Gupta set the teacup down. “He’s lucky to be alive. Is he still coming to the meeting tomorrow?”
“As far as I know. But he’s gone into hiding until then.”
“Maybe we should, too.”
“You’ll be safe on my plane. It has all of the latest defense features, and I travel with a squad of former Special Forces operatives at all times.”
“It’s too bad that the defensive capabilities weren’t enough to save your son. Again, my condolences.”
Carlton pursed his lips at Gupta’s hollow words of sympathy. “It was a necessary sacrifice. I thought he might change his lazy, spendthrift ways and become an heir to my seat of the Nine Unknown, but it was not to be. Besides, I have four more sons to choose from.”
Gupta gave him a mirthless smile. “Of course.” He paused, then said, “You don’t seem very concerned about Wakefield’s incident in Sydney.”
“Why should I be?” Carlton leaned toward Gupta. “Were you behind it?”
“Certainly not. Are you accusing me of—”
Carlton smiled and waved his hand. “Relax. I know it wasn’t you.”
“How?”
“Because I know who did it . . . Do you?”
“I had suspected Wakefield of being behind the attack on the Colossus 5 until yesterday. In fact, I spoke to him right before he was assaulted, hoping to catch him in a lie. Now you seem to have all the answers. Who is it?”
“Romir Mallik.”
Gupta sat back as if he’d been slapped. “Mallik? But he’s always been so enthusiastic about the Colossus Project. How sure are you?”
“Sure enough to blow up one of his satellite rockets two days ago.”
“You did what?” Gupta shouted, his eyes bugging out. “Are you crazy?”
“Far from it.” Carlton stood and went to the door. “Walk with me.”
Gupta followed him out of the office. They passed a conference room into the upper lounge and walked up a wide staircase to a second lounge, this one with a baby grand piano as its centerpiece.
They continued aft past four sumptuous staterooms, one of which would be Gupta’s. In the tail section, they reached a third lounge. This one had an array of leather chairs on three low risers that were tiered higher toward a set of spiral stairs at the back. A door behind the stairs separated this room from the workers’ quarters and galley. The walls were decorated with a wide assortment of ancient weapons, everything from scimitars and spears to crossbows and throwing stars.
Gupta examined the armaments closely.
“I wouldn’t want to be in this room during turbulence,” he said.
“They’re all securely fastened to the wall,” Carlton said. “I understand that you’re a fan of weapons like I am.”
Gupta nodded. “But my tastes go more toward firearms.”
Carlton shrugged. “Difficult to collect in England.”
Gupta stopped at an edged weapon shaped vaguely like an ampersand, with a short spike projecting from just above the hilt at one end and a two-headed axe that had a pointed blade on one side and a wicked curved hook on the other.
“I’ve never seen one of these before,” Gupta said. “What’s it called?”
“A hunga munga. It’s an African tribal weapon. Although it can be used to hack at an enemy, it’s even deadlier in the hands of a skilled thrower.” Carlton gestured at one of the chairs. “Please take a seat.”
While Gupta settled into it, Carlton pressed a button on the wall, which lowered to reveal a huge monitor.
“Are we watching a movie?” Gupta snidely asked while he checked his phone. “What does this have to do with Romir Mallik?”
Carlton rolled his eyes. “I guarantee you will want to see this.”
Gupta put away the phone and crossed his arms. Apparently, his initial shock at Carlton’s accusation was gone, replaced by a generous dose of skepticism.
“Is this going to be a video of the rocket explosion? Because I’ve seen it already. Your networks have been broadcasting it on a loop since the failed launch.”
“No,” Carlton said. “But I do have a mole inside his satellite launch operation. That’s how I was able to destroy the rocket.”
“A mole?” Gupta asked. “Why would you go to that trouble?”
“For months now, I’ve been annoyed by the minor setbacks in the Colossus program. Faulty programming, production hiccups, delayed schedules. Nothing that would be noticeable as outright sabotage, but when added together, all of these small problems pointed to a delaying tactic. Someone has been slowing down our progress.”
“Why haven’t you brought this before the entire Nine?”
“Because I didn’t know who to trust. Any one of you could have been behind it.”
“How do you know these aren’t just the normal types of problems you find with any large engineering project?”
“Because I asked Colossus. According to its calculations, there is a ninety-six percent probability that all of these small problems are being caused deliberately.”
Gupta’s eyes went wide. “That’s incredible!”
“You can ask them yourself. You’ll get the same answer.”
“I will when we’re done here. It said that Mallik is the culprit?”
“No, it couldn’t know that. I couldn’t be sure until the attack on the Colossus 5. When that happened, I knew I was right and that I had to take action to deliver Mallik his own setback.”
“But that still doesn’t prove he’s responsible,” Gupta protested.
“This does,” Carlton said.
He took a remote control from his pocket and cued the video.
The soundless image showed the Colossus 5 in the background, lit up at night, docked in the Moretti Navi shipyard, which was owned by Daniel Saidon, a member of the Nine. A still-standing crane was in the foreground, and a man was coming down the stairs. His face wasn’t clear from this distance. When he reached the bottom, he was confronted by two dockworkers, who were animatedly talking to him. Suddenly, one of them ran up the crane’s stairs while the other two men continued to talk.
Moments later, there was a flash, and the crane toppled over onto the Colossus 5. Then the dockworker who’d confronted the stranger collapsed to the ground. The man turned and put a gun back under his uniform. He looked around and walked out of view.
The image then cut to a different camera. This was another static view of the ship. Men were running in the background and waving their arms. Then the view was obscured for just a second as someone walked past the camera.
“Remarkably, this was the only clear view we got of the saboteur,” Carlton said.
He reversed the video and hit pause when the man was in front of the camera. His face was blurry but recognizable.
Gupta leaned forward and stared at the screen in astonishment. “That’s Asad Torkan.” He turned to Carlton. “How did you get this? Were you expecting the attack on the ship?”
“It seemed to be a logical step if we were about to launch the Colossus 5 and Mallik wanted to prevent that from happening before he completed his satellite network. Without telling Saidon, I arranged to download all of the camera feeds from his shipyard in Naples.”
“You spied on Daniel Saidon’s own facility?”
“As I said, I didn’t know who to trust. But it turned out to be Romir Mallik’s man. I think the proof I did collect is clear enough.”
“You’ve got me convinced,” Gupta said, rubbing his temples. “What a mess! Torkan was the one who saved Wakefield yesterday.”
“A clever setup, I’m sure,” Carlton said with a smile, pleased that Gupta agreed the evidence was incriminating. “No doubt to cast suspicion away from him and onto one of us.”
“We’ve got to tell the others.”
“We will. At the meeting. But that’s n
ot enough. We have to shut down Mallik’s satellite ambitions.”
“What is the satellite network for?” Gupta asked. “Why is it so important?”
“I believe it’s something that could destroy the Colossus Project, but my mole couldn’t confirm its capabilities. In fact, I’ve lost contact with him. The last message he sent me was that another satellite will soon be ready to launch in place of the one I had destroyed.”
“Then we need to stop Mallik.”
“Exactly,” Carlton said. “And we need to convince the others in the Nine. That’s why I asked you to join me on this flight. We have some planning to do to take him down. Tomorrow you’re going to help me spring the trap.”
FIFTEEN
JHOOTHA ISLAND
After a thirty-hour voyage that allowed everyone on board the Oregon to get a good rest, they arrived at the twenty-mile exclusion zone around the forbidden island and prepared for a morning reconnaissance. The Indian government didn’t monitor the area in real time, so the odds of running across one of their Coast Guard patrol vessels were slim. However, Juan wasn’t going to take any chances of a flyover by one of their airplanes, so he thought it best to approach its shores by stealth.
When he reached the Oregon’s moon pool, the familiar smell of fuel and seawater greeted him. The cavernous space was the largest on the ship, with a gantry crane suspended above a rectangle of water the size of an Olympic swimming pool. The water in the moon pool was level with the ocean, so there was no danger of the chamber flooding. Two enormous doors in the keel swung down and away to allow vessels to be launched and recovered unseen.
A large submarine called Nomad, designed for deep-water dives, remained hanging from the ceiling in its cradle.
Its smaller sibling, the Gator, had already been lowered into position for its dive through the open keel, and the clang of metal echoed through the huge space as the submersible was made ready. The forty-foot-long submersible had a low-profile cupola with narrow windows on all four sides and an air snorkel behind it. The flat-topped deck was barely above water level. Like an alligator, it would be nearly invisible at night, capable of sneaking up on ships at sea with no warning using battery-powered motors. It could fully submerge, but also rise to the surface and use powerful diesels to dash across the water.
As he descended the stairs to the wet-deck, Juan was surprised to see helicopter and drone pilot George “Gomez” Adams, who didn’t venture into this area of the ship very often. He’d gotten his nickname after a dalliance with a drug lord’s wife who looked just like Morticia Addams from the sixties television show The Addams Family. Because of his dashing good looks and a handlebar mustache that would look appropriate on Wyatt Earp, Gomez frequently got himself into that kind of trouble.
“I thought you flyboys didn’t like going underwater,” Juan said.
“Only when we’re in something that’s supposed to stay in the air,” said Gomez, who was tinkering with a saucer-sized quadcopter drone. “Since we’re going to be doing some delicate reconnaissance today, it seemed like a good idea for me to come along. Besides, you won’t need me in the helicopter for this operation.”
Juan nodded. “Right. No clearings big enough to land in. But what if we need you to operate some of the other drones on the Oregon?”
Gomez bent down and picked up a gadget the size of a videogame controller. “I’ve got a new toy. Max rigged this up for me. With the high-def screen we have on the Gator, I can operate any drone on board the Oregon remotely. I can even use it if we’re submerged, because of the telescoping antenna. This allows us to extend the control range of all our drones.” He nodded to a whip-thin metal projection at the back of the Gator that was currently at its full extension.
“Then we’re happy to have you along. Did Max brief you on the mission parameters?”
Gomez nodded. “We stay as invisible as possible. Don’t want the natives to know they’re being observed, right?”
“Right. Will they be able to hear or see the drones?”
“They won’t be able to hear this one as long as I keep it above a hundred feet. At low speed it’s whisper quiet. Assuming they don’t happen to look straight up at it, we should get in and out unobserved.”
“The island jungle is thick. Will you be able to dodge the trees while we have the camera trained on the ground?”
“With the obstacle avoidance software we just installed, the drone will automatically fly around anything thicker than a telephone wire.”
“Given the natives have never had any contact with the civilized world, I’d say you won’t have to worry about stray electrical cables.”
“Just vines,” Gomez said. “I’ll be careful.”
Juan followed him down the hatch into the Gator’s cabin. Linda was already at the controls. Eddie, Linc, Raven, and MacD rounded out Juan’s mission team. Juan didn’t think they’d be going ashore, but they were prepared anyway. All of them except Linda and Gomez were wearing tactical gear, and the cabin held dive equipment and a full complement of weapons in case some unwanted visitors had already landed on the island. Engaging the indigenous natives was strictly prohibited no matter what happened.
When the pre-mission checks were completed, they closed the hatch, and the tethers were detached. Linda dived the boat, and the Gator sank below the Oregon. When it was clear of the keel doors, she guided it away from the ship and up until the air snorkel poked above the surface, allowing them to switch from battery power to diesel. The motors purred to life, and they settled in for the hour-long journey.
When they reached the protective reef around the island, they surfaced and Gomez launched the drone.
Linda came up just far enough for the cupola to emerge from the water. The deck was inches above the calm surface. Since the hatch slid open, a careful observer on the island looking in their direction would be hard-pressed to see them.
The four propeller blades on the drone whirred to life and it shot up through the open hatch. MacD closed it, and Linda dived back down so that only the snorkel and antenna were visible.
They crowded around the large screen while Gomez guided the drone toward the island. It crossed over the waves crashing onto the formidable barrier reef.
“Hard to believe anyone could get past that reef,” Gomez said.
“There are just a few breaks in the atoll,” Linda replied from the cockpit. “If we need to get closer, I think it’ll be possible to get in, but we might scrape the bottom.”
“First, let’s see if there’s a reason to,” Juan said.
The drone arrived at the beach, which was only a few yards wide before it surrendered to the dense jungle.
“The island is four miles across, so a grid search of the interior will take a while,” Gomez said. “I plan to do a perimeter survey and then work our way in. By the way, what are we looking for, exactly?”
“Anything that doesn’t belong,” Juan said.
“Sounds like we’ll know it when we see it,” Linc said.
“I still can’t guess why someone would want to come to this island,” Raven said. “According to the Indian government, there’s nothing of value here.”
“Except privacy,” Eddie said.
“There’s a whole lot of that,” MacD said. “It looks like the land that time forgot.”
“The natives are lucky they have nothing valuable to the outside world,” Juan said, “or they would have been driven out decades ago.”
The drone began circling the island. The jungle was so thick that they could only see a few yards into the trees before the view was blocked by foliage.
When the drone was halfway around the island, Juan spotted something out of place, so he had Gomez hover.
“What’s that?” he said. “Hold it there, Gomez.”
“Looks like a path,” Eddie said.
He was right. The underbrus
h was trampled, and they could even see some footprints in the sand.
A cluster of tiny white objects was visible at the edge of the jungle.
“Zoom in,” Juan said, pointing at them.
Gomez adjusted the high-resolution camera until it was at the maximum zoom. The white objects were still small, but the way they were haphazardly arranged looked familiar.
“Am I wrong,” Juan said, “or are those cigarette butts?”
“You think someone came ashore there and had a few smokes?” Linc asked.
“I doubt it,” Linda said. “There aren’t any openings in the reef near there.”
“And, I’d say those natives are wearing shoes.”
“I can fly down for a closer look,” Gomez said.
“Not yet,” Juan said. “In case there are people around, I don’t want to risk showing our hand until we need to. If we don’t see anything else during the perimeter survey, we’ll come back and follow that path into the jungle.”
“Aye, Chairman.” Gomez marked the coordinates on the map and kept flying. They didn’t see anything else unusual until the drone was three-quarters of the way around the island.
“Hold there,” Juan said. Something about the plants didn’t look right. “What do you make of that?”
Raven leaned in close to the screen. “The color is the same, but the fronds on the trees are too stiff. They should be waving in the breeze like all the others have been.”
“What is that thing?” MacD said, pointing at a sharp-edged object jutting up between the tops of the trees. It had to be man-made.
“Now I want to look more closely,” Juan said. “Let’s see what that is.”
“Closer view coming up,” Gomez said, and the drone whizzed toward its target.
As the drone approached, the size of the object became apparent. It was a huge vertical slab of metal painted verdant green to blend into the jungle and be undetectable to reconnaissance aircraft or satellites.
“Descend,” Juan said. “I want to see more.”
Gomez dropped the drone into the trees, which they could now see were actually fakes. The trunks, hidden by the canopy overhead, were telephone poles.