the Silent Sea (2010) tof-7 Page 15

  When it was all said and done, there was an additional forty thousand dollars' worth of charges on the Chairman's Amex, but, as he'd always believed, problem solved.

  Hopefully.

  He asked about the crew's morale, especially Mike Trono's. Eric said, He spent an hour or so after the service talking with Doc Huxley. She was the Oregon's de facto shrink. He says he's fit for active duty. Linda cleared it with Hux, so he's back working with the rest of the fire-breathers.

  Probably for the best. Staying busy is a hell of a lot better than sitting still. Cabrillo knew that he was taking his own advice. We'll call you when we're set up on Pine Island. I assume you want video feed when we're there.

  Hell yes, they said in unison.

  Juan killed the connection and refolded his computer. Their deliveries from Seattle and Port Angeles arrived late in the afternoon, so it wasn't until the following morning that Max and Cabrillo headed for La Push. The ferry was a couple hours late because of wind, but they made the transfer quickly, driving the re-tired SUV onto the boat from the dock. With a capacity of only four vehicles and a relatively flat bottom, the ferry was at the mercy of the sea. The ride down to Pine Island was a battle between the boat's diesel engine and the waves that crashed over the bow. Fortunately, the captain knew these waters and handled his charge very well.

  He was also being paid to forget this trip ever took place.

  The approach to Pine Island went smoothly because its only beach was alee of the wind. They could only get about forty feet from shore before they had to lower the front ramp. Juan estimated they were in at least four feet of water.

  He looked across to see that Max was strapped in before backing the Explorer to the very back of the ferry. Ready?

  Hanley tightened his grip on the armrest. Hit it.

  Juan mashed the gas pedal, and the Ford's tires chirped against the deck. The heavy truck shot across the ferry and raced down the ramp. It hit the ocean in a creaming wall of water that surged over the hood and then over the roof, but there was enough momentum to shoulder most of it aside. The weight of the engine dragged the nose down, allowing the front tires to find purchase on the shale seabed.

  It wasn't elegant, and the motor was sputtering by the time the grille emerged from the water, but they made it. Juan bulled the SUV up onto the beach, shouting and cajoling the truck until all four tires were on solid ground.

  You enjoyed that, didn't you? Max was a little paler. Juan shot him a grin. And have you considered how we're going to load this thing back on the ferry when we're done?

  As you may recall, I got the full insurance package when I filled out the rental forms. Today is not Budget Rent A Car's lucky day.

  Should have told me that, otherwise I would have bought retreads rather than new tires.

  Juan blew out a breath like a long-suffering spouse. We never talk anymore.

  He parked just above the tide line. They had discussed the possibility that the Argentines would anticipate them coming to Pine Island and lay a trap. While Max got some equipment together, Juan scanned the beach for any sign that someone had come ashore recently. The shale tiles looked undisturbed. There were no depressions like the ones his feet made with every step. He knew from talking with Mark and Eric that this was the only place where someone could gain access to the island, so he felt pretty confident that no one had set foot here in a long time.

  They had brought battery-powered remote motion detectors that could send a wireless alert to Cabrillo's laptop. He hid several of them on the beach, facing inland so the motion of waves hitting shore wouldn't trigger them. It was the best they could do with only two people.

  The tract leading to the pit was heavily overgrown, and it taxed the SUV's off-road capabilities to the limit. Small trees and shrubs vanished under the front bumper and scraped against the undercarriage. They saw evidence that people did continue to visit Pine Island despite the property being posted off-limits. There were several fire pits where local teens camped. Detritus of parties littered the clearings, and long-faded initials were carved in some trees.

  This must be the local version of lovers' lane, Max remarked.

  Just so long as you don't get any ideas, Juan grinned.

  Your virtue is safe.

  The area immediately around the pit was little changed from when the Ronish brothers came here that first time in December of 1941, with one notable exception. A steel plate had been bolted over the opening into the rock. It was badly rusted, having been exposed to the elements for the past thirty-plus years since it was installed at James Ronish's insistence, but still remained solid. Mark had warned them about this, and they had come prepared.

  The real difference lay just offshore, where concrete pylons had been driven across the mouth of a narrow inlet. When Dewayne Sullivan tried to drain the pit, they had blocked off the bay because it was the most likely source of the water that defeated his pumps every day. The inlet had since refilled, but the water looked stagnant, meaning the cofferdam kept it from mixing with the ocean.

  Juan started unloading equipment while Max lugged an oxyacetylene cutting torch to the large piece of steel. The plate itself was too thick to slice efficiently, so he attacked the bolt heads. With the torch burning at over six thousand degrees, the bolts didn't stand a chance. He cut off all eight, and silenced the hissing torch. The smell of scalded metal was quickly whipped away by the steady offshore breeze.

  The tow hook on the winch attached to the SUV's bumper slipped over the metal plate, and when Hanley took up the slack the chunk of steel slid smoothly across the rocks and revealed the yawning opening into the earth that had intrigued people for generations.

  I can't believe I'm about to dive the Treasure Pit, Juan said. When I was a kid, I followed Dewayne Sullivan's expedition in the papers, dreaming of being on his team.

  Must be a West Coast thing, Max replied. I'd never heard of this place until Murph and Stoney's briefing.

  Besides, you have no whimsy, Cabrillo teased, copying Eric Stone's earlier observation.

  The dive gear they had ordered from Seattle was top-of-the-line. Juan would have a full-face dive helmet with a fiber-optic voice-and-data link to Max on the surface. A tiny camera mounted on the side of the helmet would allow Hanley to see everything the Chairman did. Diving alone, especially underground, was never a good idea, but if something happened to Juan when he was in the pit, Max would know about it and be able to haul him back up.

  You ready, Max asked when Juan finished cinching a utility belt over his dry suit.

  Cabrillo gave him the OK sign. Divers never give the thumbs-up unless they are about to surface. Keep watch on the computer for those motion sensors. If one goes off, get me up to the surface as fast as you can.

  Max had his pistol secreted in the small of his back and Juan's on the seat next to him. I doubt they're coming, but we're ready.

  Juan clipped the winch hook to his belt and slowly eased himself off the steel plate and into the Treasure Pit. There was no sense of how high he was over the bottom because the shaft was inky black. He had yet to put on his helmet. The air was layered with the thick stench of rotting kelp and the iodine tang of the sea.

  His halogen light pushed only a few feet into the darkness before being swallowed up.

  Ready? Max asked.

  Lower away, Juan replied, and slipped his helmet over his head and locked it to the collar ring. The air from the tanks on his back was fresh and cool.

  The winch paid out cable at a steady sixty feet a minute. Juan observed the rock walls below the thick wooden supports placed here some time in the past by person or persons unknown. Where the Ronish brothers had used oakum to block water seeps, the 1978 expedition had used fast-drying hydraulic grout to fill any crack or crevice, and from the look of them it was still doing the job. The walls were bone dry.

  How are you doing? Max's question came down the fiber-optics.

  Darkness sucked at Cabrillo's dangling feet. Oh, just ha
nging on. How far down am I?

  About a hundred feet. See anything yet?

  Murk. Lots and lots of murk.

  At one hundred and forty feet, Juan saw the reflection of his dive light off the surface of the water below him. The water was perfectly still. As he got lower, he finally saw evidence that the pit was still connected to the sea. The rock was damp from high tide, and mussels clumped like black grapes clung to the stone, awaiting the tide's return. He could also tell that the ocean's access to the pit had to be limited. The tidal mark was only a few feet tall.

  Hold on a sec, Juan ordered.

  Looks like you've reached the water, Max said, watching the scene on the laptop.

  Okay, lower slowly. Juan didn't know what lay under the surface and didn't want to be impaled. Hold again.

  When his foot made contact with the water, he kicked around, feeling for any submerged obstruction. It was clear.

  Okay, down another foot.

  They repeated this until the Chairman was completely submerged and he could see for himself that the pit was clear. He dumped a little air from his buoyancy compensator so that he sank to the full stretch of the cable.

  Visibility is about twenty feet, he reported. Even through the dry suit, he could feel the cold Pacific's embrace. Without the dive light, he was in a stygian world. There wasn't enough sun from the surface to penetrate this deep into the pit. Give me some slack.

  Cabrillo finned deeper into the pit. When he approached bottom at eighty feet, he realized that Dewayne Sullivan had pulled a fast one. He had used the excuse of the two accidents to call a halt to his exploration when in fact it looked like they had hit bottom only to discover the pit was empty. They had removed all the debris and found nothing. He swept his hand over the thin layer of silt covering the rock floor. The coating was only knuckle-deep. Below it, the rock was smooth against his fingertips, as though it had been ground flat. The only interesting feature was a man-sized niche just above the pit's terminus.

  I think this is a bust, he told Max. There's nothing down here.

  I can see that. Hanley adjusted the control on the laptop to sharpen the picture because of the cloud of silt Juan had kicked up. A squirrel paused as it scampered by, gave him an angry tail twitch, and ran off.

  A noise suddenly caught Max's attention. It wasn't the motion alarm but something far worse. A low-flying helicopter was approaching. It had been coming on at wave-top height, so the island masked the beat of its rotors until it was almost atop him.

  Juan! Chopper!

  Pull me up, Cabrillo shouted.

  I will, but this'll be over by the time you get up here.

  This was a move by the Argentines that they had discussed but had no real defense against. Hanley had only seconds to react.

  The helicopter sounded like it was headed for the beach where he and Juan had come ashore. It was the only logical landing site. Max mashed the control button to winch Cabrillo back to the surface, grabbed Juan's pistol from the seat next to him, and jumped from the SUV. He started running as fast as he could, drawing his own pistol from its holster.

  He calculated the odds that the Argentines had brought their own pilot to the United States to be pretty slim, meaning the guy at the controls had been hired to fly them out to Pine Island. If Max could get there quickly enough, there was a chance he could stop them from landing.

  His legs were burning after only a few hundred yards, and it felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest. His lungs convulsed as they fought to draw air. The extra pounds he carried around his middle weighed him down like an anchor. But he pushed through the pain, running with his head down and his arms pumping.

  The rotor beat changed. He knew the pilot was flaring the helo to land. Max actually growled as he charged down the overgrown track. His sixty-plus years seemed to melt away. His feet suddenly felt like they were dancing over the ground, barely making contact with the earth.

  Hanley exploded from the forest. Ahead of him was the beach, and just above it was a civilian JetRanger helicopter. The water was being whipped mercilessly by the rotor downwash as it slowly sank earthward. Max saw the outline of a couple of men in the rear seats.

  The range was extreme for the Glocks, and when he skidded to a halt his body trembled, but he raised the pistols anyway. He aimed away from the JetRanger's cockpit and started pulling the triggers, firing right and left so the report from each weapon turned into one continuous roar. In just a few seconds he put up a thirty-round curtain of lead.

  He had no idea how many rounds hit the chopper, but he knew some had. The rear door was thrown open, and one of the Argentines prepared to jump for the ground, ten feet below the skids. The pilot reacted by increasing power and starting to veer away.

  Max dropped the pistol in his left hand and thumbed the magazine out of the other. The man in the door slid forward, trying to compensate for the tilting aircraft. In the fastest change out he'd performed since Vietnam, Hanley had a fresh magazine in the Glock and the slide closed before the Argentine could jump.

  He fired as quickly as before, his ears ringing with the concussive blasts. The guy in the open door suddenly jerked and fell free. He made no attempt to right himself as he plummeted into the surf.

  Hanley could imagine what was happening on the JetRanger. The Argentine Major would be screaming at the pilot to turn back to the island, most likely threatening him with a weapon, while the pilot would want to put as much distance between him and the madman shooting at him as possible.

  Max slid home another magazine, waiting and watching to see who would win the test of wills. After a few seconds, it was clear the chopper wasn't coming back. It flew due west, presenting as small a target as possible. In moments it was just a white dot against the gray sky.

  The only question in Hanley's mind now was whether the Argentines would let the pilot live. He didn't like the man's chances. They'd already proven themselves ruthless, and he doubted they would leave an eyewitness alive.

  His chest was still pumping when he finally started walking toward the beach. The Argentine who'd fallen from the JetRanger lay facedown about fifteen feet from shore. Max kept his pistol trained on the man and waded into the frigid waters, sucking air through his teeth when it reached his waist. He grabbed the man's hair and lifted his head free. The eyes were open and fixed. Max turned the body. His shot had hit the guy square in the heart, and, had he actually been aiming there, it would have been a remarkable shot. As it turned out, though, it was just dumb luck.

  There was no ID in the man's pockets, only a little cash plus a sodden pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter. Max unburdened the man of his money and towed the body toward the beach. When it was shallow enough, Hanley started stuffing rocks into the man's clothes. It took him a few minutes, but eventually the body began to sink. Max dragged him back into deeper water again and let go. With the body weighted and the tide ebbing, the corpse would never be seen again. He grabbed up the pistol he'd dropped and started back.

  While he wanted to run, his body simply wasn't up to it. He had to settle for a loping trot that still made his knees scream in protest. It had taken him less than seven minutes to reach the coastline, but it took more than fifteen for the return journey.

  Max expected to see Juan, but there was no sigh of the Chairman. To his dismay, the winch hadn't reeled up the cable. He looked at the control box and realized he had hit the down button by mistake. A glance at the front bumper revealed that the cable drum had completely paid out the line.

  He lowered himself onto the SUV's rear seat and settled the headphones over his mouth. He frowned when he saw the feed from Juan's camera showed nothing but electronic snow.

  Juan, do you copy, over? Max should have been able to hear the Chairman breathing inside his dive helmet, but all he heard was silence, a silence with a sense of finality behind it. Hanley to Cabrillo, do you copy, over?

  He tried three more times, his concern deepening with each unanswer
ed hail.

  He decided not to reel in the cable but instead jumped out of the Ford and hauled up the seperate fiber-optic line hand over hand. After just a few seconds, he knew it was no longer attached to anything. Thin filament tangled at his feet as he frantically yanked it from the earth.

  When the end appeared at last, he held it up to examine the break. It didn't look like it had been sheared cleanly. The plastic coating around the delicate cable was shredded, like it had been abraded between two rough surfaces. He'd seen the video himself. There was nothing in the Treasure Pit that could have caused such damage. This was when he engaged the winch and stood fretfully as the cable slowly rose from the depths. Like the fiber-optics, the braided steel appeared severed.

  Max bellowed down into the dank shaft until his throat went hoarse, but all that returned was the echo of a very worried man.

  The Silent Sea

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  AGAINST A BACKDROP OF TOWERING ICEBERGS THAT HAD been carved into fantastic shapes by wind and wave, and a sky stained red from horizon to horizon, the Oregon still managed to look like a garbage scow. Even this pristine Antarctic environment couldn't add to the derelict tramp freighter's tired fa+oade. Even a beautiful frame can't help an ugly painting.

  Linda Ross had done a remarkable job driving them southward. Fortunately, the weather had cooperated, and they had encountered little ice until they were alee of the Antarctic Peninsula. Once there, Gomez Adams scouted a lane through the bergs in their MD-520. The severe storm front that had gripped most of the continent had finally died down, but he reported it was still some of the hairiest flying of his life and this from a man who used to make his living inserting Special Forces teams behind enemy lines.