Piranha (31 page)

“Time?” Max said.

Hali had been keeping track. “We've got four minutes left, if the sub's pilot is accurate.”

The sub's white pressure vessel broached the surface and the divers were already spinning its hatch open. The hostages, who had been untied by the pilot, hurried out and onto the lifeboat. When all of them had been evacuated, the divers joined them, the last one detaching the crane's cable before he got in the boat.

Rather than rendezvous with the
Oregon
, the lifeboat motored away to put as much distance as it could between it and the sub, which continued to float, the barrels filled with explosives lining the pontoons and rear deck.

“Linda, get us out of here.”

Her eyes betrayed the same pain he had felt about leaving Linc and Eddie behind, but he had to put the safety of the ship first. Linda ran the engines up to full thrust and the revolutionary magnetohydronamic power plant accelerated the
Oregon
faster than any freighter had a right to go. Max watched the sub recede in the distance.

Hali had helpfully superimposed the countdown on the screen. When the timer read zero, they all braced themselves.

Nothing happened. A few more seconds elapsed. Still nothing.

Murph shrugged. “Maybe Kensit's men aren't as good at—”

He was interrupted by a huge geyser of flame that shattered the submarine, tossing fragments of metal hundreds of yards in all directions. The boom of the explosion reverberated around the op center two seconds later.

When the echo died down, Murph said, “I guess I spoke too soon.”

“How's the lifeboat?” Max asked Hali.

“They report that they were pelted by a few pieces of the sub, but no damage or injuries.”

Max nodded. “Linda, turn us around and take us back to the
Roraima
. Get some more divers ready to look for Eddie and Linc. Have the lifeboat meet us there.”

She brought the
Oregon
about and headed back for the shipwreck. Only a few pieces of the sub remained on the surface.

As they approached the site of the
Roraima
, Max spied two heads bobbing in the water. Fearing the worst, he had Murph zoom the camera in.

Where he had expected to see lifeless corpses floating on the waves he instead saw Eddie and Linc waving to the
Oregon
and smiling. In Eddie's right hand was a shiny metal box the size of a paperback book. The lifeboat motored over to pick them up.

Max breathed a sigh of relief and patted Murph on the shoulder.

“That was a nice maneuver with Little Geek,” Max said. “That probably saved Eddie's life.”

Murph exaggeratedly cracked his knuckles. “All in a day's work.”

“We'll just dock your partner fee until a new one is paid for.”

Murph laughed until he saw that Max wasn't joining in. He eyed Max with a serious look and then grinned. “Funny.”

Max winked at Linda and they shared a silent chuckle.

“Max,” Hali said, “I've got a call for you from Juan.”

Max went over to the comm station and picked up the handset.

“There's the mystery man,” Max said. “You've missed all the excitement here while you've been gallivanting around to who knows where.”

“I know. Hali gave me the highlights.”

“Can you tell me your destination yet?”

“We were in Berlin, and we had a bit of a commotion ourselves.”

“You and Eric all right?”

“We managed to make it to the airport under the radar. If the police come calling, we'll claim we were innocent bystanders to what happened.”

“Can you tell me what this top secret mission was now?”

“That's why I'm calling. As we've been driving back to the airport, Eric's been studying the part of a thesis we recovered from the Berlin University library using his phone's translation app. The thesis was written by Gunther Lutzen, the scientist who was aboard the
Roraima
. Now that Stoney's had a chance to get a crude translation of some of the document, he thinks he knows how our security has been compromised.”

“And it's okay to be discussing this on the phone? Kensit hasn't cracked our encryption?”

“He doesn't need to. Eric thinks Kensit has developed a neutrino telescope. At least that's what Eric is calling it for now.”

Max frowned. He was an accomplished engineer and he'd never heard of such a thing. “How does looking at space help him eavesdrop on our plans?”

“Eric can explain all this better when we get back to the
Oregon
, but it has nothing to do with space. Lutzen developed revolutionary theories about how to detect subatomic particles. They were decades ahead of their time, and some of the equations in the thesis are so advanced even Stoney is having trouble understanding them. He believes Kensit used those equations to build a device that lets him see anywhere in the world.”

Now Max was really confused. “What do you mean ‘anywhere'?”

“I mean,” Juan said, “with this telescope, he could be looking at you right now and you'd never know it.”

Although he was fuming about the failures of the day, Lawrence Kensit couldn't help but chuckle as he watched Max Hanley look warily around the op center as if he could spy a camera hidden in someone's lapel. In fact, Juan Cabrillo was correct. There was absolutely no way for him to know that Kensit could see and hear everything Hanley was doing and saying. The control room on Kensit's yacht was hundreds of miles away from the
Oregon
, being fed the signal from the Sentinel array buried deep underground.

Despite the focus on his larger goals, Kensit enjoyed the Peeping Tom aspect of his design, based on Gunther Lutzen's work. With one giant observation screen, plus half a dozen smaller monitors and various keyboards, touch screens, and joysticks, Kensit could view anything he wanted anywhere in the world. It really was like he had a superpower and he felt like a god viewing his subjects from afar, ready to affect their lives at his pleasure or whim. Of course, he saw himself as a benevolent god, having humanity's collective best interests in mind, but he could be wrathful when it was required for his grand design. The lesser beings didn't need to understand why things happened the way they did. It was simply his will and they were his servants.

Before he brought Brian Washburn into his control room, he called Hector Bazin. As soon as the call went through, he read the GPS coordinates of the private jet just taking off from Berlin and fed them into the computer, which zoomed in until it found the right altitude for the plane and locked onto it to follow it. In an instant, he was looking at the interior of the cabin. Bazin was alone and answered the phone.

“Cabrillo got part of the thesis,” he said.

“I know,” Kensit replied, “I just heard him talking to the
Oregon
. What happened?”

Bazin recounted the chase through Berlin. Knowing that Kensit was watching, he began leafing through the portion of the thesis that he managed to save, giving Kensit an opportunity to see the pages.

Kensit nodded approvingly. “Good. At least he doesn't have the most important equations. Now I'm the only person in the world who possesses all of the secrets of the neutrino telescope. Burn it as soon as you land.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your man Pasquet is dead.” He stated it matter-of-factly even though he knew Pasquet was Bazin's closest friend. Kensit never understood why people insisted on soft-pedaling bad news.

Bazin looked away for a moment, his jaw tightening. “How?”

“He failed to destroy the
Roraima
. I told him exactly how to proceed, but once they were underwater, I couldn't communicate with them anymore to warn them. They didn't anticipate the
Oregon
's tactics. All of them were killed, and the
Oregon
may have managed to recover some of Lutzen's photo plates.”

“And if they discover where the Sentinel array is hidden?”

“That's why I want you to go directly to Haiti. The next forty-eight hours are critical. Your objective is to protect Sentinel at all costs. Once our mission is finished, Sentinel is expendable and we can move on to Phase Two. Do you have enough men to defend it?”

Bazin nodded. “I have two dozen mercs left, and I can call in a favor from the Haitian National Police if it looks like we might be overrun by a larger force.”

“Excellent. Let me know once you're at the bunker. After you're there, no one else goes in or out until the mission is over, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kensit hung up, and called for Washburn to join him in the control room.

Washburn stepped inside and gawked at the technology that was beyond his comprehension.

“After showing you my operation in Haiti,” Kensit said, “I hope you realize that this is not a small operation. I have the money and resources to back up my efforts to make you president.”

Washburn rolled his eyes, then caught himself. “Yes, you've got impressive technology, although I have no idea where that cave is since you blindfolded me on the way there and back. I can't pretend to know how any of the equipment in there works, but it looked expensive. The question is, so what? How is this going to help me get elected? Even if you make me vice president, there's the primary and general election to get through. Being VP didn't help Mondale or Gore.”

“True, but they didn't have me. Since you will be dependent on me not only for the election but also when you're president, I wanted to convince you that there is virtually no limit to my power.”

Kensit typed in some coordinates and the foyer of a mansion appeared on the big screen. Washburn frowned until he realized what he was looking at.

“That's my house in Miami! When did you get this video?”

“It's not a recording. This is a real-time feed. Let's see if anyone's home.” He rolled a trackball and it was as if a camera were moving up the winding stairs until he was looking down from the balcony. He wandered down one hall until he reached a closed door. He pushed right through and a woman in lingerie was putting on a skirt.

Washburn lunged toward the screen. “That's my wife!” He wheeled around with balled-up fists. “You—”

“No, no, Governor. Remember, I have guards right outside this door. We can do this just as well with you tied up.”

“This is a trick. You've planted a camera in my house.”

Kensit nodded appreciatively. “Good for you. That would be a logical assumption. It is, of course, wrong.”

“Prove it.”

“I will. Tell me someplace where you are absolutely positive I could not have planted a camera.”

Washburn shrugged, and said sarcastically, “The Oval Office.”

“I was hoping you'd choose something more unusual, but that will do.”

The White House was one of the easiest places on earth to locate. He typed the name in and a satellite view of the familiar white structure was displayed on-screen.

“Is that all?” Washburn scoffed. “I could do that with Google maps and an iPhone.”

“Really?” Kensit said. “Can you also do this?”

He zoomed down, the roof of the West Wing racing toward them until the view plunged through. Kensit stopped it when it reached the most recognizable office in the world.

If the room had been empty, Washburn might not have been so flabbergasted. But Kensit had anticipated his choice and knew that the president was meeting with his senior advisers that morning.

“This farm bill is causing us all kinds of problems in the polls, Mr. President,” his chief of staff said. “We can't cut subsidies as much as the Senate wants or our party will get killed in the next election.”

“Let Sandecker handle it,” the president replied. He looked as relaxed as ever, lounging in his chair with a mug of coffee in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other, reading glasses perched on his nose. “He'll be back from Brazil in a couple of days.”

“Do you think the vice president can talk them down?”

“Sandecker's a clever guy. If
he
can't convince them, they're certainly not going to listen to
me
. Now, what's on the agenda for the military briefing today?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs sat forward. “There was another terrorist bombing in northern Pakistan this morning. Six dead, twenty wounded. North Korea is moving a thousand troops to the demilitarized zone, but we think it's just a planned division reinforcement. And the UNITAS exercise has begun in the Bahamas. Seventeen nations are participating. The Cubans and Venezuelans are sending ships to observe, but we don't anticipate any problems.”

“Good. What about the trip to California next week that . . .”

Kensit turned down the volume. “Satisfied?”

If Washburn's jaw were any lower, he could have swallowed an ostrich egg.

“They have no clue we're watching them?”

“No.”

“And you can see anywhere you want?”

Kensit grinned. “I've already explored the inside of some of the most secure facilities on earth: NORAD, Area 51, the Kremlin, the Vatican's secret archives, NATO headquarters, Fort Knox. Do you want to know the secret formula to Coca-Cola?”

“How . . . How are you doing this?”

Kensit paused as he thought about how much he would have to dumb down his explanation. “It's called a neutrino telescope. I had been calling it a quantum receiver, but I like Eric Stone's name for it better. My code name for it is Sentinel, for obvious reasons. Do you know what a neutrino is?”

Washburn shook his head slowly, still gaping like a simpleton at the continuing video feed from the Oval Office.

“A neutrino is a subatomic particle created by nuclear reactions, such as those within the sun or from cosmic rays. Normally, they're very hard to detect.”

“Why?”

“Because they are so small they can pass through matter without stopping. It would take six trillion miles of lead to stop half the neutrinos flowing through the earth, so the earth and everything on it are subjected to constant bombardment from them. But suppose we had a way to observe those few neutrinos that did interact with their surroundings. My long-lost great-uncle, a brilliant physicist named Gunther Lutzen, anticipated neutrinos decades before they were discovered. Not only that, he provided a basis for intercepting them and deciphering the spatial equations that would allow us to view the matter they had already passed through. If his work had been taken seriously at the time, he would have won the Nobel Prize and been mentioned in the same breath as Einstein.”

“And the equipment in that Haitian cave is the neutrino telescope? That's Sentinel?”

“Yes. Uncle Lutzen theorized that he would need a very particular environment in which to build the telescope, a cavern that had the perfect level of natural radioactive ore and copper impurities to allow for the right conditions. He tracked a rare sample of the ore to Haiti and was about to return to Germany with his discovery when his ship was destroyed by a volcano. He called the cave Oz, but because of the green tinge from the copper in the cave's selenium crystals, I think he should have called it the Emerald City.”

Washburn nodded in agreement. “So how are you seeing the images from here?”

“I have a transducer that uses the same technology to beam the images directly here from Sentinel, so I can be anywhere in the world and use it. I prefer to be mobile.”

“But you could make millions of dollars with this technology,” Washburn said in awe. “Imagine the potential.”

“Billions of dollars, actually. Perhaps even trillions. And I
will
make that much. But you aren't imagining the true potential. I don't limit myself to thinking of what I can attain financially. Don't you realize that with Sentinel at our disposal, we can change the world? And I mean that literally. Shaping the future of the United States is only the first step.”

“What more could there be?”

Kensit sighed. He supposed he shouldn't have been so surprised at such limited thinking. “In this day and age, there is only so much one country can accomplish on its own. Think what I can do when I have control of Russia, China, and the European Union.”

“You? What about me?”

Kensit shook his head. “You still don't understand, do you? I am the only indispensable part of this equation. I'm the only one who knows how to build the neutrino telescope. And you're looking at Phase One. Currently, I can see only a single location at a time, a distinct disadvantage that I will improve upon soon. I've found a second underground cavern even bigger than Oz and I've already purchased the land around it for miles. Once Phase Two is built there, I will be able to view as many as a dozen locations at once. With advances in real-time translation software, I will be able to pass on secrets even the NSA can't deliver to you when you're president.”

“And that's how you plan to get me elected,” Washburn said, finally comprehending the possibilities.

“You will know every strategy your opponents plan to use, every secret they want to keep, every scandal they try to hide. You'll be able to anticipate their every move. Or
I
will, and then I will pass it on to you. So don't ever think about betraying me or getting the deluded notion that you could do any of this without me. Because I will find someone who does understand that I am the one making the rules from now on.”

Washburn swallowed hard and nodded. He understood. Kensit had no doubt he would do as instructed.

“You said the first step is to shoot down Air Force Two. How, exactly?”

Kensit manipulated the controls so that the telescope descended on Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida until he had the orange-tipped QF-16 drones on the screen. Then he switched to the drone pilots' control room.

“Those are modified F-16s, with all the same performance capabilities of the actual fighter jets. I did a test a few days ago. I could take over any of the planes' command streams by mimicking the encrypted frequencies that the satellites use to connect them with their control base. The pilots couldn't tell anything was wrong even when I tried a slight maneuver to make sure I had control.”