Clive Cussler Cold Fire (NUMA Files #22)

Prologue The Burning Ship

Prologue

The Burning Ship

The thudding sound of the Chinese helicopter’s rotor shook the cabin from nose to tail.

Flying the overloaded craft low and slow on a hot and humid afternoon put a tremendous strain on the engine.

The temperature gauges were creeping up.

The pilot didn’t like that. Under different circumstances he would suggest they dump some fuel or perhaps a little cargo, but they were a long way out to sea, and the cargo…

He glanced back into the main cabin. Fifteen heavily armed commandos from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Some of them wearing scuba gear. Others strapped up in so much body armor he wondered how they could move. All of them looked ready to assault some well-defended objective.

“We should climb and add some speed,” the pilot advised. “Engine heat is rising. We need cooler air and more of it. Otherwise, we risk a system failure.”

He was addressing the combat team’s leader, a hard-faced lieutenant from a special unit of the Chinese army.

The lieutenant ignored him, his eyes locked onto a growing cloud of dark, oily smoke that was drifting across from the shimmering sea.

The smoke concealed a burning freighter known to be hauling stolen weapons and barrels of radioactive waste.

Somewhere on that freighter a ruthless cabal of smugglers awaited their arrival, no doubt ready to use the stolen weapons against them.

He expected the flare of a missile to burst forth at any moment.

Climbing would only make them an easier target.

“Keep us on the deck,” the lieutenant ordered bluntly. “Circle the freighter. We need to assess our options.”

The pilot did as ordered, manipulating the controls with the smooth precision of a veteran.

His flying skills were the main reason he’d been chosen for this mission.

He was known for his pinpoint control. But he couldn’t do the impossible.

The freighter was engulfed in smoke, it was listing and sinking, its masts and cranes had broken loose and could be seen swinging unpredictably through the fumes with every wallowing movement of the ship.

Metal cables dangling from the cranes had been strung up across the ship like anti-bird wires near an outside dining area. Landing, or even getting close enough to deploy the commandos, would be almost impossible.

They rounded the stern to find smoke billowing from every gap. Flames could be seen through open hatches. The engine room had to be ablaze at this point, diesel slurry burning and pumping out black clouds. Other parts of the ship burning with secondary fires suggested a deliberate act.

“They’re trying to scuttle the ship,” the pilot guessed.

“Any sign of the Americans?” the lieutenant asked.

The pilot shook his head. He saw no flares or flashing lights. He saw no one standing on the deck waving for help. “They can’t possibly be on the ship. Not in that condition.”

The lieutenant knew better. He’d studied the files of the men they were speaking about. He knew they would not abandon the mission until the ship went down and perhaps not even then.

He reached for the radio controls, checked that he was on the right frequency, and spoke in well-studied English.

“NUMA, this is Dragon Lima,” he announced.

“Landing impossible. Freighter is burning from the stern to the number two mast. Aft of the main hold is an inferno. We recommend you abandon the assault. Escape may be possible from the bow. We will pick you up. Do you copy?”

As he waited for an answer, the lieutenant played with the volume, listening to static and silence.

He was angry. For the first time in years a joint operation between an American agency and a Chinese one had proven fruitful.

A ring of smugglers who had been dumping toxic waste into the seas between China and Japan had been tracked and cornered. Now it was all falling apart.

Political meddling had delayed their departure from Shanghai. A mechanical problem had forced a second helicopter to turn back, and the lieutenant’s squad had pressed on alone.

With help coming late, the Americans had gone for the ship on their own. They were now trapped in a hellish firestorm if they even remained alive. Not the result anyone wanted out of this rare moment of cooperation.

“NUMA, do you read?” the lieutenant called out again. “Freighter is ablaze and sinking. If you can get into the water, we will pick you up.”

This time a voice cut through the static. It asked only a single question. “Any word from Gushan?”

Gushan was the Chinese team’s point man. He’d boarded the freighter covertly to confirm the presence of the stolen weapons and waste.

“Negative,” the lieutenant said. “The major has not reported in since confirming the presence of the radioactive samples.”

“We’ll find him,” the American insisted. “Just watch for anyone attempting to escape. They wouldn’t be scuttling the ship if they didn’t have a plan to get away.”

The lieutenant acknowledged the request, glanced at the pilot, and made a whirling motion with his hand.

They would circle the freighter until they were needed one way or another, though the lieutenant feared it would only be to recover bodies.

Between the burning ship, the brutal reputation of the smugglers, and the unexpected radio silence from the major, he assumed Gushan was already dead.

And if the Americans kept looking for him, they would only end up joining him in the world beyond.

—

Kurt Austin had no doubt he would end up in Valhalla or somewhere similar one day, but he had no intention of having today be that day.

He moved along the deck on the upwind side of the ship, carrying a short-barreled assault rifle designed for combat in close quarters.

He moved in the quick spurts of a soldier transiting hostile territory: darting from cover to cover, clearing the rigging above as he went, swinging the barrel of the rifle quickly as he passed blind spots and stacks of equipment on the deck.

So far, he’d encountered no sign of the smugglers. In fact, he hadn’t found a living soul.

He paused in a sheltered nook beside a bulkhead wall and covered the approach of his partner, Joe Zavala.

Though they weren’t soldiers, Marines, or military operatives of any kind, the two men had been through plenty of scrapes and firefights together.

They formed a tight unit. Each man knowing what the other was thinking.

The thickening smoke wafted past them, the fumes burning their lungs, throats, and eyes.

They’d stuck to the outer edge of the ship on the windward side, but it was not enough to keep them in the clear.

Touching the bulkhead behind him, Kurt could feel the heat.

Looking up at the sun, he found only a fading disk drifting in clouds of thickening brown smoke.

It had been robbed of its brilliance and glare. It seemed almost ready to go out.

Considering their next move, he put a hand through the tangled locks of his unruly and prematurely silver hair, brushing it back and off his forehead.

He was a taller man of almost forty. He stood six foot two, with broad shoulders but an otherwise lanky frame.

His silver-gray hair often gave him away, but his most striking feature was a pair of intense blue eyes, which were now bathed in a sea of red as the fumes irritated their corneas.

As Zavala ducked into the protected nook, he turned sideways to Kurt, covering the area behind them.

Joe was shorter than Kurt, and had dark eyes and dark hair, which was buzzed down to a layer of stubble at the moment.

He had the compact muscular body of a boxer and moved with the quick grace of someone who’d spent his youth training to throw and avoid punches.

As Joe settled in, he noticed a dead crewman on the deck ahead of them. “That makes five,” he said to Kurt.

Kurt had seen the man. It did indeed make five. All shot in the back. “Ahab and the other smugglers are trying to cover their tracks. Eliminating anyone who can identify them.”

“He’s nothing if not ruthless,” Joe said.

They’d been looking for the man who called himself Ahab for months, since information revealed that Ahab was taking toxic waste off the hands of unprincipled companies and dumping it in the sea for a hefty price, but one that was much lower than the true cost of dealing with such materials.

The Chinese government had become involved when they learned he was smuggling weapons and siphoning radioactive material out of the waste he trafficked in for use in a “dirty bomb.” A bomb he would almost certainly sell to the highest bidder.

It had been a good collaboration, but each time they got close, Ahab slipped away.

Informants turned up dead. An Interpol agent had gone missing, and several members of the Chinese federal police had been blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade when they stopped a truck believed to be carrying one of Ahab’s shipments.

If the man left this ship in anything but chains or a coffin, plenty of other deaths would certainly follow.

“They have to be up near the bow,” Kurt said. “They started these fires in the stern for a reason.”

“Why set them at all?” Joe asked.

“To slow us and the Chinese down,” Kurt said. “To cover their tracks. They might even think the fires and smoke will help them escape.”

“They may have abandoned ship already,” Joe suggested as a counterpoint. “I would have.”

Kurt probably would have left by now as well, but he wasn’t a smuggler trying to salvage a large payday.

“The Chinese would have seen them if they’d taken a boat out,” he said.

“Ahab’s waiting for something. Help, maybe.

Or just hoping to hold out until the Chinese helicopter has to go back to the coast. It can’t loiter for too long. ”