The Pacific Conspiracy (10 page)
Read The Pacific Conspiracy Online
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
"Joe," she said.
He was really confused.
As Endang took a step forward Boris dropped to the ground and spun his legs to the left, sweep-kicking her feet out from under her. She fell to the ground, and her gun went off harmlessly.
"Endang!" Joe shouted.
Something hit him across the back of the neck, and he stumbled forward. Gina stepped out of his way, and he fell to the ground. Someone stepped on his wrist and took away the gun he was holding. He heard the crystal on his watch shatter.
Then he heard Gina laugh.
"Why did you do that?" Joe asked Gina, climbing to his feet. "I don't understand."
"You're such a fool," Gina said. "What don't you understand?"
He looked at her, and the truth hit him.
"Gina is one of us," Nwali said. "She has been from the beginning."
Joe's mind reeled. "Even when we were working with you in Atlanta and Alaska?"
"I tried to have you killed before you got to Atlanta," Gina said. Her voice was cold and far harsher than Joe remembered it.
"Eddings's plane," Joe said. "You sabotaged it!" He and Frank had almost died that day. Only Solomon Mapes's skill as a pilot had saved them.
"But how did you know about us?" Joe asked. Gina laughed.
"The Assassins always know what you and your brother are up to. Did you really think you had us fooled all this time? That we were such amateurs?" Nwali asked. "We were playing with you. It made us laugh to watch you react."
"I should have taken care of the plane myself rather than trust that fool Forrester," Gina added.
"You killed him," Endang said.
"I killed him," Boris said, a light dancing in his eyes.
"The fool got greedy," Nwali said. "As if we hadn't paid him enough to deliver the case with Stavrogin's notes to us." He turned to Endang. "Though I suspect I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. How is Gray, by the way?"
Endang shook her head. "Who?"
Nwali laughed. "And, Joseph, where is your brother?"
Joe shook his head. "I have no idea."
Nwali rammed him in the stomach with the butt end of the machine gun.
Joe gasped, the wind knocked out of him, and bent over double.
"No more unpleasant surprises, Joseph. Is he out there," Nwali pointed to the forest, "waiting for us?"
"I already told you," he said, struggling to catch his breath. "I have no idea where Frank is."
Nwali held the machine gun pointed at Endang's head. "Now do you have an idea?"
Joe shook his head again.
"Talk," Boris commanded, stepping in front of Joe. He drew his right hand back and punched Joe in the jaw. Joe fell to the ground.
"He's useless now," Joe heard Gina say. "Let's get rid of both of them."
"Not yet. We may still need hostages before this is over," Joe heard Nwali say. "Let's finish loading the helicopter. Professor Krinski is anxious to complete his work."
Joe rolled over and looked up.
The sun was setting behind Mount Agung.
***
Night was already falling as Frank rode back up the mountain. He missed the dirt road on his way up, and it was pitch-black by the time he turned around and finally found it.
There was no sign of Joe or Endang.
The road ended in a clearing with a small shack in the center of it. It was completely deserted. Frank turned on the flashlight he had bought in Selat and pointed it toward the shack. His beam fell on something on the ground on front of it. He bent down and looked closer.
Peanut shells. Had Bill been here?
He must have been. That meant the Assassins had been here, too. So where were they now? And if this was the construction site, where were all the supplies Kouri had sold the Assassins?
He walked back out on the main road, shining his flashlight left and right. Finally he found some tracks on the left side of the road and traced them into the forest.
Something reflected off his flashlight. Chrome. Joe's bike. So Endang and Joe had found this place, too. Where were they now?
There were only two possible conclusions: His brother and Endang had been kidnapped, or they'd been killed.
He rode back down to Selat. The roadside stand had closed, but Haji was still there, waiting by their car.
"Where's the other bike?" the young man asked.
"Where's your friend?" Frank countered.
"He got tired and went home. Nothing happened to that bike, right?"
"It's fine," Frank said. "We'll go get it in a minute. But first I need to use a phone." He wanted to contact the Network.
"There's no phone service here," the young man said.
Frank nodded. It figured. He'd have to rescue Joe and Endang on his own. He thought a moment. Krinski's equations called for dropping a hydrogen bomb through lava. To drop something you had to be fairly high up, right?
He looked at Haji. "I need to get up the mountain. To the top."
"Up Agung?" Haji shook his head. "The crater's been closed for the last three months. The government decided it was too dangerous."
"Really?" Frank asked. He bet he knew whose money had helped them make that decision - the Assassins'. "Then I definitely have to go."
Haji shrugged. "I can take you, but we'll have to do it on foot. No roads go all the way up. And we'll have to wait until morning. The trails are too dangerous at night."
"I have to go now," Frank said. He needed the cover of night and the advantage of surprise when he came upon the Assassins.
The young man eyed Frank. "You're wearing shorts. Do you know how cold it gets up in the mountains?"
Frank shook his head.
The young man pointed toward Agung. "That's three thousand meters high. Ten thousand feet. Why do you have to go there now?"
Frank smiled. "I'll tell you on the way."
***
Haji rode with Frank up the mountain until they came to the other bike. Then the two of them took a back road to his house in Sebudi, a small village a little farther up the mountain.
His mother tried to talk them out of climbing the mountain at night, but when she saw that they weren't going to listen she made them some strong coffee and gave them a knapsack full of snacks. Frank also borrowed long pants and a sweater from Haji. By the time they set off it was close to midnight.
"You were going to tell me why you have to climb Agung tonight," Haji said. There was a full moon, so he was able to set a brisk pace for them. As he walked his breath turned to steam in the night air.
"Where'd you learn to speak English so well?" Frank asked, changing the subject.
Haji smiled. "Cable television. I worked at one of the tourist hotels down south for three years. Then I quit and came back here. Now I am taking a correspondence course with an American institution.
"Really?" Frank asked. "In what?"
"Computers," Haji said. "I want to marry an American girl and work for a big company." He pointed to the side of his head. "I have big ideas."
For the next hour or so they walked up the mountain along a dry streambed, talking about computers. Then they came to another village. Haji sat down on the ground, pulled out a canteen, and drank.
"Have some," he said, offering the canteen to Frank.
"No, thanks. I'm not thirsty."
"You'd better drink," Haji told him. "From here it gets tough."
Frank held out his hand and took the canteen. He took a swig and handed it back to Haji. "Let's get going."
Those were the last words he spoke for the next hour and a half. The trail went almost straight up. Frank found that he needed all his breath just to keep up with Haji. As they walked the forest changed from tropical vegetation to pine trees.
Then the trees disappeared, and they were staring up a steep, rocky climb to Agung's summit. The wind was blowing, and for the first time since he'd left Alaska Frank felt cold.
Haji pointed up. "That goes straight up to the crater wall. There's a breach at the top that leads you in."
"Thanks," Frank said. "I think I can manage from here."
"You want me to leave you?" Haji shook his head. "How are you going to find your way back down?"
"My brother's up there," Frank said. "I'll manage." He shook Haji's hand. "Thanks."
Haji shrugged. "Have it your way." He handed Frank the knapsack of food. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Frank said again.
He turned and started the long ascent to the top of the mountain. The way up was all shale and loose volcanic rock, and incredibly slow going. By the time he neared the top the sun was starting to show over the horizon.
He scrambled up the last few yards to a narrow path that circled the crater wall. He found the breach in the crater wall about two hundred yards to his left. There was a yellow sign on it, with writing in both English and Indonesian: Danger.
The thought occurred to him that the Assassins might have planted the sign to hide what was going on inside the crater. If that was true, he was about to walk into the middle of a very risky situation.
On the other hand, maybe the Assassins weren't involved at all. Maybe the crater was simply too unsafe to explore.
Either way, Frank knew he couldn't win.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
The volcano was alive.
Frank could feel the heat coming off it. He looked down and saw that he was standing on a narrow trail, about three feet wide, that ran inside the crater. Steam rose from the massive pit beneath him. Frank sniffed the air, and the smell of sulfur bit into his nose.
The Assassins were here, and so were their supplies. Just as they'd done in Alaska, they had brought an inactive volcano to life, probably using a series of small explosions to rekindle it.
This time Frank knew that the Assassins weren't going to stop at small explosions, though. No, this time they were planning to cause a major volcanic eruption.
Frank knew that this was the Assassins' grand plan. They had probably been working on this for months. He looked at the incredible structure laid out before him. Now he knew where all the construction supplies they'd bought from Kouri had gone.
The terrorists had built right up against the crater wall, using it as the foundation for a series of six small, interconnected structures stacked one on top of the other at roughly five-foot intervals. The largest was at the bottom and appeared to be about twenty feet square. At the rim of the crater was a helicopter pad.
Forrester's blueprints, Frank realized, were preliminary sketches for this place.
Ladders covered the crater wall between each building and ran to the helicopter pad at the top of the rim. A series of rails for the elevator, he remembered, ran from the helipad down, past each of the six structures. But the rails didn't end there. They continued down inside the volcano and disappeared into the crater below.
That's how they're going to lower the bomb, Frank thought. All right, then. He had found the Assassins. Now he had to find Joe and Endang.
A light snapped on in one of the sheds. Through a window Frank saw a figure. He rubbed his eyes. Could it be? Frank focused his eyes on the window again. Yes, it was true. He was looking at Gina Abend. She was alive!
The Assassins must have been lying about her death all along. Joe and Endang were probably being held with Gina in the same shed, then. At last, a lucky break.
Rescue one of them, and he'd rescue all three.
***
Joe couldn't sleep.
It had nothing to do with the concrete floor or the gusts of wind that whipped through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. He'd slept in worse places. The problem wasn't physical. It was mental.
He couldn't get over the expression on Gina's face when she'd called him a fool. He'd let himself be used by a girl who didn't care for him at all. Now it was going to cost not only his life, but the lives of a lot of others as well. Unless the U.N. could come up with the money. They'd have to, wouldn't they?
Gina had thought so last night after they'd landed on top of the crater complex. "They'll get it," she said. "Now that we've proven the kind of destruction we can cause."
Krinski had been waiting for them as the helicopter landed. He actually smiled as Boris led Joe and Endang, both with their hands tied securely behind their backs, off the plane.
"Good to see you again, Joe," Krinski said. "Sorry I can't offer you any cookies, but" - he shrugged - "them's the breaks, as they say."
Joe shook his head. "Give it a rest, will you?"
"This is the last crate, Professor," Nwali said.
"I believe you have everything you need now to complete the bomb."
"Have it brought down to the lab," Krinski said, focusing on Joe and Endang. "You're very lucky. You're about to see history made."
Joe watched as Nwali clenched his teeth at Krinski's offhand order to have the crate moved. There was definitely tension between those two, he observed. He hoped he'd get a chance to play on it at some point.
"The only thing these two will see for the moment is the inside of the supply shed," Nwali said. "I want them securely out of the way until morning. We'll know if we have any further use for them by then."
Boris grabbed hold of Joe with one hand and Endang with the other and dragged them forward and into an elevator car at the edge of the helipad. As they descended Joe peered through the gate into the crater below.
The elevator ran from the helicopter pad at the top of the rim down the inside of the crater wall along two steel rails. The crater complex was impressive. They passed three small buildings set into the crater wall before they stopped at the fourth.
Boris slid the gate open and shoved them forward into the supply shed. It was a bare room, its only light coming from a line of fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Most of the shelves were empty.
"Looks like you're not planning to stay too long," Endang said, glancing around.
"Neither should you," Boris replied. "Of course, if it were up to me, you would be in that volcano already."
"They don't let you decide anything, do they? Poor boy." Joe shook his head. "Just because you're not very smart."
The big man smiled. "I'm smart enough not to let some girl throw her arms around me while I'm trying to fire a gun."
"What girl would want to throw her arms around you, anyway?" Joe shot back.
Boris smiled and backed out of the shed. "We'll see you in the morning. Get a good night's sleep." The smile disappeared from his face. "It will be your last."
"Aren't you at least going to untie us," Endang asked, "so we can move around a little?"
Boris shook his head and slammed the door shut behind him.
"He's right," Joe said. "I blew it big time. How could I have let Gina trick me like that?"
"She lied, Joe," Endang said. "Your only crime was believing what she said."
"I was an idiot."
"It's over and done with," she insisted. "Come on," she added, sitting down against the wall, "let's get some rest."
Joe sighed and sat down next to her, but he couldn't fall asleep. His thoughts kept turning to Gina - how she'd tricked him, how Bill had gotten his gun back, and how Gina had shattered the crystal in Joe's watch.
If only he could get at a piece of it and use it to cut through his rope.
He stood and walked to the opposite wall, then drew his hands back and slammed the back of his wrist directly into the wall. He was rewarded by the sound of a tiny piece of the crystal tinkling to the floor.
Across the room Endang woke up. "What was that?" she asked groggily.
"Nothing," Joe said. He sat down on the floor and reached for the broken crystal. "Go back to sleep."
She obliged.
He sat back down against the opposite wall and started to work on the rope.
