Devil's Gate nf-9 Read online

  “The strangest part,” he said, “is that they sank the ship deliberately instead of taking her for a prize. And they killed the crew. It was more like a terrorist action than a pirate raid.”

  A flat-screen monitor on the wall displayed Pitt’s rugged features. He seemed to clench his jaw while thinking.

  “And you never found a mother ship?” he asked.

  “We did a fifty-mile leg in the direction they were heading,” Kurt said. “Then Captain Haynes took us on a dumbbell pattern south for five miles and back north for ten. Nothing on radar in any direction.”

  “Maybe their course was a false track. To draw you off until they put some distance between you and them,” Pitt offered.

  “We thought about that,” Kurt said, considering a conversation with the captain as the search began to look fruitless. “Or they might have even had enough gas on board to get back to the coast. A drum or two lashed to the boat could explain the explosion.”

  “Still doesn’t explain what they were doing on that ship,” Pitt noted. “What about hostages?”

  “Maybe,” Kurt said. “But we have the captain’s wife with us. They left her deliberately to hold us up. She said there was no one unusual on board. In fact, if anyone were to bring a ransom she seemed like the best candidate to me, but it wouldn’t be that much.”

  On screen, Pitt looked away. He rubbed a hand over his chin for a second and then turned back to the screen.

  “Any thoughts?” he asked finally.

  Kurt offered a theory. “My dad and I did a lot of salvage work when I was younger,” he began. “Boats go down for plenty of reasons, but people send ’em down for only two. Insurance money or to hide something on board. One time we found a guy shot in the head but still strapped into the seat of his boat. Turned out his partner shot him and sunk the boat, hoping to cover it up. Didn’t count on the insurance company deciding they could salvage the wreck and get some money out of it.”

  Pitt nodded. “You think this is the same kind of thing?”

  “Kill the crew, sink the ship,” Kurt said. “Someone’s trying to keep something quiet.”

  Pitt smiled. “This is why you make the big bucks, Kurt.”

  “I get big bucks?” Kurt said, laughing. “I’d hate to see what you’re paying everybody else.”

  “It’s a scandal,” Pitt said. “But it’s a heck of a lot more than the admiral paid me when I started.”

  Kurt laughed at the thought. Pitt had told him once that his first month’s pay for NUMA wouldn’t cover a broken arm, even though he’d risked his life half a dozen times in that month. Then again, neither of them did it for the money.

  Kurt continued. “Kristi Nordegrun, the woman who survived, said she didn’t know what happened, but the lights flickered and blew out, her head seemed to ring, and she lost her balance and consciousness. She believes it was at least eight hours before she woke up again. She still seems disoriented, she can’t walk without holding on to something.”

  “What does that tell us?” Pitt asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kurt said. “Maybe some kind of nerve agent or anesthetic gas was used. But it’s just one more thing that screams ‘more than pirates’ to me.”

  Pitt took this in. “What do you want to do?”

  “Go down there and poke around,” Kurt said, “see what they’re trying to hide from us.”

  Pitt glanced over at a map on his wall. An old-fashioned pushpin marked the Argo’s location. “Unless I have you in the wrong spot, there’s three miles of water between you and the seafloor. You got any ROVs on board?”

  “No,” Kurt said. “Nothing that can go that deep. But Joe’s got the Barracuda on Santa Maria. He could modify it, and we could be back here in a few days, a week at most.”

  Pitt nodded as if he were considering the thought, but Kurt sensed it was more in admiration of his gung ho attitude than in granting permission for the excursion.

  “You earned some R and R,” Pitt said. “Go on to the Azores. Contact me once you get there. In the meantime I’ll think about it.”

  Kurt knew the tone in Pitt’s voice. He wasn’t a man to close off any possibilities, but he’d probably come up with his own idea long before Kurt called in.

  “Will do,” Kurt said.

  The screen went blank, Pitt’s face replaced by a NUMA logo.

  In his heart, Kurt knew there was more to this incident than the obvious, but how much more was the question.

  It could have been the “pirates” simply trying to cover their tracks. Maybe they’d taken cash or other valuables. Maybe they’d killed a few of the crew in the takeover and then decided to hide the incident by shooting the rest and scuttling the ship. But even that scenario left questions.

  Why set the ship on fire? The smoke could and did give them away. It would have been easier to flood her and sink her without the explosions.

  And what about the pirates themselves? Recent history had pirates all around the world, mostly locals from poor countries who saw the world’s wealth passing them by in great ships and decided to grab a share for themselves. But the few men Kurt had seen on the Kinjara Maru did not look like your typical pirates. More like mercenaries.

  He looked over at the folding knife now lying on the table beside him, a unique-looking and lethal piece. He remembered it sticking in the chair. It seemed like a taunt, a calling card and a slap in the face all at the same time.

  Kurt thought about the arrogance of the man’s words, and the voice itself. It hadn’t been the voice of some poverty-stricken West African pirate. And stranger still, Kurt had the oddest feeling that he’d heard that voice somewhere before.

  8

  THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA sits at the oceanic crossroads. But despite this position, it has always been more of a roadblock to trade than a thoroughfare. Its sheer size and inhospitable habitats — from desert sands in the Sahara to the dark impenetrable jungles across its vast central region — made it impossible to cross profitably.

  In the past, ships that wished to swap oceans were forced to sail on a ten-thousand-mile journey that took them around South Africa, into some of the most treacherous waters in the world and past a point wistfully named the Cape of Good Hope, though its original name was the more accurate Cabo de Tormentas: Cape of Storms.

  The completion of the Suez Canal made the journey unnecessary, but did little to bring Africa into the modern world. Quite the contrary. Now ships had only to cut the corner, slip through the Suez, and they were soon on their way to the Middle East and its oil fields, Asia and its factories, Australia and its mines.

  As world commerce boomed, Africa rotted like vegetables left unclaimed on the dock beneath the withering sun.

  Inland could be found genocide, starvation, and disease, while along the African coasts lie some of the most lawless places in the world. Somalia is for all intents and purposes a land of anarchy; the Sudan is little better. Less well known but almost as forlorn are the West African countries of the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

  Liberia’s troubles were well chronicled, as leader after leader fell amid scandal and corruption, and the country lurched toward anarchy and mayhem. The Ivory Coast was much the same.

  And for much of its history, Sierra Leone had fared even worse. Not too long ago, the country had been considered a more dangerous place than Afghanistan and had a lower standard of living than Haiti and Ethiopia. In fact, Sierra Leone had once been so weak that a small group of South African mercenaries had all but taken it over.

  The group, operating under the “invite” of the existing regime and calling themselves “Executive Outcomes,” routed a much larger group of rebels who threatened to take over the mines. The nation’s only real source of wealth at the time.

  The mercenaries then proceeded to protect and control these assets, quadrupling production and taking a large cut for themselves in the process.

  Into this world of instability came Djemma Garand. A native of Sierra Leo
ne but trained by these South African mercenaries, Djemma rose to power in Sierra Leone’s military, making important friends and ensuring that his units were trained, disciplined, and ready.

  It took decades, but eventually the opportunity presented itself, and Djemma took power in a bloodless coup. In the years since, he had consolidated his position, raised the nation’s standard of living, and earned the grudging approval of the West. At least his regime was stable, even if it wasn’t democratic.

  As if to show their approval they’d even stopped asking about the welfare and whereabouts of Nathaniel Garand, Djemma’s brother and a robust voice for democracy, who had been rotting in one of the country’s prisons for the last three years.

  Djemma considered imprisoning his own brother both his darkest moment and also his finest. Personally, it sickened him, but the moment he’d given the order any fears he’d had about his own ability to do what was necessary for his country vanished. Places like Sierra Leone were not ready for democracy, but with a strong, unquestioned hand they might rise to that point someday.

  Standing on the marble floors of his palace, Djemma looked like any other African dictator. He wore a military uniform with a pound of medals dangling from his chest. He shielded his eyes with expensive sunglasses and carried a riding crop, which he liked to slam on flat surfaces when he felt his point was being taken too lightly.

  He’d seen the movie Patton several times and admired the general’s way. He also found it interesting that Patton considered himself a reincarnation of the African Hannibal. For Hannibal’s legend and his exploits held special interest to Djemma Garand.

  In many ways the Carthaginian general was the last African to shake the world with his sword. He went over the Alps with an army and his elephants, ravaging the Roman Empire on its home soil for years, defeating legion after legion, and failing to bring it down only because he had no siege engines with which to attack the capital of Rome.

  Since then, amid wars and coups and everything else that occurred on the African continent, the rest of the world only watched with disinterest. They worried about the flow of minerals and oil and precious metals, but even a temporary stoppage or civil war or more starvation had little effect on them.

  After a little saber rattling, new dictators would eagerly agree to the same terms as the old. Most for them, and a few pennies for the poor. As long as business was conducted this way, what did the world have to worry about?

  Seeing this, living it, breathing it, Djemma Garand intended his rule to be something more. Though he traveled in an armored Rolls-Royce, flanked by Humvees with machine guns, Djemma vowed to be more than a despot. He desired a legacy that would leave his people better off for all eternity.

  But to do that would mean more than changing his country; it would require changing Sierra Leone’s place in the world. And to do that he needed a weapon that could reach beyond African shores and shake that world, a modern version of Hannibal’s elephants.

  And that weapon was almost in his grasp.

  Taking a seat behind an imposing mahogany desk, Djemma carefully placed his sunglasses on one corner and waited for the phone to buzz. Finally, a light illuminated.

  Gently, without any rush, he lifted the receiver.

  “Andras,” he said quietly. “You’d better have good news.”

  “Some,” the salty voice replied.

  “That is not the kind of answer I expect from you,” Djemma said. “Explain.”

  “Your weapon didn’t work as advertised,” Andras said. “Oh, it damaged the ship all right, but it did no better than last time. Took out the navigation and most of the controls, but she kept steaming under partial power, and half the crew survived, those trapped deep inside. This device of yours is not doing what you expect.”

  Djemma did not like the sound of that. Little else could so easily send him into a rage as to hear that his project, his own Weapon of Mass Destruction, had yet again failed to perform up to standards.

  He covered the phone, snapped his fingers at an aide, and scribbled a name on a piece of paper.

  “Bring him to me,” he said, handing the scrap to the aide.

  “How many of the crew lived?” he asked, returning his attention to the call.

  “About half,” Andras said.

  “I trust they no longer survive.”

  “No,” Andras said. “They’re gone.”

  A slight hesitation in Andras’s voice concerned Djemma, but he pressed forward. “What about the cargo?”

  “Off-loaded and on its way to you,” Andras insisted.

  “And the ship?”

  “Rusting on the bottom.”

  “Then what is it you’re not telling me?” Djemma said, growing tired of having to pry information from his most highly paid asset.

  Andras cleared his throat. “Someone tried to stop us. Americans. I would guess a SEAL team or two. Makes me think your secret has leaked out.”

  Djemma considered the possibility and then rejected it. If information had leaked, they would have been stopped before the attack commenced. More likely a simple rescue party with a few guns.

  “Did you deal with them?”

  “I escaped and covered our trail,” Andras said. “There was nothing else I could do.”

  Djemma was not used to hearing that someone who’d tangled with The Knife had survived. “I hate to think you’re going soft on me,” he said.

  “Not on your life. These men were tough. You’d better find out who they were.”

  Djemma nodded. For once they agreed.

  “And what about your operation…” Andras said. “Python, is it? Will that still be going off?”

  Operation Python was Djemma’s masterstroke. If it succeeded, it would bring his country endless wealth, stability, and prosperity. And if it failed… Djemma didn’t want to think about that prospect. But if his weapon did not work as planned, failure was a real possibility.

  “It cannot be delayed much longer,” Djemma said.

  “Want me to come lend a hand?” Andras offered. His voice dripped with cynicism. He’d made it clear earlier that he thought Djemma was mad for attempting what he was about to do. Even madder for trusting his own army to do it. But Andras was an outsider, he didn’t know Djemma’s troops the way their general and leader did.

  Djemma smiled. By using Andras’s services, he was making the man incredibly rich, but if there was a way to get even more wealth and power Djemma expected Andras would follow it. There was no filling his insatiable pockets.

  “Where I grew up,” Djemma said, “the old women had a saying. A snake in the garden is a good thing. It eats the rats that devour the crops. But a snake in the house is a danger. It will kill the master and eat the baby, and the house will ring with sorrow.”

  He paused and then clarified. “You will get your money, Andras, perhaps enough to buy a small country of your own. But if you ever set foot on the soil of Sierra Leone, I will have you killed and your bones scattered to the dogs in my courtyard.”

  Silence rang across the phone line, followed by soft laughter.

  “The UN is wrong about you,” Andras said. “You are ruthless. Africa could use more men like you, not less. But in the meantime, as long you keep paying, I’ll keep working. Don’t run out of money like the papers say you’re about to. I would hate to extract my fees in less pleasant ways.”

  The two men understood each other. The Knife was not afraid of Djemma, even though he should be. He was not afraid of anything. This is why Djemma had chosen him.

  “Get yourself to Santa Maria,” he said. “I will give you further instructions once you arrive.”

  “What about the Kinjara Maru?” Andras asked. “What if someone goes to look at her?”

  “I have plans to deal with that if it occurs,” Djemma said.

  Andras laughed again. “Plans for everything,” he said sarcastically. “You make me laugh, Garand. Good luck with your mad plans, fearless leader. I will watch the papers and
root for your side.”

  The phone clicked, the line went dead, and Djemma placed his receiver down on its cradle. He sipped water from a glass of fine crystal and looked up as the doors to his office opened.

  The aide he’d sent running out came back in. Two of Djemma’s personal guards followed, escorting a white man who looked less than happy to be present.

  The guards and the aide left. The twelve-foot-tall doors closed with a thud. Djemma and the Caucasian man stood facing each other.

  “Mr. Cochrane,” Djemma said officiously. “Your weapon has failed… once again.”

  Alexander Cochrane stood like a scolded child might, staring with insolence at his would-be father. Djemma did not care. There would be success or there would be consequences.

  9

  ALEXANDER COCHRANE WALKED toward Djemma’s desk with a sense of foreboding far beyond anything he could recall. For seventeen months, Cochrane had been toiling to construct a directed-energy weapon of incredible power.

  This weapon would use superconducting magnets, like those Cochrane had designed for the Large Hadron Collider what seemed like several lifetimes ago. It would accelerate and fire various charged particles at almost the speed of light in a tight beam that could be rapidly “painted” over a target, destroying electronics, computers, and other circuitry.

  If tuned correctly, the weapon could act like a giant microwave beam, heating organic matter, cooking its targets from the inside out, setting them afire, even if they took cover behind steel-and-concrete walls.

  Through the skies, Cochrane’s weapon could shoot down attacking aircraft at ranges of two hundred miles or more, or it could wipe out approaching armies by sweeping back and forth across the battlefield like a garden hose aimed at approaching ants.

  At its ultimate level of development, Cochrane’s weapon could destroy a city, not like an atomic bomb, not with fiery heat or explosive force, but with precision, cutting here and there like a surgeon’s scalpel, turning one block after another into a wasteland.