Chapter Forty-Five
General Painter picked up the phone.
He had been expecting the call. It was going to go badly, he knew that now, but sometimes it was better to deal with the most painful duties first.
This one came from a secure line, direct from the center of the maze within the 8th Continent.
“General Painter, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking,” he said, using his full title.
“Painter,” the man on the other side of the line replied, ignoring it. “We had a deal.”
“With my predecessor, not me.”
“All the same, a deal’s a deal, and you must come through with it.”
General Painter swallowed hard. “It was nearly seventy years ago. Hell, it was before I was born. You can’t seriously believe I’m going to go through with it now.”
“Seventy years isn’t that long really… just a blink of an eye when you live as long as we do.”
“Yeah, lucky you. I’m still not going through with it.”
“But you have to. The natives have revolted against me in the 8th Continent. You need to fulfill your part of the bargain. I’m a damned prisoner in my own home.”
“That’s not my problem. It goes to show you can’t suppress your people to remain subservient forever.”
“What do you expect me to do? If I stay here, they will kill me?”
“From what I hear, the Master Builders are a dying race. Maybe it’s time for you to join the rest of your people.”
“After all these years, are you really going to turn your back on the covenant that John F. Kennedy signed?”
“Yeah. Why not? An alliance is only useful when both parties have something to gain — and right now, you’re shit out of luck.”
The man laughed. “Do you think we’ve survived in the shadows for thousands of years out of luck? You think it ends like this?”
“I don’t see how you have any real choice. Your time is over. What other card do you have left to play?”
“I could always give it to the Russians?”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“If we offered you a deal in the sixties, why wouldn’t we offer one to the Russians?”
Chapter Forty-Six
The gentle swell grew overnight, and the crew of the Tahila awoke to large rolling waves. The wind picked up. The Tahila rode the swell with ease, but even she would struggle to maintain her position when the full brunt of a category five cyclone reached them.
Elise continued to search through the names of all the faces.
They read like a horror story. Something that Stephen King would write, some sort of bad luck tale, in which an entire group of graduates died, one after the other in simultaneous, seemingly unrelated events, tied together by an invisible string of bad luck within a year a graduating. Everyone of them had been the best in their field. Some had been engineers, doctors, scientists, biologists, all had been extraordinary in their own right.
She had searched every one of the names down.
There were thirty in total. All men. All now dead.
Some had died from car accidents. It was common in the sixties. No seatbelts, and everyone drove intoxicated. One drowned. Three had hired a small plane to fly to Texas together for a conference on engineering. On the way, the plane got into trouble and crashed, leaving no survivors. Another was struck by lightning.
The list went on.
It would have been the basis of a true horror story.
If she believed any of it.
The wives disappeared, too. Every one of them. They went to visit their relatives, they traveled overseas, and one way or another, they all disappeared.
Elise took the first face and ran it through a database of newspapers, social media, politicians, scientists, and athletes using facial recognition software.
It came up with nothing.
She then inserted the entire set of faces into the program and pressed run.
The clock on her program indicated that it would take two hours to complete the search.
She stood up and stretched her legs.
Overhead, she heard the sound of a military helicopter hovering. It took off again a few minutes later, less three passengers.
Tom, Genevieve, and a young boy came down from the helipad.
Elise said, “Welcome back. How was your vacation?”
“Good,” Tom said, “But it turns out the Russians look like they are illegally burying nuclear waste beneath the waters of the Andaman Sea of the coast of Myanmar.”
“This is Katale by the way. He’s going to show us exactly where it’s being buried. He’s going to be staying with us for a while, until we can investigate what’s happening and bring it all out in the open.”
Elise said, “Pleased to meet you, Katale.”
“Thank you,” Katale replied, his eyes searching the command center of the Tahila, as though it was some sort of gift from the Sea Gods.
Genevieve said, “Come with me Katale, I’ll show you around.”
As they left, Tom asked, “Any news from the submersible?”
Elise shook her head. “Not since its umbilical line was severed twelve hours ago.”
Matthew stepped into the room. “Welcome back, Tom. Just in time, we’re going to need to head off soon if we’re to outrun this cyclone.”
Tom’s face hardened. “We’re not waiting for Sam?”
“No,” Matthew said. “It will be too risky. Sam knows about the cyclone. He’ll wait down the bottom until this thing passes.”
“What about the Yantar?” Tom asked. “Any news about what it’s still doing here?”
“Spying I guess,” Elise said. “What other use does a Russian spy vessel serve? You saw that sphere. It looks almost like a spacecraft. No wonder the Russians are interested.”
Tom said, “Sure, but that doesn’t answer the question, how the Russians knew about it.”
“Knew about it?” Elise asked. “What are you talking about? The Yantar was probably simply here to track the Tahila, nothing more.”
“I don’t think so. It’s too unlikely.” Tom looked over at the Russian vessel on the horizon. “There are too many coincidences between this sphere and the nuclear waste dump beneath the Andaman Sea. It’s here for a reason.”
“Not anymore, it isn’t,” Matthew said, showing the radar screen. “The storm’s finally gotten to be too much for the Yantar. She’s pulling away. And we should too.”
“All right,” Tom said. “At least that’s something. I feel better knowing that the Russian vessel can’t do anything while this cyclone rages on.”
“That might not be true,” Elise said. “The Yantar just launched its deep-sea submersible.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sam watched the seafloor mining machine approach.
Its massive dredge cutter head began to spin, feeding everything inside, in a guttural crushing sound. He suddenly understood what it felt like to be a small bug about to have its limbs gnawed off by a large praying mantis.
Nobody said a word.
There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. They were trapped and a machine designed to withstand the crushing pressure of 36,000 feet of water, and crush stones the size of cars, was slowly approaching them.
Sam held his breath.
The machine came to a stop directly in front of them. The driver of the vehicle could be seen working controls high up inside the safety of a domed compartment. He didn’t look at them, and if he did, he didn’t show any sign of recognition, while he continued to adjust the controls.