Clive Cussler - Shock Wave

“The gospel you want, the gospel you’ll get. I’m here because the pulsed ultrasound you use to excavate far diamonds causes an intense resonance that channels great distances underwater. When undersea conditions are optimal these pulses converge with those from your other mining operations around the Pacific and kill any living organism in the area. But of course I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

He’d caught Boudicca off balance. She stared at Pitt as if he had stepped off an alien spaceship. “You’re quite good at creating a scene.” she said hesitantly. “You should have gone into the movies.”

“I’ve considered it,” said Pitt. “But I don’t have James Woods’ talent or Mel Gibson’s looks.” He discovered a bottle of Herradura silver tequila behind the bar on a glass shelf backed by a gold-tinted mirror and poured himself a shot glass. He also found a lime and a salt shaker. He let Boudicca and the others stand there and watch as he dabbed his tongue on the flap of skin between his thumb and forefinger before sprinkling salt on it. Then he downed the tequila, licked the salt and sucked on the lime. “There, now I feel ready to face the rest of the day. As I was saying, you know more about the horrors of the acoustic plague, as it’s come to be called, than I do, Ms. Dorsett. The same killer that came frighteningly close to killing your sisters. So it would be foolish of me to waste my time attempting to enlighten you.”

“I don’t have the vaguest idea of what you’re talking about.” She turned to Merchant and Crutcher. “This man is dangerous. He is a menace to Dorsett Consolidated Mining. Get him off my boat and do with him whatever you think is necessary to ensure he doesn’t bother us again.”

Pitt made one last toss of the dice. “Garret Converse, the actor, and his Chinese junk, the Tz’u-hsi. David Copperfield would be proud of the way you made Converse, his entire crew and boat disappear.” The expected reaction was all there. The strength and the arrogance evaporated.

Boudicca suddenly looked lost. Then Pitt threw in the clincher. “Surely you haven’t forgotten the Mentawai. Now there was a sloppy job. You mistimed your explosives and blew up the boarding party from the Rio Grande who were investigating what appeared to be an abandoned ship. Unfortunately for you, your yacht was seen fleeing the scene and later identified.”

“A most intriguing tale.” There was scorn in Boudicca’s voice, but a scorn disputed by a deep foreboding in her face. “You might almost say spellbinding. Are you quite finished, Mr. Pitt, or do you have an ending?”

“An ending?” Pitt sighed. “It hasn’t been written yet. But I think it’s safe to say that very soon Dorsett Consolidated Mining Limited will be only a memory.”

He had gone one step too far. Boudicca began to lose control. Her anger swelled, and she came close to Pitt, her face tight and cold. “My father can’t be stopped. Not by any legal authority or any government. Not in the next twenty-seven days. By then, we’ll have closed down the mines of our own accord.”

“Why not do it now and save God only knows how many lives?”

“Not one minute before we’re ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“A pity you can’t ask Maeve.”

“Why Maeve?”

“Deirdre tells me that she became quite friendly with the man who saved her.”

“She’s in Australia,” said Pitt.

Boudicca shook her head and showed her teeth. “Maeve is in Washington, working as an agent for our father, feeding him whatever information NUMA has collected on the deathly sound waves. Nothing like having a trusted relative in the enemy camp to keep one out of trouble.”

“I misjudged her,” Pitt said brusquely. “She led me to believe that protecting sea life was her life’s work.”

“Any moral indignation flew out the window when she learned my father was holding her twin sons as insurance.”

“Don’t you mean hostages?” The mist began to lift. Pitt began to see that Arthur Dorsett’s machinations went far beyond mere greed. The man was a bloodthirsty cutthroat, a predator who thought nothing of using his own family as pawns.

Boudicca disregarded Pitt’s remark and nodded at John Merchant. “He’s yours to dispose of as you will.”

“Before we bury him with the others,” said Crutcher with seeming anticipation, “we’ll persuade him to fill in any details he might have purposely left out.”

“So I’m to be tortured and then executed,” Pitt said nonchalantly, helping himself to another shot of tequila while his mind desperately created and discarded a dozen useless plans for escape.

“You’ve condemned yourself by coming here,” said Boudicca. “If, as you say, officials of NUMA suspected our excavation operations were responsible for sending deadly sound waves throughout the ocean, there would have been no need for you to clandestinely spy on Dorsett property. The truth is, you have learned the answers within the past hour and have yet to pass them on to your superiors in Washington. I compliment you, Mr. Pitt. Slipping through our, security and entering the mine was a masterstroke. You could not have done it alone. Explanations will be forthcoming after Mr. Merchant motivates you to share your secrets.”

She nailed me good, Pitt thought in defeat. “You will give Maeve and Deirdre my best wishes.”

“Knowing my sisters, they’ve probably already forgotten you.”

“Deirdre maybe, not Maeve. Now that I’ve met all of you, it’s evident that she’s the most virtuous of the three.”

Pitt was surprised at the look of hatred that flashed in Boudicca’s eyes. “Maeve is the outcast. She has never been close to the family.”

Pitt grinned, a natural grin, mischievous and challenging. “It’s easy to see why.”

Boudicca stood up, looking even taller due to the heels of her boots, and stared down at Pitt, enraged at the laughter she read in his opaline green eyes. “By the time we close the mine, Maeve and her bastard sons will be gone.” She spun around and glared at Merchant. “Get this scum off my boat,” she said. “I don’t want to see him again.”

“You won’t, Ms. Dorsett,” said Merchant, motioning for Crutcher to push Pitt from the salon. “I promise, this will be your last look at him.”

With Pitt between them and Elmo bringing up the rear, Merchant and Crutcher escorted their captive down the gangway and walked across the dock toward a waiting van. As they passed by the large containers of supplies and equipment that had been off loaded from the cargo ship, the loud exhaust from the diesel engines operating the cranes drowned out a dull thud. Only when Crutcher suddenly crumpled to the planking of the dock did Pitt spin around in a defensive crouch, just in time to see Merchant’s eyes roll up into his head before he dropped like a sack of sand. Several steps behind them, Elmo lay stretched out like a dead man, which he was.

The whole operation hadn’t taken ten seconds from the killing blow to the back of Elmo’s neck to the concussion of John Merchant’s skull.

Mason Broadmoor grabbed Pitt’s arm with his left hand, his right still gripping a massive steel wrench. “Quick, jump!”

Confused, Pitt hesitated. “Jump where?”

“Off the dock, you idiot.”

Pitt needed no further urging. Five running steps and they both flew through the air and landed in the water a few meters in front of the bow of the cargo ship. The ice-cold water shocked every nerve ending in Pitt’s body before his adrenaline took over and he found himself swimming beside Broadmoor.

“Now what?” he gasped, breathing steam over the icy water while shaking the water from his face and hair.