Devil's Gate

31

WHILE KATARINA WAITED on the Argo’s bridge, Kurt Austin sat in the conference room with Captain Haynes and Joe Zavala. He spent ten minutes relaying the events he and Katarina had endured that night, concluding with the grisly discovery at the French team’s beach house.

In response, Captain Haynes told him of the attack on the Grouper, Paul’s near drowning, and his current condition. He and Joe then took turns explaining what they knew of Gamay’s theory that the Kinjara Maru had been hit with some type of directed-energy weapon.

“Are we talking about something like the SDI program?” Kurt asked, referring to the Strategic Defense Initiative. “Something that could shoot down missiles?”

“Could be,” the captain said. “The thing is, we don’t really know. But it’s possible.”

“And why hit some random freighter in the middle of the Atlantic?” Kurt asked.

Before anyone could answer, the intercom light flashed, and the communications officer spoke.

“Incoming call for you, Captain. It’s Director Pitt.”

“Put him on speaker,” the captain said.

The speaker crackled for a second and then the sound of Dirk Pitt’s voice came over it. “I know it’s late there, gentlemen, but I understand everyone is still up.”

“We’ve been discussing the events,” Haynes said.

“I just posed a question that’s been on my mind since this started,” Kurt said. “Why target a bulk carrier in the middle of the Atlantic? That goes for simple piracy or this electromagnetic weapon we’re now talking about.”

“I think I have the answer to that,” Dirk said. “Hiram Yaeger is doing a study to figure out the power requirements and capabilities of such a weapon right now, but when I asked him what someone would need to create such a weapon his short answer was ‘More.’”

“More?” Kurt said. “More what?”

“More everything,” Dirk replied. “More energy, more materials, more money. More than it might be easy to get one’s hands on. In this case, the Kinjara Maru was likely targeted for a shipment of titanium-doped YBCO. It’s a highly advanced, hellaciously expensive compound used to make incredibly powerful superconducting magnets.”

“And those magnets can be used in making energy weapons,” Kurt guessed. “Just like the one Gamay thinks hit the ship.”

“Exactly,” Pitt said. “Basically, these superconducting magnets are essential to any high-intensity energy projects. Normal magnets create too much heat at high energy levels, but superconductors pass the energy through without creating any resistance at all.”

Joe spoke up. “Sounds like someone has adapted that technology for a military purpose.”

“Yaeger agrees with you,” Pitt said. “And Gamay’s tests on the samples from the Kinjara Maru are all but unequivocal.”

“Any idea who’s behind it?” Kurt asked.

“Not yet,” Pitt said. “Could be a terrorist group, or some rogue nation or faction. Last year we fought with the Chinese Triad over a bioweapon, so I guess anything’s possible.”

“What about a money trail?” Kurt said. “If this stuff is so expensive, there has to be some record of its purchase.”

“We’re looking into it,” Pitt said. “So far, we’ve been able to identify massive purchases of various superconducting materials spread around through several dozen companies that now appear to be dummies. It’s as if someone was trying to corner the market on the more powerful superconducting materials.”

Kurt looked at Joe and then the captain. Pitt continued to speak.

“The problem is, all the odd purchases lead to front companies, which in turn are operating as subsidiaries of other shell corporations. The funds come from unidentified sources, and the front closes up shop immediately after completing the deal. It makes for a hard path to follow. On the surface, it all seems legit. People get paid as they’re supposed to, no red flags go up. No one’s the wiser, at least until now.”

Kurt said, “If they’re cornering the market, why did they need to steal anything?”

“Titanium-doped YBCO is the most powerful superconductor made,” Pitt said. “It can operate effectively in field strengths of up to nine hundred teslas.”

“Aside from an excellent nineties rock group,” Joe asked, “what exactly is a tesla?”

“It’s a unit of power designed to measure magnetic field strengths,” Pitt said. “I can’t exactly tell you what nine hundred teslas means in numbers, but by comparison the superconductors used in levitating trains in Japan become overloaded at four teslas. So if four teslas can lift a train, nine hundred teslas can lift two hundred twenty-five of them.”

Captain Haynes exhaled slowly. “Arms race,” he said. “If you’re building a weapon, you might as well have the most powerful version you can find.”

Something still didn’t make sense to Kurt. “If all this was so clandestine, how’d the pirates know this YBCO was on the ship?”

“Despite all the secrecy,” Pitt said, “there were still three parties who knew about it.”

“The buyer, the seller, and the shipper,” Kurt said.

“And of the three of them,” Pitt said, “who had any reason to sink that ship and make the material disappear?”

“The seller,” Kurt said, realizing what Pitt was getting at. “So they get a good price, make all the arrangements to turn this superconducting material over to the Chinese, and then they raid the ship and take it back.”

“Pretty damn devious,” Haynes said. “Are we sure we’re not barking up the wrong tree?”

“I have the manifest of the Kinjara Maru,” Pitt said. “Along with the captain’s log and the loadmaster’s notes, which are transmitted to Shokara’s headquarters electronically when their ships leave port. I’d read them to you, but I’m driving, so here’s the gist of it. I think you’ll understand when I’m done.”

Pitt continued. “The ship docked in Freetown, Sierra Leone, three days before it went down. It picked up a standard bulk cargo of various ores bound for China and then received orders to hold in port for two days, awaiting one more delivery.”

“The YBCO,” Kurt guessed.

“Right,” Pitt said. “But when the shipment finally arrived, there were several things odd enough about it for the captain to note them in the log. First, the load was put aboard the ship by a group of men who were not regular dockworkers. A mixed group of white and black men did most of the loading. The captain remarked that they ‘resembled a military or paramilitary unit.’”

“I’ve heard rumors of mercenaries taking over mines out there and running them for a profit,” Kurt said.

“Only, YBCO isn’t mined,” Pitt said. “Beyond that, the leader of this group insisted that the YBCO absolutely had to be stored separately from the other ores in a specific temperature-controlled hold. A request that seemed odd enough to the loadmaster to risk an argument with these military men. An argument he lost.”

“Why would they do that?” Joe asked. “Does temperature affect it?”

“No,” Pitt said. “But the Kinjara Maru has only one small temperature-controlled hold.”

“Making the material easy to find and off-load,” Kurt said.

“That’s what it sounds like,” Pitt said.

“So the seller is also the pirate,” Captain Haynes summarized.

“And the pirate has the energy weapon,” Kurt added. “Which means the people who sold this YBCO — the same people who boarded the ship — are also the ones building the weapon out of it. So they must be the ones cornering the market.”

“Makes you wonder what they’re up to,” the captain said.

“Exactly,” Pitt said. “Whoever these people are, they need so much material for whatever they’re doing that they’re willing to anger the Chinese and risk exposure to get their hands on every ounce they can. Including some they’ve already sold.”

“Maybe that explains why they’re here on Santa Maria,” Kurt said. “I’ve tangled with one of them already, same guy we argued with as the KM went down. Now, I don’t know who took the core sample and murdered the French team, but one will get you ten it’s all linked together.”

“But we saw their boat explode,” Captain Haynes said. “We even found a few bodies.”

“A few sacrificial pawns,” Kurt said. “The others probably went over the side before the explosion. Left the suckers behind.”

“But we never spotted any other vessels in range to pick them up, or even a helicopter,” the captain said. “And they certainly didn’t swim to Africa.”

“No,” Kurt said. “But Paul and Gamay were attacked underneath the water. That means these people undoubtedly have a submarine of some kind.”

“So there was a mother ship,” the captain said. “Terrorists with a submarine. What’s the world coming to?”

“Much like space,” Pitt said, “the depths below are no longer just the domain of the world’s nations. We know of half a dozen Chinese subs that were supposed to go to the scrapyard and vanished instead. There are also other models out there for sale, and private builds as well.”

“Not to mention the Russian Typhoon-class subs that were turned into cargo haulers,” Kurt said. “We dealt with one of them last year.”

“And at least one of those is still unaccounted for,” Pitt added.

“Wonderful,” the captain said facetiously.

“So these thugs have a submarine,” Kurt noted. “Maybe a Typhoon-class boat converted into a cargo carrier. They have some type of lethal electromagnetic weapon that fries you before you even know something’s happening and they’re willing to risk exposure and the wrath of the Chinese to get more material. And right now the tower of rock we believe to be a naturally occurring superconductor is sitting out there, unattended and all by its lonesome.”

“The table is set,” Pitt said. “You think they’re going to show up for dinner?”

“Like St. Julien Perlmutter at an all-you-can-eat buffet,” Kurt said.

Haynes nodded. “Makes sense. They’ve effectively chased us from the scene by showing their ability to attack.”

“And they know that,” Kurt said, guessing they’d seen the Argo come into port just as he had.

“A Portuguese frigate with ASW capabilities will be on scene tomorrow afternoon,” Pitt said.

“I’m guessing they know or expect that too,” Kurt said. “That gives them twelve hours to act.”

Silence descended on them as everyone considered the implications.

“Those Typhoons were converted to cargo carriers,” Dirk noted. “Able to haul fifteen thousand tons where their missile bays used to be.”

“And if thirty tons of YBCO is worth sinking a ship over,” Kurt said, “how likely is it that an outfit interested in ‘more’ is going to pass up a free haul like this?”

The silence returned. Even over the speaker all that could be heard was a quiet background of white noise.

“If they have a Typhoon,” Pitt said, “all they would have to do is carve sections out of the wall and drop them in the missile bay like it’s the back of a dump truck. But let’s be clear. We don’t know that they have one.”

Kurt nodded, accepting that, and Joe glanced over at him, raising his eyebrows.

“Even if we did know what they had,” Joe said, “what exactly are we going to do about it?”

Kurt considered Joe’s words. A Typhoon armed with torpedoes and crewed by mercenaries was far beyond the Argo’s capability to deal with.

“Joe’s right,” the captain said. “We can’t risk the ship. Until the naval forces come into range, we have no choice but to give these people wide berth, whatever they’re up to.”

Kurt knew they were right, but it felt like giving up to him, like quitting. There had to be a way to stop them. He glanced through the window in the conference room’s door, focusing on Katarina. She sat quietly on the bridge, a NUMA windbreaker over her shoulders, sipping a cup of coffee and talking to a crewman as she waited. A thought came to him.

“What if we don’t try to stop them?” he said. “What if we get out there, hide in among the wrecks, and lie in wait for them. Then if they do show up, we find a good moment and attach a transmitter to their hull. That way, we can track them to wherever their base is and let the big boys deal with the rest.”

The captain and Joe seemed to like the plan. Pitt remained silent.

“Director?” the captain said.

“Sounds like a huge risk,” Dirk said. “Easier to get some ASW patrols from shore-based aircraft.”

“All that’ll do is scare them off,” Kurt said. “This way, we find out who they are and where they’re from.”

“And how do you plan on getting out there without tipping your hand?” Pitt asked. “They’ll expect something the moment you leave port.”

Kurt smiled and glanced at Joe. “We’ll take the Barracuda,” he said.