Clive Cussler The Corsican Shadow

1

Palmachim, Israel
February 15, 2025

A bright half-moon cast silver rivulets across the Mediterranean Sea, illuminating two dark objects gliding to shore. Black inflatable boats, each holding six commandos, motored through the light surf under near-silent electric power. As the fiberglass hulls scraped the sandy bottom, the men leaped out and dragged the boats ashore, concealing them in a tide-cut gully.

Each man peeled off a loose black jumpsuit, revealing a uniform of desert camo beneath. They pulled on sand-colored balaclavas, over which they tied green headbands marked with Arabic script and the logo of an armed man holding a flag and the Qur'an. It was the emblem of the militant wing of the Palestinian Hamas organization known as the al-Qassam Brigade.

The two teams assembled before their leader, a thick, commanding man with dark brooding eyes. Henri Nassar raised a hand as he faced the men.

"We will meet back here in ninety minutes," he said in a low voice, "and not a second longer. You know what to do. Move out." Lebanese by birth, Nassar had been raised on the brutish streets of Marseille. His youth was filled with a litany of assaults and petty crimes until he was fingered in a local gang killing. The charges were dropped when he agreed to join the French Army. It gave him a sense of discipline that complemented his tough street smarts. He soon found himself an airborne soldier in the Foreign Legion and discovered he had a natural talent as a warrior.

Assignments in Afghanistan, Chad, and Mali molded his skills and made him an attractive candidate as a private mercenary. After several years in Africa fighting on both sides of the law, he found an even more lucrative position in corporate security. He occasionally rued the job's boredom, but his employer operated on the dark side, allowing him back in the field, where his heart beat fastest.

As the first commando team moved out to the south, Nassar led the second team inland, following a narrow drainage basin ankle-deep with water. They followed the cut for half a mile, then climbed its low bank and emerged on a rolling terrain of scrub brush and dust. A paved road crossed their path, angling north to an immense industrial compound illuminated by rows of lights on tall poles. The Sorek Desalination Plant was one of the largest reverse-osmosis facilities in the world. Drawing in seawater from the Mediterranean, the plant produced 165 million gallons of fresh water a day, more than twenty percent of Israel's municipal drinking water. The fenced and guarded compound stretched for one-third of a mile, containing dozens of open treatment basins and several huge buildings housing thousands of semipermeable membrane units that filtered the seawater under high pressure.

Nassar led the team along the side of the road, moving well past the main entrance, then crossed the asphalt and circled around the back side of the complex. The commandos moved quickly down the length of a high chain-link fence until Nassar stopped opposite a large metal building. At his signal, two men ignited heavy smoke canisters and tossed them over the fence. As a thick white cloud filled the air, a third man attacked the fence with wire cutters, carving a large hole.

The commandos scurried into the complex, sprinting through the smoke to the edge of the building. Motion detectors on the fence failed to detect them through the smoke, so their presence would be discovered only by chance monitoring of surrounding video feeds by the guards at the front entrance.

The team moved to the end of the building, then separated into two groups. Three men moved south, toward a natural gas-fired power plant that provided electricity to the facility. Nassar and two others followed close behind, then peeled off to a metal-sided building with several large white pipes protruding from one side.

It was the main pumping station, the heart of the whole operation. Inside, thirteen massive pump units sucked in water from the sea and directed it under high pressure through various filtration stages and the reverse-osmosis system.

Nassar entered through a side door, hesitating at the scene within. The high-ceiling area contained a maze of pipes running in all directions, interconnected to a row of large pumps on the main floor. It was hot and noisy, as the electric pumps were in full operation.

Nassar scanned the three-story interior. Two men in yellow hard hats stood nearby, monitoring a control panel. A third man, high overhead on a catwalk, walked slowly while consulting a clipboard. Nassar raised his rifle at the man overhead, while his fellow commandos approached the control panel. Gunfire erupted as each let loose with their AK-47s, cutting down the three technicians. As their gunfire ceased, the clipboard fell from above and clanked onto the floor beside Nassar, followed by steady droplets of blood. He sidestepped the splatter and approached the console, confirming all pumps were running, while his two comrades went to work. They jumped into the recessed bed that held the red pumps, opened their backpacks, and retrieved small bundles of Formex P1 plastic explosive, one for each pump.

The charges were affixed with a small timer and detonator that required only a simple activation. The two moved from pump to pump, slapping the sticky charges to the base of each machine and activating their timers. They had crossed half the bay, when a distant alarm sounded.

Nassar moved to the door and waited, his gun ready, while the last charges were placed. When the other two men joined him, he burst out the door onto the tarmac. A small security truck with a flashing orange light on the roof was just skirting the building. The driver hit the brakes at the sight of Nassar. The truck's passenger jumped out, brandishing an Uzi, followed a few seconds later by the driver. The first man stepped away from the truck, yelling at Nassar in Hebrew.

Nassar responded with twin salvos, cutting down both men with deadly accuracy. He stepped close to the fallen security men as the two other commandos rushed to his side. The passenger lay dead near the truck's grille, but the driver still lived. Slumped against the front fender, he held his stomach with a bloodstained hand. One of the commandos raised his gun to finish the job, but Nassar waved him off. He wanted the security man to remain alive as a witness.

Nassar stepped to the front of the truck and raised his weapon toward the sky.

"Allahu Akbar," he shouted, then nodded at his comrades, who repeated the cry. Nassar squeezed a burst of fire from his gun for effect. Then the three men turned and took off at a run toward the back fence.

Sirens were now sounding all over the facility and multiple security vehicles could be seen prowling the far end of the compound. Gunshots rang out as they reached the hole in the fence and crawled through. The three men took a defensive position and waited.
 
Within minutes, they heard the footfalls of the other three commandos. A security truck rounded the building to their right, catching the fleeing commandos in its headlights.

Nassar and his men opened fire, spraying the truck's cab. The windshield cracked with a half dozen spiderwebs, and the driver slumped forward. The truck veered and smashed into the building without slowing. The second commando team reached the fence opening and dashed through. Nassar led the combined teams in a measured run along the plant's perimeter, crossing the road and returning to the drainage ditch. Nassar had prepared the team with strenuous training runs, so each man held his own and the group moved as a single dark shadow.

At the beach, they rendezvoused with the second six-man team, which had arrived minutes earlier. Both teams slipped back into their black jumpsuits to resume their escape.

"Report," Nassar inquired of the other team's leader, a tall wiry-haired man named Hosni Samad.

"No resistance encountered until we were on our way out. All our charges were planted and activated."

Sirens sounded along the coastline as security forces and emergency responders converged on the desalination plant. Nassar led the commandos in hauling their rubber boats into the surf, and the stealth killers departed the Israeli shoreline as quietly as they had arrived.

A coastal oil tanker, its lights blacked out, waited for them five miles offshore. Once the commandos were aboard, the two inflatables were sunk, along with their Russian-made weapons and desert combat fatigues. If the ship were boarded and inspected, Nassar made sure there was no evidence linking them to the attack.

The commando leader made his way to the high stern bridge, where a leather-faced man at the ship's wheel turned to him. "The boss is waiting to hear," he said in a guttural voice. "Were you successful?"

Nassar eyed a wall-mounted chronograph, then picked up a pair of binoculars. He casually stepped to the bridge wing and surveyed the largely dark coast. Soon a symphony of explosions erupted in the distance. While the fireballs appeared small on the horizon, a thundering echo still played out to their position at sea.

Nassar savored the sight for a moment, then put down the binoculars and turned with a smug grin to the ship's captain. "I think you have your answer."


2

The English Channel
April 2025

The Normandy coastline appeared like a ribbon of caramel taffy stretched across the southern horizon. A light haze hung in the air, resisting a steady onshore breeze that gave the waters of the Channel a slight chop. The conditions were enticing enough to encourage a legion of weekend sailors to take to the waves. Billowing white sails dotted the sea as dozens of boats chased the wind. A concentration of smaller craft, their bows all perfectly aligned parallel to the coast, were engaged in a competitive sailing regatta.

Approaching from the north, a turquoise-colored survey vessel motored toward the regatta like a whale hunting down a school of mackerel. It moved at a restrained pace with a towed cable trailing off the stern into the ruffled water behind. The ship had a stout trimaran hull, allowing it to cut through the waves with a steady grace. On its modern bridge, a tall, lean man with dark hair raised a pair of binoculars and surveyed the boat traffic a mile ahead.

"They're moving off to the west as a group," Dirk Pitt said. "Hold to the survey line. If there are no laggards, I think they'll be clear of our path."

Harvey Boswick, the balding captain of the research ship Pelican, gave a concurring nod. "I think you're right," he said in a throaty baritone. "But if we run over a Hobie Cat, I'll be asking you to pay the damages."

Pitt laughed. As the Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, he was responsible for a great many assets beyond the NUMA ship Pelican. The federal agency commanded an entire fleet of oceanographic research ships, submersibles, and autonomous vehicles that probed the depths of the seas, tracking everything from typhoon formations to walrus migrations.

An expert diver as well as a pilot, Pitt refused to be constrained by his managerial duties at NUMA's headquarters in Washington, D.C. He was never far from the water, taking the time to personally manage field projects throughout the year. He insisted on remaining close to the action and to his devoted team of agency geologists, oceanographers, and marine biologists.

"Just keep a tight hand on the wheel," he said to Boswick. "I'll trust that you won't pick up a new hood ornament."

"Is there trouble ahead?" called a French-accented female voice.

Pitt stepped to the rear of the bridge and poked his head into a cramped room plastered with video monitors. A petite woman with straight black hair sat in front of a split-screen monitor eyeing a live video feed. Half the screen showed a deck winch and a tow cable that stretched taut through an overhead gantry at the stern, trailing into the water. The other half showed a gold-tinted sonar image of the seafloor. She glanced from the monitor to Pitt with an expectant look in her wide hazel eyes.

"There's some small-boat traffic ahead of us," Pitt said.

Brigitte Favreau crinkled her nose. The Frenchwoman was a young research scientist on loan from the Le Havre Marine Institute, a local nongovernmental organization dedicated to marine science and education. "Shall we retrieve the sonar fish?"

In her lap she held a remote power control to the winch, which she used to position a towed sonar array above the seabed.

"I don't think that will be necessary, although we might have to break off our survey line." Pitt motioned toward a wall monitor that displayed the ship's path along a baseline grid.

"If it's just some rag-baggers, give them a solid blast from the air horn and hold your course," Al Giordino said from the opposite side of the room. A bulldog of a man who managed NUMA's underwater technology division, Giordino turned from a separate display of the sonar feed and gave Pitt a devious smile.

"Good idea," Pitt said. "In fact, I'll have the captain increase speed."

Brigitte turned pale, causing both men to laugh.

"As a guest in French territorial waters," Pitt said, "it probably wouldn't be in our best interest to flatten some local sailors out enjoying a nice spring day."

Relief showed on Brigitte's face. "It would indeed be an unpleasant way to end our joint project."

NUMA's presence in France was a result of a reciprocal agreement with the French government. The French deepwater oceanographic fleet had assisted NUMA six months earlier in a project mapping underwater volcanoes in the South Atlantic. NUMA had in turn agreed to help survey a portion of the Normandy coastline for World War II wrecks, in a project administered by the Le Havre Marine Institute. Pitt had actually worked on a similar survey off the Omaha and Utah Beach landing sites some years earlier and was excited to search for more war vessels.

The newly targeted survey area was well east of the D-Day landing sites, but local lore had suggested a number of undocumented wrecks might be found in the area. Brigitte had assisted in developing the search parameters, focusing on an area that had no previous survey data. While the weather had cooperated and the survey equipment performed flawlessly, the team was disappointed to have discovered only a single shipwreck, a small fishing boat that sank in the 1950s. So far, the theory of heavy World War II losses in the area had proven incorrect.

As the Pelican steamed closer to shore, the sailboats gradually made their way out of the NUMA ship's path. All except one, a red-hulled sailing dinghy manned by a pair of teenage boys, who struggled to capture the breeze.

Captain Boswick kept a sharp eye on the small boat as it finally tipped its bow to the east and caught a full gust of the onshore breeze. The captain exhaled when it cleared their trajectory and moved after the other sailboats. But it traveled only a short distance when it cut a sharp turn into the wind, the boy at the tiller having lost his grip when jostled by a wave.

The boat froze for a moment as its sail went slack, then the current pushed its nose to the west. In a heartbeat, its sail filled again, pushing the dinghy in the opposite direction. The boat shot ahead, accelerating toward the bow of the NUMA ship.

Pitt and Boswick both spotted the reversal.

"Sonar up,"Pitt yelled as Boswick flung the wheel hard over and cut power.

"I’ve got something," Giordino shouted while eyeing the sonar readout.

Across from him, Brigitte fumbled with the winch controls. She punched one of the power buttons, but instead of activating the take-up reel, she sent more cable spooling off the back end. Combined with the ship’s slowing, the action sent the sonar towfish dropping toward the seafloor.

Giordino watched as the form of a wreck began to appear on the monitor. The image suddenly distorted. A second later, the screen turned black. He looked at Brigitte. "Did we lose the fish?"

Brigitte’s heart pounded as she realized her error. She reversed the winch control and stared at the stern view camera feed as the cable was wound in. Seeing a yellow cable marker near the end, she slowed the pace, then watched in horror as a frayed and empty cable sprang from the water.

Giordino saw by her face that the sonar fish had indeed been lost on the wreck and he immediately marked their position.

Forward on the bridge, Boswick was still trying to dodge the erratic sailboat. One of the teens finally regained the tiller and turned away as the Pelican veered right and drifted to a halt. The boys gave a friendly wave at the NUMA ship as they finally turned on track and gave chase to the other boats.