Cyclops

Cyclops, a 1986 action-adventure novel by Clive Cussler, is the eighth book in a series that features the protagonist Dirk Pitt.

The novel opens with the mysterious events surrounding the Cyclops, a 1918 Navy collier with a captain who drinks more than he works and a strange cargo with equally strange passengers that board in Rio de Janeiro. The Captain issues a no communications order and declines to answer a distress call from Crogan Castle fifty miles away, warning of a rogue wave near the northern coast of Cuba. Shortly thereafter, the Cyclops encounters a similar rogue wave; the Cyclops does not survive.

Dirk Pitt is preparing for his participation in a seaboard marathon off the coast of the Bahamas when a runaway blimp threatens the safety of the people on the beach and at the hotel. In his desire to save the strangers, he becomes entangled in a plot that delves deeper than he could have imagined. His ability to see through subterfuge, to keep his cool in stressful situations, and his unique way of approaching problems makes Pitt the perfect addition to a plot that threatens possession of the moon, of Cuba, and the very freedoms by which America defines itself.



With extensive aircraft experience, Pitt is the logical choice to sort out the issue of the blimp, which has been identified as belonging to financier Raymond LeBaron. Pitt retraces the last route taken by the man in the aircraft in order to understand how it came to be on the beach. Pitt boards the blimp and follows the pre-programmed route toward what he believes to be a sunken treasure. He thinks they are on their way to uncover the Cyclops and the La Dorada treasure aboard the sunken ship,. However, Jessie LeBaron, who is piloting the blimp, deceives him, Giordino, and Gunn.

As they approach the shores of Cuba, they are attacked by the Cuban military. Under fire, the blimp loses steam and plunges into the ocean with all of its passengers still aboard. Luckily, they are prepared for this event and find themselves in the exact location where the Cyclops is said to have gone under. They dive down to the sunken ship in hopes of discovering the famed La Dorada treasure still aboard, but are disappointed to find that someone must have beaten them to it, as the treasure is nowhere to be found.

When they resurface, they find themselves caught in the midst of a hurricane. They must make the treacherous boat ride back to shore. Locating the nearest island, a couple of hundred miles off the coast of Florida, they head in that direction, desperate to get off the water and back to dry land. However, they find a secret Soviet military installment on the island, and their arrival is not well received.



Pitt escapes back to U.S. soil and returns for the others with military aid in tow. They find that they are just in time to save the lunar colonists who have secretly created Jersey Colony on the moon, a colony the Russians intend to seize. The Russians are foiled on the moon, and then Pitt further ruins their plan by reaching the space shuttle before it attempts to land in Cuba and is shot down by friendly fire. Once his friends are rescued, Pitt and Jessie head back to the military ship, but Jessie has other ideas, and with a gun at his chest, they turn toward Cuba.

Once they arrive in Cuba, they discover that there is a Soviet plot to assassinate Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul. After removing the two men from office, the Russians intend to take over Castro's regime in order to establish a Soviet foothold in the Western Hemisphere. Their intentions are to blow up the Havana Harbor and most of Havana, then blame it on the United States, adding to an already tense situation between the two states. Because Dirk Pitt is involved, the Russian plan does not go as planned. There is an explosion, and while it does kill a few people, it does not cause the vast devastation that is required for the Soviets to take over Cuba.

Finally, Pitt is able to get back to his search for La Dorada, the fabled female statue that is said to have a ruby as a heart and an emerald as its head. Raymond LeBaron is believed to have taken La Dorada to Cuba where he hid the treasure with plans to one day come back to recover it for himself. Once Pitt saves the world, he can finally finish his initial task of locating La Dorada.