As Emma parked beside it, a light came on inside the cockpit and a figure stepped out through the door.
“About time you got here,” Joe Zavala said. “This must be Hurricane Emma.”
Emma shot Kurt a suspicious look and then shook Joe’s hand. “I’ve been downgraded to a tropical storm. But don’t make me angry.”
“Duly noted,” Joe said. “Care to step on board?”
“I thought we’d have some loading to do,” Kurt said. “Did you get all the equipment on the list?”
“Of course,” Joe said. “It’s stored away in the aft cargo container. We also have a drop tank filled with extra fuel.”
He pointed at two pods attached near the tail: the cargo container was black and had the aerodynamics of a brick; the drop tank was sleek and tapered, with the appearance of an orange bomb.
“Did you run into the security guard?”
“Of course,” Joe said. “Who do you think helped me load this stuff?”
Kurt laughed. “Joe has a way with people,” he explained to Emma. “He was once pulled over for speeding and instead of getting a ticket, he wound up with a police escort to the Boston Pops.”
“I was late for a date,” Joe explained. “The officer was very understanding.”
Kurt checked his watch. “Getting late here, too. If we’re ready, let’s go.”
They boarded the Air-Crane through a door in the back of the cockpit. To reach it one had to walk under the fuselage, which was like walking beneath a small bridge. Even standing straight up, the backbone of the craft was several feet above their heads.
Joe took the pilot’s seat in the surprisingly tight cockpit and began to go through the start-up checklist. He had almost a thousand hours in helicopters of various types, but this was the first time he’d flown one this size.
“Are you sure you know how to fly this thing?” Kurt asked.
“They’re all the same, more or less,” Joe replied.
“It’s the less part that I’m worried about.”
“Trust me,” Joe said. “Have I ever let you down?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” Kurt said.
He sat down and strapped himself into the copilot’s seat while Emma took the third seat just behind them. As Joe finished his checklist, he turned on the navigation lights and a flashing red glow became visible out in the dark. He held the starter switch down and the rotors began to move slowly above their heads. Seconds later, the engines came to life with a throaty roar.
“Welcome aboard Zavala Flight 251 to nowhere,” he said. “Please put your tray tables in the upright and locked position.”
“Should we call the tower?” Kurt asked.
“They went home hours ago,” Joe replied.
“In that case, I’d say you’re cleared for takeoff.”
Joe ran the throttle up to full power and pulled steadily back on the collective, controlling lift. The weight came off the wheels and the helicopter began to roll forward. It lifted from the ground and turned into the wind.
Accelerating and climbing, Joe turned the Air-Crane toward the sea, and they crossed the beach and climbed out over the Pacific.
An hour later, they were nearing the spot where the Catalina had dropped off its submersible.
“I’ve got it,” Kurt said, looking through a set of night vision goggles. “Two miles ahead, ten degrees right, bobbing up and down on the surface, right where it should be.”
A low-intensity light on the Angler’s hatch—no brighter than a handheld flashlight—appeared like a magnesium flare through the goggles.
“I see it,” Joe replied. He brought the helicopter down to fifty feet and hovered directly above the submersible.
Kurt removed the night vision goggles and switched positions. He moved past Emma to an aft-facing seat at the back of the cockpit, surrounded by a clear Plexiglas bubble, reminiscent of a tail-gunner’s position in a World War II bomber.
The payload specialist’s station offered a clear view of everything behind and beneath the Air-Crane. With the flip of a switch, several floodlights came on, illuminating the scene below. The white submersible with the broad red stripe rode low in the water, surrounded by a spiraling pattern created by the downwash of the Air-Crane’s rotors.
“Back ten feet,” Kurt called out.
“Roger that,” Joe said, easing the helicopter backward.
Activating the winch controls on a panel in front of him, Kurt released a heavy steel hook and lowered it toward the Angler. His target was a prominent bar on top of the submersible’s hull that resembled the roll cage of an off-road vehicle. The thick red band painted across the top of the submersible marked the attachment point.
“Right five,” Kurt said. “Forward two.”
As Joe maneuvered the Air-Crane, Kurt made several attempts to hook the Angler, but the task wasn’t as easy as it looked. If the submersible rose on a swell at the wrong moment, the hook bounced off its hull. Other times, the hook swung and missed as the attachment point dropped beneath it like a boxer ducking a slow punch.
Kurt was seriously considering getting wet and placing the hook by hand when a solid click and tension on the line told him he’d nabbed his catch.
“Got it!” he said, reeling in the slack. “Dropping second cable.”
The second cable didn’t attach to the submersible; it was already connected to the first cable, and also to a hardpoint near the nose gear. Its purpose was to act as a guide and keep the payload from twisting in the swirling downwash from the main rotor.
“Second cable locked.”
“Pull it up,” Joe said. “Can’t have NUMA getting fined for littering.”
Kurt set the winch control to retract and the braided steel cable went taut. The strain of lifting the four-ton submersible was felt instantly and the helicopter dipped several feet before Joe countered the effect. As the roar of the engines grew, the Angler came free of the Pacific and was soon locked in place, snugly up against Merlin’s belly.
“Outstanding,” Emma announced. “Never let it be said that the men of NUMA fail to impress.”
“It’s what we do,” Joe replied, a false tone of bravado purposely evident in his voice.
Kurt made one last check of the winch controls and turned back toward the cockpit. “Onward.”
At Joe’s command, the Air-Crane began to move forward once more, picking up speed and altitude more slowly this time as it thundered across the sea toward their next destination.
“How far to the ship?” Joe asked.
Emma checked the handheld GPS unit she carried. “Ninety miles from here.”
“That gives us time to practice our sales pitch,” Kurt said.
“Have you decided what you want to tell them?”
“I was thinking I’d appeal to the most basic universal desire.”
“I don’t think love is going to help us here,” Joe said.
“The other universal desire,” Kurt said. “Money. Everyone wants to be rich.”
“But we have no money to give them,” Emma pointed out.
Kurt nodded. “Who says we have to use our own?”
Both Emma and Joe gave him a quizzical look, but Kurt said no more; he was still working out the details.
11
MS Reunion
Refrigerated cargo carrier
En route from Chile to San Diego
The MS Reunion was running with a full complement of lights as it steamed north at eleven knots. Lit up like this, the ship was visible from miles away, a white beacon alone on the dark mat of the sea.
After a brief conversation with the Reunion’s night watch, the Air-Crane was cleared to land. Joe maneuvered toward the elevated pad near the bow of the ship and planted the big helicopter in the exact center of its yellow circle.
One of
the ship’s officers watched the landing and couldn’t help but be impressed at the pilot’s skill, especially since there was no more than ten feet to spare on either side and only two feet of clearance between the helipad deck and the bottom of . . . whatever the big orange machine was carrying.
With Merlin tied down, the officer led the new arrivals toward the bridge, stealing several glances at the attractive woman with auburn hair. It wasn’t often they had female guests on board, and he couldn’t recall ever having one this striking here for a visit.
In the lighted confines of the bridge, introductions were made and pleasantries exchanged. That the captain of the Reunion was an American played into their hands. That he’d been woken in the middle of the night weighed against them, but that couldn’t be helped.
Captain Buck Kamphausen arrived on the bridge dressed in his boxers and a T-shirt, with a jacket thrown over his shoulders. Six foot three, sporting a patchy brown beard with plenty of gray creeping in, he wore rectangular glasses, which he was constantly adjusting, often with a glance at Emma.
Kamphausen was an affable fellow; he knew of NUMA and considered himself a big fan. As they spoke, though, he looked like he might agree to anything as long as Emma promised to stay on board and dine with him.
“What we need,” Kurt summed up, “is to use your ship as a floating base for a few days.”
Kamphausen scratched his beard. “For what purpose?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Kurt said.
Kamphausen’s demeanor changed instantly. “Let me get this straight,” he said gruffly. “You land on my ship in the middle of the night, bringing god-knows-what on board; you ask me to change course, fake a mechanical problem and possibly miss my delivery schedule—but you won’t tell me what you’re attempting to do or explain what I’m getting involved in?”
“I know it sounds odd,” Kurt began.
“More like, downright lunacy.”
“The thing is,” Kurt said, trying to keep the meeting on track, “we—and by we, I mean the United States government—can make it worth your while.”
“Not worth my while to get fired or busted down to seaman first class,” the captain said.
“I don’t know about that,” Kurt said. “Depends on how much we recover.”
Interest sparked up in the captain’s eyes. “Recover?”
Kurt nodded.
Kamphausen’s gaze narrowed. He adjusted his glasses once more and focused on Kurt. “Go on.”
“You’re familiar with NUMA,” Kurt said. “You know what we do. We find things on the bottom of the ocean. At the risk of saying too much, that contraption we’ve got tucked up under our helicopter is a specially designed submersible, built to search for something that is extremely valuable.”
He was stretching it a bit here, but he needed to sound confident.
“Something the United States government wants to find very badly,” Emma added.
Kurt cleared his throat to get the captain’s mind and eyes focused back in his direction. “It’s been my experience that the monetary rewards of helping the government can be quite substantial—”
“If I recall correctly,” Joe busted in, “everyone who helped us find that lost U-boat received a percentage of the diamonds we recovered or the equivalent value in cash, if they preferred.”
“Diamonds?” Kamphausen said.
“On that mission,” Kurt cautioned.
“Percentage?” the First Officer asked eagerly. “What kind of percentage?”
“Like in the old pirate days,” Joe said. “One share for each crewman, two shares for the NCOs, three shares for commissioned officers and four for the captain.”
Kurt nodded in support of Joe’s ad-lib as if it were standard practice. Captain Kamphausen and the First Officer exchanged a knowing look.
Emma chimed in to help the process. “As the saying in government goes, a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money. You don’t need a large cut of that to buy a summer home in Tahiti.”
“But you can’t tell us what you’re looking for,” the captain repeated.
Kurt shook his head. “I can’t. But think about this: Would we be here, in the dark of night, asking for your help, if it wasn’t something extremely important?”
Knowing the plan would work best if the crew convinced themselves, Kurt let them run with their fantasy, until a voice of reason interrupted.
“Hold on a second,” a new arrival said. “I’m supercargo on this run. I’m responsible for the entire shipment. We’re carrying fresh fruit. Limes, apples, oranges and kiwis. If we’re more than four days late, the shipment will be rejected. My company will be out several million dollars and I’ll be out of a job.”
Kurt looked at Joe. “What do you think?”
“I believe we can swing it,” Joe said.
Kurt nodded. “We only need a couple of days,” he said, turning to the fruit company’s rep. “But if we are delayed more than forty-eight hours, the United States government will buy the cargo. Lock, stock and barrel.”
“Or in this case, limes, apples and oranges,” Joe added.
“Don’t forget the kiwis,” the representative said.
“How could I?”
The captain stroked his beard. “Diamonds?”
“I didn’t say that,” Kurt reminded everyone.
“Barrels full of ’em,” the First Officer said. “I saw it on TV.”
“We’ll need to have papers drawn up,” the captain added.
Kurt glanced at Emma as if she were in charge of such things.
“Of course,” she said. “There will also be confidentiality agreements and required radio and electronic silence until we release the ship back into your custody. Any violation of which will terminate the profit-sharing agreement and result in criminal charges.”
The winds of Hurricane Emma had suddenly blown cold. But it did nothing to dampen the mood.
“We can keep quiet for a couple of days,” the First Officer said convincingly.
The fruit company rep looked suspicious. “I want papers ASAP.”
“I’ll contact Washington and have the papers drawn up first thing in the morning,” Kurt insisted.
Kamphausen grinned and offered Kurt a hand. “I’ve always wanted to get in on an adventure like this one.”
“If history’s any guide, you’ll get more than you bargained for,” Kurt said. “In the meantime, we should all get to work. We need to change headings.”
The captain took one last look as if wondering whether he might be losing his mind. He glanced out the window to the orange helicopter sitting on his deck and the high-tech submarine nestled beneath it and reminded himself of everything he knew about NUMA. “Helmsman,” he called. “Lay in a new course.”
“What heading?”
He turned to Kurt. “Whatever direction our new partners want us to go.”
12
Kurt gave the helmsman a new heading and the ship veered to the northwest. In the interest of secrecy, Kurt had the captain shut down the AIS beacon so their position would not be reported automatically to the satellite system that tracked the world’s seagoing vessels. That done, he returned to the main deck and used an encrypted satellite phone to call Rudi Gunn.
Rudi was still in Guayaquil, working the political angle and hoping to get some assistance from the Ecuadorian defense forces without telling them why. Despite it being the middle of the night, Rudi answered on the second ring. “One of these days, you’ll call me during normal business hours,” he grumbled.
“These are normal business hours,” Kurt said. “NUMA never sleeps.”
“NUMA doesn’t, but I do,” Rudi replied. “What can I do for you, my insomnia-stricken friend?”
“I just wanted to give you an update,” Kurt said. “I’ve le
ft Ecuador, Joe and Emma are with me, but don’t put it in any reports. The Chinese have agents everywhere, and we’re not sure about the NSA right now. They may have been compromised.”
“Great,” Rudi said. “Maybe I’ll start sending them false information.”
“Not a bad idea,” Kurt said. “At any rate, we’re on our own. And we’re not going to be checking back in for a while.”
“Then why bother to tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” Kurt said as warmly as possible.
“Where are you?”
“On a refrigerated cargo ship. Only, don’t bother looking for us. We’re temporarily invisible.”
Kurt heard what sounded like movement and a soft click. He imagined Rudi throwing back the covers of his bed, sitting up and switching on the light. The tone in Rudi’s voice perked up instantly. “You’ve found something?”
“Maybe,” Kurt said.
“Hot damn,” Rudi replied. “Wake me with that kind of news anytime. What’s the probability?”
“Fairly good. Check with Hiram for details and stand by. Also keep the rest of the fleet doing their thing. The busier they look, the less likely anyone is to notice that we’ve gone off the map. Might even want to pretend you’ve found something back that way, it’ll draw the heat in your direction.”
“Great idea. I’ll get something in the works. I’ll even put it in a report to the NSA.”
“Perfect,” Kurt said. He was about to sign off and hang up when another thought occurred to him. “One more thing. If you happen to get any calls from the Malabar Shipping Line or the Golden Fruit Company of Valparaiso, Chile . . . I wouldn’t answer them right away. Probably just a telemarketer.”
The gloom returned to Rudi’s voice. “Do I even want to know?”
“Put it this way,” Kurt said. “If I don’t find what we’re looking for in the next two days, there will be no shortage of limes for your margaritas.”
Rudi acknowledged with a soft grunt and then hung up. Kurt switched off the phone and turned to see Emma approaching him.