The Silent Sea

by Clive Cussler

  “General Espinoza,” Jorge said, coming to attention. “Major Jorge Espinoza reporting as ordered.”

  His father was standing behind his desk, leaning over, as he studied a map. It looked like the Antarctic Peninsula, but Jorge couldn’t be sure.

  “Do you have anything to add to the report I’ve read?” the General asked without looking up. His voice was clipped, abrupt.

  “The Americans have yet to cross the border, at least not in their RHIB. Patrols have turned up no sign of it on either bank of the river. We suspect they sank it and extracted overland.”

  “Continue.”

  “The helicopter pilot they kidnapped says the team leader was named Juan, another called Miguel. The leader spoke Spanish with a BA accent.”

  “But you are certain they are American?”

  “I saw the man myself. He might speak Spanish like us, but he”—Espinoza paused, trying to find the right words—“had that American look.”

  The senior Espinoza finally looked up. “I attended their special School of the Americas, same as Galtieri, only years later. The instructors at Fort Benning all had that look. Go on.”

  “There was one thing I left out of my report. We discovered the wreckage of an old blimp. The Americans found it first, and it looks as though they spent time examining it.”

  A faraway look crossed the General’s face. “A blimp. You are sure?”

  “Yes, sir. It was the pilot who recognized the type of aircraft.”

  “I recall when I was a young boy a group of Americans flying across the jungle in a blimp. They were treasure hunters, I believe. They went missing back in the late 1940s. Your grandfather met them at a reception in Lima.”

  “They’re found now. When the thieves stole our helicopter, they landed near the crash site as if they knew of it. I think they discovered it on their way to the logging camp.”

  “And you say they examined the wreckage?”

  “Judging by the footprints, yes, sir.”

  “Not something disciplined commandos would do?”

  “No, sir. Not at all.”

  Jorge took it as a good sign that his father sat. The calm exterior which masked his anger was slowly giving way to something else. “Your performance in this matter is beyond reprehensible. I would almost say it borders on criminal negligence.”

  Uh-oh.

  “However, there are things you aren’t privy to at the moment that mitigate the situation somewhat. Plans that are known only at the highest levels of the government. Soon your unit will be sent south, and it wouldn’t do to have its most popular officer in custody. And what I put the official report of the incident will depend on how well you perform in an upcoming mission.”

  “General, may I ask where we are to be deployed?”

  “Not yet. A week or so and you will understand.”

  Jorge straightened. “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, go fetch your Captain Jimenez. I think I have something for you to do in the meantime.”

  TWELVE

  While the Oregon headed south under the command of Linda Ross, Cabrillo and Hanley flew north on a commercial flight to Houston, where the Corporation kept one of a dozen safe houses in port cities all over the globe. Each was loaded with just about anything a team could need. They considered this one a fairly central place for their search of the airship’s crew.

  By the time they reached the town-house condominium in a generic development twenty miles from the city center, Eric Stone and Mark Murphy had done the necessary legwork, or finger work, as the case may be, since the two were virtuosos when it came to Internet research.

  As Murph liked to boast, “I’ve never met a firewall I couldn’t douse.”

  Unlike some of the other Corporation properties—the penthouse in a Dubai high-rise was as opulent as any five-star hotel—the Houston safe house was spartan. The furniture looked like it came from catalogs, which it had, and the décor was mostly cheaply framed prints of nature scenes. The only thing that set it apart from the four hundred identical units in the neighborhood was that the walls, floor, and ceiling of one of the bedrooms were lined in inch-thick steel. The door, though it looked normal, was as impenetrable as a bank vault’s.

  Upon entering, Max made certain that the room hadn’t been breached in the three months since it had last been checked. He added batteries to an anti-eavesdropping device kept in storage and swept the entire condo while Juan opened a bottle of tequila and added ice from the bag of sundries they’d picked up at a convenience store on the drive in from the airport. Only when they were assured the place was clean did he connect his laptop to the Internet and place it on the coffee table in the living room.

  The early-evening South Texas sun beat through the windows and created a glare on the screen, so Max shut the drapes and helped himself to some of the duty-free liquor. He settled onto the sofa next to Juan with a sigh.

  “You know,” he said, running the chilled glass across his high forehead, “after years of using our own jet, first class is a disappointment.”

  “You’re getting soft in your dotage.”

  “Bah!”

  The computer came online. Juan double-checked the security protocols and called up the Oregon. Instantly, a picture of Eric and Mark popped onto the screen. He could tell by the giant video display behind them that they were in Eric’s cabin. Stoney was an Annapolis graduate who had come to the Corporation after fulfilling his minimum time in uniform. It wasn’t that he disliked the service, but a commander of his who had served in Vietnam with Max thought the bright young officer would better serve his nation by joining up with the Chairman’s crew. It was Eric who suggested his friend Mark Murphy join, too. They had gotten to know each other while working on a secret missile program, where Murph was a designer for one of the big defense contractors.

  Eric didn’t have the look of a Navy veteran. He had soft brown eyes and an almost gentle demeanor. Where Murph cultivated a cyberpunk ethos with an in-your-face style of dress, Eric was more buttoned-down and serious. He wore a white oxford shirt opened at the collar. Mark had on a T-shirt adorned with a cyclopic smiley face. Both looked too excited to stay still.

  “Howdy, boys,” Juan greeted. “How’s it going?”

  “We’re running hard, boss man,” Eric replied. “Linda has us up to thirty-eight knots, and with so few countries trading with Argentina there’s virtually no ship traffic for us to avoid.”

  “What’s your ETA at Wilson/George?”

  “A tick over three days, provided we don’t hit ice.”

  “Encounter ice,” Max corrected. “One encounters ice, one must never hit ice. Bad for the ship.”

  “Thanks for the tip, E.J.,” Mark said, using the first two initials of the ill-fated Titanic’s captain.

  “So what have you found?” Cabrillo asked.

  “You’re not going to believe who those guys were,” Eric said excitedly. “They were the Ronish brothers. Their family owns Pine Island off Washington State.”

  Juan blinked in surprise. As a West Coast native, he knew all about Pine Island and its infamous Treasure Pit. It was a story that fascinated him as a boy, as it did all his friends. “You’re sure?”

  “No doubt,” Mark replied. “And what do you bet they found a clue in the Teasure Pit that sent them off looking for something hidden in the Amazon rain forest?”

  “Hold on. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tell it to me from the top.”

  “There were five brothers. One of them”—Eric glanced down at his notes—“Donald, was killed, get this, on December seventh, 1941, when they tried to reach the bottom of the pit. Right afterward, the three eldest joined the military. The fifth brother was too young. Nick Ronish became one of the most decorated Marines in Corps history. He took part in three island assaults, including being on the first wave at Iwo Jima. Another brother was a paratrooper in the Eighty-first. Ronald was his name. He went in on D-day, and fought all the way to Berlin. The last one, Kevin, joine
d the Navy, where he became a spotter on blimps flying patrols off the coast of California—”

  Mark interrupted, adding, “A couple of years after the war, they bought a surplus blimp, which Kevin had gotten himself licensed to fly, and they headed off to South America.”

  “Is there any indication that they found anything on Pine Island?” Juan asked. “I seem to recall a big expedition there in the 1970s.”

  “There was. James Ronish, the surviving brother, was reportedly paid a hundred thousand dollars by Dewayne Sullivan to allow him to excavate on the island. Sullivan was like the Richard Branson of his day. He made a ton of money in oil and spent it on all kinds of crazy adventures, like yachting solo around the world or skydiving from a weather balloon from eighty thousand feet.

  “In 1978, he set his sights on Pine Island, and spent four months excavating the Treasure Pit. They had a massive pumping capacity and built a coffer dam to prevent water from seeping into it from a nearby lagoon, but they could never drain it properly. Divers did find Donald Ronish’s skeletal remains, which were later buried, and they hauled out a lot of debris. But then a worker was killed when they were refueling one of the pumps. He had left it running—it spilled gasoline and went up in flames. A day or so later, one of the divers got the bends and had to be airlifted back to shore. That was when Sullivan shut down operations.”

  “That’s right,” Juan exclaimed. “I remember now. He said something like, ‘No mystery is worth a man’s life.’ ”

  Eric took a pull off a can of energy drink. “That’s it exactly. But here’s what Mark and I think. After the war, the brothers went back to Pine Island and cracked the pit. There wasn’t any treasure there, or maybe enough to buy the blimp, though I can’t imagine the Navy asked much for them back then. Anyway, they found something down there that led them to South America—a map or carvings.”

  “They crashed before they found it,” Murph added.

  “What about the youngest brother?” Max asked. “What ever happened to him?”

  “James Ronish was wounded in Korea. Never married, he still lives in the house his parents left him when they moved from the Coast, and he still owns Pine Island. We have his phone number and address.”

  “As well as his financials.” Mark glanced down at a piece of paper. “As of noon today, he has one thousand two hundred dollars in a savings account. Four hundred in checking, and a credit-card balance of nearly a grand. He’s two payments behind on his taxes but current on a mortgage he took out on the house seven years ago.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a guy whose family found pirate loot.”

  “Nope. Just an old man marking his calendar until it’s time to take a dirt nap,” Murph said. “We found something in the local newspaper’s online database. A contractor in the area reported that he and Ronish were forming a partnership to make another attempt on the pit. This was five years ago. The contractor was going to put up the money and equipment, but then nothing ever came of it.”

  Juan thought for a second, sipping from his tequila. “I’m getting the feeling that whenever Mr. Ronish is short on funds, he opens up his island for exploration.”

  “Sounds about right,” Eric replied. “I can track down the contractor to find out what happened to give him cold feet.”

  Murph leaned closer to the webcam. “I’ll hack into his bank again and see what kind of money trouble Ronish had when the deal was announced.”

  “I’m nixing both ideas,” the Chairman told them. “Neither really matters because we’re not doing anything with the Treasure Pit.”

  Murph and Eric looked like a couple of kids who had their puppy taken away from them.

  Juan continued, “We’re here to tell him that we found his brothers’ remains and likely have a journal one of them wrote after the crash.” No one had had time yet to read the condom-wrapped papers. They were still in Cabrillo’s luggage.

  “You can’t be serious,” Mark whined. “This could lead to a significant discovery. Pierre Devereaux was one of the most successful privateers in history. His treasure has got to be someplace.”

  Max grunted, “Most likely at the bottom of the ocean where his ship sank.”

  “Au contraire, mon frère,” Mark countered. “There were survivors when his ship sank in the Caribbean. They had just come from rounding Cape Horn and said they were carrying no cargo. They said Devereaux spent time off our western coast with a handful of men, but when he returned to his ship he was alone.”

  “Or it’s all crap to keep the legend alive.”

  “Come on, Max, where’s your sense of whimsy?” Eric asked.

  Hanley cocked a thick eyebrow at the odd choice of word. “Whimsy?”

  “You know what I mean. Didn’t you ever dream of finding pirate treasure when you were a kid?”

  “Two tours in ’Nam pretty much crushed any whimsy I might have had.”

  “Sorry, fellas,” Juan said with finality. “No pirate treasure for us. We’re just going to deliver the papers and tell Mr. Ronish where his brothers died.”

  “All right,” they said in hangdog unison, making Cabrillo smile.

  “Let me find a pen to write down his address, and Max and I will get ourselves up to Washington.”

  “Don’t forget to bring garlic and a wooden stake,” Eric said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ronish lives outside of Forks. That’s the town where the Twilight books take place.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a series of romantic novels about a teenage girl in love with a vampire.”

  “How would I possibly know that?” Cabrillo asked. “And, more telling, why do you?”

  Eric looked sheepish while Max roared with laughter.

  BECAUSE THERE WAS NO real urgency to reach Forks, Washington, it didn’t take much for Max to convince Cabrillo to enjoy an overnight layover in Vegas. Had he wanted, Juan could have made a nice living as a professional poker player, so he had no problem taking money from the amateurs at the table with him. Hanley didn’t do as well at the craps table, but both agreed it had been a welcome diversion.

  In the city of Port Angeles, on the Juan de Fuca Strait, they rented a Ford Explorer for the hour-long drive around the spectacular Olympic Mountains to Forks.

  The place was typical small-town America—a cluster of businesses clinging to Route 101 backed by houses in various states of disrepair. Timber was the main industry in the region, and with the market so soft it was clear that Forks was suffering. A number of storefronts were vacant with leasing signs taped to the glass. The few people walking the streets moved with little purpose. Their shoulders were hunched from more than the cold wind blowing off the nearby North Pacific.

  The darkening sky was filled with bruised clouds that threatened to open up at any moment.

  In the center of town, Max nodded his head at a hotel as they neared. “Should we check in first or head straight to Ronish’s?”

  “I don’t know how talkative this guy’s going to be, and I don’t know if the desk in a place like that stays open too late. So let’s check in and then get to his house.”

  “Man, this sure ain’t Caesars.”

  Twenty minutes later they approached a dirt track off Bogachiel Way, six miles from town. Pine forests soared overhead, and the trunks were so tightly packed that they couldn’t see lights from the house until they were almost upon it.

  As Eric had said, James Ronish had never married, and it showed. The one-story house hadn’t seen fresh paint in a decade or more. The roof had been repaired with off-color shingles, and the front lawn looked like a junkyard. There were several skeletonized cars, an askew satellite dish as big as a kiddy wading pool, and various bins of mechanical junk. The doors to the detached garage were open, and inside was just as bad. Workbenches were littered with unidentifiable flotsam, and the only way to reach them was by narrow paths through even more clutter.

  “Right out of Better Homes and Scrapyards,” Juan qu
ipped.

  “Five will get you ten his curtains are dish towels.”

  Cabrillo parked the SUV next to Ronish’s battered pickup. The wind made the trees creak, and their needled tops whisper. The storm couldn’t be more than a few minutes away. Juan grabbed the condom-wrapped papers from the center console. As much as he wanted to read them, he didn’t feel it appropriate. He could only hope that Ronish would share their contents.

  A blue flicker showed through a large picture window that was caked with dust. Ronish was watching television, and as they neared the front door they could hear it was a game show.

  Juan pulled open a creaky screen door and knocked. After a few seconds of nothing happening, he rapped on the door a little harder. Another twenty seconds went by before a light snapped on over the door and it opened a crack.

  “What do you want?” James Ronish asked sourly.

  From what Juan could see, he was a big man, heavy in the gut, with thinning gray hair and suspicious eyes. He leaned against an aluminum cane. Below his nose was a clear plastic oxygen canula with tubing that lead to an O2 concentrator the size of a microwave oven.

  “Mr. Ronish, my name is Juan Cabrillo. This is Max Hanley.”

  “So?”

  Friendly sort, Juan thought. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he supposed Mark was right. Ronish appeared to be an old man marking his calendar until he died.

  “I’m not sure how to tell you this, so I’ll just come out and say it.”

  Juan didn’t pause but Ronish interrupted anyway. “Don’t care,” he said, and made to close the door.

  “Mr. Ronish, we found the Flying Dutchman. Well, the wreckage anyway.”

  Color drained from Ronish’s face everywhere but from his gin-blossom nose. “My brothers?” he asked.

  “We found a set of remains in the pilot’s seat.”

  “That would have been Kevin,” the old man said quietly. Then he seemed to rouse himself, and his guard was up in an instant. “What’s it to you?”