Pandora's Temple (31 page)

“Because you managed to save him.”

“I suppose.”

“But he wasn’t yours,” Katie said, spine straightening. “You’ve got no one, just like me, no one you can save who really matters. Only thing you can do to compensate is save the world instead.”

“As opposed to destroying it, one piece at a time.”

“Still makes us the same, McCracken, or at least damn close.”

“Really? I don’t think so. I’ve always been who, what, I am. But Katie DeMarco didn’t exist until Stuttgart, did she?”

Katie swallowed hard.

“Your hands are calloused. You move like an athlete. You know poison, demolitions, weaponry—things you knew nothing about until things went wrong in Stuttgart. My guess is you went back to school, probably several of them. Learned the skills you needed to reinvent yourself into an avenger to better live with what happened in Germany. Creating a rationale after the fact.” He stopped and held her gaze, not about to let go. “You may be right about me trying to save myself by saving the world. Explains why these past two years have been such hell. You, on the other hand, chose to save yourself by trying to destroy as much as you could. Get the distinction?”

McCracken thought he caught tears welling in Katie’s eyes as she tried to swallow again, but stopped. “That the kind of life you want for your almost son, to follow in the footsteps of his almost father?”

“Which brings us to your real one, Katie. When I said I knew monsters, there are some of them even I can’t reconcile. I know how I felt when a boy I thought was my son was in danger. Hurting a child takes depravity to a whole other level.”

Katie started to look away, then stopped. “So maybe I really am as much a monster as my father. I have to live with the fact that my mother and brother died that day. And if I don’t keep doing what I’m doing, if I don’t get it right, it’ll all be for nothing.”

McCracken shook his head, slowly and sadly. “It won’t get rid of the pain. It can’t change what he did to you.”

“He didn’t do anything to
me
!”

Katie didn’t realize she’d nearly shouted the words until Sal Belamo and Johnny Wareagle turned around in the front of the cabin. But she kept her focus on McCracken, continuing.

“It was Christian, my brother.”

“Here’s what I found out, boss,” Sal Belamo said to McCracken who sat next to him in a rental car outside the sprawling Port of Piraeus with Johnny Wareagle squeezed into the backseat. “That nutjob techie of yours nailed things dead-solid perfect. Roy Industries has had a bunch of survey ships at sea for weeks now. This has been serving as their home base.”

The port was the primary one operating in Greek waters as the largest passenger port on the European continent and the third largest in the world. Its lusciously scenic locale belied a hectic, if not frantic balance of cargo and passenger ships, not to mention ferry boats and the geological survey vessels forever scouring the nearby seas for pieces of Greece’s long storied history. Practically every cruise liner venturing into the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas stopped here as well, in large part due to the port’s convenient location close to Athens and all its richness.

“Central port’s right there,” Belamo continued, gesturing out the open window. “You can see the private water hangars dead ahead. Roy Industries leases four of them, but only one is currently under watch by armed guards: four guards, two inside and two out.”

“What exactly are they guarding?”

Belamo turned back toward McCracken and winked. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

Late that night McCracken and Sal Belamo stumbled down the pier, pretending to be drunken cruisegoers having lost their way thanks to the bottles each held in his grasp. The armed guards posted before the hangar Belamo had earlier identified cut them off at the head of the pier where it broke both left and right.

“Hey, we can’t find our ship,” McCracken mumbled drunkenly. “Any idea where the
Titanic
’s docked?”

The two guards looked at each other.

“How about the
Lusitania
?”

The nearer guard reached out to grab him.

“The
Andrea Doria
?”

McCracken and Belamo felt the grasps tighten, just as Johnny Wareagle appeared behind the two guards.

McCracken knocked on the hangar door that was locked from the inside, kept his pounding hard and constant until the side entrance was jerked open. The guard standing there noticed the pistol in Sal Belamo’s hand first and the unconscious frames of his two associates, held up by Johnny Wareagle as if they were rag dolls, next. Behind the guard, resting on the water’s surface between the floating piers was a manned underwater submersible with a pod-shaped frame attached to a pair of pincerlike extremities made for grasping and tugging objects from the seafloor.

“We need to borrow your submarine,” McCracken told the guard.

“Hey, boss,” Sal Belamo said, after they’d finished tying all four men up, “you know how they say hope for the world got stuck in Pandora’s jar forever?”

“I do.”

“Well,” Belamo grinned, looking straight at McCracken, “you ask me, it finally got out.”

Doctors Bol and Whitcomb made the trek down the pier to the covered water hangar an hour past dawn. The sun burned exceedingly bright for so early an hour, courtesy of the direct angle this time of year. The crystal blue water was flat and calm, the sun’s blinding reflection making it seem brighter still.

The
Crab
, a six-passenger submarine designed for deepwater research and salvage, had arrived the day before and been checked thoroughly in anticipation of setting out in search of Pandora’s Temple first thing in the morning.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Roy?” Whitcomb asked.

“Loud and clear, Doctor.”

Both Whitcomb and Bol were wearing helmets affixed with both a microphone and camera, so Sebastian Roy could both see and hear everything that went on once they boarded the
Crab
. Neither of the CERN scientists had ever been aboard a submarine before and each had prepped heavily for the rigors the night before, though they fully expected the excitement of the journey to temper any ill effects.

The
Crab
came with a complete crew specifically chosen for their areas of expertise in underwater exploration, archaeology and salvage. The salvage part seemed especially important, given that manipulation of the robotic, fully articulated, pincerlike arms would be the order of the day once they reached the area where the mapping process had identified the presence of something large and sprawling. The previous night had been spent prepping the crew for exactly what they were in search of, the coordinates and all available reconnaissance data already programmed into the
Crab
’s computers.

At first glance the ship looked like something from a
Terminator
movie: dark gray in color with thick tinted glass for front windows that could have passed as rectangular eyes. The dual arms, which pinioned and rotated like something out of a high-tech automotive assembly line, were foreboding in both size and power. An able controller could wield them with the dexterity and strength required to either pick up a walnut off the seafloor or crush it into dust.

“Should you find anything that even remotely resembles Pandora’s jar . . .” Sebastian Roy started.

“. . . we will break off and await further instructions,” completed Whitcomb. “We know how to obey orders, Mr. Roy. We both want to see our families again.”

“Then for your sakes, I hope you complete your mission successfully.”

Bol reached the water hangar first, surprised the guard he expected to find there was nowhere to be seen. The double doors were open and he started to walk through.

“We’re entering the hangar now, Mr. Roy,” Whitcomb said. “Right on schedule.”

The two men entered. And froze.

Because seated on the floor before them were the security guards, bound and gagged.

And the
Crab
was gone.

Sal Belamo effortlessly piloted the
Crab
to within a hundred yards of the seafloor, relying on the course preprogrammed into its onboard computer.

“Told you I can drive anything, boss,” he said to McCracken. “Of course, it helps I drove steel buckets like this back in the day. I ever tell you about that?”

“Indian and I would love to hear about it someday, Sal,” McCracken said, seated next to Johnny Wareagle. “Always thought you were army back in the day, though.”

“I was, but the kind of missions we handled, it paid to be versatile, you know what I mean.”

“All too well.”

“I ever tell you about the Puerto Rican boxer I knocked out in the sixth to win my first title shot?”

“Don’t tell me . . . Against none other than the great Carlos Monzon who you took to a decision even though he busted your nose in the third round.”

“Nineteen seventy, not long before he stopped Emile Griffith in the fourteenth. Second time we fought he knocked me out in the fifth. But I was an old man by then.”

“So what does that make you now?”

Belamo grinned. “You’d think we’d finally be too old for this shit, boss. Be far away on a beach in Cancun instead. A real vacation.”

“What do you call this?” McCracken asked, as they continued to slice nimbly through the sea.

Katie DeMarco leaned forward in the next seat back. The
Crab
could accommodate six, four plus a pilot and a technician to work the sub’s remote-operated arm assembly. The confines felt cramped and claustrophobic even with only five of the seats taken. Katie imagined she could actually hear the rapid heartbeats of the others, along with their slightly labored breathing. And a single glance at McCracken told her he was just as anxious, or nervous, or both.

“You really believe we’re going to find this temple?” she asked him.

“Let’s ask the expert. Captain?” McCracken prompted.

Captain Seven responded without ever taking his eyes from the thick twin glass panes that formed the
Crab
’s face. “I am in desperate need of a joint, MacNuts. My supply from that old hippie is long gone. And in case you’ve forgotten, last time I tried this I almost ended up as fish food.”

“You better be wrong this time, Captain.”

“About what?”

“Some things not wanting to be found.”

“When did I say that?”

“Then let’s try this. What exactly does the computer on this thing say about where we’re headed?”

“That there’s something down there for sure, just like Pat said. It’s big in scope and mass, and relatively intact since there’s no debris field or scatter.” Captain Seven continued to gaze out into the sea beyond, brought to life in thick ribbons of light from the six million candlepower beams focused outward from the
Crab
’s bow. “Just like five years ago . . .”

“One big difference between then and now, Captain.”

“What’s that, MacNuts?”

“The Indian, Sal, and I weren’t there.”

“Doesn’t change the waters.”

In that moment the
Crab
hit what felt like a headwind, its nose pitching upward as it started to roll to the side until Belamo worked the controls to desperately right it.

“Like I was saying,” from Captain Seven.

Sal Belamo continued to steer the
Crab
deeper into the depths of the sea, the exterior lighting providing an incredible view of the changing marine life the deeper they descended. Schools of fish thinned in favor of smaller packs or lone swimmers, scavengers mostly at this depth notable for their oversized-looking eyes. That feature made them seem almost thoughtful when investigating the
Crab
, but it was strictly a natural feature of species operating at these depths. But McCracken found himself looking at Katie DeMarco instead, replaying the remainder of her words about her brother in splotches.

“He was younger than me, two years. I was older. I was supposed to protect him.”

“You were a child.”

“So was he. I’d hear his door just down from mine creaking open in the night sometimes and I’d know, I’d know . . . But I didn’t do anything. I did . . . nothing.”

“You could blow up every company your father owns and the pain would still be there. And until you realize that, it will eat you alive.”

“Spoken like a man who knows.”

“Because it came close to eating me alive a bunch of times. But I always stayed a step ahead.”

“How?”

“By never enjoying it. Once you begin to enjoy it, you’re lost forever. That’s what makes me, and you, different from your father. He gave in, he surrendered.” McCracken hesitated, unsure whether he was getting through to her or not. “Your father killed Christian a long time before Stuttgart, Katie.”

“Don’t bullshit me, McCracken.”

“I’m not. Maybe Johnny’s spirits are finally speaking to me, I don’t know. But I do know your father’s actions set the wheels in motion that kept spinning right up until that day. He might as well have set the fire himself.”

“You honestly believe that. . . .”

“I’ve seen men try justifying their actions a host of different ways, all to avoid the consequences they deserve. Your brother’s and mother’s deaths are on your father’s conscience, not yours—that’s the price he’s got to pay.”

“And me?”

“The pain is yours to bear. That’s the honest truth. No bullshit.”

She looked across the aisle, seeming to size McCracken up for the first time. “How do you do it, how have you done it so long?”

“To me saving one life’s as important as saving a thousand. Keeps things in perspective, because I’m not doing it for me.”

“Then what happens when you finally meet the man who got your friend killed on that rig?”

“There’s something big down here all right, boss,” Sal Belamo said from behind the
Crab
’s controls. “Sonar readings are off the fucking chart.”

The seas beyond the
Crab
’s windows continued to darken, the exterior lights revealing schools of fish darting aside en masse to avoid it. The depths weren’t excessive, but the drop-off was extreme for waters close to the Greek shoreline. Just over fifteen hundred feet, according to the onboard computer, deep enough for a find even as big as the temple to remain elusive. Still, plenty of others had explored these depths, likely in search of something else. That left McCracken wondering how it could be possible that no one had stumbled upon the temple in passing; even a buried structure would give off some indication of its presence.