The powerboat was not designed to be rowed, and they made slow headway, but eventually they came within a hundred feet of a long dock where a big powerboat and a bigger sailboat were tied up. The dock was festooned with NO TRESPASSING signs. Enforcing their message was a security guard dressed in camouflage, who casually made his way to the end of the dock.
He flicked the cigarette he was smoking into the water and waved them away. When the boat kept coming, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Private property. You can't land here.”
Trout stood in the boat's stern and yelled back, “We're out of gas.”
“We can't help you. Private property.” He pointed to a NO TRESPASSING sign.
Gamay said, “Let me try, Mr. Budweiser man.”
“He's probably a Miller drinker,” Trout said. He stood aside to make room for Gamay. “Please don't use the hapless husband routine. I'm getting an inferiority complex.”
“Okay, I'll use the hapless wife instead.” Gamay spread her arms as if imploring the guard. “We don't know what to do. Our radio won't work.” She pointed to the gas pump on the dock. “We'll pay for fuel.”
The guard ran his eyes up and down Gamay's lithe body, then grinned and waved the Trouts up to the dock.
They rowed erratically up to the dock until they were close enough to see that the guard had a pistol holster attached to his belt on one side and a radio clipped to the other. Trout passed an empty fuel tank up to the unsmiling guard, who took it over to the pump and filled it while they remained in the boat. When he brought it back, Gamay thanked him and asked what she owed. The guard gave her a knowing grin and said, “Nothing.”
She gave the guard a thick envelope. “Then please give this to Mr. Margrave in exchange for our fuel.”
The guard looked at the envelope and said, “Wait here.” He walked out of earshot and spoke into his hand radio. Then he came back and said, “Come with me.”
He led them past a steep flight of wooden stairs to the foot of the bluff. He produced a small remote control from a pocket, clicked it once and a section of wall swung open to reveal an elevator. He told them to get in and followed them into the elevator. Keeping one hand on his holster, he watched them during the trip of several seconds. The elevator door opened in a circular room. One look around told the Trouts that they were inside the lighthouse.
The guard opened a door and they stepped into the open. They were at the top of the cliff. There was a magnificent view of the sun-sparkled waters of Penobscot Bay. Three folding chairs had been set up, facing each other. A man was sitting in one chair, his back to the newcomers, peering into a spotting scope. He turned and smiled at the Trouts.
He had a slender saturnine face and strangely shaped green eyes that regarded the Trouts with amusement. He motioned to the empty chairs. “Hello, Gamay. Hello, Paul. I've been waiting for you.” He chuckled at their expressions.
“I don't believe we've met before,” Trout said, settling into one chair while Gamay sat in the other.
“We haven't. We've been listening to you as well as watching all morning. Our electronic ears are far more sensitive than the listening devices you can buy from online spy store catalogs, but the principle is the same. We heard every word you said. I understand you brought me a gift.”
The guard handed Margrave the envelope. He undid the clasp and slipped out a computer disk. His smile disappeared when he read the label: “The Dangers of Polar Shift.”
“What's this all about?” Margrave said. His tone had lost its phony warmth.
Trout said. “The disk will tell you everything you want to know, and some things that you don't.”
Margrave waved the guard away.
“You really should play the disk,” Gamay said. “It will explain the entire situation.”
“Why should I be interested in polar shift?” Margrave said.
“Simple,” she said with a sweet smile. “You intend to cause the reversal of the earth's magnetic poles using extra-low electromagnetic transmissions, a process based upon the work of Lazlo Kovacs.”
Margrave cradled his sharp chin in his hand, pondering Gamay's words. “Even if I had the power to make the poles shift, there is no law against it that I know of.”
“But there are plenty of laws against being the agent of mass death and destruction,” Trout said, “although you wouldn't have to worry about prosecution because you'd be dead like the rest of us.”
“I stopped playing riddles when I was a kid. What are you saying?”
“That creating a magnetic shift will trigger an irreversible movement of the earth's crust with catastrophic results.”
“If that's the case, what would I or anyone have to gain from starting this process?”
“It's possible you're not in your right mind. More likely, you're just plain dumb.”
Margrave's pale cheeks flushed with anger. “I've been called a lot of things, but never dumb.”
“We know why you're doing this. You're trying to stop economic globalization, but you've chosen a dangerous way to do it, and you'd be wise to stop.”
Margrave rose unexpectedly from his chair. He brought his arm back, then snapped it forward. The computer disk flew from his hand in a soaring arc that ended in the water hundreds of feet below the cliff. He waved the guard over and turned to the Trouts.
“You'll be escorted back to your boat. Move away from this island or I'll sink your boat and you can swim back to the mainland.” He smiled. “I won't charge you for the gas.”
Moments later the Trouts were descending in the elevator. The guard marched them out to their boat, shoved them off and stood on the pier with his hand on his holster.
From the top of the cliff, Margrave watched the Trouts motor away from the island, then he undid the cell phone clipped to his belt and activated the voice dialing with a single word: “Gant.”
Jordan Gant answered immediately.
“I just got a visit from some NUMA people,” Margrave said. “They know a lot about the project.”
“What a coincidence,” Gant said. “I was paid a visit by Kurt Austin, also of NUMA. He seemed well versed in our plans as well.”
The people who came here said that what we're doing could trigger worldwide destruction."
Gant laughed. “You've been on that island for too long. When you spend some time in a snake pit like Washington, you learn that the truth is exactly what you want it to be. They're bluffing.”
“What should we do?”
“Speed up the deadline. At the same time, we'll slow them down with a diversion. The removal of Kurt Austin from the picture will derail NUMA and give us the time we need to make sure the project is completed.”
“Has anyone heard about Karla Janos? I don't like the idea that she might show up out of nowhere.”
“I've taken care of that. My friends in Moscow assured me that if I spread a little more money around Janos would never leave that island in Siberia alive.”
“Do you trust the Russians?”•
“I don't trust anyone. The Russians will be paid in full when they show me the evidence of her death. In the meantime, she is thousands of miles away from here, unable to interfere.”
“How do you plan to respond to Austin?”
“I was hoping I could borrow the Lucifer Legion for that job.”
“Lucifer? You know how undisciplined they are.”
“I'm thinking of deniability. If something goes wrong, they are simply a group of crazed killers acting on their own.”
“They'll need some supervision.”
“Fine with me.”
“I'll take my boat to Portland and catch a helicopter to Boston for the trip to Rio.”
“Good. I'll join you there as soon as I take care of some minor matters.”
After discussing last-minute details, Margrave hung up and barked an order to his guard. He went into the lighthouse and made a phone call. Then he piled a few belongings into a bag with his laptop computer. M
inutes later, he was striding along the pier to the cigarette boat. The boat's powerful engine was warming up. He got aboard with two security men. They cast off, and he gunned the engine, launching the boat over the surface of Penobscot Bay with its bow high in the air.
The boat passed a speck of an island covered with a thick growth of fir trees. Paul and Gamay sat on a large rock in the shade of the trees and watched the fast-moving craft throw up a rooster tail of white water as it went speeding by the island.
“Looks like Mr. Margrave is a man in a hurry,” Gamay said.
Trout smiled. “Hope it was something we said.”
They hiked across the island to where their boat was tied up to a tree, got in and started the engine. Then they swung the boat around to the other side of the island, gave the motor throttle and followed in Margrave's vanishing wake.
NUMA 6 - Polar Shift
35
THE THIRTY-STORY TUBULAR structure that houses the National Underwater and Marine Agency sat on an East Washington hill overlooking the Potomac River. Sheeted in green reflective glass, the building was home to thousands of NUMA's oceanographers, marine engineers and the labs and computers they worked with.
Austin's office was a spartan affair on the fourth floor. It had the usual accoutrements, including a desk, a computer and a filing cabinet. The walls were decorated with photos of NUMA research vessels, charts of the world's oceans and a bulletin board festooned with copies of scientific articles and news clips. On the desk was a favorite photograph of Austin's mother and father sailing on Puget Sound. It was taken in happier days, before his mother died of a lingering disease.
The office's plainness was partly deliberate. Because the nature of the Special Assignments Team's work was largely clandestine, Austin wanted to blend into the NUMA backdrop. The other reason for the purely functional nature of his office stemmed from the fact that he was often away on missions that took him around the globe. His workplace was the world's oceans.
On the same floor was the NUMA boardroom, an imposing space with a ten-foot-long conference table built out of a section of wooden hull from a sunken schooner. Austin had chosen a smaller and less regal space than the conference room to plot strategy. The small study lined with shelves that were stacked with books about the sea was a quiet place often used by those waiting to make presentations.
As Austin sat at an oak table in the center of the study, he thought about Churchill's war room, or the Oval Office, where decisions were made that affected the future of the world. He had no infantry divisions or powerful fleets, he mused. He had Joe Zavala, who would much rather be driving his Corvette convertible with a lovely woman at his side; Barrett, a brilliant computer nerd with a spider tattooed on his bald pate; and the beautiful and intelligent Karla Janos, whom Austin would have preferred to be talking to over cocktails.
“Paul and Gamay are on their way back from Maine,” he announced. “They hit a dead end trying to persuade Margrave to call off his plans.”
“That means we have only one option,” Karla said. “We've got to stop this insane scheme.”
Austin gazed across the table at Karla, studying the creamy, unblemished skin and perfect mouth, thinking how unfair it was for a simple threat to the world to intrude on the potential for romance. Karla noticed that she was the object of Austin's coral blue eyes. She raised a finely arched eyebrow. “Yes, Kurt?”
Caught in the act, Austin cleared his throat. “I was wondering how your uncle is doing?”
“Technically, he's my god-grandfather, but he's doing well. Simply exhausted and worn out. The hospital wants to keep him for a few days. He's got to stay off his ankle. But he'll probably escape as soon as he gets some rest.”
“I'm glad to hear he's doing well. I can drop you off at the hospital after our meeting. When we're through here, I'm driving down to an event near Manassas National Battlefield to brief Dirk Pitt, NUMA's director.”
“Is Pitt refighting the Civil War?” Zavala said.
“He's satisfied with the outcome, as far as I know, but he got roped into a charity deal near Bull Run. He'd like to get filled in before the White House session. What have you got, Joe?”
“Good news. I asked Yeager to scour the records of shipbuilders. I thought if we could figure out where the transmitter ships were built we might be able to track them down. But even Max drew a blank. Next I went after the dynamos. I thought they might be commercially made.”
“The generators we saw aren't the kind of thing you'd pick up at your neighborhood electrical supply house.”
“Only a few companies manufacture equipment that size,” Zavala said. “I followed up on every one, checking their sales for the past three years. They all went to power companies except one order supposedly shipped to a factory in South America, which is owned by Gant's foundation. The same multinational company that owns the factory has a shipyard in Mississippi. Seemed a funny combination of property for anyone to own, especially a nonprofit lobbying group.”
“You're sure the foundation owns them?”
“Positive. I checked through the foundation's filings as a nonprofit. They own the shipyard through a straw company set up in Delaware. I had someone from NUMA follow up with a bogus story about retrofitting a big research vessel for us. The company itself is apparently legit. The management said they had just wrapped up a major retrofit job—they wouldn't go into details—and would be interested in making a bid.”
“So the ships are still there?”
“They left several days ago. I accessed the NUMA satellite archives. Four ships left the boatyard last week.”
“Four?”
“Three transmitter ships and what looks like a passenger liner. They seem to be headed toward South America.”
Barrett had been silent since watching the computer simulation. “Thanks for your hard work, Joe. I'm feeling guilty as hell about all this. I can't stop thinking that this tragedy is my fault.”
“Not at all,” Karla said. “You could never know that your work would be used in a destructive way. It's no different than my grandfather. He was simply interested in pure science.” Karla was shaking her head when a smile appeared on her face. “Topsy-Turvy,” she said.
She laughed at the bewildered expressions around the table.
“It's the title of a bedtime poem my grandfather used to tell me. Not very good poetry, as I recall, but he said it was something that I would always have if I needed it.” She scrunched her brow as she tried to remember the words.
Topsy-turvy,
Turvy-topsy,
The world stands on its head.
The sky's on fire,
The earth's afraid,
The ocean leaves its bed.
Her recitation was greeted by a deep silence, which Karla broke on her own.
“Dear God,” she said. “I've just described auroras, earthquakes and tsunamis.”
“A polar shift, in other words,” Austin said. “Tell us more.”
“I'll try. It's been a long time.” She stared at the ceiling. “Each rhyme starts with the same topsy-turvy couplet, and then the verse itself changes. The next one goes, 'The key is in the door,/We'll turn the knob and hitch the latch,/To still the ocean's roar.' It goes on for several verses, then ends with my favorite one: 'Say good-bye to night. /All's well once more, /As Karla dreams,/For all the world is right.' ”
Barrett whipped a ballpoint pen and notebook out of his pocket and slid them across to Karla. “Could you write down every verse?”
“Yes, but—” Karla seemed flustered. “Do you think all this gibberish means anything?”
“Just curious,” Barrett said.
“We should follow any lead, no matter how seemingly frivolous,” Austin said. He glanced at a wall clock. “I've got to get moving. We'll meet back here in a couple of hours.”
He asked Zavala to talk to the Trouts and have them follow up on the transmitter ships, then turned to Karla. “I can give you that ride Austin offere
d to the hospital,” he said.
“I'll see Uncle Karl later. If I go now, he'll demand that I help him escape from the hospital. I'd like to go with you to see Mr. Pitt,” she said.
“I don't know,” Austin said. “It might be safer if you stay out of sight.”
“Maybe, but I don't feel like being stashed in a safe house. There's a good chance that whoever ordered my murder doesn't know that I'm still alive.”
“I'd like to keep you that way.”
“My grandfather's work started this nonsense. I owe it to him to stop his research from being perverted.”
Seeing the determined jut to Karla's jaw, Austin knew that no argument he advanced would be able to sway her.
Fifteen minutes later, Austin and Karla were picking up a car from the motor pool in the NUMA garage. As Austin drove out of the garage exit to join the Washington traffic, he and Karla were observed from behind the one-way windows of a van crammed with the latest electronic listening and watching equipment. The letter on the van's door identified it as belonging to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Doyle sat inside the van puffing on a cigarette as he and a helper monitored several screens that showed the street scene around the NUMA building. Hidden cameras in the van and a similar vehicle parked outside NUMA's main pedestrian entrance recorded the face of everyone leaving the building and compared it to images in its database. The facial recognition system was capable of checking more than a thousand faces a second.
The monitor alarm buzzed. The signal for a hit. A picture of Austin behind the wheel of a turquoise Jeep Cherokee that had emerged from the garage was projected on one of the screens. Below Austin's face was a summary of personal data. Doyle's hard eyes gleamed with excitement. Bingo! He had just ordered his helper to get into the driver's seat and follow the Jeep when a second monitor buzzed. The picture of the attractive young woman who was a passenger in the Jeep filled the screen. The database identified her as Karla Janos.
Double bingo!
A smile came to Doyle's thin lips. He couldn't wait to see Gant's expression when he told him that Karla Janos was alive and well and consorting with the enemy. As the van pulled away from the curb and tailed the Jeep, Doyle called a motel in Alexandria where six Harley-Davidson motorcycles were parked. Minutes later, six men emerged from the motel, hopped on the motorcycles and roared off to rendezvous with Doyle.