The Tomb of Hercules_A Novel

  “Then don’t tell ’em,” said Chase. “Just say you’ve found out something that means MI6 needs to check into what Sophia’s been doing in Botswana and Switzerland.”

  “I can’t do that without telling them how I found out,” Alderley insisted, “and as soon as I do, they’ll order me to arrest you and we’ll be back where we started!”

  “There must be some way you can help us,” Nina said.

  “Not without proof of what you’ve told me.” Chase snorted. “Big smoking crater not enough for you?”

  “If there isn’t a nuclear weapon at the bottom of it, then no. Just because Mac believed you doesn’t mean anyone else will, and so far all I’ve had from you are accusations. That isn’t proof.”

  “What if we could get you proof?” asked Nina thoughtfully.

  Alderley leaned back. “Considering your current lack of credibility, the kind of proof I’d need to show MI6 would more or less have to be a nuclear bomb with his ex-wife’s fingerprints all over it, tied up with a pretty bow.”

  “We’ll get it.”

  Chase looked at her. “We will?”

  “Okay, maybe not the pretty bow. But if we find Sophia, we’ll find the bomb. And if we find the bomb, then Mr. Alderley can do what he needs to do.”

  “How will she be traveling?” asked Alderley.

  “In one of Corvus’s private jets.”

  He nodded. “Shouldn’t be any problem to track down.”

  Nina waved a hand at the computer. “Please, be my guest!”

  “It’s in the air,” Alderley reported a few minutes later. “Took off about an hour ago.”

  “Where’s it headed?” Chase asked.

  “Flight plan says … Marsh Harbour. The Bahamas.”

  “The Bahamas?” Chase’s expression became more intense. “That’s where Corvus was testing his underwater city stuff.”

  Alderley checked the computer again. “Nearly all of Corvus’s merchant ships are registered in the Bahamas.” More clicking. “And it’s listed as his primary country of residence for tax purposes.”

  “If he’s got a home there, it’s probably where Sophia’s going,” Chase realized. “She sure as fuck won’t be expecting to see us again. If we could catch her there…”

  “Can you get us to the Bahamas?” Nina asked Alderley.

  He blinked at her in momentary bewilderment before sitting upright. “Er, what? Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly. Whatever Sophia’s doing in the Bahamas, I’m sure it isn’t to work on her tan.”

  “She tried to kill Mac,” Chase reminded him. “Nearly succeeded, as well.”

  Alderley scratched his mustache, thinking. “If it wasn’t for Mac, I wouldn’t even be considering this,” he said at last. “But I’ll see what I can do. I don’t know how much that’ll be, though.”

  “Well, Mac managed to get me a fake passport, plane tickets and a wad of cash in about four hours flat, and he wasn’t even a full-time member of MI6, just a consultant,” Chase remarked.

  “I get the point,” said Alderley, looking mildly stung. “But you’re seriously going to owe me for this, Chase. And if anything goes wrong, I’ll just say that you forced me into it somehow. I’m sure they’re more likely to believe me than the people who assassinated the Botswanan minister of trade.”

  “We didn’t!” Nina moaned.

  Chase shrugged. “Just sort things out for us, and I’ll get you all the Ford Capri parts you’ll ever need.”

  Alderley actually smiled. “I might hold you to that, Chase. They’re surprisingly expensive these days … All right, I’ll do what I can. But you won’t be able to fly out until tomorrow no matter what I do, so you’ll have to spend the night here. Oh, and that sofa is the only spare bed in the place, so make yourselves comfortable.”

  “I’m disappointed in you,” said Chase with a crooked grin. “You’re going to make a lady sleep on the settee while your own bed’s going empty? You’ll be in here for a while yet fixing everything up.”

  Beaten, Alderley gestured at a door in the office’s back wall. “All right, Dr. Wilde, my bed’s through there.”

  “Thank you,” Nina said, smiling as she stood.

  He seemed mollified by her gratitude, though his expression changed when Chase stood up as well. “And where do you think you’re going?”

  “Like I said,” Chase told him, grinning again, “you’re going to be working for a while yet. And me and my girlfriend need to make up for lost time.” He put his arms around Nina’s waist.

  She brushed him off. “He’s just kidding,” she assured the mortified Alderley.

  “Yeah, right,” said Chase, trying to take hold of her again.

  “No, really! This isn’t the right time or place.”

  “It couldn’t be a better time!”

  “Eddie! Besides, Mr. Alderley might need to ask you more questions.”

  “Oh, all bloody right,” Chase said, returning to the sofa and trying to ignore Alderley’s smug look. “So what is the right time?”

  “Let’s see—how about after we’ve cleared our names, found the bomb, caught Sophia and stopped whatever the hell insane plan she’s trying to carry out?”

  Chase cracked his knuckles and smiled wolfishly at Nina. “Always good to have an incentive.”

  “So,” she said, “when we get to the Bahamas, do you have any lady friends there who can help us?”

  “I’ve got a friend,” he told her. “Not one I want to see in a miniskirt, mind …”

  26

  The Bahamas

  Matt Trulli leaned back on his bar stool and regarded Chase and Nina uncertainly. “So … you’re telling me that my billionaire boss was actually some kind of crackpot megalomaniac?”

  Chase nodded. “Afraid so,” said Nina. “Aw, what?” Trulli said in dismay, taking a gulp from his drink. “Two for two?”

  “Maybe you should come and work for the IHA,” Nina suggested. “The pay might not be as good, but I don’t think any world domination plots have ever come up in meetings.”

  “And he’s dead now?” Trulli asked.

  “Yeah,” said Chase. “My ex-wife shot him in the back.”

  “Wow. Good job you never pissed her off that much, mate.”

  “Oh she’ll be plenty pissed when she realizes we’re not dead,” said Nina. “And even more so when we find her nuke.”

  Trulli almost choked on his lager. “Nuke?” he gasped.

  “Keep it down,” Chase said in a warning tone, glancing around the bar. Fortunately, none of the evening patrons were taking any interest in them. “Yeah, she’s got a nuke. So now we need to find her, so we can find it. Any idea where she might be?”

  “We think she might be at Corvus’s house,” Nina added.

  Trulli smiled. “Well, I know where that is!”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “I built it! It’s the test bed for an underwater habitat—it was what René hired me for. He wanted a scalable, modular underwater habitat that could work at least thirty meters deep. Well, that kind of thing’s been at the back of every marine engineer’s mind ever since he drew his first submarine in crayon as a kid, you know? And it was a no-expense-spared deal that he wanted done as soon as possible, so I got right down to it, no worries. We had the prototype built and working within a year.” His pride became more tempered. “Mind you, if I’d realized what he wanted it for, I might not have been in such a rush.”

  “I need to get inside it,” Chase said. “Soon. As in tonight. Can you help us?”

  Trulli made a pained face. “Your ex-missus doesn’t sound like the kind of girl who cares about experimental submarines, so whatever happens I’m probably out of a job. And I don’t really like the idea of nukes going off, so …” He took a quick gulp from his drink. “Sure. What do you need?”

  “A boat, and scuba gear. And a way inside that thing.” Trulli smiled. “Got all three, mate.”

  Trulli’s boat was a far cry from Corv
us’s cruiser when it came to size and luxury, but the Australian’s fifteen-foot motor launch took them from one of the quays of Marsh Harbour up the coast of the island of Grand Abaco efficiently enough.

  The habitat was two miles offshore, a man-made island among the myriad natural ones of the Bahamas. Like an iceberg, most of it was underwater, the section rising above the surface resembling a high-tech mushroom. Its brightly spotlit top was flattened to serve as a landing pad for helicopters—or, as Chase saw through a pair of binoculars, more exotic aircraft. “Well, bugger me.”

  Nina tapped his arm, wanting to see for herself. He gave her the binoculars. “What is that thing?” she asked.

  “Tilt-rotor,” said Chase. Hunched over the pad was a Bell 609 in Corvus’s blue and red corporate livery. Although its fuselage looked like a regular plane’s, the resemblance ended at the wings. On each wing tip was a bulbous pivoting engine nacelle, at the moment in the vertical position, above which rose an almost comically oversized propeller. “Civie version of the Osprey, like a cross between a plane and a chopper. The props point up so it can do vertical takeoffs and landings, then when it’s in the air they tip forward so it can fly like a regular plane.”

  Nina handed the binoculars back to him. “Well, if it’s there, presumably Sophia is too. Question is, for how long?”

  “Weeks, if she wanted,” Trulli told her. “It’s got its own generators—wind and wave power that we were testing, plus diesels—and water purifiers. She could stay there for as long as she’s got food.”

  “I don’t think she’s planning on staying long,” said Chase, tightening the harness of the Aqua-Lung. “Whatever she’s doing, she wants to do it soon.”

  “You sure?” Nina asked.

  “I was married to her. I know when she wants to get something over with.” Nina and Trulli shared a suggestive look, then laughed. “No, not like that, you cheeky bastards!” But Chase was smiling himself, at least until he looked ahead. His expression became entirely serious as he watched the distant habitat.

  Nina sat beside him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Shoulder still hurts, but it won’t be a problem.”

  “No, I meant …” She took his hand. “About Sophia. You might meet her in there.”

  Chase smiled coldly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “No.” Nina shook her head. “You’re not. I know you’re not. Eddie, you might…you might have to kill her to stop her.”

  “She’s tried to kill me. She tried to kill you.” Chase slipped a diving knife out of its sheath, examining the blade in the moonlight. “That makes her a hostile.” The knife made a nasty slicing sound as he thrust it back into the sheath. “Either she surrenders, or…”

  “She’s not just some goon with a gun,” Nina reminded him softly. “Are you sure you’d be able to do it?”

  Chase looked away from her, not answering. Nina was about to speak again when the burble of the outboard died down. They both looked around at Trulli.

  “What’s up?” Chase asked.

  “Safer not to get any closer,” Trulli replied. “We’re half a kilometer away—any nearer, they might get nosy.”

  Chase nodded and donned his diving mask, then took a breath of air from the scuba tank’s mouthpiece to test that it was working. Satisfied, he moved to the side of the boat.

  “It looks like a long way,” said Nina, handing him an underwater digital camera. “Will you be okay?”

  “Half a click? No problem.”

  “Eddie, I …” She trailed off.

  “Hey.” He touched her cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’d better be. Or I’m coming after you.” She pulled him to her, kissing him deeply before eventually releasing him, screwing up her mouth.

  “What’s up?” Chase asked.

  “You taste of rubber.”

  He grinned, then popped in the mouthpiece and waved as he rolled backwards over the side of the boat and splashed into the sea. After taking a moment to orient himself, he swam away, quickly disappearing beneath the shallow waves.

  “See you soon,” said Nina quietly after him.

  Even in his battered state, it didn’t take Chase long to cover the five hundred yards, swimming only a few feet deep. He surfaced briefly when he was about a hundred yards short to check his bearing, then descended.

  The seabed on which the habitat had been built, according to Trulli, was about twenty-five yards down. The Australian had sketched the experimental outpost for him: a hefty anchoring base of steel and concrete made up the lowest five yards, a central shaft housing an elevator, a stairwell and trunks for all the electrical and life-support systems rising vertically from it to the landing platform.

  There were three more levels below the surface. On Trulli’s sketch they resembled doughnuts, a trio of tori making the habitat look to Chase more like some kind of space station than an underwater base. The upper and lower levels were the same size, the central one somewhat larger in circumference, but the basic designs were identical. Each was made up from four habitation sections shaped like swollen crescents, linked into a circle by another four connecting modules running outwards from the central core like spokes.

  These levels weren’t Chase’s immediate concern, however. It was the concrete base that was his first destination. While some of the modules on the second circular deck had air locks, they were controlled by computers; being intended for use by tourists, the system had been designed to be as near foolproof as humanly possible so that, as Trulli had put it, “Some drongo can’t go ‘What does this button do?’ and flood the place.” Trying to open one of the locks would raise an alarm.

  But there was another air lock, a maintenance hatch leading into the habitat’s base. And according to Trulli, it was manually operated—an unmonitored entrance.

  Chase continued his descent among swirling shoals of fish as he neared the structure. Glowing ovals like blank eyes grew in brightness as he approached. He couldn’t help but be impressed as he got close enough to make out details. Trulli’s tourist-friendly design included lots of large acrylic resin windows set into the modules and smaller domes on their ceilings, through which he could make out the rooms inside.

  He saw a figure moving in one of them. Caution and curiosity blending, he swam closer and peered down through one of the ceiling domes.

  It was a control room. A man sat at a computer terminal; another walked back to his station with a cup in his hand. Chase carefully moved around the dome for a better look. As far as he could tell, there didn’t appear to be security monitors. All the displays were concerned only with the facility’s vital systems: tracking power consumption, checking the air. No CCTV cameras. One less thing to worry about once he got inside.

  It occurred to him that he had the perfect opportunity to recce the habitat. He turned and swam around the inner circumference of the upper level, looking through each of the domes in turn.

  No sign of Sophia, or the bomb. The other modules on this level were prototypes for different configurations of hotel suites. The first level checked, he descended and repeated the process on the second, largest deck. The habitation modules on this level seemed more technical in purpose, air locks and tubular docks for future tourist submarines jutting out from them. He saw a couple of more men repairing some piece of equipment in the first one he checked, nobody in the second—

  Chase froze as he looked over the edge of the third section’s dome.

  Sophia.

  Not just Sophia. Komosa was there too… and so was the nuke.

  What had originally been Corvus’s luxurious private suite was now being used as a glorified storeroom. The gold ingots recovered from the Tomb of Hercules were stacked in low piles along one curving wall, but the room’s three occupants—as well as Sophia and Komosa, there was the man with the goatee whom Chase had seen with Yuen at the factory in Switzerland—were not looking at them. All their attention was on the bomb.

  The b
earded man knelt before it as if praying, carefully inserting an electronic device into the rectangular slot in the bomb’s broad base. The device bore a small display screen and a keypad.

  An arming system.

  Chase’s heart raced, bubbles frothing from his mouthpiece with each breath. He’d been right. Whatever Sophia was planning to use the bomb for, she was going to do it soon.

  His options were now down to just one. Even if he used the underwater camera, by the time he had returned to the boat, reached land and sent Alderley enough evidence to convince him to talk to MI6, Sophia could have left. With the tilt-rotor, she could take the bomb anywhere within a thousand miles in three hours.

  So he would have to stop her. Alone.

  The curve of the dome distorted his view of the room below, but he could see the bearded man entering a code on the keypad, a long string of numbers appearing on the display. An arming code: a security precaution. Even terrorists and rogue states wouldn’t want any low-ranking thug to be able to set off their expensive new toy.

  The code entered, the man turned to Sophia and asked her something. He nodded at her reply and turned back to the keypad to enter another number.

  Chase could see this more clearly. It was a time: 0845. Quarter to nine in the morning.

  If Sophia planned to set it off in a city, that would be when the largest number of people were on the streets … and assuming the timer had been set for the current time zone, the bomb would go off in less than eleven hours.

  The man turned a key in the arming device, and the screen went blank. He then stood and handed the key to Sophia. She regarded it for a moment, then said something that prompted a grin from Komosa. With that, she closed her fist around the key and walked away, passing out of Chase’s sight as she headed for the connecting module. The two men followed her.

  He had to enter the base and sabotage the bomb.

  He used the camera to take a picture of the room below anyway—if he couldn’t get to it, at least he would have proof to send to Alderley. Then he swam downwards, heading for the concrete base.