Kurt recognized the driver’s round, smiling face. “I thought the police would never let you go,” he said. “Ready?” Kurt figured a two-hour wait was more than enough to earn a hundred dollars. He fished the other half of the C-note out of his pocket and handed it over.
“Ready,” he said.
31
WHILE KATARINA WAITED on the Argo’s bridge, Kurt Austin sat in the conference room with Captain Haynes and Joe Zavala. He spent ten minutes relaying the events he and Katarina had endured that night, concluding with the grisly discovery at the French team’s beach house.
In response, Captain Haynes told him of the attack on the Grouper, Paul’s near drowning, and his current condition. He and Joe then took turns explaining what they knew of Gamay’s theory that the Kinjara Maruhad been hit with some type of directed-energy weapon.
“Are we talking about something like the SDI program?” Kurt asked, referring to the Strategic Defense Initiative. “Something that could shoot down missiles?”
“Could be,” the captain said. “The thing is, we don’t really know. But it’s possible.”
“And why hit some random freighter in the middle of the Atlantic?” Kurt asked.
Before anyone could answer, the intercom light flashed, and the communications officer spoke.
“Incoming call for you, Captain. It’s Director Pitt.”
“Put him on speaker,” the captain said.
The speaker crackled for a second and then the sound of Dirk Pitt’s voice came over it. “I know it’s late there, gentlemen, but I understand everyone is still up.”
“We’ve been discussing the events,” Haynes said.
“I just posed a question that’s been on my mind since this started,” Kurt said. “Why target a bulk carrier in the middle of the Atlantic? That goes for simple piracy or this electromagnetic weapon we’re now talking about.”
“I think I have the answer to that,” Dirk said. “Hiram Yaeger is doing a study to figure out the power requirements and capabilities of such a weapon right now, but when I asked him what someone would need to create such a weapon his short answer was ‘More.’”
“More?” Kurt said. “More what?”
“More everything,” Dirk replied. “More energy, more materials, more money. Morethan it might be easy to get one’s hands on. In this case, the Kinjara Maruwas likely targeted for a shipment of titanium-doped YBCO. It’s a highly advanced, hellaciously expensive compound used to make incredibly powerful superconducting magnets.”
“And those magnets can be used in making energy weapons,” Kurt guessed. “Just like the one Gamay thinks hit the ship.”
“Exactly,” Pitt said. “Basically, these superconducting magnets are essential to any high-intensity energy projects. Normal magnets create too much heat at high energy levels, but superconductors pass the energy through without creating any resistance at all.”
Joe spoke up. “Sounds like someone has adapted that technology for a military purpose.”
“Yaeger agrees with you,” Pitt said. “And Gamay’s tests on the samples from the Kinjara Maruare all but unequivocal.”
“Any idea who’s behind it?” Kurt asked.
“Not yet,” Pitt said. “Could be a terrorist group, or some rogue nation or faction. Last year we fought with the Chinese Triad over a bioweapon, so I guess anything’s possible.”
“What about a money trail?” Kurt said. “If this stuff is so expensive, there has to be some record of its purchase.”
“We’re looking into it,” Pitt said. “So far, we’ve been able to identify massive purchases of various superconducting materials spread around through several dozen companies that now appear to be dummies. It’s as if someone was trying to corner the market on the more powerful superconducting materials.”
Kurt looked at Joe and then the captain. Pitt continued to speak.
“The problem is, all the odd purchases lead to front companies, which in turn are operating as subsidiaries of other shell corporations. The funds come from unidentified sources, and the front closes up shop immediately after completing the deal. It makes for a hard path to follow. On the surface, it all seems legit. People get paid as they’re supposed to, no red flags go up. No one’s the wiser, at least until now.”
Kurt said, “If they’re cornering the market, why did they need to steal anything?”
“Titanium-doped YBCO is the most powerful superconductor made,” Pitt said. “It can operate effectively in field strengths of up to nine hundred teslas.”
“Aside from an excellent nineties rock group,” Joe asked, “what exactly is a tesla?”
“It’s a unit of power designed to measure magnetic field strengths,” Pitt said. “I can’t exactly tell you what nine hundred teslas means in numbers, but by comparison the superconductors used in levitating trains in Japan become overloaded at four teslas. So if four teslas can lift a train, nine hundred teslas can lift two hundred twenty-five of them.”
Captain Haynes exhaled slowly. “Arms race,” he said. “If you’re building a weapon, you might as well have the most powerful version you can find.”
Something still didn’t make sense to Kurt. “If all this was so clandestine, how’d the pirates know this YBCO was on the ship?”
“Despite all the secrecy,” Pitt said, “there were still three parties who knew about it.”
“The buyer, the seller, and the shipper,” Kurt said.
“And of the three of them,” Pitt said, “who had any reason to sink that ship and make the material disappear?”
“The seller,” Kurt said, realizing what Pitt was getting at. “So they get a good price, make all the arrangements to turn this superconducting material over to the Chinese, and then they raid the ship and take it back.”
“Pretty damn devious,” Haynes said. “Are we sure we’re not barking up the wrong tree?”
“I have the manifest of the Kinjara Maru,” Pitt said. “Along with the captain’s log and the loadmaster’s notes, which are transmitted to Shokara’s headquarters electronically when their ships leave port. I’d read them to you, but I’m driving, so here’s the gist of it. I think you’ll understand when I’m done.”
Pitt continued. “The ship docked in Freetown, Sierra Leone, three days before it went down. It picked up a standard bulk cargo of various ores bound for China and then received orders to hold in port for two days, awaiting one more delivery.”
“The YBCO,” Kurt guessed.
“Right,” Pitt said. “But when the shipment finally arrived, there were several things odd enough about it for the captain to note them in the log. First, the load was put aboard the ship by a group of men who were not regular dockworkers. A mixed group of white and black men did most of the loading. The captain remarked that they ‘resembled a military or paramilitary unit.’”
“I’ve heard rumors of mercenaries taking over mines out there and running them for a profit,” Kurt said.
“Only, YBCO isn’t mined,” Pitt said. “Beyond that, the leader of this group insisted that the YBCO absolutely had to be stored separately from the other ores in a specific temperature-controlled hold. A request that seemed odd enough to the loadmaster to risk an argument with these military men. An argument he lost.”
“Why would they do that?” Joe asked. “Does temperature affect it?”
“No,” Pitt said. “But the Kinjara Maruhas only one small temperature-controlled hold.”
“Making the material easy to find and off-load,” Kurt said.
“That’s what it sounds like,” Pitt said.
“So the seller is also the pirate,” Captain Haynes summarized.
“And the pirate has the energy weapon,” Kurt added. “Which means the people who sold this YBCO — the same people who boarded the ship — are also the ones building the weapon out of it. So they must be the ones cornering the market.”