Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

“Name it.”

“I understand you recently had some troubles with a mining operation in Indonesia.”

“The trouble was with some Islamic militants. They kidnapped my site mine supervisor and three engineers—in broad daylight off the streets of Jakarta.”

“And they were rescued?”

“All alive and well, thankfully.”

“And their captors?”

“Not so fortunate.” Ramsey offered a wry smile. “They were killed in a firefight.”

“But not by government forces.”

“No. Why the interest?”

“I have a project that requires some outside military expertise.”

“You have the top forces of the Cuban military at your disposal.”

“True, but this is an external project that requires absolute discretion.”

“Not in the U.S., is it?”

“No.”

Ramsey nodded.

“I’d like to hire your men,” Gutier said.

“They’re not my men. They were hired contractors who specialize in this type of work.”

“Would they work for me?”

“I don’t see why not, providing you’re not a secret al-Qaeda sympathizer.”

“If it makes you feel better, my mother was a devout Roman Catholic and raised my brother and me as such.”

Ramsey stepped to his desk and returned with a slip of paper containing a name and phone number.

“Maguire?” Gutier read aloud. “That’s it?”

“That’s my contact. The phone number—and a Cayman Islands bank account—is all the information I possess.”

“He is a professional?”

“First-rate. I just wouldn’t ask him a lot of questions.”

Gutier stood to leave. “I’m sorry for the loss of your ship. You will have access to the new oil lease site shortly.” He turned and walked out of the salon.

Ramsey didn’t move. Staring out the window as Gutier’s launch motored away, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had just made a deal with the devil.

11

The rays of the dive light shimmered through the crystalline waters, illuminating a coarse limestone wall a dozen feet away. No detail was too small to see, Summer Pitt thought, amazed at the clarity. Though she missed the color and warmth of the sea life that made a usual saltwater dive enticing, she relished the opportunity to dive in perfect visibility. Peering up, she watched as her air bubbles floated to the surface a hundred feet away.

The daughter of NUMA’s Director and an oceanographer herself, Summer was diving in a cenote near the coast of Tabasco, a state in eastern Mexico. A natural sinkhole formed in a limestone deposit, the cenote was essentially a vertical, water-filled tunnel. Summer had the sensation of traveling through an elevator shaft as she descended the fifty-foot-diameter cavern. As the filtered sunlight waned, she turned her dive light to the depths below. A few yards away, two other divers were kicking toward the sandy bottom. She cleared her ears and pursued the other divers, catching them as they reached the bottom at a depth of one hundred and twenty feet.