All of which meant the ship would be damn-near impossible to approach while moving at sea. That left two options: come in from above or up from below. Kurt recalled parachuting onto a moving supertanker some years back. It had been a treacherous operation even though the vessel was the size of several football fields and moving slowly. He didn’t fancy the idea of trying the same thing on a yacht one-fifth the size and moving three times as fast.
His mind made up, Kurt left the harbor and continued back to the hotel, traveling on foot and fighting the strange sensation of being watched or followed the entire time. He changed course and stopped a few times, scanning the sea of faces around him, looking for anyone or anything suspicious. At one point, a male wearing a patterned dishdasha looked away and stepped into the crowd with haste.
Kurt stared, but the man didn’t reappear.
“Great,” he muttered.
Unhappy with the thought that his presence in Dubai might have been compromised, Kurt continued on to the hotel, occasionally checking behind him by looking in the reflections of the glass-walled stores along the boulevard. He caught glimpses of the man several times but pretended not to notice.
Finally back at the hotel, he crossed the lobby, took the elevator to the seventeenth floor, and waited around the corner.
Sure enough, the other elevator pinged moments later.
He heard the door slide open and someone walking his way. Hoping he wasn’t about to mug some tourist, Kurt waited for the man to round the corner and then lunged at him. It was the same man, in the same robe.
Kurt slammed a hand over the man’s mouth, shoved him against the wall, and then swung a fist toward the target’s solar plexus. To his surprise, the man reacted almost instantly, arching his body and twisting to the side.
Kurt caught him with only a glancing blow, his fist hammering abs that were hardened and ready to take the shot. The man knocked Kurt’s hand away and put his own hands up.
“Easy, Kurt. It’s me! Joe!”
There was a moment of incoherence as Kurt’s mind put two and two together, trying to reconcile his friend’s voice with the clothes he saw in front of him and the fact that Joe should have been at least seven thousand miles from there.
As if reading Kurt’s mind, Joe pulled off the gray-colored gutra that was covering half his face.
“What are you doing here?” Kurt asked.
“I came to help you.”
Kurt didn’t know whether to be happy or furious. He led Joe to his room and repeated the question.
“I’ve been following you,” Joe said. “You’re hard to track, you know that?”
“Not too hard, obviously. What’s with the disguise?”
“I didn’t want you to notice me.”
“In that case, your surveillance technique needs a little work,” Kurt said. “My advice: When the mark turns around and looks right at you, don’t duck out of the way.”
Joe smiled. “Duly noted.”
“Good,” Kurt said. “Now that we’ve got that straight, you’re getting on a plane and getting out of here. I appreciate the thought, but I’m not dragging you into this. This is my problem, not yours.”
“You can’t send me home,” Joe said.
“Why not? I’m your boss.”
“You’re on a leave of absence,” Joe reminded him. “Technically, you’re not anybody’s boss at the moment.”
“You’re still going home.”
Joe shook his head. “Sorry, amigo, no can do.”
He reached into a pocket, produced an envelope, and handed it over to Kurt with a hint of glee in his eyes.
As Kurt opened it, Joe flopped down on the couch, put his feet up, and placed his hands behind his head as if he were planning on staying a while.
Inside was a note in Dirk Pitt’s handwriting. It contained no orders, only a few brief words and a quote from Rudyard Kipling.
Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back—
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
We need you back in one piece, Kurt. And you need our help.
Dirk
“What’s it say?” Joe asked. “I’ve been dying to read it.” Kurt considered what Dirk was trying to tell him. “It says I’m stuck with you. And lucky to have such good friends.” “Muy bueno,” Joe said. “Anything in there about a raise and my request for hazard pay?”
“Afraid not,” Kurt said, folding up the note and sliding it into his pocket. He looked over at Joe.
Despite his gruff tone, Kurt was glad to see his best friend.
Joe was the kind of friend who never wavered, never hedged his bets. He was all in at all times. Always there for those he cared about. Even if the task was going to be difficult, Kurt could count on Joe to go the distance.
Just as important, Joe was a mechanical genius. He built and maintained most of NUMA’s advanced submersibles, ROVs, and other exotic mechanical equipment. His work on cars was legendary: he’d made one fly and another swim. He’d even turned a golf cart into a five-hundred-horsepower drag racer. “Maybe you can be of assistance after all,” Kurt said. “I need to figure a way onto a yacht called the Massif. It’s moored in the harbor, guarded by twenty-four-hour security and filled with armed thugs. And I almost forgot, I have to do this all without disturbing a posh gathering of people who may or may not be hardened criminals.”
Joe looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. A look Kurt had gotten used to over the last months. But no more than ten seconds passed before Joe perked up.
“I suppose you can’t sneak on with the catering crew.” “Not unless I learn to speak Arabic in record time,” Kurt said. “Nor can I approach her on the surface. Or expect to get aboard while she’s moored. I think our best bet is from below while she’s moving.”
“You’ll need a submarine.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Kind of short notice,” Joe said. “Can’t exactly build one from scratch.”
“What about something I can ride?”
“A diver propulsion vehicle?”
Kurt nodded. “Can you build me something that will catch a yacht?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “But where do we get the parts?” “Funny you should ask,” Kurt grinned. “I have an idea.”
An hour later, while El Din was securing a fishing boat that would not draw much attention, Kurt and Joe were at the airport looking over a sprawling parking lot of dusty cars.
“I feel like I’ve died and gone to supercar heaven,” Joe said. “Or at least purgatory,” Kurt replied.
The cars in front of them were exotics. Hundreds of them. Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Bentleys. Ferraris were as plentiful as minivans at a kids’ soccer field. They were stored like one might expect to find lemons and junkers on an auction lot, parked so close the doors were touching. How long they’d been out there was anyone’s guess, but most were covered in so much sand and dust that the colors were hard to make out. The tires were flat on many of them, and all of them were baking in the sun.
“Somewhere a man named Enzo is crying,” Joe said. “Not to mention five brothers from Modena.”
“There are three other lots like this,” the salesman who’d taken them to see the display advised.
“Why?” Joe asked.
“Foreigners in debt leave them when they run off. There is no bankruptcy in Dubai. Prison and punishment are dealt out to those who cannot satisfy their debts.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “We’ll be sure to pay in advance.”
“That’s wise,” the man said. “What is it you need?”
“One of the rarest of the rare,” Kurt said. “The new sedan from Tesla.”
An hour later, their bank accounts fifty grand lighter, Kurt and Joe were takin
g the dusty Tesla apart in a garage provided by Mohammed El Din, who arrived that afternoon with a truckload of supplies from the nautical scrapyard. There were sections of fiberglass, a pair of wrecked Jet Skis, and the props from several high-powered outboard motors. Two of them looked hopelessly nicked-up, but the third was fairly clean.
“These will do,” Kurt said.
“For what?” El Din asked.
“You’ll see,” he said. “You’ll see.”
Two days later, as dusk approached, Kurt and Joe sat on the gunwale of a small fishing boat as it rose and fell on the gentle waves of the Persian Gulf. The long-nosed boat had a small cabin at the back, twin outboards, and heaps of netting and storage containers—normally filled with ice to keep the day’s catch fresh. Two rods sprouted from holders at the stern, their lines strung out into the sea.
“You sure you want to do this?” Joe asked. “You sure you want to help a guy who might have lost a few screws recently?”
“Recently?” Joe laughed. “This may come as a shock to you, amigo, but I never thought you were playing with a full deck to begin with.”
Kurt couldn’t help but laugh. “You know you’re the only one who hasn’t asked me why I’m doing this.”
“That’s because it doesn’t matter to me,” Joe said firmly. “You need help. I’m here for you.”
Kurt nodded and looked beyond the fishing poles to the glittering buildings of Dubai, lit up in shimmering gold and bronze tones as the sun began to set behind them. Ignoring the glitter, he lowered his gaze and trained a powerful spotting scope on the burly profile of Acosta’s Massif.
“She’s thick all around,” Kurt said.
Mohammed El Din stepped from the small pilothouse. “Like Acosta himself, no?”
Kurt smiled and continued to study the vessel. “How fast do you think she is?”
“No idea,” El Din said. “I don’t design ships for a living.”
“I’d guess about twenty, twenty-five knots maximum,” Joe offered. “A lot faster than we’ll be in this thing.”
“She’s making smoke,” El Din said. “They must be getting ready to leave.”
Kurt agreed. “Time to put this plan into action.”
El Din moved to the driver’s seat and turned the key. The twin outboards sputtered to life amid a cloud of bluish smoke.
Joe went to the stern and began to reel in the fishing lines as El Din nudged the throttles off idle and eased the boat forward. He brought it around in a wide semicircle that would take them toward the channel.
Kurt pulled off his dishdasha to reveal a wet suit. He dropped to the floor and slid a tarp from what looked like a small torpedo with handles.
“Do you think this contraption of yours will work?” El Din asked.
“Of course it’ll work,” Joe interjected. “I built most of it.”
With care, Kurt and Joe had taken the batteries from the abandoned Tesla and mated them with an electrical motor from one of the car’s wheels. With a little ingenuity they’d welded that motor to a propeller taken from a speedboat.
After testing the motor and confirming their ability to control it, they’d wrapped the entire design in a thick plastic lining and then constructed a watertight body around it with fiberglass sections from the ruined Jet Ski and another small craft. High-strength epoxy sealed the joints in a messy fashion, and a coat of dark gray paint had been added to make the contraption less visible.
It looked like a child’s science project on steroids. Kurt would straddle it, controlling a rudder at the tail with his feet, and manipulating a pair of dive plains via handlebars would let him guide the propulsion unit.
“I admit, it’s not our most aesthetically pleasing design,” Kurt said. “But Joe and I were on a budget and a little pressed for time.”
“At least you go on the outside,” El Din said, then offered a look that suggested he might have misspoken. “You do sit on the outside, right?”
Kurt nodded. With the flick of a rubber-booted switch, he activated the power. A set of LEDs came on in the makeshift control unit. He twisted the throttle and the propeller spun with instant power. The electrical motor’s whining and the displaced air were the only sounds. But the power was obvious and instant.
“If you survive this,” Joe said, “I might start selling these on street corners.”
“I think you’ll find cash flow to be a problem,” Kurt said, “considering we took all the parts from an eighty-thousand dollar car.”
As the old fishing boat chugged forward, El Din asked the next question. “How do you plan to get on board once you catch them?”
“Like Spiderman,” Kurt said.
He moved to a locker, opened it, and pulled out four metallic objects. The first two were attached to a type of wrist brace. He slid them over his forearms and strapped them into place. They looked like the gauntlets worn by knights of old. The next two were attached to knee braces, like those worn by skiers who’d injured themselves. They were bulky and awkward, but they strapped on tightly, fitting over Kurt’s wet suit.
Kurt smiled, proud of his ingenuity. Each brace had a lithium-ion battery of its own and a powerful electromagnet attached to it. After adjusting the braces for comfort, he powered up the one on his right arm by tapping a thumb switch and held his arm out over a metal tackle box. The box levitated from the deck and stuck to his arm with a sudden clang.
Despite pulling with his other arm, Kurt could not break the tackle box loose. He switched the unit off and the box dropped back to the deck. “If the Massif has a steel hull, I should be able to climb right up the side.”
“What if she’s made of fiberglass?” El Din asked.
“In that case,” Kurt began, “I’ll need you to pick me up as soon as possible and take me somewhere I can drink enough to forget all my troubles.”
Joe and El Din chuckled while Kurt finished his preparations. In a minute, he was ready to go. He slid a small transmitter into a waterproof pocket designed to stash one’s keys in when diving and then zipped it shut. He stashed a compact 9mm Beretta pistol in a second pocket and strapped a diving knife around his calf.
“When I get off the yacht, I’ll get the transmitter wet. It will automatically activate. It has a very dim light that you should be able to see if you’re within thirty feet, but farther out you’ll have to use the scanner to home in on me.”
Joe nodded and held up a small device that looked like a smartphone. “Checked and working,” he said.
“Follow at a distance, but keep it casual. And if Acosta opens up throttles, don’t try to keep up,” Kurt added. “It might look suspicious if you tail her all the way down the coast at high speed.”
“These waters are filled with fishing boats,” El Din said.
“Yes, but most of them are engaged in fishing, not chasing yachts.”
“Good point.”
Kurt nodded. “If everything goes according to plan, I’ll find Sienna and get her off the boat without them even knowing I’m there. In that case, wait for them to move off before you swoop in and get us.”
“What if all doesn’t go according to plan?” Joe asked.
Kurt looked at him askance.
“I only ask since it never has before.”
Kurt shrugged. He couldn’t deny it. “In that case, use your best judgment and adjust to the situation as needed, depending on exigencies and circumstances.”
El Din looked perplexed by that response.
“He means wing it,” Joe explained, “which I assume is what we’ll be doing right from the start.”
“You’re wise beyond your years,” Kurt said.
“I just know you too well.”
By now they were nearing the end of the half-mile-long channel, the No Wake zone that led out of the harbor and into the open water. It would take the yacht seven or eight minutes to cover the distance if they held to the rules.
“Let me off here,” Kurt said. “They’ll probably start bending the speed limit
before they pass the final buoy. I don’t want to miss my ride.”
“It’s shallow here,” El Din said. “Twenty feet.”
“She can’t draw more than eight or nine,” Kurt replied. “I’ll wait on the bottom and catch on as she passes by.”
El Din slowed the vessel further, making a slight turn to port to shield Kurt from view.
With Joe’s help, Kurt lifted the torpedo-shaped propulsion unit and balanced it on the transom. He gave the thumbs-up, pulled down his mask, and bit into the soft rubber of his regulator. With a nod from El Din, he and Joe pushed the DPV off the edge and it hit the water and submerged like a model submarine. Kurt slipped into the gulf right behind it.
With the weight of his belt, Kurt sank faster than the propulsion unit, which had only a slight negative buoyancy. He reached it quickly, guided it to a spot in the silt and then settled down on top of it, listening to the sound of the small fishing boat trundle away.
Immersed in the warm gulf water, Kurt soon heard nothing but his own breathing as the air traveled through the lines, into his lungs, and back out to the rebreather. The advantage of this system was that it left no trail of bubbles. He doubted the crew of the yacht would be looking for anything so simple—more likely, they’d be paying attention to their depth sounder and the radarscope—but he wasn’t taking any chances.
As Kurt waited on the bottom of the channel, a low-frequency thrum told him the Massif was approaching.