Piranha (35 page)

As Juan and Trono swam, the reading on the Geiger counter grew stronger, far below dangerous levels but enough to guide them in the right direction. Still, they ran into dead ends and passages that were too tight to traverse, requiring backtracking that significantly cut into the time they had left. If they didn't turn back soon, they wouldn't have enough air to make the trip. This was why cave diving is considered one of the deadliest sports in the world.

They reached an air pocket and surfaced. There was just enough room for both of their heads.

“How's your air?” Juan asked.

“Getting close to the halfway mark.”

“Me too. The radiation signature is strengthening, but I can't tell how far we have to go. At least we're going up. If we don't surface anywhere else in the next five minutes, you're going back.”

“You mean,
we're
going back.”

“Kensit's planning something for today, so we need to get to his telescope before that happens.”

“Then I'm going with you. If you think we can make it, that's good enough for me.”

Juan saw that Trono wasn't going to let him continue on by himself no matter what he said, so he didn't argue.

“All right. If we don't find some dry floor in five minutes, we'll turn around.”

They put their masks back on and kept going. Juan tried to imagine Gunther Lutzen climbing through these caves over a hundred years ago with nothing more than some rope and a lantern and carrying his bulky camera with him the entire way. He might have explored the caves for weeks before happening upon the one that would prove his theories correct.

Five minutes later, Juan still saw no sign that they were coming up into the cavern Lutzen called Oz. He continued going past where he should, counting on his and Trono's ability to conserve more air on the way out than they'd consumed on the way in.

The risk paid off when his light reflected off a mirror sheen where water met air. He kicked toward it, hoping it wasn't merely another tiny air pocket.

He poked his head from the water and instead of his regulator being muffled by the closeness of a bubble, its rasp echoed off widely spaced walls and a high ceiling.

He removed his mouthpiece, did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, and saw no signs of light. He signaled Trono. They crawled out onto the damp limestone and shed all their scuba gear except the wetsuits. They unslung their MP-5 submachine guns, equipped with suppressors, which were reliable close-quarters weapons ideal for the underground setting. After shaking water out of the barrels and receivers, they continued following the path set by the Geiger counter.

The winding caves often split off in multiple directions, but each time only one showed a stronger radiation signature. It was after the third intersection that Juan spotted a glimmer of light in the distance. He kept his hooded flashlight pointed at the floor so that it wouldn't be seen as they approached.

When they got within fifty yards, Juan noticed that his light was starting to be reflected by green crystals embedded in the limestone walls and ceiling around them. This must have been where Lutzen had taken his photo of crystals.

As they got closer to the ghostly green light spilling from the main cavern, Juan and Trono split up to opposite sides of the passageway and kept their backs to the walls to stay out of sight as long as they could. It wasn't going to be possible to sneak into the cavern when it was so well lit. They had to depend on total surprise and the expectation that most of the armed men would be outside at the cement plant.

Juan set aside the Geiger counter and held out three fingers to Trono, who had his MP-5 against his shoulder. Juan counted down silently with his fingers. When his fist closed, he and Trono rushed into the cavern.

At first, Juan focused on nothing but the men inside. Two Caucasians were seated in chairs at an equipment console, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and khaki pants. He immediately dismissed them as non-threats. His eyes then shifted to movement more than a hundred feet away at the opposite side of the cavern, which he was just beginning to realize was larger than he had expected.

Two men stood guard at a man-made tunnel entrance, which had to be the one leading to the cement plant. Both were dressed in camo gear and carried assault rifles and both looked bored with their duties babysitting the cave.

Juan and Trono's appearance happened so quickly and unexpectedly that the pair of mercenaries had no time to react. Juan put a three-round burst into the one on the right and Trono took care of the man on the left. The muffled blasts echoed around the cavern but likely wouldn't travel all the way to the cave exit.

Juan scanned the rest of the cavern, but it was clear. The terrified seated men had raised their hands high without being asked, Juan finally able to take in the glory of the cave itself.

The center was packed with electronic equipment, stainless steel conduits, and scientific gadgetry that reminded him of the inside of a nuclear reactor. The entire apparatus stretched from floor to ceiling and was the size of a semi-trailer truck. The machine was surrounded by a metal grating that served as a floor to access the equipment from a level surface. Several large crates marked “Fragile: Scientific Equipment” were stacked near the tunnel entrance.

It had to be the neutrino telescope. The design was both complicated and elegant.

But as amazing as the telescope looked, it wasn't even the most awe-inspiring part of the cave.

The rest of the cathedral-sized space was crisscrossed with translucent green crystals. If Eric was correct, they would be selenium infused with copper impurities. It suddenly hit Juan that this was what Lutzen had photographed. It wasn't a geode that he'd documented. It was a picture of the cavern itself.

The reason they'd been misled was because none of them imagined the sheer immensity of the crystals themselves. Many of these crystals, beautiful and jagged diagonal pillars with edges as sharp as butcher knives, were the size of redwoods. Some of them hung from the ceiling, some went all the way to the floor, and scattered between them were huge piles of crystals jumbled like rock candy. Juan spun around, gaping at the splendor of a billion facets.

Gunther Lutzen had been absolutely right. It really was as if Juan had stepped into the Emerald City of Oz.

It took Linc and Eddie fifteen minutes of belly crawling to get in position around the corner just out of sight of the cement plant. They settled into a ditch thirty feet from the road, with the RPG now resting on Linc's stomach.

“I'm ready,” he said to Eddie.

“Same here.” Eddie radioed to Linda. “Show them the sacrificial lamb.”

“Coming your way.”

The PIG accelerated from its hiding space until it passed them, providing a rich target for the Ratel and its cannon. As soon as the armored vehicle was in view, the PIG's bumper-mounted machine gun chattered, but the rounds bounced off the Ratel's outer hull as expected. The PIG made a spinning U-turn in the gravel as the 20mm cannon shells sizzled past. It passed Linc and Eddie again and had nearly reached the safety of the rock outcropping when smoke began to pour from the rear. The PIG veered wildly off the road and disappeared down the embankment toward the lake.

That was the cue for the Ratel to give chase and it didn't disappoint. The vehicle's commander was obviously confident that he'd scored a mortal shot and wanted to verify his kill.

The Ratel roared past Linc and Eddie's ditch and came to a stop at the top of the embankment while smoke continued to rise from the wreckage of the PIG. The side doors popped open and four men in camo gear and helmets jumped out, aiming their assault rifles in the PIG's direction.

Linc and Eddie leaped from their hiding spot and rushed at the men.

“Drop your weapons!” they both shouted in the crude Creole that MacD had taught them over the radio.

Bazin's mercenaries were either brave or too stupid to realize when they were caught with their pants down. They crouched against the Ratel and raised their weapons to fire.

That was all the warning they'd get. Eddie expertly took down three of them while Linc got the fourth with his sidearm pistol. But the driver inside the Ratel didn't know when he'd been beaten. He backed it up and swiveled the main cannon around to fire at them.

Linc shook his head at the idiocy. He holstered the pistol, shouldered the RPG, and pulled the trigger before the cannon was in position. The antitank round blew the armored vehicle apart.

He dropped the empty tube and kicked the gravel in frustration.

“There goes our
Return of the Jedi
plan,” Linc said.

“It was a good idea,” Eddie said. He called to Linda. “What's the damage to the PIG?”

“Nothing at all,” she replied. “With Eric's snappy driving, they completely missed. The smokescreen worked just like you thought it would.”

The PIG powered its way up the embankment, the smoke now dissipating.

The two of them walked over and checked the mercenaries. All of them were corpses.

Eddie looked at the largest of the bodies and then at Linc as if he were comparing them.

“What's going on in that devious mind of yours?” Linc asked.

“You could pass for a Haitian from a distance.”

“I suppose so, but we don't have the Ratel anymore.”

“We still have the PIG. What if the mercenaries captured it and drove it back? As long as they thought you were one of the them, we could get within visual range of the last Ratel. The PIG does have one rocket left.”

Linc thought about the plan and nodded. “I like the idea, but we need something to really sell it.”

“Like what?”

Linc picked up one of the mercenaries's walkie-talkies and started pulling off the uniform of the least bloody soldier. “We're going to require MacD's language skills one more time.”

—

Bazin tried to raise the third Ratel
on the radio and got only static in reply. He peered from his concealed window within the main building, but all he could make out was a plume of smoke over the hill.

If the Ratel had been taken out, it still didn't change anything. For Cabrillo and his men to attack, they would be endangering the lives of sixty hostages. And a straight-on assault would be suicidal, with the Ratel he had left and the number of men still deployed outside.

A vehicle came around the hill, but it wasn't the missing Ratel. It was the truck that the Corporation called the PIG. He was about to order the remaining Ratel to open fire when he saw one of his men standing in the PIG's open roof, waving his gun and shouting with glee. He could see two more men inside the cab, driving their prize back to the cement plant.

The man in the roof had a walkie-talkie to his mouth. Bazin listened on his, but the voice was almost unintelligible with the wind and engine noise. He was shouting in Creole that they had captured the American's truck and not to shoot.

“Stand down,” he radioed to the rest of the men.

Kensit had given him the intel on Linda Ross and her men, but he had been keeping an eye on them only in short spurts, when he could divert his attention away from the drone mission. Bazin didn't object since he had the situation under control and the Haitian National Police on the way as backup.

As the captured PIG approached, Bazin confidently called Kensit back with the intention of telling him his services wouldn't be needed anymore and to concentrate on destroying Air Force Two.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Kensit shouted when he answered, shocking Bazin, who'd never heard Kensit so out of control.

“What are you talking about? We've captured the Corporation's vehicle. It's over.”

“It's
not
over! I can't see anything. Something happened to Sentinel. My screen went blank and I can't contact any of the techs. I'm trying to reconnect now. You get your butt in there and find out what's going on. And don't waste any more time. Set the self-destruct. I'll need an hour to complete the mission. Go!”

He hung up.

Bazin was about to turn and head for the tunnel when he realized that Kensit hadn't been able to watch what was happening in the battle between the Ratel and the PIG.

He looked out the window with dawning horror. The PIG was close enough now for him to make out the faces of the men and he noticed two things at once: the driver of the PIG had a bullet hole through his forehead and the man on top of the vehicle shouting in Creole was not one of his men. It had to be Franklin Lincoln.

He raised his radio to tell his forces to open fire, but it was too late. A rocket shot from the side of the PIG and hit the last Ratel, blowing it to pieces and his men around it to the ground.

Bazin heard Lincoln yelling for the hostages to get down. They dived to the ground as one and the machine gun behind the PIG's fake bumper chewed through the mercenaries like a meat grinder. Eddie Seng joined Lincoln on the roof of the PIG and added his firepower to the assault. Two more of his men fell to sniper fire. The rest scattered for cover. It was only a matter of time before they were defeated.

Bazin was furious that Kensit couldn't keep his precious machine running properly during the time when they needed it most. He knew a technical glitch in such a complicated device was inevitable. His only choice now was to get in to Sentinel, set the self-destruct, and escape in the speedboat he had stashed in one of the outbuildings along the water. Although he never expected the cement plant to fall, he always planned for the worst, so he also had a hidden SUV waiting for him on the other side of the lake.

As for his mercenaries, with the money he was pulling in from the drug lords, he could always hire more. And when Sentinel 2 was up and running, he could buy as many of them as he wanted. Haiti would still be his.

But he couldn't let them capture Sentinel 1 intact. Kensit had been clever to build in a self-destruct that was more than simply an explosive to obliterate the equipment. Equipment was replaceable. It was the Oz cave, with its unique natural properties, that was the real treasure. Someone could eventually clear it out and build a replica of Sentinel.

Kensit had rigged Sentinel itself to prevent that from happening. The device used a five-pound cobalt 60 core scavenged from used medical equipment to focus the neutrinos. The cave itself was slightly radioactive now, but nothing hazardous. However, detonating the core inside the cave would make the interior dangerously radioactive for generations. It would be impossible to build another neutrino telescope inside it.

As the battle raged outside, Bazin picked up an RPG from the weapons stockpile in case the Corporation helicopter tried to chase him across the lake. Armed with an Uzi submachine gun, he took off into the tunnel toward the Oz cave to start the sequence that would destroy Sentinel 1 forever.