Authors: Clive Cussler
W
AITING FOR THE
helicopter that was over an hour late, Giordino happily slipped into dreamland while Pitt peered over the waters of Lake Nicaragua surrounding the lighthouse through his binoculars. The shoreline to the west was less than three miles away and he could make out a small village. He checked his map and determined that it was the town of Rivas. He then turned his attention to a large majestic island in the shape of a figure eight, no more than five miles to the west, that looked to be quite fertile and thickly forested. Pitt estimated the total area of land to be roughly one hundred and fifty square miles.
According to his map, it was called Isle de Ometepe. Pitt focused in on two volcanic mountains tied together by a narrow isthmus a couple of miles in length. The volcano on the northern end of the island rose over five thousand feet and appeared to be active by the wisp of steam that issued through the cone on top of the crater and touched the billowy clouds passing over the summit.
The southern volcano formed a perfect cone and sat dormant. Pitt judged it to be a good thousand feet lower than its mate to the north. He also estimated that the four underground tunnels ran directly under the isthmus of the island near the base of the northern volcano. That would explain, he thought, the unusual rise in temperature that he and Giordino had experienced inside the fourth tunnel.
A quick glance at the map revealed that the active volcano was named Concepcion, while its mate was labeled Madera. He swung the glasses and totally unexpectedly found himself staring at what looked to be a vast industrial enterprise spreading over the southern slopes of Concepcion just above the isthmus. He guessed that it covered over five or six hundred acres. It struck him as being in an out-of-the-way location. It hardly seemed a practical place for a business to pour millions of dollars into an industrial complex nowhere near major transportation facilities. Unless, he mused, it was cloaked in secrecy.
Then he observed an aircraft appear from the north and line up on a runway that ran across the isthmus to the entrance of the complex. It banked around the peak of the Madera volcano and landed, taxiing to a large terminal at the end of the runway.
Pitt lowered the glasses, an expression on his face as if he was seeing something he didn't want to see. A look of deep concentration clouded his green eyes. He cleaned the lenses of the binoculars with a few drops of water from his canteen and wiped them with the tail of his shirt from under the Odyssey jumpsuit. Then he raised the glasses again, and as if to reassure himself, refocused on the aircraft.
The sun shone between a pair of clouds, bathing Isle de Ometepe in bright light. Though the aircraft seemed no larger than an ant through the glasses, there was no mistaking the lavender color reflected by the sunlight on the fuselage and wings.
“Odyssey,” he muttered to himself, his mind in turmoil. Only then did he realize the facility sat directly above the tunnels. That explained the freight elevators he and Giordino saw at the rail supply terminal. Whatever its purpose, the facility may have been connected to the tunnels, but its size dictated that it had to be a separate operation.
As he swept his gaze past the buildings rising around the base of the volcano, he paused, spotting what looked like an extensive dock area behind a row of warehouses. The warehouse roofs shielded the docks, but he could discern four cargo-loading cranes against the blue sky and realized that the complex didn't require an outside transportation system. It was totally self-sufficient.
Then three things happened almost simultaneously that alerted him to trouble.
The lighthouse began inexplicably to sway like a hula dancer. As he'd told Percy Rathbone, having grown up in California, he was familiar with earthquakes. He'd once been in a thirty-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard when a quake hit and the building began to rock and oscillate. Fortunately, the base of the building rested on giant concrete roller bearings deep underground for just such an event. This felt much the same, except the lighthouse trembled and reeled like a palm tree caught in opposing winds.
Pitt immediately turned and gazed at the Concepcion volcano, thinking that it might have erupted, but the peak appeared peaceful, with no sign of smoke or ash. He glanced down at the water and saw the surface ripple as if being shook from below by some unseen giant vibrator. One minute and what seemed an eternity later, the quake faded. Not surprisingly, it did not wake up Giordino.
The second danger came from a small lavender patrol boat that was coming from the island and headed directly toward the lighthouse. The security guards on board must have been confident of their trapped quarry. They were traveling over the water at a leisurely pace.
The third and final danger came from below their feet. What probably saved their lives in the next few seconds was an almost scarcely heard sound: a slight clink of metal against metal coming from the shaft leading to the tunnel deep below.
Pitt kicked Giordino. “We have callers. It seems they picked up our trail.”
Giordino came instantly awake and pulled the .50 caliber Desert Eagle automatic from inside his belt under the white jumpsuit, as Pitt retrieved the ancient Colt .45 from his carry bag.
Crouched beside the shaft, Pitt shouted down without looking over the edge. “Stay where you areâ¦!”
What happened next was not totally unexpected. His reply was a hail of automatic fire that burst from the shaft and peppered the metal roof of the lighthouse with enough holes to turn it into a colander. The blast was so intense that Pitt and Giordino withheld their fire so as not to risk poking a hand over the edge and having their fingers shot off.
Pitt crawled over to one of the lighthouse windows and pounded on the glass with the butt of the Colt. The panes were thick and it took several hammerlike blows to shatter the glass. Most of the shards fell to the sea below, but Pitt quickly extended his arm outside and smashed the remaining fragments onto the floor inside. Pushing them into piles with his feet, he kicked them over the edge of the shaft, where they fell like a deluge of razor-edged knives. Shouts and cries of pain erupted from the shaft, as the fire fell off.
Taking advantage of the lull, Pitt and Giordino blindly fired their automatics down the shaft, their bullets ricocheting against the concrete walls and causing havoc among the Odyssey security guards climbing the ladder. Their cries of pain ended and were replaced by the sickening thud of bodies hurtling down the shaft to the tunnel far below.
“That should put a crimp in their plans,” said Giordino, in a voice devoid of remorse while he inserted a full clip.
“We still have unwanted guests to deal with,” said Pitt, pointing at the patrol boat speeding toward the lighthouse, its bow lifted above the water, a rooster tail rising in its wake.
“It's going to be close.” Giordino nodded out the shattered glass toward a blue helicopter that was skimming over the lake from the north.
Swiftly figuring the distance the boat and helicopter had to travel, Pitt allowed himself a tight grin. “The bird is faster. It should arrive a good mile ahead of the boat.”
“Pray they don't mount rocket launchers,” Giordino said, throwing cold water on Pitt's confidence.
“We'll know shortly. Get ready to grab the harness when it's dropped.”
“Take too long for it to haul us up one at a time,” said Giordino. “I strongly suggest we bid a tearful goodbye to the lighthouse together.”
Pitt nodded. “I'm with you.”
They stepped out onto a narrow balcony that ran around the top of the lighthouse. Pitt recognized the helicopter as a Bell 430 with twin Rolls-Royce engines. It was painted yellow and red, with
MANAGUA AIRWAYS
lettered across the sides. He watched intently as the pilot took a no-nonsense approach once around the lighthouse, while a crewman began lowering a harness attached by a cable to a winch out the open side door.
Taller than Giordino by almost a foot, Pitt leaped up and snagged the harness on the first pass as it swung in circles under the rotor wash. He looped it around Giordino's shoulders.
“You're built tougher than I am. You take the strain and I'll hold on to you.”
Giordino looped his hands through the opening and clutched them around the cable as Pitt gripped him tightly around the waist. The crewman, unable to be heard above the exhaust whine of the turbines, waved frantically, trying to signal them that he could lift only one man at a time.
His warning came too late. Pitt and Giordino were dragged off the balcony of the lighthouse and dangled a hundred feet above the water as a gust of wind struck the copter. The pilot was surprised as the aircraft suddenly tilted to starboard from the combined weight of both men. He quickly corrected and hovered on an even keel as his crewman watched the overloaded winch strain to pull both men aboard.
Fortune prevailed and the pursuing boat did not fire missiles. However, a pair of heavy-caliber guns mounted on the bow began a staccato burst. Fortunately, the boat was still too far away, and with the keel bouncing over the water, the gunner's aim was fifty yards wide.
The pilot, horrified at seeing himself shot at, forgot about the men he had come to rescue and threw the helicopter on its side away from the boat and beat a hasty retreat toward the safety of the shore. With twenty feet to go, Pitt and Giordino were crazily windmilling beneath the craft. Giordino felt as if his arms were coming out of their shoulder sockets. Pitt, suffering no pain, could do little but clutch Giordino in a death grip and shout at the crewman to speed up the lift.
Pitt could see the strain of the agony on Giordino's face. For perhaps two minutes that were the longest minutes he had ever experienced, he was almost tempted to let go and fall, but one look at the water now nearly five hundred feet below his dangling feet quickly changed his mind.
Then he was looking into the dazed eyes of the crewman only five feet away. The crewman turned and shouted to the pilot, who deftly banked the copter just enough for Pitt and Giordino to fall inside the cargo section. The side door was rapidly slammed closed and locked.
The still-shocked crewman stared at the two men sprawled on the floor. “You hombres are loco,” he grunted with a heavy Spanish accent. “Lift only for mail sacks weighing one hundred pounds.”
“He speaks English,” Giordino observed.
“Not very well,” added Pitt. “Remind me to write a letter of recommendation to the company who manufactured the winch.” He came to his feet and hurried into the cockpit, where he stared out a side window until he spotted the patrol boat. It had cut the chase and was circling back to the island.
“What in hell was that all about?” demanded the pilot. He was genuinely angry. “Those clowns were actually shooting at us.”
“We're lucky they're bad shots.”
“I didn't count on trouble when I took this charter,” said the pilot, still keeping a wary eye on the boat. “Who are you guys and why was that patrol boat after you?”
“Like your charter says,” Pitt answered. “My friend and I are with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. My name is Dirk Pitt.”
The pilot removed one hand from the controls and extended it over his shoulder. “Marvin Huey.”
“You're American. Montana, judging from your accent.”
“Close. I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. After twenty years flying these things in the Air Force, and after my wife left me for an oilman, I retired down here and started a small charter company.”
Pitt shook the hand and gave the pilot a cursory look. He looked short behind the controls, with thinning red hair leaving a widow's peak. He was wearing faded Levi's with a flowered shirt and cowboy boots. The eyes were pale blue and looked like they had seen too much. He looked to be slightly on the downside of fifty.
Huey looked up at Pitt curiously. “You haven't told me why the big getaway.”
“We saw something we shouldn't,” Pitt answered, without elaborating.
“What's to see in an abandoned lighthouse?”
“It isn't what it seems.”
Huey wasn't buying, but he didn't pursue the issue. “We'll be on the ground at our field in Managua in another twenty-five minutes.”
“The sooner the better.” Pitt motioned to the empty copilot's seat. “Do you mind?”
Huey gave a slight nod. “Not at all.”
“I don't suppose you could make a pass over the Odyssey facility on the island?”
Huey turned fractionally and shot Pitt a look usually reserved for the insane. “You're joking. That place is guarded tighter than Area 51 at Groom Lake, Nevada. I couldn't fly within five miles without a security aircraft chasing me away.”
“What goes on down there?”
“Nobody knows. The installation is so secret, the Nicaraguans deny it exists. What began as a small facility underwent vast expansion in the past five years. The security measures go beyond extreme. Huge warehouses, and what some people think are assembly areas, were constructed. Rumor has it there is a housing section accommodating three thousand people. The native Nicaraguans used to grow coffee and tobacco on the islands. Alta Garcia and Moyogalpa, the main towns, were torn down and burned after the Nicaraguan government forced the people off their land and relocated them in the mountains to the east.”