Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 17

Her brother and his timetables. Everything had to be so complicated. "Won't they go after Westgate now?"

"Not right away. It will only ratchet up the suspicion. They will begin to investigate from afar. Hoping not to alert him."

"And then?"

"And then we will prod them along with another clue at the appropriate time."

One step at a time, she thought. But there was a problem. "We have to a.s.sume they know they've been hacked, at this point."

"I would hope so," he said. "We need them to understand just how vulnerable they are. It will get the gears turning in the minds of the powerful. It will begin the chemical reaction that leads to doubt and confusion, it will create a hidden sense of panic and a need to do something about it. Anything. That's how they work. Action. Reaction. They will not sit still." "You're planting a seed," she said.

He nodded. "One that will lead to the flowering of our plan."

She pushed out from the console, leaned back in her chair, and put her feet up on the desk. Thigh-high boots with stiletto heels landed on the desktop, clipping the keyboard.

"I wish you would be careful," he said.

She ignored him as usual.

"Now what," she said.

"Acosta is going to trade the hackers to the Korean," he said. "You and Egan are to take a group of the men and make contact with him. If you can bargain for them, then bargain. If not, let the deal go down and swoop in. Most likely, they will lead you right to Sienna Westgate. Bring her back so we can finish this."

Paul Trout stood on the deck and watched as the Condor's captain was airlifted in the ship's helicopter. The same one that Kurt and Joe had been in when they'd discovered the Ethernet sinking three months before.

The captain objected to leaving, but the ship's doctor confirmed that a major artery had been nicked in his leg. He was lucky not to have bled out and he needed surgery quickly.

Having lost so much blood, the captain was too weak to argue. "Take care of my ship," he'd said to Paul as they'd loaded him on board.

As the helicopter disappeared toward the west, the Condor's chief came up to Paul. "I guess you're in command now."

"Lucky me," Paul said. "What's our condition?"

"All systems are off-line," he said. "We're dead in the water."

"At least we're not going anywhere," Paul muttered.

"What do you want to do about the subs?"

Paul glanced at his watch. "It's been forty-five minutes. Standard NUMA protocol requires underwater operations to be aborted if communications with the surface vessel are lost and not reestablished within thirty."

"I've had men on watch," the chief said. "No sign of them yet."

Paul nodded, silently worried. "Can you get our systems back up and running?"

The chief took off his cap and scratched at his scalp. "Starboard engine survived the emergency shutdown. We could restart it-but only if we bring the propulsion control unit and the main computer back online."

Paul shook his head. "Find another way," he said. "No computers."

"How?"

"I don't know," Paul said. "How does Mr. Scott always get the Enterprise restarted when the dilithium crystals fail?" The chief exhaled sharply and headed back to the engine room, grumbling something about the Condor not being a s.p.a.ceship, but Paul was confident he'd figure something out. In the meantime, Paul turned his attention to the sea. He made his way to the rail, brought a set of binoculars to his eyes, and scanned the water himself. There was no sign of the submersibles.

The Scarabs should have been on the surface by now, firing off location flares. The fact that they weren't suggested a problem. He brought up a handheld radio, the only form of electronic communication left on the ship.

"Marcus, this is Paul," he said, calling the engineer in charge of the Condor's submersibles.

"Go ahead, Paul."

"The Scarabs are overdue. I want to go look for them. What else do we have on board?"

"A small ROV and the ADS."

ADS stood for atmospheric diving suit, made of hard-plated metal, and used for taking a single diver to great depths. They were often worn by divers working on pipelines and oceanic cables.

The most famous of the various ADS designs were the bulky JIM suits of the eighties and nineties. NUMA's ADS was a more modern design, still bulky and robotic-looking, but it came with its own thruster pack like a NASA suit designed for walking in s.p.a.ce.

"Does the ADS have any kind of computer interface?" Paul asked.

"No," Marcus replied. "Why?"

"No reason," Paul said. "Get it ready. I'm going down."

Inside Scarab One "Someone will come," Gamay said with determination. "Paul won't leave us down here."

Elena nodded grimly and stared into the black. "I don't want to die," she said.

"Who does?" Gamay replied.

Elena smiled at that, but it faded quickly.

What could be taking them so long? Gamay wondered. They had to know by the lack of communications that something had gone wrong. They had to have known for at least two hours.

To conserve air, they hadn't moved and had barely spoken. But the silence made it torture and the minutes felt like hours. Gamay was aware of every little creak and groan and she nearly jumped out of her skin when the hull reverberated with a bang.

Looking up, she saw a modic.u.m of light through the frost. Excitedly, she reached forward and sc.r.a.ped it off with the palm of her hand.

She saw nothing at first and then recognized the Condor's ADS.

She grabbed the flashlight, switched it on, and signaled to the diver that they were alive but freezing and running out of air.

In response, the diver began to tap on the hull.

Don't worry. Saving you is on my honey do list for today.

"It's Paul," she said with a sigh of relief.

He continued to tap. Get ready to be reeled in. You first, then Duke.

Thank you, she tapped out. You are my knight in shining armor.

Paul flashed his lights a few times and moved to the side. Only now did she see the ROV beside Paul, a high-strength cable gripped in one claw. Showing surprising dexterity for a man with giant metal pincers for hands, Paul hooked the cable to the Scarab's pickup bar and stepped away.

The cable went taut and the Scarab began to rise once again. This time it continued upward, hauled by the winch for thirty solid minutes, until it broke the surface at the aft end of the Condor. Thrilled to be on the surface, Gamay and Elena were both surprised not to be lifted aboard and instead only secured to the side of the ship.

"What's going on?" Gamay asked as she climbed out of the hatch.

"Technical difficulties," the chief replied. "Sorry it took us so long to get you but we've had our own problems."

Gamay smelled smoke and noticed that portable generators were rumbling beside the winch that had just hauled them from the seafloor. The cable was spooling out so that it could be hooked to Duke's stricken sub.

"We've had to jerry-rig everything," the chief said. "We're operating on one engine, and the men are controlling it by hand. If it gets any worse, we'll be sewing the bedsheets into a sail."

Something told Gamay it wouldn't get that far, but she wouldn't leave the deck until Paul surfaced with Duke's Scarab beside him. As he came up, smoke began pouring from the vents to the engine room, and two of the crew came stumbling out through the smoke.

"That's it, Chief," one of them said. "The bearings have gone out on the starboard gearing."

"Fire?" the chief asked.

"No," the crewman said, "just smoke."

The chief nodded. "Keep an eye on it."

Paul was lifted aboard moments later. As he was extricated from the ADS, he was given the bad news.

"Get on the radio," he said. "Call for a tow."

"Right away," the chief said.

"And, Chief," Paul added. "Tell them not to send anything fancy. We want the oldest, least automated rust bucket of a tug they can scrounge up."

With a plan that went no further than getting themselves to Korea, Kurt and Joe had packed quickly. Their host, Mohammed El Din, gave them a lift to the airport in his armored limousine, bidding them farewell in the traditional Arab style: with a hug and a kiss on each cheek and parting gifts.

To Joe he gave a small hourgla.s.s.

"The hourgla.s.s is to help you learn patience," El Din said. "It didn't seem to help you," Joe noted.

"Why do you think I'm getting rid of it?"

Joe laughed, and El Din's beaming smile came out again. El Din turned to Kurt next and handed him a small case.

Opening it, Kurt found an antique revolver, known as a Colt Single Action Army. It was in excellent condition, chambered for Colt's .45 caliber rounds, six of which were lined up in a neat row beneath the barrel. It was the type of weapon a gunfighter might carry-in fact, the Single Action Army was often called the Gun that Won the West. It was the standard U.S. sidearm from 1873 until 1892.

"Dirk told me you collect dueling pistols," El Din explained.

"This is not exactly of that era, but I thought you would like it. It was given to my great-great-grandfather by an American who helped my family escape from Barbary pirates."

"I can't accept this," Kurt said. "I should be giving you a gift."

"You must take it," El Din said, "or I shall be offended."

Kurt nodded and offered a slight bow of thanks. "It's a beautiful weapon. Thank you."

A smile crinkled El Din's weathered face. "May peace be upon you," he said.

"As-salamualayk.u.m," Kurt replied.

With El Din's influence, Kurt and Joe bypa.s.sed security and boarded their plane.

The Korean Air A380 double-decker was s.p.a.cious, which would serve them well on a flight that would span nine hours gate to gate.

It was a long trip, and by the time they reached Seoul, the whole world had changed. The blinding sunlight and heat of Dubai were gone, replaced by a cold, misty rain. The nature of their mission evolved as well, though for the minute neither Kurt nor Joe were told how or why. But instead of a rent-a-car and the next step in their privateer's underfunded journey, they were met at the airport by three men in dark suits and mackintosh overcoats.

State Department IDs were flashed. "Come with us," the leader of the group said.

With little choice in the matter, Kurt and Joe collected their luggage and climbed into the back of a van with diplomatic plates. It took them north.

As the lights of Seoul receded, Joe pointed out the obvious. "If we're going to the consulate, we must be taking the scenic route."

"We're not going to the consulate," Kurt replied. He knew who the men were. He recognized their style and their tightlipped expressions. T hey were employees of t he company. " We've been shanghaied," he said, "and we're not even in China."

The van continued north for another fifteen minutes until they were nearing the Demilitarized Zone. With the razor-wire fences and guard posts visible in the distance, the van turned east and drove through an unpopulated area filled with trees, huge satellite-tracking arrays, and towers bristling with strangelooking antennas. There were no buildings to be seen.

Eventually the road began to drop. Smooth concrete walls rose up on either side until the van was traveling in a channel twenty feet deep. It cruised beneath an overhang, and the channel became a tunnel lit with orange lights.

Somewhere deep beneath the rolling hills of central Korea, the underground road curved tightly and came to an end. A huge steel door opened and let them into a parking area. They were escorted from the van and led to a command center.

Inside, two men were talking. Both looked rather haggard but in different ways. The first was a Korean colonel in military dress, the second figure was an American. He reminded Kurt of a businessman staying late at the office to finish a big project. He wore a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a loosened red tie. His jacket rested on the back of the chair next to him.

"I suppose you two are wondering why you're here and not at the Ritz-Carlton," he said.

"Actually, we booked the Hilton," Kurt replied, "though it didn't quite look like this on the brochure."

A weary grin came across the table. "My name is Tim Hale," the American replied. "I'm the CIA station chief for the DMZ. This is Colonel Hyun-Min Lee, deputy director of security for the South Korean National Intelligence Service."

All four men shook hands and sat down.

"We know who you're looking for," Hale explained. "We know why. And we want to help."

"Why?" Kurt asked. "What's changed?"

"Your friends at NUMA dove on the wreck of the Ethernet," Hale said.

"And?"

"No sign of Sienna Westgate or her children."

"That doesn't surprise me," Kurt said, "considering the shape of the wreck. When a vessel breaks up on the way down-"