Devil's Gate nf-9

by Clive Cussler

  “We’re like a dying fish leaving a trail of blood,” Kurt said, thinking of the bubbles the sub was probably venting.

  A strange concussive sound reached them, and Kurt saw spray patterns in the water above and ahead. He guessed their pursuers were shooting into the water with the shotguns. Not a real danger, but one more sign of an impossible situation.

  Maybe if they went deeper.

  He put the nose down a few degrees.

  The depth meter read 15 and then 20 and then — Crack!

  One of the taped sections broke away, and a new spray of water came in.

  As Joe slammed the section back into place and began taping it over, Kurt brought the sub back up, leveling off at ten feet. He changed course again but to no avail.

  “They’re probably wearing those Maui Jim sunglasses,” Joe said. “You know, the ones that let you see fish in the water.” Kurt felt like a fish in a barrel. Or a whale being hunted from above by a couple of harpoon boats. Sooner or later they had to surface, if not to send the message, just to survive.

  Despite Joe’s efforts, the Barracuda was slowly taking on water, not just from the buckshot holes in the windshield but from the damage in other places. Compartments normally sealed against water were now filling with it.

  And, like whales, Kurt and Joe were faced with pursuers above that were faster, bigger, and well armed. At this point they had to do little more than follow Kurt and Joe in the Barracuda and wait for them to come up for air.

  A flash lit the sea ahead and to the right. A concussion wave shook the sub even as Kurt turned hard left. A few moments later a second flash went off directly in front of them. Kurt actually saw the water expand, contract, and then crash into the nose of the Barracuda.

  “Grenades,” he said.

  Cracks were beginning to appear in the canopy. Tiny almost invisible lines were spidering out from behind Joe’s tape job as the Plexiglas weakened and began to fail.

  When another explosion shook them, Kurt knew they didn’t have much time. “Get your message ready,” he said.

  “We won’t last ten seconds up there.” “We will if we surrender,” Kurt replied, realizing that once Joe hit “Enter,” there would be no visible sign of the data message being sent, and they could stand there with their hands up, hoping not to be shot as a distraction.

  Joe said nothing, but Kurt heard him tapping away at the keyboard. “Ready,” Joe said.

  Kurt pointed the nose toward the surface, hoping they wouldn’t get machine-gunned on sight. Just as they breached the surface, he cut the throttles.

  The Barracuda slowed instantly, and the pursuing boats passed them.

  “Now,” he said.

  Joe hit the “Enter” key as Kurt pressed the canopy switch and the cockpit rose.

  “Come on,” Joe was muttering. “Rápido, por favor.”

  Kurt stood, hands raised high in surrender, as the boats circled back toward him.

  The Barracuda rocked back and forth on the waves, and the powerboats pulled up next to them. A half mile off Kurt saw a larger boat headed their way too.

  “We surrender,” Kurt said.

  Two men with shotguns pointed their weapons at him.

  An almost inaudible beep chirped from the rear of the cockpit, and Joe stood up as well.

  “Message sent,” he whispered.

  Kurt nodded almost imperceptibly. Whatever happened now, whatever fate held for them, at least they’d sent their warning. He only hoped it was in time.

  Across from him, one of the men put his weapon down and threw them a line. In a moment the Barracuda was tied up to the larger of the two powerboats, and Kurt and Joe were standing on board it with their wrists chained in proper cuffs.

  Apparently, their foes had come prepared.

  The larger boat approached, a 60-foot motor yacht of a design Kurt had never seen, it appeared far more utilitarian than anything he could remember in that class. It almost looked like a military vessel done up to pass as a pleasure craft.

  It sidled up next to them, and Kurt saw a man in jungle fatigues standing at the bow, gazing down at him. It was the same man he’d seen the night before and also on the Kinjara Maru. The grin of a conqueror beamed from his face, and he jumped down onto the deck of the powerboat before the yacht had even bumped up against it.

  He strode toward Kurt and Joe in their defenseless positions, looking ready to inflict pain. Kurt stared him down the whole way, never blinking or looking away. “Andras,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Friend of yours?” Joe asked.

  Before Kurt could answer, the man hauled off and slugged him in the jaw, sending Kurt crashing to the deck.

  Kurt looked up, blood dripping from his mouth, his lip split open.

  “Sorry,” Joe said. “Forget I asked.”

  35

  TWO MEN GRABBED THE CHAIN on Kurt’s cuffs and yanked him back up to his feet. “I want you to see something,” Andras said. He motioned for the motor yacht to pull forward. A brief spurt of power did the trick, and as its motor died once again the two boats knocked together. On the aft deck of the larger vessel, a mixed group of thirty or more men and women sat in cuffs and shackles with their backs to the far rail.

  As painful as the split lip and wounded pride were, this sight caused a far deeper agony. Kurt recognized them as members of the various science teams sent to study the magnetism. Katarina sat among them, a dark bruise covering the right side of her face.

  Her eyes rose up to meet his gaze and then looked back down at the deck, sad and forlorn, as if she’d failed somehow.

  Kurt spat a mix of blood and saliva onto the deck. “What are you up to, Andras?” he said. “What is this all about?”

  “I’m flattered that you recognize me at last,” Andras said. “Of course a little insulted that it took so long. I thought I would have made a bigger impression all those years ago. Then again,” he said, “I didn’t recognize you either. But you didn’t have silver hair when I knew you. I’d like to think I caused some of that.”

  Kurt felt his body tense, his instincts urging him to thrash and fight. The despair of the scientists, the purple bruise on Katarina’s face, the arrogance that oozed from Andras’s mouth like sewer water: all of it tested his control.

  If he could have busted his chains, he would have lunged for Andras and fought him to the death right there and then, but cuffed and disadvantaged he could do little by antagonizing the man except act as a punching bag.

  Andras walked around him in a wide circle, pontificating. Kurt had forgotten how much the man loved to talk.

  “Once I heard of this NUMA,” Andras said, “I should have guessed you were involved. It just sounds so Kurt Austin to me. All upstanding and forthright. I’ll bet you say the Pledge of Allegiance to your flag every morning, and you probably all have patches and jackets and matching key chains.”

  “Yeah,” Kurt said through his teeth. “Maybe I’ll bring you some of our swag when this is over and you’re serving a hundred years in solitary.”

  “Solitary?” Andras said. “How cruel. At least when I commit you to the sea, I won’t be sending you down alone.” He leaned closer. “And just to be clear, when this is over, you will be fish food and I will be a king.”

  Andras smiled, and Kurt found something odd in the words and the way Andras had whispered them to him alone.

  As a chill of fear crept over him, Kurt wondered what malice Andras would visit upon them now. He prayed it wouldn’t include Katarina. Despite those prayers, Andras hopped back onto the motor yacht and walked right toward her. He crouched down, put a hand on her bruised face, and then stood.

  “Put Mr. Austin back in his little submarine,” he ordered.

  Three men came over to Kurt, two white, one black. They heaved him off his feet and literally threw him into the Barracuda.

  “Mathias,” Andras ordered, speaking to the African man, “chain him to the lift bar.”

  Kurt stared at the bar. It
resembled a towel rack, mounted on the Barracuda’s hull just outside the cockpit. It was a hard point on the hull, the strongest spot on the entire submersible. Welded directly to the frame and made of carbon steel, the lift bar was designed to hold the entire submarine’s weight when she was pulled from the water by the Argo’s crane.

  It was not a spot Kurt wanted to be handcuffed to.

  Mathias took a key from around his neck and undid Kurt’s handcuffs. Immediately, Kurt swung an elbow, catching one of the white men in the mouth. Almost instantly the other white man slammed Kurt in the back of the head, crashing his skull against the frame of the cockpit.

  Kurt felt a moment of dizziness. When his head cleared, he felt his arms draped over the outside of the Barracuda’s hull, even though his body was mostly in the cockpit. His cuffs had been undone and recuffed around the lift bar.

  “And the other one,” Andras said.

  Joe was thrown in next to Kurt and given the same treatment. And while they sat there helpless, Andras grabbed a shotgun.

  “Slugs,” he demanded.

  A box was handed to him, and he began filling the weapon with the solid projectiles. When it was fully loaded, he pumped it and walked around to the rear of the submarine. He fired two quick blasts into the impeller and then a third into the starboard wing.

  The Barracuda’s hollow wing began to take on water. Andras raised the weapon and blew a hole in the port wing.

  Kurt could not remember feeling so desperate. He knew they were about to go under, a horrible death awaiting them, and his mind grasped for a way to cheat it.

  “You think drowning us ends this?” he shouted. “We know about you. Our whole organization knows.”

  Joe said nothing. Kurt could hear him breathing fast and deep, trying to pump his lungs full of air. Kurt knew he should be doing the same, but he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t going out quietly.

  As the water filled the Barracuda’s wings, Kurt frantically tried to shout something that might make Andras call a halt to the proceedings. If he could just convince him they were valuable enough to spare, even if it was just for a while, it would give them a chance.

  “We know about your submarine,” he shouted.

  Andras raised an eyebrow. “Do you, now?” he said. “That’s more than I thought you knew. But, at any rate, it’s not mine.”

  Feeling the slightest bit of traction, Kurt pressed. “We know what you’re up to. We know about the energy weapon.”

  This seemed to hit closer to the mark. Something in Andras seemed to stir, and his eyes began to light up. He stepped closer.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s the spirit. I knew you wouldn’t give up.”

  It seemed as if he’d realized Kurt’s desperate gambit and was taking great delight in being part of it.

  “Come on, what else?” he shouted

  Kurt didn’t respond right away, and Andras grabbed Mathias and yanked the key and its rope from around the man’s neck.

  “Come on, now,” he shouted sarcastically, “You’re Kurt Austin of NUMA! Surely you can do better than that. Give me some more. Give me something that will make you matter.”

  Katarina stood and rushed forward as best she could. What she had in mind, Kurt didn’t know — and most likely she didn’t either — but she didn’t get far. One of the armed men grabbed her and yanked her back, flinging her to the deck, and Kurt’s blood burned even hotter.

  “Time’s running out, Austin,” their tormentor said. He brought out the knife that he and Austin had already traded twice and flipped open the titanium blade. He locked it into place and tied the key’s lanyard through one of the holes on the handle.

  The Barracuda’s wings were awash now; any second the cockpit would start filling. There were precious few seconds left.

  “We know about the superconductor,” Kurt said, hating himself for being led along. “We know who sold it to you,” he lied. “We know it was loaded on the Kinjara Maru in Freetown.”

  Andras looked down as if thinking. He glanced briefly at Mathias and then turned back to Kurt, smiling maniacally.

  “Good enough,” he said, moving forward with the knife in his hand. “Good enough for half anyway.”

  He leaned toward the Barracuda, raised his arm, and plunged the knife into the thin skin of her outer hull. The knife punched though and lodged tight, just out of Kurt’s reach.

  “Unfortunately, half won’t save you both.”

  The water poured into the cockpit and swirled up around Kurt’s knees. They were going down.

  He glanced at Joe. “Whatever happens,” he said, “follow my lead.”

  Joe nodded as Kurt filled his lungs, breathing deep and fast, as the Barracuda began to roll and pitch nose down.

  The water churned, the nose of the sub disappeared, and the rest followed, dragging him and Joe under. The last sound Kurt heard clearly was Katarina screaming his name.

  36

  ON BOARD THE MOTOR YACHT, Katarina fell forward as the Barracuda went under. She stared at the swirling waters where the small sub had been moments before.

  “No,” she cried in a cracking whisper. “No.”

  She lowered her eyes and lay facedown on the deck, shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

  Andras stared at her. “Now, that’s a pitiful sight.”

  He walked toward her and crouched down. He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face until she was looking in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have far more pleasant plans for you.”

  She spat toward his face, but he stepped easily out of the way. “Why do you all try the same tricks?” he asked. He stood back, and kicked her for good measure.

  Stepping away, he turned to the pilothouse. “Start the engines.”

  As the diesels rumbled to life beneath the deck, Mathias, the key master, came toward him. Mathias was not one of Andras’s men; Djemma had put him aboard, perhaps to watch Andras.

  “You gave them the key,” Mathias said. “What if they escape?”

  Andras laughed. “I almost hope that they do. It would make things more interesting,” he said. “But they won’t,” he added. “At least, not both of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people have to pay for their crimes, and death is not much of a punishment.” Andras glared at the key master with fury in his eyes. He felt a particular mix of hatred and respect for Kurt Austin. He had suffered his own pain at Austin’s hands once upon a time.

  Satisfied that Mathias had been put in his place, Andras turned toward the bow.

  Mathias grabbed his arm, turning him. “I will inform Djemma. He will not find this so amusing.”

  Andras’s eyes narrowed to slits. “It wasn’t done for amusement.”

  “Then for what? I see no purpose to it.”

  “There is purpose in everything I do,” Andras assured him. “This, for example.”

  In the blink of an eye, Andras raised a tiny pistol and fired it. The report was no louder than a cap gun. There was no shouting, no wailing in pain, or even much reaction on the part of Mathias. Only a suddenly limp appearance to his face as a tiny hole appeared in the center of his forehead. He stumbled back, cross-eyed and shaking, but not dead, not yet.

  As the key master backed into the railing, Andras pulled the trigger again. Mathias tumbled backward, falling overboard and splashing noisily in the water.

  He disappeared for a second and then bobbed to the surface, supported by the gray life jacket he wore. A trickle of crimson blood flowed from two small holes in his head, but he didn’t move or even tremble.

  Andras put the pistol away, raised the shotgun for all to see, and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Anyone else have a problem with authority?” He looked around from face to face.

  No one spoke, and Andras glanced at the boat’s pilot.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The engines roared, and the motor yacht moved off. The two powerboats quickly joined it, and
the three vessels raced off to the north, trailing long wakes out behind them.

  THIRTY FEET BELOW THE SURFACE and dropping, Kurt held his breath as he and Joe rode the Barracuda down. As the pressure grew in his ears and the light from above started to fade, Kurt tried to calm himself. A plan was forming in his head, but first he had to fight off the natural reaction of fear and panic, knowing those things would kill him as quickly as anything else.

  Without goggles, everything around them was a hazy blur, but it was a yellow-green blur, which meant that the Barracuda’s lights were still on. And that meant the shotgun blasts hadn’t taken out her electrical system. And even though she was full of water, Joe had given her instruments and controls that were waterproof up to great depths.

  If he was right about their location, the seafloor would catch them near a depth of a hundred twenty feet, and then Kurt would take his shot at turning that floor into something other than a receptive grave.

  It wouldn’t be easy, but they had a fighting chance. In fact, the way Kurt figured things, their odds were almost even. It really all depended on just how the Barracuda landed.

  He pinned his eyes open even though the salt water stung and burned them. With the sub’s nose pointed down, the forward lights began to illuminate the seafloor ten seconds before they hit. Kurt saw light-colored silt with a few dark outcroppings that he assumed were volcanic rock.

  It rose up at them faster than Kurt expected. He braced himself and was slammed forward as the nose of the little sub thumped the floor like a giant lawn dart.

  The impact jarred him, but he kept his wits and immediately went into action.

  With his hands still cuffed to the Barracuda’s lift bar, Kurt swung the rest of his body outside the sub, kicking and pulling. In seconds he saw Joe doing the same thing, following his lead as promised.

  Their only hope was to create an air pocket to breathe in while the rest of the plan materialized. And the only way they could do that was to get the Barracuda over on its back and get the oxygen flowing from the sub’s compressed-air tanks.