Devil's Gate nf-9

by Clive Cussler

  “This person is far too stupid to be in our exclusivity zone.” Joe laughed and nodded.

  Kurt pointed to a second set of tanks. “Are those charged?” Joe checked the gauge. “Yep.”

  “I’m going down,” Kurt said.

  A minute later Kurt was in the water, breathing the compressed air and kicking with long strokes as he made his way down the chain. Approaching the bottom, he saw a pinpoint of light and angled toward it.

  Whoever it was, they’d gone into the downed Constellation. Considering that the middle of the plane was broken open like a cracked egg, that didn’t seem so reckless. But the movements of the camera had seemed odd, and as he stared at the shaking beam of light he wondered if the diver was in some kind of trouble.

  Kicking harder, he made it to aircraft’s triple tail. The cone of light from inside the fuselage continued moving in a random pattern.

  He swam to the break in the aircraft’s skin. The light was coming from the forward section. The random movements made Kurt think it might be floating loose. He feared he was about to find a dead diver, one who’d run out of oxygen but whose light, probably attached to his arm by a lanyard, still had battery power and was floating around above him like a helium balloon on a string.

  He eased inside, working his way around tangled insulation and bent sheet metal. Clouds of sediment wafted from the front of the plane, and the oddly moving beam pierced the darkness, faded, and then came through again.

  Kurt swam toward it. Emerging through the cloud of silt, he found a diver digging voraciously, twisting and pulling frantically. The flashlight was attached to the diver’s belt.

  He reached out and put a hand on the diver’s shoulder. The figure spun, swinging a knife toward him.

  Kurt saw the blade flash in the reflected light. He blocked the diver’s arm and then twisted it, dislodging the knife. Bubbles from both regulators filled the cabin. Combined with the swirling sediment and the waving light, they made it difficult to see.

  The knife tumbled through the water and disappeared. Kurt held the diver’s right arm in a wristlock. His other arm shot forward, grabbing the diver by the neck. He was about to rip the diver’s mask off — a classic underwater fighting technique — when he saw that the diver was a young woman, and her eyes were filled with panic and fear.

  He released her and held up a hand with his fingers spread. Calm down.

  The woman nodded but remained rigid. She motioned toward her feet.

  Kurt looked down. Somehow she’d gotten her leg caught between a twisted part of the fuselage and some equipment. A jagged cut in the sheet metal marked her attempts to saw through the metal with her knife. It didn’t look like she’d gotten very far.

  Kurt had a better idea. He sank down, wedged his back to the skin of the fuselage, and placed both feet on the attached equipment box. With all the strength in his back and legs, he pushed against the metal box. He expected it to snap and break loose, but instead it bent just enough.

  The woman pulled her foot out and immediately began rubbing her ankle. When she looked up, Kurt put his index finger and thumb together, making a circle — the universal OK symbol. Are you okay?

  She nodded.

  Next he brought his two index fingers together parallel and then looked at her questioningly.

  She shook her head. Apparently, she wasn’t diving with a buddy.

  Just as he thought.

  He pointed at her sharply and then made the thumbs-up signal.

  She hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. Grabbing her light, she began to swim out of the aircraft. Kurt took a last look around and then followed.

  After a decompression stop for her, they broke the surface together a few yards from her boat. She swam to it and climbed in first. Kurt followed.

  Joe and one of the Argo’s crewmen remained aboard to welcome them.

  The woman removed her mask, pulled back the head covering on her wet suit, and shook out her hair. She didn’t look happy to have boarders. Kurt didn’t care.

  “You must be out of your mind to make a dive like that on your own.” “I’ve been diving alone for ten years,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You spend a lot of time exploring sunken wrecks?” She grabbed a towel, dried her face, and then looked back at him defensively. “Who are you to be telling me what to do? And what are you doing on my boat anyway?” Joe puffed up his chest, about to launch into an explanation. Kurt beat him to it. “Our job is to make sure you scientists don’t drown or infringe on the rules we set up. You seem to be doing both, so we came to check you out,” he said. “This boat isn’t even registered as part of the study. You want to tell us the reason?” “I don’t have to register with you,” she said smugly. “I’m outside your official zone. Outside of your jurisdiction, as you Americans like to say.” Kurt glanced at Joe. “Not anymore,” he said, turning back to the woman. “We enlarged it.” “We even had a vote and everything,” Joe added.

  She looked from Kurt to Joe and then back again. “Typical American arrogance,” she said. “Changing the rules to suit you whenever the need arises.” Kurt could almost understand that sentiment, except she was missing an important fact. He grabbed the pressure gauge on her tank and turned it over. As he suspected, she was well into her reserve air.

  “Typical Russian stubbornness,” he replied. “Getting angry at the people who just saved your life.” He showed her the gauge.

  “You had less than five minutes of air left.” Her eyes focused on the gauge, and Kurt let it drop. She reached out and took it in her hand, studying it for a long moment.

  “You should be glad we’re so arrogant,” he said.

  She let the gauge go gently and looked up. He could see her jaw clench, though he wasn’t sure if it was out of embarrassment or anger. “You’re right,” she said finally, taking a more subdued tone. “I am… appreciative. I was just…” She stopped and focused on Kurt, and whatever she was about to say she replaced it with a simple “Thank you.” “You’re welcome,” Kurt said.

  He noticed a change in her demeanor, even a hint of a smile on her face. “You are the ones in charge here?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Kurt replied.

  “I’m Katarina Luskaya,” she said. “I’m here on behalf of my country. I would like to talk to you about this discovery.” “You can register with the liaison officer in the—” “I was thinking more like talking tonight,” she said, focused on Kurt. “Perhaps over dinner?” Joe rolled his eyes. “Here we go. The Austin charm in full effect.” Kurt was too busy for this. “You’ve seen too many movies, Ms. Luskaya. There’s not much I can tell you anyway.” She stood up, unzipping the top half of her suit, exposing a bikini top that accentuated her curves and an athlete’s midrift.

  “Perhaps there’s something I can tell you,” she said. “Since you are in charge, I have some information you might be interested in.” “You’re serious?”

  “Very,” she said. “And, besides, we all have to eat. Why should we do it alone?” “So we’re all going?” Joe asked.

  Kurt cut his eyes at Joe.

  “Maybe not,” Joe said. “Lots of paperwork to do anyhow.” Kurt doubted the woman had any information of value, but he admired her blatant attempt to get him alone and no doubt see what information he might have.

  It suddenly dawned on Kurt that if there was even the slightest chance that something important could be learned from Ms. Luskaya, well, then it really was his duty to find out.

  “You’re staying in Santa Maria?” he guessed.

  She nodded, and Kurt turned to Joe.

  “I trust you guys can make it back to the Argo on your own?” “And if we can’t?” Joe said.

  “Then signal for help,” Kurt said, smiling.

  Joe nodded reluctantly and motioned toward the Zodiac. The Argo’s crewmen climbed aboard and Joe followed, muttering something about “shirking responsibilities” as he went.

  Kurt looked at the young woman. “Do
you have a car in town?” She smiled. “Mmm-hmm,” she said. “And I know just the place to take you.”

  19

  ANDRAS, THE KNIFE, stood at a pay phone overlooking the harbor at Vila do Porto. He felt as if he’d gone back in time, using such a phone to make a call. He could hardly remember seeing one over the last few years. But despite its vacation destination status, the Azores were not quite up to speed in the technology department. Many of the island’s inhabitants were less than wealthy and often did not have landlines or mobile phones, so the pay phones still sprouted in many places.

  For Andras, that meant the chance to make an untraceable call, one the U.S. government or Interpol could not tap into as its digital signal flew through space and bounced off a satellite somewhere. To listen to this conversation they would have to break into a heavy trunk line buried under Azorean soil and stretching across the floor of the Atlantic to North Africa, where it made landfall.

  This was not impossible — in fact, the Americans had famously done just that to a Russian trunk line during the cold war — but unlikely, considering no one had a strategic reason to care what conversations were going on between the Azorean islanders and their families and friends on the mainland.

  And that was a pleasing thought to Andras, because recent discoveries had raised the specter of danger for him.

  He dialed and waited for what seemed like hours. Finally, he was connected to an operator in Sierra Leone and then to an office in Djemma’s palace. Eventually an aide put the President for Life on the line.

  “Why are you calling me?” Djemma said. He sounded like he was in a tunnel somewhere — apparently there were drawbacks to using old landline technology.

  “I have news,” he said. “Some good, some bad.”

  “Begin, and be quick.”

  “You were right. At least twenty scientific groups have shown up, with others on their way. This magnetic phenomenon seems to be drawing great interest.”

  “Of course it is,” Djemma said. “Why else do you think I sent you there?”

  “It’s not only scientific interest. There are some military personnel here as well.”

  Djemma did not sound concerned. “That is to be expected. You will have no issues with them if you do as planned.”

  “Maybe,” Andras said. “But here’s the real problem. The Americans who almost caught us on the Kinjara Maru are here. I’ve seen their ship in the harbor. Now it anchors over the magnetic tower. According to the Portuguese, they’ve been put in charge of the entire study. I’m sure there’s a military angle to it.”

  Djemma laughed. “You continue to make your enemies bigger than they really are, perhaps to add glory to your name when you knock them down, but it smacks of paranoia.”

  “What are you talking about?” Andras asked.

  “You were not attacked by U.S. Navy SEALs or Special Forces, my friend. These men from NUMA are oceanographers and divers. They find wrecks and salvage ships and take pictures of sea life. Honestly, I’d have thought you could handle them. I wouldn’t let it get out that they bested you so easily, it may reduce your ability to charge such outrageous fees.”

  Djemma laughed as he spoke, and Andras felt his blood beginning to boil.

  “Are you worried about facing them again?” Djemma asked, needling him.

  “Listen to me,” Andras said, growing furious. And then he paused as a sight he could hardly believe came walking right up the dock toward him. The same silver-haired American who’d interfered with him on the Kinjara Maru, walking with a dark-haired woman he recognized as the Russian scientist he’d been told about. As they drew closer, Andras recognized the man in a more concrete way.

  “Well I’ll be,” he whispered to himself.

  “What?” Djemma said. “What are you talking about?”

  Shrinking back into the kiosk that held the pay phone and turning away, Andras ignored them as they passed on the far side of the street.

  “Andras,” Djemma said. “What the hell is going on?”

  Andras returned to his phone call, calculating a new play. “This NUMA is not as toothless as you might think,” he said. “My concern is that they will interfere again. One of their members in particular. It would be best if I take them out.”

  “Don’t antagonize them,” Djemma warned. “You’ll only draw attention to us at the wrong time. We are very close to making our move.”

  “Don’t worry,” Andras said. “It’ll go off without a hitch, I promise you.”

  “I’m not paying you for revenge,” Djemma said.

  Andras laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This one’s on the house.”

  Before Djemma could reply, Andras slammed the heavy plastic receiver back onto its metal cradle. The sound it made and the sensation left him grinning maniacally, so much more satisfying than pressing a red button on a cell phone.

  20

  GAMAY TROUT TRIED HER BEST TO REMAIN CALM, to control her breathing and her emotions. Beside her, Paul continued a useless attempt to raise the Matador on the underwater transceiver.

  “Matador, this is Grouper. Do you copy?” No response.

  “Matador, this is Grouper…”

  He’d been at it for thirty minutes. What else could he do? Their only hope was for the Matador to send down the ROVs and try to dig them out. That is, if they could be found and if they weren’t under a hundred feet of sediment.

  So Paul continued to try. Matador, this is Grouper. Matador, please respond. And each time he spoke the words, the sound grated on her nerves like some form of Chinese water torture.

  There had been no response for thirty minutes. There would be no response in the next thirty, or the next thirty thousand, if he tried. Either the antenna had been torn off in the landslide or they were buried too deep for any signal to get out.

  Taking another calming breath, she rubbed his shoulders.

  “They might be able to hear us,” Paul told her. “Even if we can’t hear them.” She nodded, twisted herself around in the other direction, and checked on their air status. They had nineteen hours of air left. Nineteen hours of waiting to die. In a manner she’d never felt before, Gamay was suddenly aware of how tight the confines of the Grouper were. It was a coffin. A tomb.

  A wave of claustrophobia swept over her so powerfully that she began to shake, began to wish they’d been killed in the landslide or that she could just open the hatch and let the water pour in and crush them. It was irrational, it was panic, but it was astoundingly real to her.

  “Matador, this is Grouper … Do you read?”

  She held herself together, fighting back tears that were threatening to break through.

  Uncomfortable sitting with her head bowed in the cramped vehicle, she lay down and closed her eyes, resting her face against the cold metal of the floor like one might rest on the tiles of the bathroom after a heavy night of drinking.

  It calmed her nerves a bit, at least until she opened her eyes and noticed something she hadn’t seen before: a drop of water trickling down the side of the metal plating. Any hope of it being condensation was erased as another drop quickly followed, and then another.

  Drip… Drip… Drip…

  Perhaps they wouldn’t have nineteen hours after all.

  “Matador, this is Grouper …”

  There was no point in telling Paul. He would know soon enough, and there was nothing they could do about it anyway. At 16,000 feet, the pressure outside was almost 6,800 pounds per square inch. The slow little drips would quickly become faster drips as the water forced the plates apart, and at some point it would start spraying, blasting them with a jet of ice-cold water powerful enough to cut a person in half. And then it would all be over.

  Gamay glanced around the cabin for other leaks. She saw none, but something new caught her eye: light emanating from the tiny screens in her virtual reality visor.

  She grabbed it. The screens were still functioning. She saw a metallic wall and sediment floating around. The p
articles swirled and caught the light.

  “Rapunzel survived,” she said quietly.

  “What was that?” Paul asked.

  “This is a live shot,” she said. “Rapunzel ’s still functioning.” Gamay pulled the visor on and then her gloves. It took a moment to orient herself, but she quickly realized that Rapunzel was floating freely. She had the little robot do a 360-degree turn. Open water beckoned through the same gaping hole that Rapunzel had used to enter the ship.

  “I’m bringing her out.” “How are we still in contact with her?” Paul asked.

  “Her umbilical cables are eight feet long where they hit the Grouper. They must be sticking out of the sediment.” “That means we’re not buried too deep,” Paul said. “Maybe she can dig us out.” Gamay maneuvered Rapunzel out of the ship, while Paul began to watch the monitor on his control panel.

  “Take her up,” he said. “We need a bird’s-eye view.” Gamay nodded and had Rapunzel ascend. She rose vertically for a hundred feet, high enough to get a better view but still close enough that her lights and her low-light camera could make out the ship and the seafloor.

  The avalanche had changed everything. The Kinjara Maru now rested on her side like a toy that’d been knocked over. The bow was almost buried in sediment, and the ground underneath was flatter and smoother. Gamay guessed that the avalanche had moved the ship a hundred yards or so.

  “Any idea where we are?” she asked.

  “We were headed to the bow,” he said. “No idea what happened after the landslide hit.” Gamay guided Rapunzel toward the bow of the ship and then out over the field of sediment. After ten minutes of up-and-back passes, neither she nor Paul had seen any sign of themselves.

  In some corner of her mind, the oddness of the situation struck Gamay. How strange, she thought, to be consciously looking for yourself with no idea where you might be.