Zero Hour nf-11

by Clive Cussler

  “Let me know as soon as you have more.”

  Yaeger acknowledged him, and Pitt hung up. He hesitated for only a second before deciding to dial the communications room.

  He spoke quickly. “Ms. Conry, please attempt to contact Orion by any means at your disposal. If you hear nothing from them, alert Dorado and Gemini. Transmit the Orion’s last-known position to them and order them to begin search-and-rescue operations.”

  “Anything else?”

  Pitt gave one more order. “Advise the other ships not to activate the new sensors they’ve been working on. Not under any circumstances, unless further ordered by me.”

  As he hung up the phone, his second line buzzed. It was Vice President Sandecker. His voice was distorted by a shrill electronic hum. It sounded like he was airborne.

  “There’s going to be a marine Black Hawk on your roof in four minutes,” Sandecker said. “I need you to be on it.”

  “I’m a little busy right now,” Pitt replied.

  “I know,” Sandecker said. “Hiram’s been busting the NSA’s chops to release more data on Tesla. When they didn’t give in, he hacked their computer system to liberate a few extra files. Knowing Hiram, he wouldn’t do that without your orders.”

  Pitt figured they’d get caught, just not this quickly. “I may have given him the impression I’d look the other way,” he said, “but they shouldn’t be holding back on us. Not at a time like this.”

  “You’re lucky, old friend, because I’ve finally gotten them to agree with you. They’re going to give you everything they have on Tesla. But they want you to see something first. You now have three minutes. See you on the roof.”

  Pitt really had no choice. He exhaled. “Where are we going?”

  “The chopper will take us to Andrews,” Sandecker explained, referring to the air force base ten miles to the southeast of Washington.

  “And from there?”

  “You’ll find that out when our wheels leave the ground.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  NUMA vessel Gemini, approximately 750 miles northeast of Orion’s last-known position

  In the Gemini’s darkened communications room, Gamay Trout stared at the computer screen. A new set of operational orders were coming in from NUMA HQ.

  Paul sat beside her, reading it out loud.

  “Orion is not responding to any method of communication. Proceed to Orion’s last-known position with all possible speed. Be prepared to launch search-and-rescue operations or search-and-recovery if no survivors are found. A satellite pass detected no infrared signature within fifty miles of Orion’s position. Due to heavy cloud cover, visual confirmation is not possible at this time.”

  The report seemed so cold. As if the ship weren’t filled with their friends and colleagues.

  “It can’t be,” Gamay said. “No emergency signal? No distress call? There’s no way one of our ships could go down that fast.”

  Paul continued. “Further orders refer to the sensing array provided by Ms. Anderson. Under no circumstance is the array to be activated. If already completed, the unit is to be rendered inoperable by hard-wire disconnection from Gemini’s systems. A direct time-based correlation has been made between the activation of Orion’s sensor array and a high-energy neutrino burst detected by the NSA ground stations and Orion’s last communication. It remains unknown if the array was at fault, but at this time it cannot be ruled out.”

  They were only hours away from activating their own array.

  “Could they really have blown themselves up?”

  “The explosion at Yagishiri that obliterated Thero’s lab was never adequately explained,” Paul said, “but Yaeger thinks it more likely that the sensor might have given away their location and allowed Thero to strike.”

  The Gemini was already turning. The thrum of her engines and propellers could be felt strengthening. Gamay looked at the map.

  “Seven hundred and fifty miles,” she muttered. “Thirty hours. That’s too long. They’ll never survive.”

  Paul looked glum as well. “If they’re in the water, they’re already gone,” he said. “Three hours or thirty, it won’t make a difference. Let’s just hope they made it to the boats.”

  Gamay appreciated what he was trying to do, but she knew the score. “If the ship went down too fast for the emergency beacon to send out a signal, what are the chances anyone got off in a lifeboat?”

  Her mind was imagining what the crew of the Orion might be experiencing. The water temps had to be in the thirties, with the ambient air temperature dropping into the teens at night.

  Paul reached over and wrapped his arms around her. “We can’t give up hope. And we won’t.”

  “This is why I love you, Paul,” she said. “No matter how crazy you make me at times, you really know what I need.”

  “I also know that Kurt and Joe are survivors,” he said. “And that every man and woman on that ship has been well trained. Let’s not write them off yet. Instead, let’s be ready to lend assistance when we get there.”

  She wrapped her arms around Paul’s waist and nodded. “Okay, but don’t stop hugging me just yet. I need a few more moments of this before I get back to the real world.”

  * * *

  Seven hundred and fifty miles from the Gemini, the Orion’s survivors huddled in the small orange life raft as it wallowed in the persistent western swell.

  For the better part of four hours, they rose and fell in a circular motion, surrounded by utter darkness. Neither the moon nor the stars were visible through the heavy layer of clouds. Aside from the dim glow of his watch, Kurt saw no light in any direction.

  Worse than the darkness was the silence. But, worst of all, was the cold.

  The frigid air was painfully debilitating to the men and women in their wet clothing. Even with them huddled together under a thermal blanket, their core temperatures were slowly dropping. A process that would only accelerate as their bodies digested the last meal they’d eaten.

  Kurt was already hungry, though he did his best not to think about food and instead tried to imagine himself on a beach in the Mediterranean with the sun beaming down on him and a drink in his hand. Somehow, the image wouldn’t last.

  A sort of trancelike state had come over them. It was akin to depression. Kurt figured they’d better break it somehow.

  “Any chance those alien friends of yours might come pick us up?” Kurt muttered to Joe. “I’d take a warm spaceship with little green men over this freezing life raft.”

  Joe shrugged. “They don’t seem to like cold weather either. Roswell. Ayers Rock. Chichen Itza. If we were shipwrecked a little closer to one of those locations, we’d have a shot.”

  Kurt didn’t bother to point out that there was little water near any of those places.

  “Dorado and Gemini are not too far away,” Kurt said. “If our beacon went off, they’ll be on their way.”

  “Do they have a hot chocolate dispenser on board?” Joe asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “What about a sauna?” someone else asked.

  “Something tells me NUMA didn’t spring for that.”

  “Too bad,” Joe added.

  “I’ll settle for dry clothes and a warm rack,” Kurt replied. “In the meantime, I’m trying to imagine a dry sauna, with smooth wood paneling and the smell of eucalyptus oil. But it doesn’t seem to be working. Apparently, this mind-over-matter stuff is harder than you think.”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “I’ve convinced myself I hear a ship approaching.”

  Kurt tilted his head. He heard nothing.

  “What kind of ship?” he asked. The words came out funny. Their lips were nearly frozen.

  “A nice big yacht,” Joe said. “With a few playmates, some Hawaiian Tropic girls, and a fully stocked bar. I think I even hear a jazz band playing some Louis Armstrong.”

  “You’re losing it,” Kurt said. “But if you must fantasize…”

  He stopped midsentence. Strang
e as it was, he thought he could hear the thrum of engines in the distance as well. Had there been any wind at all, he might not have heard it. But the still air was awfully quiet.

  He threw the edge of the thermal blanket back, much to the consternation of the others. “Hey,” someone grumbled. “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet.”

  “What?”

  “Joe heard a ship, and so did I.”

  Kurt was staring out into the night. If there was a ship out there, its running lights should have been visible in the darkness. He saw nothing.

  “I hear it,” Hayley said. “I hear it too.”

  With an abundance of caution, Kurt considered the possibility of mass hysteria. It happened often enough among shipwreck survivors, but usually after days of exposure and dehydration.

  “Give me a flare,” Kurt said.

  Joe handed the flare gun to Kurt. By now, the thrum of heavy diesel engines could be heard clearly. There was a ship out there, running dark for whatever reason and moving closer.

  Kurt aimed the gun skyward and pulled the trigger. The flare rocketed straight up, casting a white light down on the sea around them. A half mile off, Kurt spotted the prow of a freighter. It was heading roughly in their direction, though it would miss them to the east.

  “It’s not one of ours,” Captain Winslow said.

  “Nor is it a yacht with a band and a bar,” Joe replied. “But I’ll take it.”

  The flare had a forty-second life, and the darkness returned once it dropped into the sea.

  They waited.

  “There’s no way they didn’t spot that,” Joe insisted.

  Kurt loaded another flare into the firing chamber. “Let’s hope they’re not sleeping or watching TV.”

  He was about to fire the second flare when the sound of the big engines and the reduction gearing changed.

  “She’s cut her throttles,” Winslow said gleefully.

  Kurt held off on firing the precious flare. Waiting. Hoping.

  A spotlight came on near the aft of the big ship. It played across the water until it locked onto the orange raft. It went dark for a second and then began to flash a message.

  “Use the flashlight,” Kurt said.

  Joe moved to the edge, snapped on the light, and began to signal an SOS in Morse code.

  More flashes followed from the ship.

  “They’re coming around,” the captain replied, reading the message before Kurt could speak. “They’re going to pick us up.”

  A cheer went through the boat.

  With the spotlight blazing down on them, the survivors watched as the freighter heaved to. It slowed appreciably and then came around, settling a hundred yards to the west of the lifeboat, blocking the swells to some extent.

  Kurt and Joe rowed with great enthusiasm to close the gap. Their efforts were rewarded when the orange inflatable bumped into the side of the blue-painted hull.

  Thirty feet above, a wide cargo hatch opened in the side of the ship and a few faces appeared. A basket was lowered to haul up the injured crewmen. After they’d been secured, a cargo net was draped against the hull like a ladder for the rest of the survivors to climb.

  One by one, they went up until only Kurt and the captain remained.

  “After you,” Kurt said.

  The captain shook his head. “My ship went down without me,” Winslow insisted. “The least I can do is be the last man off the lifeboat.”

  Kurt nodded, secured the flare gun to his belt, and climbed onto the cargo net.

  He glanced down to see Winslow latching onto the net and the orange lifeboat drifting away. Truth was, they’d been lucky. Lucky to have survived the sinking, lucky to have avoided hypothermia, lucky to have been picked up.

  In fact, they’d been extremely lucky. Their rescuers weren’t from NUMA or any navy or coast guard. The ship was a merchant vessel. Forty feet above him, Kurt could just make out the boxy outline of shipping containers stacked three high.

  A thought began to form in his mind, a spark of insight that struggled to flare brightly in his weary, half-frozen brain. They were a thousand miles from the nearest trade route, he told himself. So what on earth was a containership doing there?

  He got part of the answer as he was pulled into the hatchway. It came in the form of a black pistol pressed up against the side of his head.

  He looked around. The other survivors were down on their knees. Stern-looking men wielding AK-47s stood around them.

  Captain Winslow climbed in and received the same treatment.

  Kurt received the rest of the answer a moment later as one of the gun-toting men got on the ship’s phone.

  “Da,” he said, holding the phone to his ear and turning back toward the captives. “We have been most fortunate. The woman is among them.”

  “Russians,” Kurt muttered.

  The man hung up the phone as the sound of the ship’s propellers reengaging shuddered throughout the vessel. He came toward Kurt. He was tall, but a little on the thin side. Half of his face was covered with scabs. Despite that, Kurt recognized him.

  “So we meet again,” Kirov said, slamming the barrel of his AK-47 across the back of Kurt’s legs.

  Kurt dropped to his knees. For a moment, he was thankful that his legs were almost numb.

  He resisted the urge to fight back or fire off a snarky comment. And since Kirov refrained from shooting him, it seemed Kurt had made a wise choice. Or so he thought until Kirov stepped toward the open hatch, through which a bitter air was beginning to flow as the ship picked up speed.

  “You made me jump from a moving train,” Kirov said, peering down at the cold sea below. “It seems Karma wishes me to return the favor.”

  Kirov nodded to his men. “Throw him out.”

  Two men grabbed Kurt and tried to drag him to the door. Kurt pulled free of one and slugged the other, but a third man jumped into the melee.

  With all eyes on Kurt, Joe spun and batted away the AK-47 aimed in his direction. From his knees, he threw an uppercut into the guard’s groin, and the man fell, dropping the weapon and releasing a grunt of agonizing pain.

  Captain Winslow joined the fray, lunging at one of the guards and tackling him before he could fire.

  This second commotion distracted Kirov. As it did, Kurt managed to kick free of the remaining guard. He lunged at Kirov, grasping him in a headlock before the others could regroup.

  “Enough!”

  Kurt’s voice boomed off the metal walls of the small compartment. Everyone looked his way. He was all but choking the life out of Kirov with one arm. He was also holding the flare gun to Kirov’s cheek with his other.

  An uneasy stalemate settled over the room. Joe went for a rifle that was lying on the ground, but the guard closest to him raised his weapon.

  “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.”