Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

He whisked through the water, angling the scooter until he was thirty feet deep and beyond clear view of the surface. The visibility was good, allowing him to see well ahead as schools of fish darted out of his path. Tracking his progress on the computer, he hesitated at reaching his designated end point. The seafloor was empty, so he continued another fifty feet before spotting his target, a large concrete mooring block. His line was true, he had just underestimated the distance.

Powering off the scooter, he set it on the mooring block and ascended a chain that ran to a metal float overhead. Looking up, he could see the outline of the yacht floating above him. He checked its orientation, then moved amidships just aside of the keel line and brushed some marine growth from a small area on the hull. He secured the suction device, along with the plastic box containing five pounds of high explosives and an electric detonator.

He unwound a thin spool of wire attached to the detonator and stretched the wire down to the mooring float. With some plastic ties, he secured it to the float chain and carefully ascended. Just beneath the surface, he affixed a small receiver to the base of the float and extended a flat wire antenna out of the water, plastering it to the side of the float with a wad of putty. With a reassuring tug on the wire, he swam back down the chain and retrieved his underwater scooter.

Ten minutes later, he was alongside Gomez, guiding his skiff down the coast under a setting sun, just another tired Cayman fisherman bringing home his

meager catch.

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A thousand thoughts raced through Pitt’s mind, but foremost was concern for his daughter’s safety. Pitt’s children had been raised by their now deceased mother, so he had missed their childhood upbringing. When Dirk and Summer entered his life as young adults, he had instantly bonded with them. Working together at NUMA had instilled a trusting relationship, allowing their shared love of the sea to draw them even closer. Although Pitt knew his daughter was a tough and savvy young woman, her safety still tugged at his heart.

He focused on the more immediate problem. He had been thrown into an empty storage closet near Díaz’s office, secured with a thick door and a sliding-bolt lock. Save for an overhead light fixture attached to the plaster ceiling, the tiny room was bare.

His wrists were still bound behind his back with the cable tie. But that was no barrier, as the Cubans had never searched him. Stretching out on the floor, he lay on his side and twisted his arms until he worked a hand into his front pocket. The penknife from the Starfish was buried deep, but he grasped it and pulled it out. Working by touch behind his back, he opened the blade and sawed through the tie.

Once free, he rose to his feet and massaged his wrists while studying the closet door. Again his luck held. Though it was locked on the outside, the door opened inward, held in place by three tubular hinges. Pitt again went to work with the penknife, prying two pins from their hinges while loosening the third. Then it became a waiting game.

Pitt could still hear voices in the office and he sat and waited for silence. Once he heard the slide of the bolt latch, he jumped back from the door, pocketing the loose pins and hiding his wrists behind his back. A guard stuck his head in and tossed a bottle of water and an empty bucket toward Pitt, then departed.

When an hour of silence had passed, Pitt pried the last pin from its hinge. Working the knife blade into the doorframe, he wedged open the back side and peered through the crack. He could see no one. Grasping the door, he yanked it into the closet and pulled the bolt free of its latch. He slid the bolt over and replaced the door on its hinges, securing it with one of the pins. Finally, he stepped out of the closet and locked the door behind him.

But the office complex wasn’t empty. He heard two men conversing down the corridor, so he headed the other direction, toward the entrance. He checked the office where he and Summer had first been held, but the room was empty. Summer, he suspected, was no longer in the building.

The voices grew louder, so Pitt ducked into Díaz’s open office and closed the door behind him. He stepped to the wall map showing the Florida Straits. The chart had three circles marked in red and green. The smallest he recognized as the location where the Alta had sunk. With a sense of dread, he saw that the two red circles were farther offshore, near the center of the strait. They could only be the next thermal vents targeted for destruction and they were in the worst possible location.

At the center of the Florida Straits, the Florida Current was in high gear, generating a northeast flow in excess of three knots. Pitt knew counterclockwise gyres spun off the current, cycling water to the eastern Florida shoreline. He followed the path of the Florida Current as it curled up the coast to join the Gulf Stream. Miami Beach appeared on the map barely a hundred miles away. The miners couldn’t have picked a worse location if they’d intentionally tried to commit environmental sabotage.

With a sinking feeling, Pitt envisioned the invisible tide of death. If the thermal vents were blown and the mercury release was of the expected magnitude, the devastation would be wholesale. Contaminated waters, dead marine life, and extinguished fish stocks could plague the entire East Coast. It would make the BP oil spill look like a minor nuisance.

He briefly perused the desk, spotting a calendar with several handwritten notations. An entry marked the imminent arrival of a vessel named Algonquin. Below the ship’s name was the notation “250 tons at 45% yield.”

Pitt rifled through the desk drawers, finding only routine paperwork and a crude obsidian knife. He palmed the knife when he heard voices outside the door.

The voices receded, and he stepped to the shelf of artifacts. The collection of clay pots, stone carvings, and gold jewelry was stacked high. A mahogany paddle sat on the top shelf, a reproduction, Pitt presumed, of one used with the Aztec canoe. At the far end of the shelf, he noticed a framed drawing of a page from a Mesoamerican codex.

Picking it up, Pitt saw that it showed a man in a green feather headdress lying facedown. In the background, two men wearing eagle-beaked head coverings were loading a chest into a small canoe. Pitt gazed at the drawing for a long while, then considered the half stone next to it.

“Well, I’ll be . . .” he muttered, patting the stone in understanding. “No wonder the big fuss.”

He put the stone out of his mind, focusing on locating Summer and figuring a way to halt the blasting of the thermal vents. But first he had to find his way out of the building. As far as he could tell, there was only one entrance. It was sure to be guarded.

Pitt opened the door to Díaz’s office and listened. The corridor was silent, the back-office occupants having apparently left the building.

Testing the waters, he stepped into the hall and made his way toward the foyer. He froze after seeing an armed guard standing by the front receptionist desk, looking out the window. There was too much distance to approach undetected, so Pitt backtracked down the hall—with an idea.

He returned to Díaz’s office and studied the phone. It was an older executive model with push buttons for multiple lines. Pitt lifted the receiver and began pushing the buttons until a ringing erupted from the front reception. He set the receiver on the desk, moved to the shelf, and removed the mahogany paddle.

Pitt stepped into the hall and crept toward the foyer. The phone continued ringing at the reception desk as the guard paced its perimeter with a look of annoyance. After five minutes, the irritation became too great and he picked up the receiver. “Hola? Hola?”

When there was no response, he slammed down the receiver. Detecting a movement behind him, he spun around to find Pitt in a home run swing with the paddle. It struck him on the side of the head, knocking him onto the receptionist desk. He sprang forward in a daze, only to collect another blow to the opposite side of his skull that laid him out.

Pitt grabbed the limp body and dragged it to the locked closet. Pulling him inside, he removed the man’s camouflage jacket and pants and slipped them on over his own clothes. He locked the man in the closet and made his way to the front of the building, grabbing the soldier’s AK-47 for good measure.

He peered outside, finding the immediate area quiet. Treading cautiously out of the building, Pitt moved in a frantic hunt to find his daughter.

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