Clive Cussler: Zero Hour

“Better go search the lost and found, then,” Joe said.

“No time. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

Kurt glanced down. The shaft dropped another hundred feet or so. Kurt could swear he smelled the ocean. He turned to Devlin. “I think I know where you’ll find that ship of yours.”

Devlin nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Gather up the prisoners. Get them down there.”

Devlin nodded. Masinga did the same. “Once we’ve taken it over, we’ll wait for you.”

“Don’t bother,” Kurt insisted. “Just head for the sea.”

Devlin stared at Kurt for a moment, offered him a salute, and then he and Masinga went back to round up the other prisoners.

“You should really go with them,” Kurt said to Joe.

“Sorry,” Joe said. “Our last cruise made me seasick. Bad navigation. Poor accommodations. And don’t get me started on the food. It was just awful. They should really put a health inspector aboard that vessel.”

Kurt laughed. He should have known better than to try benching his friend at this point in the proceedings. He turned to Gregorovich. “Ready for one last gambit?”

“Ready to end this game,” Gregorovich said. “Once and for all.”

Kurt, Joe, and Gregorovich climbed up the abandoned shaft, while Devlin, Masinga, and the South American led the surviving prisoners down toward the water level.

As they neared the top, another powerful vibration shook the cavern. In the hollow shaft, it made a sound like a rushing train.

Kurt gripped the scaffolding as the vibration came up. He noticed a strange luminescence to the metal work, something he hadn’t seen before.

“We might want to hurry,” he suggested.

The other two fell behind, the beatings they’d taken slowing them down.

Kurt reached the top and braced himself, waiting as both Joe and Gregorovich caught up.

Another barrier of corrugated tin blocked whatever lay beyond. Kurt put his ear to it. A loud droning could be heard.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

“Generators.”

Kurt pulled his backpack off and wedged it into the scaffolding, taking out the last brick of C-4.

“What are you going to do?” Joe asked.

“Looks like it’s only attached at four points,” Kurt said. “One in each corner. If I wedge some explosives into the gap between the tin sheet and the wall and trigger them all at the same time, that should blast the corrugated sheet out into the room.”

“How much are you going to use?”

Kurt almost laughed. “You and Devlin must have gone to the same school of asking too many questions.”

Unlike his effort with the heavy door he’d blown earlier, Kurt wanted to use as little explosive as possible in this case. Just enough to separate the sheet of tin from the opening it covered.

He tore off small sections of the plastic explosives and wedged them into the corners the way one might caulk a drafty window. Setting the detonators, he rigged his clacker once again.

“Hold on tight,” he said.

Both Joe and Gregorovich wrapped their arms and legs around the scaffolding, and Kurt did the same.

As the next wave of energy began to vibrate the cavern, Kurt figured he had the perfect opportunity. He squeezed the clacker tight. The four little charges blew simultaneously. The tin sheet flew out into the room, trailing smoke and clattering to the floor. The drone of humming generators doubled in volume.

Kurt looked inside.

A head poked out from behind one of the generators and seconds later gunfire burst forth from behind two others.

Kurt ducked back behind the edge of the rock as bullets tore up the inside of the mineshaft.

“So much for our surprise entrance,” Joe said.

A hundred and sixty feet below, Devlin and Masinga had reached the bottom level of the shaft. A short tunnel led to the cave where the black hulk of the Voyager remained docked.

From a side tunnel, Devlin noticed a man carrying a large crate toward it.

He put a finger to his lips and then jumped out, slamming the butt of the rifle down on the man’s head. The man stumbled, dropped what he was carrying, and sprawled on the floor.

Devlin recognized him and stuck the business end of the rifle in his face. “Running away again, Janko?”

Janko froze as he realized who was speaking.

“Look at this,” Masinga said, opening the crate. “Diamonds.”

Devlin drew back and slugged Janko with the butt of the rifle once again, knocking him out.

A few minutes later, wearing Janko’s clothes, he boarded the Voyager and took over the bridge. With the command crew under the gun, he waved Masinga and the other prisoners forward.

“Come on,” he shouted as the cave began to shake yet again. This series of tremors lasted longer and ran deeper than any of the others. Small rockslides could be seen throughout the cave.

As the last of the former prisoners climbed on board, Devlin turned to the helmsman. “Fire this tub up.”

At the top of the shaft, just outside the generator room, Kurt, Joe, and Gregorovich had run into better-prepared defenses than they’d expected. Eight of Thero’s men were inside, hiding behind the generators.

“Getting through that cross fire is going to be suicide,” Joe pointed out.

“I have an idea,” Kurt said. He rigged up what remained of the C-4 and looked at Joe. “Get ready,” he shouted.

Joe nodded, switching the selector on his rifle to full auto.

Kurt flung the pack around the corner and into the room, squeezing the clacker one last time. A booming explosion shook the generator room, hopefully knocking the defenders off their feet.

“Go!” Kurt shouted.

Joe went to rush in, but Gregorovich pulled him aside and climbed over him. He charged into the room, wielding his two pistols and blazing away. From the middle of the room, he fired in all directions, twirling and shooting, even as Thero’s men fired back and hit him several times.

With Gregorovich drawing their fire, Joe and Kurt rushed in behind him. They each took a side and gunned down the last of Thero’s men in rapid sequence.

When the shooting stopped, only Kurt and Joe were standing. They rushed to Gregorovich, who was on the floor badly wounded.

Maxmillian Thero stood in the control room, bathed in the light of his great creation and oblivious to the gunfire outside. He gazed through the portal, mesmerized by the swirling galaxy-like pattern of the zero-point energy. It raced around the inside of the globelike structure, faster and faster, until finally disappearing in a blinding flash and heading toward Australia.

The first pulses probably hadn’t been felt except by a few kangaroos in the outback. This surge would rattle windows and shake doors. It would cause tremors up and down the rift and set the stage for what was to come, as each reverberation built upon the previous one.

He checked the monitor. The next oscillation was beginning to build.

Suddenly, the door burst open behind him. He turned in time to hear the crack of the gunshot from Kurt Austin’s weapon and see the flash of fire from the barrel. He fell backward, slammed into the viewing portal, collapsed, and slid down it, leaving a trail of blood on the thick Plexiglas.

As he slumped to the ground, he rolled toward Hayley. She was lying on the ground a few feet away.

“Thank… you,” he managed.

“George,” she whispered.

He nodded, and then his eyes closed.

Kurt rushed into the room and over to Hayley. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” she said, beginning to move.