Treasure of Khan (39 page)

S
UMMER SAT AT THE WHEELHOUSE
chart table contemplating a possible means of escape when the first acoustic blast was triggered. The muffled thump sounded directly beneath the ship, and she assumed like Dirk that it was some sort of explosion. The criminals must be trying to blast the lava off the wreck, she figured.

Bull Neck stared at her malevolently from across the table, baring a thin smile at the look of confusion and anger in Summer's face. His tobacco-stained teeth glared wider when a second underwater blast reverberated through the bridge a few minutes later.

Though Summer was repulsed by her captors, she became intrigued by their actions. Resorting to murder and wanton destruction of the wreck site meant they thought there was something of great value in her holds. Summer recalled Tong's interest in the porcelain plate and its possible royal markings. But he was interested in something more than pottery if he was blasting away lava to reach it. Gold or gemstones must their objective, she surmised.

As the second shock sent a slight vibration through the bridge, her thoughts turned again to escape. Getting off the ship was the first order of business if she was to have any chance at survival. Summer was a strong swimmer. If she could get into the water, she could easily make it to the rocky rim of the cove. Moving inland or down the coast would be no picnic, given the steep and jagged shoreline, but perhaps she could simply hide in the rocks until the
Mariana Explorer
returned. Whatever the difficulties, it was a better prospect than a continued voyage with the ship of thugs.

Alone on the bridge with just the helmsman and her brutish escort might be the best chance she got, she decided. The helmsman appeared to be little threat. He was nearly a boy, slight in stature and had a subservient look about him. He continually gawked at the six-foot-tall Summer as if she were Aphrodite.

She turned her attention to Bull Neck across the table. That's where the trouble lay. Violence was clearly no stranger to the brute with bad teeth. He had a look about him that said he would enjoy hurting a pretty woman and she shuddered at the thought. She would have to take him at his own game, but at least potentially she had the element of surprise on her side.

Mustering up the nerve, she finally told herself it was now or never. Rising slowly from the table, she casually strode toward the front of the bridge as if stretching her legs and admiring the black view out the window. Bull Neck immediately mimicked her movements, stopping a few feet behind her.

Summer lingered a moment, taking a deep breath to relax, then turned toward the portside bridge wing. With a long stride, she quickly paced toward the open door as if catching an elevator. The guard immediately grunted at her to stop but she ignored the command. Striding light on her feet, she nearly made it out the door. The surprised thug jostled to catch up, bounding forward and placing a grimy hand on Summer's shoulder to stop her. The speed of her counter reaction surprised even herself.

Fully anticipating his lunge, she reached up and grabbed the man's wrist with both of her hands. She immediately spun to the side while shoving his wrist up and jamming his open palm backward toward the ground. Summer then backed into the man a step and dropped to one knee. The thug anticipated the attempted judo drop and hopped to the side, but she had him in a pain-inducing wristlock and could snap the bone with a flick of her hands. The angered man flailed with his free arm to strike Summer, but his blows lacked any leverage, only bruising her on the back. In response, she rose back to her feet and drove the heavier man backward with another twist to his hand. The man gasped in agony and flailed at Summer uselessly with his left arm. But the searing pain was too much and he finally staggered back. He crashed into the forward console near the helm, then fell to his knees incapacitated. As long as Summer maintained her grip, the burly thug was helpless.

A red light quickly flashed on the console as a slight shudder vibrated from the bowels of the ship. In his collision with the helm, Bull Neck had fallen against a button that deactivated the automatic ship thrusters, releasing them for manual control. The young helmsman, shocked at Summer's physical dominance over the larger man, backed away from the helm but chattered excitedly in Mongolian while pointing at the flashing light. With her heart pounding from the short engagement, Summer took a breath and glanced at the console.

The ship's controls were all inscribed in Mandarin, but beneath the factory markings somebody had taped plastic label translations in English. Summer glanced at the light and read the English translation below, which read, “Manual Thruster Control.” An idea quickly chimed in Summer's head.

“Slight change of plans,” she muttered to the uncomprehending helmsman. “We're going for a little ride first.”

Summer scanned the adjacent controls until spotting a pair of dials marked
PORT THRUSTER FORE
and
PORT THRUSTER AFT
. She reached over with her free hand and turned the dials down to zero. Almost simultaneously, a third burst erupted beneath them as the acoustic array was triggered again. The blast was good timing, Summer considered. The eruption masked the sound of the changing thrusters. With luck, the crew might not notice that the ship was now moving laterally across the cove. It would take only a few minutes until the ship would collide with the lava rocks lining the cove. The ensuing confusion ought to give her ample opportunity to escape.

“Back off,” she barked at the nervous helmsman, who had crept closer to the controls. The young man jumped back from the helm, eyeing with fright the twisted look of agony on Bull Neck's face.

The drill ship moved quietly and smoothly across the cove, pushed evenly by the bank of starboard thrusters. Summer thought she heard a minor clunk near the waterline, but the ship continued on its sideways path through the dark, the black night offering little in the way of visibility. If she could just hold on a little longer, she thought, as her grip on the thug's hand grew weary.

She nervously counted the seconds, waiting for the grinding impact of the ship's hull against lava. But her heart sank when a different sound emerged from the open doorway. It was the sound of a man's voice.

“What is this, now?” the voice grumbled.

Turning with dread, she saw it was Tong. And in his hand, he held an automatic pistol aimed at Summer's heart.

T
HEY HAD KICKED AND PADDLED
the mastless catamaran to within a hundred yards of the drill ship, circling in toward the port bow in order to avoid the glaring spotlights that illuminated the stern deck. As they scanned the ship for nearby crewmen or lookouts, Dahlgren suddenly leaned toward Dirk and whispered.

“Take a look at the bridge. Quick.”

Dirk glanced up at the ship's forward superstructure. Through the open side wing door, he caught a brief glance of a person stepping by. A tall person with flowing red hair that fell beneath the shoulders.

“Summer.”

“I'm sure it is her,” Dahlgren said.

A wave of relief fell over Dirk at seeing his sister still alive. With renewed vigor, he kicked the catamaran harder toward the ship. “Let's get aboard and find out what's going on.”

It was a task easier said than done. The ship's lowest deck was still ten feet above them. And with the ship held in position by its thrusters, there was no anchor line in the water. Dirk hoped there might be an imbedded steel ladder on the ship's stern, a feature not uncommon on utility vessels.

They reached the bow and were quietly paddling aft when the third detonation erupted below them. They could feel a minor vibration from the ship and noticed a few ripples in the water, but still no boiling torment of an underwater explosion. The lights around the moon pool illuminated the underside of the ship, and they could see a string of cables running down to the tripod device, which stood upright on the sea bottom.

They moved a few more feet down the ship's side when Dirk realized that the rumble of the nearby side thrusters had fallen silent. Before he knew what was happening, the ship's side hull smacked into the catamaran with a bang, then jerked the craft up on a building wave of water. The entire ship was moving laterally into them and quickly building speed. Sitting atop the side thrown high, Dirk could see that the catamaran was going to flip. The low surfboard was being pushed down and it was just a matter of seconds before the whole craft got sucked under the moving ship.

“Get off the board,” Dirk yelled at Dahlgren.

He prepared to roll off the side himself when he caught sight of a line over his head. It was an unused mooring line that looped over the side of the ship, dangling down a few feet below the deck. With a desperate lunge, Dirk sprang up and off the twisting catamaran, barely grasping the rope with his left hand. Pulling his body around, he grabbed on with both hands, the line dropping taut under his weight to within a yard of the water.

He looked back to see the catamaran tumble down and under the advancing ship, swallowed beneath its side. Dahlgren was farther back, riding atop the cresting wave and swimming like a madman.

“Over here. I've got a line,” Dirk implored in a low voice, hoping not to draw attention to their plight.

It was loud enough for Dahlgren to hear. He fought his way toward Dirk at a frantic pace that both men knew he could not sustain for long. The water seemed to swirl in all directions off the flat side of the ship, tugging Dahlgren one way, then another. When he finally surged close, Dirk reached out and grabbed a handful of his wet suit and yanked with all his strength. He pulled him far enough out of the water that Dahlgren was able to hook an arm over the line. He hung limp for a minute, catching his breath from the exertion.

“That was exciting,” he muttered.

“And also the second time today that I've had to fish you out of the water,” Dirk said. “If this continues, I must insist that you go on a diet.”

“Ah'll take that under advisement,” Dahlgren panted.

Resting for a moment, they proceeded to climb up opposite ends of the rope, emerging on deck a few yards apart. Though faint voices told them that a few crew members were on the stern, they were able to regroup undetected on the port beam. Dirk took a quick glance toward the high wall of lava that was quickly approaching in the darkness. There was clearly something amiss in the wheelhouse, as the ship was on a collision course and nobody seemed to be aware of it.

“Let's move,” Dirk whispered. “I have a feeling we're not long aboard this ship.”

As they started to move forward, another deep rumble began to sound in the distance. This time, the noise came from the shore.

 

F
IVE THOUSAND
miles away, the elevator doors opened on the tenth floor of the NUMA headquarters building and a sleepy-eyed Hiram Yaeger eased toward his computer room toting a thermos of Sumatra-blend coffee. His eyes widened at the sight of Dr. McCammon seated at the console, an anxious look on his face.

“You got the jump on me again, Phil?” Yaeger asked.

“Sorry for the early intrusion. Something just came over the wire from the National Earthquake Information Center that looks important.”

He spread a seismogram across the table as Yaeger slid into an adjacent swivel chair.

“A large quake struck the Big Island of Hawaii just moments ago,” McCammon said. “A little over 7.0 magnitude. And it was a shallow quake. Its epicenter was just a mile off shore, in a place called Keliuli Bay.”

“What do the foreshocks look like?”

McCammon crinkled his brow. “Very similar to the ones we've seen before. Man-made in appearance. I just fed the data to Max for assessment. Hope you don't mind me taxing her talents while you were away,” he added.

Max was standing near a computer bank with her arms crossed, looking deep in thought. She turned and smiled at McCammon.

“Dr. McCammon, I am delighted to assist you at any time. It is a pleasure to work with a gentleman,” she added with a slight tweak of her nose in Yaeger's direction.

“Good morning to you, too, Max,” Yaeger said. “Have you completed the analysis for Dr. McCammon?”

“Yes,” Max nodded. “As Dr. McCammon can show you, there were two primary foreshocks recorded before the quake. Each had nearly identical seismic readings, though there was a slight increase in intensity with the second foreshock. And both foreshocks appear to have originated near the surface.”

“How do they compare to the foreshocks recorded before the two Persian Gulf earthquakes?” Yaeger asked.

“The foreshocks show near identical signal characteristics to those that preceded the earthquakes at Ras Tanura and Kharg Island. Like those shocks, they originated near the surface.”

Yaeger and McCammon looked at each other with grim silence.

“Hawaii,” Yaeger finally said. “Why Hawaii?”

Then with a shake of the head, he added, “I think it's time we contact the White House.”