Sea of Greed

by Clive Cussler

  “Store the recording under a miscellaneous file, label it something innocuous like Sunspot Interference and speak to no one about this.”

  “But, Mr. Yaeger, that’s not our standard protocol.”

  “Do it,” Hiram said. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Hiram put the phone down, breaking the contact. “Max,” he said. “Have we been hacked?”

  “My systems are secure,” Max said. “But NUMA has other servers and stand-alone systems.”

  “Please check them thoroughly,” Hiram ordered.

  It took a few minutes, but Max answered exactly as Hiram expected him to. “Ninety-two percent chance that supply and logistics module has been compromised. Other applications show similar intrusions.”

  “That explains how they found Kurt in the Mediterranean,” Hiram said.

  “Would you like me to secure the system with revised procedures?”

  Hiram debated for a second. “No,” he said. “Leave it alone for the moment.”

  “Allowing a known security breach to remain open is inadvisable,” Max said. “It will only invite further intrusions.”

  “I know,” Hiram said. “But I’d rather they not know we’re onto them.”

  “A reasonable gambit.”

  “A gambit is right,” Hiram said. “I need to speak with Kurt and Rudi. But not via the satellite network, in case that has been compromised as well.”

  “The Gryphon is equipped with encrypted radio receivers,” Max said. “Impossible for a third party to listen in.”

  63

  KURT WAS GETTING READY to join the dive when the blue radio squawked. The call struck Kurt oddly. Blue—or encrypted radio—was an older system. It was rarely used anymore, as NUMA relied almost exclusively on satellite links for communications these days.

  The radio alert repeated and this time it was followed by a voice transmission. “Kurt, this is Hiram, do you read? Over.”

  Kurt picked up the microphone, held it near his mouth and pressed the talk switch. “Coming in loud and clear,” he said. “What’s with the old-fashioned radio call?”

  “We have reason to believe satellite communications have been compromised.”

  “Roger that,” Kurt said. “We’ll keep off the satellite network.”

  “I have some good news,” Hiram added. “We’ve heard from Priya. Both she and Joe are alive.”

  Kurt clenched his hand. “I knew Joe would find a way off that ship. Where are they?”

  “Priya’s somewhere in Kazakhstan, exact location is unclear. Joe’s whereabouts are even more of a mystery. They appear to have escaped together but have since become separated. According to the message, Joe was attempting some act of sabotage when he vanished.”

  “That sounds like Joe,” Rudi said.

  “There’s more,” Hiram said. “Tessa hacked our data network and has been watching your every move. She knows you’re diving on a wreck believed to be the Minerve and she knows what you’re looking for. She intends to stop you and take it for herself.”

  “How?”

  “The Monarch is now armed with air-to-sea missiles and heading your way.”

  Kurt envisioned the strategy. “She won’t risk getting close to us. Not after what we did to those helicopters. She’ll hit us from long range and then drop off her hired hands to clean up whatever’s left.”

  “How much time do we have?” Rudi asked.

  “We’ve been using long-exposure satellite images in hopes of catching a blur that could be Tessa’s plane,” Hiram said. “We’ve spotted one that doesn’t correspond with any listed airline or military flight plan. It puts her a hundred miles east of your position and closing fast. It would probably be wise for you vacate the area until we can provide defensive units and reestablish control.”

  Kurt glanced at Rudi. “We just cut that sub open,” he said. “The entire vessel is sitting down there in one piece, completely intact, ready to be searched. If we leave now, they’ll land the Monarch, dive on the wreck and be gone with the countermeasure before anyone can even put up a speed trap.”

  Hiram interjected, “But if you remain where you are, you’ll be destroyed and she’ll still get what she’s after.”

  Rudi looked Kurt’s way. “I came here to help,” he said. “But if we can’t run and we can’t fight, then what are we going to do?”

  An icy calm settled on Kurt. “We get the countermeasure out of that submarine and away from here, then leave her to pick over the bones.”

  64

  THIRTY MILES EAST of the Gryphon, a brightly painted fishing boat rolled on the gentle swells as the crewmen hauled in the nets they’d cast during the night.

  It was hard labor and these men had come out much farther than their fellow fishermen to do it, but it was worth the effort because the catch was larger.

  With the lead lines pulled in and attached, the captain threw the switch on an old winch, allowing it to do the rest of the job. It clanked to life, drawing the net upward. As it reached the surface, his men spoke excitedly in Arabic, marveling at the number of fish they’d caught.

  The captain grinned, shut the winch off and stepped forward. He stopped in his tracks when he heard a strange whistling sound. It grew louder and closer on the far side of the boat, building to a crescendo and then crashing down on him as a huge winged shape thundered overhead.

  It passed no more than a hundred feet above them, crossing the fishing boat from one side to the other. A maelstrom of wind followed it, tilting the boat, whipping the captain’s hat into the air and tossing one of the men into the sea.

  * * *

  • • •

  FROM THE COCKPIT of the Monarch, Tessa watched the small boat pass beneath them. She grinned at the thought of little men in the boat nearly being capsized by her passing.

  “Austin won’t be so easy to impress,” Volke warned.

  “He won’t have time to be impressed,” she said. “In fact, he’ll never know what hit him. Do we have satellite confirmation?”

  “Patching it through now.”

  A screen to her left flickered to life, revealing a detailed image from a commercial satellite service. The shot wasn’t quite military grade in terms of clarity, but it was close enough. It revealed the lethal little vessel NUMA called the Gryphon, sitting off the Libyan coast.

  “They’re directly above a wreck,” Volke said.

  “Can we zoom in?”

  “Stand by.”

  Volke tapped a few keys and the image pixelated and then refocused, much closer this time. A crane at the rear of the boat had been swung out over the transom, an arrowhead-shaped vehicle dangled beneath it.

  “They’re deploying a submersible or ROV,” Tessa said. “It must be the Minerve.”

  “They’re just getting started,” Volke replied. “We’ve caught them at the perfect time. They’re preoccupied and there isn’t another ship within thirty miles.”

  Tessa turned to the pilot. “How soon can we get a missile lock?”

  “We need them on radar,” the pilot said. “From this distance, we would have to climb to five thousand feet.”

  “Any risks in doing that?”

  “No,” the pilot said. “We’re invisible at this point.”

  “Climb to five thousand feet, lock onto that boat and launch three missiles with staggered timing.”

  “One missile will do the job,” Volke said. “Using three is—”

  “Overkill,” Tessa said. “Which is exactly what I intend.”

  65

  NUMA VESSEL GRYPHON

  KURT’S EYES were glued to a monitor every bit as intently as Tessa’s had been. One part of the screen showed the camera view around the Gryphon, another section showed the status of the boat itself, engines idling, foils waiting to be depl
oyed. “Anything on radar?”

  Sitting beside Kurt, Rudi was studying another screen. This one displayed a circular red image with a sweeping white line that moved around it in a clockwise direction.

  “Nothing,” Rudi said. “But, then, that’s why she paid extra for a stealth aircraft.”

  Kurt set the cameras on Autopano and they scanned back and forth, looking for movement. “In theory, a giant plane should be easy to spot in broad daylight,” Kurt said. “But with the sun behind her, it’s going to be that much harder.”

  “The Red Baron used that tactic, too,” Rudi said. “Very effective.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Kurt said.

  Finally, one of the cameras locked onto something and zoomed in. The image on the screen blurred and then refocused. At first, it looked like a bird. “That’s the Monarch, all right. Range, twenty miles and closing fast.”

  “Don’t mean to be a backseat driver,” Rudi said, “but I’d deploy the foils and get moving.”

  Kurt used a touch screen to control the vessel. He nudged a virtual throttle lever forward and watched the rpm gauge jump, but, for now, most of the power was held in reserve.

  Switching to an underwater transmitter, Kurt called out to Paul and Gamay. “The guests have arrived. What’s your status?”

  “We’re almost through the pressure hull,” Paul said.

  “We’re only going to be able to entertain for so long,” Kurt said. “Don’t dawdle.”

  The display in front of Rudi began flashing. “Radar contact,” he said. “Two contacts . . . Make that three. Moving faster than the Monarch. Must be missiles. I’d say we’re out of time.”

  “I’ll see if I can buy us some more.” Touching the screen again, Kurt extended the hydrofoils and set the gas turbine to full power. The Gryphon began to move, accelerating like a normal boat, while the foil indicator went from red to yellow and then green.

  As the boat began to pick up speed, the cameras left the Monarch and locked onto the incoming missiles. The projectiles themselves were impossible to see, but the white vapor trails were obvious.

  “Missiles are supersonic,” Rudi said. “Range, fifteen miles and closing.”

  The Gryphon was rising up on its legs and accelerating. With the hull out of the water, the drag vanished and the speed increased suddenly, feeling like a turbocharger kicking in.

  Kurt felt the g-forces pinning him to his seat and then pushing him forward. Rudi gripped the arms of his own chair, as they swayed back and forth.

  “This ride is going to be wilder than I expected,” Rudi said.

  “It might be shorter than expected, too,” Kurt said. “How much time do we have?”

  “The lead missile is nine miles out,” Rudi said. “Less than one minute. The others are trailing it by two miles each.”

  Kurt kept the throttle open and the Gryphon reached its top speed of ninety knots. It might as well have been crawling in comparison to the missiles.

  “Eight miles,” Rudi said calmly. “Seven . . . Six-point-five . . .”

  “I don’t need the entire countdown,” Kurt said. “Just tell me when to turn.”

  “Turning isn’t going to help,” Rudi said. “Even if we avoid the first one, the second will hit us for sure. We should think about jumping ship.”

  “Too late,” Kurt said. “At eighty knots, we’d break every bone in our bodies.”

  “Might be better than the alternative.”

  “It might at that.”

  “Three miles,” Rudi said. “Two . . .”

  Kurt nudged the rudder control to the starboard and the Gryphon carved a tight line on the high-speed turn. Both Kurt and Rudi struggled to stay in their seats, but the missiles continued to track them.

  “One mile . . .” Rudi said.

  Kurt chopped the throttle a bit and deflected the rudder hard in the other direction. The Gryphon reacted instantly, cutting back tightly to port side.

  The first missile shot past, wide by a hundred feet or more.

  “That was close,” Rudi said.

  “The next one’s going to be closer.”

  Kurt punched the throttle back up and turned the Gryphon to starboard once again. The second missile shot by as well, but it came close enough that its proximity sensor detonated the warhead. A billowing explosion caved in the armor and windows on the Gryphon’s left side while superheated shrapnel tore through the hull and the shock wave collapsed the forward hydrofoil.

  The Gryphon dove nose-first into the water, rose up and crashed back down, still moving at relatively high speed. Kurt and Rudi were thrown from side to side.

  “Now,” Kurt said to Rudi.

  Rudi pressed a switch and Kurt threw the rudder hard in the other direction one more time.

  It was not enough. The third missile hit the craft amidships, penetrating the hull and exploding out the far side, sending a fireball upward through the middle deck and blowing the craft apart.

  * * *

  • • •

  TESSA WATCHED the explosion from her position in the Monarch. As the glare of the fireball diminished, she saw that the Gryphon had been split in two. What remained of the aft section went down quickly while the bow section burned and smoked and slowly foundered.

  “Those missiles were worth every penny,” Woods said to her.

  Volke was even more ecstatic. “May you burn worse than I did, Austin.”

  “So ends the contest,” she whispered. “And so begins a new one.” She turned to Volke and Woods. “Our clock is ticking. Get your men and equipment ready. I want you ready to deploy the minute we hit the water.”

  66

  GAMAY SWAM into the Minerve through the opening Paul had cut. She was still getting her bearings when the tremor of the Gryphon’s explosion reached her. “Is that what I think it was?”

  The rumbling came in two waves, with the second vibration much larger.

  “Sounds like the fireworks have begun up on the surface,” Paul replied. “It won’t be long now.”

  “Any word from Kurt or Rudi?”

  “Nothing. First things first. Find that container.”

  Gamay looked around. She’d entered the submarine on the side of the control room and began moving aft.

  Unlike the Dakar, the Minerve had been sealed against the outside world for fifty years. Saltwater had come in, but sea life had been kept at bay. She found three bodies partially preserved in the control room. Another two in the next compartment.

  The third compartment should have been closed off by a watertight door, but Gamay found a chain wrapped around the hatch wheel.

  “Whether this sub was scuttled or sabotaged, it was definitely sent to the bottom on purpose,” she said. “Someone chained these doors open.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if the French members of the crew realized they were in shallow waters and decided to act,” Paul said. “They might have thought they were closer to shore than they actually were.”

  Gamay found another body just beyond the purposely opened hatch. “Doesn’t look like many of them escaped.”

  “We need to hurry if we’re going to escape,” Paul said.

  Swimming through the hatch, Gamay shined her light around, looking for the container. They’d been briefed by the Israelis to look for a three-foot-long, stainless steel cylinder with a diameter of twenty inches. It had bands at each end and held two smaller containers inside.

  The plan was simple. Find the counteragent and get far enough away from the Minerve that Tessa’s men would never spot them. Even in clear water, visibility was no more than a few hundred yards. Beyond that, they’d vanish in the scattered blue light.

  Without an acquisition and targeting sonar, it would be nearly impossible for Tessa to find them. That would force her to choose between hanging around and prolonging the search or
heading for the hills with all possible speed.

  Every minute the Monarch spent on the water increased the risk of detection and retaliatory action. None of them expected Tessa to give up without a fight, but she couldn’t risk staying too long.

  It was a good plan, Gamay told herself, but not without problems.

  The entire plan depended on finding the container holding the countermeasure and getting out of there before Tessa and her crew made visual contact. And they’d been planning to use the Gryphon’s high-speed submersible to tow them into the endless blue.

  If that submersible had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the attack, the only real method of putting distance between themselves and the Minerve was to use the thrusters in the Trench Crawler. And that would be a much slower method of escaping. After clearing the compartment she was in, Gamay moved aft yet again.

  * * *

  • • •

  PAUL FLOATED outside the submarine, near the opening he’d cut, and was taking advantage of the Trench Crawler’s automatic station keeping feature to remain in place.

  He continued turning from quarter to quarter, scanning the sea around him for any sign of Kurt and Rudi but saw nothing but blue water.

  The only company he had was a curious barracuda that swam up over the top of the submarine and hovered there, eyeballing him for a moment. It held itself in place as easily as Paul did, then turned slightly and darted away at incredible speed.

  The next sign of movement came from directly above. Paul looked up as a line of foam and bubbles streaked across the surface as the keel of the Monarch touched down, carving a straight line to the west.

  “The Monarch has landed.”

  67

  THE Monarch landed with an incredible amount of grace, considering that she had the length and beam of a World War II destroyer.