The Storm

death. Probably false, but the thing is he became so isolated no one knew for sure. You’re in the same boat. And if you call it an island, I’ll slap you.”

“Boat,” he agreed. “And assuming we survive, I promise to be far more public from here on out.”

That’s great, Paul thought, but it wasn’t going to help them now. “What do you think they’ve done with the rest of the crew?”

“A couple of them seemed to be on Zarrina’s side,” Gamay said.

“The others are probably locked up like we are,” Marchetti added. “There are five cells down here.”

“Keeping us spread out,” Paul said, “prevents us from plotting against them.”

“What about your people?” Marchetti asked. “The ones back in Washington. You’re expected to report and check in. Surely you’ll be missed.”

Paul exchanged a knowing glance with his wife, after years together their minds melding in some way. “Not quickly enough.”

“What do you mean?”

Paul explained. “We send them data every twenty-four hours. But it won’t be too hard for Zarrina and Otero to fake it. She knows what we’ve been sending and what we’re after. I imagine it’ll be quite some time before anyone becomes suspicious.”

“Maybe Dirk will call us,” Gamay said hopefully. “They can’t fake a video linkup.”

“No,” Paul said. “But they can threaten all kinds of dire consequences should we try to broadcast the truth. Which we shall of course attempt to do regardless of their threats.”

Gamay looked at him. “How do we tell Dirk, or anyone else who calls in, that we’re in trouble without our captors knowing about it?”

“We’re hostages,” Paul said. “Dirk has been in this situation a few times. Maybe we slip in the name of one of those places or one of the thugs who held him. That ought to get his wheels turning.”

“That’s brilliant, Mr. Trout,” Marchetti said. “A secret code.”

“The Lady Flamborough,” Gamay said.

“The what?”

“The Lady Flamborough,” she repeated. “It was a cruise ship. Dirk’s father, the Senator, was held hostage on it in Antarctica. Dirk had to rescue him. If any of us get a chance to talk to Dirk, we play our part and keep up appearances for Zarrina and her thugs. We say what they want us to say. At some point Dirk will fire off a general question about our well-being or what the weather’s like or something along those lines. We just have to smile nonchalantly and say things are going great, like taking a cruise on the Lady Flamborough.”

“That’s a bit vague,” Marchetti said. “What if he doesn’t get it?”

“You don’t know Dirk Pitt,” Paul insisted. “He’ll get it.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Marchetti said excitedly. “So we have a plan, assuming they cooperate and ask you to speak with him. What if they don’t?”

Marchetti looked Paul’s way. All Paul could offer in return was a blank stare. He flicked his eyes toward Gamay and got nothing from her either. It seemed none of them had a plan B yet.

With frowns settling deeper on their faces, Gamay reached over and plugged the chair back in. The massage began anew.

Marchetti looked surprised.

Gamay threw up her hands. “Maybe it’ll help you think.”

CHAPTER 35

KURT AUSTIN HAD SPENT SEVERAL MINUTES RUMMAGING around in the cargo bay of the plane. He’d bypassed guns and ammunition and the rockets he’d spotted earlier, much to Leilani Tanner’s bewilderment.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“A wise general forages from his enemy,” Kurt said.

“Again,” she said. “I really have trouble following you.”

“Sun Tzu,” Kurt explained. “The Art of War.”

“Oh,” she said. “Him, I’ve heard of.”

He pulled a set of zip ties from one crate, the kind used to bind the hands of prisoners.

Leilani stared at the thick plastic loops. “Seen those before.”

“Our friends are planning on taking more hostages,” he said, wondering once again where they were headed.

He slid a handful of the ties into his pocket and dug into the next crates.

“So what else are we looking for?”

“There are probably two or three guys on the flight deck. Two pilots and an engineer, if they have one. Maybe even a fourth in the bunk up top.”

“But we can’t shoot them,” she said. “So how do we fight them?”

“We don’t,” he said.

She pointed. “See, that’s what I mean, the confusion thing. I was with you and then … poof.”

Kurt couldn’t help but smile. He held up a single finger, the way he remembered the master doing it on old reruns of the show Kung Fu.

“To fight and conquer is not excellence,” he said. “But breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting is supreme.”

“Sun Tzu again?”

He nodded.

“Can you translate for me?”

“Make them too afraid to move and they won’t do anything stupid,” he said. “But to do that, we need something more deadly than a knife and more lethal than a gun, something so scary the pilots will do what we tell them to do and not even think about resisting.”

He pulled the lid off another crate and smiled. A look of fear came across Leilani’s face.

“I don’t know about this,” she said.

“Trust me,” he said, “this is exactly what we’re looking for.”

They heard the flaps extending, and the turbulent air began to buffet the plane.

“We’re coming in for a landing,” Leilani said.

Kurt looked out the window. The horizon was beginning to glow, the sky changing hue. He saw no sign of land. “Depends on your definition of landing.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a seaplane,” he said, “more accurately called a flying boat. It lands on the water.”

Kurt was torn. One part of him was anxious to make his move before they got too close to whatever rendezvous they were heading for, the rest of him was curious as to where they were headed.

He remembered Jinn saying he needed to move to a more secure location. It would be grand if Kurt could report back and give that location to the powers that be.

But then he thought about the water tanks in the belly of the plane and the load of microbots he suspected they were carrying. He decided it would be better to move sooner rather than later.

He went to the seating area, pulled out his knife and began working on the item he’d liberated from the crate.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Leilani said, looking away.

When he was finished, he slid the knife back into his boot and covered it with the leg of his pants. Next he took one of the 9mm Lugers and popped the clip out. He quickly unloaded all the shells, including the one in the chamber, and then jammed the clip back in.

He handed it to Leilani with the safety off.

“I don’t like guns,” she said.

“Don’t think of it as a gun.”