’d gone from a roughneck working on a leaking oil rig to one of the richest men in Central Asia.

  Using a combination of guile, brute force and military contacts, he’d slowly cornered the market on Kazakhstan’s oil, before branching out into other countries. He now controlled seventy percent of everything produced in the region. His friends, members of a group he called the Consortium, controlled the West.

  That kind of power didn’t remain confined to the business world, it extended to the political realm. At Buran’s urging, ties with the West had soured, foreign diplomats and military personnel had been sent packing and Kazakhstan had turned inward, with Buran and a few of his allies living in the shadows and controlling the government.

  They were profiting now, but when all the infected fields stopped producing, these men would control half of the world’s remaining untouched oil.

  Another woman might have looked upon a wealthy, handsome ex-lover like Buran and wondered what could have been. Tessa felt nothing of the sort. Buran had been an interesting plaything and an avenue of assistance, nothing more.

  Buran stepped toward her and kissed her hand. “My Tessa,” he said in broken English. “You have exceeded even my expectations.”

  “I’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations,” she replied. “And yet the funds I was promised have not been released.”

  “Always straight to business,” he said. “You miss out on the beauty of life.”

  From the pocket of his overcoat Buran produced a small box and opened the lid. Inside lay a walnut-sized emerald set in a ring of sapphires and held by a delicately wrought gold chain.

  “Twenty carats,” he said. “Worth a million dollars. It is a thing of beauty like you.”

  Tessa smiled politely, closed the box and pushed it back toward him. “Thank you, I’m flattered, but you know I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a billion these days. Now I would like my money. I’ve done my part.”

  Buran’s eyes smoldered with a hint of indignation, but he placed the box back in his pocket and shrugged. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

  The meeting moved into the bottom level of the air traffic control tower. They were joined by several of Tessa’s men, who stood there beside a multitude of computers. The machines were networked, powered by one of her fuel cells and linked to a satellite dish.

  Before Tessa could speak, Woods unexpectedly walked in. But before he could speak, Volke quickly moved next to him and drew a gun, placing it in the small of Woods’s back.

  “These computers are encrypted with the latest technology,” Tessa said, “and connected to banks around the world. The financial transfer can be made swiftly and cleanly via this system. Your people are free to examine them, if you like.”

  “You are prepared,” Buran said.

  “As always,” she replied. “I want what you promised me.”

  “Ten billion dollars is a lot of money.”

  “You and the Consortium will make more than that every six months, thanks to what I’ve done.”

  “True,” he said. “But there are expenses to consider and there are reasons for renegotiation.”

  “Renegotiation?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. “But, you had to know this was coming.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Twenty billion. All cash and cryptocurrency.”

  This time, Buran laughed—nothing loud or haughty, just a deep, heavy laugh like a father amused by a small child. It was all Tessa could do to keep her anger in check.

  “Ah, Tessa,” he said smugly. “My beautiful, arrogant Tessa. You have done what the Consortium thought impossible. But you’ve made one tremendous mistake. Small, but fatal. In your desire to prove yourself, you’ve allowed your leverage to evaporate. The Consortium has its high oil prices already. There is no going back—thanks to you. But that being the case, they see no reason to pay you what they formerly considered paying. They will not be extorted for billions of dollars when there is no need to pay it now.”

  Tessa’s demeanor remained icy. She’d expected some treachery, but nothing so blatant. The very lesson she’d just reminded herself of came to mind. Things were discarded when they were no longer needed.

  “The Consortium offer is nothing? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “The Consortium appreciates your services and they may be convinced to give you something,” he said, “but it will not approach what you think you deserve. Perhaps fifty million. And for that, they want everything—including all stocks of the oil destroyer itself.”

  “Fifty million won’t pay my interest,” she said.

  “Your problem, not ours.”

  The sense of entrapment was palpable. Fate and her enemies had encircled her now. She needed some way to reverse the situation, to turn everything back in her favor.

  She thought briefly of threatening Buran’s wells with the oil destroyer, but it would be a futile gesture. He knew enough about how the destroyer worked to protect his fields. Her operatives would never be able to get near the injection equipment. And his response would be violent and inescapable.

  The bitterness of the moment prompted waves of emotion. For just an instant, she hated Buran more than Austin. She almost hoped Austin would find the counteragent and cut the legs out from under Buran. Its discovery and announcement alone would send oil prices crashing even faster than they’d gone up.

  The racing thoughts stopped.

  The counteragent . . .

  Its very existence had troubled her from the moment she’d begun the effort. She’d looked for it as desperately as she’d sought the oil destroyer, intending to find it, eradicate it and erase its presence from the face of the earth.

  Failure to do that had been the one great disappointment. But suddenly the counteragent could be her salvation. It could restore her leverage and put Buran and his Consortium at her feet.

  “I’ll take your fifty million,” she said, “as an apology for the insults you’ve delivered. But if your friends want to continue enjoying the windfall they’ve come into, they will pay fifty billion, in gold certificates and cryptocurrencies. They will also agree to pay a billion dollars in royalties per year, ad infinitum, and they will apologize for insulting me the way you have today.”

  Buran clenched his jaw, the broom-like mustache settling deeper over his lips. “You have an acid tongue, despite your beauty. More than that, you are a fool, Tessa. This is not a boardroom on Wall Street. You’re a guest here, but you could quickly become a prisoner. Even if I forgive your rebuke, the others will not. They will not take your offer, but they’ll take your life for speaking to them this way.”

  “They won’t raise a finger against me,” she said. “Not once did you explain the danger to them.”

  “And what danger would that be?”

  “I got rid of the oil,” she told him. “But if I’m not paid, I’ll bring it back.”

  Buran’s expression froze. His eyes widened in reaction. He hadn’t expected this. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have the antidote,” she said. “The counteragent that will feed on the bacteria, just as the bacteria feeds on the oil. Someone will compensate me for it. Either you and your friends or the Americans and the Chinese. Sky-high oil prices will cost them a trillion dollars each over the next decade. They will pay anything to prevent that. You know that.”

  “They will take what you give them and copy it,” Buran said.

  “Perhaps, but at a very high price,” she said. “Which is why I’d rather be paid by you not to release the counteragent. That would make this a win-win situation. But if I can’t win, no one will. Mark my words on that. If I’m not compensated fairly, you and your Consortium will suffer right along with me.”

  Buran lost it. He reached into his coat, pull
ed out an ornate but deadly knife and stepped toward her. “I’ll kill you myself for such insolence.”

  Tessa stepped back, but Buran froze as Volke’s men produced weapons far deadlier than a knife. Across from her, Buran’s honor guard raised their own guns. For a second, it appeared they all might die in a hail of bullets fired at close range.

  “Everyone needs to calm down,” Tessa said. “We can all die here or we can all get rich. You and the Consortium are set to prosper for decades to come. The higher price of oil has already increased the value of your reserves by hundreds of billions of dollars. You don’t need to pay me out of pocket. You can borrow the money and transfer it. You won’t even feel a pinprick of pain.”

  Buran glared at her. “You’ll never get out of Kazakhstan alive.”

  “Not only will I leave here in perfect health,” she corrected, “you, Arat Buran, will ensure that I do so. Otherwise, the counteragent—which I have duplicated and stored in various locations around the world—will be delivered to specific government agencies along with detailed instructions explaining what it is, how to grow it and the quickest methods by which to benefit from it. Kill me, if you like, but all you’ll have done is triggered the collapse of your own—suddenly quite prosperous—empire.”

  Buran’s face was purple-red. A vein throbbed like a lightning bolt in his forehead. “Where did this counteragent come from?”

  “The French created it,” she said. “To protect themselves from the oil destroyer. It now protects me. I’ll send you the reports Millard smuggled out of France. That should be all the proof you need to motivate your associates.”

  “Even if that’s true, even if we agree to pay, how are we supposed to justify transferring fifty billion dollars to you? In return for what?”

  “You don’t have to justify it to anyone,” she said. “But if you must have something in return, you can buy my company. As you may have heard, it’s for sale.”