Sea of Greed

Dropping the speargun, Kurt nursed every last ounce of speed from the boat, closed in on the ramp and bumped up onto it.

Joe shouted to him, “And they say there’s never a cab when you need one.”

“Get in,” Kurt shouted back. “This ride’s on me.”

Joe heaved the banded cylinder in the boat. “Have a feeling people might be looking for this.”

“Only for the last fifty years.”

Joe gave the boat a shove and jumped in the moment it began to move. As soon as they reached the water, Kurt turned away from the plane.

“It’s too bad she’s going to get away,” Kurt said. “But we have what we need.”

“I don’t think she’s going very far,” Joe said.

• • •

SITTING IN THE COCKPIT, Tessa shouted at the pilots, who were slowing the plane after a warning light alerted them to the tail ramp’s position.

“Override the emergency release,” she said. “Raise the aft door and get us out of here.”

The copilot did as ordered, while the captain put the thrust levers back to full. The plane accelerated, but only to a point. “Fifty knots,” the pilot said. “Activate cavitation.”

The correct switches were thrown, but the high-pressure air bleeding off the engines never reached the lower part of the hull.

“We have multiple failures on the high-pressure air system,” the copilot said. “Low-pressure lines failing also.”

As Tessa struggled to believe what was happening, a transmission came over the radio. In a reversal of the incident in Bermuda, Austin was talking to her on a captured transmitter.

“It’s over, Tessa,” Kurt said. “We have military aircraft inbound and you’ll never get off the water.”

The captain confirmed the last statement. “We can’t take off without the cavitation system. The drag is too high.”

“You might as well stand down,” Austin said.

His voice infuriated her. “Full power,” she demanded. “Turn into the swells. As we begin to pitch, we’ll break free of the water.”

“But Tessa—”

“Do as I say!”

The pilots followed her commands and the Monarch turned slightly and began to accelerate once again.

As it picked up speed, the plane rose and fell. It began to bounce across the swells, skipping and grasping at the air. Each new wave bumped them higher, each return to the sea brought a more painful impact than the last.

“The vibration is too much,” the captain said. “The airframe is going to buckle.”

“I built this plane,” Tessa shouted. “I know what it’s capable of.”

The pilot shook his head and went to retard the throttles, but Tessa reached forward and leaned on them, keeping the power at full.

The aircraft leapt again. Seventy knots… Eighty… With each jump, the plane picked up more speed and remained airborne a little longer.

One more bounce, she thought. One more leap…

The next impact was sudden and jarring, with the nose crashing through the top of the wave and the wing pylon bending.

The pylon twisted and tore free. The plane tilted to the right, the wingtip hit the sea and the entire structure buckled as it was torn away. The Monarch slewed to the side traveling at a hundred knots and billowing fuel from its ruptured tanks. The heat of the engines ignited the cloud of vapor, causing a chain reaction of explosions that blew the plane apart.

• • •

KURT AND JOE watched the failed takeoff from well behind the aircraft. Reaching the crash zone, they found only wreckage, floating debris and a swath of burning kerosene that stretched for several hundred feet.

They circled the inferno several times, but upon finding no survivors, they returned to the waters above the Minerve to pick up their own people.

Rudi came aboard first, with Gamay next and — once he’d exited the ADS suit — Paul.

The injured divers on the surface were kept at arm’s length, while the two divers trapped in the submarine below were released and allowed to surface. They were also forced to remain in the water until help arrived in the form of three Marine helicopters dispatched from Sicily.

With two dozen Marines deployed in several inflatable boats and the helicopters circling, the situation was well in hand. Kurt and a pair of Marine divers swam down and released Volke from his half-buried submersible and brought him to the surface. He and the other survivors from Tessa’s crew were placed into custody and taken to a military base on Sicily.

The NUMA crew flew to Malta, where a Gulfstream aircraft waited to take Rudi, the Trouts and the bacterial cultures of the counteragent back to the United States.

Kurt and Joe had one more task to accomplish before they could rest. They took a different aircraft and flew eastward, landing at the abandoned air base in Kazakhstan and searching for Priya.

Joe found the section of the base where the Monarch had been parked and from there made his way to the helicopter that he and Priya had been hiding in. He stepped inside.