Clive Cussler - Shock Wave

“Blindfolded in a straitjacket,” Broadmoor said indisputably. “We’ll leave at midnight and be in bed by 300 A.M.”

For the next several minutes, worn out from the excitement of the hard run across the channel and the near brush with death, they sat in silence, listening to the reverberating roar of the surf outside the grotto. Finally, Broadmoor reached into a small compartment on his WetJet and retrieved a canvas-covered half-gallon canteen. He pulled out a cork stopper and handed the canteen to Pitt.

“Boysenberry wine. Made it myself.”

Pitt took a long swallow and made a strange face. “You mean boysenberry brandy, don’t you?”

“I admit that it does have a nice kick.” He smiled as Pitt passed back the canteen. “Did you find what you were looking for at the mine?”

“Yes, your engineer led me to the source of the problem.”

“I am glad. Then it has all been worth it.”

“You paid a high price. You’ll not be selling any more fish to the mining company.”

“I felt like a whore taking Dorsett money anyway,” said Broadmoor with a disgusted expression.

“As a consolation, you’ll also be interested to learn that Boudicca Dorsett claimed her daddy was going to close down the mine a month from now.”

“If it’s true, my people will be happy to hear it,” said Broadmoor, handing back the canteen. “That calls for another drink.”

“I owe you a debt I can’t repay,” said Pitt quietly. “You took a great risk to help me escape.”

“It was worth it to bash Merchant and Crutcher’s skulls,” Broadmoor laughed. “I’ve never felt this good before. It is I who must thank you for the opportunity.”

Pitt reached out and shook Broadmoor’s hand. “I’m going to miss your cheery disposition.”

“You’re going home?”

“Back to Washington with the information I’ve gathered.”

“You’re okay for a mainlander, friend Pitt. If you ever need a second home, you’re always welcome in my village.”

“You never know,” said Pitt warmly. “I just might take you up on that offer someday.”

They departed the grotto long after dark as insurance against chance discovery by Dorsett security patrol boats. Broadmoor draped the chain of a small shaded penlight around his neck so that it was hanging on his back.

Fortified by the boysenberry wine, Pitt followed the tiny beam through the surf and around the rocks, amazed at the ease with which Broadmoor navigated in the dark without mishap.

The image of Maeve, forced to work as a spy under the boot of her father, blackmailed by his seizure of her twin sons, made him boil with anger. He also felt a stab in his heart, a feeling that had not coursed through him in years. His emotions stirred with the memories of another woman. Only then did he realize it was possible to feel the same love for two different women from different times, one living, one dead.

Driven and torn by conflicting emotions of love and hate and a determination to stop Arthur Dorsett no matter the cost and consequences, he gripped the handlebars till his knuckles gleamed white under the light from a quarter-moon as he forged through the cataract from Broadmoor’s wake.

For most of the afternoon the wind blew steadily out of the northeast. A brisk wind, but not enough to raise more than an occasional whitecap on the swells that topped out at one meter. The wind brought with it a driving rain that fell in sheets, cutting visibility to less than five kilometers and striking the water as if its surface was churned by millions of thrashing herring. To most sailors it was miserable weather. But to British seamen like Captain Ian Briscoe, who spent their early years walking the decks of ships plowing through the damp of the North Sea, this was like old home week.

Unlike his junior officers, who remained out of the gusting spray and stayed dry, Briscoe stood on the bridge wing of his ship as if recharging the blood in his veins, staring out over the bow as if expecting to see a ghost ship that didn’t appear on radar. He noted that the mercury was holding steady and the temperature was several degrees above freezing. He felt no discomfort in his oilskins except that caused by the occasional drops of water that snaked their way through the strands of his precisely cut red beard and trickled down his neck.

After a two-week layover in Vancouver, where she participated in a series of naval exercises with ships of the Canadian Navy, Briscoe’s command, the Type 42 destroyer HMS Bridlington, was en route home to England via Hong Kong, a stopover for any British naval ship that was sailing across the Pacific. Although the ninety-nine-year lease had run out and the British Crown Colony was returned to China in 1997, it became a matter of pride to occasionally show the Cross of Saint George and to remind the new owners of who were the founders of the financial Mecca of Asia.

The door to the wheelhouse opened, and the second officer, Lieutenant Samuel Angus, leaned out. “If you can spare a few moments from defying the elements, sir, could you please step inside?”

“Why don’t you come out, my boy?” Briscoe roared over the wind. Soft. That’s the trouble with you young people. “You don’t appreciate foul weather.”

“Please, Captain,” Angus pleaded. “We have an approaching aircraft on radar.”

Briscoe walked across the bridge wing and stepped into the wheelhouse. “I see nothing unusual in that. You might say it’s routine. We’ve had dozens of aircraft fly over the ship.”

“A helicopter, sir? Over twenty-five hundred kilometers from the American mainland and no military vessels between here and Hawaii.”

“The bloody fool must be lost,” Briscoe growled. “Signal the pilot and ask if he requires a position fix.”

“I took the liberty of contacting him, sir,” replied Angus. “He speaks only Russian.”

“Who do we have who can understand him?”

“Surgeon Lieutenant Rudolph. He’s fluent in Russian.”

“Call him up to the bridge.”

Three minutes later, a short man with blond hair stepped up to Briscoe, who was sitting in the elevated captain’s chair, peering into the rain. “You sent for me, Captain?”

Briscoe nodded curtly. “There’s a Russian helicopter muddling about in the storm. Get on the radio and find out why he’s flying around an empty sea.”

Lieutenant Angus produced a headset, plugged it into a communications console and handed it to Rudolph. “The frequency is set. All you have to do is talk.”

Rudolph placed the earphones over his ears and spoke into the tiny microphone. Briscoe and Angus waited patiently while he carried on what seemed a one-way conversation. Finally, he turned to the captain. “The man is terribly upset, almost incoherent. The best I can make of it, is that he’s coming from a Russian whaling fleet.”

“Then he’s only doing his job.”

Rudolph shook his head. “He keeps repeating, `they’re all dead’ and wants to know if we have helicopter landing facilities on the Bridlington. If so, he wants to come aboard.”

“Impossible,” Briscoe grunted. “Inform him that the Royal Navy does not allow foreign aircraft to land on Her Majesty’s ships.”

Rudolph repeated the message just as the helicopter’s engines became audible and it suddenly materialized out of the falling rain, half a kilometer off the port bow at a height of no more than twenty meters above the sea. “He sounds on the verge of hysteria. He swears that unless you shoot him down, he’s going to set down on board.”

“Damn!” The oath fairly exploded from Briscoe’s lips. “All I need is for some terrorist to blow up my ship.”

“Not likely any terrorists are roaming about this part of the ocean,” said Angus.