The Storm

CHAPTER 55

KURT AUSTIN HAD KNOWN THEY WERE IN DOUBLE TROUBLE as soon as he heard the madman laugh. He stormed back into the control room and jammed the barrel of the carbine against Jinn’s face right between the eyes.

“Call them off!”

“Let us go,” Jinn said, “and I’ll do as you wish.”

“Call them off or I’ll splatter your brains all over the wall.”

“And what will that get you, Mr. Austin?”

Kurt pulled back. “Marchetti, find a computer, you’re going to have to do your code-breaking thing again.”

Marchetti raced over to another laptop, docked on the main console.

“He’ll never break it,” Jinn insisted. “He’ll never even get in.”

Marchetti looked up. “He’s right. I was able to reverse Otero’s last trick because I could access the files, but we’re locked out of everything.”

“Can’t you hack it?”

“It’s a nine-digit code protected with top-level encryption. A supercomputer couldn’t break it without a month or so to work on it.”

“You’ve got to be able to do something.”

“I can’t even log on.”

Now Kurt understood why Jinn had blasted Otero and the laptop. It was Otero’s code. No chance he would give it up lying dead on the floor and no chance Marchetti could check the laptop for any type of keystroke memory or temp file.

Leilani eased up beside Kurt. “What’s happening?”

“Those things that made us sparkle, they’re all around the island, a lot thicker than they were when we saw them. Jinn’s sent them into a frenzy. They’ll come on board like a horde of locusts and eat everything in sight, including us.”

“What are we going to do?” Leilani asked.

“Is there any way to stop them?” Kurt asked Marchetti.

Marchetti shook his head. “There are too many, fifty miles’ worth in every direction.”

“Then we have to get off the island. Where are those airships of yours?”

“In the hangar bay by the helipad.”

“Take that laptop and get everyone to meet us there,” Kurt said. He looked at Tautog. “Get your men up here. We’re leaving by air.”

“Not to the boats?” Tautog asked.

“The boats won’t help us now.”

Tautog went to the balcony and began yelling to his men, waving for them to come up. Marchetti grabbed a microphone and began an island-wide broadcast through a series of loudspeakers.

Kurt noticed two small radios on the flat part of the control console. He grabbed them and then shoved Jinn toward the elevator doors. “Let’s go.”

Moments later Kurt and his growing entourage stood on the lighted helipad suspended between the two pyramid buildings. From this vantage point the sea around Aqua-Terra looked more like solid ground covered with millions of beetles. They reflected the glare of Aqua-Terra’s floodlights in a smoky charcoal color. Streams of them could be seen coming inland like long, probing fingers.

“They look thick enough to walk on,” Paul mentioned.

“I wouldn’t try it,” Kurt said.

A hangar door opened in the side of the starboard pyramid, and Marchetti’s men began rolling one of the airships out. Two others waited behind it.

“How many people can each one hold?” Kurt asked.

“Eight. Nine at most,” Marchetti said.

“Dump out everything you don’t need,” Kurt said. “See if you can lighten the loads.”

Marchetti went to supervise. Paul and Gamay went with him. Leilani stepped over to Zarrina, who was standing against the edge of the helipad with Jinn.

“So you pretended to be me,” she said.

“I wouldn’t get too close,” Kurt warned.

“You’re a weak little woman,” Zarrina said. “That was the hardest part to play.”

Kurt grabbed Leilani as she went to slap Zarrina, pulling her away a safe distance.

“She’s baiting you,” Kurt said. “Go help the others.”

Leilani pouted but did as he asked.

“It’s too bad you didn’t try more to comfort me,” Zarrina said. “You might have enjoyed it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kurt said.

Beside her, Jinn fumed.

Tautog greeted the last of his men and shepherded them toward the hangar. “What about the prisoners?” one of them asked.

Kurt looked at the sadistic leader. “What’s it going to be, Jinn? Are you going to leave your men to be eaten alive?”

“Whether they live or die means nothing to me,” he said. “But perhaps you’d like to go get them since you care for them so much.”

“No,” Kurt said, “I’m not sending anyone down for them.”

“Then you are as ruthless as me.”

Kurt glared at Jinn. The man disgusted him. But Kurt wouldn’t risk one good person for the lives of those down below.

“This is what’s going to happen,” Kurt said. “We’re going to get on those airships and fly away and you’re going to be left behind to die in a manner you justly deserve. Your power play does nothing but murder your own men and take the two of you with them in a slow-motion suicide.”

He took the laptop, placed it on the rough surface of the helipad and shoved it toward Jinn.

Jinn stared at it but did nothing more.

Zarrina seemed nervous. She bit her lip, hesitated and then spoke. “Type in the code,” she said to Jinn.

Behind them the first two airships were ready, their pods inflated to full volume, their fans powering up. The third was right behind them.

“What’s the word?” Kurt asked Marchetti without turning.

“If we deploy the air anchors and get up to speed before we go off the edge, I think we can carry eleven,” Marchetti said. “I think.”

“Put twelve on each.”

“But I’m not sure—”

Kurt silenced him with a glance and looked Marchetti in the eye. “I’m going to need your help,” he said, handing him one of the small radios. “Now, what’s the word?”

“Twelve,” Marchetti said. “We can do twelve … I hope.”

“That’s only thirty-six,” Gamay said, calculating quickly. “There are thirty-seven of us.”

Jinn smiled at the numbers. “I suppose someone is staying behind to die.”

Kurt replied without blinking. “I am.”