Zero Hour (9781101600559)

by Cussler, Clive; Brown, Graham

  “Tell your men to lower their guns,” Kurt growled, “or I’m gonna give you a chemical peel you won’t ever recover from.”

  Kirov gulped hard, his Adam’s apple moving up and down against the crushing force of Kurt’s forearm.

  “Lower your guns,” Kirov said, “but do not discard them.”

  Half a win, Kurt thought. It was better than nothing.

  He was pondering what to do next when the sound of the bulkhead door being unlatched caught his ear.

  Kurt turned as the door swung wide and an oak tree of a man stepped through the hatch. Despite his size, he moved fluidly. He wore dark khaki pants and a black sweater. His cheekbones were high on his face and angular, almost like the mirrors on a sports car.

  The Russian commandos immediately stood a little taller in his presence. Kurt guessed this was Kirov’s superior. He seemed it in every way. He was armed with two black pistols, though for now they sat in shoulder holsters, one on each side of his chest.

  “What have we here?” he asked.

  “A small disagreement,” Kurt said. “Your slug here wanted to toss me into the ocean. I didn’t feel like being part of any catch-and-release program.”

  “So it would appear,” the man said.

  “Who are you?” Kurt asked. “You weren’t on the train.”

  “My name is Gregorovich,” the man said. “And you’re right, I avoided that pitiful episode.”

  Gregorovich glanced around. “You seem to have made the best of your situation,” he said to Kurt. “However, you’re outnumbered and outgunned. The woman is the only one of you with any value. And Kirov is not much of a bargaining chip to me.”

  He turned to one of the commandos. “Shoot them both.”

  As the commando raised his rifle and took aim, Kurt prepared to fling Kirov forward as a human shield and fire the flare into Gregorovich’s face.

  “Wait!” a voice cried.

  Of all people, it was Hayley.

  “He’s the only one who knows,” she exclaimed.

  Once again, all activity stopped just short of a bloodbath.

  “The only one who knows what?” Gregorovich asked.

  “I know about the threat,” Hayley said. “First, my country will be punished, then Russia, then the United States. You guys are Russian. You must be after Thero just like we are. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you tried to pull me off the train. You must think I can help you find him, but you’re wrong. Kurt’s the only one who knows where Thero is.”

  Kurt felt a glimmer of hope. It was quick thinking.

  “You really expect me to believe that?” the muscle-bound Russian said. “You’re the scientist. They brought you along for a reason. The same reason we tried to kidnap you. Because you are the only one who understands what Thero is doing. Therefore, it stands to reason that you, not him, have discerned Thero’s whereabouts.”

  “The computer determined Thero’s location,” Hayley said desperately. “It gave me a printout. I ran to Kurt to show him. It had numbers and lines on it, but I don’t know anything about azimuths and ranges and coordinates. For God sakes, I don’t even like being away from Sydney. I showed it to Kurt, he saw it. He read it. He told me we were going in the wrong direction. And then the wave hit, and it broke our ship and sank us in thirty seconds.”

  The commandos exchanged glances.

  “We were wondering what happened,” Gregorovich said. “We came across a lot of debris and some of your crewmen. I’m afraid they were all dead.”

  “Thero’s weapon is operational,” Hayley said. “He found us because we sent out a pulse. Which means even if I build you a detector, you’re just signing your own death warrant by turning it on. He’ll destroy you like he did us.”

  Gregorovich turned to Kurt. “She makes a good case, but it only changes things momentarily. You will give me what I want or I will kill your friends one by one.”

  Kurt was pretty sure that would happen anyway. “No,” he said, “that isn’t how this is going to go.”

  The Russian’s eyebrow went up. “It will go how I say it goes,” Gregorovich insisted.

  “You don’t seem like a fool,” Kurt began, “so don’t treat me like one. If I give you what you want, then you don’t need us anymore. And we all end up dead. I’m not dumb enough to think I’m saving any lives by handing you our only bargaining chip.”

  “Then I’ll torture it out of you,” Gregorovich insisted. “I will make you talk.”

  Kurt stared the Russian killer in the eye. “Go ahead and try. Maybe I’ll talk. Maybe I’ll give you a location. Maybe I’ll give you a dozen different locations, and you’ll spend forever bouncing around Antarctica looking for your prize. Or maybe I’ll put you right in front of him so he can tee you up and crush this ship the way he crushed ours. You want to chance that? Then go ahead, try to force it out of me. You never know what you’ll get.”

  Gregorovich seemed impressed with Kurt’s challenge. He actually began to chuckle. “An inspired response,” he said. “And, what’s more, I believe you. Not because I must, but because I would do exactly that in your position. However, I have my orders and I will fulfill them . . . to perfection.”

  “Then let me help you,” Kurt said.

  Gregorovich narrowed his gaze.

  “We’re after the same thing,” Kurt explained. “To stop Thero. You may not care about the timing, but in our case we’d like to do it before he lays waste to Australia.”

  “We have the power to stop him,” Gregorovich insisted. “Tell me where to find him and I’ll destroy his lair. I give you my word, you and your crew will be released when we’re finished.”

  “I have a better idea,” Kurt said. “I’ll lead you to him and we can destroy him together.”

  Gregorovich inhaled deeply. He seemed angered by having to negotiate or consider any form of compromise. If he didn’t like the first offer, Kurt thought, he really wasn’t going to like the fine print.

  “And,” Kurt said, “you’ll be giving us guns. Rifles and spare clips for myself, Joe, the captain, and any other member of our crew who wants one.”

  “Count me in,” Hayley said.

  “And one for me,” the XO added.

  Gregorovich raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to arm you? Here on this ship?”

  “I do,” Kurt said. “And I’m not giving you a thing until you do.”

  Gregorovich was fuming. His eyes narrowed, and he ground his teeth with a clenched jaw. He was trapped and he knew it. But he didn’t reject the offer outright. That meant he was at least considering it.

  “A countryman of mine used the term peace through strength,” Kurt said, quoting Ronald Reagan. “Your nation and ours held nuclear weapons to each other’s head for half a century. It made for a stable—if somewhat tense—relationship. But no one ever pulled the trigger, so it obviously worked. I figure we can make it through a few days with a similar setup and a common goal.”

  “This is madness,” Kirov said.

  Kurt choked his words off and kept his eyes on Gregorovich.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  Gregorovich leaned against the bulkhead. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Kurt could almost hear the gears turning in his mind.

  “I will give you one pistol,” he said finally. “And to a friend of your choosing, I will give exactly one rifle. You will get nothing more from me except death.”

  “Until we achieve our common goal,” Kurt added.

  Gregorovich did not comment on that statement. He only looked to Joe. “You. Arm yourself.”

  Joe was allowed to pick up a rifle. He checked it quickly and pointed it at Gregorovich. Two of the commandos pointed their own weapons at him in response.

  “See?” Kurt said. “Nice and stable.”

  He released Kirov. He then handed the flare gun to Captain Winslow and grabbed one of the Makarov pistols from the deck. He pulled the slide back an inch to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber and then eased th
e hammer back down.

  “You have your weapons,” Gregorovich said. “Now you will accompany me to the bridge and tell the navigator which direction to go.”

  Kurt glanced at the others and received a smattering of I hope you know what you’re doing looks. He nodded confidently. “Lead on.”

  The Russian stepped through the hatch. Kurt followed, with Kirov and all the others trailing behind.

  It would take no more than a minute or so to reach the bridge, a time frame Kurt could expand by dragging his feet. But that was it, all the time he had in which to come up with a plan. A plan that would somehow point the freighter in the right direction and satisfy the Russians without simultaneously making himself and the rest of the NUMA survivors expendable once again.

  Two minutes at most, Kurt thought. And the clock was ticking.

  Bridge of the MV Rama, 2340 hours, five miles southeast of where the Orion went down

  “We’re waiting, Mr. Austin.”

  The words came from Gregorovich, but they might as well have been spoken by any of the commandos, or the Vietnamese crewmen who ran the freighter, or even from the NUMA survivors, all of whom were standing around looking at Kurt expectantly.

  Twenty people, half of them with guns, crowded into a room more fit for eight or ten. If ever there was a recipe for disaster . . .

  “Give us a heading,” Gregorovich added, raising a pistol of his own and setting the hammer.

  Kurt kept his eyes forward. He stood over a surprisingly modern chart table. In reality, it was a giant touchscreen monitor laid flat. The screen was white with black demarcation lines. The display was almost identical to how the old charts used to look when lit up from below. The difference was, this screen could pan or zoom. It could indicate currents and wind and tides. It could bring up information in dozens of different ways.

  None of which helped Kurt at the moment.

  Right now, it was centered on the MV Rama’s location, with nothing but deep sea around it right out to the chart’s edge.

  “Zoom out,” Kurt said.

  The Vietnamese navigator glanced at Gregorovich, who nodded his approval.

  The navigator touched the screen, tapping a magnifying glass icon with a little minus sign inside it. The screen adjusted its resolution and settled at the new level of magnification, displaying four hundred miles from corner to corner.

  “Zoom out,” Kurt said.

  This went on for several more rounds until the chart covered most of the southern hemisphere.

  “If it’s not on the map now, we’re going to need more fuel,” Gregorovich said.

  His men laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

  “Zoom in twice,” Kurt said.

  This time, the map refocused with Perth and the southwestern edge of Australia in the top right corner. Along the bottom of the screen, the jagged edge of the Antarctic coast could be seen. At the far left, the tip of Madagascar poked into the picture.

  Kurt stared at the very center of the map, locking his eyes on the dot that marked the MV Rama. He tried to see with his peripheral vision, not willing to even glance in the slightest in any direction lest he give away what he was looking for. His mind was racing. There had to be a way.

  He knew where the ship needed to go, but how could he get the Rama pointed toward the target without letting the Russians know the location?

  Gregorovich stepped closer, he pressed the cold muzzle of the gun to the back of Kurt’s head. “I won’t ask you again,” he said.

  The answer came to Kurt in a flash, a memory derived from years of studying warfare at sea. They would zigzag, changing course almost randomly every few hours like the allied convoys dodging the U-boats during World War Two.

  Such a tack had two benefits. First, it would keep the Russians guessing and therefore keep Kurt and the NUMA crew alive. And, second, if anyone happened to be watching, they might notice the containership lost at the bottom of the world and question the crazy path she was taking.

  “Helmsman,” Kurt said, still keeping his eyes locked on the center of the map, “would you please set the ship on a heading of 195 degrees true.”

  Gregorovich lowered his pistol and stepped back. All eyes looked at the map. The helmsman plugged in the coordinates. A line appeared on the chart. It led almost due south, with a slight westerly lean. It ran aground at the tip of a jagged little peninsula jutting out from Antarctica.

  “So Thero’s station is there?” Kirov asked, bluntly. “In Antarctica?”

  Kurt said nothing. He kept his eyes still, calculating the ship’s speed.

  The Rama began to turn, the first of Kurt’s zigs. He checked his watch. Four hours, he told himself. In four hours, he would give them a new heading.

  “Answer me,” Kirov demanded, grabbing Kurt.

  “Wait,” Gregorovich shouted. “We are on our way. I’m assuming if we get off course somehow, our polestar, Mr. Austin, will reroute us.”

  Clearly, he saw what Kurt was doing. For some reason, he seemed okay with it. That thought gained strength when Gregorovich handed another weapon to Captain Winslow.

  “Détente,” he said, explaining. Then he snapped his fingers at one of the Vietnamese crewmen. “Show them to their quarters. Mr. Austin and I are going to share a drink.”

  The situation had worked out better than Kurt might have hoped. They’d bought some time, and they now had two rifles plus his pistol. They just might survive until morning.

  • • •

  DIRK PITT FOUND HIMSELF standing in the mist on a low rise surrounded by tall pines and cedars. He and Vice President Sandecker had hitched a ride on a B-1 bomber making a transcontinental trip. Traveling at Mach 2, they’d arrived at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California nearly a full hour before they’d taken off, at least according to the local clock anyway.

  It had been a great ride, and one that Pitt enjoyed as a pilot. He might have enjoyed it more had he known the purpose of the trip.

  From Travis, a CH-53 Sea Stallion had brought them northwest. It thundered across the landscape, finally setting them down on a rocky outcropping high atop an inaccessible ridge overlooking Sonoma Lake.

  There Pitt and Sandecker met with Jim Culver, head of the NSA. He was fuming mad, and he and Pitt might have come to blows had Sandecker not been there to intervene.

  “Who do you people think you are? Hacking an NSA secure database?”

  “I’d say it wasn’t all that secure if we could do it in a day,” Pitt replied, though he realized there were few people out there with skills like Yaeger’s.

  “Beyond that,” Pitt added, “I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d have been forthcoming with some answers about Tesla and a theory he either burned or hid seventy years ago.”

  “So you admit it?”

  “Sure do,” Pitt said. “There’s a terrorist out there threatening to turn an entire country into a parking lot. And I’m not going to leave a single stone unturned in my effort to stop him. If that ruffles your feathers, then I don’t happen to care. One of my ships is already missing. It may have gone down with all hands. Compared to those lives, whatever secret you’re trying to protect doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  Culver shrank back. Years on Wall Street and in the boardroom, followed by a successful political career, had not prepared him for the kind of life-and-death intensity that Pitt unleashed. The anger in Pitt’s opaline green eyes caused Culver to forget that he was an inch taller than Pitt and thirty pounds heavier.

  He turned to Sandecker. “I know he’s a friend of yours, Mr. Vice President. And I’m sure you’re going to defend him. But this is inexcusable.”

  “Not only is he a friend of mine,” Sandecker said proudly, “but he’s a patriot who’s done more for this country than you and your whole army of schemers and bureaucrats ever will. So whatever your problem is, you need to get over it. The President has ordered that there be cooperation on this matter. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Do you two have
any idea what’s at stake?” Culver said.

  “Do you?” Pitt replied.

  Culver fumed. Whatever stand he thought he was going to make had crumbled. “Fine. But understand this. What I’m about to show you has been known only to the presidents of the United States and a select few others. Not even ranking members of Congress. It’s considered a national secret of the highest order. To speak of it, or otherwise disclose what you see here, is punishable. And I’m quite sure this even applies to you, Mr. Pitt.”

  Pitt looked around. “Not sure how this qualifies as some big secret. As far as I can tell, we’re standing in a national park or something.”

  “No,” Culver said, “you’re standing on top of a catastrophe. This is the true epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a natural disaster in the eyes of the world. But, in actuality, the largest self-inflicted wound in U.S. history.”

  “April 18, 1906,” Pitt said. “The day Daniel Watterson and General Hal Cortland died.”

  “That’s right,” Culver said. “Only they didn’t die in Topeka, Kansas, and San Diego, California, like it says on their papers. They died right here, twenty stories beneath our feet, along with eighty-one others. Casualties not counted in the official death toll of the earthquake.”

  “The obituaries,” Pitt said, understanding what happened. “They were all the same, just a few words changed: name, cause of death, and location. They were all written by one person as part of the cover-up. No one bothered to distinguish them. Whoever it was, they didn’t count on modern computer analysis to pick up the similar patterns.”

  “It was 1906,” Culver said sarcastically. “I’m guessing they didn’t think that far ahead. Come with me.”

  Together, the three of them walked back into the forest. They passed through a length of electrified fence and came to a sealed hatch that was as sturdy as any Pitt had ever seen on a ship. In fact, it reminded him of the doors to NORAD’s mountain bunker, only a lot smaller.

  Culver entered a code on the outside and then used a key card. A seal cracked and the hatch opened like an oyster, revealing steps.