“And setting off a nuke somehow makes everything all right?” Chase asked. “What the hell are you expecting to achieve?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what I expect to achieve,” she said, her flood of emotion now replaced by a calculating coldness. “The wealth of the people who destroyed my father is a sham, an illusion based on nothing more than the faith that their system works. I’m going to shatter that illusion, bring down the system. My target is New York, Eddie.”
“Jesus!”
She took in his shock with a degree of pleasure before continuing. “Specifically, the financial district. At eight forty-five, just before trading starts, the Ocean Emperor will be in the East River at the end of Wall Street. When the bomb goes off, it will obliterate lower Manhattan—and completely destroy the hub of the worldwide financial markets. The financial crisis after 9/11 and the crash of 2008 will be nothing but a blip, compared to what will happen today. The American market will completely collapse, and take the rest of the world’s stock markets down with it. All those people whose wealth and power is based on nothing more than faith, on pieces of paper and numbers in computers, will be left with absolutely nothing. Just as they left my father.”
“While you still have all the gold from the Tomb of Hercules,” Chase realized.
Sophia nodded. “I have more men excavating the site right now. Nina was absolutely right—the value of physical wealth will multiply enormously following a financial crash. I’ll get back what was rightfully mine—my family’s wealth and status.”
“And screw everyone else, eh?” Chase growled.
“You’re not only going to kill fuck knows how many tens of thousands of people when the bomb goes off, but what about all the millions of other people who’ll lose everything too? Not just the fat cats, but ordinary people?”
“Why should I care?” Sophia sniffed. “They’re just the little people.”
“And what about me? Is that all I ever was to you?” She didn’t answer him, not quite able to meet his gaze. “What happened to you, Sophia?” Chase asked despairingly. “Jesus Christ, you’ve murdered people in cold blood, and now you’re going to set off a fucking nuclear bomb! How the fuck did you end up like this?”
Now she looked back at him. “I have you to thank for that, Eddie,” she said. “And I really do thank you, sincerely. If there’s one lesson I learned from our time together, it’s that.”
“What lesson? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Sophia stepped closer, just outside the range of his legs, and crouched down. “My family always had power, Eddie, but it was the kind of power that came from wealth and influence. But when I met you, when you rescued me from the terrorist camp …you showed me an-other kind of power. The power of life and death.”
Chase couldn’t answer, unable to do anything more than listen in horror as she went on. “When you wiped out the members of the Golden Way, you taught me how to truly exercise power. The unwavering pursuit of an objective, without remorse. Anyone in the way of that objective must be destroyed.”
“You’re fucking mental,” Chase finally managed to say. “I went in to rescue you. I only killed people who were trying to kill us.”
“You can’t deceive yourself any better than you can me,” Sophia snapped. “You were ordered to exterminate them, Eddie. Not to drive off or capture, but to wipe them out. You were an assassin, a killer. You didn’t feel anything when you shot them or stabbed them or slit their throats. I saw how you acted. I’ll never forget it—because it taught me that I needed to be like you. You were pursuing an objective, exercising power. Just as I am now.”
“I was on a military mission to rescue British citizens from terrorists,” countered Chase. “What you’re doing is mass murder for personal gain and … and fucking childish revenge!”
“You can say whatever you want!” said Sophia as she stood, voice rising to a shriek. “You made me! All of this happened because of you!” She whirled and strode to the door, heels striking the deck like shots. “Joe!” she shouted. “Bring it in!”
“Don’t do this, Sophia!” Chase said, pulling himself upright. Still trapped by the pipe, he could only move a couple of feet in any direction.
“You started all this the moment we met,” Sophia told him malevolently. “It’s only fitting that you should be here at the end as well.” Behind her, Komosa and the nuclear technician entered the hold, carrying the bomb between them. She pointed to one side of the room, well away from Chase. “Over there.”
The two men carefully set the heavy device down. Komosa had something over his shoulder on a strap; at first Chase thought it was a weapon, until he saw that it was actually a bolt gun, six-inch steel shafts loaded into an open magazine protruding from its top. There were three holes spaced equidistantly around the bomb’s metal base. Komosa placed the end of the gun into the first hole and pulled the trigger. A sharp crack of compressed gas, and a bolt was blasted through the deck with a piercing clang. Two more clangs, and the bomb was immovably secured. Komosa put down the bolt gun beside it.
Sophia went to the bomb, taking the arming key from a pocket. She inserted it, then with a dismissive glance back at Chase turned it. The screen lit up, still showing the time of detonation: 0845. A push of a button, and the display changed to a countdown.
Seven hours, two minutes, seventeen seconds.
Sixteen.
Fifteen…
She pulled out the key, but the display remained lit, the seconds flicking away. “I think I’ll pop up to the deck and throw this into the sea,” she taunted, holding up the key as she headed back to the door. The two men followed her. “By the way, Eddie, the timer has an anti-tamper mechanism. If anyone attempts to stop it without the key, the bomb will explode. I just thought you should know.”
“Good-bye, Chase,” said Komosa, grinning his diamond smile. “Enjoy the afterlife.”
The door closed behind them with a decisive thud.
Chase pulled and kicked at the pipe again, with no more success than before. Then he drew back his arms so that the chain of the handcuffs was around the metal and hauled on it with all his strength. Blood oozed from his wrists as the steel cut into his flesh, but the cuffs were too tightly fastened for him to slip his hands through.
But he kept trying. He had no choice.
“We’re almost there,” Trulli said above the constant shrill of the engines. “I think.”
Nina, stiff and sore from being stuck in her cramped position for more than two hours, twisted to look up at him. “What do you mean, you think?”
“The inertial navigation system isn’t as accurate as GPS. Especially when the ride’s this bumpy—it throws it off. Worst-case scenario, we could be nearly ten kilometers from where we think we are.”
Nina touched her pendant. “Let’s hope for the best-case scenario, then. So what happens now?”
Trulli examined the instruments. “Well, first, I’ve got to bring us out of supercavitation drive without squashing us like a cane toad under a road-train!”
Nina’s eyes opened wide. “Wait, what, squashing? You didn’t say anything about squashing!”
“I’ve never been this fast before!” Trulli explained. “I can’t just stop the engines, ’cause when the supercav shock wave collapses it’d be like running the sub into a brick wall. I’ve got to ease it down, get us to a safe speed before shutting off the steam.” He made adjustments to several controls, then took hold of the throttle. “Okay. Let’s give this a crack …”
Nina took hold of the seat and braced herself.
Trulli pulled the throttle back slightly. The noise of the engines didn’t alter as far as Nina could tell, but the Wobblebug’s vibration changed, a snaking sideways motion slowly building up.
“Is that bad?” Nina asked.
“I hope not!” Trulli moved the throttle again. This time, the shriek from the engines lowered slightly in pitch. But the oscillation continued, the weaving sensation worsening. “W
e’re down to three hundred knots. It’s working!”
“What about that shaking?” The sub’s movement was making Nina seasick, but she couldn’t help thinking that nausea was the least of her problems.
“I dunno why it’s doing that—just have to hope it goes away on its own!” Another push of the lever. “Two-eighty, two-seventy … Come on, you bugger! Two-fifty—”
The back end of the submarine suddenly slammed sideways as if kicked, only to hit something that flung it back the way it had come.
Another impact, and another—
Nina clung desperately to the seat as she was thrown about. Trulli fought with the controls, the submarine’s stern swinging violently like the clapper inside a bell. “Tail slap!” he screamed.
“What?”
“The back end of the sub’s bouncing off the inside of the shock wave! If I don’t get us under control, it’ll collapse!”
Trulli struggled to bring the Wobblebug back in line. The submarine lurched sickeningly, bashing against the edge of the swirling vortex surrounding it a few more times before its motion began to dampen down.
He reduced the throttle further. “I think that’s got—”
Skrench!
Something ripped loose from the bow and screeched back along the sub’s length before being lost in the water behind them.
“What the hell was that?” Nina cried.
“We lost a fin!” The steering yoke bucked in Trulli’s hands. “I’m gonna have to risk backwash braking—whatever you do, don’t let go!”
She had no idea what he meant, but his voice warned her that it was almost as dangerous as letting the shock wave collapse. She hugged herself against the seat as Trulli shoved a lever—
The louvres on the seawater intakes slammed closed.
For a moment, the shriek of the engines dropped almost to nothing as the flow of water to the red-hot heating elements was cut off. The last of the superheated steam was blown out of the engine nozzles—then a surge of frothing bubbles from within the shock wave was sucked into the nozzles as the pressure inside them plummeted.
Without water to carry away the excess heat, the temperature of the steam elements had already shot up. The froth hit the searing metal, instantly exploding into superheated vapor—
Trulli pulled the lever again.
The intake louvres snapped open just as the expanding steam erupted through them, blasting twin jets through the supercavitation wave created by the submarine’s blunt nose. The disrupted shock wave instantly collapsed, but the Wobblebug plowed through it into the swirling mass of turbulence beyond, a buffer zone slowing the vessel rather than smashing it to an abrupt halt.
But it passed through the zone in barely a second …
Even with his seat belt fastened, Trulli was slammed against the steering yoke as the sub hit dense seawater. If Nina hadn’t been clinging to his seat with the strength of every sinew in her arms she would have been flung headfirst against the forward bulkhead. Something on the cabin wall broke loose and smashed into the instrument panel. The lights flickered, broken metal beating at the hull…
The submarine slowed.
Trulli gasped in pain as he tried to lift his hand to the throttle control. “Ah, shit!” he wheezed. “Nina, help me, quick!”
Arms aching, Nina dragged herself upright. “What’s wrong?”
The Australian’s face contorted. “I think I’ve busted a rib! I can’t reach the throttle—pull it back, shut off the elements!”
She hurriedly did as she was told. The hissing of steam from the engines died away, as did the last vibrations. The Wobblebug fell silent.
“Thanks,” Trulli gasped. “Well, we stopped, and we’re still in one piece, more or less. Guess that’s something.” He examined the damaged instruments through pain-narrowed eyes. “Don’t think the sub’s going to be going much farther, though. Both the intakes are wrecked, and we’re almost out of power.”
“How badly are you hurt?” Nina asked.
He grimaced. “Won’t be playing tennis for a while. I need to check where we are, get a GPS fix. See that lever up there?” He pointed at a particular lever on the cabin ceiling. Nina nodded. “Pull it. It’ll blow the ballast tanks, take us to the surface.”
She steadied herself, then pulled it. The submarine shuddered as water was forced out of the tanks by compressed air. Within a minute, a different kind of rocking motion took over—the swell of Atlantic waves against the hull.
Trulli tapped clumsily at the keyboard with one hand, the pain from his chest preventing him from moving his other arm. “Okay, GPS signal is coming in… got it. Wow, we’re not too far off.”
Nina looked at the screen as a map appeared. “Where are we?”
“Off the coast of Maryland. About two hundred and ninety kilometers from New York.”
Nina instantly made the conversion to imperial measurements: a hundred and eighty miles. “Where’s the Ocean Emperor?”
“Give me a sec to see if I can get a satellite connection. It’s not exactly like we’ve got Wi-Fi access out here…”
She waited anxiously first for the computer to link up to Corvus’s network, then for Trulli to log in. Compared to the system in his office, the satellite link was excruciatingly slow.
“Gotcha!” Trulli said at last. A yellow triangle indicating the Ocean Emperor’s position appeared on the screen. “It’s about four kays behind us, a bit farther offshore. Same course as it was on before, still doing twenty-three knots.”
“Can we catch it?”
“If the pump-jets haven’t been completely screwed, then yeah. If we’re quick.” He indicated one particular gauge. “The batteries are almost drained. We’ve got maybe ten minutes of power left. But I’ll need your help to pilot the sub. I can’t do it with only one arm.”
Nina stared at the triangle on the map, so close to the icon marking their own position. Eddie …
She set her jaw in determination. “What do you need me to do?”
29
Sophia stood on the Ocean Emperor’s bridge, regarding the view ahead. The lights in the room had been dimmed for nighttime operations, but even so there was little to see. The ship was almost thirty miles from shore, and there was nothing in sight but the ink-black sweep of the Atlantic and the starry dome above it.
She turned to the man beside her, Captain Lenard. The Ocean Emperor’s normal complement of forty had been reduced to a skeleton crew of just five for its final voyage, all of whom would be evacuated in the tilt-rotor parked on the helipad behind the bridge shortly before the ship reached Manhattan. “And it hasn’t reappeared?”
“No, ma’am,” said Lenard, a flint-eyed Frenchman. “Whatever it was, it seems to have gone.”
Sophia looked suspiciously at the radar screens, then back out of the wide windows. Something had shown up on the Ocean Emperor’s radar almost directly ahead a few minutes earlier, then vanished again. It had been too large to be some piece of random flotsam, and considering the yacht’s objective anything out of the ordinary had to be considered a possible threat.
But if it were a boat, it would still be visible on radar, and Lenard had already ruled out the possibility of its being the periscope of a submarine…
“Keep looking,” she finally ordered. “If it reappears, call me at once. I’ll be in my stateroom.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lenard gave Komosa, lurking at the back of the bridge, a somewhat jealous look as Sophia gestured for the giant to follow her, then turned back to the radar.
The object the Ocean Emperor had detected was now much closer than its captain would believe. With Nina’s help, Trulli had submerged the Wobblebug to a depth of just six feet, bringing it on a course to intercept the yacht. With two people working the controls, the confined space of the cabin was even more claustrophobic.
“Sorry,” Nina said again as she accidentally nudged Trulli with her elbow.
“No worries. At least you missed my ribs this time.” Trulli chec
ked the monitor screen. At such a shallow depth, the computer was able to receive intermittent GPS signals, and the map showed that the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were now less than two hundred yards apart. The submarine was almost directly in the huge cruiser’s path, heading in the same direction but quickly being overtaken. “Okay, she’s nearly on us. I’ll move us along her port side and then surface and try to match speeds.”
“How much time will we have?”
“Not much. Subs go slower on the surface, and I’ll have to redline the pump-jets just to keep up. Even if they don’t burn out, they’ll still run out of juice real fast. And there’s something else.”
“Figures,” groaned Nina. “What is it?”
“With the bow wave that thing’ll be kicking up at twenty-three knots, water’s going to come in through the top hatch. A lot of water.”
“Wait, you mean it’ll sink?”
“She’s not going back home, whatever happens,” Trulli said, sounding disconsolate. “Ah well. She gave us a good run, at least.”
Nina gave him a worried look. “But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Long as you’re clear, I’ll be able to get out.”
“With a broken rib?”
“Life’d be boring without a bit of challenge, wouldn’t it?” He squeezed her arm. “You just get onto that ship, okay? Find Eddie, defuse the bomb and stop this crazy bitch!”
She turned as best she could in the tight space and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Matt.”
“No problem. If I get out of this, you just remember that job offer, okay?”
Nina smiled. “You’re at the top of my list.”
On the screen, the symbols representing the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were almost overlapping, and she could now hear a new sound beneath the churning rush of the pump-jets; a low-frequency rumble coming through the water.