Sea of Greed

He picked up the microphone and held the talk switch down. “I know you can hear me, Tessa, so hear this. It doesn’t matter how far you go, where you hide or who your friends are, I will find you and bring you down, even if I have to hunt you to the ends of the earth to do it.”

44

WASHINGTON, D.C.

KURT ARRIVED in Washington on one of NUMA’s private jets. It pulled to a stop in front of a waiting ambulance and a gray SUV. With the help of the pilot, Kurt carried the stretcher down the stairs toward Rudi Gunn and a team of Navy paramedics.

They placed the stretcher on a mobile gurney and the paramedics took over from there. “I need a name for the record,” the lead paramedic said.

“He’s a John Doe,” Kurt said, “but you can call him Jonah. He was spit out of the mouth of a whale.”

The paramedic wrote both names down on the clipboard and rechecked the patient’s vitals. After a few more questions, they loaded the gurney into a waiting ambulance, buttoned it up and drove off.

Rudi stepped forward. “That’s not Joe,” he said. “Word out of Bermuda was, you were bringing Joe home.”

“I had to use Joe’s name and ID to get that guy out of hospital.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Pascal Millard,” Kurt said. “He’s a genetic engineer who worked for Tessa. He was in charge of their bacteria production facility. He suffered a head wound during our escape.”

“So, you kidnapped him?”

“I got him stabilized first,” Kurt said. “But we wouldn’t be able to question him if he remained on the island. And if Tessa knew we had him, he’d be in grave danger.”

Rudi didn’t bat an eye. “All right. What about Joe?”

At this Kurt paused. “The Bermudian Coast Guard is still searching for him. But it doesn’t look good.”

“How bad?”

“There’s a thousand-foot hole in the reef where that ship was sitting,” Kurt said. “If Joe was on or anywhere near it when it went up, then he’s gone.”

An outsider might have been shocked at Kurt’s words, but Rudi understood his Special Operations leader’s stoic demeanor better than anyone. There was a job at hand, emotions and mourning — if it came to that — would have to wait. “I’ll make sure the authorities out there know this one is personal for us.”

“That’s the best we can do,” Kurt replied. “What about the Monarch? We may have lost Joe. I’m not going to lose Priya, too.”

“We’re looking,” Rudi said, gesturing toward his SUV and walking as he spoke. “But you might as well look for a ghost in the wind. That plane is covered with a stealth material and crossing an ocean with little to no radar coverage. It could be anywhere, from South America to Norway. It can land on any lake, river, bay or inlet, not to mention airports, abandoned runways, hard-packed dirt or fields of ice. Even with multiple satellites searching for it, our chances are slim. And that’s only if it doesn’t put into a hangar somewhere.”

“Not a lot of hangars big enough to hide that monster,” Kurt said. “As for all the places it can land, you’re right, there’s an awful lot of them, but it’s still a finite number. That makes the plane something less than a ghost.”

“And we’ll keep looking until we find it,” Rudi said. “But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick.”

“What about the freighter?” Kurt asked.

They’d reached the SUV by now. “Different problem, same result,” Rudi explained. “Bermuda is on the path, or slightly off the path, of several major shipping lanes. There are hundreds of freighters and containerships within the radius that vessel could have covered since you and Joe saw it. Without any identification, there’s no way to know which one it might be. And if the crew has even the slightest bit of sense, they’ve gotten rid of any evidence already.”

“Which brings us back to Millard,” Kurt said. “He’s the only link we have left.”

“He’s in a coma,” Rudi pointed out.

“Medically induced, at this point,” Kurt said. “With the right drugs, we can wake him up and make him tell us everything, including where Tessa might be hiding.”

Rudi unlocked the doors. “First, we go to the White House,” he said. “The President would like to see you.”

“I’m a little busy right now,” Kurt replied.

“It wasn’t exactly an optional invitation,” Rudi replied. “With everything that’s happened, our part in this mission is being reevaluated.”

With that, Rudi climbed inside, with Kurt settling into the passenger seat.

“This is not the time to blink,” Kurt said.

“Tell that to the President,” Rudi said. “Better yet, make him believe it. Otherwise, we’ll be searching for Priya on our time.”

• • •

THE ARRIVAL at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was less than auspicious, entering via the back gate, a service door and then up through the kitchen. Instead of making their way to the Oval Office, Kurt and Rudi were shown to the lower level and the underground theater, where the President was rumored to watch classic movies from Hollywood’s golden era.

At the moment, the theater was empty, but a black and white film was showing. With nothing else to do, Kurt and Rudi took a seat.