Sea of Greed

As he loaded a second spear into his gun, his men launched their attack. One spear hit near the stern of the Minerve while the second exploded only inches from the opening. The rolling shock waves rattled the divers and had to be absolutely debilitating to the people inside the Minerve.

Proof came as a wave of bubbles erupted from the opening, followed by a yellow lifting bag that squeezed through the gap, expanded and then floated toward the surface. Dangling beneath that bag was a three-foot-long metal cylinder, with bands around each end.

“That’s the canister,” the lead diver shouted. “Grab it.”

Breaking into a furious swim, the diver led his comrades toward the slowly rising bag.

Before he could reach it, the NUMA submersible that had forced the Discus into the bottom emerged from the opaque blue background. It raced toward the lifting bag, grasped the lines stretching between it and the canister and continued forward. The bag folded over the top of the submersible while the forward motion caused the canister to be pulled up beneath it.

The lead diver reacted on instinct, firing his speargun and being blown backward as the explosives-tipped shaft hit the NUMA sub and detonated.

69

JOE ZAVALA had spent hours crawling around the hold of the Monarch as it flew from Kazakhstan to wherever they were now. He’d explored the maintenance conduits and found they ran the entire length of the plane.

As the aircraft climbed into the cold layers of the upper atmosphere, he’d found a warm spot to hide. As it descended toward the water, he’d resumed his mission, probing for a weakness he could exploit.

The truth was, there were several ways he could damage the plane, hydraulic lines, electrical systems, fuel systems. The problem was redundancy. The Monarch had it. All those systems had backups. And backups to the backups.

Ruining any one of them would be no more than a minor inconvenience. But there was one system on Tessa’s plane that no other aircraft possessed. And while it wasn’t critical for flying, it was absolutely necessary for getting off the ground — or, more accurately, the water.

Working his way along the inspection conduit, Joe had come across the high-pressure lines that fed air from the engines into the cavitation system. Without the cushion of air to separate it from the water, the giant aircraft could never overcome the drag, suction and surface tension of the sea.

Tracking the main high-pressure line to a splitter, Joe began to do his worst, disconnecting fittings, ripping trunk lines from the feeder valves, smashing pressure release valves so that they would vent any air that came through them.

By the time he was done, Joe had crawled half the length of the plane and back. He was dirty, grimy, bleeding from several cuts and grinning from ear to ear. A true gremlin.

Now all he needed to do was find a way off the plane before it attempted to fly again.

• • •

TESSA STOOD AT the aft end of the Monarch, watching for any signs of success. One after another, her men surfaced, bleeding, unconscious or in obvious pain. This was not the type of progress she’d hoped for.

She held the radio up to her mouth. “Volke,” she called. “What’s going on down there?”

The response was almost inaudible, but it made perfect sense. “Austin,” Volke said. “He’s alive.”

“We blew his ship up,” she said. “It has to be someone else.”

“It’s him,” Volke said. “He must have been in the water when we attacked. He’s operating a submersible. He’s taken the counteragent.”

Tessa grew angry at herself for underestimating Austin yet again. What lengths did she have to go to to rid herself of this man?

She held the transmit switch down once again. “Woods, where are you? Volke needs help. NUMA has the counteragent.”

“Forget Volke,” Woods replied. “I’m going after the canister. Stand by.”

• • •

AS THE CONVERSATION between Tessa, Volke and Woods played out, Kurt found himself trying to clear his head and wondering exactly where he was.

The truth was disturbing. He was upside down in a submersible that was filling with water and sinking. Rudi was beside him.

“One of these days, I’m going to wake up to a beautiful blonde, brunette or redhead,” he mused.

“Don’t I count?” Rudi asked.

“Not by a mile.”

Kurt could see from the damage that there was no hope in restarting the submersible. “Time for us to exit the vehicle.”

The two of them had prepared for this and were already wearing the power-assisted wetsuits. They pulled dive helmets on and attached small oxygen bottles.

Rudi offered the thumbs-up, Kurt pulled the release handle. It opened a series of valves, allowing the cockpit to fill rapidly with water and also disconnecting the canopy.