The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  Golov flipped up the high-definition screen embedded in his armrest to see the feed from one of the digital zoom cameras mounted on the hull. He increased magnification until he could clearly see the Narwhal’s familiar shape.

  “Didn’t I already kill you?” he mumbled to himself.

  “They’re continuing, straight and true, at a steady twelve knots,” Kravchuk said.

  “Any other ships in the vicinity?”

  “No, sir. Nothing on radar, and we’re monitoring the transponders on all cargo vessels in the area. None are within eighty miles.”

  “Excellent. Power up the railgun.”

  “Aye, sir. Powering up railgun.”

  Kravchuk flipped a switch on his console and the entire yacht hummed with the vibration of the capacitors building the charges they would need to fling tungsten projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

  Golov pressed the button for the shipwide intercom.

  “Attention. This is the captain. The railgun has been activated and is preparing to fire. Secure all breakables and clear the exterior decks. This is not a drill.”

  After one minute, Kravchuk announced, “The capacitors are fully charged.”

  “Very well. Open the roof.”

  “Aye, sir. Opening the roof.”

  Fifty feet of the white deck in front of them drew apart. When the doors were fully retracted, a sinister-looking, steel-gray barrel rose from the depths of the Achilles, riding atop a four-sided turret. Unlike the round barrel of a cannon, the railgun’s barrel was octagonal and lined with heat-dissipating fins to keep it from melting due to the fantastic temperatures generated by projectiles moving through it at eight thousand miles an hour.

  When it had risen completely from its hidden chamber, the turret rotated around its full two-hundred-and-seventy-degree range of motion.

  “Railgun ready to fire,” Kravchuk announced.

  “Same firing profile we used on the real Narwhal,” Golov said. “I want to see that ship underwater in five minutes.”

  “Aye, sir. Targeting profile entered and locked in.”

  “Contact!” the radar operator shouted. “Thirty miles at bearing three four five.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It just appeared on the screen.”

  “You didn’t see its transponder?”

  “No, sir. It must not have one.”

  That ruled out a cargo ship. Any ship larger than three hundred tons was required by international convention to carry a satellite-tracked automatic identification system.

  “What’s its course and speed?”

  “Same course as the Narwhal, sir. Speed twelve knots.”

  “How big is it? A fishing vessel maybe?”

  “No, much larger than that,” the radar operator said. “I’d say over five hundred feet long.”

  Kravchuk frowned at him. “Naval warship?”

  “Can’t be,” Golov said, but he had a bad feeling that’s exactly what it was. If some nation had sent out a destroyer to intercept the Narwhal, he’d have to come up with a new plan quickly.

  He moved the exterior camera around and focused it on the ship that had intruded on their perfect, isolated location. He zoomed in until he had a good look at the ship’s profile.

  He gaped when he recognized the outline. It was the wretched tramp steamer they’d passed when they were leaving Malta. The Nogero, as he recalled.

  Did it follow the Achilles here?

  “You said it’s running steady at twelve knots?” Golov asked the radar operator.

  “Aye, sir. Almost perfectly in the wake of the Narwhal.”

  So it was following the cargo ship with the Jaffa Column on it. But why?

  He sat back to think for a moment. If he were trailing the ship, he’d be doing it to see where the next destination would be and then he’d take the container when the ship docked.

  Therefore, ordering the Narwhal to come to a stop wouldn’t help. The Nogero would either do the same and wait or board the ship when they realized something was wrong.

  “We’re going to sink them both,” he said to Kravchuk.

  “Aye, sir,” the XO responded without hesitation. “Which should we target first?”

  “Stay on the Narwhal, but we’ll wait until it’s closer. Five miles should do it. Then that rusty excuse for a freighter will only be fifteen miles away when we destroy her.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Was this built as an escape route in case of attack?” Gretchen asked Juan as they crept down the admiral’s hidden passageway.

  “I guess it was originally,” Juan said, keeping his ears alert for any indication that someone else was up ahead around the next corner. “But I think it’s more often used now to smuggle mistresses into the office.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I should have known. Of course a man would use it for that.”

  “In Russia, it’s considered a perk of command.”

  “And on the Oregon?”

  “Come on. Give me some credit.”

  “So, offshore dating only?”

  “When I have time.”

  “Anything lately?”

  Juan thought back to a torrid week with a U.S. Navy commander in Okinawa, but that was a long time ago.

  He simply shrugged. “You?”

  She shrugged in reply. “Been busy since my divorce.”

  They locked eyes for a moment.

  Before anything more could happen, Juan heard the sound of voices coming from beyond the passageway exit. He grabbed Gretchen’s hand and pulled her to the door to listen.

  There was a peephole in the door. He looked out and saw two sailors ambling down a hallway, gabbing about which bar to visit later that night. Their voices faded as they turned the corner. When it was quiet, he eased open the door and looked out.

  The corridor was empty. When the door was closed behind them, it disappeared into the wall, invisible to the naked eye. A clock cleverly placed over the peephole marked its location.

  A set of stairs was directly across from the door. They went down two flights, carrying themselves like military investigators. A couple of sailors passed them on the way up but didn’t give them a second glance. Juan knew that once you gain access to a secure facility, everyone thinks you’re supposed to be there.

  They went down eight flights to the basement, where they found the room marked Records.

  They entered and found a young sailor posted at a desk, a sidearm on his hip. He adjusted himself from a slouch and looked up at them with mild interest.

  “Da?” he said, bored with the duty.

  Juan and Gretchen flashed the identifications that Kevin Nixon had prepared for them.

  “I am Agent Bukir of the Far Eastern Military Investigation Directorate,” Juan said in fluent Russian, “and this is Agent Kamarova. We require access to your records vault.”

  “May I ask what this is regarding?”

  Juan leaned on the desk and glared at the sailor. “If you must satisfy your curiosity, seaman, we are investigating a serious breach of security here at Primorskiy Kray. That is all you need to know.”

  “I . . . I understand, Agent Bukir,” he stammered, “but I am under strict orders from the admiral himself not to let anyone who has not been preauthorized to access the vault.”

  Juan stood up and smiled. “Excellent, sailor. Although I don’t need your permission to enter the vault, I admire your dedication and willingness to put your prospects for promotion on the line.”

  “But . . . But . . .”

  “Why don’t you call the admiral’s office?” Gretchen said. “I’m sure he will confirm our identities.”

  Juan nodded. “Very well. Put him on speaker when you get him on the line.” Since Eddie and Linc didn’t speak Russian, he wanted to be sure Zakharin didn�
�t try to sneak a coded message through.

  The sailor nodded and punched the buttons on the phone so hard that Juan thought he might break a finger.

  “I need to speak to the admiral,” he said into the handset. “Yes, now! It’s urgent.” Then he nodded and pressed the SPEAKER button before hanging up the handset.

  Zakharin answered in a distinctly gruff tone. “What is it?”

  “Admiral, sir, I have two agents here who want access to the records vault, and I told them—”

  “What? You know your orders! Who are they?”

  “It’s me, Admiral Zakharin,” Juan said. “Agent Bukir. We spoke in your office just a few minutes ago.”

  The phone was silent for a few seconds.

  “Admiral, are you still feeling well?” Juan could picture Eddie threatening him with the vial.

  “Oh . . . Oh, yes,” Zakharin said reluctantly. “Now I recall. Seaman, you are to give every courtesy to the agents.”

  “Aye, sir,” he said smartly, but the admiral was already off the line. He stood and said, “Come this way.”

  He walked over to a heavy steel door and fumbled around with a set of keys. He swung open the door and let them in.

  “Do you need any assistance?” he said, groveling now that he’d been chastened.

  “No, we can handle it from here,” Gretchen said.

  “We’ll need some privacy,” Juan said, “so make sure no one else enters while we’re conducting our assessment.”

  He snapped his heels. “Yes, sir.” The door closed quietly behind them. It was thick enough that there was no chance of being overheard.

  Rows of old filing cabinets filled the musty room. It would have been easier to find what they were looking for if everything had been computerized, but infrastructure upgrades were a low priority for a base so far from Moscow.

  “Where should we start searching?” Gretchen said.

  “I’ll take the engineering files. You look through the finances.”

  After a minute of scanning the cabinets, Juan found one marked Commercial Operations. He yanked it open and confirmed that the files contained information about all of the naval base’s extracurricular activities. No wonder the admiral kept access so tightly controlled. Unfortunately, the files were in chronological instead of alphabetical order, so he started with three years ago and worked forward.

  Halfway through, Gretchen, who was two rows away, called out, “I found it!”

  “The Achilles?”

  She nodded, her face buried in a file. “It’s the official accounting ledger. Wow, Antonovich opened up his wallet on this job and made it rain. You would not believe how much money is flowing through this base.”

  Juan thought back to how much it had cost to refit the Oregon and said, “Actually, I think I would.”

  “Zakharin is raking in millions a year.”

  “Why do you think he wanted the job badly enough to send Borodin to prison?”

  “Well, I don’t think his bosses back at headquarters know it’s this much.”

  “Greed is never sated,” Juan said as he kept riffling through the files.

  “Oh, the admiral has been much naughtier than he was letting on. It looks like Zakharin’s been keeping a separate account on the Achilles job. Probably does it with all the work here. It looks like the figures he reports get cut by twenty percent when they go to his bosses.”

  “They wouldn’t be happy to find that out. Corrupt officers hate getting fleeced out of their fair shares. Does the ledger detail what the money was spent on?”

  She shook her head. “It has the same coded entries. For example, this item is referred to as LaWS.” She spelled out the acronym in the Latin alphabet.

  “It’s not written in Cyrillic?”

  “Most of them are, but not this one.”

  It sounded familiar to Juan, but he couldn’t place it without context. She whistled. “I hope they got their money’s worth. They could have built another yacht, for what it cost.”

  He was about to ask her to read out more when he came across the engineering specs for the Achilles.

  “Bingo!” Juan said, pulling out the thick file.

  Gretchen joined him by the cabinet. Juan flipped through the file, feeling the blood drain from his face as he read.

  “Does it say what LaWS is?” she asked.

  “Yes, it does. Now I remember what it stands for.”

  “What?”

  “Laser weapon system.”

  Gretchen laughed. “You’re kidding.” When she saw his ashen face, she stopped. “You’re not kidding.”

  “It gets worse,” Juan said as he kept reading. “Much worse.”

  He pulled out his phone. No signal.

  “We’ve got to warn Max. Now!”

  Juan grabbed the file and raced for the door, but something in the pit of his stomach told him that he was already too late.

  THIRTY-TWO

  After pushing the engines to the limit so that the Oregon could catch up to the Narwhal, Max had been content to have the ship dawdle behind the Dutch cargo freighter as if it were heading for the same destination.

  Then, out of nowhere, the Achilles appeared as if it had been waiting for them. It was still fifteen miles away, but the unique outline was unmistakable. Max had Linda put it on the main view screen, with the Narwhal inset beside it.

  “What’s Antonovich doing?”

  “You think he’s planning to take the column off the Narwhal before it reaches port?” Linda asked from her position at the radar and sonar.

  “He can’t,” said Eric, who manned the helm. “No cranes on either ship.”

  Murph, sitting at the weapons station, chimed in, “Looks like there’s a helicopter deck, but no way they’ve got a chopper that can lift thirty tons.”

  “Maybe he just wants to board to get a look at the column,” Linda said.

  Hali said, “But that wouldn’t keep us from taking a look at it once it reaches port.”

  “Any radio communications between them?” Max asked.

  Hali checked the radio for chatter, then shook his head. “Nada.”

  “I don’t like this. Something’s wrong with this scenario.”

  Max peered at the screen and saw an odd protuberance on the Achilles’s deck.

  “Linda, zoom in on the yacht as much as you can.”

  Because the yacht was so far away, the picture was blurry, but there was definitely a gray object on top of the yacht that didn’t fit in.

  Then to Max’s surprise, it rotated.

  A turret. And now the gun barrel was obvious.

  “What the . . .”

  A flash of light erupted from the barrel.

  By the time he finished yelling, “Battle stations!” the Narwhal’s superstructure had blown apart in a fiery explosion.

  The timing didn’t make sense. The explosion on the cargo ship happened much too fast after the shot was taken.

  “Murph, how long from shot to explosion?”

  “A little more than two seconds, by my calcs.”

  “The projectile traveled five miles in just over two seconds,” repeated Max. “That’s impossible!”

  The muzzle velocity of a typical shipboard gun was 2,600 feet per second. The round should have taken ten seconds to cross that distance.

  The Achilles’s gun fired again. This time, he counted to himself. Two seconds later, another fireball erupted from the Narwhal.

  There was only one type of weapon that could launch rounds at that speed.

  Murph beat him to it. “My God, they have a railgun.”

  The Narwhal was being systematically taken apart. Most likely the crew was already dead. Another few rounds and the ship would be in pieces.

  The Oregon’s gun would be useless at this range. />
  “Mr. Murphy, ready an Exocet.”

  The ship-to-ship missile was one of the deadliest in the world. A single one fired by the Argentine Navy during the Falklands War sank the Royal Navy destroyer Sheffield.

  “Exocet ready!”

  The Achilles launched another round.

  “Fire!”

  “Missile away!” The Exocet rocketed from its tube.

  At the same time, the railgun shell tore at the foundering Narwhal, which was awash in flames.

  The missile skimmed across the water at seven hundred miles an hour. At that speed, it would cover the fifteen miles in a minute.

  It would be too late for the Narwhal, but seeing how the railgun was systematically dismantling the cargo ship, Max was now more worried about the Oregon.

  “Mr. Stone,” Max said, “put us bow on to the Achilles. I want us to present as small a target as we can.”

  “Coming around,” Eric said. With the two magnetohydrodynamic engines thrusting at full power in opposite directions, the Oregon could practically rotate on its own axis. The camera focused on the yacht compensated for the turn.

  The Narwhal was already sinking at the stern. The Jaffa Column would be at the bottom of the Mediterranean in minutes. Now all Max could do was watch the flaming tail of the Exocet as it streaked toward the Achilles.

  —

  As with its namesake, the replica Narwhal didn’t stand a chance against the railgun, and Golov was finding the attack somewhat routine. Next, he’d turn his attention to the Nogero. It was larger than the feeder ship, but he’d sink it all the same.

  “We have a missile launch!” the radar operator shouted.

  “What? From where?”

  “From that tramp freighter. One minute to impact.”

  “You must be mistaken. Is there a warship behind it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Aircraft in the region?”

  “None detected, Captain.”

  Golov felt his adrenaline surge. Now he had a challenge. He put the image of the missile on his console. Smoke trailed it as the missile he now recognized as an Exocet raced toward him.

  “Activate the LaWS.”