Polar Shift (39 page)

“
Damn
the computer models!”

Margrave left the control panel and rushed to one of the big windows wrapped around the observation platform. Her stared with horror at the sea.

The ship was at the top of a huge, fast-rising column of water.

A
USTIN HAD
seen the whirlpool grow until it was around ten miles wide. Now he watched in fascination as the vortex leveled out, changed into a seething pool of white steamy water, and began to mound into a watery cyclone.

The mountainous mass sprouting from the center of the vortex grew in height and width as it spun like a whirling dervish.

The plane was coming around for another pass. Austin dashed up to the cockpit.

“Bring us up as fast and as high as you can. Get away from this area.”

The pilot put the 747 into a steep climb.

The water column reminded Austin of photos he had seen of the nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific.

A panicked voice was crackling over the radio. “Mayday! Mayday! Come in, anyone! Mayday!”

Austin borrowed the radio microphone. “Mayday received.”

“This is Gant on the
Polar Adventure
.” He had to shout to be heard over the rumbling in the background.

“Looks like you're in for a roller-coaster ride,” Austin said.

“Who
is
this? Where are you?”

“Kurt Austin. We're a couple of thousand feet above your head. Take a quick look because we won't be around much longer. Dr. Kovacs sends his regards, though.”

After a pause, Gant said, “What the hell is going on, Austin?”

“We've given you a dose of the polar shift antidote. I'd say that you and your partner are all washed up.”

Gant's angry reply was unintelligible, lost in a thundering clamor.

Austin peered out the cockpit window. The ship was at the top of the water column, where it spun like a top. Austin could only imagine the panicked scene on board. But he had no sympathy for Margrave and Gant, who had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

As the plane altered course and began to bear off from its target like a great lumbering whale, it encountered turbulence generated by the powerful forces that had been unleashed, but it was nothing compared to the earlier wind blasts. The plane continued to climb without incident to around twenty-five thousand feet, where it leveled off.

Karla had her face glued to the window even though there was nothing to see other than the normal cloud cover. She turned to Austin, a dazed look in her eyes.

“What happened back there?” she said.

“Your grandfather was right on the money with his calculations.”

“But what
was
that thing, that incredible waterspout?”

Austin wasn't sure what was happening but suspected that the push-pull of electromagnetic pulses from the ship and the plane had set into motion unimaginable forces.

“Nature doesn't like being messed around with. The combination of the antidote and the initial transmissions created a strong reaction.” He smiled. “It's like taking something for an upset stomach. There's always a last eruption or two before things settle down for the better.”

“Then it's over, finally.”

“I hope so.” Austin called the cockpit, and asked, “How's the compass doing?”

“Normal,” Zavala said. “Still pointing to the north pole, more or less.”

Barrett hadn't moved from behind the control panel. When he heard Zavala's report, he slapped his hands together. He came over and gave Karla and Austin big hugs.

“We did it,” he said. “By God, we
did
it.”

Austin replied with a weary grin. “So we did,” he said. “So we did.”

D
OYLE WAS GLAD THAT
this would be his last trip to the lighthouse island. He had never liked the place. He had grown up in the city, and the remote beauty was lost on him. He would be even happier once he had disposed of Lucifer's Legion and left the island forever.

He landed his plane near the island, tied up to a mooring buoy and rowed to the dock where one of the Lucifer creeps was waiting to greet him. He could never remember their names and told them apart by hair color. This was the red-haired guy who, because he most resembled Margrave, seemed to have an elevated status in the group, although he was short of being a leader, anathema to the pure anarchists.

“Haven't seen you since our car chase outside Washington,” the man said in a soft-spoken voice that sounded like the rustle of a snake in dry leaves. “Too bad your friends got away.”

“There's always another time,” Doyle said. “We'll tend to Austin and his friends once we take care of the Elites.”

“I'll look forward to it. You should have let us know you were coming,” the man said.

Doyle hefted a canvas bag he was carrying. “Tris wanted to surprise you.”

The answer seemed to satisfy the legionnaire. He nodded, and accompanied Doyle to the elevator that whisked them to the top of the cliff.

The other Lucifers were waiting on the lighthouse bluff, and when Doyle repeated his reason for coming to the island they gave him that unnerving grin. They all headed for the keeper's house. Doyle led the way to Margrave's kitchen. He got six glasses and a beer and placed them on the table.

He pulled a bottle of champagne from the bag and poured it around. Then he opened the can of beer and held it high.

“Here's to the imminent destruction of the Elites.”

The red-haired man laughed. “You've been hanging around with us anarchist types too long, Doyle. You're starting to sound as crazy as the rest of us.”

Doyle gave him a friendly wink. “Must be catching. Cheers.”

He upended his beer and drank half the contents of the can. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, watching with pleasure as the Lucifers tossed down their champagne as if it were water.

“By the way, Margrave wanted me to give this to you.”

The package had come the day before. With it was a note, signed by Gant.

The note said: “Plans for PS postponed until next week. Please give this gift to our friends in Maine after you share a
special
bottle of champagne with them. Say it's a gift from Margrave. Very important to wait until they drink their champagne.”

The red-haired Lucifer opened the package. It was a DVD disk. He shrugged and slipped it into the DVD player. A few seconds later, a still picture of Gant's face appeared on the screen.

“I want Lucifer's Legion disposed of,” Gant's voice said.

“And how do you propose we go about doing that?”

Impossible.
It was the conversation he and Gant had after the foxhunt.

“Go up to Margave's island in Maine, tell them that you have a gift for them. Say it's from Margrave. Send them to hell, where they belong, with a glass of the bubbly.”

All eyes in the room were on Doyle.

“It's not what you think,” he said, brandishing his most charming Irish smile.

Doyle never had a chance. He'd been doomed the moment he got the disk. He would never know that disk came from Barrett, not Gant. And that the bug Austin had planted under the garden table had done its work well, picking up Gant's instructions to murder the Lucifiers.

He got up and tried to make a break for the door, but one of the Lucifers tripped him and he fell to the floor. He got to his feet, grabbing for the gun in an ankle holster, but he was pushed back to the floor and relieved of his weapon. He stared up at the six satanic faces ringed around him.

He couldn't figure it. The Lucifers knew he had poisoned them, yet they were smiling. Doyle would never understand that the opportunity to kill surpassed all other emotions, even fear of their imminent death.

He heard the knife drawer slide open, and then they came for him.

T
WO HUNDRED MILES EAST
of Norfolk, Virginia, the NUMA research vessel
Peter Throckmorton
and the NOAA survey ship
Benjamin Franklin
cut their way side by side through the glassy green seas like a pair of modern-day corsairs.

While the bows hissed through the water and the decks became soaked by flying spume, the atmosphere was subdued in the
Throckmorton
's dimly lit remote-sensing control room. Spider Barrett sat with his eyes riveted to the Mercator projection of the world displayed on the screen in front of him. Although the center was air-conditioned, perspiration gleamed on Barrett's tattooed head.

Watching Barrett's fingers fly over the keyboard were Joe Zavala, Al Hibbet and Jerry Adler, the wave expert Joe and Austin first met aboard the
Throckmorton
. Several of the ship's technicians were gathered in the room as well.

Barrett stopped and rubbed his eyes, as if he were about to admit defeat. Then his hands moved over the keys like those of a concert pianist. Blinking red dots began to appear on the world's oceans. He leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face. “Gentlemen,” he said grandly, “we have liftoff.”

The center echoed with applause.

“Remarkable!” said Dr. Adler. “I can't believe that there are so many breeding grounds for rogue waves.”

Barrett clicked the cursor on a dot. A display of statistics appeared, representing sea, weather and current conditions at that particular location. The most important information that appeared was a threat assessment detailing the potential and probable size of a giant wave.

The exercise brought forth another round of applause.

Zavala took a phone out of his pocket and called the
Benjamin Franklin
. Gamay was waiting with Paul for his call in a similar control center aboard the NOAA ship. “Tell Paul that the eagle has landed,” Zavala told her. “Details to follow.”

He clicked off and walked to a corner of the room where he had left a rucksack. He opened the rucksack and pulled out a couple of bottles of tequila and a stack of paper cups. He poured a round of tequila, and raised his cup in the air.

“Here's to Lazlo Kovacs,” he said.

“And to Spider Barrett,” Hibbet joined in. “Spider has made a force for destruction into something good. His work will save the lives of hundreds and possibly thousands of mariners.”

Barrett had put his mind to work on the flight back from the South Atlantic Anomaly after he had seen the uncontrollable power that had been unleashed. He was trying to think of a way to use the Kovacs Theorems for beneficial purposes. After the plane touched down in Washington, he vanished for several days, then he showed up unexpectedly at NUMA headquarters and ran his idea by Al Hibbet.

What he proposed to Hibbet was breathtaking in its imagination and scope, yet remarkably simple. His plan was to use watered-down versions of the Kovacs electromagnetic waves to detect anomalies below the ocean floor that were suspected of causing surface disturbances. Every oceangoing vessel of a certain size would be outfitted with a Kovacs sensor mounted on the prow. The sensors would constantly broadcast information, which would be compiled with satellite observations and global electromagnetic field readings.

The data were fed into computers, analyzed and rebroadcast as warnings of breeding areas for giant waves. Ships could then chart courses around dangerous breeder areas. It was decided to conduct sea tests in the vicinity of the giant waves that had sunk the
Southern Belle
. Because of its interest in ocean eddies, NOAA was asked to participate, which got the Trouts involved.

The two ships rendezvoused over the site of the sunken
Southern Belle
. A wreath was dropped into the water in remembrance of the ship's crew. Then the field tests began over a period of several days. The tests uncovered several glitches, which were quickly remedied. Now, with the system an obvious success, the mood in the control room had become downright raucous—especially after it had been lubricated with generous shots of tequila.

At one point, an ebullient and slightly inebriated Al Hibbet turned to Zavala and said, “It's a shame Kurt can't be here. He's missing all the fun.”

Zavala smiled knowingly. “I'm sure he's doing fine.”

K
ARLA JANOS
came out of the tunnel blinking like a mole. Her face was dirty, and her one-piece jump suit was covered with dust. She shook her head in wonder, still impressed by the scene that confronted her eyes. A temporary village had sprung up on the grassy bowl at the bottom of the caldera. At least two dozen large tents housing facilities for sleeping, cooking and research were laid out in neat rows. Several helicopters were parked nearby.

The area around the tents bustled with activity. Access to the crystal city had been improved by drilling a tunnel and clearing away the rocky debris that was in the way. Cables snaked into the tunnel from gas-powered electrical generators. A steady stream of scientists and assistants was moving in and out of the city.

Karla was elated and exhausted at the same time. The scientific crews had been working twenty-four hours a day on three shifts. Some, like Karla, had become so involved in their work that they had worked more than one shift. She tilted her chin back and gulped several breaths of fresh air. In the blue-gray light, she saw a speck come into view over the rim and begin a descent into the valley.

As the object neared, she could see that it was a large, colorful canopy with a human dangling below.
It couldn't be.
Hoping against hope, she walked away from the tents to a clear area and madly waved her baseball cap in the air.

The paraglider had been descending in a spiral, but it turned in her direction, swooped in low and landed only yards away. Kurt Austin unbuckled himself from the harness and rolled up the canopy. He walked over with a grin on his face and said, “Good morning.”

She had thought about Austin a lot in the past few weeks. Their encounter had been short and sweet. Then she was off to Siberia. But there were many times she wished that she had gotten to know the handsome NUMA man better.

“What are you doing here?” Karla asked with a combination of joy and awe.

“I've come to take you to lunch.”

She glanced at her watch. “It's three o'clock in the morning.”

“It's lunchtime somewhere. I didn't come all this way to have my invitation rejected.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You're
crazy
.”

Austin's blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “Insanity is part of the NUMA job description.” He took her hand. “As the old Sinatra song goes, ‘Come fly with me.'”

She brushed a strand of blond hair out of her eyes. “I've been working all night. I'm a mess.”

“There's no dress code at the joint I have in mind,” Austin said. “Come on.”

He asked her to help him carry his new paraglider to an open area, where he gave Karla a quick lesson. They spread the canopy on the ground, buckled themselves into the tandem seat, inflated the canopy with the prop wash and jumped into the wind. Karla was a natural flier, and the takeoff was far smoother than the first one he had made with Zavala. Once they were airborne, Austin circled above the tent village and put the paraglider into an ascent.

“Quite the change in scenery in a few weeks,” Austin said as the earth slipped away below them.

“It's hard to believe that the world's leading paleontologists, archaeologists and biologists are down there working on the scientific discovery of the century.”

“A discovery you can claim credit for.”

“There were others involved, but thanks anyhow. And thank you for the ride. This is marvelous.”

“Yes, it is,” Austin said for entirely different and very male reasons. He was in close proximity to a beautiful and intelligent young woman, and he could feel the warmth of her body close to his.

The paraglider and its two passengers rose out of the caldera. Austin gave Karla some quick landing instructions, and he steered toward a relatively flat area on the rim. The landing was slightly rough but not bad. Karla slipped out of the harness and went over to where a checkered red tablecloth was spread out on the ground, anchored at each corner with a rock. In the center of the tablecloth was a miniature vase with a wildflower in it, and a waist pack.

Austin made a sweep of his hand. “Table with a view, made-moiselle.”

She shook her head. “You
are
crazy. But in a very nice way.”

Austin opened the pack and lined up several jars, cans and bottles. “Courtesy of Captain Ivanov.
Mosliak
mushroom appetizer, beef
tushonka
and red caviar on rye bread for dessert. All washed down with a good Georgian red wine.”

“How did you get here?” she said.

“I heard that Captain Ivanov was bringing in a batch of scientists, including some from NUMA. I hitched a ride with them on the
Kotelny
. Austin opened the jars and cans, and poured two glasses of wine. “Now that you've had a chance to study things, what's your take on the crystal city?”

“It will be decades of study before we know the whole story, but I think the city was built during the Stone Age in the magma chamber after the volcano had been long dead.”

“Why go underground?”

“The usual reasons. For defense, or because of climate changes. They used mammoths for beasts of burden, which allowed them to move the cyclopean blocks.”

“What happened to the inhabitants?”

“Climate changes could have dried up their ability to grow food. A polar shift could have caused a flood or earthquake that created the partial collapse of the chamber roof, giving the caldera its odd shape. That road up the side of the mountain indicates that the usual city access might have been blocked for one reason or another.”

“Have you figured out how the mammoths managed to survive?”

“Sheer adaptability. As the food source diminished, they became smaller to adjust to the change in environment. They seem to have the capability to hibernate during the coldest part of the year.”

“What about the city's inhabitants? Who were they?”

“An enigma. It could take decades of research before we figure out who they were and what happened to them.”

“How are the little woollies doing?”

“The mammoths? Just fine. They seem content in the corral we built for them as long as we feed them. Maria Arbatov is in charge. The hardest part will be protecting them from the outside world. We're getting lots of press attention as you can imagine, and we're trying to control it.”

He swept the island with his eyes. “I hope this all survives our aggressive inquiry.”

“I think it will. These seem to be purer research endeavors than trying to clone mammoths.”

“What next?”

“I'll spend a few weeks here, and then head back to see Uncle Karl in Montana. I'll be coming to Washington next month to give a speech at the Smithsonian.”

“That's good news. When you get to Washington, how about getting together for cocktails, dinner and whatever?”

The smoky gray eyes gazed over the glass. “I'm particularly intrigued over the
whatever
.”

“Then it's a date. I think it's time to propose a toast. Ladies first.”

She only had to think about it for a second.

“To Uncle Karl. If he hadn't saved my grandfather, none of this would have been possible.”

“I'll drink to that. Without Uncle Karl,
you
would not have been possible.”

She gave Austin a smile full of promise. Then, in the light of the arctic dusk, they raised their glasses high and toasted each other.

A
LTHOUGH DEATH
had been a close companion for much of his life, Schroeder couldn't remember the last time he had gone to a funeral. He wanted to bury Schatsky in fine style. The little dachshund who'd been killed by one of Gant's gunmen had been a great companion. Luckily, the temperature at his mountain log cabin had stayed low so Schatsky's body had been preserved while he'd been away.

He took the stiff little body, washed the blood away as best he could and wrapped the dog in its favorite blanket. Using the dog's bed as its casket, he carried it out to the woods behind his house. He dug a deep hole, wrapped the dog and its bed in a canvas, and then buried it with a box of dog bones and Schatsky's favorite chew toys.

Schroeder marked the grave with a boulder. He went back into the cabin and lugged a wooden crate back to the woods and dug another hole not far from the dog's grave. He dumped the load of automatic and semi-automatic weapons into the hole and covered them up. He had kept a shotgun back at the cabin, just in case, but he no longer needed the deadly weapons he had kept hidden under his floor.