Sacred Stone
"A NEW CLIVE CUSSLER NOVEL IS LIKE A VISIT
FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND."
-Tom Clancy
His first novel of the Oregon Files was hailed as "honestly fabulous"
(Kirkus Reviews). Now, Clive Cussler, creator of the bestselling NUMA®
and Dirk Pitt® series, returns with an all-new novel of adventure and intrigue
featuring the enigmatic high-seas action hero Juan Cabrillo ...
In the remote wastes of Greenland, a young scientist has unearthed an
artifact hidden in a cave for a millennium-a 50,000-year-old meteorite
known as the Sacred Stone, which possesses potentially catastrophic radioactive
power. But the astounding find places him in the crosshairs of
two opposing terrorist groups who seek the stone for themselves.
One is a group of Muslim extremists who have stolen a nuclear device.
With the power of the meteorite, they could vaporize any city in the
West. The other group is led by a megalomaniacal industrialist who
seeks to carry out the utter annihilation of Islam itself.
Caught between two militant factions bent on wholesale slaughter, Juan
Cabrillo and his ship of high-tech mercenaries known as the Corporation
must fight to protect the Sacred Stone-and prevent the outbreak of
World War III ...
PRAISE FOR CLIVE CUSSLER
AND THE FIRST NOVEL OF THE OREGON FILES
GOLDEN BUDDHA
"Readers will burn up the pages following the blazing action and daring
exploits of these men and women and their amazing machines."
-Publishers Weekly
"Fans of Cussler will not be disappointed." -Library journal
PRAISE FOR
CLIVE CUSSLER'S NUMA® SERIES
"MARVELOUS ... simply terrific fun." -Kirkus Reviews
"YOU CAN'T GET MUCH MORE SATISFYING."
-The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Cussler and Kemprecos weave A GREAT STORY." -Tulsa World
"Audacious and WILDLY ENTERTAINING." -New York Daily News
PRAISE FOR
CLIVE CUSSLER'S DIRK PITT® SERIES
"[A] NONSTOP THRILLER.... CUSSLER SPEEDS AND TWISTS
through the complex plot and hairbreadth escapes [with] the intensity
and suspense of a NASCAR race." -Publishers Weekly
"CLIVE CUSSLER ... IS AT TOP FORM HERE." -Kirkus Reviews
"A DELIGHTFUL PAGE-TURNER that is almost impossible to put
down." -The San Francisco Examiner
"THE FUNNEST DIRK PITT ADVENTURE SINCE RAISE THE
TITANIC!" -Rocky Mountain News
DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure
Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex
Night Probe
Vixen 03 -Raise the Titanic!
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS
White Death
Fire Ice
Serpent
Blue Gold
FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO
Sacred Stone
Golden Buddha
NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO
The Sea Hunters II
The Sea Hunters
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed
SACRED
STONE
U
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Sandecker, RLLLP.
Cover illustration by Edwin Herder.
Cover design by Rich Hasselberger.
Text design by Julie Rogers.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / October 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cussler, Clive.
Sacred stone / Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo.-Berkley trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-425-19848-0 (pbk.)
1. Terrorism-Prevention-Fiction. 2. Relics-Fiction. I. Dirgo, Craig. II. Title.
PS3553.U75S33 2004
813'.54-dc22 2004050206
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
JUAN CAB
MAX HAN RICHARD
IF
GEORGE ,A RICK BAR] MONICA C
CARL GAN
CHUCK "T
MICHAEL
CLIFF HO]
JULIA HU]
PETE JONI
HALI KASI
LARRY KIT
FRANKLIN
BOB MEAI
JUDY MIC.
MARK MU]
CAST OF CHARACTERS
JUAN CABRILLO: Chairman of the Corporation
MAX HANLEY: President of the Corporation
RICHARD TRUITT: Vice President of the Corporation
THE CORPORATION TEAM (OPERATIVES) (In alphabetic order)
GEORGE ADAMS: Helicopter Pilot
RICK BARRETT: Assistant Chef
MONICA CRABTREE: Supply and Logistics Coordinator
CARL GANNON: General Operations
CHUCK "TINY" GUNDERSON: Chief Pilot Fixed-Wing
MICHAEL HALPERT: Finance and Accounting
CLIFF HORNSBY: General Operations
JULIA HUXLEY: Medical Officer
PETE JONES: General Operations
HALI KASIM: General Operations
LARRY KING: Sniper
FRANKLIN LINCOLN: General Operations
BOB MEADOWS: General Operations
JUDY MICHAELS: Pilot
MARK MURPHY: General Operations
2 CAST OF CHARACTERS
KEVIN NIXON: Magic Shop Specialist
TRACY PILSTON: Pilot
SAM PRYOR: Propulsion Engineer
GUNTHER REINHOLT: Propulsion Engineer
TOM REYES: General Operations
LINDA ROSS: Security and Surveillance/General Operations
EDDIE SENG: Director of Shore Operations/General Operations
ERIC STONE: Control Room Operator/General Operations
THE OTHERS
LANGSTON OVERHOLT IV: CIA officer who hires the Corporation
HALIFAX HICKMAN: Billionaire industrialist
CHRIS HUNT: U.S. Army officer killed in Afghanistan MICHELLE HUNT: Mother of Chris
ERIC THE RED: Legendary explorer
THE EMIR OF QATAR: Leader of the country of Qatar
JOHN ACKERMAN: Archaeologist who locates the meteorite in Greenland
CLAY HUGHES: Assassin hired to recover the Greenland meteorite
PIETER VANDERWALD: South African death merchant
MIKE NEILSEN: Pilot hired to fly Hughes to Mount Forel
WOODY CAMPBELL: Drunk in Greenland who rents Cabrillo a snowcat
ALEIMEIN AL-KHALIFA: Terrorist planning to bomb London
SCOTT THOMPSON: Leader of the team on the Free Enterprise
THOMAS "TD" DWYER: CIA scientist who discovers the meteorite's danger
MIKO "MIKE" NASUKI: NOAA astronomer who assists Dwyer
SAUD AL-SHEIK: Saudi procurement official for the hajj
JAMES BENNETT: Pilot who transports the meteorite from the Faeroe Islands to
England
NEBILE LABABITI: Terrorist for London operation
MILOS COUSTAS: Captain of the Larissa, the ship that delivers the bomb to
England
BILLY JOE SHEA: Owner of a 1947 MG TO Cabrillo borrows to chase the bomb
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ROGER LASSITER: Disgraced CIA agent who delivers the meteorite to
Maidenhead
ELTON JOHN: Legendary musician
AMAD: Young Yemeni who will deliver the bomb DEREK GOODLIN: Whorehouse owner in London
JOHN FLEMING: Head of MI5
DR. JACK BERG: CIA doctor who forces Thompson to talk
WILLIAM SKUTTER:' Air Force captain who leads the team in Medina
PATRICK COLGAN: Army warrant officer heading the team to recover prayer
rugs in Riyadh
3
I
PROLOGUE
FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS ago, and millions of miles from Earth, a
planet was twitching convulsively to herald her destruction. The planet
was ancient but her eventual demise had been cast from the start. She
was an unstable orb with poles that constantly shifted polarity.
The planet consisted of rock and magma with a metal core. Over
the countless eons since it had formed and cooled, an atmosphere was
born. The gaseous layers were comprised of argon, helium and some hydrogen.
Life was born on the surface of the planet-a low, base form of
microbe.
The planet never really had a chance to develop complicated life
forms. The microbes consumed oxygen molecules to multiply, keeping
the surface and atmosphere barren of cells that could evolve. The planet's
surface rock turned into superheated liquid mush as each revolution
around its sun drew it closer toward the fiery furnace. The planet revolved
not in a spin around her axis like Earth, but rather in an everincreasing
barrel roll as the poles shifted, and the melted rock surface
began to spread like lava from a volcano.
6 CLIVE CUSSLER
^
Each hour, each minute, each second brought her closer to her sun,
and she gradually shed her skin as if the hand of God were scraping her
surface with a wire brush.
The stellar dandruff that was cast into the atmosphere reached the
edge of the gaseous envelope and was turned white-hot by the sun, bursting
with the force of a thousand nuclear bombs. Sucked back to the surface
by gravity, the reentering projectiles ripped more of the fragile crust
away. More and more of the crust dissolved.
The doomed planet had only a short time to live.
As the protective covering was lost to space, the inner metal core
temperature continued to rise and the orb inside began to spin. Large
cracks in the surface spread and fractures formed, releasing larger and
larger chunks of molten rock into space. And all the while the planet's
metal core grew with incredible intensity. Then, all at once, it happened.
A massive slab of rock on the side closest to the sun gave way. The poles
shifted one last time and the planet began spinning wildly.
Then she exploded.
Millions of metal orbs flew into space, their molecules rearranging
themselves as they melted like solder under a flame. A lucky few made it
past the gravitational field of the sun. Then they headed on a long journey
into the deep reaches of space.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of years had passed since the unknown planet
exploded, scattering its remains into the universe. From a great distance
the approaching debris appeared blue. One piece became a finely detailed
orb. Many fragments had been sucked toward the surfaces of other planets
in space, but this one traveled farther than the rest and eventually
came to rain down on a planet called Earth.
The single metal orb entered Earth's atmosphere on a low trajectory
from west to east. She split in the ionosphere and calved off a smaller
spherical orb of pure metal. The mother meteor came in along thirtyfive
degrees latitude. At this latitude, it was dry and arid. The baby,
lighter and smaller, was pulled farther northwest, heading toward the
SACRED STONE 7
I
sixty-second degree latitude, where the surface was covered with a layer
of ice and snow.
Two different environments of the same planet brought two different
results.
The mother and her molten metal reformed into a glowing orb after
spitting out her young. She came over a coastline then streaked across a
barren desert in a decaying trajectory. Blasting high above the sand, rocks,
and cactus, .the one-hundred-yard diameter, 63,000-ton nickel-iron projectile
slammed into the earth, carving a one-mile-diameter crater in
the dry soil. Clouds of dust headed skyward, then began encircling Earth.
Months would pass before all the fallout filtered back to the earth.
The baby was pure and silver gray. The action of the initial explosion
and the molecular rearrangement while traveling through space
had formed a perfect sphere that appeared like twin halves of geodesic
domes locked together. Traversing farther along the planet, she slipped
through space quietly, her smooth surface meeting little resistance from
Earth's atmosphere, with none of the anger and rage her mother had
contained. She dropped lower and lower, like a golf ball with a topspin.
Soaring
over the shoreline of an island capped with ice, it was as if
she was being pulled to the earth by a magnet. Her diameter was but
eighteen inches, her weight a hundred pounds. Drifting lower until she
was only ten feet over the snow and ice, she lost her forward speed as
gravity brought her down. Her heated metal surface melted a track in
the snow and ice similar to a ball rolled by a child to make a snowman.
Energy expended, her heat dissipated, she came to rest at the base of
an ice-covered mountain.
"WHAT HATH HELL wrought?" the man asked in Icelandic as he
poked an object with a staff.
The man was short but formed of layers of muscle that signaled
years of hard work and labor. The hair on his head and the thick beard
that grew from his cheeks was a brilliant red like the fires of Hades.
0
N
8 CLIVE CUSSLER
Thick white furs covered his torso, while his leggings were constructed
of sealskin lined with sheep's wool. The man was prone to fits of rage,
and truth be told, he was not far removed from a barbarian. Banished
from Iceland for murder in the year 982, he had led a group across the
cold sea to the ice-shrouded island where they now resided. During the
past eighteen years he had built a settlement on the rocky coast and his
colony had survived by hunting and fishing. In time he had grown bored.
The man, Eric the Red, began longing to explore, to lead, to conquer new
lands.
In the year A.D. 1000 he set out to see what lay inland to the west.
Eleven men accompanied him at the start, but some five months into
the expedition, with spring coming, there were but five remaining. Two
had slipped into crevasses in the ice, their screams still coming to Eric as
he slept. One had slipped on ice and bashed his head on a rocky outcropping.
He had twitched in tormented pain for days, unable to see or
speak until he blissfully died one night. One had been taken by a large
white ursine when he ventured away from a campfire one evening in
search of a freshwater stream he swore he'd heard nearby.
Two had been taken by disease, suffering racking coughs and fevers
that convinced the remaining survivors that evil forces were lurking
nearby and stalking. As the expedition party thinned, the mood greatly
changed. The elation and sense of wonder that compelled the men at the
start had faded, replaced with a sense of doom and fatalism.
It was as if the expedition was cursed and the men were paying.
"Hoist the ball," Eric ordered the youngest man in the expedition,
the only one to have been born on island soil.
The teenager, Olaf the Fin, son of Olaf the Fisherman, was apprehensive.
The strange gray orb rested on a rocky outcropping as if placed
there by the hand of God. He had no way of knowing that the object
had descended from the sky some forty-eight thousand years before.
Olaf approached the orb cautiously. Everyone in the party knew of Eric's
penchant for violence; in fact, everyone on the icy island knew his legend.
Eric was not asking-he was demanding-so Olaf did not attempt
to disagree or argue. He merely swallowed hard and bent down.
Olaf's hands touched the object and he found the surface cold and
0
I
0
0
SACRED STONE 9
smooth. For the briefest of instants he felt his heart miss a beat-but he
continued on. He attempted to lift the orb but found it too heavy for his
expedition-weary arms.
"I'll need help," Olaf said.
"You," Eric said, motioning to another man with his staff.
Gro the Slayer, a taller man with light yellow hair and pale blue eyes,
took three steps forward and grabbed one side of the orb. Both men
used their back muscles and lifted the orb to hip level, then stared at
Eric.
"Make a sling from the tusked one's skin," Eric pronounced. "We
will take it back to the cave and build a shrine."
Without another word, Eric set off across the snow, leaving the others
to tend to the discovery. Two hours later the orb was safely inside the
cave. Eric immediately began planning an elaborate enclosure for the
object he now believed had come directly from the gods in the heavens
above.
ERIC LEFT OLAF and Gro to guard the heavenly body while he returned
to the settlement on the coast for more men and material. Once
there, he learned that a son had been born to his wife in his absence. He
named him Leif in honor of the spring season, then left him with his
mother to raise. With eighty more men and tools to excavate the cavern
where the orb was hidden, he set off north toward the distant mountain.
Summer was near and the sun was visible around the clock.
GRO THE SLAYER turned on his pelt bed then spat some loose fur from
his mouth.
Rubbing his hand across the bearskin, he watched in surprise as the
fur balled up in his palm. Then he stared at the orb in the dancing light
of a torch placed in the wall.
"Olaf," he said to the teenager sleeping a short distance away, "it is
time to rise and face the day."
Olaf rolled over and stared toward Gro. His eyes were red and
10 CLIVE CUSSLER
bloodshot and his skin blotchy and flaking. He coughed lightly, sat upright
and stared at Gro through the dim light. Gro's hair had been shedding
and his color was all wrong.
"Gro," Olaf said, "your nose."
Gro raised the back of his hand to his nose and saw the red of blood.
More and more often he had found himself with a bloody nose. He
reached down and tugged on a painful tooth. It came out in his fingers.
He tossed it aside and rose to his feet.
"I'll cook the berries," he said.
Stirring the fire, he added a few sticks from their dwindling supply
then retrieved a sealskin bag containing the red berries they boiled to
make a bitter morning drink. Walking outside the cave, he filled a dented
iron pot with water from the stream of a nearby melting glacier, then
stared at the marks scratched on the wall outside the cave.
Two or three more marks and Eric the Red was due to return.
By the time Gro returned inside the cave, Olaf was standing, dressed
in his lightweight leather pants with his shirt laid on a rock nearby. He
was scratching his back with a stick, and the skin was flickering to the
ground like the first light snow of a new winter season. Once the itching
had subsided he slid his leather shirt over his head.
"Something is amiss," Olaf said. "Both of us are becoming sicker as
each day passes."
"Maybe it is the foul air inside this cave," Gro said quietly, placing
the pot on the fire.
"I think it is that," Olaf said, pointing to the orb. "I think it is
possessed."
"We could move outside the cave," Gro said, "and erect a tent for
living."
"Eric ordered us to stay inside the cave. I fear if he returns and finds
us outside we will feel his wrath."
"I looked at the marks," Gro said. "He is due to return in three
sleeps-no more."
"We could take turns watching for his return," Olaf said quietly,
"then hurry back inside before he catches us."
Gro stirred the berries in the boiling water. "Sudden death or slow
SACRED STONE 11
sat up- sickness-I think it best we avoid what we know will happen for what
n shed- might or might not."
"A few more days," Olaf said.
"A few more days," Gro said as he placed an iron dipper into the
blood. pot. He filled a pair of iron bowls with the berry liquid and handed one
se. He to Olaf.
ngers.
FOUR MARKS ON the entrance of the cave later, Eric the Red returned.
upply "You have the racking cough," he said as soon as he saw the condied
to tion of the men. "I do not want you to infect the others. Return to the
'nted settlement but take up residence in the log house to the north."
then Olaf and Gro set off to the south the following morning-but they
never reached home.
Olaf went first, his weakened heart simply giving out three days afssed
ter the start of the journey. Gro didn't fare much better, and when he
He could walk no more he made camp. The furry beasts came soon after.
the What wasn't consumed immediately was spread about by the carnivores
_ing until it was as if Gro had never existed at all.
'as
ng
is
AFTER WATCHING HIS two men disappear into the distance, Eric
gathered the miners, engineers and laborers he had brought from the settlement.
He cleared a spot in the dust on the floor of the cave and began
sketching his plans with a stick.
The plans were ambitious, but a gift from heaven should not be
treated lightly.
That day the first parties began to map out the cave. In time it would
be learned that the cave stretched nearly a mile into the mountain and
the temperature increased as the cavern ran downward. A large pool with
freshwater was located deep inside, with stalactites descending from the
ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor.
Groups were sent to the coast to locate long poles of driftwood to
construct a series of ladders up and down the passages, while others
carved steps into the rock. Intricate doors were fashioned from slabs of
12 CLIVE CUSSLER
rock that pivoted on balanced hinges to hide the object from others who
might seek her power. Runic carvings and statues were hewn from the
rock, and light was reflected from the few openings where fresh air entered
the cave. Eric supervised the work from the settlement on the
coast. He visited the site rarely, letting the vision in his mind be his
guide.
Men came, worked, became sick and died, only to be replaced by
others.
By the time the cavern was finished, Eric the Red had decimated his
population base and the settlement would never recover. Only once did
his son, Leif, see the glorious monument.
Eric ordered the entrance sealed, and the object was left for those yet
to come.
1
LIEUTENANT CHRIS HUNT rarely talked about his past, but the men
he served with had gathered a few clues from his demeanor. The first
was that Hunt had not grown up in some backwoods hillbilly haven and
used the army to see the world. He was from Southern California. And,
if pressed, Hunt would volunteer he was raised in the Los Angeles area,
not wanting to disclose that he grew up in Beverly Hills. The second
thing the men noticed was that Hunt was a natural leader-he was neither
patronizing nor put on an air of superiority, but neither did he try to
hide the fact that he was competent and smart.
The third thing the men found out today.
A chill wind was blowing down from the mountains into the
Afghanistan valley where the platoon under Hunt's command was breaking
camp. Hunt and three other soldiers were wrestling with a tent they
were folding for storage. While the men were bringing the ends together
longways, Sergeant Tom Agnes decided to ask about the rumor he had
heard. Hunt handed him the side of the tent so Agnes could fold it into
halves.
16 CLIVE CUSSLER
"Sir," Agnes said, "rumor has it you graduated from Yale Universitythat
true?"
All the men were wearing tinted ski goggles but Agnes was close
enough to see Hunt's eyes. A flicker of surprise, followed by resignation,
flashed quickly. Then Hunt smiled.
"Ah," he said quietly, "you've found out my terrible secret."
Agnes nodded and folded the tent in half. "Not exactly a hotbed for
military recruiting."
"George Bush went there," Hunt said. "He was a navy pilot."
"I thought he was in the National Guard," Specialist Jesus Herrara,
who was taking the tent from Agnes, said.
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