The Storm

Sabah would not give him that chance. “You have a strategy?”

Mustafa nodded. “We must see the horde in action even if it’s on a small scale.”

“By ‘we,’ you mean the others as well?”

“I will be the witness, along with Alhrama from Saudi Arabia. Ji

“I see. And how should I arrange this?”

“Ji

Sabah pondered what they were asking for. He stroked his beard. “And when you have seen this?”

“Then I will signal you,” Mustafa said. “And you will kill Ji

CHAPTER 15

KURT AUSTIN WAS HEADED FOR MARCHETTI’S HIGH-TECH office atop one of Aqua-Terra’s two completed buildings. In the twenty-four hours since he and Joe had caught the seaplane, preventing Matson and Otero from escaping, much had occurred.

Back in Washington, Dirk Pitt and the NUMA brass had gone into high gear, gathering intelligence on Ji

Nigel, the pilot, had finished putting the helicopter back together and, at Marchetti’s invitation, had picked up Paul and Gamay Trout.

Marchetti himself had spent fifteen hours debugging the computer code, trying to be sure Otero had left no additional traps for them. He found none, but there were hundreds of programs ru

With a report due in from NUMA HQ, everyone was gathering in Marchetti’s office to await the transmission and discuss their next move.

Kurt opened the door and stepped inside. Joe and the Trouts were already there. Marchetti sat across from them. Leilani sat next to him.

“That’s a mighty fine brig you have down there,” Kurt said to Marchetti. “I’ve stayed in worse five-star hotels.”

Marchetti beamed. “When Aqua-Terra is ready, we expect to have millionaires and billionaires on board. If I have to put some of them in jail, I don’t want to ruin the Aqua-Terra experience for them.”

Kurt chuckled.

“Any luck getting them to talk?” Leilani asked.

“No, they’ve clammed up tight,” Kurt said, glancing at Joe and then turning back to Marchetti. “Don’t suppose you have a hungry python around here anywhere?”

Marchetti looked shocked by the request. “Um … no. Why?”

“Never mind.”

Kurt sat down just as the satellite feed locked in. A moment later Dirk Pitt’s rugged face appeared on the screen.

After a quick round of introductions, Pitt spoke.

“We’ve developed some information for you on this Ji

“Thirty years ago Ji

“Five years ago he forms a company called Oasis. It’s an oddly designed international consortium, heavy into technology and funded from murky sources. Interpol has been watching it from the get-go. Their big concern was the vast amount of money and technology flowing into Yemen without any type of control.”

“Can’t imagine Yemen is a magnet for attracting foreign capital,” Kurt said.

“Not in the least,” Pitt replied. “Because of that, Interpol thought Oasis might be a terrorist front or a money-laundering operation, but Ji

Pitt tapped something on the keyboard in front of him. A satellite photo came up, showing the stark beauty of Yemen’s northern desert region. The display sharpened and zoomed in as if they were dropping in from space. When the resolution locked, it was focused on a rocky outcropping that jutted above the sand and cast a long shadow. It reminded Kurt of Shiprock, New Mexico.

Leading up to the outcropping, and stretching out behind it, were vehicle tracks and swaths of discolored sand.

“What are we looking at?” Kurt asked.

“Our intelligence agencies have tracked some of Ji

“It doesn’t look like much,” Paul noted.

“It’s not supposed to,” Dirk replied. “See all that darker sand and soil? It’s spread out over a hundred acres.”

“It looks like it’s been washed down from somewhere,” Gamay said. “Erosion or flash flooding.”

“Except it’s in the driest part of the desert,” Dirk said, “and the grade runs off kilter to the pattern we see.”

“So it’s camouflage,” Kurt said. “What are they hiding?”

“Our experts think they’ve moved a lot of earth,” Pitt said, “suggesting an underground compound of massive proportions. Infrared scans have detected an inordinate amount of heat coming from vents in the sand. All of which suggests manufacturing, though until now no one could guess what they were up to.”

“Stealing my design,” Marchetti said, “and going into production.”

Pitt nodded. “So it would seem. The question is, why?”

Marchetti considered this for a second. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I intended them to eat garbage, but from what we saw the design has been modified. Obviously that would imply a different purpose. At this point all we know for sure is that they attacked your catamaran, but unless I’ve missed something no other vessels have been attacked or gone missing. That would suggest it’s not their main purpose.”

“Then why use them for it?” Kurt asked.

Marchetti glanced at Leilani for a second and then spoke. “Under normal circumstances the boat would have been picked clean. Not a speck of organic matter would have remained. And the bots would have disappeared back into the sea.”

Kurt understood. “No evidence. No witnesses. The boat would have been found in perfect working order like the Mary Celeste. Only they didn’t count on the crew setting a fire to fight them off.”

“Exactly,” Marchetti said. “Without the residue you found, there would have been nothing to tell us what had happened. Even if another vessel had been watching from a distance, they would have seen nothing.”

Pitt returned the conversation to the original track. “So they can be a danger to shipping,” he noted, “but if that’s not their main function, what is? Could they be causing the temperature anomalies our team discovered?”

“Possibly,” Marchetti said. “I’m not sure how, but to some extent what they’re capable of depends on how many of them are out there.”

“Can you explain that?” Pitt asked.

“Think of them as insects. One isn’t a big problem—one wasp, one ant, one termite—not much of a threat. But if you get enough of them in the same place, they can cause all kinds of trouble. My design was capable of reproducing autonomously and spreading ad infinitum. That was the only way to make them effective. No reason to think these aren’t doing the same thing. Millions of them can cause problems for a small vessel, billions could pose a threat to a large vessel or oil platform or even something the size of Aqua-Terra, but trillions of them—or trillions of trillions—that could threaten the entire sea.”

“The entire sea?” Joe asked.

Marchetti nodded. “In a way, the microbots are a pollutant in their own right. Almost like a toxin. But because they’re active in feeding, reproducing and protecting themselves, it’s better to think of them as a no