"Technology can be duplicated in time. No one, not even your empire, can hold a monopoly for long. There are too many great scientific minds and the money to back them to improve your model."
Epona spoke equably. "They have all been left at the starting gate. Once our operation is up and running, it will be too late."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. What operation?"
"Your friends at NUMA know."
Dirk was only half listening. He was intrigued by the fact that none of the other women around the table spoke. They sat there like figures in a wax museum. He studied them to see if they were drugged, but saw no indication. He began to realize that they were under the total spell of Epona. It looked as if they were brainwashed.
"They apparently didn't bother to inform me. I know nothing of this operation you speak of."
"Under my direction, Mr. Specter..." She paused. "Do you know of him?"
"Only what I've read in the newspapers," Dirk lied. "He's some kind of wealthy eccentric, like Howard Hughes."
"Mr. Specter is also the genius behind Odyssey's success. What we have accomplished is due to his superior intelligence."
"I had the impression you were the brains of the outfit."
"My sisters and I carry out Mr. Specter's directives."
A knock came at the door and a woman in the green jumpsuit entered, walked around the table and handed a piece of paper to Epona before leaving the room. Epona studied the message and her expression crumpled from arrogance to horror. She looked as if she had been struck and a hand flew to her mouth. Finally, as though in a daze, she announced in a voice choked with emotion, "This is from our office in Managua. Our Ometepe research center and the tunnels have been destroyed by a collapse of the Concepcion volcano."
The news was received in utter anguish and astonishment. "It's gone, all gone?" asked one of the women in total disbelief.
Epona slowly nodded. "It's been confirmed. The center now lies at the bottom of Lake Nicaragua."
"Was everyone killed?" asked another. "Were there no survivors?"
"The workers were all saved by a fleet of boats around the lake and helicopters from United States Special Forces that attacked our headquarters Our sisters, who heroically defended our headquarters building, were all killed."
Epona rose and moved away from her chair. She took Summer by the arm and pulled her to her feet. Then the two of them walked haltingly toward the door as if one was in a dream and the other a nightmare. Epona turned, the red-contoured lips spread in a leer. Her head tilted toward Dirk a fraction.
"Enjoy your last few hours on Earth, Mr. Pitt."
Then the door opened, the guard walked in and pressed the muzzle of her gun against Dirk's temple as he came to his feet, knocking over the chair, and made a move toward Epona with murder in his eyes. He stopped dead in his tracks, raging with frustration.
"And bid farewell to your sister. You won't be enjoying her company again."
Then she placed her arm around Summer and led her from the room.
46
The sun blazed down on the asphalt outside the private aircraft terminal of the Managua International Airport as Pitt and Giordino stood under a covered patio and watched the NUMA Citation jet land. The pilot took it down to the last turnout and taxied back to the terminal. As soon as the plane came to a halt, the door was opened from the inside and Rudi Gunn stepped to the ground.
"Oh, no," Giordino groaned. "I can smell it in the air. We're not going home."
Gunn did not walk toward them but motioned for them to approach the plane. As they neared, he said, "Climb aboard, we haven't time to spare."
Without comment Pitt and Giordino threw their bags into the cargo compartment. They had no sooner sat down and snapped their seat-belt buckles than the turbines roared and the plane was speeding down the runway and rising into the air.
"Don't tell me," said Giordino dryly, "we're going to spend eternity in Nicaragua."
"Why the rush?" Pitt asked Gunn.
"Dirk and Summer have disappeared," Gunn said without prelude.
"Disappeared," said Pitt, with a sudden flash of apprehension in his eyes. "Where?"
"Guadeloupe. The admiral sent them to an offshore island to search for the remains of Odysseus' fleet of ships thought to be destroyed there during his voyage from Troy."
"Go on."
"Mr. Charles Moreau, who is our representative for that part of the Caribbean, called last night and said that all communication with your son and daughter had ceased. Repeated attempts to contact them proved fruitless."
"Was there a storm?"
Gunn shook his head. "The weather was ideal. Moreau rented a plane and flew over Branwyn Island, where Dirk and Summer were headed. Their boat had vanished and there was no sign of them on or around the island."
Pitt felt as if a great weight was pressing against his chest. The appalling possibility that his children might be injured or dead was barred from his mind. For a moment he was incapable of believing harm had come to them. But then he looked into the face of the usually taciturn Giordino and saw a look of deep concern.
"We're headed there now," Pitt said, as if it was a point of fact.
Gunn nodded. "We'll land at the airport in Guadeloupe. Moreau has arranged for a helicopter to take us directly to Branwyn."
"Any speculation as to what might have happened to them?" asked Giordino.
"All we know is what Moreau has told us."
"What of this island? Are there inhabitants? A fishing village?"
A grave expression spread across Gunn's face. "The island is privately owned."
"By whom?"
"A woman by the name of Epona Eliade."
Surprise showed in Pitt's opaline green eyes. "Epona, yes, of course, it would be her."
"Hiram Yaeger ran an extensive check on her. She's at the top level of Odyssey and is reported to be Specter's right hand." He stopped and gazed at Pitt. "You know her?"
"We met briefly when Al and I rescued the Lowenhardts and snatched Flidais. It looked as though she was high in the Odyssey hierarchy. I understand she wasn't killed during the fighting at Odyssey's research center."
"Apparently she slipped through the net before the center was destroyed. Admiral Sandecker asked the CIA to trace her. One of their agents reported that her private plane was detected by satellite on a landing approach to the airfield on Branwyn Island."
Pitt was holding in his fear with difficulty. Then he said in quiet certainty, with unshakable conviction in his voice, "If Epona is responsible for any harm that might come to Dirk or Summer, she'll never live to collect her retirement pay."
Dusk had turned to dark when the NUMA jet landed in Guadeloupe and taxied to a private hangar. Moreau was standing beside the ground crew as Pitt, Giordino and Gunn exited the plane. He introduced himself and quickly escorted them less than a hundred feet to a waiting helicopter.
"An old Bell JetRanger," said Giordino, admiring the beautifully restored old helicopter. "I haven't seen one of those in a while."
"It's used for tourist sight-seeing," explained Moreau. "It was all I could arrange on short notice."
"She'll do just fine," said Pitt.
He threw his duffel bag inside and entered the craft, moving to the cockpit, where he conversed briefly with the pilot, a man in his early sixties with many thousands of hours in the air in two dozen different types of aircraft. After he lost his wife to cancer and retired as chief pilot on a major airline, Gordy Shepard had come to Guadeloupe and taken a part-time job flying tourists around the islands. His hair was a neatly brushed bush of gray that complemented his black eyes.
"That's a maneuver I haven't attempted in a long time," said Shepard, after hearing Pitt's instructions. "But I think I can handle it for you."
"If not," Pitt said with a taut grin, "my friend and I will hit the water with the force of cannonballs."
Outside, Gunn thanked Moreau and closed the door as the r
otor blades began to slowly revolve, increasing their beat until the pilot lifted the craft off the ground.
It took less than fifteen minutes to cover the twenty-seven miles from the airport to the island. At Pitt's request, once they were over water, the pilot flew without lights. Flying above the sea at night was like sitting blindfolded in a closet sealed with duct tape. Using the light beacon on the island as a guide, Shepard flew an unerring straight line for the south shore.
Back in the passenger compartment, Pitt and Giordino opened the duffel bag and put on wet suits and nothing else except hard rubber boots. They carried no scuba gear, fins or masks, only weight belts to compensate for the buoyancy of the neoprene wet suits. The only equipment Pitt took was his satellite phone inside a small waterproof bag tightly belted to his stomach. Then they moved to the rear of the compartment and opened the cargo hatch.
Pitt nodded at Gunn. "Okay, Rudi, I'll call in case we need a quick getaway."
Gunn held up his phone and grinned. "It shall remain glued to my hand until you tell me to evacuate you, Al and the kids off the island."
Though he didn't fully share Gunn's optimism, he was grateful for the show of confidence. He lifted a phone from a vertical base on the bulkhead and called the pilot. "All set back here."
"Stand ready," instructed Shepard. "We'll be coming up over the harbor in three minutes. You sure you've got enough water depth for your dive?"
"Jump," Pitt corrected him. "If you programmed the correct GPS coordinates and stop on them, we should have enough water to cushion us from striking the bottom."
"I'll do my best," acknowledged Shepard. "Then your friend, Mr. Gunn, and I will make it look like we're flying on toward another nearby island before circling back and waiting for your call to come and get you."
"You know the drill."
"I wish you boys luck," Shepard said over the phone, as he closed communications to the passenger compartment. Then he straightened in his seat with both hands and feet on the controls and focused his mind on the maneuver coming up.
The island looked dark, as if it was deserted, the only light was the beacon above its metal frame. Pitt could just vaguely distinguish the faint outline of the buildings and the Stonehenge replica in the middle of the island on a slight rise. It would be a tricky approach, but Shepard seemed as calm as a mobster in a box seat at the Kentucky Derby, knowing the fastest horse was about to throw the race because he paid off the jockey.
Shepard brought the old Bell JetRanger in from the sea right up the center of the channel into the harbor. In the rear, Pitt and Giordino stood poised in the cargo door. The airspeed was nearly a hundred and twenty miles an hour when Shepard's hands and feet danced over the controls and the helicopter stood on its tail and came to an abrupt stop, twisting to starboard and allowing Pitt and Giordino to jump unobstructed through the door into the darkness. Then Shepard pushed the helicopter forward and picked up speed again, banking around the island and heading out to sea. The entire maneuver went off flawlessly. To anyone observing on the island, it hardly looked like the helicopter came to a stop.
Holding their breath, Pitt and Giordino dropped thirty feet before striking the water. Despite their attempts to fall cleanly feet first, the sudden tilt of the helicopter prevented a smooth jump. They found themselves tumbling through the air and doubled up with arms clasped around their knees to prevent smashing into the solid wall of liquid in a flat position that could have badly injured them or at least knocked the wind out of their lungs and rendered them unconscious. The neoprene wet suits absorbed most of the harsh impact, as they struck the surface and plunged nearly ten feet into the deep before losing all momentum.
Feeling like they'd run a gauntlet through sadists beating on them with flat boards, they stroked to the surface just in time to see a pair of searchlights flash on and sweep the water until they found their target and lit up the helicopter like a Christmas tree ornament. Shepard was an old pro who had flown in Vietnam. He anticipated what would happen next. He suddenly dipped the helicopter toward the sea in a steep dive just as a hail of automatic-rifle fire split the night and sprayed the area a good hundred feet behind the tail rotor. Then he spun the aircraft wildly and clawed for altitude. Again the gunfire went wide.
Shepard knew his antics wouldn't keep the wolves from his door much longer, not with the searchlights clinging to him like leeches. Second-guessing the gunmen on the island, he brought the Bell to a quick stop and hovered for a split second. The gunmen, having learned their lesson, led the helicopter and fired at its intended path, but Shepard had conned them again. The trajectory of their fire tore through the air fifty feet in front of the cockpit.
Incredibly, Shepard had gained over half a mile on the gunners and swooped away as the parting shots stitched the fuselage, worked their way toward the cockpit and shattered the windshield. A bullet struck Shepard's arm and passed through his biceps without hitting bone. Gunn had flung himself down and forward and took a small crease on the top of his head that would have removed half his skull if he hadn't ducked.
In the water, Pitt watched with growing relief as the helicopter flew beyond the range of the island's gunners and vanished into the darkness. Not knowing if Gunn or Shepard had been injured, he knew that they could not return as long as concentrated fire swept the skies above the island.
"They can't return until we take out the searchlights," said Giordino, floating on his back as leisurely as if he was in the pool at his condo.
"We'll worry about that little problem after we find out what happened to Dirk and Summer." Pitt stared at the island, his voice firm with the confidence of a man who was gazing at something unseen by others. Then he saw the searchlights lower their beams and begin sweeping over the waters of the harbor.
They dove under, not wasting a breath on warning the other, knowing their instincts were tightly bonded over the years. Pitt rolled over on his back at ten feet and stared up at the surface, seeing the glow of the brilliant light flash over the surface with the brightness of the sun. Only when the lights moved off did they surface and catch a breath. They had been down over a minute, but neither gasped for air, having practiced the art of holding their breath for deep dives without breathing equipment.
When the light beams above danced away, they surfaced, took a breath and dove again. Warily watching the movements of the searchlight and timing its sweep to gain air, they began stroking toward shore that was little more than a hundred yards away. At last the lights blinked out and they could resume swimming on the surface. Ten minutes later their feet touched sand. They rose to their feet, dropped their weight belts and crept into the shadows beneath a bank of rocks, resting for a few moments while appraising the situation.
"Where to?" asked Giordino in a whisper.
"We've landed south of the house and about two hundred yards east of the Stonehenge replica," Pitt replied quietly.
"A folly," said Giordino.
"What?"
"Fake castles and facsimile ancient structures are called follies. Remember?"
"It's burned in my brain," Pitt muttered. "Come on. Let's scout around, find and sabotage the searchlights. It won't do to have them expose us like a pair of rabbits."
It took them another eight minutes to locate the twin searchlights. They almost stumbled on them in the dark. The only thing that saved them from being discovered by the guards manning the lights was their black wet suits, which made them almost invisible in the night. They discerned the outlines of one man lounging on his back in the sand while another peered out to sea with night glasses. Not expecting intruders from their rear creeping onto the raised stand mounting the lights from behind, they were not alert.
Giordino came out of the darkness silently, but the squeak of his rubber-soled boots gave him away and the man with the night glasses spun around in time to see a shadow coming at him out of the night. He grabbed an automatic rifle propped on its butt against the light mount and swung the muzzle toward Giordino. He
never pulled the trigger. Pitt had come up from the opposite side five steps ahead of his friend. He snatched the rifle out of the guard's hands and clubbed him over the head with the stock. Then Giordino was on the guard relaxing on the ground, knocking him unconscious with a well-delivered fist to the side of the jaw.
"Doesn't it give you a comfortable feeling to know we're armed?" said Giordino buoyantly, as he disarmed the guards and handed Pitt one of the rifles.
Pitt didn't bother to reply, as he unlatched the lenses of the searchlights, swung them open and lightly, with the slightest of sound, smashed the filaments. "Let's check the house next. Then your folly."