The Storm (39 page)

“How? How is this possible?” he asked. “There are no patrol boats or helicopters here. Where did they come from?”

“We have video from the detention level,” Otero said, studying a laptop. “I hate to say this, but it’s Austin.”

“It can’t be,” Jinn said. “He’s dead. I’ve killed him twice.”

“Then he’s come back from the dead,” Otero said, turning the laptop toward Jinn. “Look.”

It was Austin. Jinn could not imagine how. It was as if Austin had appeared in his midst like a ghost. An appropriate thought as Jinn had been certain he’d been sent to perdition.

The shooting was growing closer. From the observation deck a few of Jinn’s men could be seen running toward Marchetti’s central park. They didn’t make it.

“We have to get out of here,” Zarrina said. “This battle is lost.”

Jinn studied the layout. They would never make it to the dry dock, where the flying boat was moored. Even if they did, a few well-placed bullets or the missiles he’d brought in would take them down.

“We can’t run,” he said.

“And we can’t win this fight,” Zarrina replied sharply. “There are only five of us.”

“Silence,” Jinn snapped.

He was trying to think, trying desperately to come up with a way to turn the tables. He looked to Otero. “Access the horde and energize the transmitter.”

Otero began tapping away on his laptop and then pushed it across the table to Jinn.

“You have access.”

“What are you going to do?” Matson asked.

Jinn ignored him. He began typing. Slowly at first, making sure he was in the right area of the system, and then faster.

Gunfire in the hall spurred him on.

He selected a command from the menu and hit enter.

The door to the room flew open and shots were exchanged, with shells ricocheting around the room.

Jinn took cover as Matson and the radar operator were cut down. A few seconds later Jinn’s other guard was killed as he tried to get off a shot.

“Give it up, Jinn!” Austin’s voice called out.

Jinn found himself behind an island in the center of the control room with many of the vital controls on its surface. Otero and Zarrina crowded in behind with him. “And if we do?”

“I’ll put you in chains, deliver you to the proper authorities.”

“You expect me to believe you won’t kill us?”

“Much as I’d like to,” Austin replied, “that’s not my choice to make. Don’t count on going back to Yemen, though. I’m thinking the World Court or some American military base.”

“I will not be put in such hands!” Jinn shouted.

“Then show yourself and let’s finish this man-to-man.”

Jinn could see Austin in a reflection. He was hidden around the corner of the steel bulkhead. Jinn had no shot. If he stood, Austin would cut him down. If he hid, Austin or some member of Austin’s team would soon flank his position.

“I have a better idea,” Jinn said. “I will now teach you a lesson about power and its proper use.”

He glanced at the laptop. A blinking green box on the screen told him his instructions had been sent and received. He could now take action.

He slipped the pistol from his holster, pressed the safety with his thumb until it clicked and held it tight to his chest.

“Time’s about up,” Austin informed him.

Jinn knew it was.

He placed the barrel of the pistol against the back of Otero’s skull and pulled the trigger. The muffled explosion blasted the computer programmer and what was left of his head out into the open space of the floor. Jinn’s second shot shattered the laptop, sending bits of plastic and microchips in all directions. He fired again just for good measure, destroying the laptop’s screen.

He tossed the weapon away. “I surrender,” he said, putting his hands up.

SHIELDED BY THE BULKHEAD, Kurt watched Jinn in the same reflection that Jinn had caught sight of him. Something didn’t add up. He’d seen Jinn pull the weapon and expected the man to go down swinging, but the bullet to Otero’s head and tossing the gun aside were suspicious actions to say the least.

Zarrina tossed out her weapon and put her hands up. She and Jinn stood slowly and Kurt leveled the M1 carbine at Jinn’s chest.

“You flinch, you die.”

Kurt stepped in the room. Paul and Tautog came in next. They fanned out.

Kurt sensed a trap. With his rifle still leveled at Jinn, he checked the dead men: Jinn’s guard, Matson, what was left of Otero and the radar operator.

He found nothing out of the ordinary, but the smug look remained on Jinn’s face. Like he’d just palmed a card or gotten away with something.

“What did you do?” Kurt whispered, waiting for a booby trap to spring or an explosion to go off. “What did you do?”

Jinn said nothing. Kurt noticed the shattered laptop. He realized that Jinn had just executed Otero, the programmer. The two things had to be connected.

Shouts drifted in through the open door from down below. They came from Tautog’s men on the zero deck.

“Something’s happening,” one of them called out. “The sea has come to life!”

Kurt stepped outside. Through the fog of the night he could see the water churning.

“Marchetti, get the lights on!”

Marchetti ran to the control panel and started throwing a bank of switches. All around the island, sections of the ocean lit up as Marchetti switched on floodlights both above and below water. Instantly, Kurt saw what was happening.

The water was stirring almost as if it was boiling over. The horde surrounding them had come to the surface and was surging toward the island.

“He’s called them in,” Marchetti whispered fearfully. “He’s called them home.”

Jinn began to laugh, a deep laugh that was sinister, sadistic and utterly filled with an egomaniac’s pride.

“You will now understand what I mean by power,” he said. “Unless you release me, the horde will consume you all.”

CHAPTER 55

KURT AUSTIN HAD KNOWN THEY WERE IN DOUBLE TROUBLE as soon as he heard the madman laugh. He stormed back into the control room and jammed the barrel of the carbine against Jinn’s face right between the eyes.

“Call them off!”

“Let us go,” Jinn said, “and I’ll do as you wish.”

“Call them off or I’ll splatter your brains all over the wall.”

“And what will that get you, Mr. Austin?”

Kurt pulled back. “Marchetti, find a computer, you’re going to have to do your code-breaking thing again.”

Marchetti raced over to another laptop, docked on the main console.

“He’ll never break it,” Jinn insisted. “He’ll never even get in.”

Marchetti looked up. “He’s right. I was able to reverse Otero’s last trick because I could access the files, but we’re locked out of everything.”

“Can’t you hack it?”

“It’s a nine-digit code protected with top-level encryption. A supercomputer couldn’t break it without a month or so to work on it.”

“You’ve got to be able to do something.”

“I can’t even log on.”

Now Kurt understood why Jinn had blasted Otero and the laptop. It was Otero’s code. No chance he would give it up lying dead on the floor and no chance Marchetti could check the laptop for any type of keystroke memory or temp file.

Leilani eased up beside Kurt. “What’s happening?”

“Those things that made us sparkle, they’re all around the island, a lot thicker than they were when we saw them. Jinn’s sent them into a frenzy. They’ll come on board like a horde of locusts and eat everything in sight, including us.”

“What are we going to do?” Leilani asked.

“Is there any way to stop them?” Kurt asked Marchetti.

Marchetti shook his head. “There are too many, fifty miles’ worth in every direction.”

“Then we have to get off the island. Where are those airships of yours?”

“In the hangar bay by the helipad.”

“Take that laptop and get everyone to meet us there,” Kurt said. He looked at Tautog. “Get your men up here. We’re leaving by air.”

“Not to the boats?” Tautog asked.

“The boats won’t help us now.”

Tautog went to the balcony and began yelling to his men, waving for them to come up. Marchetti grabbed a microphone and began an island-wide broadcast through a series of loudspeakers.

Kurt noticed two small radios on the flat part of the control console. He grabbed them and then shoved Jinn toward the elevator doors. “Let’s go.”

Moments later Kurt and his growing entourage stood on the lighted helipad suspended between the two pyramid buildings. From this vantage point the sea around Aqua-Terra looked more like solid ground covered with millions of beetles. They reflected the glare of Aqua-Terra’s floodlights in a smoky charcoal color. Streams of them could be seen coming inland like long, probing fingers.

“They look thick enough to walk on,” Paul mentioned.

“I wouldn’t try it,” Kurt said.

A hangar door opened in the side of the starboard pyramid, and Marchetti’s men began rolling one of the airships out. Two others waited behind it.

“How many people can each one hold?” Kurt asked.

“Eight. Nine at most,” Marchetti said.

“Dump out everything you don’t need,” Kurt said. “See if you can lighten the loads.”

Marchetti went to supervise. Paul and Gamay went with him. Leilani stepped over to Zarrina, who was standing against the edge of the helipad with Jinn.

“So you pretended to be me,” she said.

“I wouldn’t get too close,” Kurt warned.

“You’re a weak little woman,” Zarrina said. “That was the hardest part to play.”

Kurt grabbed Leilani as she went to slap Zarrina, pulling her away a safe distance.

“She’s baiting you,” Kurt said. “Go help the others.”

Leilani pouted but did as he asked.

“It’s too bad you didn’t try more to comfort me,” Zarrina said. “You might have enjoyed it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kurt said.

Beside her, Jinn fumed.

Tautog greeted the last of his men and shepherded them toward the hangar. “What about the prisoners?” one of them asked.

Kurt looked at the sadistic leader. “What’s it going to be, Jinn? Are you going to leave your men to be eaten alive?”

“Whether they live or die means nothing to me,” he said. “But perhaps you’d like to go get them since you care for them so much.”

“No,” Kurt said, “I’m not sending anyone down for them.”

“Then you are as ruthless as me.”

Kurt glared at Jinn. The man disgusted him. But Kurt wouldn’t risk one good person for the lives of those down below.

“This is what’s going to happen,” Kurt said. “We’re going to get on those airships and fly away and you’re going to be left behind to die in a manner you justly deserve. Your power play does nothing but murder your own men and take the two of you with them in a slow-motion suicide.”

He took the laptop, placed it on the rough surface of the helipad and shoved it toward Jinn.

Jinn stared at it but did nothing more.

Zarrina seemed nervous. She bit her lip, hesitated and then spoke. “Type in the code,” she said to Jinn.

Behind them the first two airships were ready, their pods inflated to full volume, their fans powering up. The third was right behind them.

“What’s the word?” Kurt asked Marchetti without turning.

“If we deploy the air anchors and get up to speed before we go off the edge, I think we can carry eleven,” Marchetti said. “I think.”

“Put twelve on each.”

“But I’m not sure—”

Kurt silenced him with a glance and looked Marchetti in the eye. “I’m going to need your help,” he said, handing him one of the small radios. “Now, what’s the word?”

“Twelve,” Marchetti said. “We can do twelve … I hope.”

“That’s only thirty-six,” Gamay said, calculating quickly. “There are thirty-seven of us.”

Jinn smiled at the numbers. “I suppose someone is staying behind to die.”

Kurt replied without blinking. “I am.”

CHAPTER 56

JOE WENT INTO THE WATER OF LAKE NASSER IN AN OLD-school diving getup. It wasn’t exactly the old brass helmeted, Mark V salvage gear the U.S. had stopped using shortly after World War Two, but it came close.

A thirty-pound helmet of stainless steel fit over his head and onto the shoulders of the suit. A fifty-pound belt strapped around his waist and heavy, weighted boots made taking a few steps a Frankenstein-like walk.

An air hose, a steel cable and a high-pressure line for pumping the Ultra-Set were attached to the shoulder mounts. They made him feel like a marionette, but once he hit the water Joe was glad for every ounce of weight and the security of the steel cable.

The weight kept him balanced in the swirling current. The cable, which was attached to a dive boat above him, was the only way to ascend with so much weight on. If it snapped, he would sink to the bottom like a stone and probably be excavated in a thousand years or so, only to baffle future archaeologists.

Joe had no desire to be part of the Valley of the Dead. All he wanted to do was to stop the dam from being washed away.

If he and the supervisor were right, the main breach was containable, and while disastrous, especially for those close to the dam, it was not cataclysmic. It would widen, perhaps to the full width of the dam, but the clay core and the gentle slope of the structure would keep it from eroding any deeper.

Eventually, like water spilling out of an overflowing bathtub, the water level in the lake would drop to a level matching the depth of the breach and the flow would slow and eventually stop.

But if the microbots were burrowing into the clay core from the tunnel, the incredible pressure of the water would weaken the core itself. It would eventually fail. A bigger, deeper, more jagged breach would form and there would be nothing to keep the dam from total collapse.

As Joe’s feet touched down on the sloping surface below, the speaker in his helmet crackled.

“Diver, can you hear me?”
It was the supervisor. He was up above, risking his life on the dive boat, along with the major and another technician.

“Barely,” Joe said.

“We’re just over a hundred feet from the breach,”
the supervisor said.
“It continues to widen at a rate of three feet per minute. You have less than thirty minutes to find the entry point or we’ll be caught in the outflow and dragged over the top of the dam.”