The Storm (16 page)

As Paul reached the edge, Gamay moved up beside him. Knowing what lay below, she wanted to strap him in like a lookout at the top of the crow’s nest, but there was no way to do it, and no real need.

They were in the gyre of the Indian Ocean, near its center, a spot sort of like the eye of a hurricane. Under normal conditions it was “the doldrums,” with no wind or waves to speak of.

The sea below looked oily and flat, the sun blazed down from behind them. It was remarkably calm. Only the slightest of breezes could even be felt, not enough to worry about as they drifted a few feet above the water.

Paul extended the pole and dipped the vial in the water, scooping up a sample. He pulled the vial free and held it over the water, allowing the excess to drip off before reeling it in.

Wearing thick plastic gloves, Gamay took the sample and wiped the outside of the vial with a specially charged microfiber towel that Marchetti said would attract and trap any microbots that might be present.

She didn’t see any residue, but the little suckers were small. A hundred could fit on the head of a pin.

She glanced at the water in the vial.

“It looks clear,” she said.

She capped the vial and placed it in a stainless steel box with a rubber seal, which she wrenched down tight. She put the towel in a matching container.

Gamay and Paul gazed into the waters down below the way people might look over the edge of a dock. A few feet out the water looked normal. But they’d flown over two miles of discolored ocean since the dolphins scattered. It made no sense.

“They’re not on the surface,” Gamay said, realizing the truth. “We can see them, looking straight down, but at any kind of an angle all we can make out is seawater.”

From the cockpit Marchetti agreed. “They’re floating just below. You’ll have to get a deeper sample. If you want, I can take us right down to the—”

“Let’s not do that,” Leilani said. “Please. What if we hit the water or something goes wrong?”

She was in the main part of the cabin, watching over the side but protected by the wall. She looked rather green.

“I’m pretty sure I can get them from here,” Paul said, being his usual accommodating self.

He laid down flat on the deck, his head and shoulders over the edge. He stretched out, using his long arms to great advantage and dipping a second sample vial in as far as he could.

Marchetti edged closer. Gamay did the same.

Paul pulled the sample out. It also looked clear. He dumped it out and tried to stretch even farther.

Leilani began protesting. “I don’t know about this,” she mumbled, sounding terrified. “Do we really want to bring those things on board?”

Kurt had said she was unstable. Now Gamay saw why. Gung ho to come with them and suddenly filled with fear.

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Gamay said.

“Maybe we could just call the Navy or the Coast Guard or something.”

“Hold my legs down,” Paul asked, “I have to take a deeper sample.”

Gamay crouched down and put her hands on the back of Paul’s legs, pressing down with all her weight. She heard Leilani muttering something and backing farther away as if the bots were going to leap out of the water like a crocodile and snatch Paul up.

Paul extended the pole and stretched as far as he could. He dipped it in maybe seven or eight feet. As he raised it above the surface, Gamay could feel the strain on his body. The sample looked dark.

“I think you got some.”

As Paul started to reel in the pole, Leilani started to tremble. She backed up another step.

“It’s okay,” Marchetti said, trying to comfort her.

Just then a loud bang shook the craft. It tilted to the side, and the back end dropped like a covered wagon that had lost a wheel.

Paul slid, hit the sidewall of the deck and almost went overboard. Gamay slid with him, grabbed his belt and wrapped her arm around a strut protruding from the deck.

Leilani screamed and fell but held on to the door of the cabin while Marchetti clung to the steering console.

“Hang on!” Gamay shouted.

“You hang on,” Paul called back. “I have nothing to grab.”

Another bang, and the airship leveled out, but with the back end down even farther, like a dump truck spilling its contents. Gamay held on with all her might. She was physically strong, but keeping Paul’s six-foot-eight, two-hundred-and-forty-pound body from sliding off the platform and dropping into the water was quickly taking its toll. She felt his belt cutting into her fingers.

Behind her, Leilani and Marchetti were trying to help.

“The balloon,” Leilani shouted, pointing to the sky.

Gamay glanced upward. The rear air anchor had come loose and was drifting up toward the heavens like a kid’s balloon lost at the fair. As a result, the airship was sinking toward the water tail first.

“Get us moving!” Gamay shouted.

“On it,” Marchetti said, rushing to the cockpit.

“Leilani, I need help.”

As Marchetti scrambled into the cabin, Leilani crouched beside Gamay and grabbed onto Paul’s leg. The ducted fans up front began to spin, and the airship began to crawl forward. As it did, the strain of holding on to Paul increased.

Gamay felt as if she were going to be ripped loose. She saw Leilani trying to get a better grip.

The airship began to pick up speed, but it was still dropping, the tail end only a foot or so from the water. Paul arched his body in a reverse sit-up to keep his face from hitting the sea.

As the speed picked up, the airship began to level off.

“Now!” Gamay shouted. She pulled with all her might, and, with Leilani’s help, they managed to slide Paul back up to where he’d begun, head and shoulders over the edge. She realized he was still holding the sample pole.

“Drop that thing!” she yelled.

“After going through all this?” Paul said. “I don’t think so.”

By now the speed of the craft was coming on, providing enough lift that Marchetti could level off completely.

As the ship climbed and then flattened, Gamay reeled Paul in and held him tight.

“Paul Trout, if you ever do something like that again, it will be the death of me,” she said.

“And me,” he replied.

“What happened?” he said, looking to Marchetti.

“I have no idea,” he said. “The anchor released somehow. It must have been a glitch or a malfunction of some kind.”

Gamay looked at Paul, thankful to have him with her instead of in the water with those things. It seemed they’d found a horrible bit of bad luck. Or had they?

She began to wonder about Marchetti’s crew. Otero and Matson had been bought. What was to stop any of the others from selling out? She kept the thought to herself, looked at the dark sample they’d recovered and tried to remind herself that aside from Paul there was no one she could trust implicitly.

CHAPTER 20

JINN AL-KHALIF STRODE THROUGH THE HALLS OF HIS CAVE in a state of fury. He kicked the door to his sprawling office open and threw a chair aside that blocked the path to his desk. Sabah entered behind him, shutting the door with more care.

“I will not be summoned like a schoolboy!” Jinn bellowed.

“You have not been summoned,” Sabah insisted.

“They contact you unannounced, tell you they’re coming here, and that they expect to see me!” Jinn shouted. “How is that not being summoned?”

Jinn stood beside an impressively large desk. Behind him, visible through a glass partition that acted as the rear wall to the office, the production floor of his factory could be seen twenty feet below.

Here and there in the “clean room,” men in protective hazmat-like suits were calibrating the machines, preparing to produce the next version of Jinn’s microbots. The lethally redesigned batch was destined for Egypt and the dam.

“They made a request,” Sabah said. “Considering their tone and actions of late, I thought it necessary to promise your presence.”

“That is an act of insolence!” Jinn shouted. “You do not promise for me.”

Many times in his life had Jinn felt the type of rage that filled him now, never before had it been directed at Sabah.

“Why, as we get closer and closer to the goal, do all my servants seem to be losing their minds and forgetting their places?”

Sabah seemed on the verge of speaking but held back.

“You’ve already said enough,” Jinn told him with a dismissive wave. “Leave me.”

Instead of bowing and departing, Sabah stood taller.

“No,” he said plainly. “I have taught you from a young age, ever since your father died. And I have sworn to protect you, even from yourself. So I will speak and you will listen and then you decide what to do when I am through.”

Jinn looked up in shock, enough so that his instinct to kill Sabah for disobeying him was checked.

“This consortium,” Sabah began, “they’ve given billions of dollars to your effort. And they are powerful men in their own right, bound to flex their muscle every now and then.”

Jinn gazed at Sabah as if mesmerized, listening as he often had during the years.

“The fact that they come as one suggests danger,” Sabah continued. “They’re unified.”

Jinn looked around his office. There was little in the way of decor. But weapons of the past were displayed on one wall, a curved scimitar caught his eye.

“Then I will kill them all,” Jinn said. “I will cut them to pieces with my own two hands.”

“And what would that get us?” Sabah asked. “They have not come alone. Each brings a squad of armed men. In total numbers they are almost equal to our own. It would bring only war. And even if we won, others would undoubtedly investigate, perhaps even seek revenge.”

For the first time in a great while, Jinn felt vulnerable, cornered. If they had known what they were stirring in him, they would not have pressed the issue.

“This could not have come at a worse time,” he said. “We have other guests to prepare for.”

“They will be dealt with,” Sabah insisted.

“Fine,” Jinn said. “What do you suggest?”

“We must send a message that does not start a war. I suggest we show them what they want to see. One to see it closely, the other to observe from a distance.”

A sinister look came over Sabah’s face, and Jinn began to understand. He had to discount Sabah as old and out of touch, but no more.

“Order the test bay flooded,” Jinn said.

“It has been configured to simulate the attack on Aswan.”

A smile crept onto Jinn’s face. “Perfect. Proceed with the demonstration. Give them a front-row seat. It would make me very happy for them to see more than they bargained for.”

A flash of understanding appeared on Sabah’s face.

“I will do as you command,” he said.

Jinn looked back through the glass partition to his workers below. They moved here and there. The machines were operating again, running at full capacity. At the end of the production line a trickle of silver sand had begun to fill a yellow plastic drum. Beyond it, fifty-nine other drums waited. They would carry the latest batch of his horde. And if Jinn was right, they would break the will of Aziz and force Egypt’s military leaders and their wealth back into his hands.

CHAPTER 21

KURT REACHED THE TOP OF THE BLUFF A FEW SECONDS ahead of Joe. He studied the layout.

The landing pad was set up three-quarters of the way to the front edge. A Russian-made helicopter sat in the center of the pad. The cargo door was rolled back, and a pair of men dressed like guards sat in the open doorway, sharing a cigarette and talking.

Glancing around, Kurt saw no one else. “Can you get them both?”

Joe nodded. “Two birds with one stone,” he said. “Or, in this case, multiple wires.”

Kurt was glad to hear that. He pointed to the far side of the copter. Joe moved that way, clinging to the side of the bluff like a rock climber.

When Joe reached a covered spot beside the gray machine, Kurt pulled the cloth of the caftan across his face. He stepped from his own hiding spot and walked toward the men, holding his hands out and muttering something about a lost camel.

The men snapped to attention and moved toward him. One put a hand on his sidearm but didn’t draw it out, perhaps because Kurt looked like a local, perhaps because he had his hands up as he spoke.

“Nãqah, nãqah,”
he said, using the Arabic word for female camel.

The men seemed utterly baffled. They continued toward him looking angry, never seeing Joe move in behind them.

“Nãqah,”
Kurt said once again, and then watched as the men stiffened and dropped to their knees.

They fell forward silently. Reveling Joe grinning and holding a Taser, which he’d fired into the two men.

“Oh where, oh where has my little
nãqah
gone?” Kurt finished.

“Great thing about Tasers,” Joe said, “they work so quick, people can’t even yell out.”

The coiled wires were still attached, and when the men began to move, Joe zapped them again.

“I think they’ve had enough, Dr. Frankenstein.”

Joe switched the power off, and the tension left the two men instantly. Kurt was on them, jabbing a tranquilizer dart into each and watching their eyes roll up in their heads. As the men went limp, Joe pulled out the Taser wires and helped Kurt carry the two back to the helicopter.

They piled the men inside, climbed in after them, and then slid the door shut.

A few moments later the door opened. Kurt and Joe came out dressed in the guards’ dark blue clothing, complete with kaffiyehs that covered their faces and hair. While Joe pretended to watch the helicopter, Kurt looked around for the tunnel he’d seen.

He discovered a cut in the stone and followed it to a ladder that dropped straight down. At the bottom he found a door made of steel with an electronic sensor lock above the handle. It looked familiar, like the locks in any hotel.

“Let’s just hope we have a reservation,” he said to himself as he rummaged through the guard’s pockets. Finding a card key in one, he slipped it in the card reader and pulled it out. When the light went green, he turned the handle.