Zero Hour - Cussler Clive - Страница 34

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The crewman flicked a switch, and the right-hand screen cycled. The color changed from gray to an orange hue. Suddenly, the clouds, mist, and spitting rain were gone. The visibility that had been less than a mile was no longer a problem. Like magic, the shape of a large, cone-shaped island suddenly took up the center of the monitor. The central peak soared thousands of feet into the sky. It seemed impossible to have been a mile or so out and yet have the mist hiding the island so thoroughly.

Even as his eyes were growing wide, Devlin’s ears began to pop. “What’s happening?”

“Inner hull pressurized,” one of the crewmen said, “outer hull flooding.”

On the left screen, Devlin saw the bow of the ship settling toward the sea. A few moments later, the water rushed in from all sides as air surged out of hidden vents in the decking. In seconds, the foredeck was submerged. The water level moved rapidly higher, traveling up the superstructure and engulfing the camera.

Suddenly, all Devlin saw was darkness and the swirl of water in front of the lens. It took a minute for the view to clear, but even then there was nothing in the frame but the ship’s bow.

“A submarine?” Devlin said. “You turned this ship into a bloody submarine?”

“The central section of this ship is a pressure hull,” Janko explained. “The rest is just camouflage.”

Despite his anger, Devlin found himself impressed. “How deep can it go?”

“No more than eighty feet.”

“You’ll be spotted from the air.”

“The black paint reflects almost no light, and it also absorbs radar.”

That explained why the paint was so thick and rubbery, Devlin thought.

“And all the radar masts and antennas?”

“We had to do away with them,” Janko said. “They tend to cause problems when we submerge.”

“You’ll still be picked up on sonar.”

Janko seemed exasperated. “We don’t travel around like this, Padi. We travel on the surface, like we have been. We merely do this to hide. And… to park.”

“Park?”

“Activate the approach lights,” Janko said to a crewman.

In the far distance, a line of yellow-green lights came on. They ran along the seafloor. To some extent, they resembled the dashed centerline on a dark highway.

“Five degrees to port,” Janko said. “Reduce speed to three knots.”

As Devlin watched, the crewman to his left tapped away on a keyboard. “Auto guidance locked. Auto-docking sequence initiated.”

The ship continued toward the dim lights.

“In position,” the crewman said.

“Open outer doors.”

A few more taps on the keyboard, and a thin crack of light appeared in what looked like a wall of rock. Before Devlin’s eyes, the crack widened as huge doors slid open, revealing a narrow portal in the sloped side of the island’s submerged foundation.

Using bow and stern thrusters, the Voyager countered the current and moved slowly into what proved to be a gigantic, naturally formed cave.

“All stop,” the helmsman said.

“Cave doors closing,” the other crewman reported.

“Surface the Voyager,” Janko ordered.

The sound of high-pressure air forcing water from the ship’s tanks became audible. It reached a crescendo just as the four-hundred-foot vessel broke the surface.

Devlin watched in awe as the water drained away from the cameras and then shed itself from the decks. More artificial lighting came on, illuminating the cave around them, a space just slightly larger than the Pacific Voyager itself.

A slight bump was felt.

“Docking ramp is in position,” the crewman said.

Janko nodded. “Bring the prisoners,” he said. “I’ll show Padi his new home personally.”

“New home?”

“That’s right,” Janko said. “Welcome to Tartarus. Prison of the Gods.”

After thwarting the hijacking of the Ghan, Kurt, Joe, and Hayley had switched modes of transport, taking a chartered jet to Perth and then boarding a Sea Lynx helicopter that flew them to the NUMA vessel Orion when she was still three hundred miles from the coast.

From there, the Orion had turned southwest, heading back out to sea. Three other ships in the NUMA fleet were joining them and heading in different directions. They were moving south, attempting to set up a picket line using the sensing devices Hayley had designed. The plan was simple. If Thero tested his device, they should be able to locate him.

As Hayley began the long task of calibrating the sensors, Kurt made his way up to the bridge. He arrived just as the third watch began.

Through the large plate-glass windows, he could see that the sky had darkened and lowered, and the sea had turned a dark iron gray. The western swell continued at four to five feet, surprisingly calm for this section of the world. Still, Kurt didn’t like the look of things.

He grabbed two mugs with the name ORION on them and a small representation of the constellation’s stars embossed on the side. He filled them with coffee and wandered over to Joe, who was standing with the Orion’s captain, studying the charts and the weather report.

“Captain?” Kurt said, offering one of the mugs.

“No thanks,” Captain Winslow replied.

“I’ll take one,” Joe said.

Kurt handed one mug to Joe and kept the other for himself. He took a sip and then nodded toward the weather report. “What’s the word?”

“No storm yet,” Joe said, “but the pressure’s dropping. We’re looking at a disturbance coming in from the west.”

It was March, which meant it was early fall in the southern hemisphere. The worst of the weather would not hit for another month or so, but south of 40 degrees latitude they’d entered an area known as the Roaring Forties. At this latitude, the Great Southern Ocean encircled the Earth uninterrupted by land. It could brew up a monster storm whenever it chose.

“So far, we’ve been lucky,” Winslow said. “But my old bones tell me this weather isn’t going to hold.”

“Quiet before the storm?” Joe asked.

“Something like that,” the captain said.

“We have to keep going,” Kurt said, “even if the weather hits hard.”

Winslow seemed determined as well, but only to a degree.

“We won’t let you down,” he assured Kurt. “But if there’s a point at which the danger to the ship and crew becomes too great, I’ll have to make that call. The Orion’s a strong ship, but she wasn’t built for a full-on gale.”

Kurt nodded. The captain was master of the ship, and though Kurt was in charge of the mission, the captain’s word would hold sway. “What about the others?”

Joe pointed to the chart. “Paul and Gamay are aboard the Gemini.”

On the map, she was a long way out of formation.

“Why is she so far behind us?”

“She had to come all the way from Singapore.”

“Frustrating,” Kurt said. “But it’s worth the wait to get Paul and Gamay on the team. What about the others?”

“Dorado’s here,” Joe said, pointing to a different section of the map well to the east, almost directly under the center of Australia.

“And the Hudson is way over here, south of New Zealand. They just got the equipment delivered. Two days, at least, before they come online.”

Kurt studied the chart. Four tiny ships, just dots on the map in the vast sea. They were the only real hope of finding Thero before he acted.

“You think this is going to work?” Joe asked.

“It all depends on Hayley’s sensors.”

“You don’t seem as certain as before,” Joe noted.

“She’s hiding something,” Kurt said.

“And yet, you like her,” Joe noted.

“All the more reason to be careful,” Kurt said.

At this, Joe nodded. “It’s always the punch you’re not looking for that hits the hardest.”

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