Sacred Stone

The man walked to the door and exited the penthouse.

“You,” he said to the fired man’s second in command, “where’s the thief that broke in here?”

“Our men saw him land on the ground up the street from Dreamworld,” the man said. “He was picked up by two people in an open-topped Jeep. Two of my men were giving chase when their vehicle suffered a massive electrical failure. They lost them at that point.”

“I want every person we have scouring this city to find that Jeep,” Hickman said. “I want to know who has the balls to break into my apartment on top of my hotel.”

“We’ll get on it right away, sir,” the newly appointed head of security said quickly.

“You damn well better,” Hickman said, as he walked up the hallway to his office.

The security men filed out of the penthouse. And this time they remembered to lock the door. Hickman dialed a number on the phone and spoke.

IN HIS OFFICE on board the Oregon, Michael Halpert was cataloging the contents from Truitt’s transmission. The files were a jumbled mess of corporate documents, bank and brokerage records, and property holdings. Either there were no personal files or they had not been transmitted before the link was disabled.

Halpert set the computer to search for keywords then stared at the photographs Truitt had faxed from the Gulfstream. Rolling his chair over to another computer, he fed the pictures into a scanner, then linked onto the U.S. State Department computer and began searching passport photos. The database was huge and the search might take days. Leaving the computers to work, he left the office and walked up the hall to the dining room. Today’s special was beef Stroganoff—Halpert’s favorite.

“SIR,” THE VOICE said loudly over the phone, “we are being hailed by a United States Navy guided-missile destroyer.”

“What do you mean?” Hickman said.

“We’ve been ordered to heave to or be sunk,” the captain of the Free Enterprise said.

Hickman’s plan was unraveling faster and faster.

“Can’t you outrun them?” he asked.

“No way.”

“Then engage them,” Hickman ordered.

“Sir,” the captain said loudly, “that would be suicide.”

Hickman thought for a second before answering.

“Then delay the surrender for as long as possible,” he said at last.

“Yes, sir,” the captain said.

Hickman disconnected and sat back. The team on the Free Enterprise had been given a false story from the start. To get the team to cooperate, he’d told them that his plan was to use the meteorite, combined with a nuclear device, for an attack on Syria. Then he told them he was going to blame the attack on Israel and create a full-scale war in the Middle East. By the time it was all over, he’d said, the United States would control the region and terrorism would be snuffed out.

His true plan was much more personal. He was going to avenge the death of the only person he had ever really loved. And God help those that stood in his way.

Reaching for the phone again, he dialed his hangar.

“Get my plane ready for a trip to London.”

“AHOY,” MEADOWS SAID to the man on the deck of the catamaran.

“Ahoy,” the man answered.

The man was tall, a shade over six foot four inches in height, and slim. His face was framed by a trimmed goatee and a tangled mess of graying eyebrows, and his eyes were clear and twinkled as if possessing a secret no one else knew. The man, who appeared the wrong side of sixty years of age, still had his hands inside the torpedo- shaped object.

“Permission to come aboard?”

“Are you the sonar guy?” the man said, grinning.

“No,” Meadows said.

“Come on aboard anyway,” the man said with a trace of disappointment.

Meadows climbed onto the deck and approached the man. He looked vaguely familiar. Then Meadows placed the face. “Hey,” Meadows said, “you’re that author, that—”

“Retired author,” the man said, smiling, “and yes, I’m him. Forget about that for a moment—how are you with electronics?”

“My oven is still on daylight savings time,” Meadows admitted.

“Damn,” the author said, “I blew the motherboard in this sonar and I need to get it fixed before the weather clears and we can go out again. The repairman was supposed to be here an hour ago. He must be lost or something.”

“How long have you guys been docked here?” Meadows asked.

“Four days now,” the author said. “Another couple more and I’ll need to spring for new livers for my team— they’ve been sampling the local flavor. That is, except for one guy—he swore it off years ago and now he’s hooked on coffee and pastries. The question is, where do I find these guys? These expeditions are like a floating insane asylum.”

“Oh, yeah,” Meadows said, “you like to do underwater archaeology.”