30
After Admiral Sandecker's morning run from his Watergate condominium to NUMA headquarters, he went directly to his office without stopping off at the agency gym to shower and change into a business suit. Rudi Gunn was waiting for him, a grim expression on his hawklike face. He stared over his horn-rim glasses as Sandecker sat down at his desk, wiping the sweat from his face and neck with a towel.
"What's the latest word from Pitt and Giordino?"
"Nothing in the last eight hours." Gunn was uneasy. "Not since they entered what they described as a ventilator shaft leading to a deep underground tunnel that Pitt reckoned ran through the jungle of Nicaragua from the Pacific to the Caribbean."
"No contact at all?"
"Only silence," answered Gunn. "Impossible to communicate by phone when they're deep underground."
"A tunnel running from sea to sea," murmured Sandecker, his voice dubious.
Gunn nodded slightly. "Pitt was certain of it. He also reported that the builder was the Odyssey conglomeration."
"Odyssey?" Sandecker looked at Gunn in confusion. "Again?"
Gunn nodded again.
"They seem to crop up everywhere." Sandecker rose from his desk and gazed out the window overlooking the Potomac River. He could just see the furled red sails of his little schooner docked at a marina downriver. "I'm not aware of any tunnel being dug through Nicaragua. There was talk about building an underground railroad to transport cargo on high-speed trains. But that was several years ago, and as far as I know nothing ever came of it."
Gunn opened a file, pulled out several photos and spread them on the admiral's desk. "Here are satellite photos taken over a period of several years of a sleepy little port called San Juan del Norte."
"Where did these come from?" asked Sandecker with interest.
Gunn smiled. "Hiram Yaeger tapped his library of satellite photos from the various intelligence services and programmed them into NUMA's data files."
Sandecker adjusted his glasses and began examining the photos, his eyes touching on the dates they were taken, printed on the bottom borders. After a few minutes, he looked up. "Five years ago, the port looked deserted. Then it looks like heavy equipment was barged in and dock facilities built for cargo containerships."
"You'll notice that any and all supply and equipment containers were immediately moved into prefabricated warehouses, and never came out."
"Incredible that such a vast undertaking has gone unnoticed for so long."
Gunn laid a file on the desk beside the photos. "Yaeger also obtained a report on the Odyssey's programs and operations. Their financial dealings are sketchy. Because they're headquartered in Brazil, they are not required to release profit-and-loss statements."
"What about their stockholders? Surely they must receive annual reports."
"They're not listed on any of the international stock markets because the company's wholly owned by Specter."
"Could they have funded such a project on their own?" asked Sandecker.
"As far as we can tell, they have the resources. But Yaeger believes that on a project of this magnitude, they were likely funded by the People's Republic of China, which has bankrolled Specter's Central American developments in the past."
"Sounds logical. The Chinese are investing heavily in the area and are building a sphere of influence."
"Another factor in the secrecy," explained Gunn, "is the opportunity to sidestep all environmental, social and economic impacts. Opposition by Nicaraguan activists and any problems dealing with right-of-way would simply be ignored by their government while the work progressed covertly."
"What other projects are Specter and the Red Chinese working on together?"
"Port facilities on both sides of the Panama Canal and a bridge that will cross it, scheduled to open early next year."
"But why all the secrecy?" muttered Sandecker, as he returned to his chair. "What is to be gained from it?"
Gunn threw up his hands helplessly. "Without more intelligence, we're in the dark on that score."
"We can't just sit on this thing."
"Shall we contact Central Intelligence and the Pentagon about our suspicions?" asked Gunn.
Sandecker looked pensive for a moment. Then he said, "No, we'll go direct to the president's national security advisor."
"I agree," said Gunn. "This could prove to be a very serious situation."
"Damn!" Sandecker blurted in frustration. "If only we'd hear from Pitt and Giordino. Then we might have a clue as to what's going on down there."
Having reached the dead end, Pitt and Giordino had no option but to turn around and speed back in the direction they'd come. The fourth of the four tunnels appeared deserted and devoid of all equipment. It was as empty as though men had never created it. Only the pumps on both ends, standing eerily silent, revealed a veiled purpose that Pitt was at a loss to explain.
What was also strange was that no fleet of security guard cars, lights flashing, came hurtling though the empty and darkened tunnel after them. Nor were there any security cameras. They had all been removed when the tunnel was completed.
The answer quickly became obvious.
"I can see now," said Giordino calmly, "why the security guards are in no hurry to grab us."
"We have no place to go," Pitt finished answering the puzzle. "Our little venture into the bizarre is over. All Specter's security people have to do is wait until we get hungry and thirsty, then welcome us back into the main tunnel when we give ourselves up in hope of a last meal before we're hung."
"They would probably prefer to let us rot in here."
"There is that."
Pitt wiped a sleeve across his forehead to blot the sweat that suddenly began streaming into his eyes. "Have you noticed the temperature in this tunnel is much higher than the others?"
"It's beginning to feel like a steam bath in here," said Giordino, his face glistening.
"The air like sulfur."
"Speaking of hunger. How's your supply of granola bars?"
"Fresh out."
Abruptly, the thought crossed their minds at the same time, and they turned to each other and uttered two words in unison.
"Ventilator shaft."
Giordino suddenly became sober. "Maybe not. I didn't see any raised control booths in the outer tunnels."
"They would have been removed along with the railroad tracks and the overhead lighting and sealed, since they were no longer essential to remove pollution from the excavation."
"Yes, but the ladder rungs were embedded in the tunnel walls. I'll bet next month's pay, if I live to spend it, that they didn't bother to remove them."
"We'll know soon enough," said Pitt, as Giordino hit the accelerator and the cart leaped forward, its headlights probing the darkness ahead.
After covering nearly twenty miles, Giordino spotted the rungs of a ladder crawling up one wall. He parked about thirty feet away so the headlights would illuminate a wider area of the tunnel wall. "The rungs go up to where a ventilator shaft control booth once hung," he said, rubbing the stubble that had sprouted on his cheeks and chin.
Pitt stepped from the cart and began climbing the rungs. It had been a year or more since the tunnel was completed and stripped down. The rungs were slimy with dampness and flaked with rust. He reached the top and found a round manholelike iron cover sealing the entrance to the ventilator shaft above. There was a sliding bolt holding it against bottom stops.
Wrapping one hand through a rung for balance, he used both hands to grip the bolt and pull. It slid out of its clamp with little resistance. Then Pitt leaned to the side until his shoulder was pressed against the cover, and heaved.
It moved a millimeter at most.
"It's going to take the two of us," he called down.
Giordino came up the ladder until he was standing one rung up from Pitt to compensate for the difference in their heights. It was the wolf matching strength with the bear. With two shoulders against the heavy iron cov
er, they both put their strength into the effort.
The cover fought back, budged less than an inch and froze in place.
"Stubborn devil," grunted Giordino.
"At least it moved and isn't welded," Pitt replied.
Giordino grinned. "Once more with feeling."
"On three."
They stared at each other briefly and nodded.
"One," said Pitt, "two and threeeee."
They both thrust upward with every ounce of strength they possessed. For an instant, the cover resisted. Then it slowly gave, and with a loud screech it abruptly swung open and clanged against one wall of the ventilator shaft. They stared upward into the ominous black cavity as if it was a stairway to paradise.
"I wonder where it comes out," murmured Giordino between breaths.
"I have no idea, but we're going to find out."
Giordino gave Pitt's arm a light squeeze. "Hold on. In case the Specter goons come looking for us, let's give them something to chase."
He dropped down the ladder and climbed in the electric security guard car. He removed the belt off his shorts and tied the steering wheel so the front tires were positioned straight ahead. Then he pulled the front seat out of the car and stood it on end, using it to press the accelerator against the floorboard. Finally, he turned on the ignition and stepped back.
The car shot down the tunnel, its headlights carving weird patterns through the darkness. Within a hundred yards, it yawed against one wall of the tunnel, then careened against the other side in its wild ride, bouncing back and forth with a rending screech of tortured metal far into the distance.
"I wonder how Specter will explain that to his insurance adjuster," said Giordino. He turned, but Pitt was already scaling the ladder.
In the tension and stress of the past several hours, Pitt was surprised at how stiff and cramped his muscles had become. He climbed slowly, conserving his strength. With no lights, he felt a touch of claustrophobia as he ascended in the pitch-blackness. Me began counting the rungs and paused whenever he reached the fiftieth to catch his breath. They were spaced twelve inches apart, so it was a matter of simple arithmetic to calculate the distance they had climbed. Climbing down the ventilator shaft into the control booth from El Castillo, assisted by gravity, seemed like a swim in the bathtub in comparison. At rung three hundred and fifty, Pitt stopped and waited for Giordino to catch up. "Does this never end?" Giordino gasped.
"Pardon the pun," Pitt muttered between heavy breaths, "but there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Giordino looked upward and saw a tiny glow in the distance. It looked ten miles away to him. "Is there any way it could come to us?"
"Just hope it doesn't move farther away."
They continued on, increasingly conscious of the eeriness of the shaft. The glow above grew larger and magnified with agonizing slowness. Water dripped down the walls and onto the rungs. Their hands pulling and scraping against the rust on the rungs as they struggled upward soon became red and raw, the skin scoured as if by sandpaper.
At long last, the glow became a bright light and the nearness renewed their strength. Pitt began climbing two rungs at a time, using up his failing strength at an increased rate. But the end was only a few short feet away now.
With a final effort that cast him over the edge of exhaustion, he came to the wire mesh that covered the top of the shaft, hanging there with breaths coming in great heaves, blood trickling from his palms and fingers. "Made it," he gasped.
Giordino soon joined him. "I'm not up to cutting through that stuff again," he panted.
As soon as the numbness and aches subsided, Pitt reached into the knapsack, retrieved the wire cutters and wearily began snipping at the wire mesh. "We'll take turns and spell each other as we tire."
Pitt cut only a few inches in as many minutes before he could no longer squeeze the handles of the wire cutters. He moved aside and handed the cutters to Giordino. Because of the blood on his hands, they nearly slipped from his fingers. Pitt held his breath, but Giordino barely caught them before they fell out of sight into the darkness below.
"Keep a tight grip," Pitt said, with a grim smile. "You wouldn't want to make the climb all over again."
"I'd die first," Giordino muttered bravely. He cut almost ten minutes before he let Pitt relieve him.
It took the two of them almost an hour before they cut an opening large enough to crawl through. Once past the mesh that had shaded the exterior light, Pitt's eyes were blinded by the sunlight that streamed all around him. Putting on his sunglasses to relieve the glare from eyes accustomed to darkness, he found himself in a round room whose walls were glass from floor to ceiling.
While Giordino squirmed through the opening, Pitt walked around the glass-enclosed room and gazed down at a spectacular three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of a huge lake and surrounding islands.
"Where did we come up?" asked Giordino.
Pitt turned and looked at him with a bemused expression. "You're not going to believe this, but we're at the top of a lighthouse."
"A lighthouse!" burst Sandecker at Pitt's description over his speakerphone. His voice betrayed his elation at hearing Pitt and Giordino were alive and safe.
"Yes, sir," Pitt's voice came back over his satellite phone. "Specter built it as a folly."
"A folly?"
"A structure built to look like the ruins of an ancient castle or historic structure," Gunn explained. He leaned over the speakerphone. "You're saying the lighthouse was built to hide a ventilator shaft rising from the tunnel."
"Exactly," answered Pitt.
Sandecker twisted one of his cigars. "Your story sounds fantastic."
"All true down to the last item," said Pitt.
"A tunnel-boring machine that can cut through a mile of rock a day?"
"Which explains how Specter was able to excavate four tunnels, each nearly a hundred and fifty miles in length, in four years."
"If not for railroads," said Gunn, "for what purpose?"
"Al and I can't even make a good guess. The pumps on each end of the tunnels suggest they'll be used to drive water through them, but that doesn't make a lot of sense."
"I've taped your brief report," acknowledged Sandecker, "and will give it to Yaeger to come up with possible concepts until you can arrive and make a more comprehensive report."
"I also have photos taken with a digital camera."
"Good, we'll need every piece of evidence you collected."
"Dirk?" probed Gunn.
"Yes, Rudi."
"I plot your location as only thirty miles from San Carlos. I'll charter a helicopter. They should be in the air and over your lighthouse in another two hours."
"Al and I can't wait to clean up and eat a decent meal."
"No time for luxuries," snapped Sandecker. "The copter will take you direct to the airport in Managua, where a NUMA jet will be waiting. You can wash and eat after you arrive."
"You're a hard man, Admiral."
"Learn from it," Sandecker said, with a canny grin. "You might be sitting in my chair someday."
As Pitt closed the connection, he was totally in the dark concerning Sandecker's insinuation. He sat down next to Giordino, who was dozing, not happy about telling his friend he wasn't going to eat anytime soon.
31
After communications with Pitt ended, Sandecker waited patiently while Gunn arranged for a helicopter to pick up his special projects director at the phony lighthouse. Then they exited the admiral's office and dropped down a floor to the conference room, where Sandecker had arranged a meeting to discuss the Celtic discoveries on Navidad Bank.
Sitting around a huge oval table built of teak and resembling the deck of a ship was Hiram Yaeger, Dirk and Summer Pitt and St. Julien Perlmutter. Seated next to Summer was historian Dr. John Wesley Chisholm, professor of ancient history at the University of Pennsylvania. Everything about Chisholm's appearance was average. The height and weight were average. The hair a medium average br
own that matched the eyes. But there was nothing average about his personality. He smiled constantly and was extremely warm and courteous. His mind went far above the level of ordinary.
Everyone was paying rapt attention to Dr. Elsworth Boyd, who stood in front of a large monitor displaying a montage of photos and lectured on the artifacts and images of the stone carvings recovered and recorded at Navidad Bank. The story that was coming together was so startling, so fabulous, that everyone seated around the spacious table sat in awed silence as Boyd described the artifacts, their approximate dates and original source. All this before shifting to the stone carvings.