"Please study the area above the northern coast of the island and below the Florida Keys."
The President took a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and peered at the image in the photo.
"Looks like the Goodyear blimp."
"No, it's the Prosperteer, an old airship belonging to Raymond LeBaron."
"I thought he was lost over the Caribbean two weeks ago."
"Ten days to be exact, along with the blimp and two crewmen."
"Then this photo was taken before he disappeared."
"No, the film came off the aircraft only eight hours ago."
"Then LeBaron must be alive."
"I'd like to think so, but all attempts to raise the Prosperteer by radio have gone unanswered."
"What's LeBaron's connection with the Jersey Colony?"
"He was a member of the ìnner core.' "
The President leaned close. "And you, Joe, are you one of the original nine men who conceived the project?"
Joe didn't answer. He didn't have to. The President, staring at him, knew without a doubt.
Satisfied, he sat back and relaxed. "Okay, so what's your problem?"
"In ten days the Soviets will take their newest heavy-lift launch vehicle out of the barn and send it into space with a manned lunar lander that's six times the size and weight of the module used by our astronauts during the Apollo program. You know the details from CIA intelligence reports."
"I've been briefed on their lunar mission," the President agreed.
"And you're also aware that over the past two years they've sent three unmanned probes in orbit around the moon to survey and photograph landing sites. The third and last crashed onto the moon's surface. The second had an engine malfunction and its fuel exploded. The first probe, however, performed successfully, at least in the beginning. It circled the moon twelve times. Then something went wrong. After returning to earth orbit prior to reentry it suddenly refused all commands from the ground.
For the next eighteen months, Soviet space controllers worked at bringing the craft down intact. Whether or not they were able to retrieve its visual data, we have no way of knowing. Finally, they managed to fire the retro-rockets. But instead of Siberia, their lunar probe, Selenos 4, landed in the Caribbean Sea."
"What has this to do with LeBaron?"
"He went searching for the Soviet moon probe."
A doubtful look crossed the President's face. "According to CIA reports, the Russians retrieved the craft in deep water off Cuba."
"A smokescreen. They even put on a good show of raising the craft. But in reality, they were never able to find it."
"And your people think they know where it lies?"
"We have a site pinpointed, yes."
"Why would you want to beat the Russians out of a few pictures of the moon? There are thousands of photos available to anybody who wants to study them."
"Those were all taken before Jersey Colony was established. The new Russian survey will no doubt reveal the location."
"What harm could it do?"
"I believe that if the Kremlin discovers the truth, the USSR's first mission to the moon will be to attack, capture our colony, and use it for their own purposes."
"I don't buy that. The Kremlin would be laying their entire space program open for retaliation by our side."
"You forget, Mr. President, our lunar project is blanketed in secrecy. No one can charge the Russians with stealing something that isn't supposed to exist."
"You're stabbing in the dark," the President said sharply.
Joe's eyes hardened. "No matter. Our astronauts were the first to step on the lunar surface. We were the first to colonize it. The moon belongs to the United States and we shall fight any intrusion."
"This isn't the fourteenth century," said the President, shocked. "We can't take up arms and keep the Soviets or anyone else off the moon. Besides, the United Nations ruled that no country had jurisdiction over the moon and planets."
"Would the Kremlin heed U.N. policy if they were in our shoes? I think not." Joe twisted in the seat and extracted a putter from the bag. "The eighteenth green. Your final play, Mr. President."
Dazedly, the President lined up the lay of the green and sank a twenty-foot putt. "I could stop you," he said coldly.
"How? NASA has no ready hardware to land a platoon of Marines on the lunar surface. Thanks to the shortsightedness of you and your predecessors, their efforts are wrapped up in the orbiting space station."
"I can't stand by and allow you to start a war in space that might spill over on earth."
"Your hands are tied."
"You could be wrong about the Russians."
"Let us hope so," said Joe. "But I suspect they may have already killed Raymond LeBaron."
"And this is why you've taken me into your confidence?"
"If the worst happens, at least you have been alerted to the facts and can prepare your strategy for the bedlam to follow."
"Suppose I have my bodyguards arrest you as a crackpot assassin, and then blow the lid off Jersey Colony?"
"Arrest me and Reggie Salazar dies. Expose the project and all the behind-the-scenes double-dealing, the backstabbing, the fraud and the lies, and, yes, the deaths that took place to accomplish what has been achieved, will be laid on your political doorstep, beginning when you were sworn into the Senate.
You'll get bounced out of the White House under a bigger cloud than Nixon, providing, of course, you live that long."
"You're threatening me with blackmail?" So far the President had kept his anger under control but now he was seething with fury. "Salazar's life would be a small price to pay to preserve the integrity of the presidency."
"Two weeks, then you can announce the existence of the Jersey Colony to the world. With trumpets sounding and drums beating you can play the big political hero. Two weeks, and you can demonstrate proof of this century's greatest scientific achievement."
"After all this time, why then?"
"Because that's when we've scheduled the original crew to leave Jersey Colony and return to earth with the accumulation of two decades of space research-- reports on meteorological and lunar probes, the scientific results on thousands of biological, chemical, and atmospheric experiments, uncountable photographs and miles of video records of the first human establishment of a planetary civilization. The first phase of the project is completed. The dream of the ìnner core' is finished. Jersey Colony now belongs to the American people."
The President toyed with his putter thoughtfully. Then he asked, "Who are you?"
"Look to your memory. We knew each other many years ago."
"How am I to contact you?"
"I'll arrange another meeting when I feel it's required." Joe lifted the clubs from the cart's rack and began walking along a narrow path toward the clubhouse. Then he stopped and came back.
"By the way, I lied. That's not a bomb, but a present from the ìnner core'-- a new box of golf balls."
The President gazed at him in frustration. "Burn in hell, Joe."
"Oh, and one more thing. . . congratulations."
"Congratulations?"
Joe handed him the scorecard. "I kept track of your play. You hit a seventy-nine."
<<4>>
The sleek hull of the sailboard skimmed the choppy water with the graceful elegance of an arrow shot through mist. Its slick and delicately curved shape was as visually pleasing to the eye as it was efficient in achieving great speed over the waves. Perhaps the simplest of all sailing systems, the board was built with a polyethylene shell molded over an inner core of rigid plastic foam to give it lightness and flexibility. A small skeg or fin protruded from below the stern for lateral control, while a daggerboard hung down near the middle to prevent the board from being swept sideways by the wind.
A triangular sail, dyed purple with a broad turquoise stripe, clung to an aluminum mast that was mounted onto the board by a universal joint. An oval tubular wishbone or boom circled the mast an
d sail, and was tightly gripped by long, slender hands that were coarse skinned and callused.
Dirk Pitt was tired, more tired than his dulled mind could accept. The muscles of his arms and legs felt as though they were sheathed in lead and the ache in his back and shoulders grew more intense with each maneuver of the sailboard. For at least the third time in the last hour he fought off a growing urge to head for the nearest beach and stretch out in the sand.
Through the clear window of the sail he studied the orange buoy marking the final windward leg of the thirty-mile boardsailing marathon race around Biscayne Bay to the Cape Florida lighthouse on Key Biscayne. Carefully, he chose his position to arc around the buoy. Deciding on a jibe, the most graceful maneuver in windsurfing, he threaded his way through the heavy traffic, weighted clown the stern of his board, and aimed the bow on the new course. Then, gripping the mast with one hand, he swung the rigging to windward, shifted his feet, and released the boom with his other hand. Next he pulled the fluttering sail against the wind and caught the boom at the precise moment. Propelled by a fresh twenty-knot breeze from the north, the sailboard sped through the choppy sea and soon gained a speed of nearly thirty miles an hour.
Pitt was mildly surprised to see that out of a field of forty-one racers, most of them at least fifteen years younger, he was in third place, only twenty yards behind the leaders.
The multicolored sails from the fleet of windsurfers flashed across the blue-green water like a prism gone mad. The finish at the lighthouse was in sight now. Pitt closely watched the boardsailer ahead of him, waiting for the right moment to attack. But before he attempted to pass, his opponent miscalculated a wave and fell. Now Pitt was second, with only half a mile to go.
Then, ominously, a dark shadow in a cloudless sky passed overhead and he heard the exhaust of propeller-driven aircraft engines above and slightly to his left. He stared upward and his eyes widened in disbelief.
No more than a hundred yards away, shielding the sun like an eclipse, a blimp was descending from the sky, her great bow set on a collision course with the sailboard fleet. She appeared to be drifting out of control. Her two engines were barely turning over at idle speed, but she was swept through the air by the strong breeze. The sailboarders watched helplessly as the giant intruder crossed their path.
The gondola struck the crest of a wave and the blimp bounced back into the air, leveling off five feet above the water in front of the lead boardsailer. Unable to turn in time, the young boy, no more than seventeen, dove from his board an instant before his mast and sail were minced to shreds under the blimp's starboard propeller.
Pitt nimbly carved a sharp tack and swung on a parallel course with the rampaging airship. From the corner of his eye he noted the name, Prosperteer, in huge red letters on her side. The gondola door was open, but he couldn't make out any movement inside. He shouted, but his voice was lost in the exhaust of the engines and rush of the wind. The ungainly craft skidded across the sea as though it had a mind of its own.
Suddenly, Pitt felt the prickle of disaster in the small of his back. The Prosperteer was moving toward the beach, only a quarter mile away, and headed directly at the broad terraced side of the Sonesta Beach Hotel. Though the impact of a lighter-than-air ship against a solid structure would cause little damage, there was the ugly certainty of fire from ruptured fuel tanks spilling into the rooms of dozing guests or falling onto the diners on the patio below.
Ignoring the numbing drain of exhaustion, Pitt angled his sailboard on a course that would cross under the great rounded nose. The gondola danced into another swell and a spinning propeller whipped a cloud of salt spray into his eyes. His vision blurred momentarily and he came within inches of losing his balance.
He settled in a squatting stance and steadied his tiny craft as he narrowed the distance. Crowds of sunbathers gestured excitedly at the strange sight rapidly approaching the hotel's sloping beach.
Pitt's timing would have to be near perfect, there would be no second attempt. If he missed, there was every chance his body would end up in pieces behind the propellers. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. His strength was nearly sapped. He sensed that his muscles were taking longer to respond to the demands of his brain. He braced himself as his sailboard streaked under the blimp's nose.
Then he leaped.
His hands grasped one of the Prosperteer's bow ropes but slipped on the wet surface, scraping the skin from his fingers and palms. Desperately he swung a leg around the line and held on with every scrap of energy he had left. His weight pulled down the bow and he was dragged under the surface. He clawed up the rope until his head broke free. Then he was gulping air and spitting out seawater. The pursuer had become the captive.
The drag from Pitt's body wasn't nearly enough to stop the air monster, much less slow its momentum from the wind. He was about to release his precarious hold when his feet touched bottom. The blimp carried him through the surge of the surf and he felt like he was riding a roller coaster. Then he was hurtled onto the warm sands of the beach. He looked up and saw the low seawall of the hotel looming a scant hundred feet away.
My God! he thought, this is it-- in a few seconds the Prosperteer would crash into the hotel and possibly explode. And there was something else. The whirling propellers would shatter on impact, their metal fragments spraying the awestruck crowds with a force as deadly as shrapnel.
"For God's sake, help me!" Pitt shouted.
The mass of people on the beach stood frozen, their mouths gaping, held stupefied in childlike fascination by the strange spectacle. Suddenly two teenage girls and a boy sprang forward and grabbed one of the other tow ropes. Next came a lifeguard, followed by an elderly heavyset woman. Then the dam broke and twenty onlookers surged forward and gathered in the trailing lines. It was as though a tribe of half-naked natives had challenged a maddened brontosaurus to a tug-of-war.
Bare feet dug into the sand, plowing furrows as the stubborn mass above their heads tugged them across the beach. The drag on the bow lines caused the hull to pivot, and the huge finned tail swung around in a 180-degree arc until it was pointing at the hotel, the wheel on the bottom of the gondola scraping through the bushes growing from the top of the seawall, the propellers missing the concrete by inches and chopping through the branches and leaves.
A strong gust of wind blew in from the sea, shoving the Prosperteer over the patio, smashing umbrellas and tables, driving her stern toward the fifth story of the hotel. Lines were torn from hands and a wave of helplessness swept over the beach. The battle seemed lost.
Pitt struggled to his feet and half ran, half staggered to a nearby palm tree. In a final desperate act he coiled his line around the slender trunk, feverishly praying it wouldn't snap from the strain.
The line took up the slack and stretched taut. The fifty-foot palm shuddered, swayed, and bent for several seconds. The crowd collectively held its breath. Then with agonizing slowness, the tree gradually straightened into its former upright position. The shallow roots held firm and the blimp stopped, its fins less than six feet from the east wall of the hotel.
Two hundred people gave out a rousing cheer and began applauding. The women jumped up and down and laughed while the men roared and thrust out their hands in the thumbs-up position. No winning team ever received a more spontaneous ovation. The hotel security guards materialized and kept stray onlookers away from the still-turning propellers.
Sand coated Pitt's wet body as he stood there catching his breath, becoming conscious of the pain from his rope-burned hands. Staring up at the Prosperteer, he had his first solid look at the airship and was fascinated by the antiquated design. It was obvious she predated the modern Goodyear blimps.
He made his way around the scattered tables and chairs on the patio and climbed into the gondola.
The crew were still strapped in their seats, unmoving, unspeaking. Pitt leaned over the pilot, found the ignition switches, and turned them off. The engines popped softly once or twice and we
nt silent as their propellers gave a final twitch and came to rest.
The quiet was tomblike.
Pitt grimaced and scanned the interior of the gondola. There was no sign of damage, the instruments and controls appeared to be in operating order. But it was the extensive electronics that amazed him.
Gradiometers for detecting iron, side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profiler to sweep the sea floor, everything for an underwater search expedition.
He wasn't aware of the sea of faces peering up into the open door of the gondola, nor did he hear the pulsating scream of approaching sirens. He felt detached and momentarily disoriented. The hot, humid atmosphere was heavy with a morbid eeriness and the sickening stench of human decay.
One of the crewmen was slouched over a small table, head resting on arms as if he were asleep. His clothes were damp and stained. Pitt placed his hand on a shoulder and gave a slight shake. There was no firmness to the flesh. It felt soft and pulpy. An icy shroud fell over him that lifted goose bumps on every inch of his skin, yet the sweat was trickling down his body in streams.
He turned his attention to the ghastly apparitions seated at the controls. Their faces were covered by a blanket of flies, and decomposition was eating away all traces of life. The skin was slipping from the flesh like broken blisters on burns. Jaws hung slack with mouths agape, the lips and tongues swollen and parched. Eyes were open and staring into nothingness, eyeballs opaque and clouded over. Hands still hung on the controls, their fingernails turned blue. Unchecked by enzymes, bacteria had formed gases that grotesquely bloated the stomachs. The damp air and the high temperatures of the tropics were greatly speeding the process of putrefaction.
The rotting corpses inside the Prosperteer had flown from some unknown grave, a macabre crew in a charnel airship on a ghostly mission.
<<5>>
The naked corpse of an adult black woman lay stretched on an examining table under the glaring lights of the autopsy room. Preservation was excellent, no visible injuries due to violence. To the trained eye the state of rigor mortis indicated she had been dead less than seven hours. Her age appeared to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. The body might have drawn male stares once, but now it lay undernourished, wasted, and ravaged by a decade of drug intake.