The Storm - Cussler Clive (книги без сокращений .TXT) 📗

“I was joking, but she didn’t bat an eye.”

“No, she didn’t,” Joe said. He took a deep breath. “Paul, Gamay and Marchetti are in danger.”

Kurt nodded. “We have to warn them. Whoever she is, she has to be working for Jinn.”

Before Joe could add anything the door burst open, kicked in by a heavy boot. Men carrying Uzis piled through the gap, swarming over them before they could respond. They were knocked to the ground, subdued and disarmed without a fight.

Two men searched them while others held them down.

“Jabberwocky,” Joe grunted.

“Thanks,” Kurt grunted back sarcastically, the weight of three men holding him down, “I didn’t realize.”

When they’d been relieved of all the tools and weapons, they were lifted to their feet and held in place as another figure entered the room: Jinn al-Khalif, with a rifle in his hand.

He strode up to Kurt. “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

“No doubt your spy told you we were coming.”

Jinn smiled like a jackal. “Yes, as a matter of fact, she did.”

With that, he slammed the butt of his rifle into Kurt’s gut, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him back to the floor.

“Her name is Zarrina. She sends her regards.”

CHAPTER 24

BACK ON BOARD THE FLOATING ISLAND OF AQUA-TERRA, Paul and Gamay had spent most of the day with Marchetti, studying the sample of “wild” microbots they’d captured.

A makeshift lab had been set up to replace the flooded forward compartment. Marchetti’s computers, a small radio transmitter, and other equipment now lay scattered about the room.

Without the electron microscope, they couldn’t see the individual microbots, but under a pair of medical-grade optical scopes Paul and Gamay were studying two separate samples that had grouped together in little clusters almost like algae or bacteria.

Marchetti sat at his computer console, tapping away. Leilani sat nearby, fidgeting nervously. After spending the morning calling up the original design specs, they’d begun testing and attempting to signal the bots with the standard commands Marchetti had programmed into the prototypes years before.

“They’re not doing anything,” Paul said for the tenth time.

“Are you sure?” Marchetti said, still transmitting command protocols. “I mean they’re awfully small, maybe you’re missing something.”

“We’re looking at them through the microscopes,” Paul said, “and they’re just sitting there. Like lazy relatives after a Thanksgiving feast.”

Gamay shot him a look. “You’re not talking about my relatives, are you?”

“Just Cousin Willie, for the most part.”

She appeared hurt for an instant and then shrugged. “You’re right, he flops on that couch Thursday afternoon and doesn’t get up until Sunday.”

Marchetti coughed loudly to get their attention. “Assuming the microbots haven’t been taken over by the spirit of Cousin Willie, I can only conclude that Otero has changed the command codes.”

“So how’s this going to help us, then?” Leilani asked.

Before Marchetti could reply Gamay asked a more practical question. “Is there any way we can extract the codes from the bots themselves? Maybe reverse engineer them and read their programming?”

Marchetti shook his head. “Not with the equipment I have here.”

“What about extracting it from Otero himself?” Leilani added. “Or from his friend? We have them down there in those cells. Let’s grab the keys and go talk to them. And by talk, I mean force them to talk.”

Gamay glanced at Paul. They were worried about Leilani. As the days wore on, she seemed only to grow angrier and more frustrated, especially since the incident on the airship.

“I’m pretty firmly in the anti-coercion camp,” Marchetti said.

“He tried to kill you,” Leilani said.

“Good point,” Marchetti noted. “Let’s go beat it out of him. I’ll see if I can find a rubber hose or something.”

“That was a quick turnabout,” Gamay said.

“I’m a flip-flopper,” Marchetti replied, “what can I tell you?”

“Maybe there’s another way?”

“Like what?”

“If the bots in open ocean are being given directives, shouldn’t we be able to intercept those signals?”

“Theoretically,” Marchetti said. “But we’d have to move closer to them.”

“Closer?” Leilani said.

That didn’t sound great to Paul either. “How close would we have to go?”

“Depends on the type of transmission,” Marchetti said. “It could be a low-frequency signal or a shortwave burst. Those would cover a wide area and could be sent from almost anywhere. It could be a high-frequency or line-of-sight transmission from an aircraft, ship or satellite. It’s even possible that the signal is sent to one part of the floating swarm and then they transmit it to one another like a game of telephone. In which case we’d have to be in the right place at the right time even to pick it up.”

“It sounds easier to force the information out of Otero,” Leilani said.

“All things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the best,” Paul said. “What type of transmission would you use?”

Marchetti paused for a moment. “Short-range coded broadcast,” he said eventually. “High-frequency.”

“Then that’s what we’ll look for.”

“It will likely be an extremely short broadcast,” Marchetti warned. “On the order of milliseconds. Perhaps repeating at intervals, but very fleeting. Without knowing what we’re looking for, it might be impossible to pick it out from the background noise of the atmosphere. Static, other radio transmissions, ionization, all those things could be a problem.”

“You’re a wet blanket,” Paul said, feeling as if every solution came with its own roadblock.

“We don’t have to pick it out,” Gamay said, “we have something here that will do it for us.” She waved a hand over the samples. “All we have to do is record the chatter, watch for the little bots to wake up and then dissect the transmission after the fact.”

Marchetti appeared impressed. “That should work,” he said. “That should work perfectly. I’ll direct the island toward the edge of the swarm. Based on the last plotted location, we should reach it in thirty-six hours.”

CHAPTER 25

KURT AND JOE HAD BEEN IN CAPTIVITY FOR SEVERAL HOURS. No food, no water, no light and no company. They hadn’t been beaten or interrogated or threatened, just left in the dark in a small room, chained to the same heavy pipes they’d followed on their journey to the test tank.

Joe’s voice came out of the dark in a raspy tone. “Can’t say much for the accommodations.”

Kurt’s own throat was getting dry. He’d done what he could to keep his mouth shut and breathe only through his nose. “Didn’t we call for turndown service an hour ago?”

“I believe we did,” Joe said. “I wonder if the delay has something to do with the firefight?”

“It didn’t sound like that went into overtime, but they might have a big mess to clean up or others to deal with. More likely, they don’t need to question us if this Zarrina is still reporting.”

“One thing I don’t get,” Joe said. “Why’d they attack her at the dock if she was on their side?”

Kurt thought about that. “Any number of reasons. Maybe she’s under deep cover, and the thugs didn’t know. Maybe it was a diversion. One thing for certain, it made us want to protect her. Took away any sense of suspicion. The best con jobs never come from the con artist, always from the mark. We saw what we wanted to see: a friend in need. We were already in a defensive mode because Kimo and the others were gone. After rescuing her, our natural instinct to circle the wagons took over.”

“It didn’t hurt that she had Leilani’s passport and e-mails. Or that she knew Leilani had been calling NUMA for updates on her brother.”