Zero Hour

by Clive Cussler

  What a mine was doing hidden on Heard Island, Kurt didn’t know. Nor did it matter at the moment. His only concerns were finding Joe and Hayley, if they were alive, and stopping Thero no matter what.

  He slipped off the heavy parka, stashed it, and pulled his backpack on once again. He began moving down the dark tunnel, his hand on the conveyor belt, his head ducked to avoid any dangerous outcroppings of rock he probably wouldn’t see until it was too late.

  After passing several other areas that had been quarried extensively, he came to a larger room. This one was dimly lit by a pair of exposed bulbs.

  The conveyor belt ended there, beside a group of large machines designed to crush and sort the gravel. He’d seen this kind of setup before. It was an underground diamond mine. Suddenly, he had a better idea how Thero was financing the operation.

  He saw a door on the far side and crossed the room toward it. Just as he reached for the handle, the door moved, inching open. Kurt stepped back and raised the pistol as a trio of men came through.

  “Don’t move!” Kurt growled.

  The men froze in place, and a tense standoff ensued. Kurt might have drilled all three of them, but without a silencer the gunshots would have echoed through the cave and brought the rest of Thero’s men running.

  As they stared at the gun, Kurt studied them. They carried sharpened staves made of crude metal instead of guns. Two of them appeared almost petrified, the third just as shocked but calmer.

  “Put your weapons down,” he said, then added: “Quietly.”

  They did as ordered.

  Kurt nodded toward one of the rock-crushing machines. “Over there.”

  The three men shuffled toward the machine. Kurt kept his distance in case they tried something rash.

  “Two of you are going to end up tied to this machine,” he told them. “Whoever doesn’t want to spend the night like that can take me to Thero.”

  “Take you to Thero?” one of them asked. He spoke with a South African accent.

  “Who’s Thero?” another said with an Irish lilt.

  “The man who brought you here,” the South African said.

  “Quiet,” Kurt said. “Which one of you wants to show me the way?”

  The three men looked at one another as if they were baffled by the question.

  “Why would we take you?” the third man said.

  “Because I have an appointment,” Kurt said, “and I don’t want to miss it.”

  The confused look returned. Apparently, biting humor wasn’t their strong suit.

  “You mean, which one of us wants to go with you and die first,” the South African said.

  Kurt stared at him. The statement made no sense. “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about?” the South African repeated.

  Kurt felt like he was in the Twilight Zone. He took another look at the men. They were filthy, wearing rags. Their weapons were crude. Suddenly, it made sense.

  “You three are miners here,” he said. “You’re trying to escape. Whose idea was it?”

  Two of them pointed at the Irishman.

  “Rats,” the Irishman replied. “The lot of you.”

  A broad smile creased Kurt’s face. “More like three blind mice,” he said. “The question is, exactly where were you running to?”

  For the next few minutes, Kurt pried information out of the miners, learning their names and a little bit about the operation. Masinga, the South African, had been there right from the start.

  “Eight months ago, I stole a key from one of the guards,” he explained. “But he never reported it lost because Thero would kill him for losing it.”

  “Took a lot of patience not to use it right away,” Kurt noted.

  Devlin, the Irishman, spoke up. “Apparently, patience runs in his family.”

  Masinga smiled. “I hoped a day would come when escape would mean more than just dying in the cold. Devlin here says he came on a ship. He says he knows how to get back to it.”

  “I hate to tell you,” Kurt said, “but you’re going the wrong way. Nothing but excavation tunnels back this way.”

  The other two prisoners looked menacingly toward Devlin.

  “That’s what you get for listening to me,” Devlin said. “I’ve been here only two days.”

  “So what’s the deal with this mine anyway? I don’t recall Thero having any mining expertise.”

  “He has others,” Masinga explained. “It’s an uneasy relationship between him and the overseers. He keeps them on a short leash, yanking their chains from time to time, but for the most part he leaves them alone. They work us and sell the diamonds. Thero lets them keep a cut, or so I’ve heard.”

  “Slave labor,” Kurt noted. “That’s one way to bump up the profit margin.”

  “As we die off, they bring in more,” Masinga added. “Kidnapping and luring in people who have little else in the way of opportunity.”

  Kurt understood. It was a whole new reason to put Thero out of business, but it ran a distant second to saving Australia. “Any new arrivals in the last few hours?”

  “Are you looking for someone specific?” Devlin replied.

  “I started out with some friends,” Kurt said. “Thero’s men attacked us. We got separated. I think they were probably captured.”

  “That’s no good,” Masinga said. “Thero will torture them, until they give in or die.”

  Kurt studied Masinga’s face. His nose had obviously been broken at some point, and a jagged scar next to his ear looked like the result of some violent blunt-force trauma. “I’m guessing you know where that would take place.”

  “I do,” Masinga said.

  “I need you to show me.”

  “That’s back into the middle of this maze,” the third member of the trio said. “You’ll never get past Thero’s men.”

  “Maybe I won’t,” Kurt corrected. “But we are going to try. You’re all coming with me.”

  “Fine by me,” Devlin said. “I’ve got a bone to pick with one of them.”

  “I do also,” Masinga said.

  “Just tie me to the machine,” the third man said. “I’ll wait for you to come back.”

  Kurt glared at him.

  “What’s the difference? Three against thirty or four against thirty? Same odds, really. You don’t need me.”

  In a roundabout way, the man was right. Kurt had another idea. “How many other prisoners down here?”

  “Sixty or seventy,” Masinga replied.

  “And how many of them might like a shot at revenge?”

  “At least sixty or seventy,” the South African repeated, smiling.

  “That makes the living quarters our first stop.”

  • • •

  JOE AND GREGOROVICH remained in the interrogation room, sweating in what had to be hundred-degree heat. As the perspiration trickled down his face and dripped off his nose, Joe could barely believe the irony. “An hour ago, I thought I’d freeze to death.”

  “Now they’re broiling us,” Gregorovich replied.

  The small room had begun to feel stifling. Joe figured it was time to take drastic measures. He writhed around until he could rub the side of his wet face against the back of his hand. When the perspiration from his face and hair had coated his hand, he changed positions.

  Squeezing his fingers together as tightly as he could, Joe eased his hand into the cuff. He felt like a contortionist, pulling and twisting.

  “You’ll never get free like that,” Gregorovich said.

  “I have large wrists and average hands,” Joe said. “And these old shackles have a lot of play in them.”

  With the sweat acting as a lubricant, Joe finessed his hand deeper into the cuff. Finally, it came free.

  Joe smiled victorious. “Blood, sweat,
and tears,” he said. “That’s all it takes.”

  Gregorovich looked down. “What about your feet? I don’t suppose you have big ankles and narrow toes.”

  Joe hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “One step at a time,” he said. “One step at a time.”

  In the island’s control room, Hayley was doing her best to act normal. She continued to speak to Thero as if addressing George, infusing her words with affection while trying not to look obvious.

  As she fawned over him, Thero showed her the control panels for the great machine and led her to the viewing portal, through which she could see the great orb resting in the darkened cave.

  He pressed a series of switches. Lights came on in a cave outside the window. A huge spherical construction appeared. She recognized it from a conceptual drawing Thero had shown her years ago.

  “It’s incredible,” she said.

  “My father was right,” he said. “This is proof. From here, we can direct vast amounts of energy through the Earth to any point on the globe. Energy we draw from the zero-point field.”

  “You don’t need the generators?” she asked.

  “Only to start the wave,” he replied.

  That gave her an idea. If they could possibly destroy the generators she’d seen outside, perhaps they could prevent the machine from engaging.

  “This is amazing,” she said, gazing through the observation window at the latticework. “How did you solve the dynamic feedback problem?”

  “We’ve only partially solved it,” he admitted.

  “Do you still end up with uncontrollable vibrations?”

  “We use the water as a dampening field,” Thero said. “It absorbs much of the energy. Also, by creating a spherical emitter instead of an open-ended conductor, we get a much more stable wave.”

  “You were always a step ahead of us, George,” she said, smiling. “That’s really quite brilliant.”

  “My father did most of the theoretical work,” he replied. “But I crunched the numbers.”

  As they spoke, she tried to gauge how strong a grip the George persona was exerting. Working on her own phobias, she’d learned a great deal about mental health. She’d heard of cases where subjects with multiple personality disorder had absolutely no idea what the other personalities in their minds were up to. To the point where they passed lie detector tests after committing crimes or even carried on affairs or entirely different lives when the dominant personality went dormant.

  If that was the case here, perhaps she could coax George into letting them go, or surrendering, or at least giving them more time to come up with some plan to stop the lethal strike he was counting down to launch.

  “It was you who sent the letters?” she asked hopefully.

  A blank stare issued forth from Thero.

  “To warn me,” she said, risking everything.

  “Yes,” he replied finally. “I was hoping we might still bring peaceful energy to the world.”

  “Your father doesn’t know,” she said. “We have to keep it that way. We can still help him, but he won’t understand.”

  “I agree,” Thero said. “He might hate me for it, but it’s for our own good.”

  “You helped the others to escape,” she prodded.

  Thero nodded. “I gave them a chance and the information. They never knew it was me. I passed notes. Made things possible.”

  Inwardly, she cringed, imagining the turmoil. As George, he’d become the informant, he helped the couriers to make it to freedom. But then, as Thero, he hunted them down and had them killed. No wonder every meeting had been blown. There was no leak in the ASIO, the leak was at the source. It meant some information was passing from George’s personality to Thero’s. It made her more nervous than ever, but she had to press on.

  “I thought reason might prevail,” George volunteered.

  “It still can,” she said eagerly.

  “No,” he replied sadly. “They’ve come to kill us again. Only a show of unstoppable force will keep them away now.”

  She had to think fast. “I can negotiate with them for you,” she pleaded, squeezing his smooth hand. “The Americans have already promised amnesty,” she lied. “All you have to do is return to the States with them.”

  “Amnesty?”

  “Yes,” she said. “For you and your father,” she added, doing all she could to keep George’s personality engaged and on the surface.

  “Why would they offer that?”

  “They’re afraid of the Russians getting their hands on it.”

  “They’re working with the Russians,” George said forcefully.

  “No,” she said. “The Russians kidnapped us. They want to kill you. But if you get me to a radio, I can bring help.”

  George hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “I promise,” she said. “I just need a chance to prove it.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, as if pondering what she’d said.

  “This is why you reached out to me,” she said, “isn’t it?”

  Finally, he nodded. “Come with me.”

  He led her down the bank of control panels, stopping in his tracks as he passed the final console.

  Hayley saw why. Lying on the floor were several men and a few women. They wore bloodstained lab coats. They’d been shot.

  “Father, what have you done?”

  Hayley tried to breathe. “We have to hurry, George.”

  Thero hesitated. He cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean they were traitors?” he asked the air.

  She could see what was happening. “No, George,” she urged. “Don’t talk to him.”

  “They worked for you,” he said sharply, as if arguing with his father. “They built this for you.”

  A strange trancelike silence gripped Thero, and Hayley sensed him wavering.

  “Stay with me!”

  Thero hesitated. He stood with clumsy effort and let go of her hand.

  “George?” she asked.

  “No,” he said softly.

  “George?”

  “No!”

  This time, the words were bellowed at her. The harshness returned to Thero’s eyes with a rush, and he grabbed her by the throat with his right hand and slammed her into the wall. The impact stunned her, and Thero’s hand crushing her windpipe seemed to cut off the blood from her brain.

  “Please . . .” she gasped, crying out to the other side of Thero’s mind. “Please!”

  Thero released her, and she dropped to the floor beside the heap of bodies.

  “How dare you turn my son against me!”

  “I didn’t,” she managed. “We were only . . . trying to help.”

  “I don’t need your help!” he shouted. “Or my son’s, for that matter. I will bring the world to its knees. Once they see what I do to Australia, there will be no need for negotiations. They will beg me for mercy.”

  He stepped back over to the control panel and shoved the master switch into the on position. She heard the heavy circuit closing and the big generators in the other room switching on. The lights around them dimmed appreciably and then began to brighten.

  Soon, the generators were humming, spinning up to a feverous pitch.

  “No,” she begged. “Please, don’t do this.”

  “I’m so glad you could be here,” Thero shouted. “I will not even wait for zero hour. I will punish them immediately. And you will watch from my side as I wreak destruction on those who persecuted me.”

  Out in the spherical cavern, the gears began to churn, and the giant collection of pipes and electrical conduits began to tilt. The weapon turned slowly, clinking like a roller coaster being dragged up the steep track to its release point.

  Hayley found herself dizzy as the weapon slowly ratcheted itself toward a new p
osition, an alignment that would aim the wave of distortion through the Earth’s crust at the dormant rift in the Australian outback.

  Kurt and his three newfound cohorts crept through several lengths of tunnel connecting various areas that the miners had quarried until eventually they arrived in a hub containing living quarters for the prisoners.

  Every twenty feet or so, there was an alcove with a steel door. At the far end of the hall, a single guard sat at a desk, ostensibly watching the hub.

  “How’d you get past him the first time?” Kurt asked.

  “We waited for him to take a bathroom break,” Masinga replied.

  “Unless he’s been drinking coffee all night, I don’t think we have time for that plan to work again. Get ready to use that skeleton key.”

  He took a breath and let the tension fall away from his body. Then, calmly, he stepped out into the hall, leveled the Makarov, and advanced at a brisk pace.

  When the guard looked up, Kurt had no choice. With two quick pulls, Kurt triggered the gun. The booming report surged through the narrow tunnel like thunder. The two shots hit the guard in the chest, knocking him off his chair and onto the floor.

  He didn’t move, but, to Kurt’s surprise, a second guard appeared at the side of the first.

  Kurt fired again. The guard crumpled to the ground, but his hand slammed down on an emergency alarm button as he fell.

  The shriek of an electronic alarm rang out, and a thick steel-plated door began to close between Kurt and the guard post and whatever was beyond it. Kurt ran forward, but it shut just before he arrived.

  Behind him, Masinga was already rushing to the dormlike cells, letting the other prisoners free. They were shouting and thanking him in several different languages. Soon, they were filling the hall and surging toward Kurt, for whatever good it would do them.

  Devlin arrived at Kurt’s side before the rest of the mob. “Now what?”

  Kurt slid the backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. Opening it revealed the explosives he carried. “Get everyone back into their cells.”

  “You’re gonna blow this thing?”