docks and some cabins. More recently, the Sea Ranger had installed generators, lights, and some concrete extensions for the docks.
Taking pride of place in the center of it all, tied up to one of the docks with its conning tower soaring high, was a Kilo-class submarine.
Jack had been here before, so he wasn’t surprised by the rather impressive sight.
The twins, however, were gobsmacked.
“It’s like the Batcave…” Lachlan said.
“No, better…” Julius agreed.
A winding riverlike passage led out to the ocean, and halfway along it, a movable breakwater protected the cave from the rough seas outside. Exit from the cave could only be achieved at high tide—at low tide, jagged rocks would be exposed along the winding passage.
J. J. Wickham stood waiting on the dock at the base of the stairs: former US Navy XO, brother-in-law of Jack West Jr., the Sea Ranger.
He and Jack embraced. They hadn’t seen each other since that New Year’s Eve party in Dubai.
“Jack,” Wickham said, “what the hell’s going on? These last few days, half the African continent has gone completely nuts. The Saudis put up half a billion dollars for any country that found two people who sounded a lot like my niece and your mentor.”
“The Saudis…?” Jack said aloud.
Up until now, he’d thought the Saudis had been backing him —by sending Vulture to be a part of his team.
Vulture,he thought.You scheming little…
It explained the blocked air corridors in the south of the continent—only the Saudis could afford to pay off whole African countries.
“The Saudis are in league with my father…” he said aloud.
It made sense. The Caldwell Group and the Saudis had long-standing links based on oil. And if the Second Reward—“heat”—was what Wizard suspected it was, an unending energy source, perhaps even perpetual motion, then the Saudis had a huge interest in acquiring it. All this time, he hadn’t just been battling against his father, he’d been fighting a triple threat: the Caldwell Group, Saudi Arabia, and China, all allied together.
He turned to Wickham. “It’s a complicated situation that just got a whole lot more complicated. Right now, I need to get to Cape Town inside of four days, unseen, and I can’t go by air. I can tell you more along the way.”
“Your father is involved?”
“Yeah.”
“Say no more,” Wickham said, already moving toward his submarine. “Fathers-in-law can be tough, but that man was the biggestasshole of a father-in-law a guy ever had.”
Jack walked after Wickham. “Our enemies’ll be on the lookout for subs. You got any kind of cover?”
Wickham kept walking. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
OFF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
DECEMBER 16, 2007, 1755 HOURS
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE THE SECOND DEADLINE
THREE DAYS LATER,Jack and the twins found themselves rounding Cape Agulhas, approaching the point where the Indian Ocean met the Atlantic Ocean.
Cape Town lay to the northwest, over a mountainous peninsula of wilderness, facing out over the Atlantic.
They’d made excellent time from Zanzibar, traveling halfway down the east coast of Africa on the surface of the ocean in Wickham’s diesel-electric Kilo-class submarine, rechristened by him the Indian Raider.
The reason they could travel in this way was because of the shell Wickham had recently created to cover his 242-foot-long Russian submarine.
The upper half of an ageing South African fishing trawler—gutted of its engine and heavy machinery—had been mounted on top of the submarine. With the advent of wake-spotting satellites, Wickham had recently decided that he needed an extra level of visual protection, and had hit upon the idea of a “shell” to mount on his sub.
Then a few months back, when a crew of drunken South African fishermen, in port on a break from a six- week cruise, had beaten one of the sweeter prostitutes in town, the Sea Ranger and his men had decided to teach them some manners.
The South African fishermen were dealt with and while they lay unconscious in a back alley, Wickham stole their boat and brought it back to his cave.
There it was stripped and gutted and hoisted on chains, ready for a mission just like this.
As the sub cruised toward Cape Town, Jack told Wickham about his epic quest so far—of negotiating a booby-trapped cavern in China; decoding Stonehenge; finding the incredible First Vertex near Abu Simbel; and then engaging in a bus-vs-747 car chase in the desert.
He also told him about the Six Ramesean Stones, the Six Pillars, and the Six Vertices of the Machine, and how all six Pillars had to be set in place before the arrival of the Dark Star.
At the same time, the twins were getting along famously with Wickham’s crew of Tanzanian sailors, showing them some computer tricks, including guiding them to the cow level on Diablo II, an act which made the sailors gasp in wonder and which finally earned the twins their nicknames:the Cowboys.
