He fired back, unleashing an eight-shot salvo that blasted through the fog. When he finished, the slide of his gun locked in the open position. His clip was empty.
The silence that followed was haunting. Kurt stared into the fog, wondering, hoping, he’d made a killing shot.
Andras had not fallen or Kurt would have heard it. Nor had he fired back.
Beginning to worry, Kurt checked what remained of his ammo. Only one bullet remained in another clip that he hadn’t emptied.
He pulled back the receiver, slid the round into the breach, and thumbed the slide release. The weapon locked, his last shot in the chamber.
Finally, he heard movement through the icy shroud. It came like a drunk shuffling along a sidewalk. A vague, ghostly form slowly appeared: Andras, limping, dragging his leg.
He held an assault rifle, the stock pushed into one armpit, the muzzle pointed at an awkward angle toward the deck and Kurt Austin. Blood seeped from his mouth, indicating a shot to one lung. His face was stained crimson as blood flowed from a deep crease on the top of his scalp. For a second Kurt thought he would fall, but he didn’t.
The eyes, Kurt noticed, burned with an intensity beyond all madness. It was the picture of a man shocked at finding out he was vulnerable to any other man. He pulled himself to a stop six feet from where Kurt lay. He stared at Kurt through his bloody mask, appearing amazed that, after all his fire, Kurt had survived without a scratch.
Kurt had his own dilemma. With one 9mm shell left, he wasn’t sure he could finish Andras off, not without a head shot. And as soon as he fired, Andras would open up with his rifle, shredding Kurt at such close range.
It had become a standoff.
Kurt eased off the deck and stood. They were only yards apart, aiming their weapons at each other. Kurt’s right hand held the Beretta, his left had found a knife in his pocket. The same knife he and Andras had traded back and forth three times already. He couldn’t open it, but he still could use it.
He flipped the knife at Andras, who caught it deftly and smiled as he stared at it.
“Out of ammunition, Mr. Austin? Pity you didn’t open the knife before you threw it.” Now confident, Andras moved slowly. He raised the assault rifle in preparation to fire.
Kurt beat him to the draw, took an instant to aim, and fired at the liquid nitrogen pipe just above Andras. The liquid burst out under high pressure, dousing Andras heavily on the right side of his body, washing over his arm and the assault rifle he held.
The rifle fell and broke open as it struck the deck. Andras stumbled and hit the tunnel’s wall. He watched uncomprehending as his arm, hand, and fingers shattered into a thousand fragments like a crystal vase crashing from a top shelf to the floor. A scream of agony froze in his throat.
In seconds the nitrogen began filling the tunnel. It blanketed Andras, his body already frozen like a block of ice. It swept down the hall toward Kurt as he raced to the hatch and pulled himself up the ladder.
The frigid mist followed him like a wave in the surf, but Kurt climbed as fast as his hands and feet could take him and made it out through the top of the passage.
He slammed the upper hatch shut. Feeling it lock into place, he lay on his back and relaxed for the first time in more hours than he could calculate.
After one minute, and one minute only, he rose to his feet and searched for Katarina. He found her sitting by a stairwell as if she was waiting for a miracle.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She turned and looked at him, her face lighting up like a cloud under the sun. “Oh, Kurt,” she said. “How many times did I think you were dead?”
“Luckily, it’s Andras who is dead.”
Her smile widened in a mixture of doubt and joy. “Are you sure?”
Kurt nodded. “I watched him fall to pieces with my own eyes.”
63
KURT AND KATARINA arrived at the same stairwell Kurt had come down hours before. He looked up. There was no way Katarina could climb eight flights of stairs.
“Is there another way out?” he asked.
She nodded.
“This way,” she said, leading him past the stairwell.
Twenty yards on, another door beckoned. Kurt opened it. Sitting in a pool, secured to the edges of a metal dock, were three submersibles. Two of them looked suspiciously like the XP-4 he had rescued a week ago. The larger one dwarfed them, and he assumed this was the Bus.
He noticed that the XP-4-looking craft had torpedoes mounted on either side, like pontoons.
Beside them was the 60-foot motor yacht that Katarina had been prisoner on.
“This is where I came in,” she said.
Kurt looked for the door controls. “Are we above the waterline?” he asked.
She nodded.
He pressed a switch but nothing happened. The high voltage was still down. He found a manual release and threw the lever over. A capstan-like wheel began to spin as the door fell with the force of gravity.
Seconds later he and Katarina were in one of the XP-4s, moving out into the darkness of the night.
With Andras dead, the high voltage disabled, and the liquid nitrogen blasting out into the particle accelerator tunnel, Kurt figured he’d lived up to his claim of being a gremlin, but he had one last act up his sleeve.
He turned the small sub around and circled to the very aft end of the ship.
He fired both torpedoes into the ship’s propellers and rudder assembly.
The explosion was blinding. Almost immediately Kurt could see that the ship’s wake was turning to mush. The props were damaged or gone, and seawater was likely flooding the bottom deck.
The ship itself wouldn’t go down. The torpedoes were relatively small, and a vessel the size of the Onyx could take on massive amounts of water before she foundered. With all the damage near the tail end, that wasn’t going to happen, but she wouldn’t be going anywhere either. Not to Russia or China or any other unfriendly nations.
With that done, Kurt turned the submersible away from the Onyx and began to put some distance between them. Both he and Katarina would struggle to keep awake for the next three hours, but shortly after dawn a U.S. Navy helicopter spotted them, swooped down, and picked them up.
Kurt asked for news.
The medic told him of the panic in Washington but that nothing had happened. He asked about Sierra Leone and was told that an engagement off the coast of Sierra Leone had been completed. Lives had definitely been lost, but the threat had been eliminated. Kurt asked if there had been any mysterious crashes of old Russian cargo jets and was thankful to hear a firm negative to that question.
He went to ask about the missing scientists when the medic held up a hand.
“You’re going to be all right,” the medic said, “but you need to stop talking now.”
Kurt understood.
He watched over Katarina as they flew past the smoking hull of the Onyx, now swarming with U.S. Marines. From there they turned west and began a ninety-minute journey that would bring them to the guided missile frigate from which the helicopter had been launched.
With the news he’d been told, Kurt felt a sense of peace he hadn’t known in weeks. That feeling, his exhaustion, and the rhythmic thumping of the helicopter blades, everything around him seemed determined to soothe him and lull him to sleep. He closed his eyes and went with it.
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EPILOGUE
IN THE DAYS AFTER THE INCIDENT the world seemed to spin a little slower. The situation in Sierra Leone had stabilized with the help of a UN peacekeeping force and troops from the African Union. Many political prisoners had been freed, including Djemma Garand’s brother, who was now being asked to help build a coalition government.
The missing scientists had been found and returned to their respective countries. Several were injured, but only one had died. The U.S. attack force had suffered the brunt of the losses. Thirty-one men and women from the Memphis were dead o
r missing. Eleven naval aviators—pilots and radar officers—had been killed. But their sacrifices, and the efforts of the NUMA civilians, had prevented a catastrophic incident from occurring.
Not a single death was recorded in the last-minute emergency in Washington. Dozens of car crashes, hundreds of injuries, but people had remained remarkably calm in their efforts to reach safety.
Kurt, back in the States, recuperated. He watched a lot of news and was regaled with visits from Joe Zavala, the Trouts, and Dirk Pitt.
Joe spent hours telling him stories of his adventures with the crew of the IL-76, back in Tangiers. Paul and Gamay had their own stories, not as lighthearted, but the kind that filled people with pride. He noticed they never stopped holding hands.
Dirk Pitt congratulated them all on a job well done and then began adding up the tab. The Barracuda, the ultralights, damage to a soccer field, legal issues with the White Rajah Club in Singapore, and something about a missing leopard.
“I don’t even want to know why we’re paying for the capture of a juvenile spotted leopard,” Dirk said.
Kurt opened his mouth in an attempt to explain but then shut it. What was the use?
The IL-76 charter was next on the list, the expended Lunatic Express, and multinational cleanup issues regarding oil leaked from the Onyx as a result of his torpedo attack.
When Dirk finished going through the list, he smiled. “As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned a few things,” he said. “One of them is: you get what you pay for. You and Joe are like one of my cars. Expensive, bad for the environment, and often a pain in the backside. But you’re worth every penny.”
As soon as he was able, Kurt made contact with Katarina, arranging to meet her back on Santa Maria.
After all that had transpired, the U.S. and Russian governments had agreed that items aboard the Constellation rightly belonged to the Russian people. Both sides agreed that it would be appropriate if Kurt and Katarina supervised the dives to retrieve them.
Katarina beamed when she saw him, and she kissed him long and hard as soon as they met up despite the presence of a small audience.
A few days later they were out on a chartered dive boat with representatives from the Russian and U.S. governments on board keeping an eye on the proceedings.
After one dive as a run-through, they went down to retrieve the stainless steel trunks. Using torches to free them from the Constellation’s floor reminded Kurt of Joe’s narrow escape.
He realized they wouldn’t have survived had this old wrecked aircraft and its oxygen bottle not been here. After moving the cases outside the aircraft and attaching them to floats, which were inflated with air from their tanks, Kurt went back inside and swam up to the cockpit.
He reached for the copilot’s dog tags, which still dangled around the man’s skeletal neck. He gently pulled them free and then swam from the plane.
Surfacing, he climbed aboard the dive boat. Katarina was already working on cutting the lock off one of the stainless steel cases.
It broke and fell to the deck. Katarina opened the trunk.
Despite the tight seal, all these years on the bottom had allowed sediment and water to seep inside. At first all they saw was murky water, but Katarina dipped her hand into it and pulled out a necklace of large white pearls.
She placed the necklace on the deck and reached in again carefully. This time, she retrieved a tiara that looked as if it were encrusted with diamonds.
A representative from the Russian historical society stood by. Seeing this, he stepped forward. With careful precision he took the tiara and began to smile.
“Exquisite,” the bespectacled man said. “And almost unbelievable. But it is certain now.”
He held up the tiara. “This was worn by Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas the Second,” he said. “She was photographed in it in 1915. It disappeared, along with many other jewels, when the Tsar fell to the revolution.”
Kurt looked over at him. “I thought all the Tsar’s treasures had been found.”
“Yes and no,” he said. “The treasures they were known to possess were discovered long ago. Indeed, many jewels were sewn into their clothing to hide them from the guards. Both Anastasia and her sisters were shot and stabbed to no effect because their clothing was so stuffed with precious stones that they were all but bulletproof.”
“I figure you have those,” Kurt said. “So where did these come from?”
“The Tsar’s fortunes were so vast, the extent of his wealth was never really cataloged,” the man said. “For political reasons, the Soviets insisted that all the wealth had been collected and placed in trust for the people. The Russian government that succeeded the Soviet one continued this charade, but many photographs from that era display treasures that were never discovered. It was long assumed they had been lost to history. Who would have thought that both your government and mine knew where some of them were?”
Kurt considered what the man was saying. It didn’t bother him that the jewels would be going back to Russia, he just wondered how they’d left Moscow in the first place.
“How’d they end up here?” he asked.
“I can tell you that,” a wavering voice said.
Kurt turned. While he and Katarina were down below on the dive, a new arrival had come aboard. Kurt knew who he was and had requested he be found and offered the chance to be present.
Kurt stepped up and shook the man’s hand.
“Katarina,” Kurt said, “members of the Russian government, meet Hudson Wallace.”
Wallace stepped forward, moving slowly. He had to be almost ninety, though he still looked like the kind of guy who could thump you if you got out of line. He wore a bright red Hawaiian shirt, tan cargo shorts, and boat shoes with ankle socks.
He fixed his eyes on Katarina and smiled from ear to ear.
“My copilot and I picked up a fellow in Sarajevo,” he said. “A political refugee named Tarasov.”
“He was a criminal,” the Russian man said, “who took the jewels after burying them with three other soldiers years before.”
“Sure, sure,” Wallace said. “One man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter. Anyway, we whisked him out of there and brought him to Santa Maria, where we were supposed to fuel up and hop across the pond. But we got grounded by a storm, and some of their agents found us.”
He shook his head sadly. “Tarasov was shot in the back. My copilot, Charlie Simpkins, was killed as well. I was wounded. I managed to take off, but an electrical storm, a couple engine failures, and loss of blood brought me down. I lost control of the plane and hit the sea. To this day I don’t remember how I got out.”
“You know,” Kurt said, “that story was part of the reason we believed in this hoax.”
Wallace laughed, and his face crinkled up. “In those days things like that happened all the time. Instruments iced up, gauges froze, you couldn’t tell up from down.”
“But what about the engine failure?” Katarina asked.
“I had a hard time figuring that myself,” Wallace said. “We kept those babies in prime condition. Then it hit me. It rained there for three solid days. We fueled the Connie from their ground tanks. I think we sucked up a bunch of water when we took on five hundred gallons of the stuff the day before we left. Damn bad luck, if you ask me.”
Kurt nodded as Hudson looked down at the tiara and the necklace.
“For sixty years I always wondered what was in those boxes,” he said. “I guess they’re filled to the top.”
Katarina smiled at him kindly. “You’ll be able to see them in a museum, I’m sure,” she said.
“No thanks, miss,” he replied. “I came for something much more valuable.” He turned to Kurt. “Were you able to get ’em?”
Kurt reached into his pocket and retrieved the dog tags he’d pulled off the copilot. Wallace looked at them with reverence as if they were made of the purest gold.
“A Navy team is coming out tomorrow,” Kurt said. “Ch
arlie will be buried in Arlington next week. I’ll be there.”
“You?”
“You lost a friend here,” Kurt said. “But in a way you and your copilot saved a friend of mine. We’ll both be there. We owe you that much and more.”
“A long time to come home,” Wallace said.
Kurt nodded. Yes, it was.
“I’ll see you there,” Wallace said. He smiled at Katarina, thumbed his nose at the Russian expert, and walked back to the boat he’d motored in on. It took a moment for him to climb aboard. Once there, Wallace grabbed a wreath and held it out. Then, with a gentle toss, he laid it out on the water.
THREE DAYS LATER, after finishing the recovery and spending forty-eight hours with Katarina that actually qualified as R & R, Kurt was back in the States.
Katarina denied it, but he had a sneaking suspicion she’d enjoyed her time as a spy of sorts. They promised to meet again someday, and Kurt wondered if it would happen first from careful planning or at random in some out-of-the-way place with a swirl of international intrigue unfolding. Either way, he looked forward to it.
He wandered by the NUMA headquarters and found the place empty for the weekend. A message from Joe told him to go home.
Heading the advice, he made his way back to his boathouse on the Potomac.
Suspiciously, he detected the scent of marinated steaks grilling on a barbecue emanating from his own deck. He walked around to the back of the boathouse.
Joe and Paul were standing on the deck above the river. Gamay sat nearby on a chaise longue. Paul appeared to have commandeered Kurt’s gas grill, and what looked like rib-eye steaks for the four of them were sizzling away on it.
Joe was scribbling something on a Dry Erase Board, and a bottle of merlot sat on his corner table along with a cooler of beer and some travel brochures.
Gamay hugged him. “Welcome home.”
“You guys know this is my home,” he said, “not a dormitory.”