Sacred Stone

17

AS SOON AS the snow and cold had started to extinguish the fire from the ruptured fuel tank, Al-Khalifa had pried open the door of the Eurocopter. A quick check of the bodies had revealed open, sightless eyes that seemed to indicate death had come quickly. Al-Khalifa had not bothered to try to identify the men—quite frankly he did not care who they were. They were Westerners and they were dead, and that was enough.

His main concern was the recovery of the meteorite, and for that he’d needed to climb through the rear door to where the box had wedged itself against a seat. Removing the box and climbing out of the helicopter, he’d opened the latch and flipped open the top.

The meteorite was inside, lying on foam and shielded by lead panels inside the box.

Closing the box again, he made his way through the snow to the Kawasaki HK-500D, placed the box on the passenger seat and secured it in place with the seat belt. Then he climbed into the pilot’s seat, started the engine and lifted off. As he flew out over the snow-covered terrain, the box sat on the seat like an honored guest, not a deadly sphere of poison destined to sicken an unknowing populace.

Reaching for the radio, Al-Khalifa alerted the crew of the Akbar he would soon be back on board. Once he reached the vessel, they could make their way to London and complete the mission. The wrath of the righteous would soon find flight.

After that he could deal with the emir and the overthrow of the Qatari government.

“GIVE ME SOME good news,” Cabrillo said as he turned his back to the increasingly strong winds.

“We located the Akbar on the radar,” Hanley said. “We’re a couple hours away. I’m planning an assault now to get our man back.”

Cabrillo was watching the signal strength on the telephone. He moved to receive a stronger connection. “I’m at the site where the Eurocopter went down,” he said. “It was shot out of the sky by the mystery chopper. The pilot and passenger are dead—and the meteorite is nowhere to be seen.”

“Are you sure?” Hanley asked.

“Positive. There’s a single set of tracks coming from a distance away. I followed them until I came to indentations in the snow from the other helicopter. Whoever shot down the Eurocopter now has the meteorite.”

“I’ll have Stone try to track the course of the helicopter on radar,” Hanley said. “He couldn’t have gone far. If it’s an MD helicopter, we’re looking at a range of three hundred fifty miles in total. Since he couldn’t refuel, he’s somewhere within a one-hundred-seventy-five-mile radius of where you are.”

“Tell Stone to try something else as well,” Cabrillo said. “I managed to sand the meteorite before it was stolen.”

Sand was the slang name the Corporation used for the microscopic homing bugs Cabrillo had sprinkled on the orb in the darkness. They looked like dust to the untrained eye, but they emitted a signal that could be read by the electronics on the Oregon.

“Damn, you’re good,” Hanley said.

“Not good enough, someone else has our prize.”

“We’ll track it down,” Hanley said.

“Call me when you know something.”

After disconnecting, Cabrillo started trudging back to the cave through the snow.

EIGHTY MILES DISTANT and undetectable on the Akbar’s radar scope, the scene aboard the motor yacht Free Enterprise was more subdued. The men on board were infused with a fervor that rivaled the Muslims on the Akbar—they were simply more highly trained and not accustomed to grand shows of emotions. Each man was white, over six feet in height, and in excellent shape. Each had served in the U.S. military in one capacity or another. All of them had personal reasons for accepting this assignment. Each of them was ready to die for the cause.

Scott Thompson, the leader of the team on the Free Enterprise, was in the wheelhouse awaiting a call. As soon as he received it, they would launch the assault. West and East were about to collide in an affair conducted in secret.

The Free Enterprise was racing south through a thick fog. In the past hour the ship had come alongside a trio of icebergs, the tops of which had covered at least an acre. Smaller floes were too numerous to count, and they bobbed on the seas like ice cubes in a highball glass. It was bitterly cold outside and the wind was increasing.

“Active engaged,” said the captain.

High up on the Free Enterprise’s superstructure an electronics package began capturing radar signals from other vessels. Then it broadcast the signals back at varying speeds. Without a consistent signal return, the other ships’ radars could not paint the Free Enterprise.

The ship had become an unseen wraith on the black, tossing seas.

A tall man with a crew cut entered the pilothouse.

“I just finished running all the data,” he said. “Our best guess is that Hughes is gone.”

“Then there’s a good chance that whoever was hunting Hughes recovered the meteorite,” the captain noted.

“The big man is tracking the helicopter at one of his space companies in Las Vegas.”

“And where is the helicopter headed?” the captain asked.

“That’s the good part,” the man said, “right to our intended target.”

“Sounds like we can kill two birds with one stone,” the captain said.

“Exactly.”

ADAMS WAS AN excellent pilot, but the growing darkness and wind were making his hands sweat. He’d been flying only on instruments since leaving the Oregon. Wiping his palms on his flight suit, he turned the cockpit heater down and studied the navigation screen. At his current speed he was due to pass over the coastline in two minutes. Increasing his altitude to clear the start of the mountain range, he scanned the instruments again.

The lack of visibility made it like walking around with a paper bag over your head.

CABRILLO WASN’T SURE if Ackerman was dead or alive.

From time to time Cabrillo would feel what seemed like a faint pulse, but the wound was no longer bleeding—and that was a bad sign. Ackerman had not moved a muscle since Cabrillo had returned to the cave. His eyes were closed and the lids were motionless. Cabrillo propped him up so the wound was below his heart and then covered him with a sleeping bag. There was not much else he could do for him.

Then his telephone rang.

“The signal from the meteorite is leading right to the Akbar,” Hanley said.

“Al-Khalifa,” Cabrillo spat out. “I wonder how he found out about the meteorite.”

“I alerted Overholt that Echelon has a leak,” Hanley said, “that’s the only way.”

“So the Hammadi Group is trying to produce a dirty bomb,” Cabrillo said, “but that doesn’t explain who the first people that grabbed it were.”

“We haven’t been able to find out any information on the passenger,” Hanley said, “but my guess is that it was someone working with Al-Khalifa and they had a falling out.”

Cabrillo thought for a minute. It was a plausible explanation—maybe the only one that made sense—still, he had an uneasy feeling. “I guess we’ll know when we recover the meteorite and liberate the emir.”

“That’s the plan,” Hanley agreed.

“Then this will be over,” Cabrillo said.

“Neat as a pin.”

Neither Cabrillo nor Hanley could foresee that the outcome was still days away.

Nor did they know it would be anything but neat.

“Have Huxley call me,” Cabrillo said. “I need some medical advice.”

“You got it,” Hanley said as he rang off.

ON BOARD THE Akbar, high-powered landing lights were flicked on to light the landing pad.

Off to the side, a pair of Arabs watched as Al-Khalifa lined up over the fantail then eased forward and touched down. As soon as the helicopter’s skids touched the deck, the two men raced under the spinning rotor blade and secured the skids to the deck.

The blade slowed as Al-Khalifa pulled on the rotor brake, and once it was stopped he climbed out and walked around to the passenger side. Taking the box in his hands, he walked to the door to the main salon and waited until it was opened.

He walked inside and approached the long table and sat the box on the top.

As he unfastened the clasp and flipped the lid open, the terrorists gathered around and stared at the orb in silence. Then Al-Khalifa reached down and lifted the heavy sphere and held it over his head.

“A million more infidels dead,” he said grandly, “and London in ruins.”

“Praise be to Allah,” the terrorists shouted.

“ONE MILE DEAD ahead,” the captain of the Free Enterprise said, “moving at fifteen knots.”

A total of nine men dressed in black waterproof uniforms were clustered in the pilothouse. The men were armed with rifles on slings, handguns, and grenades.

The Free Enterprise was dead in the water. Outside on her rear deck, a large black bulletproof inflatable boat was being lowered over the side. Fifty-millimeter machine guns were mounted on the bow and stern of the inflatable. Mounted to the rigid fiberglass floor of the vessel was a high-performance gasoline engine.

The boat disappeared over the side and splashed into the water.

“We go in at the stern,” the leader said, “neutralize the targets, retrieve the meteorite, and then get out again. I want us back on board in five minutes tops.”

“Will there be any friendlies?” one of the men asked.

“One,” the leader said, handing out a photograph.

“What do we do with him?”

“Protect him if you can,” the leader said, “but not if it means your own life.”

“Leave him on board?”

“He’s of no use to us,” the leader said, “now let’s go.”

The men filed out of the pilothouse and onto the rear deck. They walked in single file down a set of steps built along the hull to a small platform where the inflatable was docked and idling. As soon as the men were all aboard, one of them took up position behind the wheel, engaged the drive and steered away from the Free Enterprise.

At a speed of fifty-five knots it did not take long for the inflatable to reach the Akbar.

Once they reached the rear of the yacht, the man operating the inflatable held his vessel against the rear swim platform of the steaming Akbar with a judicious application of power. The men stepped onto the platform and the captain of the inflatable backed away a short distance and kept pace with the yacht. Slowly the eight men made their way topside.

THE PRISONER IN the cabin on the Akbar had managed to free his hands but not his legs. Hobbling over to the toilet, he drained his bladder and then sat back on the bed and refastened his hands. If someone didn’t show up soon to rescue him, he’d have to take matters into his own hands. He was hungry, and when he got hungry he got mad.

ONE DECK ABOVE, the only sound that could be heard was a light thumping of boots covered by felt liners as the men from the Free Enterprise spread out throughout the Akbar. In a few seconds, the sounds of light popping like lazy popcorn filtered through the ship. That was followed by the sound of bodies hitting the deck.

A few seconds later the door to the prisoner’s cabin was flung open and a man in a black hood shined a light in his face. The man in the hood looked at him again, consulted a photograph in his hand and then closed the door. The prisoner began to tug at the coating covering his face.

The Akbar began to slow, then stopped.

Moving rapidly, four of the men weighed down the terrorists’ bodies, starting with their leader, and dumped them over the side while the other half of the team cleaned up the blood. Four minutes and forty seconds after first standing on the deck of the Akbar, they were filing down to the swim platform once again.

The leader of the team from the Free Enterprise carefully placed a box in the rear of the inflatable and the men filed back aboard. The driver engaged the throttles and the black boat skimmed quickly across the water toward her mother ship.

A frozen pizza would have taken longer to cook than the assault on the Akbar.

Once the team was back on board and the inflatable was stowed on deck, the captain of the Free Enterprise pulled alongside the Akbar. The fog had cleared a little and the Akbar’s lights glinted off the black water of the ocean. The yacht was bobbing in place like a boat anchored over a reef. The difference was that here the water was too cold to dive—plus there was no one left aboard, save one, who could come out to play.

The Free Enterprise steamed past, then the captain gradually increased its speed.