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"Did Max come up with any answers?" asked Sandecker.
"She did."
"And?"
"Admiral," Yaeger began in a hoarse voice, "I'm afraid we have a catastrophe in the making."
34
Waiting for the helicopter that was over an hour late, Giordino happily slipped into dreamland while Pitt peered over the waters of Lake Nicaragua surrounding the lighthouse through his binoculars. The shoreline to the west was less than three miles away and he could make out a small village. He checked his map and determined that it was the town of Rivas. He then turned his attention to a large majestic island in the shape of a figure eight, no more than five miles to the west, that looked to be quite fertile and thickly forested. Pitt estimated the total area of land to be roughly one hundred and fifty square miles.
According to his map, it was called Isle de Ometepe. Pitt focused in on two volcanic mountains tied together by a narrow isthmus a couple of miles in length. The volcano on the northern end of the island rose over five thousand feet and appeared to be active by the wisp of steam that issued through the cone on top of the crater and touched the billowy clouds passing over the summit.
The southern volcano formed a perfect cone and sat dormant. Pitt judged it to be a good thousand feet lower than its mate to the north. He also estimated that the four underground tunnels ran directly under the isthmus of the island near the base of the northern volcano. That would explain, he thought, the unusual rise in temperature that he and Giordino had experienced inside the fourth tunnel.
A quick glance at the map revealed that the active volcano was named Concepcion, while its mate was labeled Madera. He swung the glasses and totally unexpectedly found himself staring at what looked to be a vast industrial enterprise spreading over the southern slopes of Concepcion just above the isthmus. He guessed that it covered over five or six hundred acres. It struck him as being in an out-of-the-way location. It hardly seemed a practical place for a business to pour millions of dollars into an industrial complex nowhere near major transportation facilities. Unless, he mused, it was cloaked in secrecy.
Then he observed an aircraft appear from the north and line up on a runway that ran across the isthmus to the entrance of the complex. It banked around the peak of the Madera volcano and landed, taxiing to a large terminal at the end of the runway.
Pitt lowered the glasses, an expression on his face as if he was seeing something he didn't want to see. A look of deep concentration clouded his green eyes. He cleaned the lenses of the binoculars with a few drops of water from his canteen and wiped them with the tail of his shirt from under the Odyssey jumpsuit. Then he raised the glasses again, and as if to reassure himself, refocused on the aircraft.
The sun shone between a pair of clouds, bathing Isle de Ometepe in bright light. Though the aircraft seemed no larger than an ant through the glasses, there was no mistaking the lavender color reflected by the sunlight on the fuselage and wings.
"Odyssey," he muttered to himself, his mind in turmoil. Only then did he realize the facility sat directly above the tunnels. That explained the freight elevators he and Giordino saw at the rail supply terminal. Whatever its purpose, the facility may have been connected to the tunnels, but its size dictated that it had to be a separate operation.
As he swept his gaze past the buildings rising around the base of the volcano, he paused, spotting what looked like an extensive dock area behind a row of warehouses. The warehouse roofs shielded the docks, but he could discern four cargo-loading cranes against the blue sky and realized that the complex didn't require an outside transportation system. It was totally self-sufficient.
Then three things happened almost simultaneously that alerted him to trouble.
The lighthouse began inexplicably to sway like a hula dancer. As he'd told Percy Rathbone, having grown up in California, he was familiar with earthquakes. He'd once been in a thirty-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard when a quake hit and the building began to rock and oscillate. Fortunately, the base of the building rested on giant concrete roller bearings deep underground for just such an event. This felt much the same, except the lighthouse trembled and reeled like a palm tree caught in opposing winds.
Pitt immediately turned and gazed at the Concepcion volcano, thinking that it might have erupted, but the peak appeared peaceful, with no sign of smoke or ash. He glanced down at the water and saw the surface ripple as if being shook from below by some unseen giant vibrator. One minute and what seemed an eternity later, the quake faded. Not surprisingly, it did not wake up Giordino.
The second danger came from a small lavender patrol boat that was coming from the island and headed directly toward the lighthouse. The security guards on board must have been confident of their trapped quarry. They were traveling over the water at a leisurely pace.
The third and final danger came from below their feet. What probably saved their lives in the next few seconds was an
almost scarcely heard sound: a slight clink of metal against metal coming from the shaft leading to the tunnel deep below.
Pitt kicked Giordino. "We have callers. It seems they picked up our trail."
Giordino came instantly awake and pulled the .50 caliber Desert Eagle automatic from inside his belt under the white jumpsuit, as Pitt retrieved the ancient Colt .45 from his carry bag.
Crouched beside the shaft, Pitt shouted down without looking over the edge. "Stay where you are...!"
What happened next was not totally unexpected. His reply was a hail of automatic fire that burst from the shaft and peppered the metal roof of the lighthouse with enough holes to turn it into a colander. The blast was so intense that Pitt and Giordino withheld their fire so as not to risk poking a hand over the edge and having their fingers shot off.
Pitt crawled over to one of the lighthouse windows and pounded on the glass with the butt of the Colt. The panes were thick and it took several hammerlike blows to shatter the glass. Most of the shards fell to the sea below, but Pitt quickly extended his arm outside and smashed the remaining fragments onto the floor inside. Pushing them into piles with his feet, he kicked them over the edge of the shaft, where they fell like a deluge of razor-edged knives. Shouts and cries of pain erupted from the shaft, as the fire fell off.
Taking advantage of the lull, Pitt and Giordino blindly fired their automatics down the shaft, their bullets ricocheting against the concrete walls and causing havoc among the Odyssey security guards climbing the ladder. Their cries of pain ended and were replaced by the sickening thud of bodies hurtling down the shaft to the tunnel far below.
"That should put a crimp in their plans," said Giordino, in a voice devoid of remorse while he inserted a full clip.
"We still have unwanted guests to deal with," said Pitt, pointing at the patrol boat speeding toward the lighthouse, its bow lifted above the water, a rooster tail rising in its wake.
"It's going to be close." Giordino nodded out the shattered glass toward a blue helicopter that was skimming over the lake from the north.
Swiftly figuring the distance the boat and helicopter had to travel, Pitt allowed himself a tight grin. "The bird is faster. It should arrive a good mile ahead of the boat."
