“Lying, lying.” Jerry gritted his teeth, partly because he was afraid Captain Zhang was telling the truth. He needed to stop Richard Curtis, stop him now, stop him for good.
“Captain Zhang. I can’t believe your employer would create such a dangerous situation, leaving himself open to serious consequences if anyone should be harmed. Our launch will be ready to leave in two minutes. Again. I ask you—”
“This is Richard Curtis.”
Jerry’s shoulders hunched at the sound of the voice, the sound of the name. So arrogant, so sure of his power, so sure he’s unassailable. We’ll see.
And the hated voice went on:
“This is my ship and that is my island, and you are trespassing. I have explosives over there on my island that will kill anybody who gets too close to it. You have been warned, repeatedly, and if any harm happens to the sentimental idiots who are your passengers it is on their—”
Jerry couldn’t stand it anymore, and grabbed the mike away from Captain Cousseran. When he spoke, he knew his voice trembled with passion, but he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care:
“And if harm happens to the reef? Irreparable harm to the coral?”
“Who is that?”
“This is Jerry Diedrich, leader of the sentimental idiots. I will personally be in that—”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw it; an orange-suited figure rolled backwards over the rail and down into the sea.
He was so startled the words faltered in his mouth.
Who was that? He held the mike, but he couldn’t speak.
Kim! It had to be, he knew it, that goddam eager stupid Kim. What was she doing? Did she think he wanted her to kill herself?
Hand trembling, Jerry held the mike against his lips, so that his chattering teeth hit the metaclass="underline"
“You saw that. You have to stop it now. You have no choice.”
5
“Who is that?”
Curtis stared through his binoculars, held in his left hand with the mike in his right, but the diver had disappeared the instant he hit the water. Into the mike, with impatient sincerity, Curtis said, “Diedrich, don’t be a fool. Get that man back.”
The voice over the radio sounded scared, as well it should: “I can’t. I didn’t— It wasn’t my order.”
Was the diver moving toward the island? Or would he stay by the ship, waiting to be told what to do next? Curtis said, “If that idiot gets too close to the island, he’s dead. I’m telling you, Diedrich, and it’s true. We’re not talking one explosion here, we’re talking half a dozen in a rolling pattern, each with its own shock wave. If that man’s going toward the island, you’ve killed one of your own people. And I will pursue you in the Australian courts.”
“Then stop it!”
“I can’t, you bloody fool! You’ve been told and told. It’s too late.”
The silence from Diedrich sounded shocked, but there was nothing to be done about it, not now. Handing the mike to Captain Zhang, Curtis said, “There’s nothing more to say to them.” Turning away, carrying the binoculars, he stepped out onto the wing, the small open area to the right of the bridge. He leaned on the rail there and, through the glasses, he looked toward Kanowit, empty and silent.
Diedrich. It was him again, Jerry Diedrich. The other environmental groups, and even other arms of Planetwatch, spent most of their time on the government polluters, the bomb-testers and radioactive-waste dumpers. Only Diedrich was always there, every single time, when the Curtis Construction Company was doing anything that impinged even slightly on environmental concerns.
Curtis Construction was large, not as large as it used to be, but still big enough to be a player in most of the major construction work around the globe, the dams, the widening of rivers, deepening of ports, construction of harbors. And every time, sooner or later, Diedrich would appear, a plague, a pest.
Would he show up later, in Hong Kong, when it really mattered? Was there no way to stop him?
Holding the binoculars, Curtis scanned the water between the island and the environmentalists’ ship, but could see nothing. The diver would stay underwater, to move faster, but couldn’t be very deep, not amidst all that coral. If he was out there now, near the island, and if the shock waves didn’t kill him, then being battered repeatedly against razor-edge outcroppings of coral surely would.
He hadn’t meant anyone to die, not this time. Later, when the real thing happened, a whole lot of people would die, but they would deserve it. These environmentalists were merely well-meaning ignoramuses, minor irritations; all except Diedrich. There was no need, as the French had once done, to kill them.
But if the diver did die, could that be used to hamper Diedrich, tie him up, keep him away when it was important for Curtis to be unobserved? There were recordings of the ship-to-ship conversation, there would be proof of the repeated warnings, and of Diedrich’s refusal to heed them. When he got back to Sydney, Curtis would turn it all over to the lawyers, let them harry Diedrich for a while, see how he enjoyed it,
Curtis scanned the ocean through the binoculars, seeing nothing, only the wavelets, the constant shifting movement of the sea. And then the ocean trembled, it flattened into hobnails, and the binoculars shuddered, punching painfully against Curtis’s face.
6
At first the sea seemed to shrink, to turn a darker gray, as though it had grown suddenly cold, with goosebumps. There was a silence then, a pregnant silence, like the cottony absence of sound just before a thunderstorm. The island seemed to rise slightly from the sea, the concrete collar of its retaining wall standing out crisp and clear, every flaw and hollow in the length of it as vivid as if done in an etching.
Then a ripple appeared, faint at first, and rolled outward from the island, all around, just beneath the surface, like a representation of radio waves. With the ripple came a muttering, a grumbling, as though boulders sheathed in wool were being rolled together in some deep cave. And the ripple came outward, outward, not slackening, not losing power, with more ripples emerging behind it.
Planetwatch III lay abeam the island, portside facing it, preparatory to lowering its launch. That first ripple, now visible as a strong surge just below the waves, hit the ship all along its port side and rocked it like a cradle. Crashing sounds came from everywhere aboard as anything on the ship that wasn’t tied down was flung away. Half the ship’s passengers and crew lost their feet, falling awkwardly, bruising elbows and knees and heads.
Planetwatch III righted itself groggily, a fighter who’s been hurt but not yet downed, and Captain Cousseran shouted in French to the steersman. And the next ripple came steadily on, rolling closer.
Jerry Diedrich had been knocked painfully sideways against the metal wall of the bridge, narrowly missing the sidemost large window pane. Now, his left arm streaked with pain, his chest aching, he cried, “Captain! What are you doing?”
“Moving,” the captain told him, short and unapologetic. He was master of his bridge, and of his ship. “We’re too close,” he said, and Planetwatch III started the slow process of its turn, away from the island.