As the first guard took out his radio, Taylor drew a SIG Sauer pistol from her apron and shot each guard with a single round to the head. She dragged them into the catering truck, not the least afraid that the cameras would be recording her. Right now anyone monitoring the cameras would be seeing nothing but a white glow from the ultra-bright LEDs mounted on the back of the truck.
When they were inside, she took the passcard from one of the guards, wheeled out a large cart carrying an oversized cake, and closed the truck behind her. She pushed the cart through the delivery doors and headed for the service elevator.
The cart did hold a cake. But it would never be eaten. Mallik and his guests would indeed get a big surprise.
THIRTY-FIVE
THE RED SEA
Lyla Dhawan’s coordinates were so precise that it didn’t take long to find the sunken wreck lying seventy feet below the surface. The 500-foot-long hulk lay across the side of the growing undersea volcano formed by a crack in the earth pushing apart the continents of Africa and Asia. It was resting at an angle, so they could see the top deck from their current vantage point.
“No wonder the plotters behind Project C weren’t concerned about anyone finding this ship,” Eric Stone said from the cockpit of the Oregon’s Nomad submarine. “In a few weeks, it will be completely buried.”
Juan, sitting beside him in the copilot’s seat, nodded as the hull of a cargo vessel loomed in front of them. A large hole on the starboard side below the waterline amidships was obviously the reason for its sinking. He couldn’t read its name because both the bow and stern were covered by hardened lava. A thin ridge had formed upslope from the ship along a good portion of the length, diverting the ongoing lava flow, but the underwater mountain was growing so fast that it was just a matter of time before the red-hot molten rock breached the ridge and covered the wreckage.
Nomad was the larger of the Oregon’s two subs—sixty-five feet long, big enough to carry ten passengers including the pilots, and equipped with a diver’s air lock. With a transparent polycarbonate nose and a cigar shape, Nomad resembled a miniaturized nuclear attack sub, but with robotic claws jutting from her chin. Though she was rated for depths down to one thousand feet, they wouldn’t be going nearly that far down today.
Normally, when sending divers down a mere seventy feet, the Oregon would maintain a position over the site and release them from the central moon pool. But Juan didn’t want her any closer to an active volcano than she needed to be. Besides, by the time the divers swam that distance to the wreck, they’d have only a couple of minutes to explore before being boiled by the extreme heat.
Juan turned and asked Linda Ross, who was behind them in the main cabin of the sub, “Temperature reading?”
“Just one hundred and five degrees here,” she said. “But it’s rising fast as we approach the ship.”
“Are you sure you want to go out in that?” said Julia Huxley, who was sitting next to Linda and frowning at the gauge.
Juan smiled. “Why not? It’ll be like a nice soak in a hot tub.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hot tubs max out at one hundred and four. It’s good I came along to monitor your vitals if you’re crazy enough to go out in that.”
Linda said, “They worked
great last time we used them.”
Max had modified two of their drysuits to mimic the cooling suits used by race car drivers. Cold liquid flowed through tubes lining the inside of the suit. The cooling unit and pump were mounted on the back next to the air tank. Juan and Linda had worn them on a previous mission to infiltrate a Russian nuclear power plant through the drainpipes of its secondary cooling system. The water hadn’t been radioactive, but it was too hot for a diver to survive without protection.
“I remember,” Julia said. “But that water was only one hundred and ten degrees. The water here looks like it’ll get even hotter.”
Linda gestured to the two diving suits hanging by the air lock. “Max says they’re rated for up to fifteen minutes at a hundred and thirty degrees.”
“And then you’ll begin to cook.” She gave Juan a scolding look. “If your body temperatures reach a hundred, I’m pulling you both back in immediately.”
“Works for me,” Juan said. “I don’t feel like stewing in my own juices. But before we do that, let’s take a look with Little Geek and see if an excursion is even necessary.”
Little Geek was their remotely operated vehicle, named after a similar ROV in the movie The Abyss. It was currently resting in Nomad’s claws, waiting for Linda to begin guiding it via the fiber-optic and power umbilical links to the sub.
“Where should we start?” she asked.
“Eric, take Nomad closer to the bridge,” Juan said. “We might be able to find something in there.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
Nomad climbed up the sunken hull and back toward the superstructure located aft. They could now see that the deck was not laid out like a typical cargo ship. Instead of hoisting cranes and hard points for fastening containers, the deck had four thirty-foot spiral masts and a large satellite dish at the center of the ship. One of the masts had snapped off at its base and lay half buried in lava.
“What are those?” Julia asked, pointing at the eggbeater-shaped objects.
“They look like wind generators,” Juan said. “Some cargo ships have them installed to save on fuel.”
When the sub was within a hundred feet of the superstructure, Linda launched Little Geek, and it whizzed away twice as fast as Nomad could ever move.