Shang Yong looked at him shrewdly. ‘The Brotherhood of the Tiger does not heed that call. If you are set on that path, then you have come knocking on the wrong door. I can get my revenge against Jack Howard another way.’
Saumerre paused, tapped the envelope on his knee to drop the sheet back inside, then pushed it back into his overcoat, stopping halfway. ‘So be it. But you are missing an opportunity. I am offering you a flat fee of five hundred million euros, half wired to your account now, half when I have Howard’s head on a platter. And if I discover the prize I am after, then I will cut you in on half of a ransom I will demand of the world, a ransom they will have no choice but to pay and which will make your fee look like small change. But if you are unwilling to do business, then I will leave now.’
‘You will not get past the door.’
Saumerre looked at his watch. ‘If I am not back at my desk in Brussels by 0930 tomorrow morning, an automated sequence will cause a little red light to flash in the Pentagon in Washington. A top-secret protocol will be activated regarding verified and actionable information on known terrorist hideaways. The file that will open under my authority as a European commissioner will show that Shang Yong and his Brotherhood have financed fundamentalist terrorist attacks on Western targets as a way of furthering their own business interests. You see, you may speculate about my activities, but I know about yours. The file will contain GPS co-ordinates for this chamber we are standing in now. By 1000 hours an executive decision will have been taken in the White House, and by 1015 a massive cruise missile strike will have been lauched from the carrier battle group presently in the Sea of Japan, with the secret connivance of those members of the Chinese government who would also like to see your operations destroyed. By 1215 everything here will be obliterated, whether I am still present or not. The countdown to this scenario only stops if I deactivate the sequence. It can be reactivated at any time.’
Shang Yong was silent, his face set in stone. Suddenly he got up, clapped his hands together and walked over to Saumerre, his face beaming. ‘We are cut from the same mould. I think the play-acting is over, yes? Of course we can do business.’ He switched up the light, dimming the fantasy world around them, put a hand on Saumerre’s shoulder and gestured towards the computer monitor behind his desk. ‘You can make the wire transaction here. You have a wish list? It will take me two days to prepare a team. Come with me. I want to know what it is they are searching for in that bunker. And I want to plan the execution of Jack Howard.’
5
South-eastern Black Sea, off Turkey
‘S o what went wrong?’
Scott Macalister strode into the operations room on Seaquest II and shut the door behind him. Jack swivelled his chair from the computer monitor on the central table to face him, and Costas looked up from his tablet computer beside Jack. Macalister was immaculately turned out in his reserve naval officer’s uniform, the four gold bands of a captain on his sleeves and a row of ribbons on his jacket from his years of service in the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard before joining IMU. He stood square in the centre of the room, his white officer’s cap tucked under one arm and the other arm behind his back.
‘What went right,’ Costas replied, ‘is that we collected more data on the volcano than we could ever have got using remote sensing. You’ve seen some of the images already, and the lab guys are processing the rest now. My immediate assessment of the danger level went straight to Lanowski to put in his report for the Turkish authorities as soon as I’d finished it in the recompression chamber about an hour ago.’
Jack leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked up at Macalister pensively. ‘What went wrong was that we took a big gamble, and escaped by the skin of our teeth. If it hadn’t been for the crack in the rock that allowed us to escape, we’d still be down there now. You’d be having to explain our disappearance and what I was doing here. My presence would be seen by our colleagues on the international monitoring committee as a direct contravention of the agreement not to dive on the site for archaeological purposes. I know you’ve done everything you can to be shipshape for the monitoring team and they’re due here any time. I’m sorry to have put you through this.’
Macalister stood still for a moment, then relaxed his arms and tugged his beard. ‘The important thing is that Costas is right. The data on the lava flow are exceptional. The Turkish geologists already know we’ve bored a tunnel and sent down a submersible with sensing equipment. I can tell them we tried to use an ROV, and that would explain Costas’ presence. Everyone knows that IMU does not send a state-of-the-art ROV anywhere in the world without Costas Kazantzakis attached to it by an umbilical cord. That’ll also explain the departure of the Lynx this evening, carrying Costas back to the underwater excavation at Troy where Jack Howard urgently needs his help to raise the Shield of Agamemnon.’ He turned to Costas. ‘I take it the ROV is still down there in the volcano?’
Costas looked crestfallen. ‘Afraid so.’
‘As for Dr Howard, who officially isn’t here, he needs to be spirited away on the helicopter before then. We need the helipad to be clear by mid-afternoon for the arrival of the inspection team, and we need all available space to accommodate them.’ He eyed Jack sternly. ‘You okay with Mustafa Alkozen taking your cabin?’
Jack nodded. ‘We’ve done it before. He and I rotated bunk space for a month in a submarine during a joint exercise in the Mediterranean, when he was the boat’s weapons officer and I was a seconded diver from the Royal Navy. And he is IMU’s Turkish representative, so he should have the best bunk.’
‘Okay.’ Macalister pulled on his cap, turned to go and then tapped his watch. ‘Fifteen hundred hours on the helipad, right?’
Jack nodded. ‘Roger that.’
Macalister stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and gave a wry smile. ‘A wing and a prayer, Jack.’
Jack took a deep breath, then exhaled forcefully. ‘A wing and a prayer.’
‘I saw some of the images. Those rock carvings. Pretty fantastic stuff. You can show me the rest when this is over.’ Macalister walked through the doorway and was gone, leaving them listening to the hum of the fluorescent lights and the whir of the computer fans.
‘Phew,’ Costas said.
Jack swivelled his chair back to the monitor. ‘That reminded me of my first term in the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, after Cambridge,’ he said. ‘I was always getting into trouble for stepping out of line. For taking too much initiative, I told them. My Howard seafaring ancestors were always mavericks. We’re not really designed to take orders.’
‘I’ve noticed,’ Costas said.
‘It was lucky the special forces guy at the college spotted me, otherwise I’d have been politely told to pack my bags.’
‘Macalister has got a point,’ Costas said.
Jack took another deep breath, and nodded. ‘Of course he has a point. And he’s the best damn captain we’ve ever had. I intend never to put him in that position again.’
‘You know what they say, Jack. Once you’ve taken that extra step beyond the boundary, you’ll only want to do it again.’
‘Then it’d be time for me to stand down. I can’t let my personal ambitions impede IMU’s other projects, not least ones with a major scientific and humanitarian outcome like this one. If Macalister hadn’t told us just now that our data on the volcano had made it worthwhile, I’d seriously be considering vacating my cabin for good.’
‘Don’t tell Rebecca that.’ Costas grinned. ‘She’s waiting on the sidelines ready to jump in.’
‘That’s the other factor. Every time I have a near-death experience underwater, I think of Rebecca. She’s already lost her mother.’
‘But you wouldn’t be the same person for her if you didn’t take the risks. It’s all part of the tapestry you’ve woven for yourself, Jack. What was it Othello said? “There’s magic in the web of it.”’
Jack gave a wry smile. ‘Well then I just need to keep that web from unravelling. We need to stay on the edge, not stray over it. Copy that?’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘My buddy.’ He slapped Costas on the shoulder. ‘And by the way, thanks for saving my life.’
