Page 70 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

“Patrol boat is thirty minutes early,” Joe said. “I thought they were on a strict schedule?”

“Our arrival must have shaken things up,” Kurt replied.

A spotlight on the foredeck swung out across the water. A second light was already aimed out to sea. It passed by and made its way toward deeper water. It was heading for the wreck site.

“Well, you were right,” Joe said through deep breaths. “The radar blind spot was a trap. Fortunately, you were also right when you guessed that the people who shot us down would search the wreckage instead of guessing that we’d crashed the helicopter on purpose as a diversion.”

Kurt’s face sported a wry smile that Joe couldn’t see in the dark. “Me being right twice in one day shouldn’t astound you so much. My real concern is why Max got it wrong. She should have at least assigned a probability to the idea of a trap. But she didn’t.”

“What are you saying?”

“We have to at least consider the possibility that Max has been hacked, too.”

Joe shook his head. “Yaeger insists she’s unhackable.”

“And theTitanicwas unsinkable,” Kurt replied. “Things happen.”

Joe sighed. “Either way, not much we can do about it now.”

Kurt nodded, his eyes tracking the patrol boat as it continued to move off. A small feeling of relief crept into his shoulders. Tired and tense muscles relaxing after so much labor. Then a new sound reached his ears, the yelping and barking of dogs coming from farther down the beach.

Chapter 41

A quick glance down the beach revealed the glow of flashlights playing across the dark sand. The way the light wavered and bounced, Kurt figured the people holding the flashlights were running.

At nearly the same moment, the patrol boat’s engine roared, and the craft began turning back toward the beach.

“Not out of the woods yet,” Joe suggested.

Kurt looked around. The volcanic rubble rose on a jagged incline behind them for about fifty to sixty feet. After that the rainforest took over. “That’s exactly where we should be.”

There was no point trying to hide or bury the inflatable. Kurt shoved it until one of the waves picked it up and pulled it back out into the water. At best it would float down the beach and be thrown back onshore: at worst it would wash back and forth and act as a distraction. In the meantime he and Joe would have to find a route up into the jungle.

They took off, sticking to the rocks and wading through a tidal pool in hopes of hiding their trail and their scent. “We can’t smell that strong,” Kurt said, “we were just in the ocean.”

“Did you forget the twenty minutes of vigorous paddling that brought us ashore?”

Kurt shook his head. Sore arms and shoulders would not let him forget it.

The patrol boat seemed to be heading toward the wrong part of the beach, but the dogs wouldn’t miss them and were coming on hard. Though a different pitch in their howls told Kurt something had changed.

Another tidal pool appeared. Kurt waded down into it and continued ahead, his eyes on the rock and jungle to their left. It was difficult to see much of anything, but all they needed was a crack to sneak through.

Behind them the sound of the dogs changed pitch yet again. They’d been held up. Reined in as their handlers came upon something worth looking at.

“They’ve found the raft,” Joe said.

“Too bad it didn’t get past the breakers,” Kurt replied.

The spotlight from the patrol boat swung across the beach, lighting up the squad of men in the surf and the empty raft. After a few seconds it swung back to the north and along the rock face, heading their way.

“Down,” Kurt said, submerging into the warm shallows of the tidal pool.

Joe dropped silently into the water beside him, and the spotlight passed over them once more, continuing on down the beach. Behind them the dogs and their handlers released the raft and resumed their march.

“Be nice if we could find the cave that Five and his friends came out through,” Joe said.

Kurt was thinking along similar lines, but as they searched for an opening, the disorganized nature of the volcanic rock frustrated theirefforts. One opening that looked like a cave turned out to be a crevice in the rock face that closed off several feet back. Another spot was actually narrow and foreboding. Hard to get in and out of, with no idea of how far it might go, but not the kind of opening one could haul a boat through. Nor a place Kurt would want to be trapped and mauled by a pack of angry dogs.

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