Marauder

by Clive Cussler

  That brought a round of cheers.

  “Let’s keep the carousing to a minimum,” Max said. “We have to be in Bali in two days, and we’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow to get ready for the operation.”

  “You heard Commander Killjoy,” Juan joked. “Only one drink apiece.”

  Now it was mocking groans.

  “I didn’t say what size the glass had to be.”

  More cheers. Juan didn’t care how much it would hurt tomorrow. Tonight called for a celebration.

  The Oregon was officially back in business.

  * * *

  —

  When Captain Rahal and his crew heard the explosion outside, they knew it hadn’t occurred on the ship. Too far away. Most of them thought that meant the helicopter coming to rescue them had been shot down, which didn’t help morale. The preceding sound of a massive piece of equipment like a buzz saw only added to the confusion.

  Fifteen minutes after the explosion, the locked handle on the door to the mess hall began to smoke. They backed away and were surprised when the door suddenly sprang open.

  Rahal peered out into the corridor and found it vacant. He crept out. No one stopped him.

  The XO was the next one out, and he stared at the scorched door lock in astonishment. “What do you think happened?”

  Rahal inspected the melted metal lying on the floor. “I have no idea. Come with me. The rest of you stay here until we know what’s going on.”

  Rahal and the XO made their way up to the bridge, tensing at every corner in fear that they might run into the terrorists.

  But when they got to the bridge, it was completely empty.

  The XO did a quick systems check. “All operations nominal. Engines, pumps, and cargo are intact, and everything’s functioning normally.”

  “Where did they all go?” Rahal wondered out loud. “Is their boat gone?”

  The XO went outside to the flying bridge and pointed down. “Captain, look.”

  Rahal joined him and saw a terrorist lying on the deck and two more in the hijackers’ boat, all of them tied and motionless.

  They went back inside and checked the shipboard cameras. Two more men were lashed to a pipe at the bow, and two were prone with their wrists tied to a railing in the engine room. The lifeboat had been launched. The remains of its shattered hull floated behind the ship.

  “Was that the explosion we heard?” the XO asked.

  Before Rahal could hazard a guess, he heard a call come over the radio in American English.

  “Dahar, this is the Norego off your starboard stern. We’ve been alerted that you may be under attack by hijackers. Can we render any assistance?”

  Rahal turned and was surprised to see a ship just a mile away. It was a break bulk freighter a little more than half the size of the Dahar.

  “Norego, we read you. Where did you come from? Our radar had you thirty kilometers behind us less than an hour ago.”

  “Must have been a faulty reading. We were only ten klicks behind when you stopped. Are you and your crew okay? We saw your lifeboat launch and then explode, and we’ve detected an inbound Malaysian security forces helicopter.”

  Rahal, still stunned by the fortunate turn of events, said, “We were attacked by hijackers, but they’ve all been subdued.”

  “That’s great news. I’m sure your company and the Malaysian authorities will be impressed by your response to the emergency.”

  Rahal exchanged a look with the XO. They both knew that credit for saving their ship from certain destruction would earn them a hefty bonus.

  “Yes, I’m sure they will be happy that the hijackers were stopped,” Rahal answered.

  “Well, you have a good day. Be careful out there.”

  “You, too.”

  Rahal replaced the handset and watched the cargo carrier with a puzzled look as it passed by. He didn’t know how this miracle could have happened, but he couldn’t shake the sensation that they’d been saved by a guardian angel.

  EIGHT

  THE TIMOR SEA

  Standing on the highest deck of the U.S. research ship Namaka, Sylvia Chang shielded her eyes from the midmorning sun to focus on the sea-based drone that looked like an unmanned Jet Ski. It was approaching her 300-foot-long ship from the east, where the similarly sized Australian research vessel Empiric idled a mile away, ready to record the data that would decide if her brainchild was a success or a failure.

  Sylvia gripped the railing so tightly her hand was going numb, and she struggled to control her breathing. Since she was the chief physicist on the project, her career was riding on the experiment’s outcome. This test would prove whether a plasma shield worked on the open ocean.

  Ever since the USS Cole was nearly sunk in a Yemen harbor by suicide bombers in a small boat, the U.S. Navy had been searching for a way to protect its ships from small-craft attacks. Once the technology was perfected, it could also be used by civilian vessels to ward off hijacking attempts. The report of a foiled attack on the tanker Dahar just two days ago in the Strait of Malacca only reinforced for Sylvia that her creation—code-named Rhino for the animal’s protective hide—was urgently needed.

  In principle, the idea was fairly simple. Rhino used lasers to project a dense shield of tiny plasma explosions, each equivalent to the power of a firecracker, in front of an approaching vessel or drone. Vessels would have to turn back so their crews would not be burned, and drones would be disabled because their electronics would fry.

  At least that was the theory.

  The tests on dry land had achieved the benchmarks required, but the most important test was on a ship at sea where the environment was less controlled. If she could show that Rhino worked in a real world situation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would fund her project for the next five years. If not, she’d risk being washed up before she was thirty.

  Because the Defence Science and Technology Agency, DSTA, Australia’s DARPA analogue, had technical expertise on important elements of the design, Sylvia joined forces with them on the project. They had suggested conducting the test in the open ocean two hundred miles west of Darwin, far away from all the main shipping lanes. The isolated location south of Indonesia meant they could do the experiments out of view of prying eyes.

  She shifted her gaze to the Empiric, plucked the radio from her hip, and pressed the TALK button. “Mark, are you ready over there?”

  “Does Crocodile Dundee carry a knife?”

  Sylvia rolled her eyes, imagining Mark Murphy as she’d last seen him this morning: lounging in his chair at a computer terminal, drinking a Red Bull, and wearing a black T-shirt that read “And yet, despite the look on my face, you’re still talking.”

  “I’m sure the Australians over there are loving your sense of humor,” she said.

  “That’s what they’re all saying. ‘Murph may be a whinging yobbo, but he’s no drongo.’ I haven’t looked those words up yet, but I can only guess that it’s a compliment.”

  With multiple Ph.D.s, Murph was by far the most brilliant man on the Empiric even though he was also just in his twenties, so she had no doubt he knew that the phrase meant he was whiny and obnoxious but no dummy. She was also sure that nobody over there had said any such thing.

  Murph was on loan to DARPA from his real job. No matter how much she pried, she couldn’t get much out of him about what that real job was, but his prior expertise had been designing weapons for the U.S. military. She’d requested him specifically for this project because his creative and analytical skills were unparalleled. To consult on the job, Murph had required only one condition, that DARPA supply key technology for the organization that he worked for. After some haggling, he joined the Rhino project, and his presence had proved invaluable.

  “Let’s get started with the test,” Sylvia said.

  “You’re the boss
,” Murph said.

  She turned to her research assistant, Kelly, and said, “Fire up the lasers.”

  Kelly called on her own radio, then replied, “Lasers are prepped, and the automated sensors are activated.”

  “Good.” She called back to Murph. “Send in the drone.”

  “It’s on the way.” The drone, which had been making lazy circles, suddenly bolted toward them. “Don’t worry, Sylvia. I’ve checked your math. This will work.”

  “Thanks, Mark. You’re a sweetie.”

  “Hey, you’ll ruin my reputation as a yobbo.”

  “Sorry.”

  This was the moment of truth. Sylvia’s heart was hammering in her chest. She lifted the tablet hanging from her shoulder and saw that all the readouts from the Rhino equipment were normal. There was nothing else for her to do. All she could do was wait and watch.

  When the drone was within three hundred yards, she heard the hum of the lasers charging in anticipation of a nearby threat. When the drone reached the two-hundred-yard mark, the lasers crackled to life.

  She’d seen the Rhino in action before, of course, but to see it live always took her breath away. The air surrounding the drone lit up in thousands of tiny bubbles of prismatic fire, refracting the sunlight in a dazzling array of colors.

  As the drone charged through the plasma shield, it shut down instantaneously and coasted to a stop a hundred yards away, slightly charred from the exposure to the intense temperatures. If it had been packed with explosives for an attack, the detonation would cause little or no damage to the ship from that distance.

  “Sylvia,” Murph called over the radio, “you rocked it. The feedback we got from the drone before the electronics died was exactly what we were expecting. If anyone had been on board the drone, they would have felt cooked and turned around pronto.”

  Kelly pumped her fist into the air and gave Sylvia a big hug.

  Sylvia thumbed the TALK button at the same time she broadcast on the Namaka’s intercom. “Well done, people. We’ve made a huge breakthrough. I’m so proud of all the hard work you’ve done, and I thank you. Now let’s bring the drone in and set up for the next run.”

  The Namaka turned and eased toward the drone to recover it.

  Kelly got a call on her radio and said, “Sylvia, we may have to wait for the next test.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We’ve got an unknown ship passing by.”

  “Out here?”

  Kelly pointed north at a ship two miles away. Sylvia took out her binoculars, expecting a passing freighter or cruise liner.

  Instead, it was an odd-looking vessel with three hulls. A trimaran slightly smaller than the Namaka. And it was heading in their direction at a high rate of speed.

  “Who are they?”

  “The captain says they won’t answer his hails,” Kelly said.

  The trimaran abruptly turned and slowed, practically idling where it was.

  “That’s odd,” Sylvia said. “What are they doing now?”

  Kelly shrugged. “Maybe it’s a billionaire’s yacht. Those guys are weird.”

  A bright red flash from the ship’s midsection caught Sylvia’s attention. It looked like the muzzle blast of a gun. The Namaka was hit by a searing hot blast that tore through the bridge, setting it on fire. It couldn’t have been a gun. No shell could have struck them that quickly from two miles away.

  Sylvia was a scientist, but panic shoved aside any logical analysis.

  “We need to get off the ship now,” she called to Kelly, who was gripped by her own terror and ignored her boss. She ran to the nearest door and disappeared into the seeming safety of the ship’s interior.

  At that moment, the trimaran fired another volley.

  Sylvia ducked her head as the burst from the unknown weapon made an impact right next to her and blew apart the door that Kelly had just entered.

  The force of the explosion tossed Sylvia over the railing. The last thought that went through her mind before she plunged into the water was that her clothes were on fire.

  NINE

  BALI, INDONESIA

  Raven Malloy couldn’t see out of the van’s windowless cargo area, but given how long they’d been on the road, she knew the terrorists from Indo Jihad were not going to the Denpasar conference center where the South Asia summit was being held. Despite her infiltration of the group, she hadn’t discovered what the real target of their attack would be that day.

  Indo Jihad operated in cells, which meant she had met only the five men in the van, but she knew there were more members of the group. Even if her cell was stopped, the attack would still go on. Her mission was to find out those plans.

  “I thought we were going to kill infidels,” she said in fluent Arabic as she pointedly cast her eyes around the van’s interior. The sole object with them was a backpack, and when she’d placed her hand on it while getting in, she’d felt only soft clothes. They had no weapons.

  “We are,” said the terrorist leader Sinduk, who went by just his given name.

  “But not at the economic summit?” Despite the heat, she had dressed in an expensive pantsuit and a headscarf as she’d been told to so she wouldn’t seem out of place at the formal event. All the men in the van wore suits.

  “That’s where they think we will attack, which is exactly why I have chosen a more suitable target.”

  “Which is?”

  Instead of answering, Sinduk paused as he peered at her. Finally, he said, “What do you think happened to our brothers who were caught hijacking the Dahar?”

  Raven didn’t hesitate to answer. “How should I know?”

  However, she knew exactly what happened. Raven was the one who had warned the Oregon about the impending assault. In her dealings with the group, she’d come across a single cryptic text message on a phone that mentioned the Dahar and Malacca. The Oregon had been able to set sail and intercept the tanker barely in time to foil the attack.

  “I think someone new to our group was either careless or was spying on us,” Sinduk said.

  The two men on either side of him stared at her, stone-faced.

  “And you think it’s me?” Raven replied.

  “No, not at all. In fact, we believe it was the boat driver. A man named Tanjung. We’ve since learned that his credentials claiming that he fought for ISIS in Syria were falsified.”

  That was fake information planted by the CIA after the hijackers were apprehended. The intent was to cast blame on someone besides Raven, and it should have worked. Before joining the Corporation, she had been a U.S. Army Military Police investigator and then an executive protection specialist. As a Native American, her reddish brown complexion and jet-black hair had regularly caused her to be mistaken for an East Indian, Arab, or Latina, allowing her to take on many different roles during missions. For this operation, her backstory was as a jihadist originally from Saudi Arabia now living in Jakarta. Her credentials were airtight.

  Nonetheless, Sinduk seemed skeptical about her.

  “You still suspect me?” Raven asked. “Even after all the money I’ve secured for the cause?”

  “I’m a careful man.”

  Raven tensed, ready to fight if she had to. It would take time for the rest of her team to extricate her in an emergency.

  “We’re two cars behind you,” came a honey-thickened Louisiana drawl in her ear. It was Marion MacDougal “MacD” Lawless, who’d been listening to her through the molar mic. “Be aware traffic back into the capital is moving slower than a Mardi Gras parade. If this is a fake-out, it’ll take us an hour to get back to the conference center.”

  “So why bring me along?” Raven asked Sinduk.

  “Because I want you to prove yourself. You need to show me that you’re really invested in our cause.”

  “How?”

  It couldn’
t be a suicide bombing. She would have felt a bomb in the backpack.

  “The Americans sent two Senators to the summit. Certainly, those are the kind of highly priced targets that would get attention in the United States.”

  “But we’re nowhere near the conference center,” Raven said.

  “The security around Denpasar is impenetrable. We wouldn’t get within a half mile of the conference hotel before we were stopped.”

  “But you want the attack to happen while they’re here.”

  “It has to happen while they’re here. The Americans are arrogant. They think they are invulnerable. But we will show them that they are not safe anywhere.”

  Sinduk picked up the backpack and unzipped it. He pulled out some clothes and tossed them to Raven.

  “You’ll wear that,” he said.

  She held up two small pieces of cloth. It was a blue and green bikini.

  “You must be joking,” she said.

  “You’re tall, but it should fit. You have to blend in with the tourists. Don’t worry, I have a sarong for you as well.” He handed her the sheer wrap.

  The other men began removing their suits, revealing colorful tank tops and swim trunks underneath. She now realized they’d worn suits merely to throw her off.

  “Don’t worry,” Sinduk said, misunderstanding her uneasy expression for shyness. “You won’t have to change in front of us.”

  But she was more concerned that she would no longer be able to communicate with her team once she changed since the transceiver for her molar mic was cleverly embedded in her clothes.

  The van turned and slowed as if they were approaching their destination.

  At the same time, she heard MacD say in her ear, “What the what? What are these guys fixin’ to do?”

  The van came to a stop. Sinduk slid the door open, and Raven suddenly understood why MacD was confused.

  They were stopped in a vast parking lot set along a seaside cliff. Above a crowded entrance pavilion was a large sign that said “Welcome to Ocean Land.” A row of tall hedges stretched to either side, and Raven could see waterslides towering behind them.