Treasure of Khan (34 page)

T
HERESA FELT A SLIGHT
sense of relief when the door to her room opened and a guard motioned for her to step into the hallway. If they were going to kill her, then so be it, she thought. It would be better than an endless confinement in fearful anticipation.

It had been two days since she was first locked in the room without explanation. There had been no contact by anyone, save for the occasional tray of food shoved in the room. Though she knew nothing of the visit by the Chinese delegation, she had heard the caravan of cars arrive and depart. Of greater mystery was the heavy gunfire that had erupted from the rear of the compound. She strained to peer out the tiny window at the back of her room but could see little more than swirling dust. Idly staring out the window again the next day, she had observed the horse guards on patrol trotting by, though their numbers seemed smaller.

Now walking out her door, she was glad to see Wofford standing in the hall, leaning on a cane. He flashed her a warm smile.

“Vacation's over,” he said. “Guess it's back to work.”

His words proved prophetic, as they were escorted back to the study. Borjin sat waiting for them, inhaling a thick cigar. He appeared more relaxed than the last time they saw him, his effusion of arrogance stronger than ever.

“Come sit, my friends,” he said, waving them over to his table. “I hope you enjoyed your time off from work.”

“Sure,” Wofford said. “Staring at four walls was most relaxing.”

Borjin ignored the comment and pointed to a fresh stack of seismic reports.

“Your work here is nearly complete,” he said. “But there is some urgency in the appropriate selection of well sites in this region.” He unfurled a topographic map covering a two-hundred-square-mile area. Theresa and Wofford could see from the markings that it encompassed an area of the Chinese Gobi Desert just southeast of the Mongolian border.

“You have already provided inputs on a number of detailed sites within this region. I must say, your assessments have been most insightful,” he said with a patronizing tone. “As you can see, the blocks you have already examined are marked on this regional map. I ask that you evaluate those blocks in relation to the entire region and identify a prioritization of test-well sites to maximize potential production.”

“Aren't these sites located in China?” Wofford asked, pressing the point.

“Yes, they are,” Borjin replied matter-of-factly, offering no further explanation.

“You know that the potential reserves are rather deep?” Wofford asked. “Probably why they have been overlooked in the past.”

“Yes. We have the appropriate equipment to drill to the required depths,” Borjin replied with impatience. “I need to have two hundred high-producing wells in six months. Locate them.”

Borjin's arrogance finally rankled Wofford. Theresa could see from the rising flush of red to his face that he was about to tell the Mongolian to shove it. She quickly beat him to the punch.

“We can do that,” she blurted. “It will take us about three or four days,” she added, stalling for time.

“You have until tomorrow. My field manager will meet with you in the afternoon for a detailed briefing on your analysis.”

“Once completed, will we be free to return to Ulaanbaatar?” she asked.

“I will arrange a vehicle to transport you the following morning.”

“Then we better get down to work,” Theresa replied, grabbing the folder and spreading its contents across the table. Borjin nodded with an untrusting grimace, then stood up and left the room. As he disappeared down the corridor, Wofford turned to Theresa and shook his head.

“That was quite the show of cooperation,” he whispered. “Turning over a new leaf?”

“Best that he thinks we believe him,” she replied, holding a report in front of her mouth. “Plus, I didn't want you to deck him and get us both killed.”

Wofford smiled sheepishly, realizing how close she was to the mark.

Still wary of the security camera, Theresa pulled a map out from the bottom of the file and casually flipped it over while scattering some other reports about. On the blank back side, she took a pen and wrote “Ideas for Escape.” Jotting a few notes beneath it, she slid it across the table to Wofford. He picked the chart up and studied Theresa's comments with interest. While he was holding it up to his eyes, Theresa noticed the map on the reverse side depicted the Persian Gulf. A series of red jagged lines were imposed across various sections of the map. Theresa saw that a red circle was drawn at two points over a couple of the heavier lines. One circle, she noticed, was around the city of Ras Tanura, and the other around a small island off the coast of Iran.

“Jim, look at this map,” she interrupted, flipping the chart over for him to see.

“It's a fault map,” Wofford said after studying the colored lines. “It shows a tectonic plate boundary running right along the Persian Gulf and major fault zones running off it.”

Isolated since their abduction, neither knew anything about the devastating earthquakes that had recently struck the gulf. While Wofford studied the two red circles, Theresa rummaged through the rest of the file and produced two similar maps. The first was an enlarged view of Lake Baikal in Siberia.

“My word, look at this,” she said, holding up the map. Her finger pointed to the top of the blue-colored lake. Just beyond her fingertip, at the lake's northern shoreline, was a large fault line circled in red. A newly constructed oil pipeline was also marked on the map, running just a mile or two north of the lake.

“You don't suppose they did something around the fault that triggered the seiche wave on the lake?” she asked.

“Short of setting off a nuclear device, I don't see how,” Wofford replied, though his voice was thin on conviction. “What's on the other map?”

Theresa slid the other map to the top of the pile. They both immediately recognized it as a map of the Alaskan coastline, running from Anchorage down to British Columbia. Highlighted in yellow was the Alaska Pipeline, which stretched inland from its end point at the port city of Valdez. The four-foot-thick pipeline carried crude oil from the rich Prudhoe Bay fields on Alaska's North Slope, supplying a million barrels a day to the U.S. domestic market.

With a growing apprehension, Theresa pointed to a thick fault line marked on the map running just off the coastline. A dark red circle was drawn around a point on the fault, directly off the port of Valdez.

In silent dread, they both stared at the mark, wondering what Borjin had in store for the Alaska Pipeline.

H
IRAM
Y
AEGER WOLFED DOWN A
grilled-chicken sandwich with green tea, then excused himself from his cafeteria companions. The head of NUMA's computer resource center seldom left his precious bay processing hardware for long and quickly headed back to his lair on the tenth floor of the Washington headquarters building. Exiting the cafeteria, he smiled to himself as a pair of visiting politicians in blue suits gave the fiftyish man in the Rolling Stones T-shirt a slanted look.

The lanky computer whiz flaunted his nonconformity by dressing in jeans and cowboy boots while wearing his long hair tied in a ponytail. His skill had overshadowed his appearance, as indicated by the massive computer center he had built and managed from scratch. Within its databases was the world's most exhaustive collection of research related to oceanography and underwater studies, as well as real-time sea and weather conditions processed from hundreds of monitoring stations around the world. Yaeger found the computer center a double-edged sword, however. Its vast computing power spurred a constant demand by NUMA's array of research scientists eager to apply its horsepower to the latest pet project. Yet Yaeger was never known to turn down a request for computer time within the agency.

As the elevator doors opened on the tenth floor, Yaeger walked into his cavernous computer lab, fronted by a large horseshoe-shaped console. A solid, slightly balding man with a friendly face sat waiting in one of the swivel chairs that lined the console.

“I can't believe it,” the man smiled. “I actually caught you away from the roost.”

“Unlike my beloved computers, I've still got to eat,” Yaeger replied. “Good to see you again, Phil,” he added, shaking hands. “How are things down in the gravel pit?”

Dr. Phillip McCammon chuckled at the reference. As head of NUMA's Department of Marine Geology, McCammon was the resident expert in the study of undersea sediments. As it happened, the department was located in one of the underground levels of the headquarters building.

“We're still pounding rocks,” McCammon said. “I could use your help with some computing resources, however.”

“My kingdom is at your disposal,” Yaeger replied, waving a hand at the computer center around him, which represented the processing power of nearly a half dozen supercomputers.

“I won't need to monopolize the castle for long. I received an unofficial request from an associate at Langley to take a look at some seismic data. I guess the CIA is interested in the two recent earthquakes that have pulverized the Persian Gulf.”

“It is an interesting coincidence that there were two big quakes so close to each other and they both put a crimp on the oil supply. If there are any more spikes in the price of gas, I'll soon be riding my bicycle to work,” Yaeger griped.

“You and a lot of other people.”

“So, what can I do to help?”

“They have arranged for the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, to transfer a copy of their complete historical record on global seismic activity for the last five years,” McCammon said, handing Yaeger a sheet of paper with the relevant contact information. “One of my analysts has written a software program to evaluate the specific characteristics of the Persian Gulf quakes. Those parameters will then be run against the global seismic database to see if there are any other similar profiles.”

“You think there might be something to it?”

“No, I can't imagine how there could be. But we'll help our friendly neighborhood spooks by covering the bases.”

Yaeger nodded. “Not a problem. I'll have Max pull the data in from Golden this afternoon. Send up your software program and we'll have some answers for you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Hiram. I'll get the program to you straightaway.”

As McCammon headed toward the elevator, Yaeger turned to a keyboard and monitor and began typing in a string of commands. He stopped tapping when he noticed a multipage fax lying in his in-basket. He groaned when he spotted that it originated from the Continental Hotel in Ulaanbaatar.

“When it rains, it pours,” he muttered as he skimmed over the fax. Then he set it down and resumed his keystrokes.

In an instant, a beautiful woman materialized on the opposite side of the console. She wore a sheer white blouse and a pleated wool skirt that fell to her knees.

“Good afternoon, Hiram. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to call today.”

“You know I can't keep away from you, Max,” he replied. A mirage of sorts, Max was in fact a holographic image created by Yaeger as a user-friendly interface to his computer network. Modeled after Yaeger's wife but with the perpetual figure of a twenty-year-old, Max had become very real to Yaeger and others in the NUMA building who relied upon her artificial intelligence for solving complex problems.

“Compliments will get you everywhere,” she cooed slyly. “What is it today? Big problem or little?”

“Some of both,” he replied. “You might be pulling an all-nighter tonight, Max.”

“You know I never sleep,” she replied, rolling up the sleeves on her blouse. “Where do we begin?”

“I guess,” he said, pulling the fax in front of him, “we better start with the boss.”

T
HE TROPICAL SUN CLIMBED SLOWLY
over the hills of lava and coconut palm trees until it bathed the anchored barge in rays of golden light. On board the craft, the rhythmic sounds of a Hawaiian steel guitar band bellowed from a boom box, masking the background hum of a portable generator.

Summer, Dirk, and Dahlgren had already risen from their cots in the small covered shack and were preparing for a long day's work underwater. As Dirk topped up the gas tanks on a pair of compressors, Summer finished eating her breakfast of fresh papaya and bananas, washed down with a glass of guava juice.

“Who's on first?” she asked, gazing at the calm morning seas surrounding the barge.

“I believe Captain Jack has assembled a work schedule,” Dirk said, nodding toward Dahlgren.

Dressed in swim shorts, flip-flops, and a faded Hawaiian shirt, Dahlgren was bent over inspecting the regulators on a pair of lightweight dive helmets. The captain moniker derived from a tired blue hat he wore on his head. It was the classic captain's hat favored by rich yachtsmen, sporting crossed gold anchors on its prow. Dahlgren's hat, however, looked like it had been run over by an M-1 tank.

“Aye,” Dahlgren barked in a gravelly voice. “We'll work ninety-minute shifts below, two divers at a time, then rotate after a break. Dirk and I will take the first shift, then you can join me below for the second shift while Dirk works on his tan,” he said, nodding toward Summer.

“That reminds me, I didn't see a blender on board this plank,” Dirk said with disappointment.

“I am sorry to report that the last of the rum rations disappeared last night anyway. For medicinal purposes,” Dahlgren added.

As a panicked look crossed Dirk's face, Summer rolled her eyes with a “Why me?” look. “All right, my future AA recruits, let's get to work. If by luck we have found the rudder, then we have a lot of excavating to do. We still need to disassemble and stow away the grid markers, and I'd like to leave some time before the
Mariana Explorer
returns to survey some additional areas.”

Dahlgren stood up and took off his captain's hat and flung it across the deck. The hat spiraled perfectly, striking Summer square in the chest. Reacting with a start, she managed to catch the hat after a bobble.

“There,” Dahlgren said. “You make a far better Bligh than I do.”

As Dirk laughed, Summer blushed, then retorted, “Careful or I might accidentally cut your surface air while you are downstairs.”

Dirk fired up the two air compressors then joined Dahlgren in slipping on a warm-water wet suit. They would dive sharing surface-supplied air from one of the compressors. Eliminating the cumbersome air tanks made it easier to work, while extending their bottom time. Since the water depth was only thirty feet at the wreck site, they could theoretically work all day underwater without fear of the bends.

Summer gathered up the airlift and lowered the big piece of PVC pipe over the side. A hose from the second compressor was attached to the business end of the airlift, which provided the air feed through a controllable valve. Summer slowly lowered the pipe via the air hose till it struck the bottom and the tension slacked on the line.

Dirk slipped on his fins, then glanced at his watch. “See you in ninety minutes,” he said to Summer, then pulled his dive helmet over his head.

“I'll leave the lights on,” Summer replied, shouting over the drone of the compressors. She moved to the rail and sorted a trio of air lines that would tail the underwater operation. Dirk threw her a wave then stepped off the side of the barge, followed by Dahlgren a second behind.

The bellow of the compressors evaporated as Dirk struck the surface and he submerged into the turquoise water. Clearing his ears, he thrust his head down and kicked to the bottom, quickly locating the airlift. Grabbing the pipe, he chased after Dahlgren, who was swimming toward deeper water. They stopped at a pair of small orange flags that poked up from the sandy bottom. Dirk lifted the airlift, standing it on end, then flipped the control lever to the air line. A rush of compressed air burst into the lower end of the pipe, then gurgled up toward the surface, drawing sand and water with it. Dirk swung the base of the airlift back and forth above the seabed, digging a small hole as he cleared away sand around the marker.

Dahlgren watched for a moment, then took up position a few feet away. In his hands, he carried a stainless steel shaft with a cross handle at one end. He began twisting the metal probe into the sand, driving it down nearly two feet until it struck something solid. His experienced hands could tell by the vibration that the probe had struck wood. Yanking the probe out, he moved over another foot and repeated the process. After a few more probes, he began marking the perimeter of the buried object with small orange flags.

The hole created by the airlift in Dirk's hands grew slowly. He had worked his way down to a flat surface that was heavily encrusted. Looking at the outline of marker flags Dahlgren had started laying down, he realized the object was of an immense size. If it was indeed a rudder, they might have to rethink the entire scale of the remaining ship.

On the deck of the barge, Summer checked the compressors once more, then took a seat in a beach chair across the deck but within sight of the air lines. A cool offshore gust blew across the barge, sending a shiver up her spine. She was thankful the morning sun was quickly warming up the deck.

She happily soaked in the surrounding environment, admiring the rugged Hawaiian coast and delicious smells of the nearby flora that wafted from the lush island. Gazing seaward, the rolling Pacific waters seemed to shine with an exotic intensity from its blue depths. Absently noting a black ship steaming in the distance, she took a deep breath of the fresh sea air and leaned back in her chair.

If this is work, she thought amusedly, then they can keep my vacation pay.