Sea of Greed

by Clive Cussler

  There was now nothing but open ground between him and the aircraft. Open ground and a hive of activity. While Joe watched, a small fleet of vehicles streamed in. None of them went aboard the Monarch. Instead, they parked nearby, dropping off equipment and armed men.

  As the men climbed the ramp into the Monarch, a larger vehicle pulled up. From this truck, long crates were removed. They were heavy enough that four men struggled to carry them.

  “Missiles,” Joe said to himself. “Meant for Kurt, Paul and Gamay.”

  As the missiles were loaded aboard, the drones Joe had heard earlier began returning. They landed, one by one, in a clearing beside the plane, where they were collected by Tessa’s people. All the while, a pair of tanker trucks pumped fuel into the great plane’s wings.

  “Pulling up stakes and heading west,” Joe said to himself. “Not if I can help it.”

  The activity was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it put a lot of boots on the ground and that made it much more likely he would be spotted as soon as he left his hiding spot.

  On the other hand, with all the people milling around, Joe might be able to walk right up to the plane without raising anyone’s suspicions. There were too many people around each truck to sabotage the fueling procedure.

  He needed to do something mechanical, preferably something that would be difficult to fix quickly. His eyes were drawn to the nose gear of the aircraft.

  When the plane landed on the water, its hull remained sealed and it steered itself like a boat. But on land, of course, it used wheels and the stubby nose gear was crucial to maneuvering the behemoth around.

  If Joe could damage or disable the nose gear, the pilots wouldn’t be able to navigate the other derelicts and get the Monarch onto the runway to take off. Tessa and her crew would be as trapped as he and Priya were.

  Easing his way back under the truck, Joe crawled to the front end of a third truck. He came to a spot across from the nose gear.

  A swath of light surrounded the nose of the aircraft, spilling out from inside the fuselage. Standing in that light was a lone guard with a metal thermos cup in his hand.

  Shouting from the crew beneath the wing told Joe the fueling was done. The tanker trucks rumbled to life and pulled away and moments later the first of the six engines began to turn, starting with an electric whine, becoming a howl as the engine fired and then settling into a whistling hum.

  A second engine fired up. Still, the guard remained at his post.

  Joe backtracked, found a broken camshaft that he could use as a weapon and crawled back to the edge of the truck.

  With the last of the equipment loaded, the aft door began to rise. Someone shouted to the guard near the nose and he tossed the contents of his cup onto the ground and left his post, rushing to the tail section to climb aboard.

  Joe sprinted from his hiding spot toward the front of the plane. He had to worry about the same cameras that had spotted Priya during her attempt to place the geotracker on the aircraft, but the entire fuselage of the Monarch was coated with a layer of gray dust and he hoped it left the camera lenses smeared-over and useless.

  Joe reached the nose gear. It was a simple, rugged design. Two large-diameter wheels attached to a thick central strut. To Joe’s misfortune, the important parts were hidden beneath steel plates and rock deflectors—typical of aircraft designed to take off from and land on unimproved fields.

  Joe had to look higher for a weak spot. He ducked down, moved under the plane and then climbed up inside the landing gear bay, standing on the top of the wheels. There, he found the unprotected hydraulic lines.

  He attempted to dig his hand between the first line and the metal wall of the bay, but the fit was too tight. He placed the rod against the line and punched the end of it, pushing the line sideways.

  The line bent out and then up as Joe slipped the camshaft beneath it and pulled like he was using a hammer to remove a nail.

  It was a partial success, but there was enough play in the line that it didn’t pull loose from the connector or split open. Before Joe could try again, the brakes released and the aircraft lurched forward.

  Standing on the wheels, Joe was thrown off balance as the plane began to move. Joe dropped the camshaft, leapt forward and grasped a ledge inside the landing gear bay. His feet dangled beneath him, swaying back and forth, as the ground rolled by.

  Stretching, Joe reached for the hydraulic lines he’d been trying to dislodge moments before. He grabbed them, pulled himself up and spread his feet wide on the inner ledge of the landing gear door.

  The plane was rolling now, rumbling over the dusty ground at a fast walking pace. He went back to work, pulling at the lines with his bare hands.

  Beneath him, the wheels turned. For a second, he thought he’d been the cause, but when the aircraft had come around, the wheels straightened and the engines roared.

  “Not good,” Joe said.

  They’d turned onto the runway and were picking up speed.

  Joe stopped watching the ground and turned back to the hydraulic lines, grabbing and pulling unmercifully at a second line. Each hard pull caused the line to cut into his fingers and Joe was soon bleeding, but he didn’t relent.

  When the line had been stretched to its limit, Joe reared back and pulled it hard one more time. The seal ruptured and red hydraulic fluid sprayed all over interior of the bay. It lasted only a few seconds before an emergency shutoff closed the line.

  Joe looked down. It was too late now. The nose wheel had straightened and was now locked into place for takeoff. The otherworldly howl from the engines was growing and the ground beneath him was passing by ever more quickly.

  It was too late to jump. They were already doing forty miles an hour. If the fall didn’t kill him, the sixteen wheels of the main landing gear would crush him and finish the job. With no way to go down, Joe looked upward. He and Kurt had once climbed into a Russian bomber through a door in the landing gear bay. Maybe he could do the same here.

  As the plane picked up speed, the nose gear started vibrating. Tiny rocks and swirling wind were kicked up into the compartment. Joe hung on and climbed higher. A small hatch, probably nothing more than an inspection bay, but at this point anything was better than remaining where he was. Joe grabbed the handle, wrenched it down and pulled the hatch open. There was enough space for him to fit.

  He pulled himself up, drawing his legs in and turning around, just as the plane rotated and the front of the aircraft left the ground. As soon as they were airborne, the nose gear began to retract.

  There was no escape now. Joe pulled the hatch closed and sealed it tight.

  He had no idea where he was in the plane. And no idea where the plane was going. But he was going along for the ride.

  * * *

  • • •

  ON THE GROUND, still hiding in the old Russian helicopter, Priya heard the Monarch take off, noting its departure with mixed feelings. Tessa and her crew being gone meant she was less likely to be discovered, but the aircraft’s successful takeoff also meant Joe had failed. He might even have been captured or killed. And if the Monarch was departing on a mission to obliterate Kurt, Paul and Gamay, then Priya had run out of time to finish the shortwave transmitter.

  She looked back at her contraption. She had no plans. No paper and pen to make notes with, she’d built everything from memory and theory. Working in the dark was impossible, so she’d ripped out and rigged up one of the Mercedes’s dome lights to help her see. But every minute she used it drained more power from the battery and that was power she’d need to transmit the signal.

  She got back to work and rushed to finish the job.

  An hour after the Monarch’s departure, tired and cold and fighting a throat that had grown as dry as the dust around them, she was ready to attempt her first transmission.

  She added power carefully. With her ear
next to the speaker, she searched for any sign of a signal. Finally, she heard something. More English, this time—British English.

  “This is Edward Bannister with the day’s Premier League action . . .”

  The BBC World Service coming in exactly where it was supposed to be! Never had she heard a more beautiful sound.

  The next task was to change frequencies to one she could broadcast on, one NUMA was likely to hear her message on. She adjusted her frequency to 12.290 kHz. The marine shortwave emergency band. Most groups no longer used it. But NUMA still monitored it. That meant it would be free of other traffic and easier for her signal to stand out and be picked up.

  Engaging her transmitter, she began to speak. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” she said. “This is Priya Kashmir transmitting on 12.290. This is an emergency message. Can anyone hear me?”

  She released the transmitter and waited for a response. Thirty seconds went by. And then a full minute.

  “Too far away,” she whispered to herself. Even with the antenna Joe had built and extended out above the cockpit of the helicopter.

  Cautiously, she upped the power level. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! If anyone can hear me, please respond?”

  Still, there was nothing.

  She raised the power one more time.

  The result was disastrous as one of the circuits flared and sizzled.

  “No!” she said, cutting the power even as the compartment filled with the acrid smell of an electrical fire.

  It was too late. The transmitter was dead.

  Priya began to cough. The smoke brought it on, but the dryness and dust made it worse. After twenty-four hours without any real water, she’d become very dehydrated. Her lips had cracked, her eyes burned incessantly and her mind felt sluggish and slow. All she wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep.

  She pushed the feeling aside and felt around for the power cord, disconnecting it from the transmitter and reconnecting it to the dome light. Even with that light, the damage was easy to see. Several of the circuits had burned. Other spots she soldered had melted. Hours of work had been destroyed.

  She looked at the mess and then at the pile of spare parts on the floor. There was no other choice. She slid herself over, picked through what she had and began the painstaking process of rebuilding.

  62

  GULF OF SIDRA, SEVENTY MILES OFFSHORE

  MORNING SPREAD across the Mediterranean, revealing pristine waters, a cloudless day and the Gryphon on station seventy miles off the coast of Libya.

  Kurt and Rudi remained on the bridge, watching the video relay as the Trouts made the first dive.

  The waters off the Libyan coast were shallow, warm and clear. Even here, seventy miles from the coast, the depth never exceeded two hundred feet. The bottom was sandy and flat, a combination that made for excellent diving.

  “Wreck in site,” Paul said. “It’s definitely a submarine.”

  Kurt and Rudi saw the wreck on the video screen. Even though the vessel was lying on its side, covered in marine life and partially buried in the sediment, its shape was unmistakable.

  While Paul dropped toward the stern, where the sub’s rudder and one of its twin propellers could be easily seen, Gamay swam along the length of the hull.

  “I’m not seeing any damage,” she said. “In fact, I’m not seeing anything to indicate a traumatic impact. More like it settled gently into the silt and then rolled over on its side.”

  “That’s good,” Paul suggested. “Should make it easier to search.”

  “Assuming this is the right submarine,” Kurt said. “Let’s make sure it is what we think it is. Head around to the bow.”

  The Minerve had a distinctive bell-shaped housing jutting upward near the bow. It allowed a powerful sonar system to be installed without forcing the relocation of the torpedo tubes, of which the Minerve had twelve, eight in the front and four in the stern.

  Engaging his thrusters, Paul traveled the length of the hull, passing the conning tower and maneuvering toward the front of the ship. He paused over a mound of silt that had covered the bow like a sand dune. Using his thrusters, Paul scoured away the sediment.

  Kurt and Rudi watched the results. The distinctive sonar housing and the opened outer door of the number one torpedo tube were plainly visible. “That’s her, all right,” Rudi said. “Your skills of divination have few equals.”

  “Thanks,” Kurt said. “I’ll take the pat on the back later. Let’s get that sub open and find what we came here for.”

  * * *

  • • •

  AS KURT, PAUL AND GAMAY began working on the French submarine, Hiram Yaeger sat at his desk five thousand miles and seven time zones away watching the progress remotely.

  It was just past midnight in Washington, D.C.

  “Does it look like they’re cutting in the right place?” Hiram asked Max.

  Max replied with typical precision. “Based on the camera angle and the orientation of the submarine’s centerline, Paul and Gamay appear to be cutting within six inches of the optimal location. A perfectly adequate level of precision for human work.”

  “What are the chances that submarine is filled with explosive gas?” Hiram asked.

  “Unknown,” Max said, “though unlikely, in general.”

  “That’s one less thing to worry about.” Hiram leaned back, put his feet up on the desk and kept his eyes focused on the monitor. Using the Trench Crawler’s welding tools, Paul had just finished removing a section of the outer hull. He and Gamay were now going to work on the submarine’s inner pressure hull.

  The process was slow and Hiram began to feel drowsy as he watched. He was just starting to nod off to sleep when his desk phone rang in a particularly shrill tone. Jerking upright, he pulled his feet off the desk. “Max, if this is you, I’m disconnecting your power supply.”

  “The incoming call is not my doing,” Max said. “It’s the communications office.”

  “At this hour?” Hiram picked up the phone. “This is Yaeger.”

  “Mr. Yaeger, this is Ellie Ramos in communications.”

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Ramos?”

  “I have something you need to hear. It’s coming in on the 12.290 kHz band.”

  “The old shortwave emergency band?”

  “Yes,” Ms. Ramos said. “It’s the marine band. Even though it’s not officially in use anymore, we still monitor it.”

  “If someone is declaring an emergency, you need to put it through to the Coast Guard or—”

  “It’s not a marine emergency,” she replied. “It may even be a joke, I’m not really sure. But, please, could you just listen.”

  “Put it through.”

  A brief click tied the transmission into Hiram’s phone and Hiram put the phone on speaker. At first, all he heard was static, then a low squeal that faded, leaving only a continuous background buzz. Finally, words emerged.

  “. . . unsure of our exact location, somewhere in Kazakhstan between . . . and forty-seven degrees north latitude . . . one hundred and fifty miles east of the Caspian Sea . . .”

  A chill ran down Hiram’s spine as he recognized the voice. “Priya?” he said. “Priya, can you hear me?”

  Ellie Ramos replied. “We tried to speak to her already. Either it’s a one-way broadcast or she’s simply unable to pick up our response. Either way, she has been speaking continuously since the transmission started, repeating some of what she’s already said.”

  “Because she has no idea how much is getting through,” Hiram said. “Tell me you’re recording this.”

  “We’re following standard emergency broadcast protocol.”

  NUMA recorded all emergency radio calls, storing important ones in a computer archive indefinitely.

  Priya’s voice returned and Hiram fell silent.

  “. . . Joe
assisted my escape . . . now missing . . . Had been attempting to sabotage the Monarch . . .”

  “Did she say Joe?”

  “Affirmative,” Max said.

  “. . . Tessa Franco working with members of regional oil Consortium . . . ecological intentions fraudulent . . . Goal is permanent worldwide oil shortage . . .”

  Another squeal interrupted the broadcast.

  “Max, triangulate the signal. We need to know where she’s broadcasting from.”

  “Triangulation impossible,” Max said. “None of our other shortwave receivers are picking up the signal. Perhaps due to the transmitter location, atmospheric effects or the quality of receiving equipment.”

  The antennas built into the NUMA HQ were among the most sensitive in the world, designed to pick up even the faintest radio calls from around the globe. The only equipment matching what they had in D.C. was at another NUMA facility in Hawaii, five thousand miles farther away, too far to pick up Priya’s broadcast.

  The signal cleared and Priya’s voice returned once again, this time it was so faint that Hiram could hardly hear it.

  “. . . have been forced to hack . . . NUMA system compromised . . . Kurt’s location known and being tracked . . . In danger . . . Will be attacked upon discovery of French submarine . . . Tessa desperate to possess antidote . . . Claiming possession of guided antiship missiles . . . Please warn before . . .”

  A long squeal interrupted the broadcast and, when it faded, there was no sound whatsoever.

  “Ellie, what happened?”

  “We’ve lost the signal,” she replied. “Transmission has ceased. I’m sorry. I’ll have the recording logged and labeled appropriately.”

  “No,” Hiram said. “Make no record of it.”

  “But—”