After making its first pass, the airship turned onto a parallel track. Rather than make a random thrust into the space over the lake, the airship was conducting a thorough search, using a lawn-mowing pat- tern. Nighthawk was paddling for all he was worth, but it would be only a matter of minutes before the searchlights dancing over the lake's surface caught the canoe.
The airship made another turn and started back on a course that would take it directly over the canoe. Once spotted, the canoe would be an easy target. Nighthawk knew there was only one option avail- able to him. He drew his hunting knife and slashed a hole in the bot- tom of the canoe. Cold water poured in and surged around his waist. The water was up to his neck, as the airship blotted out the sky al- most directly overhead. The guttural noise of its engines blocked out all other sound.
Nighthawk ducked his head and held on to the sinking canoe to keep it below the surface. Above him, the water glowed white from the moving bull's-eyes, then went black again. He stayed under as long as he could, then, gasping for breath, he popped his head out of the water.
The airship had turned for another pass. Nighthawk could hear another sound mingling with the throb of engines. The whine and snarl of Jet Skis. Someone must have had spare ignition keys. Nighthawk swam off at an angle, away from the village.
Minutes later, he saw lights scudding across the lake at great speed as the Jet Skis made directly for the deserted village. Nighthawk kept swimming until he felt soft muck under his feet. He crawled up onto the shore, exhausted from the swim, but he rested only long enough to wring water out of his shirt.
Lights were coming his way along the beach.
Nighthawk took one last, sorrowful look across the lake, before he melted into the woods like a sodden wraith.
20
ABROAD SMILE CROSSED Austin's bronzed face as the taxi crunched onto the long gravel driveway in Fairfax, Virginia. Austin paid his fare from Duties Airport and sprinted up the steps of the Victorian boathouse, part of an old estate fronting on the Potomac River. He dropped his bags inside the door, swept his eye around the combination study-den and the familiar line from Robert Louis Stevenson came to mind.
Home is the sailor, home from sea.
Like Austin himself, his house was a study in contrasts. He was a man of action whose physical strength, courage and quickness made him a force to be reckoned with. Yet he possessed a cool intellect, and he often drew inspiration from the great minds of centuries past. His work often involved the latest in high-tech gadgets, but his respect for the past was crystallized in the brace of dueling pistols that hung over his fireplace. It was part of a collection of more than two hun- dred sets, to which he was always adding, despite the limitations of a government salary.
The dichotomy in his personality was reflected in the comfortable dark-wood Colonial furniture that contrasted with the plain white walls, like those in a New York art gallery, that were hung with con- temporary originals. His extensive bookshelves groaned under the weight of hundreds of books that included first editions of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, and well-worn volumes containing the writings of the great philosophers. While he could spend hours studying the works and wisdom of Plato and Kant, his extensive music library was heavy on progressive jazz. Curiously, there was lit- tle to indicate that he spent most of his working days on or under the sea, except for a primitive painting of a clipper ship and a few other sailing vessels, a photo of his catboat under full sail and a glass- encased model of his racing hydroplane.
Austin had lovingly converted the boathouse into a residence, doing much of the work himself. His assignments for NUMA, and before that for the CIA, took him all over the globe. But when his work was done, he could always return to his safe harbor, drop sail and throw the anchor over the side. All that was needed to make the nautical analogy complete, he reflected, was a ration of grog.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of dark rum and Jamaican ginger beer. The ice tinkled pleasantly in his glass as he threw the doors open to release the musty smell. He went out onto the deck, where he filled his lungs with the fresh river air and surveyed the slow-moving Potomac in the vanishing light. Nothing had changed. The river was as beautiful and serene as ever.
He stretched out in a wood-slatted Adirondack chair, lay back and stared at the sky as if the stars could tell him what was behind the events of the last few days. His misadventures in the Faroe Islands and in Copenhagen would have been the stuff of dreams if not for the itch on his chest where the knife wound was healing and the ten- der swelling under his hair where a club had connected with his nog- mn. He could draw a straight line from the sabotage of the SOS ship to the attack on a quiet Copenhagen street. The dark impulses that had inspired the sabotage of the SOS ship were obviously a means to an end. Simply put, someone wanted SOS out of the picture. When Austin had gotten nosey, he'd become a target, first in Skaalshavn and later in Copenhagen.
The situation could be summed up in a simple equation: When- ever someone got too close to a company called Oceanus, the results could be disastrous. His thoughts drifted back to the Faroe Islands fish farm and the thing in the fish tank that had scared the hell out of him. A miasma of pure evil seemed to hang over the Oceanus op- eration. What had Jorgensen said? Unholy. Then there was the Basque tycoon, Balthazar Aguirrez, and his Quixotic quest. What was that all about?
Austin went over the events of the past several days in his mind until he felt his eyelids drooping. He downed the last of his drink, climbed the stairs to his bedroom in the turret surmounting the mansard roof, and turned in. He slept soundly and was up and dressed early the next morning, refreshed by a night's sleep and stim- ulated by a pot of strong Kona coffee. He telephoned an old friend at the CIA to make sure he would be in, then called his NUMA of- fice to say he'd be late.
Unlike his colleague Dirk Pitt, who collected antique autos and relished driving them, Austin was indifferent when it came to ground transportation. Driving a sedan from the NUMA car pool, nondescript except for its turquoise color, he headed to Langley, along a route he knew well from his days with the CIA, and parked his car next to dozens of other government vehicles. Security at the sprawl- ing complex was tighter since 9/11.
Herinan Perez, whom he had called earlier, was waiting in the vis- itors' area. Perez was a slightly built man with an olive complexion and dark-brown eyes that matched his thinning hair. Perez helped speed the check-in process through security and led Austin through the labyrinth of corridors to an office uncluttered by a scrap of paper. The only objects on the desktop were a computer monitor, a tele- phone and a photo of an attractive woman and two cute children.
"Kurt, it's great to see you!" Perez said, motioning for Austin to sit down. "Thinking of jumping Sandecker's ship to come back into the Company? We'd love to have you. The cloak-and-dagger stuff you're so good at has become respectable at Langley once again."
"Admiral Sandecker might have something to say about that. But I'll have to admit that I still get misty-eyed when I think about the fun we had on our last job."