Zero Hour (9781101600559)

by Cussler, Clive; Brown, Graham

  It was a good plan. And they certainly didn’t need Kurt to pull it off. “Well, there you go,” he said, his hand edging closer to the Makarov in case he’d just outlived his usefulness.

  “Not just us,” Gregorovich replied.

  Kurt narrowed his gaze.

  “We’re taking you and your crew with us.”

  “Gonna be a little tight on those helicopters with so many people and the extra fuel you’ll need for the long circular journey.”

  “As it turns out, a few seats have become available,” Gregorovich said. “Twelve of the commandos have taken ill with a horrendous stomach virus.”

  “So give them some fluids and tell them to quit goldbricking,” Kurt said, hoping no one would actually listen to his advice.

  Gregorovich shook his head. “We’re not going to hike a glacier with men puking their guts out every five minutes. They’re too dehydrated and weak to be of any use. You and your people will take their place.”

  “Not all of our people are healthy either,” Kurt said. “Four of them are in your sick bay.”

  “Only three,” Kirov corrected. “It seems one of them died during the night. From lingering effects of shock.”

  “All they needed were basic treatments,” Kurt said angrily. “What kind of people are you?”

  “The kind who will draw blood if we need to,” Gregorovich said, taking the conversation back from Kirov and unmistakably referencing their chess game and the altercation that nearly ended in both of their deaths. “The others will get the attention they deserve as long as you cooperate.”

  Kurt stared. “Who do you want to bring?”

  “You, your friend Zavala, and Ms. Anderson.”

  “There’s no reason to bring her at this point,” Kurt said.

  “I don’t need a reason,” Gregorovich said.

  Kurt wondered if the Russian knew this was exactly what he’d hoped for. “Fine,” he said. “But not until I’m sure the others have been treated.”

  A smirk appeared on the Russian’s rugged face. “Still protecting your pawns?” he asked. “So be it. They will receive what they need. But for you and I, the time has come. We’ll finish our game tonight right here where you said we’d be: at the very ends of the Earth.”

  NUMA vessel Gemini

  Gamay Trout sat in the darkened room of the Gemini’s ROV control center. She stared at the flickering black-and-white monitor in front of her. Twelve thousand feet below them, one of the ship’s deep-diving ROVs had come across a debris field.

  Broken and mangled wreckage littered the seafloor in a familiar pattern. She had seen dozens like it before as NUMA explored and cataloged various wrecks. Only, this wreck was one of their own.

  “Magnetometer reading peaking,” Paul said from beside her. “She’s got to be close.”

  Paul and Gamay and the Gemini’s captain were crowded into the room along with three other techs. The quarters were tight, and no one wanted to see what they were about to find. Gamay slowed the ROV and tilted the camera upward. A moment later, the red hull plating of the Orion’s keel came into view along with her bent rudder and six-bladed propeller. The ship was lying on her side.

  “That’s her,” the captain said grimly. “Bring the ROV up a hundred feet. Let’s see the big picture.”

  Gamay did as ordered, operating calmly, despite the sick feeling in her stomach.

  The ROV rose above the wreckage to reveal the true extent of the damage. The ship’s keel had been split wide open, like someone cracking a giant egg. Somehow, the two halves remained attached as she sank, but there was so much damage it was hard to make sense of it.

  “No wonder they went down so fast,” Paul said.

  As the ROV drifted on the current, they could see that the breach ran the width of the hull.

  “Never seen a ship holed like that,” the captain said.

  The ship began to drift out of view.

  “Gamay?” Paul said, concerned at seeing her white face.

  She stood up. “Someone else take over, please.”

  As one of the other techs took her seat, she stepped through the crowd and made her way to the aft deck. She pushed the hatch open and welcomed the icy chill of the outside air.

  A deep breath helped ease the feeling that had come over her, but as her gaze fell upon a tarp lashed to the deck, the uncomfortable feeling returned. Under the tarp were three bodies they’d found and pulled from the sea. Crewmen from the Orion who’d drowned or died of hypothermia awaiting rescue. They now lay in bags on the deck. The ship had no cold storage, but the freezing air of the Antarctic waters was the next-best thing.

  She turned away as Paul came out behind her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. I can’t treat this like some regular investigation. That’s one of our ships down there. These people are our friends.”

  “And we need to know why it went down,” Paul reminded her. “We need to see if there are explosive burns or melted plates. We need to know if they were buckled from a mine or a torpedo or a missile impact, or if the plates were bent outward from some kind of an internal explosion. If the damage came from the outside, then we can rule out Ms. Anderson’s sensor device and activate our own.”

  “I know all that,” she said.

  “But?”

  She sighed. “What if we find Kurt or Joe in there? What if we put the ROV inside the hull and come face-to-face with one of them? Every time we plucked someone out of the sea, I was afraid it would be someone we knew.”

  Paul took her hand. “I understand,” he said. “I’ll have one of the other techs guide the ROV.”

  She knew he was going to say that. She didn’t want that result. She just needed a moment. “Do you suppose there’s any chance they’re alive?”

  Paul hesitated for a moment, then he shook his head. “I don’t see how they could be.”

  She appreciated his honesty. Somehow, admitting it was a probability took the edge off the fear. “All right,” she said, stepping back toward the door. “I guess if I was gone, I’d want them to figure out what happened.”

  “I would too,” Paul said. He opened the door and held it for her. She stepped inside, steeling herself for whatever they might find.

  • • •

  KURT, JOE, AND HAYLEY were given a modicum of winter clothing for the assault: a skintight base layer of wicking material, followed by a heavier thermal layer, and then outer shells of waterproof material. The pants, jackets, and hoods were camouflaged in a pattern of white and light gray. They were given white boots, and white wraps to cover their rifles.

  “How do I look?” Joe asked, fully garbed.

  “Like the abominable snowman’s little brother,” Kurt said.

  “Apparently, they don’t come in my size,” Hayley said, the sleeves of her jacket flopping around well past her hands.

  “Best they could do,” Kurt said, standing and ready to go. He found the uniform stifling in the heat of the ship’s cabin. He hoped it would do the trick out on the ice of the glacier.

  Sliding the Makarov pistol into the holster strapped to his thigh, he stepped toward the hatch, pushed it open, and walked out onto the deck. There, beyond the stacked containers, were two of the ugliest gray helicopters he had ever seen.

  “We’re flying in those contraptions?” Hayley said, looking shocked.

  Sleek was not a word used to describe the Russian-built Kamov Ka-32s, code-named Helix by NATO. They resembled old buses, with rounded corners and three tiny wheels underneath. A double tail looked as if it had been stuck on the back as an afterthought, as if the designers had forgotten to include it in the first place.

  Making them appear even less airworthy was the Russian double-rotor system. Instead of a tail rotor for stability, the Russians had a penchant for using two rotors above the helicopter. They turned opposite each other, stabilizing the gyroscopic forces. The Russians had been using the system for decades, but on the ground, with the rotor
s drooping under their own weight, the Helix looked like a science project gone awry.

  “I’ve always wondered how those rotors avoid getting tangled up,” Joe said. “This thing’s like a giant eggbeater. The blades really should chop each other off.”

  Kurt shot Joe a look, but it was too late. Hayley was hanging on every word.

  “Come on,” Kurt said, noticing that the wind had picked up and that snow flurries had begun to fall. “We have less than eighteen hours.”

  Gregorovich directed Zavala into one helicopter with Kirov and ordered Kurt and Hayley into the other. He climbed inside with them.

  “How many men do we have?” Kurt asked as the door was buttoned tight and the engines began to wind up.

  “Ten, not counting the pilots,” he said. “You three. Myself, Kirov, and five commandos.”

  Kurt noticed three snowmobiles and piles of rope and climbing equipment in the rear section of the cavernous helicopter. “Are we riding or walking?”

  “Both,” Gregorovich said. “We’ll take the snowmobiles for most of the journey, but near the edge of the glacier the sound of the engines will carry through the cavern. At that point, we’ll go on foot.”

  As if on cue, the whine of the turbines reached a fever pitch, and the howl of the rotors’ downwash began to shake the heavily laden copter. It rocked back and forth for a few seconds and then slowly began to rise. Kurt stared out the window as a crosswind caught them.

  Still rising, they were blown sideways. The pilot corrected just in time to avoid clipping one of the shipping containers. After climbing another thirty feet higher, they peeled away to the port side, accelerating as they passed the bow of the Rama.

  Since they were without headsets, the thundering sound of the rotors made it necessary to shout just to be heard. “Think she’ll be here when we get back?” Kurt yelled, taking one last look at the Rama.

  Gregorovich shrugged. “I really don’t care one way or another.”

  At least three commandos remained behind, not counting those who were sick with food poisoning. Kurt hoped they would honor the uneasy peace, and he figured Captain Winslow and his XO would put up a stiff fight if they didn’t, but there was nothing more Kurt could do to protect them. All that mattered now was completing the mission ahead.

  “So how do you plan to stop him?” Kurt asked.

  “Take his compound by force,” Gregorovich said, and then pointed to a hard-shell suitcase strapped to the back of one snowmobile and marked with the international symbol for radiation. “And then detonate it.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” Hayley asked.

  “Afraid so,” Kurt said.

  She looked greener with each passing second. Kurt figured that sharing a cabin with a nuclear weapon was not going to help her fear of flying. On the other hand, like the Russian assassin he’d now partnered with, Kurt was glad to have a weapon aboard that would leave no doubt.

  • • •

  NEWS REACHING WASHINGTON in the dead of night was seldom good. Dirk Pitt was alone in his office as the clock neared midnight when the latest blow hit.

  “. . . so far, we’ve located eight bodies in the wreckage,” Paul Trout’s voice said from the speakerphone. The signal was scratchy and distorted from the continuing solar activity. “Almost all of them trapped at or near their posts. Considering the size of the hull breach, it seems like those belowdecks didn’t have a chance.”

  Pitt rubbed his temples. “Can you tell what caused the breach?”

  “The plating is twisted and badly deformed,” Paul said. “But we’ve found no burn marks or signs of explosive impact. It does seem like the hull was bent outward in places. But I can’t give you a definitive answer.”

  Pitt was back to square one. He’d hoped to find evidence of a missile or torpedo attack, even an internal explosion if they could prove the presence of explosives. Something that would have told him Ms. Anderson’s sensor array was not at fault. Without it, he couldn’t order the Gemini to power up their system and risk the same fate.

  “We’ve taken a vote,” Paul volunteered. “Everyone on board is willing to risk using the sensor array if it means we might find the people who did this.”

  A thin smile creased Pitt’s face. He was proud of the bravery displayed by the Gemini’s crew. “Too bad NUMA’s not a democracy,” he said. “Keep that thing off until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Will do.”

  “Report in immediately if you learn anything new,” Pitt said.

  “It’s the middle of the night back there.”

  “We have seventeen hours until the clock hits zero,” Pitt said. “No one here is going home before then.”

  “Understood,” Paul replied.

  Pitt waited for him to sign off, but he didn’t. “Anything else Paul?”

  Static buzzed for a moment. “You didn’t ask. But I thought I should tell you we haven’t found Kurt or Joe.”

  “Keep looking,” Pitt said.

  “We will. Gemini out.”

  The line went quiet, and Pitt leaned back in his chair. He glanced through the window at the lights twinkling in the dark on the other side of the Potomac. He could not in good conscience order the Gemini to risk the same fate as the Orion, but how else could they hope to find Thero and stop him?

  He jabbed at the intercom switch, pressing in the number for Hiram Yaeger’s floor.

  “Yaeger here,” a tired voice said.

  “Tell me you have something new, Hiram.”

  “I have something,” Yaeger said sheepishly. “But I don’t think it’s going to help.”

  “I’ll take anything at this point,” Pitt said.

  “I have the computer on an autosearch mode,” Yaeger said. “It’s looking for anything of significance. The same way it found connections between the obituary notices of Cortland and Watterson.”

  “And what has it found this time?”

  “It’s discovered another odd coincidence,” Yaeger said, “regarding the handwritten notes sent to the ASIO.”

  “Go on.”

  “By comparing the samples, the computer determined with a ninety percent probability that both the handwritten threat sent to Australia and the documents sent to the ASIO by the informant were penned by the same person.”

  Pitt sat back. “I thought the ASIO had ruled that out. One written by a lefty and the other by someone who was right-handed.”

  “The handwriting is disguised to make it seem different,” Yaeger said, “but the word choices, pressure points, and stroke lengths are similar.”

  Pitt’s mind raced to the conclusion. “But the threat letter has already been matched to Thero’s handwriting sample.”

  “I realize that,” Yaeger said. “So either the computer is wrong or this man Thero is acting as both the perpetrator of the crime and the informant.”

  Pitt had no idea what this latest bombshell might mean, but he guessed there was some sinister reason behind it. Certainly he knew better than to second-guess Yaeger’s computer.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall as the minute hand ticked over to the wrong side of midnight. Whatever the significance of this latest twist, it would have to wait till later.

  “I don’t care how you do it, Hiram, but you have two hours to figure out another way for us to find Thero. After that, I have to order Gemini to power up their sensor array.”

  Yaeger grumbled something that Pitt couldn’t make out and then said, “I’m on it.”

  Pitt cut the line and turned back toward the window. It was the dead of night in Washington, D.C., but broad daylight over Australia. If they didn’t find Thero and stop him, it might be the last peaceful day that nation experienced for a very long time.

  The Russian helicopters had launched from the pitching deck of the MV Rama in the middle of a snow flurry. Loaded down with maximum fuel, they lumbered westward into an oncoming weather front. Turbulence shook them almost constantly. The visibility dropped to less than a mile. And, soon en
ough, the temperature had fallen so far that ice was forming on the inside of the unheated cabin.

  Hayley scratched some of it off and it fluttered down like snow. “Reminds me of my freezer back home.”

  “Condensation,” Kurt said. “From our breath.”

  “Never thought I’d know what a box of frozen peas felt like,” she replied.

  A new wave of turbulence buffeted them, and Hayley gripped the arm of the seat.

  “You’re holding up pretty well,” Kurt said.

  “I’m kind of numb to it all now.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Kurt said. “If we survive, your fear of flying might be cured.”

  He smiled, but she just stared blankly. He knew the look of someone falling into despondency. She was going forward now without much hope, emotions drained, doing what she was supposed to do.

  Kurt let his smile fade. “Once we get on the ground, who knows what’s going to happen. I need to know if I can trust you.”

  “You can,” she insisted.

  “Then tell me what you’re hiding,” he said. “You’ve kept some secret locked away since the very start. Time to come clean.”

  She stared up at him, her brown eyes quivering. “I think I know who the informant is,” she said. “It’s Thero’s son, George.”

  “Thero’s son?”

  She nodded.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The handwriting looked like his,” she said. “And in the first letter the informant wrote that he was acting out of his better conscience. Most people say they’re acting in good conscience, but George always used that other term instead. There were times he even insisted he was his father’s conscience. Times he persuaded Thero not to take some risk or fly off the handle at some random event.”

  “I thought he was dead.”

  “So did I,” she said. “But, then again, we all thought Thero was dead too, didn’t we?”

  Kurt nodded.

  “There wasn’t much left after the explosion,” she said. “There were funerals but with empty caskets, you know?”