Blue Gold

by Clive Cussler

  “Waiting for what?”

  “That’s what we would like to know.”

  “Something’s going on,” Zavala murmured.

  “My reporter’s nose for news says the same thing.”

  Zavala got a cold feeling as if one of those slimy tentacles they talked about had tapped him on the shoulder. He recalled the conversation he had had with Austin about the unseen fears that sometimes come beneath the sea. As usual, Kurt’s intuition was on the mark. Zavala’s own instincts were telling him that a big, hungry something lay hidden in the blue shadows, watching and waiting. And its name was Gogstad.

  23

  CIA DIRECTOR Erwin LeGrand beamed proudly as his fourteen-year-old daughter, Katherine, trotted over on the back of her chestnut gelding. She slipped out of the saddle and presented her father with the trophy for first place, English style.

  “This is for your office, Dad,” she said with excitement in her cornflower-blue eyes. “It’s for being the best father in the world. You’re the one who bought me Val and paid for all those expensive riding lessons.”

  LeGrand took the trophy and put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, thinking how much she looked like her mother. “Thank you, Katie, but I wasn’t the one who worked so hard to show Valiant who’s boss.” He smiled. “I’ll only take it on the condition that it’s on loan. As soon as I’ve bragged to everyone at the agency, it’s going back in your trophy case with the others.”

  LeGrand’s pride was mixed with guilt. True, he had supported his daughter’s love for riding financially, but this was the first event he had attended in years. The country club photographer came over, and LeGrand posed with his daughter and her horse, wishing as he did that his wife were still alive to make the picture complete.

  Katie led Val back to the stable, and LeGrand ambled across the field, chatting with his assistant, a plain but extremely intelligent woman named Hester Leonard. LeGrand was sometimes likened in press reports to a beardless Lincoln, a comparison based on his reputation for honesty and his resemblance to the sixteenth president. He was tall and homely, but there was no mistaking the character etched into his large features. He had earned a reputation for integrity in running the world’s largest intelligence-gathering organization, and in another age with no TV and sound bites, he would have been considered seriously as a candidate for president.

  Leonard’s cell phone buzzed, and she put it to her ear. “Sir,” she said hesitantly, “call for you from Langley.”

  LeGrand scowled, muttering under his breath about no peace for the wicked. He made no motion to take the phone. “Didn’t I ask that I not be disturbed for two hours while I was in McLean unless it was extremely urgent?”

  “It’s John Rowland, and he says it is of utmost importance.”

  “Rowland? Well, in that case . . . ” He took the phone and stuck it in his ear. “Hello, John,” he said, frown changing to a smile. “No apology needed. You’re just in time to hear the good news. Katie won first place in English riding at the country club . . . . Thank you. Now, what’s so important that it interrupts possibly the most important moment of Katie’s life?”

  LeGrand’s brow furrowed. “No, I’ve never heard of it . . . yes, of course . . . wait for me in my office.”

  He handed the phone to his aide, looked at the trophy, and shook his head. “Tell the car to come around and pick me up immediately at the stable. We’ve got to get back to Langley immediately. Then put a call in to my office and tell them to render any assistance that John Rowland asks for. I’ve got to say my goodbyes and make amends. Hell, this will probably cost me another horse.” He loped off to offer his apologies to his daughter.

  Twenty minutes later the black limo squealed to a halt in front of CIA headquarters. LeGrand got out, striding through the lobby on his long legs. An assistant met him inside the door. He snatched the folder from his aide’s hand and scanned the material in the elevator. Moments later he stepped into his office. John Rowland was waiting with a nervous young man he introduced as a fellow analyst named Browning.

  Rowland and the director shook hands like the old friends they were. Years before, both were at the same level in the agency. But LeGrand had political ambition and the drive to climb to the top of the ladder. Rowland was content to stay in his post where he was known as a mentor for the young analysts coming through the ranks. LeGrand put unquestioning faith in Rowland, who on more than one occasion had saved his boss from stepping into a cow flop.

  “I just read the material you got off the database. What’s your take on it?”

  Rowland lost no time outlining his analysis.

  “This thing can’t be stopped?” LeGrand said.

  “The protocol has been activated. The sanction will be carried out to the end.”

  “Damn! Heads are going to roll when I’m through. Who’s the target?”

  Rowland handed him a sheet of paper. LeGrand read the name on it, and the color drained from his face.

  “Call the Secret Service. Tell them we’ve learned of an assassination plot against the speaker of the House. He needs protection immediately. Dear God,” he said. “Can anyone tell me how something like this happens?”

  “We’re going to have to do some digging to get all the details,” Rowland said. “We only know that the protocol was triggered by simultaneous queries to the intelligence-gathering community that came from the National Underwater & Marine Agency.”

  “NUMA?” The air over LeGrand’s head crackled blue as he gave an impressive demonstration of his renowned skill for inventive expletive. He slammed his big hand down on the desk with enough force to topple the pen from its holder and yelled at the nearest assistant. “Get James Sandecker on the phone.”

  24

  “WE’RE ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES from Albany,” Buzz Martin said.

  Austin looked out the window of Martin’s two-engine Piper Seneca. The visibility was as unlimited as when they had left Baltimore earlier that afternoon. Austin could practically read the names on the boats dotting the upper reaches of the Hudson River.

  “Thanks again for the lift. My partner Joe Zavala usually chauffeurs me around on these junkets, but he’s still in California.”

  Martin gave Austin a thumbs-up sign. “Hell, I’m the one who should be thanking you. I’m sure you could have got up here on your own.”

  “Probably, but my motives are not unselfish. I need you to identify your father.”

  Martin glanced off at the Catskill Mountains to the west. “I wonder if I’ll even recognize him after all these years. It’s been a long time. He could have changed a lot.” A cloud passed over his sunny features. “Damn, ever since you called and asked me to fly you up here, I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to say to him. I don’t know whether to hug him or hit the old bastard.”

  “You might shake his hand for starters. Taking a swing at your long-lost father is no way to start a family reunion.”

  Martin chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. But I can’t stop being angry with him. I want him to tell me why he left my mother and me and why he stayed hidden all these years, making us think he was dead. Good thing my mother is gone. She was an old-fashioned girl, and it would have killed her to think she had married while her first husband was still alive. Hell,” he said with a catch in his voice, “I just hope I don’t start bawling.”

  He picked up the microphone and called the Albany control tower for landing instructions. Within minutes they were on the ground.

  The car rental counter had no lines, and before long they were driving out of the city in a four-wheel-drive Pathfinder. Austin headed southwest on Route 88 toward Binghamton through rolling hills and small farms. About an hour from Albany he left the main highway and drove north to Cooperstown, an idyllic village whose neat main street looked like a set from a Frank Capra movie. From Cooperstown they headed west on a winding two-lane country road. This was James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking country, and with a little imaginatio
n Austin could picture Hawkeye skulking through the wooded valleys with his Indian companions. Towns and houses grew even farther apart. In this part of the world the cows outnumbered the people.

  Even with a map it was hard to find the place they were looking for. Austin stopped at a gas station–general store, and Buzz went in for directions. When he came out he was clearly excited.

  “The old-timer in there says he’s known Bucky Martin for years. ‘Nice fella. Pretty much keeps to himself.’ Go up this road a half a mile and turn left. The farm is about five miles from there.”

  The road became narrow and bumpy, the tarmac almost an afterthought. The farms alternated with thick patches of woods, and they almost missed the turnoff. The only marker was an aluminum mailbox with no name or number on it. A dirt drive ran past the mailbox into the woods. They turned onto the driveway and passed through a copse of trees that shielded the house from the highway. Eventually the trees gave way to pastures where small herds of cows grazed. Finally, at least a half a mile from the road, they came upon the farmhouse.

  The big two-story building was built in an era when three generations lived together to work a farm. The decorative windows and stained glass indicated that the owner had been successful enough to afford extra touches. A porch ran across the front. Behind the house was a red barn and silo. Next to the barn was a corral with two horses in it. A fairly new pickup truck was parked in the yard.

  Austin swung into the circular driveway and parked in front of the house. No one came out to greet them. There was no curious face in the windows.

  “Maybe you should let me go first,” Austin suggested. “It might help if I do a little prep work before you meet face-to-face.”

  “That’s fine,” Buzz said. “I’m losing courage fast.”

  Austin squeezed Martin’s arm. “You’ll be fine.” He didn’t know what he would have done in the man’s place. He doubted he would have been as calm. “I’ll check him out and break it to him gradually.”

  “I appreciate that,” Martin said.

  Austin left the car, went up to the front door, and knocked several times. No one answered. Nor was there a response when he twisted the knob of the old doorbell. He turned around and threw his hands apart so Martin could see. He descended the porch and walked behind the house to the barn. The only sound was the soft clucking of chickens and the occasional grunt from a rooting pig.

  The barn door was open. He walked inside, thinking that barns smelled the same the world over, an unmistakable combination of manure, hay, and big animals. A horse snorted as he walked by its stall, maybe thinking he was bringing it sugar, but there was no sign of Martin. He called out a hello and when there was no response walked out the back door. The chickens and hogs came over to their fences, thinking he had food for them. A lone hawk wheeled in the sky. Austin turned and stepped back into the barn.

  “Can I help you?”

  The figure of a man was framed in silhouette.

  “Mr. Martin?” Austin asked.

  “That’s me. Who’re you?” the man said. “Speak loud, son. My hearing isn’t what it used to be.”

  The man took a few steps closer. Unlike his shorter, compact-built son, Martin was a big man with a hard-looking body. He could have posed for a tractor ad. He was dressed in tan shirt and pants, thick-soled workboots, and a soiled Caterpillar baseball hat that covered snow-white hair. His face was dark from the sun and deeply creased. Blue eyes looked out from under frosty brows. Austin guessed that he was in his well-preserved seventies or eighties. He was chewing on the stub of a cigar.

  “My name is Kurt Austin. I’m with the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Austin?”

  “I’m looking for Bucky Martin, who was a test pilot back in the late fifties. Might that be you?”

  The blue eyes seemed to gleam with amusement at a secret joke. “Yep, that’s me.”

  Austin wondered if he should get right to it and tell the old man his son had come to see him. The old man spoke.

  “You come alone?” Martin said.

  It was an odd question, and it set an alarm bell off in Austin’s brain. Something about this guy wasn’t right. The old man didn’t wait for an answer. He went outside, where he had a view of the rental car. Apparently satisfied at what he saw, he dropped the cigar and ground it with the heel of his boot, then came back into the barn. Austin wondered what had happened to Buzz.

  “Gotta be careful with smokes around all this dry hay,” he said with a grin. “How’d you find me?”

  “We went through some old government files, and your address popped up. How long have you run this farm?”

  Martin sighed. “Seems like it’s been forever, son, and maybe it has been. There’s nothing like tilling the land and taking care of livestock to let you know why people got off the farm as fast as they could in the old days. Damned hard work. Well, looks like my sentence is about to end, though I didn’t think you’d come this soon.”

  Austin was puzzled. “You were expecting me?”

  Martin stepped to one side and reached behind the gate of a stall. He pulled out a double-barreled shotgun and leveled it at Austin’s midsection. “I got a telephone call just like the protocol said I would. I wouldn’t move if I were you. My sight isn’t what it used to be, but I can see you real well from here.”

  Austin stared at the shotgun’s yawning black muzzle. “Maybe you should put that thing down before it goes off accidentally.”

  “Sorry, son, I can’t do that,” Martin said. “And don’t try for the pitchfork stuck in that bale, I’d cut you in half before you took one step. Like I said, it’s that damned protocol calling the shots, not me.”

  “I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you don’t. The protocol’s been around probably since before you were born. Don’t suppose it will do any harm to let you know what it’s all about before I kill you.”

  Austin’s heart ratcheted up a beat. He was defenseless. All he could do was stall for time. “I think you’ve made a mistake.”

  “No mistake. That’s why I asked what you were doing here. I didn’t want to shoot some tourist who just dropped by to buy some eggs. The fact that you were looking for Martin shows you’re here to stop me.”

  “Stop you from what?”

  “Carrying out my contract.”

  “I don’t know anything about any contract, but are you telling me you’re not Martin?”

  “Heck no. I killed him a long time ago.”

  “Why? He was just a test pilot.”

  “Nothing personal, just like with you. I worked for the OSS under Wild Bill Donovan. I was what they’d call a hit man today. I pulled a few assignments after the war, then told them I wanted to retire. The boss said there was no way they could let me do that. I knew too much. So we worked out a deal. They’d keep me active for one more job. The only problem was, they didn’t know when the order would be carried out. It could be five months or five years.” He chuckled. “No one figured it would go on this long, especially me.”

  Austin noticed that Martin had lost his folksy farm accent.

  “Who were you supposed to kill?”

  “The government had this big secret they didn’t want anyone to know about. They devised a system so that if anyone started snooping and got too close, the protocol would be activated. Here’s the real clever thing. They would make potential opposition come to me. They set me up here in the middle of nowhere. When you started poking around, it triggered a series of commands. One would tell you where I was. The last would tell me to carry out the original sanction against the Speaker of the House. Seems he heard about the government’s secret and was going to blow the whistle.”

  “This protocol you’re talking about must be fifty years old. The congressman you were supposed to kill has been dead for years.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m still under
orders. Sad thing, that secret’s so old it probably doesn’t make a difference one way or the other.” He lapsed back into his farm accent, and the blue eyes grew hard and cold. “Sure glad you came, son. I’m officially retired after this.”

  The gun came up. Austin braced himself for the deafening blast. He tensed his stomach muscles as if by sheer will he could prevent the slug from tearing into his rib cage. Had he time to think about it, he would have ruminated on the irony, after surviving countless near-fatal assignments, of dying at the hands of a half-deaf, near-blind, octogenarian assassin.

  A figure suddenly materialized behind Martin. It was Buzz. The old man’s sight was still keen enough for him to detect an involuntary change in Austin’s expression. He whirled around as Buzz cried out in surprise.

  “You’re not my father!”

  The old man’s body had shielded the shotgun, but now Buzz’s eyes dropped from Martin’s face to the weapon in his arms. The farmer brought his gun up to his shoulder, but his reflexes were dulled by the years. Austin had to make a split-second decision. He could put his head down and crash into the man’s backside like an enraged bull. Not enough time, he decided

  “Martin!” he yelled, at the same time yanking the pitchfork from the bale.

  The farmer turned back to Austin, who whipped the pitchfork at him like a javelin. He was aiming for Martin’s shooting side, but the old man stepped into the oncoming pitchfork and the tines perforated his heart and lungs. He cried out in pain, and the shotgun went off, barrel pointed toward the roof. The horse went crazy and tried to kick down its stall. The gun fell from Martin’s fingers. His eyes rolled into his head, and he crumpled to the wooden floor.

  Austin kicked the shotgun out of reach more out of habit than necessity. Buzz had been frozen with shock, but now he came over and knelt by the body. Austin turned it over so they could see the face.

  Buzz studied the man’s features for a moment and, to Austin’s relief, softly said, “No, he’s definitely not my father. He’s too tall, to begin with. My father was stocky like me. And the face is all wrong. Who in God’s name is he?”