Pitt could see Giordino's teeth spread in a smile in the dim light. "I think we struck the mother lode."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I am," said Pitt. "We start up the sweeper and send it down the street, but with one refinement to get the guard's attention."
"Which is?"
"We set it on fire."
"Your devious mind never ceases to amaze me."
"It's a gift."
In ten minutes, they had siphoned three gallons of gas into a five-gallon can they found in the garage. Pitt climbed into the cab of the street sweeper and turned on the ignition, while Giordino stood ready to swing the doors open. They were both thankful the engine started with a single cough and turned over smoothly without an abundance of exhaust noise. The sweeper had standard four-speed transmission, and he stood outside the open door, ready to shift it into second gear, skipping first so the big vehicle would gain speed faster. Waiting until the last minute to avoid an explosion inside the garage from the gas fumes, he turned the steering wheel of the big vehicle so that it would angle down the road toward a row of parked trucks. Giordino opened the double doors and trotted back to the fuel can. He doused the gas into the empty cab and stood holding the flame starter for an acetylene torch.
"Showtime," he said briefly.
Pitt, standing on the doorframe just outside the cab, jammed the shifter into gear and leaped, as Giordino turned the oxygen and acetylene valves full open and squeezed the handle of the flame starter, sending a two-foot flame bursting from the tip of the torch. There was a loud whoosh as a combustion-produced ball of fire enveloped the cab of the sweeper before it accelerated through the doors.
Roaring down the road like a comet, the sweeper, with its brushes spinning wildly and throwing up a cloud of dirt and dust, sped fifty yards before crashing into the first truck and sending it bouncing on all wheels into a palm tree. Then it smashed square into the next truck in the row with a horrendous screech of tearing metal and glass, shoving it into the others, until it finally became jammed and came to a standstill with flames shooting into the sky followed by a swirling cloud of black smoke.
The two guards outside the building stood frozen in shock staring incredulously at the sudden eruption of fire. Finally they were galvanized into action, their first reaction being the obvious conclusion that the driver was still in the cab. They abandoned their posts and went running down the road, followed on their heels by the guards from inside.
Pitt and Giordino took immediate advantage of the commotion focused around the blazing sweeper. Pitt dashed through the gated fence, dove inside the open door of the building and fell on the floor, only to have Giordino, unable to stop his momentum, trip and fall on him.
"You've got to lose weight," Pitt grunted.
Giordino swiftly pulled him to his feet. "Now where, genius?"
Pitt didn't answer but, seeing that it was clear, he took off running down a long hallway. The doors on either side had locked latches. He stopped in front of the third door and turned to Giordino. "This is your specialty," he said, stepping aside.
Giordino shot him a testy look, then leaned back and kicked the door half off its hinges. Then he lunged with one shoulder and finished the job. Unable to withstand the muscular Italian's onslaught, the door fell flat on the floor with a loud thud.
Pitt stepped inside and found a man and a woman sitting upright in bed, frozen in shocked silence at the sight of the strangers, their faces expressing icy fear.
"Forgive the intrusion," Pitt said softly, "but we need a place to hide." As he spoke, Giordino was already setting the door back in place.
"Where are you going to take us?" the woman asked in near panic with a heavy German guttural accent as she pulled up the covers around the top of her nightgown. Round, flushed face with wide brown eyes, silver hair pulled back in a bun, she looked like the grandmother she probably was. Though it was buried under a sheet and light blanket, Pitt could see that her body would never fit into a size sixteen dress.
"Noplace. We're not who you think."
"But you're one of them."
"No, ma'am," said Pitt, trying to ease her terror. "We are not employees of Odyssey."
"Then who in God's name are you?" asked the man, slowly recovering. The man in the bed rose in an old-fashioned nightshirt and threw on an equally old-fashioned chenille bathrobe. Just the opposite of what Pitt assumed was his wife, he was quite tall and thin as a yardstick. His thick gray hair stood at least three inches above Pitt's. White facial skin, a sharp pyramid of a nose and tight lips decorated with a pencil-thin mustache defined his face.
"My name is Dirk Pitt. My friend is Al Giordino. We work for the United States government and are here to learn why the existence of this facility is such a well-guarded secret."
"How did you get on the island?" asked the woman.
"From the water," Pitt replied, without detail. "We entered your building after creating a little diversion that drew away the guards." As he spoke, the sound of approaching sirens could be heard echoing down the corridor through the building's still-open front entrance. "I've never known anyone who could ignore watching a good fire."
"Why did you choose our room?"
"Pure chance, nothing more."
"If you will kindly oblige us," said Giordino, "we'd like to spend the night. We'll be gone come the dawn."
The woman studied Giordino, her eyes traveling up and down his white jumpsuit, with a look of suspicion. "You're not a woman."
Giordino responded with a wide smile. "Thankfully, no, but how I came to be in a female Odyssey uniform is a long and boring story."
"Why should we believe you?"
"I can't give you a reason in the world."
"Do you mind telling us why you're confined inside this building?" queried Pitt.
"Forgive us," said the woman, coming back on track. "My husband and I are terribly confused. He is Dr. Claus Lowenhardt, and I am his wife, Dr. Hilda Lowenhardt. We are only locked in at night. During the day we work under heavy guard in the laboratories."
Pitt was amused at the formality of the introductions. "How did you come to be here?"
"We were doing research at the Technical Research Institution in Aachen, Germany, when agents working for a Mr. Specter representing the Odyssey Corporation requested that we come to work for them as consultants. My wife and I were only two out of forty of the top scientists in our field who were lured away from their laboratories by offers of an immense amount of money and promises of funding for our projects after we were finished here and returned home. We were told we were flying to Canada, but they lied. When our plane landed, we found ourselves on this island in the middle of nowhere. Since then, we have all virtually worked as slaves."
"How long ago?"
"Five years."
"What type of research were you forced to conduct?"
"Our academic discipline is in the science of fuel cell energy."
"Is this why this facility was constructed, to conduct experiments on fuel cells?"
Claus Lowenhardt nodded. "Odyssey began construction nearly six years ago."
"What about outside contact?"
"We are not allowed telephone communications with our friends and families," replied Hilda, "only outgoing letters, which are heavily censored."
"Five years is a long time to be away from your loved ones. Why didn't you obstruct the research by slowdowns and sabotage?"
Hilda shook her head solemnly. "Because they threatened a horrible death to anyone who hampered the research."
"And the lives of our families back home as well," added Claus. "We had no choice but to put forth a dedicated effort. We also had a true desire to continue our life's work, to create a clean and efficient energy source for the people of the world."
"One man who had no family was made an example," said Hilda. "They tortured him by night and forced him to work by day. He was found one morning hanging from the light fixture in his room. W
e all knew he was murdered."
"You believe he was murdered on orders from Odyssey officials?"
"Executed," Lowenhardt corrected him. He smiled grimly and pointed up at the ceiling. "Look for yourself, Mr. Pitt. Would that fixture, which is little more than a wire and lightbulb, support the weight of a man?"
"I see your point," Pitt acknowledged.
"We do what we're told to do," said Hilda quietly, "whatever it takes to prevent harm from coming to our son and two daughters and five grandchildren. The others are in the same boat."
"Have you and your fellow scientists made any progress in developing fuel cell technology?" asked Pitt.
Hilda and Claus turned and faced each other with quizzical expressions. Then Claus said, "Hasn't the world learned of our success?"
"Success?"
"Along with our fellow scientists, we have developed an energy-generating source that combines nitrogen-producing ammonia and oxygen out of the atmosphere to create substantial amounts of electricity at a very low cost per unit, with pure water as its only waste product."
"I thought practical and efficient fuel cells were decades away," said Giordino.
"Fuel cells using hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, yes. Oxygen can come from the air. However, hydrogen is not readily available and must be stored as a fuel. But because of our fortunate and almost miraculous breakthrough, we have paved the way to nonpolluting energy that is available to millions of people as we speak."
"You talk as if it is already in production," said Giordino.
"It was perfected and tested with great success over a year ago." Lowenhardt gave him the look of a man staring at a village idiot. "Production began immediately after it was perfected. Surely you're familiar with it."
They could read the expression of bafflement and incomprehension on Pitt's and Giordino's faces as genuine. "That's news to us," said Pitt skeptically. "I'm not aware of a new miracle energy product sitting on store shelves or powering automobiles."
"Nor I," Giordino chimed in.
"We don't understand. We were told that millions of units had already been produced by a manufacturing facility in China."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but your great achievement is still a secret," Pitt said sympathetically. "I can only guess that the Chinese are stockpiling your creation for some inexplicable purpose."
"But what do they have to do with the tunnels?" Giordino muttered, confused at trying to put two and two together.
Pitt sat down in a chair and stared thoughtfully at the design in a throw rug. Finally, he looked up. "The admiral said that Yaeger's computer concluded that the purpose behind the tunnels was to lower the temperature of the Gulf Stream and throw the eastern United States and Europe into eight months of frigid weather." Then he turned to the Lowenhardts. "Your cutting-edge power technology, is it designed for automobiles?"
"Not at the moment. But eventually, with more study and refinement, it will generate enough clean energy to power all vehicles, including aircraft and trains. We've gone beyond the design stage. Currently, we're working out the final phase of engineering before running tests."
"What does the gadget in production accomplish?" asked Pitt.
Claus winced at the word gadget. "The Macha is a self-sustaining generator that can provide cost-efficient electrical energy to every home, office, workplace and school in the world. It makes air pollution a nightmare of the past. Now a family home, no matter how large or small, located in the city or in the farthest reaches of the country, can have its own independent source of energy--"
"You call it the Macha?"
"Specter came up with the name himself when he saw the first operational unit. Macha, so he informed us, was the Celtic goddess of cunning, also known as the queen of phantoms."
"The Celts again," muttered Giordino.
"The plot thickens," Pitt said philosophically.
"Guard approaching," warned Giordino at his station by the door. "Sounds like two of them." He leaned his weight against it.
The room became so hushed that the guards' voices became quite audible as they approached down the hallway, checking the doors of the hostage scientists. Their footsteps stopped outside.
The Lowenhardts' eyes took on the look of frightened rabbits hearing the howl of coyotes, until they saw Pitt's and Giordino's automatics appear as if by magic, and they realized these were men who had command of the situation.
"Este puerta aparece dañada."
"He said the door looks damaged," Pitt whispered.
One of the guards jiggled the latch and pushed against the door, but it did not move with Giordino's weight against it.
"Se parece seguro," came another voice.
"It seems secure," Pitt translated.
"Lo tendremos reparados por la mañana."
"They said they'll have it repaired in the morning."
Then the footsteps and voices faded, as they continued on their rounds down the hallway.
Pitt turned and gave the Lowenhardts a long hard look. "We're going to have to leave the island and you must come with us."
"You think that's wise?" Giordino put to him.
"Expedient," said Pitt. "These people are the key to the mystery. Because of what they know, we don't have to take the chance of getting caught while we nose around the facility, nor would we learn a third of what the good doctors know."
"No, no!" Hilda gasped. "We don't dare leave. Once security learns we were missing, the fiends at Odyssey will retaliate and murder our children."
Pitt took her hand and gently squeezed it. "Your family will be protected. I promise you, no harm will be allowed to come to them."
"I'm still not sure," Giordino said, considering the circumstances and possible consequences. "Once we abandoned the jet ski our only plan for escaping the island was to attempt to steal a boat or an airplane, since their security forces would stop any helicopter pickup. That plan won't come easy with a pair of senior citizens in tow."
Pitt turned back to the Lowenhardts. "What you haven't considered is that when your usefulness is over, you and the other hostage scientists will have to be eliminated. Specter cannot risk any of you revealing to the world what went on here."
Total understanding flooded Claus Lowenhardt's face, but he still could not bring himself to fully accept Pitt's words. "Not all of us. It's diabolical. They wouldn't dare kill us all. The outside world would discover the truth."
"Not if a plane carrying you back to your homes mysteriously crashed in the sea. Except for an investigation into the crash, no one would be the wiser about what really happened."
Claus looked at his wife and placed an arm around her shoulders. "I'm afraid Mr. Pitt is right. Specter could not allow any of us to live."
"Once you reveal everything to the news media, Specter would not dare kill the other members of your scientific team. Every law enforcement agency of your respective countries would band together and go after Specter and his Odyssey empire with every international legal means at their disposal. Believe me, leaving now and coming with us is the only way."
"Can you guarantee that you'll get us off the island safely?" asked Hilda hesitantly.
Pitt looked singularly concerned. "I can't promise what I can't predict with certainty. But you will surely die if you remain here."
Claus squeezed his wife's shoulder. "Well, Mother, this looks like our chance to see our loved ones again."
She lifted her head and kissed him on the cheek. "Then we go together."
"They're coming back," announced Giordino, with his ear to the door.
"If you will kindly get dressed," said Pitt to the Lowenhardts, "my friend and I will take care of the guards." Then he turned his back as the scientists began getting their clothes and joined Giordino on the opposite side of the door, Colt .45 drawn and held at the ready.
The seconds ticked off as the guards retraced their steps. Pitt and Giordino waited patiently until the sound of the guards came outside the door. The
n Giordino yanked the broken door inward, sending it crashing to the floor. The security guards were too surprised to offer resistance, as they were pulled into the room and found themselves staring into the muzzles of two very large automatic pistols.
"En el piso, rápidamente!" Pitt snapped, ordering them to lie on the floor as Giordino began tearing up the bedsheets. They quickly disarmed, bound and gagged the stunned guards.
Five minutes later, Pitt, with Claus and Hilda behind and Giordino bringing up the rear, passed through the entrance of the unguarded gate in the fence and scurried across the street that was packed with a milling crowd of security personnel and firemen surrounding the still-burning street sweeper, before slipping into the shadows unnoticed.