Pandora's Temple
Authors: Jon Land
TEMPLE
A BLAINE M
C
CRACKEN NOVEL
JON LAND
For my readers:
The ride continues
Bet you weren’t expecting to hear from me again so soon, within six months of my last book,
Strong Vengeance
, hitting the stands, not to mention with a book that returns our old friend Blaine McCracken to the page! The fact that the page you’re reading may be electronic makes it no less entertaining and maybe it’s even more so, thanks to the wonderful team at Open Road Media responsible for bringing McCracken back from his extended literary hiatus. That team is headed by the great Jane Friedman who has provided me the opportunity to work with wonderful professionals like Stephanie Gorton, Libby Jordan, Rachel Chou, and Mary Sorrick. I’m especially grateful to my agent Bob Diforio for bringing us together and, even more, to the one holdover from past pages like this, my amazing and brilliant editor Natalia Aponte. Natalia was an invaluable partner in making McCracken and Johnny Wareagle’s comeback a successful one; hey, both Blaine and I are getting on a bit these days and you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks.
Speaking of new, I’m eternally grateful to Jeff Ayers for letting me know I was on the right track with
Pandora’s Temple
and for pushing me to do this book for maybe a decade now. And if you’re wondering how I know so much about deepwater oil rigs, it’s because of Brooke Bovo, who was my guide into that world, every step of the way. Also, thanks again to Mireya Starkenberg, who made sure my Spanish was at least passable. This book required a ton of research involving more helping hands than I can count. So know this, my friends: while some of what you’re about to read stems purely from a writer’s imagination, virtually everything else is the product of fact, not fiction. Even the construction and ultimate fate of Pandora’s Temple itself owes more to facts than it does to mythology. But “What if?” is the question that has driven these McCracken books for a generation, and I see no reason to change that now.
And since you surely don’t either, settle in and let’s get started. “Once upon a time—” Oops! Forgot to tell you to turn the page so Blaine and Johnny can take things from here.
No hero is immortal till he dies.
W. H. Auden
Part One: The Deepwater Venture
Chapter 1:
Juárez, Mexico: The present
Chapter 2:
Washington: One week earlier
Chapter 8:
Deepwater Venture, Gulf of Mexico: One week later
Chapter 9:
Deepwater Venture, Gulf of Mexico
Chapter 13:
Crazy Horse, South Dakota: One month earlier
Chapter 21:
Northern Gulf Stream
Chapter 22:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 23:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 24:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 36:
Northern Gulf Stream
Chapter 37:
Northern Gulf Stream
Chapter 38:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 43:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 64:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 66:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 68:
Athens, Greece: Near 1650
B.C.
Chapter 71:
Over the Atlantic Ocean
Chapter 72:
Port of Piraeus, Greece
Chapter 73:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 74:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 75:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 76:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 77:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 78:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 79:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 80:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 81:
The Mediterranean Sea
Chapter 83:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 84:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 85:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 86:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 87:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 88:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 89:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 90:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 91:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Chapter 92:
Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
Washington, D.C.: One week later
THE ABYSS
The Mediterranean Sea: 2008
“It would help, sir, if I knew what we were looking for,” Captain John J. Hightower of the
Aurora
said to the stranger he’d picked up on the island of Crete.
The stranger remained poised by the research ship’s deck rail, gazing out into the turbulent seas beyond. His long gray hair, dangling well past his shoulders in tangles and ringlets, was damp with sea spray, left to the whims of the wind.
“Sir?” Hightower prodded again.
The stranger finally turned, chuckling. “You called me sir. That’s funny.”
“I was told you were a captain,” said Hightower.
“In name only, my friend.”
“If I’m your friend,” Hightower said, “you should be able to tell me what’s so important that our current mission was scrapped to pick you up.”
Beyond them, the residue of a storm from the previous night kept the seas choppy with occasional frothy swells that rocked the
Aurora
even as she battled the stiff winds to keep her speed steady. Gray-black clouds swept across the sky, colored silver at the tips where the sun pushed itself forward enough to break through the thinner patches. Before long, Hightower could tell, those rays would win the battle to leave the day clear and bright with the seas growing calm. But that was hardly the case now.
“I like your name,” came the stranger’s airy response. Beneath the orange life jacket, he wore a Grateful Dead tie-dyed T-shirt and an old leather vest that was fraying at the edges and missing all three of its buttons. It was so faded that the sun made it look gray in some patches and white in others. The man’s eyes, a bit sleepy and almost drunken, had a playful glint about them. “I like anything with the word ‘high.’ You should rethink your policy about no smoking aboard the ship, if it’s for medicinal purposes only.”
“I will, if you explain what we’re looking for out here.”
“Out here” was the Mediterranean Sea where it looped around Greece’s ancient, rocky southern coastline. For four straight days now, the
Aurora
had been mapping the seafloor in detailed grids in search of something of unknown size, composition, and origin; or, at least, known only by the man Hightower had mistakenly thought was a captain by rank. Hightower’s ship was a hydrographic survey vessel. At nearly thirty meters in length with a top speed of just under twenty-five knots, the
Aurora
had been commissioned just the previous year to fashion nautical charts to ensure safe navigation by military and civilian shipping, tasked with conducting seismic surveys of the seabed and underlying geology. A few times since her commission, the
Aurora
and her eight-person crew had been retasked for other forms of oceanographic research, but her high-tech air cannons, capable of generating high-pressure shock waves to map the strata of the seabed, made her much better suited for more traditional assignments.
“How about I give you a hint?” the stranger said to Hightower. “It’s big.”
“How about I venture a guess?”
“Take your best shot, dude.”
“I know a military mission when I see one. I think you’re looking for a weapon.”
“Warm.”
“Something stuck in a ship or submarine. Maybe even a sunken wreck from years, even centuries ago.”
“Cold,” the man Hightower knew only as “Captain” told him. “Well, except for the centuries-ago part. That’s blazing hot.”
Hightower pursed his lips, frustration getting the better of him. “So are we looking for a weapon or not?”
“Another hint, Captain High: only the most powerful ever known to man,” the stranger said with a wink. “A game changer of epic proportions for whoever finds it. Gotta make sure the bad guys don’t manage that before we do. Hey, did you know marijuana’s been approved to treat motion sickness?”
Hightower could only shake his head. “Look, I might not know exactly what you’re looking for, but whatever it is, it’s not here. You’ve got us retracing our own steps, running hydrographs in areas we’ve already covered. Nothing ‘big,’ as you describe it, is down there.”
“I beg to differ, el Capitán.”
“Our depth sounders have picked up nothing; the underwater cameras we launched have picked up nothing; the ROVs have picked up nothing.”