The Solomon Curse Read online

  ALSO BY CLIVE CUSSLER

  DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES

  Havana Storm (with Dirk Cussler)

  Poseidon’s Arrow (with Dirk Cussler)

  Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler)

  Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler)

  Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler)

  Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler)

  Trojan Odyssey

  Valhalla Rising

  Atlantis Found

  Flood Tide

  Shock Wave

  Inca Gold

  Sahara

  Dragon

  Treasure

  Cyclops

  Deep Six

  Pacific Vortex!

  Night Probe!

  Vixen 03

  Raise the Titanic!

  Iceberg

  The Mediterranean Caper

  FARGO ADVENTURES

  The Eye of Heaven (with Russell Blake)

  The Mayan Secrets (with Thomas Perry)

  The Tombs (with Thomas Perry)

  The Kingdom (with Grant Blackwood)

  Lost Empire (with Grant Blackwood)

  Spartan Gold (with Grant Blackwood)

  ISAAC BELL NOVELS

  The Assassin (with Justin Scott)

  The Bootlegger (with Justin Scott)

  The Striker (with Justin Scott)

  The Thief (with Justin Scott)

  The Race (with Justin Scott)

  The Spy (with Justin Scott)

  The Wrecker (with Justin Scott)

  The Chase

  KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES

  Ghost Ship (with Graham Brown)

  Zero Hour (with Graham Brown)

  The Storm (with Graham Brown)

  Devil’s Gate (with Graham Brown)

  Medusa (with Paul Kemprecos)

  White Death (with Paul Kemprecos)

  The Navigator (with Paul Kemprecos)

  Polar Shift (with Paul Kemprecos)

  Lost City (with Paul Kemprecos)

  White Death (with Paul Kemprecos)

  Fire Ice (with Paul Kemprecos)

  Blue Gold (with Paul Kemprecos)

  Serpent (with Paul Kemprecos)

  OREGON FILES ADVENTURES

  Piranha (with Boyd Morrison)

  Mirage (with Jack Du Brul)

  The Jungle (with Jack Du Brul)

  The Silent Sea (with Jack Du Brul)

  Corsair (with Jack Du Brul)

  Plague Ship (with Jack Du Brul)

  Skeleton Coast (with Jack Du Brul)

  Dark Watch (with Jack Du Brul)

  Sacred Stone (with Craig Dirgo)

  Gold Buddha (with Craig Dirgo)

  NONFICTION

  Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt

  The Sea Hunters (with Craig Dirgo)

  The Sea Hunters II (with Craig Dirgo)

  Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (with Craig Dirgo)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2015 by Sandecker, RLLLP

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cussler, Clive.

  The solomon curse / Clive Cussler and Russell Blake.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-698-19209-6

  I. Blake, Russell. II. Title.

  PS3553.U75S65 2015 2015015832

  813'.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Also by Clive Cussler

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  PROLOGUE

  Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, one week ago

  Aldo pounded through the brush, crashing through the jungle, as he ran for his life. His breathing rasped as he pushed vines from his path, sweat coursing down his face, eyes searching for a hint of a trail. Branches scratched him, drawing blood. Ignoring the pain, he drove himself harder, listening for sounds of pursuit.

  He stopped at the edge of a winding stream, a tangerine moonglow on its rippling surface, and debated crossing it to continue deeper into the rain forest or following it to the sea.

  Then he heard them.

  Dogs.

  They weren’t far behind.

  He needed to keep moving. If his pursuers caught him, he was worse than dead.

  Aldo’s bare feet splashed in the stream as he chose to follow the water. A jagged stone tore his foot open. Ignoring the spike of pain, he continued along the far bank, veering in and out of the water to throw off the dogs.

  His moves were driven purely by instinct. Aldo was just seventeen, but tonight he’d die like a man if he was caught.

  The thought fueled him: lose them or die. There was no third option.

  He picked up his pace when he heard the snap of twigs behind him. Only a heartbeat away. Urging himself forward, caution abandoned, he fought to put enough distance between himself and his trackers to buy a slim chance at survival.

  A native of Guadalcanal, Aldo never came to this part of the island—nobody did—so he had no special knowledge of the area, no sly tricks that would gain him an advantage. All he had was panic-fueled energy an
d the desperation of a cornered rat.

  He heard them closing in on him.

  How had he gotten sucked into this nightmare? It seemed impossible, yet he was racing for his life in the dark of night. A thicket of bamboo rose out of the darkness on his right and for a moment he considered trying to hide, his exhaustion arguing for it with every ragged gasp.

  Aldo’s side hurt, a sharp lance of pain below his rib cage, but he didn’t allow himself to think about it. He had to keep going.

  But where? Assuming he evaded his pursuers, where could he go that he would be safe? It was a small island. He could just return home, hoping that it was all a bad dream. But they would come for him before he could tell anyone and he’d just disappear.

  Like the others.

  Thunder roared overhead. The heavens let loose a deluge of warm rain, and Aldo smiled even as his gaze roved over the brush. The rain might throw the dogs off his trail.

  A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and for a second his surroundings lit up in the bright flash. He spotted a faint game track in the heavy foliage to his left and made a snap decision. The ground was spongy and slick from the cloudburst as he climbed the bank and followed the route parallel to the waterline. Now Aldo could clearly hear the dogs on his trail, all pretense of stealth discarded as they sensed his proximity.

  Any hope he’d lost them evaporated as claws scrabbled on the ground behind him, followed by clomping boots. Aldo willed himself to move even faster, now running blind, the skin of his feet shredded and bleeding.

  And then he tumbled and slipped onto his back and down a slope on a blanket of wet leaves, gravity pulling him inexorably to the bottom of the gulch the trail skirted. He thudded to a stop, stunned, his momentum halted by a tree trunk. When he reached up and felt his skull, his fingers came away slick with blood. Gulping for air like a drowning man, he tried to orient himself as he fought the dizziness.

  Aldo forced himself up. His ribs and left arm radiated pain and immediately he knew he’d broken bones. Thankfully, not the ones he needed to run, but the agony was enough to hobble him in the harsh environment. He looked around in the near-total darkness, his vision blurry from the fall, and spotted a promising opening between the vines. He moved into the gap and found himself on another track.

  His pulse thudded in his ears as he drove himself to the limits of his endurance. His cracked ribs sent searing spasms through his chest with each breath. The sound of his trackers faded as he pushed himself to the brink, and for the first time since he’d bolted for freedom he dared hope he might make it.

  Aldo’s foot snagged under a vine and he went down. He uttered an involuntary cry as he hit the ground and his ankle gave way with a sickening snap. Tears of rage welled in his eyes, and then the world faded as he passed out.

  When he regained consciousness a few minutes later, Aldo found himself staring into a snarling canine’s muzzle. His heart sank even before the hated voice of his pursuer drifted to him through a fog—the last words he’d ever hear, he was sure.

  “Don’t you know you can never escape on an island?”

  A boot slammed into his temple before he could get his mouth to cooperate with his brain, to protest or plead or curse or beg for mercy. A starburst exploded in his head; the agony was excruciating. He tried to muster a defense, but his arms and legs were leaden.

  Aldo’s last thought was that this was some kind of mistake, a misunderstanding, and then the boot landed again, harder. His neck snapped with a crack, and Aldo’s final living sensation was the tingle of the warm rain splattering on his face, and then he silently slipped into another world.

  CHAPTER 1

  Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, 1170 A.D.

  Dawn’s glow shimmered off the flat ocean as a column of islanders marched along a jungle trail, their voices hushed as they neared the coast and their destination, the new city said to have been built on the very surface of the sea.

  At the head of the group was the chief holy man, decked out in a colorful robe in defiance of the ever-present heat. His skin was the color of jerky, and a sheen of sweat coated his face. One of the few to have already made the pilgrimage to the just completed palace near the western tip of Guadalcanal, he was now leading his flock to the site. He gazed back at the procession with satisfaction—he’d collected the most important men in the kingdom for the journey, many of whom were newly arrived from the surrounding islands, for the ceremony and festivities that were to last the remainder of the week.

  Slivers of light filtered through the overhead canopy of tropical trees as the group moved along the faint game trail, surrounded on all sides by dense jungle. The islands were untamed, and the majority of the Guadalcanal tribes lived within a hundred yards of the shore, avoiding the inland areas that abounded with predators both real and imagined. Legends of giants, ferocious creatures more than twice the size of a man, that traversed the island through a series of underground caves and satisfied their thirst for human blood by attacking the unwary or the careless. Besides, there was no reason to brave the unknown in the interior of the island when a generous bounty from the sea could be had for the asking.

  The shaman halted at the top of a rise. The miracle beyond now jutted from the bay—buildings rising from the waves where before had only been water. He pointed at the impossible spectacle with his staff, ornately carved with reliefs of deities, and murmured the king’s name in a tone reserved for prayer to the gods. Indeed, the king seemed like he’d descended from heaven, so unlike ordinary men that he had become a legend in his own lifetime.

  This—King Loc’s greatest achievement—made all his others pale in comparison. Loc’s vision of a series of man-made islets had been realized using local rock in the relatively shallow half-moon-shaped harbor. After the celebration, the buildings would be used as the royal residence.

  The island’s holy men considered the compound sacred, evidence of Loc’s divine superiority. His builders had spent a decade creating it, with thousands of men quarrying and transporting the rock to the shore. Nothing like it had ever been seen, and the king had assured his counselors that its completion signaled the beginning of a new era.

  Nobody doubted his word—Loc was a ruler who had transformed his island from a humble trading collective to a wealthy kingdom, an empire with untold riches legendary among his people. By organizing a primitive mining effort focused on locating gemstones and gold, he’d made the island’s fortunes. What had been just another stop on a lackluster trade route had become a hub of wealth whispered about on distant shores.

  Over the years, the islanders had grown to appreciate the value of their legacy. Traders from other islands and as far away as Japan came to exchange goods for the treasures the natives amassed. Gold was especially prized, and now there were whole tribes devoted to mining the precious metal in the mountains. Their existence had evolved into one of relative prosperity, all under the encouragement and watchful eye of their benevolent ruler.

  The shaman and his followers shuffled forward and filled the clearing at the top of the hill, surrounding the holy man with murmurs of awe and disbelief. A stocky chieftain from the large island to the south moved to the shaman’s side and pointed at a platform on the nearest islet, where a group of figures emerged slowly from an ornately crafted stone temple.

  “Is that Loc?” he asked, squinting at the tallest of the men, whose tunic’s gemstones and gold adornments glinted in the sunlight.

  The holy man answered, “Yes. It is he.”

  “The temple is magnificent,” the chieftain said. “It symbolizes the beginning of our thousand-year ascension as foretold in the prophecy.”

  It was widely held that Loc’s reign symbolized the start of a golden era for the islands, a time when the kingdom would become the region’s power center, revered by all, and prophesied to last twenty lifetimes. The oral traditions spoke of a powerful magic that would accompany
the appearance of the “chosen one,” the earthly embodiment of celestial power. It was believed that Loc was that being. The massive treasure he had accumulated only solidified his position, as if the earth were validating his dominance by offering its riches to its new master.

  The chieftain nodded. Who could doubt that this was no ordinary man, given the strides he had made since taking the throne? Any skepticism the chieftain might have harbored vanished at the spectacle before him. When he returned to his island, he would bring with him miraculous news.

  A flock of birds flapped noisily into the sky, sharp cries piercing the morning stillness and reverberating through the rain forest. The shaman looked around at the assembly, a puzzled expression on his face, and then the ground began to tremble. The shaking was accompanied by a dull roar. His breath caught in his throat as the vibrations intensified, and then the earth began pitching like the deck of a ship in a storm as he groped for a nearby vine to steady himself.

  A man screamed as the ground split beneath him and he disappeared into a steaming fissure. His companions scattered as more rents in the earth’s crust tore open. The world tilted, and the shaman dropped to his knees, a prayer frozen on his lips, as he gazed out at where the new city had stood.

  The temple and islet where Loc had been moments before were gone. The water had pulled back from the shore as though sucking out to sea any trace of the impudent king’s puny attempts to conquer nature. What had taken ten years to build was erased in a moment as the earthquake intensified, and the entire coastline dropped into nothingness as the bottom of the bay collapsed.

  The holy man’s eyes widened in terror as the ocean rushed to fill the chasm that had been the shallow bay, and then as suddenly as the nightmare had started, it was over. The island lay still. The hiss of vapor from the new cracks in the earth’s crust was the only sound besides the moans of injured and terrified tribesmen. The survivors were on their knees, looking to the holy man for guidance. His panicked gaze roamed over the sea, and then he forced himself to his feet.

  “Run. Get to higher ground. Now,” he cried, clambering up the trail as fast as his shaky legs would carry him. He had heard stories of moving walls of water from the elders of the dim past, when the gods of earth and sea had fought for dominance, and some primitive part of his brain understood that when the ocean returned, sucked into the new trench that was even now filling, it would do so with a vengeance.