Polar Shift Page 15

  “Do you think she knows something that can kill the project?”

  “It’s of no consequence,” Gant said. “We simply want to learn if she’s talked to anyone else. Then we’ll dispose of her. We may have another problem to deal with. Kurt Austin, the NUMA man that Barrett mentioned. I don’t like the idea that he saw the coil mechanism.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “Good. I’ve run up a CV on Austin. He’s got an impressive background. We don’t want him causing problems. If we see him as a threat, he’ll have to be eliminated quickly. In the meantime, stay close to Margrave, and immediately report anything important. We want him to pursue this project to the end using his own fortunes and energy.”

  “It will be a pleasure.”

  Gant was a master at hiding his own emotions, but he had a talent for reading the expressions of others. Doyle looked like a bulldog about to be served a slab of steak.

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “Tris? Naw. He’s always treated me like crap. He thinks I’m his monkey. Tells me to fetch coffee and drinks, and pop a beer as my reward. I’m pretty invisible to a guy like him.”

  “That’s what makes you so valuable to the Freedom Project. You’re better than a fly on the wall. You’ll be rewarded far beyond your dreams. If it’s any consolation to you now, for all Margrave’s brilliance he doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on under his nose. He has no idea that the security company working for him is a private army for the very ‘Elites,’ as he calls them, whom he wishes to humble. He thinks his little project is going to forward the goals of his neo-anarchist friends. He doesn’t realize that what he is doing will destroy him and his unwashed fools, and solidify the power of those he would like to defeat.”

  “What do you want to do about the old guy in Montana?”

  Gant chuckled. “My philosophic ravings must bore you.”

  “Not at all. I just need some direction.”

  “I wouldn’t think that you’d want to tangle with that old grizzly bear again after he mauled two of your men.”

  “He was smart. They were dumb.”

  “I don’t like loose ends, but he is no longer a priority. With the information on the girl, we don’t need him anymore. One more thing. Those lawyers who were in my office. I’d like you to dispose of them. Do your best to make it look accidental. An explosion in their office, perhaps.”

  Doyle rose from his chair. “I’ll get on it right away.”

  After Doyle left, Gant went to his window and looked out at Massachusetts Avenue. The fools in this city thought that they were living in the most powerful country in the world. They never understood that military power was limited. The organization of Elites that he was part of knew that political ends were not achieved by guns alone but by close surveillance and total control of all communication.

  Goals that would soon be realized.

  15

  AUSTIN LEANED AGAINST a rail on the Throckmorton and peered through binoculars at the ship that had suddenly appeared from the heart of the sea. The vessel listed drunkenly to one side, and sat so low in the water that the three-foot seas were splashing onto the deck. By some miracle, the ship somehow managed to stubbornly resist being pulled back to its watery grave.

  As an experienced salvage expert, Austin had pulled objects of every size and shape off the bottom, ranging from atomic bombs to submarines. He knew that simple physics suggested that the ship should not be afloat at all. At the same time, he was aware that strange things happen at sea. He was not a superstitious man, but years sailing the world’s oceans had made the unexplainable commonplace. He was no different from many sailors who bestowed vessels with human qualities. The ship seemed determined to tell its story. And Austin was just as determined to hear what it had to say.

  “What’s keeping her afloat?” said Zavala.

  “I don’t know what’s keeping her up or why she popped to the surface,” Austin said. “She could have been stuck in the muddy bottom or weighted down by cargo. Maybe the whirlpool shook things loose, and it rode to the surface like a wood chip.” He noticed Zavala’s skeptical expression, and said, “Okay, I don’t have the foggiest idea why she came to the surface and why she hasn’t sunk. Are you up for taking a closer look at her?”

  Like Austin, Zavala was wrapped in a blanket that the crew had supplied when they came aboard after rescuing the Trouts. “I was hoping to settle in with a bottle of reposada, but I can be ready to get up in the chopper again as soon as I change into some dry clothes.”

  Austin had forgotten that his clothes were soaking wet from his ocean dip.

  “I was thinking of going over by boat so we could go aboard and look around,” he said.

  “I’m always up for a boat ride. Besides, tequila tastes better as it ages.”

  Austin suggested that they meet at the boat launcher. He went to his cabin and exchanged his soggy clothes for dry ones. Before hooking up again with Zavala, he stopped at the sick bay to check on the Trouts. They were sleeping. The medical tech said they were suffering from exposure and exhaustion but after a few hours of rest they would be fine.

  On the way out of sick bay, he encountered Professor Adler, who was anxious to talk to the Trouts about their firsthand experience in the whirlpool. The professor was disappointed that he couldn’t see them, but he seemed happy when Austin suggested that he speak instead to some of the crew of the Benjamin Franklin, who had been transported to the Throckmorton to have their injuries treated. The Franklin was anchored near the Throckmorton while recovering from its battering.

  Austin met Zavala at the launch boom as planned, and minutes later their boat was cutting a foamy way toward the mystery ship. Austin steered the inflatable around the vessel in a big circle while Zavala snapped photographs. The sea was covered with dead fish and debris of every kind. Austin measured the vessel with his eye, comparing it to the NOAA and NUMA ships.

  “She looks fairly new. I’d say she’s around three hundred feet long,” he said.

  “She looks like I feel after a night out on the town,” Zavala said. “She’s fairly wide in the beam. Built to take a sizable load of cargo. But I don’t see any cargo booms. They must have been knocked off in the whirlpool.”

  “There’s no name or registration numbers on the hull,” Austin said.

  “Maybe we’re looking at a pirate ship.”

  Zavala’s suggestion was not as bizarre as it sounded. Modern-day piracy was a big problem on the seas of the world. Like their ancient counterparts, pirates captured ships and used them to attack other vessels.

  “Maybe,” Austin said, but he sounded unconvinced. The vessel was in fairly good condition, considering that she had lain on the bottom of the sea. “From the look of her, she was only submerged a short while. I don’t see any unusual rust, although it might have been blasted off.” He slowed the boat down to a crawl. “We’ve seen everything we can from sea level. Let’s go aboard?”

  “Proper protocol says we should wait for an invitation from the captain?” Zavala said.

  “Yes, under ordinary circumstances. But he seems to be otherwise occupied. I think I see the cocktail flag flying,” Austin said.

  “You’ve got better eyesight than I have. All I see is a hulk that looks as if it would roll over if a seagull landed on the deck.”

  “In that case, we’d better make sure we’re wearing our water wings.”

  While Zavala contacted the Throckmorton on a hand radio and asked the ship to stand by in case of an emergency, Austin brought the boat around to the lower side of the ship. He waited for a wave to roll in, then gunned the motor. The boat rode up on the crest and the power of the sea carried the Zodiak onto the deck. Zavala quickly tied the boat to a metal stub projecting from the deck. Leaning forward like roofers to compensate for the ship’s list, they half walked, half crawled up the slanting deck. The broad expanse was clear except for a twisted tangle of metal that protruded from the deck at the shi
p’s midpoint.

  They made their way across the deck using their loping, bent-over walk. Four girders had been bolted to the deck to form a rectangle of steel. The framework surrounded a rectangular opening in the deck about twenty feet square. They leaned over and peered into a dark shaft. They could hear the hollow swish of waves against metal.

  “The shaft goes all the way to the bottom,” Zavala observed. “Wonder what it was for?”

  “My guess is that they used it to put something in and take it out. This framework might have supported a crane of some sort.”

  The fallen framework was partially obscured by a tangle of thick electrical cable that looked like a pile of black spaghetti. Austin scanned the tumble of steel and cable, looking for some semblance of order. His gaze came to a stop at a metal mesh cone about twenty-five feet long. It lay on its side, tangled in supporting cable and electrical conduits that snaked down through openings in the deck.

  The sight of the cone stirred up images in his mind. Tall fins cutting through the water. The bald man with the strange tattoo on his head fiddling with a black box, assuring him everything was going to be okay. The orcas breaking off their attack as suddenly as it had started.

  Without thinking, Austin said: “Spider Barrett.”

  Zavala looked. “Spider who?”

  “Spider Barrett was the guy who pulled me onto his boat when the orcas went crazy in Puget Sound. He had a miniaturized version of that metal cone on his boat.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “You’re the team’s mechanical expert. Hazard a guess.”

  Zavala scratched his head. “All the cables lead to that big cone. My guess is that it sat over the hole on some sort of framework. It may have been lowered through the hole into the water. I can’t figure out any practical shipboard use for a setup like that. If you gave it some juice, you might get an effect like a big spark plug.”

  Austin pondered Zavala’s assessment for a few seconds, then said, “Let’s pop the hood and see what’s down below.”

  A wry smile crossed Zavala’s face. “Who in his right mind could resist an opportunity to crawl into the innards of a ship that could roll over with a sneeze?”

  “I thought you were worried about a seagull.”

  “How about a sneezing seagull?”

  “Look at it this way. Where would you rather be, behind your desk at NUMA or a place like this, where you’ve got a great ocean view?”

  “I’d like to be behind the wheel of my Corvette with a view of a lovely blonde.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Austin said. “I think I see a way in.”

  Despite their playful badinage, both men were well aware of the chance they would take going belowdecks. But Zavala trusted Austin’s judgment and instincts implicitly, and would have followed him into the gates of hell without hesitation. Austin made his way to a deck hatch, about three feet square, that his sharp eyes had picked out.

  He unlatched the cover, braced his feet and pulled back. The cover banged against its hinges, and a foul exhalation flowed from the opening and rocked them back on their heels. Austin undid the halogen flashlight clipped to his belt and pointed it into the opening. The intense beam reflected off the rungs of a metal ladder.

  They slipped off their flotation vests. The vests would only get in the way, and would be useless if the ship rolled over while they were belowdecks. Austin was the first down the ladder, which was sharply angled because of the ship’s list. He descended twenty feet and felt a solid surface under his feet. The deck slanted sharply, and he held on to the ladder to steady himself.

  Zavala was right behind him. He glanced around and said, “It looks like a fun house.”

  “Let’s go have some fun,” Austin said.

  Bracing himself against the lower wall, he made his way along a narrow passageway. After walking for about fifty feet, they came to a stairwell leading below. The prospect of descending deeper into the stricken ship was not an appetizing one, especially when they felt the deck list another few degrees. Both men knew that if the vessel capsized, they were dead. There would be no time to get out. But Austin was determined to pry out the secrets the ship held.

  “Feeling lucky today?” he said, his voice echoing off the walls of the passageway.

  Zavala smiled. “We just tangled with a giant whirlpool and won. I’m betting our luck is still holding.”

  The stairs led down to another deck that was identical to the first. The passageway ended not in a stairwell but in an unlocked door, which they opened. As they stepped through the doorway, their noses told them there had been a change in their surroundings. Instead of the briny odor that had pervaded the passageways, the air had an electrical smell to it, as if they had stepped into a Radio Shack.

  Austin played the light around. They were standing on a balcony that overlooked a huge, central hold. The space contained four massive, cylindrical objects set in a line.

  “Looks like the electrical generating plant inside Hoover Dam,” Austin said.

  “There’s enough power here for a small city.”

  “Or a big spark plug,” Austin said, thinking about the ruined coil they had seen on the deck. He pointed the light upward. Dozens of thick electrical cables snaked down from the ceiling and ran to the generators.

  Creak.

  The deck beneath their feet tilted at a sharper angle.

  “I think that seagull you were worried about must have landed,” Austin said.

  Zavala glanced upward. “Let’s hope he doesn’t have a cold.”

  Austin was intrepid but not foolish. They retraced their steps through the door, up the stairs and along the passageway, until they were out in the open once more. The fresh air felt good after the claustrophobic darkness inside the ship. The vessel was definitely more tilted than it had been. Austin still wasn’t satisfied. There was no foundation for a superstructure, but there had to be a control room. While Zavala called the Throckmorton with an update on their status, Austin made his way along the cockeyed deck toward the stern.

  He came across several more hatchways that provided access into the ship. He figured that any one of them would be a crapshoot, and that he would have to be very lucky to choose the right one. Then he found what he was looking for. Near a hatchway set into the middle of the deck at the aft end of the ship were some round insulators. He guessed that they might have been the bases for radio antennae blasted off in the whirlpool. He opened the hatch, and motioned for Zavala to follow him down the ladder.

  As before, the ladder led to a deck and a passageway, but the corridor was only about ten feet long, and it ended in a door. They opened the door and stepped inside.

  “I think we just found the crew,” Zavala said.

  There were six decomposed corpses in the control room. They were piled in the lower end of the room. Austin was reluctant to violate the crew’s tomb, but he knew it was important to learn as much about the ship as possible. With Zavala a step behind, Austin entered the room and glanced at the large control panel. With dozens of gauges and switches, it was far more complicated than any he had ever seen. He made an educated guess that the dynamos belowdecks were controlled from this compact space. He was examining the controls when the ship suddenly creaked, then seemed to moan.

  Zavala said, “Kurt!”

  Austin knew that if they stayed with the crew a second longer they would be joining the bloated corpses.

  “I think we’re done here.” He pointed to the door.

  With Zavala leading, they pounded down the corridor and practically vaulted up the ladder onto the deck and into the sunlight.

  Austin had tried keeping track in his head of the seconds that had elapsed since they heard the noise, but in their rush he had lost count. There was no time to get in the boat, start the motor and cast off. Not stopping to snatch their flotation vests, they ran for the lower side of the ship and launched their bodies off the side.

  When they came up, they swam as fast as t
hey could. The ship would create suction as it sank, and they didn’t want to get caught in it. They were well away from the vessel when they stopped swimming and looked back.

  The lower rail had dropped so that it was entirely under water. The ship itself was poised at a dangerous angle, with the deck almost perpendicular to the surface of the sea. Zavala’s sneezing seagull must have landed, because the ship suddenly reached the tipping point and rolled over. It floated for several minutes, looking like the shiny wet back of a gigantic turtle. As water flowed into the hold, the ship sank lower, until only a small circle of the hull was visible. Then that, too, disappeared, and was replaced by a frothy mound of bubbles.

  The sea had taken back its own.

  16

  PLEASED TO MEET YOU, Professor Kurtz,” said Harold Mumford, a professor of zooarchaeology. “Is Earl Grey tea all right?”

  “My favorite,” said the man seated in Mumford’s office at the University of Alaska’s Fairbanks campus. He had a long face, with a prominent jaw and light blue eyes. His brown hair was going gray.

  Mumford poured two cups of tea and handed one to his guest. “You’ve had a long journey. Fairbanks is quite a distance from Berlin.”

  “Yes, Germany is many miles from here, Dr. Mumford. But I’ve always wanted to come to Alaska. It is the last frontier.”

  “That’s changing fast,” said Mumford, a portly, middle-aged man who had a face like a friendly walrus. “Hell, we’ve even got a Wal-Mart in town. But with very little effort, you can get into some pretty rugged country, full of grizzly bears and moose. I hope you make it to the park at Denali.”

  “Oh yes. That’s on my agenda. I’m very excited about the prospect.”

  “It’s an all-day trip but well worth the time. I’m sorry you missed Karla Janos. As I mentioned on the phone, she left on a field trip a few days ago.”

  “It was a last-minute decision to come here,” Schroeder said. “I had some unexpected time to spare, and decided to drop by the university on a whim. It’s quite nice of you to see me on such short notice.”