Zero Hour nf-11 Read online

  Zero Hour

  ( NUMA Files - 11 )

  Clive Cussler

  Graham Brown

  It is called zero point energy, and it really exists — a state of energy contained in all matter everywhere, and thus all but unlimited. Nobody has ever found a way to tap into it, however — until one scientist discovers a way.

  Or at least he thinks he has. The problem is, his machines also cause great earthquakes, even fissures in tectonic plates. One machine is buried deep underground; the other is submerged in a vast ocean trench. If Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala and the rest of the NUMA team aren’t able to find and destroy them, and soon, the world will be on the threshold of a new era of earth tremors and unchecked volcanism.

  Now, that can’t be good.

  Clive Cussler, Graham Brown

  Zero Hour

  PROLOGUE

  April 18, 1906

  Sonoma County, Northern California

  Thunder shook the unlit cavern as an immense, blue-white spark jumped between a pair of towering, metal columns. Instead of fading, the shimmering charge split in two and the twin streams of plasma began to circle their respective pillars. They moved like flames chasing the wind, racing around the columns and snaking their way upward toward the underside of a curved, metallic dome. There, they swirled together like the arms of a spiral galaxy, joining each other once again before vanishing in a final, eye-searing flash.

  Darkness followed.

  Ozone lingered in the air.

  On the floor of the cavern, a group of men and women stood motionless, night-blind from the display. The flash had been impressive, but they’d all seen electricity before. Every one of them expected something more.

  “Is that it?” a gruff voice asked.

  The words came from Brigadier General Hal Cortland, a burly, squat figure of a man. They were directed at thirty-eight-year-old Daniel Watterson, a slight, blond-haired man wearing spectacles who stood by the controls of the great machine from which the artificial lightning had come.

  Watterson studied a bank of dimly lit gauges. “I’m not actually sure,” he whispered to himself. No one had ever gotten this far, not even Michael Faraday or the great Nikola Tesla. But if Watterson was right — if his calculations and his theory and years of serving as Tesla’s apprentice had led him to understand what was about to occur — then the display of light they’d just witnessed should be only the beginning.

  He switched off the main power, stepped away from the controls, and pulled the wire-rimmed glasses from his face. Despite the darkness, he could make out a soft blue glow coming from the columns. He raised his eyes to the dome above. An effervescent hue could be seen coursing around its inner surface.

  “Well?” Cortland demanded.

  Back at the console, one of the needles ticked up. Watterson saw it from the corner of his eye.

  “No, General,” he said quietly, “I don’t think it’s quite finished.”

  As Watterson spoke, a low rumble made its way through the cave. It sounded like heavy stones tumbling in some distant quarry, muffled and distorted, as if the vibration had to traverse miles of solid rock just to reach them. It rose for several seconds, then faded and ceased.

  The general began to snicker. He switched on a flashlight. “Uncle Sam ain’t paying for a show with wet fireworks, son.”

  Watterson didn’t reply. He was listening, feeling for something, for anything, at this point.

  The general seemed to give up. “Come on, people,” he said, “the party’s over. Let’s get out of this mole hole.”

  The group began to move. Their shuffling and mumbling made it impossible to hear.

  Watterson raised a hand. “Please!” he called out loudly. “Everyone, stay where you are!”

  The observers stopped in their tracks, and Watterson edged over to where the steel columns penetrated the rock floor. From there, they descended another five hundred feet “to get a firm grip on the Earth,” as Tesla once put it.

  Laying a hand on one of the columns, Watterson felt a cold vibration. It surged through his body as if he’d become a part of the circuit. It wasn’t painful like electricity and didn’t make his muscles spasm, nor did it find its way to the ground and electrocute him. It was almost soothing, leaving him slightly dizzy, even a bit euphoric.

  “It’s coming,” he whispered.

  “What’s coming?” the general asked.

  Watterson looked back. “The return.”

  Cortland waited a few seconds before scowling. “You scientists are like barkers at a carnival: you think if you say something loud enough, and often enough, the rest of us will begin to believe it. But I don’t hear any—”

  The general swallowed his words as the deep rumble made a second appearance. It surged through the cavern more emphatically this time, and the blue glow around the towers intensified, pulsing and matching the sound waves identically.

  This time, when the waves faded, everyone held still. They were waiting for more. Forty seconds later they were rewarded. A third wave came through like a freight train passing by. It shook the cave underfoot and brought the swirl of lightning back to the polished surface of the dome above. The visible spiral of energy began descending the pillars, making it halfway down to the ground before vanishing.

  Watterson pulled back, stepping away from the danger zone.

  Moments later, a fourth reverberation surged into the cavern. The columns flared as it hit. Flashes of light jumped back and forth between them. The cavern began shaking. Dust and tiny bits of stone rained down from above, sending the witnesses scurrying for cover.

  Watterson caught sight of General Cortland bathed in the light and grinning manically. Their roles had reversed. Now it was Cortland looking satisfied as Watterson began to worry. The scientist stepped toward the panel, slid his glasses back on, and studied the display. He couldn’t account for the vibration.

  Before he could determine anything, a fifth wave hit. The vibration and the artificial lightning grew so intense, even the general seemed to realize something was wrong. “What’s happening?”

  Watterson could barely hear him, but he was wondering the same thing. The power gauges — all but dead moments before — were heading toward their redlines.

  A brief respite gave way to a sixth harmonic return, and the needles went off the scales. The shuddering was unbearable. Rocks were falling from above. A huge crack began to zigzag its way across the reinforced wall of the cave where the army had poured concrete to shore it up. Watterson had to grip the panel to stop from falling down.

  “What’s happening?” the general repeated. Watterson wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be good.

  “Get everybody out of here,” he yelled. “Get them out — now!”

  The general pointed toward the cagelike elevator that would take them four hundred feet to the surface. The group ran for it like a stampeding herd. But the tremors intensified and the far wall gave way before they could climb inside.

  A thousand tons of rock and concrete plunged down on them. Those too close were crushed instantly. Others scrambled away just in time as the scaffolding-like frame of the elevator was bent and shoved aside.

  Watterson began to panic. His hands flew back and forth across the controls, flicking switches and tapping gauges. The vibration was constant. The sound deafening.

  Cortland grabbed him by the shoulder. “Turn it off!”

  Watterson ignored him. He was trying to understand.

  “Did you hear me?!” the general shouted. “Turn the damned thing off!”

  “It is off!” Watterson shouted, pulling free of the general’s grasp.

  “What?”

  “It’s been off since after the first spark,
” Watterson explained.

  The latest wave faded, but on the panel he could see the next wave building. The needles went off the scale and Watterson’s face went white. Each wave had been bigger than the last. He feared to imagine what kind of power was on its way.

  “Then where’s the energy coming from?” Cortland demanded.

  “From everywhere,” Watterson said. “From all around us. That’s what the experiment was supposed to prove.”

  The cavern began to shake once again. This time the lightning was not contained on the columns, it jumped around the room, flying into the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Shards of stone and clouds of dust blasted out into the open space.

  Amid the screams and panic, Watterson stood helpless, his moment of victory fading to utter catastrophe. From above him came the ominous sound of cracking.

  With the cave shaking so badly they could barely stand, both Watterson and the general looked up. A dark fissure snaked across the ceiling. It went from wall to wall and then spidered in different directions.

  The ceiling collapsed all at once and a million tons of rock dropped toward them.

  Death came instantly, and neither Watterson nor General Cortland would ever know the fury they’d unleashed or the utter devastation that the ensuing earthquake caused in the city of San Francisco.

  ONE

  December 2009

  In the midst of a growing tempest, Patrick Devlin stood on the aft deck of the Java Dawn, an oceangoing tug linked by a single massive cable to the rusting hulk of a cruise ship known as the Pacific Voyager.

  Huge swells came at the tug sideways, slamming against the hull with the sound of a shotgun blast. The rain fell in diagonal sheets, though it was hard to distinguish from the wind-whipped spray.

  Surrounded by towing and loading equipment, including a fifty-foot crane and a powerful winch array, Devlin looked positively small. In truth, he stood nearly six feet tall, with broad shoulders that were hunched against the cold.

  With gray stubble on his cheeks and folds of burnished flesh hooding his eyes, Devlin appeared every bit the wizened old sailor he was. Taking stock of the deteriorating weather, the increasing strain on the cable, and the condition of the sea, he came to a grave conclusion: they’d made a ruinous choice to leave port, one they’d be lucky to survive.

  As Devlin grabbed the ship’s phone, another swell rolled the tug severely. The captain picked up on the other end.

  “What’s our heading?” Devlin yelled into the receiver.

  “Due south,” the captain said.

  “It’s no good,” Devlin replied. “We’ll never survive this side-on beating. We have to turn into the swells.”

  “We can’t, Padi,” the captain insisted. “That’ll take us into the teeth of the storm.”

  Gripping the bulkhead to keep from falling, Devlin watched a wave crash over the deck. “This is madness,” he said. “We should’ve never left Tarakan.”

  Tarakan was the primitive, almost backwater port where they’d picked up the Voyager. The old liner had berthed there for repairs some years ago after an accident. She’d ended up marooned when her shipping line went bankrupt several days later.

  At some point, the ship was sold to a mystery buyer, but, for reasons unknown, the Voyager sat and rusted at Tarakan for three more years. Issues with the bankruptcy and squabbles about who would pay for the repairs, Devlin guessed.

  Whatever it was, the ship looked like a derelict when they’d found her; covered in corrosion from stem to stern, barely seaworthy. The hastily repaired damage from where the freighter had holed her looked like a jagged H near the bow.

  Now, caught up in a storm that was rapidly getting worse, she was certain to go down.

  “How’s the line?” the captain asked.

  Devlin glanced at the thick cable that stretched from the gigantic winch across the aft end of the tug and out toward the Voyager. The cable tensed and strained with the load before going slack again.

  “The cable’s taut,” Devlin said. “That rust bucket is starting to pitch with these waves. She’s definitely riding lower as well. We need to get the inspection crew back.”

  Against Devlin’s wishes, the captain had allowed three men to stay aboard the cruise ship to watch for leaks. It was dangerous in these conditions and a waste of time as well. If she was taking on water, there was nothing they could do to stop it. And if she started to go down — like Devlin thought she was — they would need to cut the cable and let her go before she dragged the Java Dawn into the depths alongside her. But with three men on the ship, cutting that cable would be the closest thing to murder Devlin had ever done.

  The big tug nosed over and dropped into the largest trough yet. As it did, the cable stretched so tight that it actually began to sing. The tension pulled the aft end of the tug backward, the water churning around the hull as the propellers fought against the strain.

  By the time the tug rose up on the next swell, the Voyager must have been dipping into a trough of her own because the tow cable pulled downward, bending over the reinforced-steel plating at the tug’s transom and forcing the aft end of the deck into the water.

  Devlin raised binoculars to his eyes. The action of the waves had a way of obscuring the truth, but only to a point. The Voyager was definitely riding lower.

  “She’s down at the bow, Captain. Listing slightly to port.”

  The captain hesitated. Devlin knew why: this tow was worth a small fortune, but not if the ship didn’t make it.

  “Call them back!” Devlin shouted. “For God sakes, Captain, at least call the men back.”

  Finally, the captain spoke. “We’ve been calling them, Padi. They’re not answering. Something must have gone wrong.”

  The words chilled Devlin’s core. “We have to send a boat out.”

  “In this? It’s too dangerous.”

  As if to emphasize the point, another wave hit them broadside and a thousand gallons of water crashed over the rail, flooding the aft deck.

  The sturdy tug quickly shed the water, but moments later another wave swamped it more drastically than the first.

  As the Java Dawn recovered, Devlin looked toward the Voyager.

  She was definitely going down. Either a couple of hatches had blown or the shoddy repair job had caved in.

  The captain must have seen it too. “We have to let her go,” he said.

  “No, Captain!”

  “We have to, Padi. Release the cable. The men have a boat of their own. And we can’t help them if we go down.”

  Another wave crashed over the deck.

  “For God sakes, Captain, have pity.”

  “Cut the cable, Padi! That’s an order!”

  Devlin knew the captain was right. He let go of the phone and took a step toward the emergency release lever.

  The deck pitched hard as another swell overran the stern and sloshed toward him. It hit like a wave at the beach, knocking him off his feet and dragging him.

  As he got up, Devlin saw that the cable was now disappearing into the water. Through the rain and spray, he could see that half the cruise ship was submerged. She was going down fast, plunging to the abyss and about to drag the tug down with her. The back quarter of the tug’s rear deck was already awash.

  “Padi!”

  The shout came over the dangling phone, but Devlin needed no more urging. He pulled himself up, grabbed the emergency release handle, and wrenched it down with all his might.

  A loud crack rang out. The giant cable snapped loose and flung itself across the deck like a speeding python. The tug lurched forward and upward, and Devlin was thrown into the bulkhead, splitting his lip and bruising his eye.

  Stunned for a moment, he gathered his wits and turned. The old liner was sliding beneath the waves at a gentle, almost peaceful angle. Seconds later, it was gone. The men they’d left behind were almost certainly dead. But the Java Dawn was free.

  Devlin grabbed the phone.

  “Take us back a
round,” he demanded. “The men may have gone overboard.”

  The deck shifted as the rudder and the directional propellers kicked in. The tug began a sharp, dangerous turn. By the time she’d made it around, Devlin was at the bow.

  It was almost dark. The sky held a silver hue above the black sea. The whole scene so devoid of color, it was like living in a black-and-white movie.

  Devlin gazed into it. He saw nothing.

  As darkness enveloped them, the tug’s spotlights swept the area. No doubt every available eye was straining to find the men just as Devlin was. It was all to no avail.

  The Java Dawn would spend the next eighteen hours searching in vain for her lost crewmen.

  They would never be found at sea.

  TWO

  Present day

  Sebastian Panos made his way through the narrow corridor like an alley cat on a dark street behind restaurant row. The passage was dank and wet, more like a sewer tunnel than a gangway. Condensation dripped so persistently that he often wondered if the poisonous waters from outside the submerged station were leaching through the walls and slowly killing them all.

  Still, it wasn’t as bad as the island where the main work was done, with the notorious quarry at its heart. Compared to that place, this station was a pleasure. And yet, Panos had become obsessed with thoughts of escape.

  A Cypriot engineer of mixed Greek and Turkish background, Panos had been lured to this underwater nightmare by the promise of a big contract and enough money to set his family up for a generation. All it required was three years of his life and utter secrecy. Six months in, he’d begun to feel uneasy. Before the year rolled over, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

  Requests to leave were denied. All communications were monitored and often interrupted. The slightest hint of protest resulted in veiled threats. Something might happen to his family if he didn’t stay and complete the work.

  As the project neared fruition, Panos and the other engineers were played off against one another. It was impossible to know who to trust and who to fear, so they feared one another, did as they were told, and one year stretched into two.