Poseidon's Arrow dp-22 Read online

  Yaeger returned to an earlier database. “Panama Canal Authority records show she made the transit last Friday, entering the Pacific locks at three in the afternoon. I might be able to find archival video of her.”

  A few minutes later, he projected a clip from one of the locks. It showed, in grainy black-and-white footage, a midsized freighter waiting for the lock to flood. An edelweiss flower clearly showed on its funnel.

  Dirk looked at the image with a sense of hope. “Look at her Plimsoll mark. She’s riding high in the water. Her holds must be empty.”

  “You’re right,” Gunn said. “If she hijacked the Adelaide, she didn’t transfer the cargo aboard.”

  Yaeger pulled up a profile of the Salzburg. “The Adelaide is a hundred feet longer. They’d have to leave a large chunk of her cargo behind if they ransacked and sank her.”

  “The rare earth ore she was carrying was too valuable for that,” Gunn said. “No, she must still be afloat. I’m starting to believe she was taken to a place where her cargo could be off-loaded.”

  “But where?” Summer asked. “You checked all the major ports.”

  “She could easily slip into a private facility without our knowledge.”

  “There’s another possibility,” Dirk said, rising from his chair. “The wreck we ran across in Madagascar, the Norseman. She had had her identity scrubbed from the hull. What if they did the same with the Adelaide only they passed her off for another vessel?”

  Yaeger and Gunn both nodded, and Dirk began gathering up his things. When he began moving toward the door, Summer called out to him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Panama. And you’re coming with me.”

  “Panama?”

  “Sure. If the Salzburg is behind the Adelaide’s disappearance, then someone at Habsburg Industries has to know something about it.”

  “Maybe, but we don’t know anything about Habsburg Industries or even where they’re located.”

  “That’s true,” Dirk replied, shooting Gunn and Yaeger an expectant look. “But we will by the time we get there.”

  56

  THE BULLWHIP CRACKED, AND EVERY MAN WITHIN earshot flinched, fearing the lick of its knotted tip. Occasionally Johansson would show compassion and simply snap it in the air for effect. But most of the time he directed the whip to the bare skin of a forced laborer, eliciting an agonized cry.

  There were nearly seventy of them, slaves culled from the hijacked ships carrying rare earth. Now they were the ones carrying the rare earth, hauling the stolen ore to various extraction centers hidden in the jungle. Weakened by a regimen of hard labor and a subsistence diet, the men were quickly reduced to haggard zombies. The arriving captives from the Adelaide were shocked at the sight of them, in their ragged, soiled clothes, staring impassively at the new arrivals.

  Pitt and Giordino took one look at the men and knew there would be no benefit in delaying an escape.

  “I’m not impressed by the long-term medical coverage offered here,” Giordino muttered as they were divided into work teams to off-load the Adelaide’s cargo.

  “I agree,” Pitt said. “I think we should look for employment elsewhere.”

  “What’s with the dog collars?”

  Pitt had also seen that the laborers all wore tubular steel collars. The men wearing them carefully heeded the edge of the dock, not venturing beyond their immediate work area.

  Johansson cracked his whip, and the Adelaide captives were marched into a clearing. A table was set up with a box containing the collars, and one by one the men were fitted with the devices, which were locked with a key. Giordino’s bull-sized neck barely accommodated his collar, which clung tightly to his skin.

  “Do we get a cattle brand, too?” he asked of the armed man fitting the device. His reply was a cold sneer.

  When all the men had been fitted, Johansson paced in front of them.

  “In case you are wondering, the neck bands you are wearing are a protective device. They protect from escape.” He gave a malicious smile. “If you look to the dock, you will see a pair of white lines on the ground.”

  Pitt saw two parallel faded lines, painted several feet apart. The lines looped away from the dock and disappeared into the jungle.

  “The white lines encircle a five-acre area, encompassing the ore depot, the millhouse, and your living quarters. It is your little island of life. Beneath the lines are electrified cables that will emit a fifty-thousand-volt shock to your steel collars should you attempt to cross them. In other words, you will die. Would you like a demonstration?”

  The men stood silent, not wishing to witness another sacrifice.

  Johansson laughed. “I’m glad that we understand each other. Now, it is time to get to work.”

  Gomez’s crew from the ship deployed the dock conveyor to the Adelaide’s first hold and began off-loading the crushed monazite. The ore was dumped onto a concrete pad inside the white lines, where it quickly grew to a small mountain. Shovels and rubber-tired ore carts were delivered by a weary group of captives and the new slaves went to work. Plugrad and his Coast Guard team were assigned as shovelers while Pitt, Giordino, and the others were given the less arduous task of pushing the loaded carts to the nearby millhouse and unloading them.

  The equatorial heat and humidity quickly took a toll on the men, wringing the strength out of them. Pitt and Giordino worked as slowly as they could, trying to conserve energy, while sweat dripped down their faces. But always they heard the sound of the bullwhip, keeping the pace moving.

  The loaded carts were difficult to push for Giordino with his injured leg. He moved unsteadily, shoving his cart with short hops. Pitt was following close behind when Johansson stepped out of the jungle. His whip cracked a second later, the leather tip striking Giordino on the forearm. Despite the eruption of a red welt, Giordino reacted as if a gnat had landed on him, turning to Johansson with an ungracious smile.

  “Why is your cart only half full?” the Swede shouted as a pair of guards rushed to his side.

  Pitt could see the look in Giordino’s eyes and knew his friend was ready to pounce. The two guards would make it a hopeless act. Pitt shoved his cart forward, bumping into Giordino as a signal to stay calm. Giordino turned to Johansson and exposed the bloody bandage on his thigh.

  “Playing on an injury?” Johansson said. “Fill the cart full next time or I’ll do the same to your other leg.” He turned to Pitt and let his bullwhip fly. “That goes for you, too.”

  The lash snapped against Pitt’s leg. Like Giordino, he ignored the stinging pain and stared at Johansson with malice. Giordino nudged him this time, and the two men moved off with their carts while Johansson turned his attention to the next group of laborers.

  “Woe is me and my goldbricking ways,” Giordino said under his breath.

  “I’ve got some ideas on what I’d like to do with that bullwhip,” Pitt said.

  “You and me both, brother.”

  They dumped their carts at the side of the millhouse and made their way back to the dock, trying to survey the camp’s layout. Four long, low-roofed buildings off the back of the millhouse contained the extraction and separation operations. Beyond them, faintly visible through the brush, a two-story building housed the living quarters for the guards and facility workers. The captives’ housing was located on the opposite end of the millhouse. It was an open-walled structure, with a dining area at one end, surrounded by a ten-foot-high wall capped with barbed wire. Hidden farther into the jungle, and well beyond the white lines, a small power-generating station provided electricity for the compound.

  The captives worked until dusk, by which time they were ready to collapse. As he returned his empty ore cart, Pitt heard a sharp cry from the dock. One of Plugrad’s men had tripped while storing a shovel and had fallen close to the white line. A surge of high voltage had coursed through his body before he could roll clear. He trembled as his heart pounded wildly, but he survived the shock as a living warning to the othe
rs.

  Pitt and Giordino shuffled into the camp mess area as it began to rain, the palm-covered roof leaking everywhere. They were given bread and watery soup, which they took to a nearby table. Two emaciated men joined them.

  “Name’s Maguire, and my friend’s Brown,” one said in a Kiwi accent. He was a dusty-haired figure with a stringy beard. “Formerly of the Gretchen. You just get off the Labrador?”

  “Yes. She was called the Adelaide when we went aboard.” Pitt introduced himself and Giordino.

  “First time I’ve seen a hijacked ship here,” Maguire said. “They usually steal the cargo at sea and scuttle the ship. That’s what they did to the Gretchen, right off Tahiti. Zapped us with their microwave device and took control before we knew what hit us.”

  “Was it mounted on a big square dish?” Pitt asked.

  “Yes. Know what it is?”

  “We think it’s an offshoot of an Army crowd-control device called the Active Denial System or ADS.”

  “It’s bloody nasty, whatever you call it.”

  “How long have you been here?” Giordino asked.

  “About two months. You’re the second crew I’ve seen come in. Our numbers have been down as the attrition rate’s a little high,” he said in a low voice. “Just drink plenty of water and you’ll be okay. At least they don’t short us that.” He swabbed up the remains of his soup with a hard crust of bread.

  “Pardon the ignorance,” Pitt said, “but where exactly are we?”

  Maguire laughed. “Always the first question. You’re in the hot, rainy, wretched jungles of Panama. Exactly where in Panama, I can’t say.”

  “Maguire here has befriended one of the guards,” Brown said. “They apparently take periodic leave by boat in Colón, so we must be near the Atlantic side.”

  Maguire nodded. “Some of the boys think we’re in the Canal Zone, but it’s hard to know for sure as we never get off our little five-acre island of joy. The boss comes and goes by helicopter, so true civilization must be a bit farther away.”

  “Anybody ever make it out of here?” Giordino asked. “Seems like the prisoners heavily outnumber the guards.”

  Both men shook their heads. “Seen a few try,” Brown said. “Even if you get past the death stripes, they’ll come after you with the dogs.” He noted the welt on Giordino’s arm. “You get kissed by Johnny the Whip today?”

  “Something more than a peck,” Giordino said.

  “He’s a sick one, no doubt about it. Best to steer clear of him whenever possible.”

  “Who ultimately does run this place?” Pitt asked.

  “A guy named Edward Bolcke. Some sort of genius mining engineer. He’s got his own residence just up the way.” Maguire pointed toward the dock. “He built this entire complex to extract and refine rare earth elements. From what we’ve learned, he’s a major player in the world market, and is particularly tight with the Chinese. One of the extraction workers claims a quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of rare earth elements are processed here a year, much of it stolen.”

  Giordino whistled. “Makes for a tidy profit.”

  “The extraction facilities,” Pitt said, thinking escape. “I’m guessing they must use a large amount of chemicals in the process.”

  “Some deadly, I hope,” Giordino said.

  “Yes, but it’s out of reach,” Maguire said. “All the serious stuff is performed in the buildings beyond our access. We’re just the grunts. We load and off-load the ships and run the millhouse. You hoping to play with matches?”

  “Something on that order.”

  “You might as well forget about it. Brown and I considered it for weeks, but we’ve seen too many good men die in the attempt. Somebody will blow the whistle on this place one of these days. We just need to hang on until it happens.”

  A string of lights above their heads flashed briefly.

  “Lights out in five minutes,” Maguire said. “You boys best find a place to bunk.”

  He led them to a large screened room filled with rattan sleeping mats. Pitt and Giordino picked two and lay down as the room filled with men and the lights went out. Pitt ignored the discomfort of the steamy room and the hard mat as he lay in the darkness, contemplating a way out of the death camp. He drifted to sleep without an answer, not knowing his opportunity would come much sooner than he thought.

  57

  THE LABORERS FROZE WHEN THEY HEARD THE thumping whine of a helicopter landing. Johansson’s whip immediately prompted the men back to work, purging any hopes that an armed force had arrived to set them free.

  Instead it was Bolcke himself, arriving fresh from Australia, where he had set in motion the final stages for his takeover of the Mount Weld mining operation. Climbing out of the helicopter, he bypassed a waiting golf cart and strode to the dock, a pair of armed guards in tow.

  A ragged group of laborers, including Pitt and Giordino, were transferring the Adelaide’s final hold of ore when Bolcke stepped onto the dock. He glanced at the slaves with disdain, briefly locking eyes with Pitt. In that instant, Pitt seemed to read into the Austrian’s psyche. He saw a joyless man, one scrubbed clean of compassion, ethics, and even a soul.

  Bolcke coldly eyed the piled ore before examining the ship. He waited briefly for Gomez, who was summoned from the ship and scurried down the gangplank.

  “The cargo was what we anticipated?” Bolcke asked.

  “Yes, thirty thousand tons of crushed monazite ore. That’s the last of it there.” Gomez pointed at the final mound.

  “Any trouble with the acquisition?”

  “The shipping line sent out an added security team. We subdued them without issue.”

  “Someone was expecting an attack?”

  Gomez nodded. “Fortunately, they arrived after we had already seized the ship.”

  A troubled look crossed Bolcke’s face. “Then we must dispose of the vessel.”

  “After changing identities at sea, we entered the canal without question,” Gomez said.

  “I can’t afford the risk. I have an important transaction pending with the Chinese. Wait three days and dispose of the ship.”

  “There’s a salvage yard in São Paulo I can take her to. They’ll pay top dollar.”

  Bolcke thought a moment. “No, it’s not worth the risk. Strip what’s valuable, and dispose of her in the Atlantic.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pitt lingered near the ore pile, straining to overhear the conversation while his cart was filled. He watched as Bolcke turned his back on Gomez and walked toward his residence and Gomez returned to the ship.

  “The Adelaide’s headed out in a few days,” he said to Giordino. “I think we need to be aboard when they shove off.”

  “Fine by me. I just don’t want to go as a piece of toast.” He tapped his steel collar.

  “I have a theory about our dog collars,” Pitt said. He fell silent when Johansson emerged from the bush, cracking his whip.

  “Pick up the pace,” he yelled. “You’re falling behind the mill.”

  The laborers quickened their movements, none making eye contact with him. Johansson paced the dock area until he spotted Giordino, pushing a fully loaded cart and limping. The bullwhip snapped, striking Giordino in the back of the thigh. “You, there. Get a move on.”

  Giordino turned and gave him a look that could blister paint. His knuckles turning white as he pushed, Giordino propelled the ore carrier ahead as if it were an empty grocery cart. Johansson smiled at the display of strength, then wandered off to berate another group of laborers.

  Pitt followed Giordino along the path to the millhouse. It ran parallel to the twin white lines alongside the dock, and Pitt gradually eased the cart toward the nearest line. When he approached within three feet, he began feeling a tingling in the collar. He took a quick step and pulled himself onto the cart for a moment as it rolled along. The tingling immediately ceased. He veered the cart back onto the path, catching a brief shock as he pushed off with his foot. When he
caught up to Giordino, Pitt was smiling.

  After a brief lunch of cold fish stew, the two men were led into the millhouse, where they were assigned to feed the ball mill—a huge metal cylinder mounted horizontally on rotating gears. Crushed ore was fed into one end, where it would collide with hardened steel balls housed inside as the cylinder rotated. The balls pulverized the ore into a near powder, which was filtered out the opposite end. The mill rumbled like an overgrown washing machine loaded with marbles.

  The raw ore that had been transferred from the dock was piled in large mounds along the open side of the building. A short conveyor carried the ore to a raised platform built over the ball mill, where it was manually fed into the device through a large funnel. A guard ordered Pitt onto the platform to feed the mill, while Giordino joined another man shoveling ore onto the conveyor.

  The work was less strenuous than the hauling. The ball mill took time to digest the ore, which allowed frequent rests for the laborers. During one of these intervals, Johansson made an appearance. The overseer entered the far side of the building, lingering at the back end of the ball mill, where workers collected the powder in more carts and transferred them to the next staging area. The mill guard stepped over and joined him in a brief discussion of the output.

  A few minutes later, Johansson walked the length of the ball mill. For once, his hands were empty, the rawhide lash coiled to his belt. As he approached the feed piles, he spotted Giordino and the other worker seated on one of the mounds. Johansson’s face flushed, and his eyes bulged with rage.

  “On your feet!” he screamed. “Why aren’t you working?”

  “The ball mill is full up,” Giordino said, casually pointing to the spinning cylinder. He remained seated while his companion jumped upright.

  “I said, on your feet.”

  Giordino tried rising, but his injured leg lost its footing, and he buckled to his knee. Johansson lunged forward, catching Giordino before he could recover. Grabbing a shovel wedged in the ore, the Swede swung it hard, aiming for the bum leg.