Sea of Greed Page 14

  They went up to the middle deck, toward the nose. As the fuselage narrowed, they came upon an arrangement of gray metal boxes with orange stripes.

  “These are the fuel cells,” Tessa explained. “Most aircraft this size are forced to carry a dedicated APU to give them ground power for electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic controls. These are not small systems. On a typical 747, the APU puts out two thousand horsepower. The Monarch actually requires more power than a 747 due to our larger control surfaces and electrodes used to keep marine growth from forming on the bottom of the fuselage.”

  “And you get all that from these two small cells?” Kurt said.

  She nodded. “All we need and then some. See for yourself.”

  Kurt studied a glass screen. According to the information on it, the fuel cells were running at sixty percent capacity and putting out enough electricity to light up a small town.

  “This is a high-density unit,” Tessa said. “It’s being developed to replace diesel engines in semitrucks,” she said. “A smaller version will be used for luxury cars. But, just making a dent in the trucking industry will turn us profitable. There are over fifteen million trucks in the U.S. alone, three million of which are tractor-trailers. Think of the fuel savings, the reduction in both air and sound pollution, when we’ve eliminated millions of noisy, smoke-belching trucks. And that’s just one market. In twenty years, fuel cells will replace every coal-burning power plant, most of the gas-burning plants and every internal combustion engine in the industrial world.”

  She was back in sales pitch mode. Kurt acted as if he was considering the financial potential, but he was actually studying the schematic on the screen of the fuel cell. It looked a lot like a diagram Joe had drawn.

  He turned to Tessa. “You should know I have nearly five hundred million dollars to invest—half my money, half from my partners. I won’t say you’re going to get it all, but if this all pans out, I’d be willing to offer a large portion of our funding in exchange for an exclusive deal.”

  Tessa looked confident now, radiant in the electronic glow of the small room. “I’m certain something can be worked out.”

  Tessa’s phone buzzed. As she pulled it from the pocket of her robe, Kurt reached into the key pocket of his bathing suit and palmed a tiny, waterproof listening device. He would wait for the best moment to place it somewhere.

  “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Franco, but you have visitors coming in,” the security guard said.

  “If that’s Oliver Warren, tell him he’s too late.”

  “It’s Mr. Volke, Mr. Yates and Mr. Millard,” the security leader said. “They’re on their way in by boat.”

  “Tell them I’m busy.”

  “I told them as much already, ma’am. Mr. Volke insists on seeing you. He says the matter is urgent. Mr. Yates wants to speak with you as well.”

  Kurt let her off the hook. “Duty calls.”

  “So it would appear.” Tessa sighed. “Send them down here when they arrive,” she said to the guard. “I’ll meet them on board the Monarch.”

  Kurt took her arm and she walked him back through the aircraft to the door on the lower deck. They paused in the doorway. Kurt drew her close and took one last look around as if admiring the plane. With his free hand, he placed the listening device behind a curved section of the fuselage.

  “I hope I’ll be hearing from you,” he whispered as he stepped out through the door.

  29

  GULF OF MEXICO

  PAUL TROUT stood at the wheel of the Raleigh’s primary launch, which was basically a souped-up lifeboat without a top shell. Gamay was with him, heading north across the warm Gulf of Mexico waters.

  “Didn’t get much of a send-off,” Paul said, glancing back at the distant lights of the Raleigh, almost ten miles behind them.

  “That’s what happens when you slip away in the middle of the night without telling anyone,” Gamay replied.

  That wasn’t quite true. The captain and the executive officer knew, as did a few members of the third watch who saw them depart, but after Kurt and Joe had been ambushed in Florida, the Trouts had decided not to take any chances.

  They’d loaded seven containers of the soil and bacteria onto the launch and pushed off, headed for New Orleans, where they would deliver the samples to a group of scientists handpicked by the President to study the bacteria and look for more efficient ways to kill, counteract or contain it.

  “Do these scientists know we’re coming?” Gamay asked.

  “I figured we’d call them when we get into port,” Paul said. “I didn’t want anyone to know we were moving the samples.”

  Gamay nodded. “Speaking of that, I’d better check the containers. The bacteria are putting off more gas than we thought, and I don’t want any explosions, which we might have if the pressure in those containers rises too high.”

  She left Paul’s side and made her way to the short stairway that led to the boat’s forward cabin. Stepping down to the bottom of the boat, she flicked the light on, lifted a tarp and then stepped back in shock.

  “Derrick,” Gamay said. “What are you doing here?”

  He stood rapidly. “Quiet,” he snapped, his voice a harsh whisper. He had a pistol in one hand and a radio in the other. The gun was pointed her way. There was no mistaking the message.

  He put the radio to his mouth. “Prowler, this is Reynolds,” he said. “You might as well move in. They’ve found me.”

  The response came through the radio just loud enough for Gamay to hear. “You’re still too far out. Keep them on their current heading, we’ll intercept you in three miles.”

  “Who are you working for?” Gamay said.

  “I told you to be quiet!” he snapped. “If Paul comes down here, I’ll have to kill you both and I don’t want to do that.”

  She knew Paul couldn’t hear them. The wind of the open deck and the rumble of the engine drowned out any voice that wasn’t shouted. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re making a big mistake.”

  “Thinking you could sneak away in the night was the mistake,” Reynolds said. “Bringing all this with you . . .” He pulled the rest of the tarp back and tossed it aside, exposing the other containers.

  “Those are soil samples from below the oil platforms,” she said.

  “I know what they are,” Reynolds replied. “And I know you’ve been in the medical bay, adding chemicals and other things to the sediment. I’ve seen you in there. I heard the explosion when one of the experiments literally blew up in your face.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “We’re not adding anything. We’re simply studying the samples.”

  “You’re altering them, so you can blame someone other than the oil company.”

  She looked Reynolds directly in the eye. There was a wild look about him. His face was red. She could see he was unstable and enraged by what he believed, but the voice on the radio had sounded far calmer. “Who were you speaking to?”

  “Stop asking questions,” he said.

  “You’re an environmentalist, right?”

  “Of course I am,” he said.

  “I’m an environmentalist, too,” she said. “I’ve testified before Congress for tougher laws on dumping waste in the seas and restricting drilling. I even chained myself to a few trees in my college days in the vain hope that they wouldn’t be chopped down for a parking lot. I know what you’re feeling, but—”

  He cut her off again. “I’m not letting you blame radical environmental factions, or whatever else you might call them, for the negligence of the people who were operating that oil rig. I heard you talking to the captain about explosives. I know what your game plan is. We all know it. Big Oil and Big Government, can’t tell where one starts and the other ends.”

  “We? Who are you working with?”

  “A
group who wants to do something about it,” he told her.

  At this moment, Paul shouted down the stairs. “Everything all right down there?”

  The gun rose a fraction.

  Gamay tilted her head toward the door and shouted back. “Just fine, honey. Be up in a few minutes.”

  Gamay could not remember ever calling Paul honey. She hoped the word would sound as strange to his ears as it felt coming from her lips.

  “Just checking,” Paul said calmly.

  Reynolds grew more tense, gripping the gun, wiping some sweat from his face and splitting his attention between Gamay and the stairs, expecting Paul to come charging down to her rescue.

  It didn’t happen.

  “So, what are you going to do here?” Gamay asked after another minute.

  “Turn over the samples to friends of mine,” Reynolds said.

  “And then what?”

  “They’ll publish the truth.”

  “What are you going to do with us?” Gamay said.

  He paused as if he hadn’t thought it through. “They don’t want you, they want the proof.”

  He was obviously being used by someone, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  Paul shouted down to her again. “There’s something up here you should see. Some weird lights on the horizon.”

  Gamay looked at Reynolds. “Sounds like your friends are here. Last chance to change your mind and do the right thing.”

  “I am doing the right thing,” he said. “Let’s go. Upstairs.”

  Gamay turned and pushed the door back.

  “Slowly,” Reynolds whispered.

  She did as ordered, opening the door that led from the cabin to the stairs and climbing the flight slowly. Reynolds followed, gun in hand, eyes darting about, looking for trouble.

  Paul wasn’t waiting to ambush them. In fact, he was still at the helm. But the second Gamay reached the top step, he threw the wheel over and the boat swung wildly to port.

  Gamay was knocked off balance. She landed on the deck and slid.

  Reynolds—who was still halfway down the stairs—was thrown into the wall. He slammed against it, managed to hold on to the pistol and pushed off the wall, trying to stand up.

  Immediately, Paul reversed his turn and the boat swung hard to starboard.

  Reynolds fell the opposite way and slammed into the other wall. This second impact knocked the pistol from his grasp, causing it to discharge a single round into the wall.

  Getting up, Reynolds lunged for the weapon, but Gamay’s shoe caught him in the face and sent him flying backward into the cabin. Before he could get to his feet, Gamay had the gun and was holding it on him.

  “Get on the floor,” she shouted. “Hands as far forward as you can stretch them.”

  She watched him comply and then shouted up to Paul. “Nice work . . . honey. For a second, I thought you didn’t hear me.”

  “We’re not in the clear yet,” Paul shouted down to her. “Those lights I told you about are for real. Two boats heading our way, one moving in behind us.”

  30

  PAUL REMAINED at the wheel, while Gamay tied Reynolds up.

  “I assume you secured our friend,” he said when she appeared.

  “Hog-tied and sheep-shanked him,” Gamay said. “He’s not going anywhere. But we should check on him in a little while.”

  “Assuming we survive that long,” Paul said. “We’re caught in the middle of a triangle. One boat off the port bow, another one off the starboard bow and one that crept in behind us.”

  Gamay looked aft, spotted the lights of the third boat and then turned back to Paul. “Have you tried calling for help?”

  Paul turned up the volume on the marine radio. Every frequency hummed with a garbled electronic sound. “Jamming the entire spectrum.”

  “What other options do we have?”

  “We’re roughly halfway between the Raleigh and the coast,” Paul told her, “but it’s all open water back to the Raleigh. We disappear out there, no one will ever know what happened. But the closer we get to the coast, the more likely we are to encounter other traffic. And within a few miles of shore, we should be able to use our cell phone. They can’t jam those. Then, there are the barrier islands to think about.”

  He pointed to the chart. A long row of islands mirrored the shape of the Gulf shoreline. The nearest was five miles away. “We could hide in the shallows or even go ashore if we need to. At least we’ll have options.”

  “Let’s go for the islands,” she said.

  Paul moved the throttle forward slowly and the launch surged with surprising power. The crew of the Raleigh had tuned the engine, removed the governor and performed a few other tricks to give their boat extra power.

  It picked up speed easily and, before long, the lights ahead of them began to widen out, not because they were moving away but because the increased speed had changed the angle of approach.

  It didn’t last long. “Here they come,” Gamay said.

  Paul pushed the throttle to full and locked it there. The launch picked up more speed and began to bounce on the chop. Each landing threw a sheet of spray over the top and, despite the windscreen, Paul and Gamay were soon getting drenched.

  The two boats turned hard, but the Raleigh’s launch was moving too quickly to be cut off. Before long, the three boats ended up abreast of one another.

  “Low-profile powerboats,” Gamay said.

  “They’re small and fast, but we can pack a punch,” Paul said. “Hang on.”

  He cut the wheel to starboard and swerved toward the nearest of the two boats, sideswiping it.

  The boats rebounded off each other, but the smaller craft took the worst of it. Its bow was forced up and to the side, catching the air. It came down with the nose pointing sideways, flipped several times and vanished behind them in the dark.

  “One down,” Gamay said. “Great job.”

  Paul resisted the urge to smile and attempted the same tactic as the second boat swept in on them. The pilot of this boat was quicker. He pulled away and dropped back into a trailing position.

  “They learn fast,” Paul said.

  With that boat dropping back, Paul could do nothing but concentrate on the course ahead. He took direct aim at the nearest barrier island and held the wheel, swerving only slightly here and there.

  “We both know what’s coming next,” Gamay said. She ducked down, putting some amount of protection between her and the trailing speedboat.

  Flashes from a firearm in the boat behind them were easy to see in the dark. The bullets were not. They whistled overhead and to the side. Invisible and deadly if they found their mark.

  Paul crouched down, weaved a little more radically but kept the course changes to a minimum. Every turn cut down on their speed and added to the distance they had to travel.

  With Paul handling the evasive maneuvers, Gamay began crawling toward the stern of the launch.

  “Where are you going?” Paul asked.

  “I have Derrick’s gun,” she said. “I want to test my marksmanship.”

  She reached the stern and took a position against the transom. Looking out over the stern, she zeroed in on the bow of the trailing speedboat. She tried to time the rise and fall of each boat, waiting as a large sheet of spray dropped behind them and then firing off several shots.

  “Hit anything?” Paul shouted, turning the boat once more.

  “Not that I can tell,” she replied. “Between them moving and you swerving all over the place, it’s impossible to aim.”

  “At least they’re having the same problem.”

  “When I shout to you,” Gamay said, “hold us steady. Just for two seconds.”

  “Will do,” Paul said.

  There was a reciprocal danger to that plan, underlined by the sudden shat
tering of the plastic windscreen as several bullets hit the boat, but Gamay trusted in her shooting skills.

  She grabbed a life jacket, placed it on the transom and stretched her arms out over it.

  “Are you ready?” Paul shouted.

  “Almost,” she said. She waited for the following boat to move in behind them. “Now!”

  As Paul straightened the boat up, Gamay exhaled and pulled the trigger repeatedly. The automatic pistol recoiled, chambered a new round and fired it off in a rapid blur. In a few quick seconds, Gamay had sent eight shots out into the dark.

  She ducked behind the transom and hoped to avoid return fire as Paul turned the boat again.

  When she looked up, their pursuer was turning and heading off course. Whatever or whoever she’d hit, the boat continued out into the dark and vanished.

  “Two down,” she said.

  Gamay checked the magazine as the third boat began to move in. There were only five shots left, a problem their new pursuer did not seem likely to have. “Looks like they’re sending in big brother.”

  Though they couldn’t see it, they could tell the third craft was more powerful by the sound of its engines. “Whatever it is, she’s bigger and faster than us,” Paul said.

  They could never hope to outrun it, nor could they bully it like Paul had done to the first attacker. Making matters worse, the boat’s pilot seemed to be an expert. Gamay could hear the throttle modulating precisely as it went over the waves. Because of that, its bow remained steady. And sitting up on that bow was a high-powered weapon on a tripod.

  “Turn!” Gamay shouted.

  Paul whipped the boat into a turn as a stream of red tracers flashed across the water. With five shells between each tracer round, that first burst would have been enough to shred the fiberglass launch.

  “Sounds like fifty-caliber,” Paul said. “Not that it matters.”

  “All that matters is, staying away from it,” Gamay shouted.

  Paul did his best, but the new attacker matched every twist and turn.