Clive Cussler - Lost Empire

“So my wife tells me.”

“You’re stubborn. Both of you. We’re going to leave together right now. If you fight me or try to attract attention, I’ll shoot your wife, then you. Let’s go. I have a boat outside. We’ll walk outside and-”“No.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not bluffing, Mr. Fargo. I’ll shoot you both.”

“I believe you’ll try. Don’t think I’ll make it easy.”

“Nobody will stop me; I’ll be gone before the authorities arrive.”

“Then what? Did you really think we’d come here carrying all our proof? You’ve really got a problem with underestimating people. You’ve searched our hotel room and found nothing, correct?”“Yes.”

“All we’ve got with us is a few pictures, and they’re nothing you haven’t already seen. If you kill us here, everything goes public. By the time you get back to Mexico City, every news channel will be running the story.”“You wouldn’t be here if you had everything you needed. You don’t have what Blaylock found or what he was after.”

“That makes two of us.”

“What you’re forgetting is, I’ve dedicated myself to keeping this secret for almost a decade. You’ve been involved for a few weeks. Whatever you find, whatever story you tell, we’ll spin it the other way. You know who I work for and you know how powerful he is. Even if you manage to survive, by the time we’re done with you you’ll be a pair of money-hungry, spotlight-seeking treasure hunters who created a fantastic lie for their own personal gain.”“We’ll still have our health,” Remi said sweetly.

“And our sense of humor,” Sam added. “If you’re so confident, why don’t you go home and let the chips fall where they may?”

“I can’t do that. I’m a soldier. I’ve got my orders.”

“Then we’re at an impasse. Either shoot us or walk away.”

Rivera considered this for a few moments, then nodded. “Have it your way. Remember, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo, I gave you a chance to make this easy. No matter what else happens, I’m going to make sure you die in Indonesia.”

LAMPUNG BAY, SUMATRA

SAM EASED BACK ON THE BOAT’S THROTTLES AND BROUGHT THE bow around until they were beam on to the wind. The boat slowed to a stop, then began rocking from side to side. A few hundred yards to port was Mutun, one of the dozens of tiny forested islands that lined both coasts of the bay; to starboard, in the distance, Indah Beach.“Okay, one more time,” he said.

“We’ve been over this, Sam. Several times. The answer’s still no. If you’re staying, I’m staying.”

“So let’s go home.”

“You don’t want to go home.”

“True, but-”

“You’re starting to make me angry, Fargo.”

And he knew it. When Remi started using his surname, it was a sign that her patience was wearing thin.

Following their encounter with Rivera at the museum, they’d caught the next ferry for the Sol Marbella landing, about fifteen miles from the Cartita Beach docks. While they waited for the ferry to get under way, Sam kept his eye on Rivera’s speedboat until finally losing sight of it when it passed behind the Tanjung headland to the southwest.

Once back on the Javan mainland they hired a taxi to take them back to the Four Seasons, where they quickly packed, headed for the airport, and boarded the next Batavia Air charter across the straits to Lampung. They touched down shortly before nightfall and found a bayside hotel down the coast a few miles, where they called Selma.

The sooner they reached Pulau Legundi, the better, Sam and Remi reasoned. Though they’d half expected Rivera to turn up, his sudden appearance at the museum, combined with his menacing promise, drove home the point that they needed to move quickly. To that end, Selma worked her magic and arranged for a twenty-four-foot motorized pinisi-a type of narrow, flat-bottomed ketch-and all the necessary supplies to be waiting for them at the docks before sunrise. Now, nearing noon, they’d covered a third of the distance to Pulau Legundi.Remi said, “We’ve never let people like Rivera run us off before. Why should we start now?”

“You know why.”

She stepped up to him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Drive the boat, Sam. Let’s finish this together.”

Sam sighed, then smiled. “You’re a remarkable woman.”

“I know. Now, drive the boat.”

BY LATE AFTERNOON, what had merely been a smudge on the overcast horizon began to resolve into the island’s lush green peaks and craggy coastline. Shaped like a jagged comma, the uninhabited Pulau Legundi was roughly four miles long by two miles wide. Like all the other islands in and around the Sunda Strait, it had once been blanketed by volcanic ash from Krakatoa. A hundred thirty years of wind and rain and an ever-patient Mother Nature had transformed the island into an isolated patch of thriving rain forest.

JUST OVER TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after leaving Jakarta, with the sun setting over the Legundi’s peaks, Sam turned the pinisi’s bow in to a sheltered cove on the eastern shoreline. He gunned the engine and slid the bow onto a ten-foot-wide strip of white-sand beach, and Remi jumped out. Sam tossed down their packs and followed her. He secured the bowline to a nearby tree.

Remi unfolded the tourist map they’d purchased at the hotel-the best they could do in a pinch-and laid it on the sand. They crouched down. Before leaving the museum, Sam had studied a few digital maps on the kiosk and mentally marked the ship’s position.

“From here it’s less than a mile to the western side,” he said. “As best I can tell, the Shenandoah-”“Assuming it was her.”

“I’m praying it was her. My best guess puts her here, in this shallow bay. If we’re using the Berouw’s fate as a model-”“Yes, run that by me again.”

“According to accepted history, the Berouw was the only true ship to be pushed inland. Anything smaller was either driven to the bottom of the strait or instantly destroyed by the final tsunami. My theory is this: What made the Berouw different is that she was anchored at the mouth of a river.”“A path of least resistance,” Remi said.

“Exactly. She was driven inland via a preexisting gouge in the terrain. If you draw a line from Krakatoa through the ship’s anchorage and onto the island, you see a-”

Leaning closely over the map, Remi finished Sam’s thought. “A ravine.”

“A deep one, bracketed on both sides by five-hundred-foot peaks. If you look closely, the ravine ends below this third peak, a few hundred yards shy of the opposite shoreline. One mile long and a quarter mile wide.”

“What’s to say she wasn’t crushed into dust or shoved up and over the island and slammed into the seabed?” Remi asked. “We’re twenty-five miles from Krakatoa. The Berouw was fifty miles away and she ended up miles inland.”

“Two reasons: One, the peaks around our ravine are far steeper than anything around the river; and two, the Shenandoah was at least four times as heavy as the Berouw and iron-framed with double-thick oak and teak hull plates. She was designed to take punishment.”“You make a good case.”

“Let’s hope it translates into reality.” “I do, however, have one more nagging detail . . .”

“Shoot.”

“How would the Shenandoah have survived the pyroclastic flow?”

“As it happens, I have a theory about that. Care to hear it?”

“Hold on to it. If you turn out to be right, you can tell me. If you’re wrong, it won’t matter.”

WITHIN FIVE MINUTES of breaching the tree line they realized Madagascar’s forests didn’t hold a candle to those of Pulau Legundi. The trees, so densely packed that Sam and Remi frequently had to turn sideways to squeeze between them, were also entwined in skeins of creeper vines that looped from tree trunk to branch to ground. By the time they’d covered a hundred yards, Sam’s shoulder throbbed from swinging the machete.