Sea of Greed Page 19

  The control sphere was now being flooded from two directions. It was also burning and in danger of exploding—or, more likely, imploding. It all depended on whether the storage tanks blew up before the integrity of the sphere gave way completely.

  Kurt began pulling off his overalls.

  Joe did the same. “What could go wrong? you said. Should be a piece of cake, you said.”

  “Next time, I won’t say a thing,” Kurt promised.

  “If we live to see next time.”

  “How can you two speak like this?!” Millard shouted.

  “We still have hope,” Kurt said.

  “Not if we just stand here!”

  Kurt tossed the overalls away. “Actually, that’s the only thing we can do. At least until the pressure equalizes and the water stops pouring in.”

  Millard was too panicked to think. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re a scientist,” Kurt said. “What happens when the water rises above the gap in the sphere?”

  Millard nodded as understanding came to him. “Equilibrium will be restored,” he said. “The air will have nowhere left to go. The water will stop rushing in.”

  “And we can swim out of here once that happens,” Kurt said.

  “You two can,” Millard said. “But what about me?”

  “I’ll drag you with me,” Kurt said. He pulled out the backup regulator. “You hold on tight and breathe through this. Once we’re out of the ship, we’ll ascend slowly. If you panic or do anything foolish, I’ll cut you free. Understand?”

  Millard stared at the water flooding in around them. “Okay, I’m with you,” he said. “All the way.”

  Spray began to rush up from beneath them, swirling up over the top of the grating at their feet. The flood churned in a circular motion and the gigantic whirlpool picked up everything it touched, including Kurt, Joe and Millard.

  “Hold on,” Kurt shouted.

  Millard wrapped his arms around Kurt as water swept them away. Kurt held an arm across Millard’s chest in a lifeguard’s rescue hold.

  They went with the current, which dragged them around the far side of the sphere, past the burning tanks and back toward the section where the hatch lay.

  In the middle of their second lap, the water crested above the gap in the sphere. With nowhere for the air to escape, the pressure balance was restored.

  “The bathtub’s full,” Kurt said. “Now, if the sphere will just hold together until we get out of here, all will be well.”

  Joe drifted ahead of Kurt and Millard as they neared the hatchway.

  “I’ll go first,” Joe shouted.

  He put the regulator in his mouth and dived without waiting for an answer. Kurt made sure that Millard had the backup regulator in his mouth, then clamped down on his own.

  When he was sure the oxygen was flowing, he went under. The water was murky, lit only by the flickering of the fires. An ethereal light was coming through the hatchway. It was the spotlights from the submersible.

  He followed Joe’s blurry outline toward the hatch, kicking smoothly and holding on to Millard. They went lower, reached the open doorway and swam inside the pipe that connected the two spheres.

  Joe was visible for an instant before he vanished through the far side of the tunnel.

  Kurt kicked and stroked with his free hand. It was a tight fit with Millard attached to his side and they bumped the wall as soon as they went in. Halfway through, he felt the one sensation he’d been dreading.

  The water surged, a brief push, like that of a passing wave, but it was followed by a sudden and violent undertow. Kurt knew instantly. The sphere behind them had cracked like an egg and the air was pouring out once again, drawing thousands of gallons of water a minute into the open space.

  Kurt was sucked backward, Millard was ripped from his grasp and both were drawn through the tunnel and spat back out into the burning and flooding sphere they’d just left behind.

  42

  KURT BROKE the surface. In the light of the fire, he could see water pouring in from higher up. The gash in the wall had torn upward like a zipper and the sea was crashing down like a waterfall.

  Kurt had no hope of swimming free. He was carried forward on the current to where the two streams met. There, he was pushed upward and then dragged under before being forced to the side and reaching the surface once again.

  He bumped into a floating body. It was Millard. He was unresponsive and bleeding from a gash on the head. Kurt had no idea if the man was dead or alive, but he grabbed ahold of him as they were carried around the sphere and up toward the top of the dome.

  Floating junk and debris gathered around them. Kurt protected his head as they banged the wall and he grasped at another body as it swept past. But it rolled and slipped from Kurt’s hand, vanishing into the downwash from the incoming water.

  Hoping to avoid the same fate, Kurt kicked hard and sped past the inflow point. On the next circuit, he grabbed onto a collection of pipes that spanned the dome’s curved ceiling.

  The current pulled hard, but he held fast, clutching Millard to him with his free arm. The current finally began to slow.

  The water had climbed above the split in the wall once again and, for the moment, the remains of the structure held.

  Kurt looked up, an eight-foot gap was all that remained between him and the very top and center of the sphere. A bubble of air and toxic gases were trapped in that gap and Kurt became thankful once again for his rebreather.

  Drawing oxygen from the regulator was far preferable to searing his lungs on whatever was trapped around him.

  There was a slight murmur from Millard and his eyes opened just a sliver. Kurt pressed the backup regulator into Millard’s mouth. He immediately spat it out. “Where . . . Where are we?”

  Kurt briefly pulled the regulator from his own mouth. “Back where we started,” he said, “only higher up. The whole sphere is flooded. But we can still get out of here.”

  He took a breath from the regulator and forced Millard to do the same. Millard looked around groggily. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Hopefully, swimming free. We need to do the same.”

  Kurt looked at his watch. They’d been down there too long to get out without a decompression stop, but their position at the top of the sphere would work. They were only sixty feet below the surface.

  He got Millard’s attention, pointed to the crack in the wall of the sphere.

  Millard nodded.

  Kurt held up three fingers, then two, then one. Letting go of the pipe but holding on to Millard, he swam toward it, dragging Millard with him. The swirling current had not completely disappeared, as the water continued to churn under its own momentum. Intent not to miss the gap, Kurt bumped his way along the wall until he found it.

  The torn section of the sphere was too narrow to fit into at the top, but a few feet down it was a gaping wound. Kurt dragged Millard downward, through the opening and out into the sea.

  Without the helmet, Kurt had no hope of seeing anything. He engaged the power assist and swam away from the ship as rapidly as he could. Releasing a stream of bubbles now and then, Kurt kept himself oriented. After a few minutes swimming at that depth, he allowed himself and Millard to rise, ascending slowly and finally breaking the surface.

  Kurt spotted the lights of Bermuda, turned on his side and began pulling Millard with him. The power assist was operating, but not nearly as effective, without flippers. Kurt was glad for all the help he could get.

  A few minutes into their swim, he felt the rumble of several explosions through the water, which went off in series as one tank after another ruptured down below. Seconds later, a single, much larger detonation told him the rest of the tanks had gone up simultaneously.

  A series of white water eruptions broke the surface and the resulting waves pushed
Kurt and Millard farther toward shore.

  It would be another twenty minutes before Kurt spied the Pavati.

  Arriving at the anchored boat, he pushed Millard up onto the dive platform and climbed the ladder. The boat was dark and still. A quick look confirmed that Joe was not aboard. Either he was out there in the open ocean or he’d never escaped from the submerged ship.

  43

  BERMUDA’S NORTH SHORE

  KURT’S PRIORITY was stabilizing Millard, who had fallen unconscious and was suffering from mild hypothermia and the head wound.

  Kurt eased Millard onto the floor of the boat, dressed the head wound and strapped him down with a cargo net. He placed a life preserver under Millard’s head as a pillow and covered him with a pair of thick towels.

  “That’s the best I can do for you right now,” he said to the unconscious man.

  Kurt went to the radio and dialed in the high-frequency band. “Joe, this is Kurt. Do you read?”

  There was no response.

  “Come in, amigo. Tell me where you’re at and I’ll come pick you up.”

  Nothing but silence. If Joe hadn’t retrieved his helmet, communications would be impossible.

  He switched tactics. “Priya, this is Kurt,” he said, transmitting again. “I need you to ping Joe’s transponder and give me a fix on him. He’s in the water but not responding.”

  Waiting in painful silence, Kurt checked the transmitter to make sure it was operating correctly and then pressed transmit again. “Priya, come in, this is Kurt.”

  The sound of the sea breeze and the waves lapping against the side of the boat was all he heard.

  “Forget this,” Kurt said, hanging up the microphone.

  He fired up the engine, pulled the anchor in and pushed the throttle forward. The Pavati began to move and Kurt steered to port, accelerating and heading back toward the waters above the sunken and obliterated LNG carrier.

  Flicking through a battery of switches, he soon had every light in the boat shining. He grabbed the radio once again. “Joe, if you can hear this, I’m going to make a direct line between where we parked and the wreck. If you’re in the water, wave me down.”

  With the boat at quarter speed, Kurt pulled out the night vision scope and scanned the area ahead. He was looking for Joe, but he noticed the freighter was no longer moored by the marine buoy. He looked to the horizon, but there were several ships to the north and he couldn’t tell which, if any of them, was the freighter.

  Kurt really didn’t care, the only thing that mattered at this point was finding Joe. He slowed down as he moved into an area of floating wreckage. Despite a slow, careful search through every bit of floating debris he could find, there was no sign of his friend.

  Circling around, he called for help once more. “Priya, this is Kurt, you’re supposed to be on the radio. Joe is missing and probably injured. I need you to locate him for me.”

  At long last, the radio crackled to life with a response. A female voice came over the speaker. “Your friend Joe is dead,” the voice said coldly. “You killed him by destroying my laboratory. I hope it was worth it to you.”

  “Tessa,” Kurt said in recognition.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s my name. And I now know yours . . . Kurt . . . Austin.” She dragged the name out as she spoke it, but followed it up quickly. “You can imagine who told me and what we had to do to her to get her to speak. This little helper of yours is tougher than she looks.”

  Kurt’s priorities changed instantly. Tessa had Priya. There was no point in asking how. He turned the wheel and gunned the throttle, setting a course back toward the Great Sound.

  “So now you’re adding kidnapping to your crimes,” Kurt said. “That’s not going to play well when they bring you in.”

  “You’re laughable,” she said. “There’s no one here to bring me in. Even if there was, it’ll be too late by the time they act. I’ll be off this island in five minutes. And you, Kurt Austin, will never see me again.”

  Kurt knew Tessa wouldn’t stay in Bermuda. Even if the Prime Minister of the island was in her pocket, he would rapidly switch sides with the full weight of the U.S. government and the world community coming down on him.

  “It’s over for you,” Kurt said. “I’ll have U.S. Navy divers on that site in the morning and an international warrant out for your arrest by lunchtime.”

  Her pitch went up. “The only things coming to an end are the Oil Age . . . and this young woman’s life . . . if you try to stop me.”

  Kurt had every intention of stopping her. His boat was racing at full speed, flying across the waves. It would only take a small amount of damage to keep the Monarch on the water. He would come up with a way to cause that damage by the time he got to it.

  “Think about it,” Kurt said. “The world is not going to bow down to you or let you hold it hostage. Every country on earth needs oil. That makes you everyone’s enemy.”

  The reply came with great confidence. “I’m afraid you have it backward and upside down,” she said. “We’ve already infected half the world’s major oil fields. Some of them are only now beginning to experience the slowdown, but, trust me, the progression is unstoppable and things will soon get rapidly worse. In a few months, most of the world’s oil will be trapped and useless. It will be unreachable without causing disasters like what happened to the Alpha Star. And the bacteria will multiply and grow as long as there’s oil in the ground to feed on. All of which means, I’m not the problem, I’m the solution. Trust me, the world will embrace me long after you’ve been swept aside.”

  Kurt heard every word she said, along with a high-pitched whine in the background. The Monarch’s jet engines were spooling up. She would be gone in a matter of minutes.

  He hung the microphone up and concentrated on his course. With his craft moving at breakneck speed, he’d almost reached the entrance to the Great Sound. Turning toward the shore, he angled across Spanish Point, cutting it so close that spray from the boat washed across the coastal road.

  He was still several miles from Tessa’s compound, but the aircraft would need a long stretch of water to take off. Instead of heading toward her island, he cut across the Great Sound, aiming for a spot where he could intercept her.

  By the time he spotted the Monarch, it was already moving. He saw the uplit tails, the floodlights in the wings and the nose illuminating the water. The aircraft was out of the bay and taxiing into position for its takeoff run.

  Kurt continued westward, crossing the bay, weaving around a sailboat and between several of the many yachts anchored there.

  Beyond these vessels, he found himself in the channel reserved especially for the Monarch to take off from and land in.

  He carved a white wake into the sea turning hard to the south. The Monarch was a mile away, picking up speed and heading north.

  The radio crackled. “You think we don’t see you out there?” Tessa’s voice sounded both angry and uncomfortable. Clearly, when pressured, her choice was aggression. “Get in our way and we’ll run you down. I’ll crush you like an insect!”

  Kurt grabbed the microphone once more. “Good luck flying with a giant hole in your bow. You won’t even get off the water.”

  Kurt doubted Tessa would turn, but he gambled on the pilots’ being more rational. He kept the throttle to the firewall and the nose of the boat pointed at the oncoming behemoth. It thundered toward him, the roar of its six monstrous engines growing louder by the second and soon drowning out even the rumble of the Pavati’s V-8.

  Kurt pressed forward, shielding his eyes as the plane’s lights washed over him.

  * * *

  • • •

  INSIDE the Monarch, the pilots were stricken with fear.

  “He’s not turning,” one said.

  “Neither can we,” the other pilot answered. “I’m cutting the thrott
le.”

  “No,” Tessa shouted. “Cavitation now!”

  The copilot hit a switch and the vents beneath the aircraft opened. Huge volumes of compressed air flooded through the thousands of tiny holes on the bottom of the plane. In an instant, the water’s grip was broken and the Monarch leapt into the air.

  * * *

  • • •

  KURT NEVER SAW the plane leave the water, the light was too bright. But suddenly the glare tilted skyward and the Monarch was thundering overhead.

  It cleared him by ten feet, though the jet blast swept in and hit him from the rear and the vortex behind the plane nearly threw the Pavati over.

  The boat skipped twice. Kurt corrected for the turbulence and kept it from rolling. He backed the throttle down and sped onto the smooth water of the Monarch’s wake. There, the boat slowed and settled.

  Kurt took it through a quarter turn and cut the throttle completely.

  Glancing to the north, Kurt watched the Monarch climbing and turning. All at once, its lights went out and the great plane vanished into the night.

  Joe was gone, Priya was gone and all Kurt had to show for it was an obliterated vessel at the bottom of the sea and an unconscious, possibly comatose scientist.

  He picked up the microphone and held the talk switch down. “I know you can hear me, Tessa, so hear this. It doesn’t matter how far you go, where you hide or who your friends are, I will find you and bring you down, even if I have to hunt you to the ends of the earth to do it.”

  44

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  KURT ARRIVED in Washington on one of NUMA’s private jets. It pulled to a stop in front of a waiting ambulance and a gray SUV. With the help of the pilot, Kurt carried the stretcher down the stairs toward Rudi Gunn and a team of Navy paramedics.

  They placed the stretcher on a mobile gurney and the paramedics took over from there. “I need a name for the record,” the lead paramedic said.