CHAPTER 15
KURT AUSTIN WAS HEADED FOR MARCHETTI’S HIGH-TECH office atop one of Aqua-Terra’s two completed buildings. In the twenty-four hours since he and Joe had caught the seaplane, preventing Matson and Otero from escaping, much had occurred.
Back in Washington, Dirk Pitt and the NUMA brass had gone into high gear, gathering intelligence on Jinn al-Khalif.
Nigel, the pilot, had finished putting the helicopter back together and, at Marchetti’s invitation, had picked up Paul and Gamay Trout.
Marchetti himself had spent fifteen hours debugging the computer code, trying to be sure Otero had left no additional traps for them. He found none, but there were hundreds of programs running on his automated island. He insisted he couldn’t be sure that all of them were unaffected. At Kurt’s urging he’d concentrated on the more critical ones and completely deactivated the construction robots, just in case.
With a report due in from NUMA HQ, everyone was gathering in Marchetti’s office to await the transmission and discuss their next move.
Kurt opened the door and stepped inside. Joe and the Trouts were already there. Marchetti sat across from them. Leilani sat next to him.
“That’s a mighty fine brig you have down there,” Kurt said to Marchetti. “I’ve stayed in worse five-star hotels.”
Marchetti beamed. “When Aqua-Terra is ready, we expect to have millionaires and billionaires on board. If I have to put some of them in jail, I don’t want to ruin the Aqua-Terra experience for them.”
Kurt chuckled.
“Any luck getting them to talk?” Leilani asked.
“No, they’ve clammed up tight,” Kurt said, glancing at Joe and then turning back to Marchetti. “Don’t suppose you have a hungry python around here anywhere?”
Marchetti looked shocked by the request. “Um … no. Why?”
“Never mind.”
Kurt sat down just as the satellite feed locked in. A moment later Dirk Pitt’s rugged face appeared on the screen.
After a quick round of introductions, Pitt spoke.
“We’ve developed some information for you on this Jinn character. The bulk of the data will be sent to you in an encrypted file, but here’s the gist of what we know.
“Thirty years ago Jinn al-Khalif was a nineteen-year-old Bedouin camel herder; twenty years ago he entered the arms trade for a brief, profitable spurt, and shortly thereafter he used those funds to get a toehold in several legitimate businesses. Shipping and construction, infrastructure work. Nothing huge, but he did okay.
“Five years ago he forms a company called Oasis. It’s an oddly designed international consortium, heavy into technology and funded from murky sources. Interpol has been watching it from the get-go. Their big concern was the vast amount of money and technology flowing into Yemen without any type of control.”
“Can’t imagine Yemen is a magnet for attracting foreign capital,” Kurt said.
“Not in the least,” Pitt replied. “Because of that, Interpol thought Oasis might be a terrorist front or a money-laundering operation, but Jinn has not been political, not even within his own struggling country. And they’ve seen no transactions that would suggest laundering. It seems the technology transfers and the high-tech investments were legitimate.”
Pitt tapped something on the keyboard in front of him. A satellite photo came up, showing the stark beauty of Yemen’s northern desert region. The display sharpened and zoomed in as if they were dropping in from space. When the resolution locked, it was focused on a rocky outcropping that jutted above the sand and cast a long shadow. It reminded Kurt of Shiprock, New Mexico.
Leading up to the outcropping, and stretching out behind it, were vehicle tracks and swaths of discolored sand.
“What are we looking at?” Kurt asked.
“Our intelligence agencies have tracked some of Jinn’s activities to this area of the desert.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” Paul noted.
“It’s not supposed to,” Dirk replied. “See all that darker sand and soil? It’s spread out over a hundred acres.”
“It looks like it’s been washed down from somewhere,” Gamay said. “Erosion or flash flooding.”
“Except it’s in the driest part of the desert,” Dirk said, “and the grade runs off kilter to the pattern we see.”
“So it’s camouflage,” Kurt said. “What are they hiding?”
“Our experts think they’ve moved a lot of earth,” Pitt said, “suggesting an underground compound of massive proportions. Infrared scans have detected an inordinate amount of heat coming from vents in the sand. All of which suggests manufacturing, though until now no one could guess what they were up to.”
“Stealing my design,” Marchetti said, “and going into production.”
Pitt nodded. “So it would seem. The question is, why?”
Marchetti considered this for a second. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I intended them to eat garbage, but from what we saw the design has been modified. Obviously that would imply a different purpose. At this point all we know for sure is that they attacked your catamaran, but unless I’ve missed something no other vessels have been attacked or gone missing. That would suggest it’s not their main purpose.”
“Then why use them for it?” Kurt asked.
Marchetti glanced at Leilani for a second and then spoke. “Under normal circumstances the boat would have been picked clean. Not a speck of organic matter would have remained. And the bots would have disappeared back into the sea.”
Kurt understood. “No evidence. No witnesses. The boat would have been found in perfect working order like the Mary Celeste. Only they didn’t count on the crew setting a fire to fight them off.”
“Exactly,” Marchetti said. “Without the residue you found, there would have been nothing to tell us what had happened. Even if another vessel had been watching from a distance, they would have seen nothing.”
Pitt returned the conversation to the original track. “So they can be a danger to shipping,” he noted, “but if that’s not their main function, what is? Could they be causing the temperature anomalies our team discovered?”
“Possibly,” Marchetti said. “I’m not sure how, but to some extent what they’re capable of depends on how many of them are out there.”
“Can you explain that?” Pitt asked.
“Think of them as insects. One isn’t a big problem—one wasp, one ant, one termite—not much of a threat. But if you get enough of them in the same place, they can cause all kinds of trouble. My design was capable of reproducing autonomously and spreading ad infinitum. That was the only way to make them effective. No reason to think these aren’t doing the same thing. Millions of them can cause problems for a small vessel, billions could pose a threat to a large vessel or oil platform or even something the size of Aqua-Terra, but trillions of them—or trillions of trillions—that could threaten the entire sea.”
“The entire sea?” Joe asked.
Marchetti nodded. “In a way, the microbots are a pollutant in their own right. Almost like a toxin. But because they’re active in feeding, reproducing and protecting themselves, it’s better to think of them as a nonnative species invading a new habitat. They all tend to follow the same trajectory. Without natural enemies, they start off as a curiosity, quickly become a nuisance and shortly thereafter become an ecosystem-threatening epidemic. Unchecked, the microbots could do the same thing.”
“I remember when the gypsy moths came to New England,” Paul said. “Nonnative. Arrived from China with no natural enemies. One year there were a few furry caterpillars. The next year they were abundant, and by the third year they were absolutely everywhere, by the billions, covering every tree, stripping every leaf and practically decimating the forests. Is that the kind of effect you’re talking about?”
Marchetti nodded glumly.
Quiet followed as the group pondered what Marchetti had said. Kurt imagined the microbots spreading through the Indian Ocean and aroun
d the world. He wondered if the thought was rational or paranoid and why someone would want that to occur or how they could profit from it.
“Whatever they’re doing, I think we can assume it’s not a good thing,” Pitt said. “Therefore we need to find out what it is and get on top of it. Any suggestions how we can do that?”
All eyes focused on Marchetti again.
“Two ways,” he said. “Either catch the microbots in the act, for which I offer my services and the island, or go to the source and see what their orders are.”
“Go to Yemen,” Pitt clarified.
Marchetti nodded. “I hate to say it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to ride along, but if these things are being manufactured in this underground compound in Yemen, your best chance of discovering what they’re being created for is to go to the factory and check out the specs.”
Pitt nodded thoughtfully but said nothing for the moment. He looked over the assembled team one by one.
“All right,” he said finally. “Our original goal was to find out what happened to the crew, but I think we can all agree that we’ve discovered a greater threat here. One they were probably killed for. We need to follow this up from both angles. Paul and Gamay will take advantage of Mr. Marchetti’s hospitality and head up the waterborne search, using Aqua-Terra as home base. Kurt, you and Joe get ready. Unless you have any objections, I’m going find a way to sneak you into Yemen.”
Kurt looked at Joe, who nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
Pitt signed off. The meeting adjourned, and everyone began to file out.
Leilani came up to Kurt. “I want to go with you,” she said.
Kurt continued gathering up his things. “Not a chance.”
“Why?” she asked. “If this Jinn is the guy that caused all this, I want to be there when you get him.”
Kurt cut his eyes at her. “You jeopardized us once, I’m not going to let you do that again. Nor am I going to take you into danger. Nor are we going to get this guy. Unlike you, we’re not some kind of hit squad. We want to find out what he’s up to and why, that’s it. The best thing you could do is go home to Hawaii.”
“I don’t have anyone to go home to,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, “but that isn’t going to work on me this time.”
Gamay came over to intercede. “We could use a marine biologist if we’re going to analyze what’s going on with the food chain. Why don’t you stay here with us?”
Leilani didn’t seem to like that idea, but it was clear she had no other option. Finally she nodded.
Kurt stepped out through the door without another word. He felt badly for her, but he had a job to do.
CHAPTER 16
GULF OF ADEN, OFF THE COAST OF YEMEN
THIRTY-SEVEN HOURS AFTER THE MEETING IN MARCHETTI’S conference room, Kurt and Joe found themselves sitting in a wooden fishing boat in the dark of night a mile or so off the coast of Aden.
Clad in black wet suits, with fins, and small oxygen tanks on their backs, they waited patiently for a signal.
Kurt rubbed a light coat of baby shampoo on the inside glass of his mask before rinsing it to keep it from fogging up. Joe checked his air one last time and secured a diving knife in a sheath on his leg.
“You ready?” Kurt asked.
“As ready as I’m going to be,” Joe said. “You see anything?”
“Not yet.”
“What if this guy got held up?”
“He’ll make it,” Kurt said. “Dirk swears this guy has helped him out a few times before.”
“Did he give you a name?”
Kurt shook his head and smiled. “He said we wouldn’t need it.”
Joe chuckled. “Dirk has his secrets, that’s for sure.”
It was a moonless night with a light wind from the northwest. Kurt could smell the desert on that breeze, but he could see nothing. They were anchored off a desolate stretch of the coast, bobbing up and down on the swells and waiting to hit the water. But they couldn’t go until they were sure someone had arrived to pick them up.
Finally a pair of lights flashed in their direction. On-off. On-off. And then back on again for a few seconds before going permanently dark.
“That’s our man,” Kurt said, pulling his mask into place.
Joe did the same, pausing for a second. “One question,” he said. “What if those bots are in the water here, waiting to chow down on us?”
Kurt hadn’t thought about that and, quite frankly, wished Joe hadn’t either. “Then you better hope they’re not hungry,” he said.
With that, he pushed back over the side and dropped into the inky black water.
A few seconds later Joe hit the water behind him, the muted sound of his plunge reverberating through the dark.
Without delay, Kurt got his bearings and began to kick with smooth, powerful strokes, the thrust from his fins moving him swiftly through the water. It was a quiet, slow-motion approach to the beach.
As he closed in on the shore, he could hear the sound of the waves pounding, he could feel the pull of the ebb tide trying to drag him to the east. He angled slightly into it, but rather than wear himself out fighting it, he mostly rode with it.
Closer in, he focused on the swells, trying to get a rough sense of timing for the set of waves. One big swell pushed him upward, threatening to dump him face-first, but it passed, broke and sent white foam racing up onto the sand fifteen yards in front of him.
The undertow caught him as the water flowed back, but Kurt powered through it, caught the next wave and bodysurfed right up onto the beach.
Thirty feet ahead boulders offered shelter. He pulled off his fins and dashed forward, taking shelter between them. Once he was there, he pulled his mask off, unzipped the wet suit a few inches and drew out a small night vision scope. He scanned the beach and the road above it. He saw no movement, no sign of anything living.
Seventy yards to the west, an old VW bus sat parked on the road. That was their transportation.
He turned his head in time to see Joe coming up onto the beach. After a short delay, Joe sprinted to the rocks.
Kurt pointed to the van. “Not bad,” he said. “We only missed it by a football field.”
“Easier to walk that distance than to swim head-on into the current,” Joe replied.
“My thoughts exactly,” Kurt said. “Besides, on the off chance our friend has been watched or tailed, probably best not to come out of the water right in front of the getaway vehicle.”
The two men stripped out of their diving gear to reveal plain clothes. Watching for trouble, they moved down the beach in spurts until they reached the VW.
The thirty-year-old vehicle was a tawny brown color, pitted and scratched from years of flying sand. Its tires looked bald, and the VW emblem on the front was broken, missing half of the W.
“Maybe it’s a knockoff,” Kurt said.
“Yeah,” Joe replied, “a Volks Vagon.”
“Not much style to it,” Kurt said, and then, thinking of the Vespa, he added, “but at least it has four wheels.”
“You must be moving up in the world,” Joe said.
Kurt chuckled as he slid the door open. Whatever it lost on style points, the van had other attributes, including ample room for supplies, an air-cooled engine that would be more reliable crossing the desert than a water-cooled power plant, and authentic Yemen plates that Kurt hoped were current.
It was also unoccupied. Whoever Dirk Pitt had found to drop the van off had vanished. A second set of tire tracks on the soft shoulder by the road suggested the driver had been ferried off in another vehicle.
They piled into the van. Kurt made his way to the driver’s seat as Joe checked the supplies in the back.
“We’ve got boots and caftans back here,” Joe said. “Food, water and some equipment. The guy set us up well.”
Kurt looked for the key. He flipped the visor down and it dropped into his hand, along with a note.
He stuck the key
in the ignition and unfolded the note as Joe made his way up front and took the passenger seat.
“It says take the coast road northeast for seven miles. Turn northwest on the paved road that marks the Eastern Highway. It will be paved for thirty miles and then become a dirt track. Continue on for exactly forty-five miles. Hide the van and hike northwest on a course of 290 for 5.2 miles. You’ll cut the corner and come upon the compound you seek. Good luck.”
“Any signature?”
“Anonymous,” Kurt said. He folded the note and tucked it away. “Whoever he is, let’s not disappoint him.”
After a quick look around, Kurt turned the key, and the engine came to life with that sound that only old VWs ever seemed to make. The gears made a grinding noise as Kurt put the van in first and released the clutch, but at least they were off and running.
He hoped to make the compound before daybreak. They had four hours.
CHAPTER 17
GAMAY TROUT WAS FILLED WITH GLEE AS SHE RODE ALONG at twenty knots, a mere thirty feet above the waves, in a small airship of Elwood Marchetti’s design.
To call it a blimp would have been a disservice to the sleek craft. The crew compartment sat between and slightly below what Marchetti called air pods. Filled with helium, the pods resembled pontoons, although much larger and longer. They were flat on the bottom and curved on the top to provide lift as the craft moved forward. They were attached to the passenger compartment by a series of struts that ran up and out at a forty-five-degree angle. A second raft of struts ran between them, bracing them and keeping them apart. The design allowed a view upward to the sky, something no other airship had.
The passenger compartment was shaped like that of an upscale cabin cruiser, raked backward as it dropped away from the inflated sections. A platform to the rear allowed open-air cruising, sunbathing and a way to enter and exit the airship. Twin ducted fans, placed well forward of the cabin, pulled the craft along like a pair of sled dogs. A stubby set of wings acted as a canard while a pair of vertical tails, one on each pod, acted as the airship’s rudders.