Piranha

by Clive Cussler

  Washburn lunged toward the screen. “That’s my wife!” He wheeled around with balled-up fists. “You—”

  “No, no, Governor. Remember, I have guards right outside this door. We can do this just as well with you tied up.”

  “This is a trick. You’ve planted a camera in my house.”

  Kensit nodded appreciatively. “Good for you. That would be a logical assumption. It is, of course, wrong.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I will. Tell me someplace where you are absolutely positive I could not have planted a camera.”

  Washburn shrugged, and said sarcastically, “The Oval Office.”

  “I was hoping you’d choose something more unusual, but that will do.”

  The White House was one of the easiest places on earth to locate. He typed the name in and a satellite view of the familiar white structure was displayed on-screen.

  “Is that all?” Washburn scoffed. “I could do that with Google maps and an iPhone.”

  “Really?” Kensit said. “Can you also do this?”

  He zoomed down, the roof of the West Wing racing toward them until the view plunged through. Kensit stopped it when it reached the most recognizable office in the world.

  If the room had been empty, Washburn might not have been so flabbergasted. But Kensit had anticipated his choice and knew that the president was meeting with his senior advisers that morning.

  “This farm bill is causing us all kinds of problems in the polls, Mr. President,” his chief of staff said. “We can’t cut subsidies as much as the Senate wants or our party will get killed in the next election.”

  “Let Sandecker handle it,” the president replied. He looked as relaxed as ever, lounging in his chair with a mug of coffee in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other, reading glasses perched on his nose. “He’ll be back from Brazil in a couple of days.”

  “Do you think the vice president can talk them down?”

  “Sandecker’s a clever guy. If he can’t convince them, they’re certainly not going to listen to me. Now, what’s on the agenda for the military briefing today?”

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs sat forward. “There was another terrorist bombing in northern Pakistan this morning. Six dead, twenty wounded. North Korea is moving a thousand troops to the demilitarized zone, but we think it’s just a planned division reinforcement. And the UNITAS exercise has begun in the Bahamas. Seventeen nations are participating. The Cubans and Venezuelans are sending ships to observe, but we don’t anticipate any problems.”

  “Good. What about the trip to California next week that . . .”

  Kensit turned down the volume. “Satisfied?”

  If Washburn’s jaw were any lower, he could have swallowed an ostrich egg.

  “They have no clue we’re watching them?”

  “No.”

  “And you can see anywhere you want?”

  Kensit grinned. “I’ve already explored the inside of some of the most secure facilities on earth: NORAD, Area 51, the Kremlin, the Vatican’s secret archives, NATO headquarters, Fort Knox. Do you want to know the secret formula to Coca-Cola?”

  “How . . . How are you doing this?”

  Kensit paused as he thought about how much he would have to dumb down his explanation. “It’s called a neutrino telescope. I had been calling it a quantum receiver, but I like Eric Stone’s name for it better. My code name for it is Sentinel, for obvious reasons. Do you know what a neutrino is?”

  Washburn shook his head slowly, still gaping like a simpleton at the continuing video feed from the Oval Office.

  “A neutrino is a subatomic particle created by nuclear reactions, such as those within the sun or from cosmic rays. Normally, they’re very hard to detect.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are so small they can pass through matter without stopping. It would take six trillion miles of lead to stop half the neutrinos flowing through the earth, so the earth and everything on it are subjected to constant bombardment from them. But suppose we had a way to observe those few neutrinos that did interact with their surroundings. My long-lost great-uncle, a brilliant physicist named Gunther Lutzen, anticipated neutrinos decades before they were discovered. Not only that, he provided a basis for intercepting them and deciphering the spatial equations that would allow us to view the matter they had already passed through. If his work had been taken seriously at the time, he would have won the Nobel Prize and been mentioned in the same breath as Einstein.”

  “And the equipment in that Haitian cave is the neutrino telescope? That’s Sentinel?”

  “Yes. Uncle Lutzen theorized that he would need a very particular environment in which to build the telescope, a cavern that had the perfect level of natural radioactive ore and copper impurities to allow for the right conditions. He tracked a rare sample of the ore to Haiti and was about to return to Germany with his discovery when his ship was destroyed by a volcano. He called the cave Oz, but because of the green tinge from the copper in the cave’s selenium crystals, I think he should have called it the Emerald City.”

  Washburn nodded in agreement. “So how are you seeing the images from here?”

  “I have a transducer that uses the same technology to beam the images directly here from Sentinel, so I can be anywhere in the world and use it. I prefer to be mobile.”

  “But you could make millions of dollars with this technology,” Washburn said in awe. “Imagine the potential.”

  “Billions of dollars, actually. Perhaps even trillions. And I will make that much. But you aren’t imagining the true potential. I don’t limit myself to thinking of what I can attain financially. Don’t you realize that with Sentinel at our disposal, we can change the world? And I mean that literally. Shaping the future of the United States is only the first step.”

  “What more could there be?”

  Kensit sighed. He supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised at such limited thinking. “In this day and age, there is only so much one country can accomplish on its own. Think what I can do when I have control of Russia, China, and the European Union.”

  “You? What about me?”

  Kensit shook his head. “You still don’t understand, do you? I am the only indispensable part of this equation. I’m the only one who knows how to build the neutrino telescope. And you’re looking at Phase One. Currently, I can see only a single location at a time, a distinct disadvantage that I will improve upon soon. I’ve found a second underground cavern even bigger than Oz and I’ve already purchased the land around it for miles. Once Phase Two is built there, I will be able to view as many as a dozen locations at once. With advances in real-time translation software, I will be able to pass on secrets even the NSA can’t deliver to you when you’re president.”

  “And that’s how you plan to get me elected,” Washburn said, finally comprehending the possibilities.

  “You will know every strategy your opponents plan to use, every secret they want to keep, every scandal they try to hide. You’ll be able to anticipate their every move. Or I will, and then I will pass it on to you. So don’t ever think about betraying me or getting the deluded notion that you could do any of this without me. Because I will find someone who does understand that I am the one making the rules from now on.”

  Washburn swallowed hard and nodded. He understood. Kensit had no doubt he would do as instructed.

  “You said the first step is to shoot down Air Force Two. How, exactly?”

  Kensit manipulated the controls so that the telescope descended on Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida until he had the orange-tipped QF-16 drones on the screen. Then he switched to the drone pilots’ control room.

  “Those are modified F-16s, with all the same performance capabilities of the actual fighter jets. I did a test a few days ago. I could take over any of the planes’ command streams by mimicking
the encrypted frequencies that the satellites use to connect them with their control base. The pilots couldn’t tell anything was wrong even when I tried a slight maneuver to make sure I had control.”

  “You can fly those drones?”

  Kensit nodded. “And they won’t even be missed, because I can spoof the video feed and data relays. Air Force Two is currently sitting on the tarmac in Rio de Janeiro, having taken the VP there for a South American trade conference. In two days it will take off for its return flight to Washington. At the same time, this flight of six QF-16s will be flying toward the UNITAS exercise in the Bahamas for a demonstration. I will commandeer control of those planes and intercept Air Force Two when it’s over Haiti.”

  Washburn leaned in, now more fascinated by than appalled at the prospect of killing to reach his goals. “I get it. You’re going to use the drones’ missiles to shoot it down.”

  “No, of course not,” Kensit said, pausing for effect. “The drones don’t carry any missiles. I’m going to fly them right into Vice President Sandecker’s plane.”

  It was nearly midnight when Juan and Eric rendezvoused with the Oregon in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Juan felt proud of his quick-thinking crew as he read the after-action report about the events at Saint-Pierre. The Oregon had sailed from Martinique after Max and the crew gave statements to the local authorities, corroborated by the submarine passengers, that the ship’s crew were simply innocent bystanders who happened to be in the right place at the right time to rescue the grateful hostages. When he assumed command again, Juan took a calculated guess as to where the evidence from the Roraima would lead them and ordered the ship to head west.

  He and the rest of the senior officers had slept during their respective journeys, so he called a late-night meeting in the boardroom to plan their next move. Along the way, he stopped by Maria Sandoval’s cabin. She answered the door wearing a pair of silk pajamas that Julia Huxley had loaned her. Juan thought they suited her well, but he made no comment.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Captain Cabrillo.”

  Juan leaned against the door, creating the unspoken impression that this would be a short visit. “Are you being treated all right?”

  “Every amenity I could ask for. Your facilities are marvelous. I wish we had them on my ship.”

  “The benefits of our chosen profession.” He left it at that to keep up the appearances that they were simply smugglers. “I understand you called your company and your friends to let them know you’re alive and safe.”

  “Yes, thanks for letting me do that.”

  “There was no point in holding back the news any longer. Your survival of the shipwreck is known to the conspirators by now.” He didn’t add how he came by that knowledge. “You’re still free to go at any time, of course, but your life might be in danger until we resolve our current situation.”

  “I will have to go soon. My company is demanding to debrief me.”

  “I’m hoping we can get some more evidence that Admiral Ruiz was behind the attacks in a few more days. That should clear your name completely with your company.”

  “The admiral is why I wanted to speak with you. The shipping industry captains in my country are tightly connected and one of them told me he saw her at Carúpano, a minor port on the eastern side of Venezuela. I also talked to a few friends who are still involved with the Navy and don’t have a particular fondness for her. They told me she had left headquarters with members of her staff to join the Cuban Navy in observing a joint U.S.–Caribbean exercise going on in the Bahamas.”

  “What was she doing in Carúpano?”

  “He didn’t know, but she was boarding a small cargo ship. She wasn’t wearing her uniform. It was the government-issue car that drew his attention.”

  “Any idea what the cargo was?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing but a stack of shipping containers.”

  “I appreciate the information. It’s probably something to do with her smuggling operation. I’ll let you know if we learn anything else about it.”

  Juan said good night and continued on to the boardroom. When he entered, Murph was recounting the events of the sub encounter to Eric.

  “That’s when I drove Little Geek under the falling girders on the Roraima,” Murph said, his hands behind his head. “It destroyed the ROV, of course, but I didn’t have a choice.”

  Eddie took up the story. “Although Little Geek kept me from getting crushed, I was still pinned. I had my hands on the photo tin but I couldn’t get away, and I knew the bomb inside the barrel was ticking down. Linc’s the one who pried me out of there. My legs were numb by then, so he had to drag me until I got blood flow back in my feet.”

  “I just wish I had gotten us fully behind that piece of coral before the bomb went off,” Linc said, munching on an apple. “Doc said you won’t be going into the water for a few weeks.” The only injury among them was a perforated eardrum Eddie suffered.

  Juan took his seat at the head of the table. “Good job, everyone. I’m going to have to stop taking excursions like this or you’ll start thinking you can get along without me.”

  “Not a chance,” Max said. “I was sweating fifty-caliber hollow points the whole time.”

  “That was a tough call to keep your plan a secret, but I would have done the same thing. Where are we with the fruits of your labor?”

  “Kevin Nixon worked with the techs in the lab to open the tin,” Linda said. “It was lined with zinc and sealed with paraffin, so it hadn’t rusted through and water hadn’t penetrated the gaps. We found four photo plates inside.”

  She removed a cloth covering a white canvas sheet on which lay the five four-and-a-half- by six-and-a-half-inch glass plates. The silver bromide emulsion had been perfectly preserved. Two of the plates had cracks down the center, but the others were completely intact.

  “You can look at these originals, if you want,” Linda said, “but I wouldn’t handle them. Not only are they delicate but we found traces of radioactivity on them.” When she saw Hali edge away, she added, “Not enough to be dangerous, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. They were transferred to digital so we can see them in more detail.”

  She lowered the screen and turned on the overhead projector. The first image showed a man standing on a dock in a dark coat and trousers, boots, and a wide-brimmed hat. He wore a serious expression, but his eyes shone with an intensity visible even in the old photo. The Roraima’s name was stenciled on the hull of a ship behind him.

  “He’s a happy-looking guy,” Murph said. He looked at Eric. “Is that Gunther Lutzen?”

  “I don’t know. We never found a photo of him.”

  “It’s probably him,” Linda continued, “but there’s no way to be sure. I’m showing these photos in reverse order to try to backtrack his travel from the time he reached the Roraima. As you can see, the numbers of the photo plates are noted on the bottom right corner. Unfortunately, there aren’t any indications where this photo was taken. There’s nothing distinguishing the port.”

  She moved on to the next photo. This one showed a jumble of crystals embedded in rock, the facets reflecting the camera’s burst of flash powder. The image was marred by the crack through the middle.

  “That looks like a geode,” Eric said.

  “Yeah,” Murph agreed, “but without anything else in the photo, we can’t get a handle on its size. The crystals don’t look clear, though, like the quartz crystals in a typical geode. They look darker than that. It could be amethyst.”

  “Or they could be green. Lutzen’s thesis mentioned that his detection method would rely on crystals of selenium, copper, and uranium, and copper impurities in crystals give them a green hue. The uranium would also explain why the plates are radioactive.”

  “Maybe he was collecting gems,” Linc said. “Whatever this is could still be buried in the Roraima. Not that I want to go back to l
ook for it.”

  Linda snapped to the third plate. Again the image was split by a crack, which bisected the interior of a cavern teeming with stalactites and stalagmites. A tunnel faded into black in the distance.

  Juan felt a ray of hope. “Now we’re getting somewhere. This narrows down our search area considerably.”

  “Why?” Hali asked.

  “Because caves like that form only in certain limestone terrains, in what’s known as karst topography. It rules out Martinique and any other volcanic island.”

  Linda nodded. “Juan’s right. The problem is that it still leaves a lot of land to cover. Even if we’re limiting ourselves to the Caribbean, it could be anywhere from Puerto Rico to Mexico and up through Florida.”

  “I think it’s a good chance we’re looking at Haiti,” Juan said. “Remember, that’s where tram enthusiast Hector Bazin hails from.”

  “The last photo might help confirm that,” Linda said.

  The final picture showed a flourishing jungle landscape of ridges, hills, and valleys. The same man from the first photo stood in the foreground, this time beaming with a smile, his foot jauntily propped on a rock. He pointed into the shallow gorge behind him where a cave opening yawned. A river wound through the bottom of the gorge.

  “I don’t mean to be a party pooper,” Juan said, “but how does this photo help us? It shows us the cave entrance, but I don’t see anything identifying where this is.”

  “The ridge in the background,” Murph said. “See the distinctive outline? Given Lutzen’s height—if that is him—based on him standing against the Roraima, whose size we know, I estimated how far away the ridge is. The river gives us another reference point. The measurements aren’t exact, but they’re close enough to run a comparison using our worldwide topographical map—you know, the National Reconnaissance Office one that has about ten times greater resolution than NOAA’s.”