Clive Cussler - Serpent

a single shot from his dueling pistol. At Austin's direction they stopped, and a crewman with a strong stomach pulled the mask off the dead man. The face was that of a man in his thirties, dark-complexioned, with a thick black mustache, his features otherwise unremarkable except for the round hole in the forehead.

Zavala sat up on his stretcher and let out a low whistle. "'Tell me you had a laser sight on that old blunderbuss. A moving target in the dark! If I hadn't seen it I'd say a shot like that was impossible." ,

"It is impossible," Austin said with a rueful smirk. "I was playing it safe With a body shot."

As he explained to Zavala while their wounds were properly bandaged, his uncanny accuracy had nothing to do with his aim or the pistol's disreputable barrel grooving. In his haste Austin had turned the small pressure adjusting screw next to the trigger in the wrong direction and set the pistol with a hair trigger. Thank goodness for Manton's barrelweighted idiotproofing.

A oilcompany helicopter summoned by an emergency radio call plucked the wounded men and Nina Kirov from the Nereus and dropped them off in Tarfaya. Captain Phelan refused to leave his ship, and after the physician's mate had ascertained he'd be able to function on a limited basis within a few days, he stayed on to take the Nereus to the Yucatan. Within hours Austin and Zavala were on a NUMA executive jet that had been diverted to Morocco on its way to the United States from Rome. Nina hitched a ride on the plane to Dulles airport. The painkiller Austin was given knocked him for a loop, and he slept almost the entire flight. His. recollections were vague, but he remembered dreaming that a blond angel kissed him lightly on the cheek. When he awoke he was in Washington. Nina was gone, having caught the shuttle for Boston. He wondered whether he'd ever see her again. After spending a couple of days in the hospital he and Zavala were sent home, told to take their medication faithfully and give their bodies a chance to heal.

The jangle of the phone jolted Austin out of his reverie. He picked up the receiver and heard a crisp greeting. "Good morning Kurt, how are you feeling?"

"I'm coming along quite well, Admiral Sandecker. Thank you for asking. Although I must admit to being a little bored."

"Glad to hear that. Your boredom is about to come to an abrupt end. We're meeting tomorrow at nine to see if we can get to the bottom of this Moroccan business. I'm bringing Zavala in as well. He's been seen around Arlington in his convertible, so I assume he, too, is bored with inactivity."

Zavala, who drove a 1961 Corvette, mostly because it was the last model with a trunk, had used his time to tinker in his basement, where he liked to restore mechanical contrivances and create new technical underwater devices. As soon as he was able to walk without falling over he started working out at a boxing gym. Joe was never bored when there were women around, and he'd been making the most of the sympathetic leverage his wound got him.

Austin had talked to Zavala numerous times on the phone. For all the fun Joe was having, he was itching for action. Austin was telling the truth when he said, "I'm sure he's eager to get back to work, Admiral."

"Splendid. By the way I understand you're well enough to qualify for a spot on the Olympic crew team."

As coxswain, maybe. One suggestion, sir. The next time you hire someone to impersonate a birdwatcher, you might make sure he isn't wearing dress shoes and knee socks."

Pause. "I don't have to remind you that NUMA does not have the same pool of clandestine operatives that your Langley neighbors have at their beck and call. I asked Joe McSweeney, one of NUMA s bean counters from accounting, to quietly see how you were coming along. He passes your house commuting to work. Sounds as if a James Bond bug bit him and he took the job more seriously than I imagined. Hope you don't mind."

"No problem, sir. I appreciate your concern. It's better than having daily phone calls from headquarters."

"Thought you might think so. Incidentally Mac does know his birds."

"I'm sure he does," Austin said. "See you tomorrow, Admiral."

Austin hung up, chuckling at Sandecker's paternalism and his disingenuous shot at the CIA whose headquarters were less than a mile from the boathouse. The admiral's agency was primarily scientific, but its operations as the undersea counterpart of NASA were naturally made for intelligence gathering that rivaled or even surpassed the best "the Company" could come up with.

Sandecker envied the CIA's bottomless budget and limited accountability, although he himself was no slouch at prying funding from Congress. He could muster the support of twenty top universities with schools in the marine sciences and a host of large corporations. With its five thousand scientists, engineers, and others; its ongoing studies in deep ocean geology and mining, biological studies of sea life, marine archaeology, and climatology; and its farflung fleet of research vessels and aircraft, NUMAs reach extended to every part of the globe.

Hiring Austin away from the CIA had been a major Sandecker coup. Austin came to NUMA in a roundabout fashion. He had studied for his master's degree in systems management at the University of Washington and attended a high-rated dive school in Seattle. He'd trained as an underwater jack-of-all trades, which meant he was proficient in basics such as welding, the commercial application of explosives, and mud diving. He specialized in flotation, lifting heavy objects from the sea, and deep-sea saturation diving in various environments using mixed air and undersea chambers. After working on oil rigs in the North Sea a couple of years, he returned to his father's marine salvage company for six years before being lured into a little-known branch of the CIA that specialized in underwater intelligence gathering. He was assistant director of the secret raising of a Russian submarine and the salvage and investigation of an Iranian container ship carrying nuclear weapons that was sunk clandestinely by an Israeli submarine. He also conducted several investigations into commercial airlines that had been mysteriously shot down over the sea, locating, salvaging, and investigating the incidents.

At the end of 'the Cold War the CIA closed down the undersea investigation branch. Austin probably would have drifted into another CIA section had he not been hired by Admiral Sandecker for special undersea assignments that often took place outside the realm of government oversight. Sandecker could cry poor mouth and point at Langley all he wanted, but he was well acquainted with cloak-and-dagger operations.

Austin glanced at his watch. Ten o'clock. It would be seven in Seattle. He picked up the phone and punched out a number. A voice with a buzzsaw edge answered.

"Good morning," Austin said. "It's your number one son."

About time you called."

"I talked to you yesterday, Pop."

"A lot can happen in twenty-four hours," Austin's father replied with good-natured gruffness.

"Oh? Like what?"

"Like landing a multi-million dollar contract with the Chinese. That's what. Not bad for an old geezer."

It was from his father that Austin inherited his strapping physique and stubbornness. Now in his mid-seventies, the elder Austin had a slight stoop to his wide shoulders, but he regularly put in work days that would kill a younger man. His Seattle-based marine salvage company had made him wealthy. But he still drove himself, especially since the death of Austin's mother a few years earlier. Like many self-made men, it had become the game, not the money, that was important.

"Congratulations, Pop. Can't say I'm surprised. But you're hardly a geezer, and you know it."

"Don't waste your time buttering me up. Talk's cheap. When are you coming out so we can celebrate with a bottle of Jack Daniel's?"