“I don’t see any cabs,” she said.
“A little late to call Uber.”
They jumped down together, landing solidly on the deserted front walk. Almost immediately, the trio of men who’d been at the far end of the alley came racing back out onto the main boulevard and sprinted toward them.
“Go,” Kurt yelled.
They ran across the street and this time several shots came their way. No loud concussions, just soft pops from well-suppressed handguns, the impacts marked by a sudden shattering of car windows parked on the far side of the road.
Kurt dove across the hood of a classic BMW 2002 and took cover as the well-preserved machine took the brunt of a minor onslaught.
At the sound of the shooting, the few people still out on the street raced for cover.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t shoot us?” Emma asked.
“It must be plan B: Target elimination.”
To see without exposing himself to a well-placed shot, Kurt ripped the mirror off the side of the car. “Sacrilege,” he whispered as he vandalized one of his favorite old machines.
Using the mirror as a periscope, he said, “They’re surrounding us again.”
“Can you hot-wire a car?”
“Not in the blink of an eye,” Kurt said. “Especially with people shooting at me.”
He looked down the street. A pair of buses idled at a quiet stop beside the next intersection. “How to feel about public transportation?”
“It’ll do in a pinch.”
“Let’s see if we can make the crosstown express,” Kurt said.
They darted from the cover of the old BMW, cut diagonally across the lawn of a small church and ran toward the idling buses.
“Yuck,” Emma gasped as she ran.
“What?” Kurt said.
“Wet grass, bare feet.”
At least she didn’t slow down.
They reached the bus stop just as the lead bus began to move out. Kurt crashed through the door with Emma right behind him. The driver instinctively slammed on the brakes.
Kurt lunged forward, pulled him from the seat and stomped on the gas pedal. The big diesel engine roared and the bus lurched forward and began to pick up speed. Kurt grabbed the wheel and steered to the left.
Behind him, the driver had pulled a can of Mace and aimed it. Kurt shut his eyes, turned away and kept his foot on the gas. A commotion followed and a loud thud. When Kurt looked up, Emma had disarmed the bus driver, flung him to the ground and taken possession of his spray can.
“Nice work,” Kurt said.
She brandished the Mace in the driver’s direction and pointed. He looked and then moved back to the first open seat.
“No vamos a hacerle daño a nadie,” Emma said in fluent Spanish. “Estamos trabajando para el gobierno.”
Kurt continued to drive the bus, swinging wide around a corner and down the next street. The crowd stayed put. The murmuring didn’t end, but there were no uprisings. “What did you tell them?”
“I said we’re not going to hurt anyone and that we’re working for the government,” she explained. “It’s true, if you think about it. I just didn’t specify which government.”
“Works for me,” Kurt said, rotating the big steering wheel and guiding the bus down the road. The big rig was surprisingly easy to drive as long as he went straight. How the drivers traversed narrow cobblestone streets without taking out parked cars and the corners of buildings, Austin couldn’t imagine.
And after a mile, they’d reached the outskirts of Las Peñas. Kurt figured they’d left the Chinese agents far enough behind. He began to slow, easing over to the shoulder and looking for a place to park.
A sudden jolt from behind whiplashed his neck and sent shivers through the bus. The passengers screamed and several were thrown from their seats. Emma fell against the front window before regaining her balance.
Stomping on the gas instinctively, Kurt checked the mirror. The problem was obvious: a second bus had raced up behind with its lights off and rammed them. It was now maneuvering to pull alongside. Kurt swerved to cut it off and kept accelerating, but they failed to leave the other bus behind.
“Modelo nuevo,” the bus driver shouted to Kurt. “Más rápido.”
Emma explained. “He says that the other bus is a newer model and much faster.”
“I got the gist,” Kurt said, trying desperately to keep the other bus from getting beside them.
The two traveling monoliths continued to accelerate, roaring down the dark street and away from the brightly lit Las Peñas section of town. Other cars swerved from the road to get out of the way and Kurt accidentally took out a line of newspaper machines on the edge of the sidewalk, scattering a hundred copies of El Telegrafo, El Universo and El Metro into the air.
They careened through an intersection to a chorus of horns and onto a more deserted stretch of road that led down the hill and out toward the coast. With the pedal floored and heading downhill, the bus began to shudder; it wasn’t built for speed.
“They’re coming again!” Emma shouted.
Another hit from their pursuer rocked the bus. A third ramming attempt almost forced them off the road.
Fighting for control, Kurt had to slow down. In response, the other bus raced up beside them and swerved. The two buses crashed together, windows shattered and the passengers screamed. Some dove to the floor, others began to pray.
If there was going to be a beating, Kurt preferred to dish it out rather than take it. “Get everyone on the left side,” he shouted.
Emma waved the passengers over. Once they’d taken new seats, Kurt rolled the wheel to the right. The buses crashed together again and separated and the newer model fell back.
As they reached a long straight section of road, it came up once again. This time, Kurt glanced at the driver. It was the Chinese man with the bloodied nose.
“Hang on,” Kurt said, expecting another cross-check.
Instead of hitting him, the other driver just pulled close and held formation. Two heavy thumps sounded on the roof above them.
“We’ve been boarded,” Kurt said.
One set of dents appeared directly above him and Kurt knew what was about to happen. He dove from the driver’s seat as a collection of holes appeared in the sheet metal above and a spray of bullets perforated the seat and the dashboard where he’d been sitting.
Lunging to the floor, he slammed his palm into the brake pedal.
The air brakes clasped the wheels at full strength and the bus went into a skid. The man flew off the roof and landed on a spiked fence. Skewered, he passed from view.
Kurt jumped back into the driver’s seat as a second man swung down from the roof, his hands grasping the luggage rack. He came in from the side, kicking the door open and grabbing for Kurt’s throat.
Emma nailed him in the thigh with her knee. He fell back and she blasted him in the eyes with a burst of the pepper spray. He covered his eyes and dropped into the fetal position. She promptly kicked him out through the door.
“Cambio exacto,” she said.
To Kurt’s surprise, the passengers cheered.
“Exact change,” she said. “He didn’t have it. So I had to kick him off the bus. Get it?”
Guiding the bus through a sweeping, high-speed turn, Kurt laughed. “We’re going to have to work on your delivery. But great work.”
For the next mile, Kurt was able to keep the other bus well behind them, but when the road straightened, the bus closed in once again. Another slam from behind almost sent them down the embankment, while the lights of the Malecón, and a sign depicting a boat being pulled out of the water by a trailer, whipped past.
“We’re running out of road,” Emma said. “Unless you can make this thing swim, we’re going to need an exit strategy.”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Kurt said.
“No, actually, it wasn’t,” she said.
“Seriously, it’s genius,” Kurt replied.
“But buses don’t swim.”
“Exactly!”
Kurt slowed around the next turn and edged to the left. The other bus pulled up once again, dutifully taking the right side. It came over and hit them once. Then did so again. Kurt held his ground and waited until he saw the opening for the boat ramp.
Spotting it, he turned hard and held it. The two buses locked together, sections of sheet metal tearing loose and scraping the road.
Racing forward with a trail of sparks flaring out behind them, they came to the Y junction and the boat ramp.
Kurt gave the other bus a final shove and then spun the wheel back to the left. As the two buses separated, the one driven by the Chinese agent went down the boat ramp. The driver locked up the brakes, but the bus skidded on the wet, angled surface and slammed into the bay. A sheet of water flew up and crashed down around it. When the bus came to a stop, two-thirds of it was submerged.
Kurt brought his vehicle under control and continued down the road. Less than a mile later, he pulled into a bus stop on the outskirts of the Malecón.
Several people scattered, in shock at the condition of the bus. As Kurt parked, one of the front tires blew and the entire bus tilted to the side. Broken windows and paneling swung back and forth while chunks of glass dropped to the floor. When the air brakes hissed to release their pressure, the old bus gave up the ghost.
Kurt opened the door and waved a hand toward it as if delivering his passengers on a daily run. “Welcome to the Malecón. Watch your step.”
The passengers just stared at him with blank and confused expressions. “Tough crowd,” he said, switching the sign up front to: Sin Servicio—Out of Service.
He and Emma stepped off the bus together and made their way toward the crowd of tourists down below on the promenade.
“Think they’ll be back?” Emma asked, looking toward the boat ramp.
“Not tonight,” Kurt said. “If they’re not injured, they’re probably running and hiding, like we should be doing. But I’m assuming your NSA friends can get us out of any trouble we encounter.”
“I think we’ll be okay,” she said. “So how’d I do?”
“Not bad, for a rookie,” he said.
“Not bad?” she replied. “I totally saved you from some Mace in the face. And I got rid of the guy who tried to Tarzan into our crosstown express.”
Kurt laughed and the two of them eased into the flow of people, disappearing into the crowd and making their way to a secluded spot farther down on the pier.
“Okay, you did great,” Kurt admitted. “Just don’t let it go to your head.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “As long as I get appropriate credit in your report.”
“I’ll make you look good,” he said, “which won’t be hard to do. But if you really want a gold star, you’re going to have to take another risk. One that most of your NSA coworkers would have a meltdown even contemplating.”
She narrowed her gaze, looking suspicious and excited all at the same time. “And that step would be . . .”
Kurt pulled out his phone, double-checked the message from Hiram Yaeger and made up his mind. “We need to steal our own equipment and go rogue for a while.”
“Because stealing a bus wasn’t enough excitement for one night?”
“We’re being watched,” he said. “The group we met tonight aren’t the only agents we’re going to have to deal with. And our problems won’t end when we get to the open sea. According to a few satellite photos I looked at before dinner, some awfully suspicious-looking trawlers are already following the Catalina and our other vessels.”
“Chinese spy trawlers with tall masts and lots of antennas,” she said. “I already know about them. But none of that matters if we can find the Nighthawk and pull it off the bottom before their salvage fleet gets here.”
“Which would be great if it was just sitting down there ready to be picked up like a stuffed bear in a carnival game. But I have information suggesting it didn’t come down in one piece like your people think it did. In fact, it’s probably sitting on the bottom in several large pieces and a thousand small ones.”
She folded her arms across her chest, a faraway look that suggested she was calculating something. “Our people are adamant that the Nighthawk did not break up.”
“And my people have audio recordings from underwater listening posts that pinpoint an impact four minutes and seventeen seconds after you lost track of the Nighthawk. The particular sound signatures suggest a high-speed surface impact, mid-frequency noise consistent with sudden generation of superheated steam—which is to be expected when a thousand-degree surface touches seventy-degree waters—and low-volume implosions at deeper depths consistent with wreckage breaking up.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Approximately fifty miles east of the Galápagos Islands chain,” Kurt said. “Right in the heart of your probability cone.”
“How sure are you?”
“Certain enough to risk a case of Don Julio tequila and a box of Cuban cigars,” he said. “Trust me, this information is not wrong. Our subsurface listening posts are more advanced than the Navy’s SOSUS line and our computers, and the guy who built them, are one of a kind.”
She seemed almost convinced. “Share it with the NSA’s central office and we’ll confirm. I promise you’ll get the credit.”
“I don’t care about credit,” he said. “And telling anyone at the NSA would be a major mistake.”
For the first time, she looked angry. “You’re working for us, remember?”
“Sure,” Kurt said. “But what about everyone else who’s working for you? Are you willing to bet no one’s moonlighting?”
By the look on her face, she obviously got the implication. She clenched her jaw and stared at him, and Kurt wondered if Hurricane Emma was about to make an appearance. “What are you getting at?”
“We’ve only been here for six hours, we’ve already been followed and attacked. There’s a Chinese spy trawler following the Catalina and it’s officially still doing an environmental survey. By the look of things, the Chinese are aware of every move we make almost before we make it. That tells me we have a leak.”
“It might not be the NSA,” she suggested. “How can you be sure NUMA doesn’t have a mole hiding in the woodwork somewhere?”
“I can’t,” he admitted. “That’s why we tell no one about our next move. Not NUMA, not the NSA, no one. It’s the only way to be sure this information doesn’t end up in the daily briefing in Shanghai.”
She looked him in the eye. Once she’d accepted his logic, the path became clear. Her lips curved into a knowing smile. “Okay,” she said. “So we go rogue. I must admit, it has a certain appeal. Count me in.”
“Fantastic,” he said. “Now . . . all we need is a helicopter and a ship big enough to operate from. One they would never suspect us to be using.”
9
NUMA vessel Catalina
One hundred miles west-southwest of Guayaquil
2200 hours
The NUMA vessel Catalina continued through the night on a northerly heading, traveling at full speed. Two hundred and sixty feet long, the Catalina was sleek for a research vessel and she took to the high-speed run well, cutting through the waves and rolling only slightly with the crossing swells.
Gamay Trout was thankful for the ship’s stability as she walked from the communications room to the bridge with an odd message to deliver.
Five foot ten and willowy in build, Gamay had dark red hair with a rich and ever-changing luster; her eyes and easy smile suggested a tough playfulness, brought about from growing up as a tomboy. She spoke in a clear, concise way, with few wasted
words, a pattern she’d been told came from an uncluttered mind that moved with effortless speed.
At any rate, she had a never flagging sense of urgency that had earned her several degrees, including a Doctorate in Marine Biology and a Master’s in Marine Archaeology.
Most men found her attractive, but not in a superficial way that faded over time. The more time they spent with her, the more impressed they were, partly because she put them at ease. It was a gift, one she was trying to summon as she approached the bridge with a directive that had just come in from Kurt Austin.
She smiled as she entered the bridge, spotting Ed Callahan, the Catalina’s captain, his executive officer—or XO—and her husband, Paul, conversing near the radar scope.
“Good evening,” Callahan said. “Sorry I’ve kept Paul up here for so long. We’re discussing the scuttlebutt surrounding our change of plans. The fact that we were ordered off a study we’d spent five months prepping for has a few people concerned.”
She raised a single eyebrow. “Gossiping around the watercooler and I wasn’t invited? Shame on both of you.”
“Inexcusable,” Callahan replied. “Consider this an official request to join our party.”
The captain made space in the group for her to join and she slid in next to her husband. Paul was a towering man of six foot eight who spoke seriously and quietly. Gamay had met him at Scripps Institute, where Paul was getting his own Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences. They’d married soon after and had been inseparable ever since. After joining NUMA together and becoming part of the Special Projects team on the same day, rumor had it working together had been written into their employment contracts.
“Any idea what’s going on?” Callahan asked.
“Not really, but . . .”
Ever the voice of reason, Paul spoke up. “I told everyone to expect the unexpected when Kurt’s involved. Though I’m sure it won’t be anything too crazy.”
Gamay took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t put money on that.”
Callahan noticed the dispatch in her hand. “What have you got for me?”