Valhalla Rising (67 page)

Then Pitt, in what might have looked like an accidental motion, lightly brushed his hand against Loren’s auburn hair and exited the chamber.

A vast load was suddenly lifted from Loren’s shoulders. She said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, it is getting late and if there is no objection, I would like to adjourn this hearing until nine o’clock tomorrow, when I will call an important witness to testify who will reveal the truth behind Mr. Zale’s criminal activities —”

“Rather strong words, don’t you think?” interrupted Congressman Sturgis. “We have seen or heard nothing here that shows evidence of any criminal activity.”

“You will tomorrow,” Loren said evenly, staring at Sturgis with a look of sheer triumph, “when Ms. Morse will supply the names of everyone in Washington and across the rest of the country who has accepted bribes from Mr. Curtis Merlin Zale. I promise you, the trail of graft and corruption, the depth of the money trail into offshore bank accounts, will stun the government to its core and shock the public as no scandal ever has in the past.”

“What has this Sally Morse got to do with Mr. Zale?” asked Sturgis, realizing too late he was skating on thin ice.

“She was a former member of the Cerberus inner council. She kept a written record of meetings, payoffs and crimes. There are many names on the list you should find familiar.”

The ice cracked and parted, and Sturgis fell through. He abruptly rose and left the chamber without another word, as Loren banged her gavel and adjourned the proceedings until the following day.

The gallery went mad. Reporters from the major news media surged around Zale and rushed after Loren, but Pitt was waiting at the door and hustled her through the noisy mob of newspeople who were shouting questions and trying to block their path. With his arm around her waist, he managed to steer her through the gauntlet and down the steps of the Capitol into a NUMA car waiting at the curb. Giordino stood by the car with the doors open.

Curtis Merlin Zale sat at the table, inundated by a sea of journalists and flashing cameras, like a man lost in the abyss of a nightmare.

Finally, he rose unsteadily to his feet and fought his way through the turmoil. With the help of Capitol police, he made it to the safety of his limousine. His chauffeur drove him to the mansion that housed the Washington headquarters of Cerberus and then watched as Zale walked like an elderly senior citizen through the lobby and entered the elevator to his luxurious office.

No man was more isolated from reality. He had no close friends, no family still living. Omo Kanai, perhaps the only man to whom Zale could relate, was dead. Zale was alone in a world where his was a household name.

As he sat there behind his desk and stared out the window into the courtyard below, he weighed his future and found it ominously dark. It was inevitable that he would end up in federal prison, regardless of how long he fought to stay free. When the members of the Cerberus cartel turned against him to save themselves, the finest, most expensive criminal trial lawyers in the country would be fighting a battle lost before it had even begun. Their testimony alone was enough to ensure his execution.

His wealth would surely be taken away by an avalanche of lawsuits, federal as well as civil. His loyal team of Vipers was no more. They were lying deep in the silt of New York’s outer bay. They no longer stood ready to eliminate those who would testify against him.

He could never escape, never hide anywhere in the world. A man of his stature was too easy for investigators to track down, whether he fled to the Sahara Desert or to a lonely island in the middle of the ocean.

The people who had died because of his greed came back to haunt him now, not as wraiths or hideous ghosts, but like a parade of ordinary people thrown on a screen by a projector. In the end, he had lost his great gamble. He saw no avenue leading to a refuge. The decision was not difficult.

He rose from behind his desk, walked to a bar and poured himself a shot of expensive, fifty-year-old aged whiskey and sipped it as he returned to his desk and opened a side drawer. He picked up what looked like a small antique snuffbox. There were two pills inside that he had saved in the unlikely event he would be incapacitated from an accident or suffered from a debilitating disease. He took a final drink of the whiskey, placed the pills under his tongue and relaxed in the big leather executive chair.

They found Curtis Merlin Zale dead the next morning, his desk clean of papers. There was no final note expressing shame or regret.

G
iordino pulled the car to a stop in front of the NUMA building. Pitt stepped to the sidewalk, then turned and leaned in the window and said to Loren, “It won’t take long for an army of reporters and television cameras to surround your town house in Alexandria. I think it best that Al takes you to the hangar, at least for tonight. You can bunk with the other ladies until your hearings continue tomorrow. By then, your staff can work out a security team for you.”

She leaned out and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Thank you,” she said softly.

He smiled and waved as Giordino pulled the car from the curb into traffic.

Pitt went directly to Sandecker’s office, where he found the admiral and Rudi Gunn waiting for him. Sandecker was back in one of his good moods, puffing contentedly on one of his big personally wrapped cigars. He stepped over and shook Pitt’s hand vigorously. “Great job, great job,” he repeated. “Brilliant concept, using a spar with underwater explosives contained in magnetic canisters. You blew half the stern off the ship without endangering the propane tanks.”

“We were lucky it worked,” said Pitt modestly.

Gunn also shook Pitt’s hand. “You left us with quite a mess to clean up.”

“It could have been worse.”

“We’re already working out contracts with salvage companies to remove the ship. Don’t want it to be a menace to navigation,” said Gunn.

“What about the propane?”

“The tops of the tanks are only thirty feet below the surface,” explained Sandecker. “The divers shouldn’t have a problem hooking up pipes and pumps to other LNG tankers to remove the gas.”

“The Coast Guard has already set buoys around the wreck, and stationed a lightship as a warning to incoming and outgoing ship traffic,” Gunn added.

Sandecker moved back behind his desk and blew a large cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling. “How did Loren’s hearing go?”

“Not good for Curtis Merlin Zale.”

The admiral’s face took on a contented look. “Do I hear the sound of a jail door closing?”

Pitt’s lips raised in a slight grin. “I believe that after he’s convicted and sentenced, Curtis Merlin Zale will spend the rest of his days on death row.”

Gunn nodded. “A fitting conclusion for a man who murdered hundreds of innocent people in the name of money and power.”

“It won’t be the last time we’ll see the likes of Zale,” said Pitt morbidly. “It’s only a matter of time before another sociopath comes along.”

“You’d better go on home and get some rest,” said Sandecker charitably. “Then take a few days off for your research project on Elmore Egan.”

“Which reminds me,” Gunn said, “Hiram Yaeger wants to see you.”

P
itt went down to the computer floor of NUMA and found Yaeger sitting in a small storeroom, staring at Egan’s leather briefcase. He looked up as Pitt entered, held up his hand and pointed to the interior of the open case.

“Good timing. It should begin filling with oil in another thirty seconds.”

“You have a timetable?” inquired Pitt.

“The fill goes in sequence. Every inflow takes place precisely fourteen hours after the last one.”

“Any idea why it’s always fourteen hours?”

“Max is working on it,” answered Yaeger, closing a heavy, steel door that looked like one on a bank vault. “That’s why I wanted you in the storeroom. It’s a secure area with steel walls for the protection of important data in the event of fire. Radio waves, microwaves, sound, light—nothing can penetrate these walls.”

“And it still fills with oil?”

“Watch and see.” Yaeger studied his watch, then began to count down with his index finger. “Now!” he exclaimed.

Before Pitt’s eyes, the interior of Egan’s leather case began filling with oil as if poured by an unseen hand. “It has to be some kind of trick.”

“No trick,” said Yaeger, closing the lid.

“But how?”

“Max and I finally found the answer. Egan’s case is a receiver.”

“I’m drawing a blank,” said Pitt, confused.

Yaeger opened the heavy steel door and led the way back to his sophisticated computer system. Max stood on her stage and smiled at their arrival. “Hello, Dirk. I missed you.”

Pitt laughed. “I would have brought flowers, but you can’t hold them.”

“It’s no fun not having substance, let me tell you.”

“Max,” said Yaeger, “tell Dirk what we’ve discovered about Dr. Egan’s leather case.”

“The solution took me less than an hour, once I put my circuit boards on the problem.” Max gazed at Pitt as though she had feelings toward him. “Did Hiram tell you the case is a receiver?”

“Yes, but what kind of a receiver?”

“Quantum teleportation.”

Pitt stared at Max. “That’s not possible. Teleportation is beyond the realm of current physics.”

“That’s what Hiram and I thought when we began our analysis. But it’s a fact. The oil that appears in the case is originally placed in a chamber somewhere that measures every atom and molecule. The oil is then altered to a quantum state that is sent and reconstructed in the receiving unit, down to the exact number of atoms and molecules, according to the measurements from the sending chamber. I have, of course, way oversimplified the process. What still mystifies me is how the oil can be sent through solid objects, and with the speed of light. I hope I can find the answer with time.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” said Pitt, totally incredulous.

“Indeed we do,” said Max confidently. “Though it presents an incredible scientific breakthrough, don’t get your hopes up. There is no way a human could be teleported anytime in the future. Even if it were possible to send and receive a person thousands of miles away and then re-create his body, we wouldn’t be able to teleport his mind and the data he has accumulated in a lifetime. He would step out of the receiving chamber with the brain pattern of a newborn baby. Oil, on the other hand, is made up of liquid hydrocarbons and other minerals. Compared with a human, its molecular makeup is far less complicated.”

Pitt sat down, trying desperately to put the pieces together. “It seems fantastic that Dr. Egan created a revolutionary dynamic engine in almost the same time span that he designed a working teleporter.”

“The man was a genius,” said Max. “No doubt about it. What makes him even more extraordinary is that he did it without an army of assistants or a huge government-sponsored laboratory.”

“That’s true,” Pitt agreed. “He did it alone in a hidden lab … the location of which we’ve yet to ferret out.”

“I hope you find it,” said Yaeger. “The significance of Egan’s discovery has mind-boggling possibilities. Substances with basic molecular structures, such as oil, coal, iron or copper ore, and a great variety of other minerals, could be transported without the use of ships, trains and trucks. His teleportation system can rewrite the entire world of product transportation.”

Pitt considered the immense potential for a few moments before staring at Max. “Tell me, Max, do you have enough data from Dr. Egan’s case to re-create a teleporter device?”

Max shook her wraithlike head sadly. “No, I’m sorry to say. I do not have enough input to place me in the ballpark. Though I have Dr. Egan’s receiving chamber as a model, the primary part of the system lies with the sending unit. I could work on the problem for years and not find a solution.”

Yaeger laid a hand on Pitt’s shoulder. “I wish Max and I could have given you a more detailed picture.”

“You both did a remarkable job, and I’m grateful,” said Pitt sincerely. “Now it’s my turn to supply the answers.”

P
itt stopped by his office before heading to the hangar to clear his desk, read his mail and answer voice messages. After an hour, he found himself fighting to stay awake, so he decided to call it a day. At that moment, his phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Dirk!” thundered St. Julien Perlmutter’s voice. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“St. Julien. Where are you?”

“In Amiens, France. Dr. Hereoux has graciously allowed me to remain in Jules Verne’s house and work through the night studying a notebook Hugo and I found hidden by Verne almost a hundred years ago.”

“Did it supply you with answers?” asked Pitt, his curiosity kindled.

“You were on the right track. Captain Nemo truly existed, except his true name was Cameron Amherst. He was a captain in the Royal Navy.”

“Not Dakkar the Indian prince?”

“No,” replied Perlmutter. “Apparently, Verne had a hatred against the British and changed Cameron’s name and native country from England to India.”

“What was
his
story?”