“I can’t wait to take one of those babies apart,” Max said, rubbing his hands together with glee. “I might be able to build one for ourselves. You never know when it could come in handy.”
“Have you ever seen a design like that?”
“No, but it seems way too sophisticated for the Venezuelans to create. I’m guessing they bought it from the Chinese or Russians.”
“Or they stole it,” said Murph, who was taking photographs of the floating subs. “When I was a systems developer, we had to assess potential technologies for the military. One was an underwater stealth drone for attacking ships, but it was barely on the drawing board when I left. These could be based on that design.”
“If they’re based on American technology,” Max said, “the CIA is going to want them back. I predict Langston Overholt is going to be writing a big check in the near future.” Juan had to agree that this discovery would be riveting news for his old CIA mentor and liaison.
“Speaking of checks,” Juan said, “did you call Atlas Salvage?”
Max nodded. “They’ll be on their way shortly with an oceangoing tug from Kingston. The owner, Bill Musgrave, is negotiating the contract with Cabimas. As a finder’s fee, he’s cutting us in for ten percent.”
Salvage was a lucrative and dangerous business, so the payouts were usually a percentage of the ship and cargo value. In this case, it would be more than one hundred million dollars if they were able to get the ship back to port intact, so the Corporation’s split would be handsome.
Not bad for a day’s work. And they were about to bring in even more.
The crane lowered its net toward the water, and divers in the RHIB would wrap it around each sub to pick it up.
Without warning, the first sub sank below the surface.
Max blurted. “What the . . .”
Another sub disappeared. Then the third.
Juan radioed to the op center. “We’re losing the subs. Are they preparing to attack? Report.”
“Negative, Chairman,” Linda replied. “Sonar shows they’re aiming straight for the bottom.”
Juan called for the divers to try to snag one of them, but it was too late. All three were shooting two miles to the seafloor. Even if they could eventually recover the subs, at the rate they were descending little would be left on impact.
“Get those pictures to Overholt,” Juan told Murph. “I’m going to talk to our guest.”
Juan entered the fake mess hall and got a cup of coffee for himself before sitting down with Maria.
“Is my crew treating you well?” he said.
While looking around at the dingy room, she said, “Everyone has been wonderful. I’d never imagine that a ship in this, uh, condition would have such excellent food.”
“It’s all for appearances. The ship is cleaner than she looks. We spend the money where it counts. Listen, I have a favor to ask.”
“Of course. Anything. You saved me and my ship.”
“We’d appreciate you not mentioning our involvement.”
“Why? You and your men should get a medal for what you did.”
“Because of the cargo we tend to carry, we don’t like a lot of attention.” There was no harm in giving her the impression that they were smugglers. The fact that they had been experienced with guns and fighting tactics would only enhance the notion.
Maria gave him a knowing look. “Ah, I see. What about the dead men on my ship?”
Juan was ready with a story. “Pirates. They attempted to take the ship when it foundered and killed your crew.”
“And who killed all of them?”
“Intragroup rivalry. No honor among these thieves, who will eventually be identified as rogue Venezuelan Navy sailors. The rest of them took off in their boat when they couldn’t get the ship under way.”
Juan could see her gears working as she pondered his story. Finally she said, “That all makes sense. It’s the least I can do for you.”
“Thank you. In the meantime, I think you should stay with us. It’s your decision, of course, but if Admiral Ruiz is really behind this, you may be in danger. I don’t think she likes loose ends. That is, if you don’t mind going missing until this blows over.”
“I don’t think I’ll be commanding my ship for a while. And my ex-husband certainly won’t care. But I should at least report in to Cabimas.”
“Tell them the truth, that you’re afraid for your life because the attackers got away. When they’re caught, you’ll feel safe enough to return.”
She thought about the suggestion, then said, “All right. I think they’ll understand that. They’ll be more concerned about recovering the ship for now.”
“Fine. I’ll have my steward Maurice set you up with a suitable cabin.”
“Thank you again, Captain Cabrillo.”
He gave her a smile. “Glad to help.”
Juan left her in Maurice’s capable hands and went to his cabin, where a call from Langston Overholt had been routed.
“You’ve set off all kinds of alarms here with those photos, Juan,” the gruff octogenarian said. “Nobody expected to see them surface—no pun intended.”
“So this is a U.S. design?”
“The Navy was working on it for years until a virus set back the program. All of the controller software was corrupted and the design files were wiped clean. Only someone on the team could have done it.”
“So it was an inside job. Why would you expect that the design hadn’t already made its way into foreign hands?”
“Because we identified who stole them. It had to be a weapons designer named Douglas Pearson. The files were recovered from his home. He must have planted the virus.”
“Is he in prison?”
“No, he’s dead. Or at least we thought he was. He was participating in a training exercise when his boat was destroyed by a malfunctioning aerial drone. His body was never found, but we assumed it was incinerated in the crash and washed out to sea.”
“Now you’re not so sure?”
“Oh, we’re sure he has to be alive. If these subs were built by the Venezuelans, there’s no way they could have done it so quickly without his expertise. He was one of a handful of people who had intimate knowledge of the program. Two of the others were killed in the same incident and the rest are still employed with defense contractors here. We don’t think they’re responsible, but we’re rechecking them just in case. I think Pearson is our man.”
“Then I want him just as much as you do,” Juan said, and told him about the attempts to kill the Oregon crew.
“How did he know where you were?” Overholt asked.
“That’s a question I would love an answer to. But I think there’s something more going on. He seems to have an army of Haitian soldiers at his command and may be planning a larger operation.”
“He’s probably the one who sank the subs. Do you think he has more?”
“I don’t know, but one of the Haitians said that the world is going to change in four days. If Pearson is part of this, it sounds like he has the means to pull it off.”
“It’s bad enough that a stolen U.S. weapons design was used to sink three ships and damage a fourth. We can’t let him use it for a terrorist attack.”
“Since you thought he was dead,” Juan said, “I’m assuming you have no leads on his whereabouts.”
“No, and we can’t go internal with this. You know Washington. The story would leak in about five seconds. I’m tasking you with finding Pearson. If you find evidence of a credible threat, I can use that to warn the appropriate agencies.”
“Then I guess the best place to start is the last place he was seen alive. Maybe there are some clues in the boat wreckage that were overlooked. Did Dirk Pitt handle the recovery?”
“NUMA raised the boat from the bottom of the Chesapeake, but Dirk hired
a disaster analysis firm to do the forensic investigation into the accident. A company called Gordian Engineering.”
“Who’s my contact?”
“Their chief engineer was brought in because of the sensitive nature of the technology involved. He has all the top security clearances.” Juan heard some paper shuffling in the background. “Here it is. He’s still at Patuxent reconstructing the wreckage. His name is Dr. Tyler Locke.”
—
With the sun now long set, Hector Bazin could make out nothing past the reach of the headlights of the Toyota SUV that David Pasquet was driving. Because Haiti was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, its rural citizens couldn’t afford power generators, and night lighting was no more sophisticated than a wood-fired stove. The extreme darkness of the hilly central part of Haiti they were now passing through was so profound that the border between Haiti and its wealthier neighbor to the west, the Dominican Republic, was easily visible in night satellite photos of Hispaniola, the island comprised of the two countries.
As they rounded a hillock, the sudden appearance of high-intensity arc lights brightly illuminating a cement factory—in the middle of nowhere—was jarring. Nestled between the hills and Haiti’s second-largest body of water, Lake Péligre, the plant consisted of a dozen buildings, a pattern of cantilevered conveyer belts, and a dome where the raw limestone ore was piled for processing.
If the buildings looked ancient, it was because they’d gone unused for more than fifty years until Bazin reoccupied them. They served as the base of operations for his mercenary force. It was the perfect location, miles from any town that would raise questions about the sound of guns being fired.
There was no chain-link fence to keep the curious out, but motion sensors had been placed at strategic intervals around the facility, setting off alarms the minute any intruders set foot within the property’s perimeter.
Pasquet rolled to a stop in front of a large building closest to the hill behind the plant. Bazin took his duffel bag and entered the building.
Inside, he found sixty men, all Haitians, kneeling with their hands over their heads. His men circled them like wolves, their G36 assault rifles at the ready. Two bodies lay on the floor.
The phone call he’d received on the way from the airport had prepared Bazin, but he was enraged again by this further setback.
“What happened?” Bazin asked the senior officer he’d left in charge.
His officer nodded in the direction of a man kneeling in the front row. Blood dripped from a fresh wound on his forehead. He glared back at Bazin with grim determination.
“While they were digging, he and the other men jumped two of the guards and killed them,” the officer said. “We were able to subdue them before they got to the weapons.”
“The guards should have been more careful,” Bazin said. “I told them Jacques was clever.”
Jacques Duval turned his head and spat blood that had trickled into his mouth. “You can’t keep us here forever, Hector.”
Bazin cocked his head at his old housemate and until recently deputy commander in the Haitian National Police before he was abducted and brought here. “Who says I’m planning to?”
“We won’t keep digging for you.”
“You will if you want your families to live.”
Duval laughed ruefully. “Don’t you see the irony of all this, Hector? You’re keeping us as slaves in the first country that threw off the shackles of slavery and became an independent nation.”
“You’re not slaves, you’re traitors. I offered you a chance to join me and you tried to take me down.”
Duval looked at him with pity. “How did you grow up to be this way? You and I were restavecs in the same household. We both joined the French Foreign Legion. We were the same. And now you’re a monster.”
“We were not the same.” He addressed the rest of the kneeling group, many of whom had served in the Haitian government alongside Duval. “This man that you revere, that you worship, is nothing more than a sniveling dog who would let a boy younger than he suffer beatings every single day of his life.”
Duval sighed. “You’re right, Hector. I should have done more. But I was just a child. And now I’m trying to change all that, the whole system, to make Haiti a better place.”
“It won’t change. Never. That’s why I brought you here. You and the rest of these men are deranged to think it could ever change. The only thing that changes is who holds the power. Well, now I hold the power. Because of what we’re doing here, I will hold more power than you can possibly imagine.”
“Why don’t you just kill us? We’re both military men, so be honest. That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? You can’t let us leave after what we’ve seen.”
“We still need you to install an emergency escape tunnel, so there’s more digging to be done. But you’re right, I don’t need all of you. There needs to be consequences for what you’ve done.”
Bazin took the assault rifle from the nearest mercenary. Duval straightened up and looked Bazin in the eyes as if he knew what was coming.
Bazin shook his head and grinned. “Such a noble gesture. But no. As a military man, you should know that your men always pay for your failures.”
Bazin shifted the rifle and fired shots through the foreheads of the men kneeling to either side of Duval.
Duval yelled, “No!” and jumped to his feet, ready to charge Bazin.
“Shall we make it three?” Bazin said.
Duval halted, sneered at him, and then knelt back down.
“Good,” Bazin said, and threw the rifle back to his man. “That was just a small preview. If you behave from now on, I might let you live long enough to see the kind of power that can control the world.”
Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland
Juan threaded the rental car past concrete barriers that could stop a semi from barreling onto the naval air station property. He and Eric Stone, who Juan brought along for his technical expertise, were approaching the gate to Pax River, as it was known to the base personnel, now entering during the morning rush hour.
When Juan reached the gate, the guard’s voice was drowned out by the thundering engines of a P-8 Poseidon submarine hunter coming in for a landing, but the intent was clear. He wanted to see their identification.
Juan wished they could have used the false IDs they normally traveled under, but to get into a Navy facility and access to a top secret project, at Langston Overholt’s insistence, Juan and Eric had to rely on the security clearances they’d obtained when they were in the employ of the U.S. government.
While the guard examined their IDs, a sailor armed with an assault rifle looked under their car with a mirror and inspected the empty trunk. Once they were cleared, the guard instructed them to drive to a hangar on the south side of the base.
As they passed a row of F-18 Hornets used for training Navy test pilots, Juan marveled at Overholt’s ability to get them into such a highly classified military operation. The photos of the Piranha subs no doubt contributed.
Less than thirty-six hours ago, the Oregon had left the Ciudad Bolívar once the salvage company radioed that they were on the way. Not wanting to risk an encounter with the Jamaican authorities, the Oregon made for Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. There they off-loaded Craig Reed’s repaired fishing boat and paid for his rehabilitation at the city’s best recovery center.
Tiny Gunderson, the Corporation’s fixed-wing pilot, had been waiting for Juan and Eric at Santo Domingo’s airport with their private Gulfstream jet. Four hours later, they landed at Reagan National and were directed to a hangar that stood only a hundred yards from the shore of Chesapeake Bay. The sun gleamed on closed white doors large enough to engulf an airliner.
A man dressed in a leather jacket and jeans waved for Juan to park next to a side door where an armed
guard in full battle dress uniform stood watch. Juan opened his door to a brisk chill. The civilian, an athletic-looking man with tousled brown hair and a warm smile, greeted him with a handshake. This wasn’t the nerdy engineer Juan had been expecting.
“I’m Tyler Locke,” he said. “You must be Juan Cabrillo.”
“Yes, and this is Eric Stone. I understand you’re the lead investigator conducting the forensic analysis.”
“That’s me. Dirk Pitt told us to expect you and authorized us to share all of our findings. What’s your interest in the case?”
“Douglas Pearson. We want to know if it’s possible that he survived the drone accident.”
“‘Accident’?” Locke said. “I can see we have to get you up to speed on our progress.”
“So you’ve recovered the wreckage?”
“We’ve done a bit more than recover it. I’ll show you.”
Locke swiped a keycard and punched in a passcode at the door’s security panel. An electronic bolt clicked and Locke pushed his way inside.
Juan’s eyes took a moment to adjust from the blazing sunlight outside as he and Eric followed Locke in. When he was able to focus, he took in the incongruous sight of a half-dozen workers reconstructing a boat inside an airplane hangar.
Only the forward part of the vessel was intact. The rest of it had been pieced together like the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle. A steel frame supported the pieces, most of which were blackened and bent out of shape, yet they had been fitted together so precisely that the boat’s former silhouette was easily recognizable.
To the right of the boat was a smaller framework holding the remains of the UAV that had slammed into it. Fewer of these pieces were visible, but the drone’s V shape was apparent.
A muscular black man holding a tablet PC was jotting down notes about the drone. When he spotted Locke and the two newcomers, he stalked over with something between the lumbering gait of a bear and the fluid motion of a panther. The overhead lights reflected off his bald head.
“We got the last of the fragments assembled on the drone,” he said to Locke. “Another hour before we finish on the boat, but it shouldn’t change our findings. For getting the job done so quickly, I told the crew you’d buy them unlimited pale ales and crab cakes at Clarke’s Landing tonight.”
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