Shock Wave dp-13

by Clive Cussler

  The sun rose but remained hidden behind dark gray clouds. A light drizzle was falling when he stumbled into a clearing that touched the sea and opened onto a small harbor. He found himself staring at a small community of log houses with corrugated metal roofs. Smoke was rising out of their stone chimneys. Tall cylindrical totem poles were standing in different parts of the village, carved with the features of stacked animal and human figures. A small fleet of fishing boats rocked gently beside a floating dock, their crews working over engines and repairing nets. Several children, standing under a shed with open sides, were observing a man carving a huge log with a chain saw. Two women chatted as they hung wash on a line. One of them spotted Pitt, pointed and began shouting at the others.

  Overcome by exhaustion, Pitt sank to his knees as a crowd of a dozen people rushed toward him. One man, with long straight black hair and a round face, knelt down beside Pitt and put an arm around his shoulder. “You’re all right now,” he said with concern. He motioned to three men who gathered around Stokes and gave them an order. “Carry him into the tribal house.”

  Pitt looked at the man. “You wouldn’t by chance be Mason Broadmoor?”

  Coal-black eyes stared at him curiously. “Why, yes, I am.”

  “Boy,” said Pitt as he sagged bone weary to the soft ground, “am I ever glad to see you.”

  The nervous giggle of a little girl roused Pitt from a light sleep. Tired as he was, he’d only slept four hours. He opened his eyes, stared at her a moment, gave her a bright smile and crossed his eyes. She ran out of the room, yelling for her mother.

  He was in a cozy room with a small stove radiating wondrous heat, lying in a bed made up of bear and wolf hides. He smiled to himself at the recollection of Broadmoor standing in the middle of an isolated Indian village with few modern conveniences, calling over his satellite phone for an air ambulance to transport Stokes to a hospital on the mainland.

  Pitt had borrowed the phone to contact the Mountie office at Shearwater. At the mention of Stokes’ name, he was immediately put through to an Inspector Pendleton, who questioned Pitt in detail about the events commencing the previous morning. Pitt ended the briefing by giving Pendleton directions to the crash site so the Mounties could send in a team to retrieve the cameras inside the pontoons if they had survived the impact.

  A seaplane arrived before Pitt had finished a bowl of fish soup that was thrust on him by Broadmoor’s wife. Two paramedics and a doctor examined Stokes and assured Pitt the Mountie had every chance of pulling through. Only after the seaplane had lifted off the water on its flight back to the mainland and the nearest hospital had Pitt gratefully accepted the loan of the Broadmoor family bed and fallen dead asleep.

  Broadmoor’s wife entered from the main living room and kitchen. A woman of grace and poise, stout yet supple, Irma Broadmoor had haunting coffee eyes and a laughing mouth. “How are you feeling, Mr. Pitt? I didn’t expect you to wake up for another three hours at least.”

  Pitt checked and made sure he still wore his pants and shirt before he threw back the covers and dropped his bare feet to the floor. “I’m sorry to have put you and your husband out of your bed.”

  She laughed, a light musical laugh. “The time is a little past noon. You’ve only been asleep since eight o’clock.”

  “I’m most grateful for your hospitality.”

  “You must be hungry. That bowl of fish soup wasn’t enough for a big man like you. What would you like to eat?”

  “A can of beans will be fine.”

  “People sitting around a campfire eating canned beans in the north woods is a myth. I’ll grill some salmon steaks. I hope you like salmon”

  “I do indeed.”

  “While you’re waiting, you can talk to Mason. He’s working outside.”

  Pitt pulled on his socks and hiking boots, ran his hands through his hair and faced the world. He found Broadmoor in the open shed, chiseling away on a five-meter-long red cedar log that lay horizontal on four heavy-duty sawhorses. Broadmoor was attacking it with a round wooden mallet shaped like a bell and a concave chisel called a fantail gouge. The carving was not far enough along for Pitt to visualize the finished product. The faces of animals were still in the rough stage.

  Broadmoor looked up as Pitt approached. “Have a good rest?”

  “I didn’t know bearskins were so soft.”

  Broadmoor smiled. “Don’t let the word out or they’ll be extinct within a year.”

  “Ed Posey told me you carved totem poles. I’ve never seen one in the works before.”

  “My family have been carvers for generations. Totems evolved because the early Indians of the Northwest had no written language. Family histories and legends were preserved by carving symbols, usually animals, on red cedar trees.”

  “Do they have religious significance?” asked Pitt.

  Broadmoor shook his head. “They were never worshiped as icons of gods, but respected more as guardian spirits.”

  “What are the symbols on this pole?”

  “This is a mortuary pole, or what you might call a commemorative column. The pole is in honor of my uncle, who passed away last week. When I finish the carvings, they will illustrate his personal crest, which was an eagle and a bear, along with a traditional Haida figure of the deceased. After completion it will be erected, during a feast, at the corner of his widow’s house.”

  “As a respected master carver, you must be booked up for many months in advance.”

  Broadmoor shrugged modestly. “Almost two years.”

  “Do you know why I’m here?” Pitt asked, and the abrupt question caught Broadmoor with the mallet raised to strike the fantail gouge.

  The wood-carver laid his tools aside and motioned for Pitt to follow him to the edge of the harbor, where he stopped beside a small boathouse that extended into the water. He opened the doors and stepped inside. Two small craft floated within a U-shaped dock.

  “Are you into Jet Skis?” asked Pitt.

  Broadmoor smiled. “I believe the term is now watercraft.”

  Pitt studied the pair of sleek Duo 300 WetJets by Mastercraft Boats. High-performance craft that could seat two people, they were vividly painted with Haida animal symbols. “They look like they can almost fly.”

  “Over water, they do. I modified their engines to gain another fifteen horsepower. They move along at almost fifty knots.” Broadmoor suddenly changed the subject. “Ed Posey said you wanted to circle Kunghit Island with acoustic measuring equipment. I thought the watercraft might be an efficient means of conducting your project.”

  “They’d be ideal. Unfortunately, my hydrophone gear was badly damaged when Stokes and I crashed. The only other avenue left open to me is to probe the mine itself.”

  “What do you hope to discover?”

  “The method of excavation Dorsett is using to retrieve the diamonds.”

  Broadmoor picked up a pebble at the waterline and threw it far out into the deep green water. “The company has a small fleet of boats patrolling the waters around the island,” he said finally. “They’re armed and have been known to attack fishermen who venture too close.”

  “It seems Canadian government officials didn’t tell me all I needed to know;” said Pitt, cursing Posey under his breath.

  “I guess they figured since you were under their license to do field research, you wouldn’t be harassed by the mine’s security.”

  “Your brother. Stokes mentioned the assault and burning of his boat.”

  He pointed back toward the partially carved totem pole. “Did he also tell you they killed my uncle?”

  Pitt shook his head slowly. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “I found his body floating eight kilometers out to sea. He had lashed himself to a pair of fuel cans. The water was cold, and he died of exposure. All we ever found of his fishing boat was a piece of the wheelhouse.”

  “You think Dorsett’s security people murdered him.”

  “I know they murdered him,” Broad
moor said, anger in his eyes.

  “What about the law?”

  Broadmoor shook his head. “Inspector Stokes only represents a token investigative force. After Arthur Dorsett sent his prospecting geologists swarming all over the islands until they found the main diamond source on Kunghit, he used his power and wealth to literally take over the island from the government. Never mind that the Haida claim the island as tribal sacred ground. Now it is illegal for any of my people to set foot on the island without permission or to fish within four kilometers of its shore. We can be arrested by the Mounties who are paid to protect us.”

  “I see why the mine’s chief of security has so little regard for the law.”

  “Merchant, ‘Dapper John’ as he’s called,” Broadmoor said, pure hatred in his round face. “Lucky you escaped. Chances are you’d have simply disappeared. Many men have attempted to search for diamonds in and around the island. None were successful and none were ever seen again.”

  “Has any of the diamond wealth gone to the Haida?” Pitt asked.

  “So far we’ve been screwed,” answered Broadmoor. “Whether wealth from the diamonds will come to us has become more a legal than a political issue. We’ve negotiated for years in an attempt to get a piece of the action, but Dorsett’s attorneys have stalled us in the courts.”

  “I can’t believe the Canadian government allows Arthur Dorsett to dictate to them.”

  “The country’s economy is on the ropes, and the politicians close their eyes to payoffs and corruption while embracing any special interest that slips money into the treasury.” He paused and stared into Pitt’s eyes as if trying, to read something. “What is your interest, Mr. Pitt? Do you want to shut the mine down?”

  Pitt nodded. “I do, providing I can prove their excavation is causing the acoustic plague responsible for the mass killing of humans and sea life.”

  He looked at Pitt. “I will take you inside the mining property.”

  Pitt considered the offer briefly. “You have a wife and children. No sense in risking two lives. Put me on the island and I’ll figure a way to get over the mound without being seen.”

  “Can’t be done. Their security systems are state-of-the-art. A squirrel can’t get past them, as proven by their little bodies that litter the mound, along with those of hundreds of other animals that inhabited the island before Dorsett’s mining operation gutted what was once a beautiful environment. And then there are the Alsatian police dogs that can smell out a diamond-smuggling intruder at a hundred meters.”

  “There’s always the tunnel.”

  “You’ll never get through it alone.”

  “Better that than your wife becoming another widow.”

  “You don’t understand,” Broadmoor said patiently; his eyes burned with consuming flames of revenge. “The mine pays my tribal community to keep their kitchen stocked with fresh fish. Once a week my neighbors and I sail to Kunghit and deliver our catch. At the docks we load it on carts and transport the fish through the tunnel to the office of the head cook. He serves us breakfast, pays us in cash-not nearly what the catch is worth and then we leave. You’ve got black hair. You could pass for a Haida if you wear fisherman’s work clothes and keep your head down. The guards are more concerned with diamonds smuggled out of camp than fish coming in. Since we only deliver and take nothing, we’re not suspect.”

  “Are there no good paying jobs for your people at the mine?”

  Broadmoor shrugged. “To forget how to fish and hunt is to forget independence. The monies we make stocking their kitchen goes toward a new school for our children.”

  “There’s a small problem. Dapper John Merchant. We’ve met and struck up a mutual dislike. He had a close look at my face.”

  Broadmoor waved a hand airily. “Merchant recognizing you is not a problem. He’d never soil his expensive Italian shoes by hanging around the tunnel and kitchens. In this weather he seldom shows his face outside his office.”

  “I won’t be able to gather much information from the kitchen help,” said Pitt. “Do you know any miners you can trust to describe the excavation procedures?”

  “All the mine workers are Chinese, illegally brought in by criminal syndicates. None speak English. Your best hope is an old mining engineer who hates Dorsett Consolidated with a passion.”

  “Can you contact him?”

  “I don’t even know his name. He works the graveyard shift and usually eats breakfast about the same time we deliver our fish. We’ve talked a few times over a cup of coffee. He’s not happy about the working conditions. During our last conversation, he claimed that in the past year over twenty Chinese workers have died in the mines.”

  “If I can get ten minutes alone with him, he might be of great help in solving the acoustics enigma.”

  “No guarantee he’ll be there when we make the delivery,” said Broadmoor.

  “I’ll have to gamble,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “When do you deliver your next catch?”

  “The last of our village fleet should be docking within a few hours. We’ll ice and crate the catch later this evening and be ready to head for Kunghit Island at first light.”

  Pitt wondered if he was physically and mentally primed to lay his life on the line again. Then he thought of the hundreds of dead bodies he’d seen on the cruise ship, and there wasn’t the slightest doubt about what he must do.

  Six small fishing boats, painted in a variety of vivid colors, sailed into Rose Harbour, their decks stacked with wooden crates filled with fish packed in ice. The diesel engines made a soft chugging sound through tall exhaust stacks as they turned the shafts to the propellers. A low mist covered the water and turned it a gray green. The sun was half a globe on the eastern horizon, and the wind was less than five knots. The waves showed no whitecaps, and the only foam came from the prop wash and the bows of the boats as they shouldered their way through gentle swells.

  Broadmoor came up to Pitt, who was sitting in the stern, watching the gulls that dipped and soared over the boat’s wake in hope of a free meal. “Time to go into your act, Mr. Pitt.”

  Pitt could never get Broadmoor to call him Dirk. He nodded and pretended to carve a nose on a half-finished mask the Haida had loaned him. He was dressed in yellow oilskin pants with suspenders that were slung over a heavy woolen sweater knitted by Irma Broadmoor. He wore a stocking cap pulled down over his thick, black eyebrows. Indians are not known for five o’clock shadows so he had given his face a close shave. He did not look up as he lightly scraped the dull side of the knife over the mask, staring out of the corners of his eyes at the long dock-not a small pier but a true landing stage for big ships, with anchored pilings-that loomed larger as the boats entered the harbor. A tall crane moved on rails along one side of the dock to unload heavy equipment and other cargo from oceangoing ships.

  A large craft with unusually smooth lines and a globular-shaped superstructure, unlike any luxury yacht Pitt had ever seen, lay moored to the dock. Her twin high performance fiberglass hulls were designed for speed and comfort. She looked capable of skimming the sea at over eighty knots. Going by Giordino’s description of a seagoing, space-age design, this was the boat seen running from the freighter Mentawai. Pitt looked for the name and port, normally painted across the transom, but no markings marred the beauty of the yacht’s sapphire-blue hull.

  Most owners are proud of their pet name for their boat, Pitt thought, and its port of registry. He had a pretty good idea why Arthur Dorsett didn’t advertise his yacht.

  His interest kindled, he stared openly at the’ windows with their tightly drawn curtains. The open deck appeared deserted. None of the crew or passengers were about this early in the morning. He was about to turn his attention from the yacht and focus on half a dozen uniformed security guards standing on the dock, when a door opened and a woman stepped out onto the deck.

  She was incredibly stunning, Amazon tall, strikingly beautiful. Shaking her head, she tossed a long, unbrushed mane of red-blond hair out
of her face. She was wearing a short robe and looked as if she had just risen from bed. Her breasts looked plump but oddly out of proportion, and were completely covered by the robe that shielded any hint of cleavage. Pitt perceived an untamed, ferocious look about her, as undaunted as a tigress surveying her domain. Her gaze swept over the little fishing fleet, then fell on Pitt when she caught him openly staring at her.

  The everyday, devil-may-care Pitt would have stood up, swept off his stocking cap and bowed. But he had to play the role of an Indian, so he looked at her expressionless and merely nodded a respectful greeting. She turned away and dismissed him as if he were simply another tree in the forest, while a uniformed steward approached and held out a cup of coffee on a silver tray. Shivering in the cold dawn, she returned inside the main salon.

  “She’s quite impressive, isn’t she?” said Broadmoor, smiling at the look of awe on Pitt’s face.

  “I have to admit she’s unlike any woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “Boudicca Dorsett, one of Arthur’s three daughters. She shows up unexpectedly several times a year on that fancy yacht of hers.”

  So this was the third sister, Pitt mused. Perlmutter had described her as ruthless and as cold and hard as ice from the bottom of a glacier. Now that he had laid eyes on Dorsett’s third daughter, Pitt found it hard to believe Maeve had come out of the same womb as Deirdre and Boudicca. “No doubt to demand higher production from her slave laborers and count the take.”

  “Neither,” said Broadmoor. “Boudicca is director of the company’s security organization. I’m told she travels from mine to mine, inspecting the systems and personnel for any weaknesses.”

  “Dapper John Merchant will be particularly vigilant while she’s probing for cracks in his security precautions,” said Pitt. “He’ll take special pains to ensure his guards look alert to impress his boss.”