“I have a better appreciation for your boat-driving skills, Max,” he said.
“It was all Eric,” Max said. “He was at the helm, dodging and weaving. I was just making lucky guesses about where to go.”
Juan knew better. It was his crew’s training and teamwork that saved them.
“Hold on. There it is.”
Nomad’s lights focused on the only container attached to the deck. The forty-foot-long blue box was tied down amidships, halfway between the port and starboard sides.
Juan activated the pedals so that he did a circumnavigation of the container. The doors were closed, and there were no holes in the corrugated metal.
“It’s intact,” Juan said. “I assume the column is still in there.”
That didn’t mean it remained secured inside the container. The column may have come loose from the chains tying it down. That could make the container very unwieldy if the thirty-ton granite column shifted while they were moving it. It could even slam through the doors and fall to the seabed below, making it more difficult to recover.
Juan took the Jim suit in for a closer look at the fasteners holding the container to the deck. Modern containers were secured with a relatively simple mechanism called a twistlock. Three of the twistlock couplings were undamaged, but the fourth, which was now at the upper corner of the rotated container, had been severed during the attack. That corner leaned out noticeably from the deck.
“I think this might work,” Juan said.
“You always think everything might work,” Max replied.
“I told you. Of the two of us, I’m the optimist.”
The plan was simple in conception, difficult in execution. Juan would connect four lines from the main cable to the four corner castings on the container’s normal top side. Then he would free the container from the deck and, when it swung loose, the Oregon’s crane would reel it in.
The water provided enough drag that the container would sink slowly, if at all, buoyed by balloons that he would attach to the four top corners, the ones farthest from the Narwhal’s deck.
Juan took uninflated balloons from Nomad’s tool tray, which was situated under its nose. One at a time, he tied the balloons to the container. Each was equipped with a light so that the container would be visible in the darkness. When the balloons were all secured, he backed away and radioed Max.
“They’re ready to go. Give them some air.”
“Inflating now.”
Max keyed the signal that ordered the air cartridges to inflate the balloons. The yellow rubber spheres expanded until each was the size of an SUV.
The next step was attaching the crane cables. While Linda held the main cable with Nomad’s manipulator, Juan latched each of the four ends to the same corners where the balloons were connected. Once they were secure, Linda released the cable, and Juan radioed the crane operator to take up the slack.
Juan tried manually disengaging the twistlocks to free the container, but two of them were jammed.
“They aren’t budging,” he radioed Max.
“Looks like it’s time to break out the fireworks,” Max said.
They’d anticipated this problem. The Nomad’s tool tray held four shaped charges to blow the locks.
Juan motored over to Nomad and took one of the charges from the tray. He then carefully attached it to the stuck joint, making sure that the explosive force would be focused toward the lock and away from the container. He repeated the task with the second explosive. After triple-checking the setup, he pulled back to a safe distance.
“Fire in the hole,” Linda said calmly.
Two bright flashes lit up the entire ship like a strobe, followed by muffled thumps a moment later. They waited expectantly for the container to swing away.
For a second, it seemed to separate from the deck, then nothing. It remained lodged in place. They waited another minute to see if the container would work itself free, but it remained stubbornly attached.
“I’ll check it out,” Juan said.
“Be careful,” Max said. “Stay on top of it in case it decides to break loose.”
Juan used his thrusters to get a close look at the problem. He checked both twistlocks and saw that the explosives had worked perfectly. The locks were sliced away without damaging the container.
What Juan hadn’t been able to see before was the damage to the ship under the container, which had pulled away enough to expose the underside.
An explosion from one of the railgun rounds had driven a metal girder into the container, possibly destroying part of the column.
“It’s hung up on a structural beam,” he said.
“Can we pull the container loose?” Max asked. “I can have the crane operator reel the cable in.”
“No, that might peel the container open and spill the column out. I think the beam is narrow enough that another shaped charge will cut it in half. The only problem will be wedging myself in there to attach it.”
“I don’t like the idea of you wedging yourself in anywhere. Why don’t we give it a try?”
“I appreciate the thought, but even with its longer arms, Nomad won’t be able to get close enough. And we can’t lose this opportunity to retrieve the column.”
“Your call.”
Juan retrieved a third explosive and went back to the container. It seemed to have shifted again by the time he returned. Then he realized it wasn’t the container that had moved, it was the entire ship. The Narwhal was now leaning over even farther.
“We’ve got a problem here,” Juan said. “The Narwhal has tilted by another few degrees. We can’t wait much longer. Get ready to set off the explosive on my mark.”
“Not until you’re back here,” Linda said.
“I’ll get to a safe distance. But don’t delay because of me. If the ship falls onto the container, we may not be able to dig it out.”
Juan inched himself into the small space that had opened up between the deck and container, coming up from underneath to reach the girder. He could just barely touch it. With a mighty push, he stuck the charge on the girder and was starting to back out when he heard the shriek of tearing metal.
The Narwhal was keeling over.
The container shifted suddenly, crushing the Jim suit’s thruster pack and holding it fast. Juan pushed the thruster to maximum power, but he couldn’t move.
He was about to go down with the ship and it wasn’t even his ship.
“Linda! Blow it!”
“Wait, where are you?” Max protested. “We can’t see you.”
“I’m stuck and the Narwhal is collapsing! Linda, do it now!”
Linda followed his order without question. “Fire in the hole,” she said.
The shaped charge went off, blasting away from him and cutting through the beam, but the explosion packed a wallop. The concussion caused an impact that Juan felt through his whole body, rattling him like he was in a cement mixer. The Jim suit’s helmet cracked but held. At this depth, he’d be dead in seconds if it leaked.
But the explosive worked. The beam broke in two, wrenching the container away from the deck and taking his communication umbilical with it.
The container swung out from the falling ship, and Juan tried to follow it, but his lateral thrusters must have been damaged when the container crushed him because he was moving at a fraction of his normal speed.
His vertical thrusters, however, seemed to be fully operational. The problem was that the ship was capsizing too fast. He knew he wouldn’t make it to safety before the ship’s deck crashed down and flattened him. Then he remembered his earlier survey of the ship.
The railgun, ironically, provided the only possibility for his survival.
With only seconds to react, Juan resorted to the only option he had left.
He went down.
FORTY
>
SA RIERA, SPAIN
Admiral Nestor Zakharin awoke to find himself soaked in sweat. Waves pounded the rocky coastline outside the open window of his villa, and the shine of the moon reflected off the sea. For a moment, he thought a sound had jolted him from sleep, but more likely it was just a nightmare. He couldn’t remember what it was about, but an image of Juan Cabrillo’s face popped into his mind and then faded.
After the run-in with the Oregon captain, he’d had leave coming, so he left Vladivostok as soon as he could to regroup and plan his next steps. Certainly Maxim Antonovich would be very unhappy if he ever found out that Zakharin had betrayed him. But more importantly, the admiral had to ensure that Moscow would never learn the real reason why he was shutting down the refitting operation.
Zakharin’s stomach rumbled. Perhaps a midnight snack was what he needed to get back to sleep. That and a couple of shots of vodka.
He threw off the damp sheets and pushed himself out of bed. After donning a silk robe, he padded barefoot down the moonlit hall on the newly installed marble tile.
He was halfway to the kitchen when his foot slipped on a dark puddle. He backed up, wiping his sole on the tile to dry it. He thought his remodeled villa had already sprung a leak until he realized that the liquid was warm and sticky. Then the coppery tang hit his nostrils.
It was a puddle of blood.
Terror gripped him. He squinted to see in the faint light and could barely make out the body of a dead guard, lying in the front foyer of the house. His throat was slit.
Zakharin’s heart raced at the realization that he had an intruder. The perspiration that had awakened him came back even stronger.
He stopped himself from yelling for help or from turning on any lights. If the intruder—possibly, several of them—had already gotten past the guards outside, the rest of Zakharin’s men might also be dead. He’d only be telling his enemy where he was. The intruder might think he was still asleep in bed. His nightmare possibly saved his life.
Without him knowing what was going on outside, making a run for it was risky. The police were his best option in this situation.
He made his way cautiously to the nearest landline phone in his den and picked it up. No dial tone. The intruders must have cut the wires.
Zakharin’s mobile phone was back in the bedroom, but that would be the last place he could go now. He needed another one. He crept back to the foyer, avoiding the spreading pool of blood, and searched the dead guard’s pockets.
He found the guard’s phone in his coat pocket. With trembling fingers, he pressed the button to unlock it, but the passcode was set. However, there was an emergency dial feature. He swiped, brought up the numeric keypad, and dialed 112, the European emergency number.
Instead of connecting Zakharin with the police, the phone displayed a screen that read No signal. The mobile service had always been so reliable in this area that Zakharin hadn’t even thought to check. But there it was. No bars.
The intruders had to be using a cell phone jamming device, which confirmed that he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary burglar.
Two doors down was the security room. Zakharin pressed himself against the wall and inched toward it, paying attention for any sound that would indicate he was being stalked. He made it safely to the room and ducked inside, closing the door behind him.
The guard here was dead, too. He was still in his chair, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
Zakharin rolled the chair aside and peered at the six monitors that showed the exterior of the house.
Two more guards were dead on the lawn at the front of the house. The front gate was closed. There was no sign of anyone guarding the lone exit. Situated on a peninsula, the estate was protected on three sides by high cliffs.
There was only one way to escape. If he could make it to the garage, he could take the Mercedes G-Wagen and ram through the gate even if the electronics had been disabled. He knew exactly where he’d left the keys in the kitchen.
The security guard’s pistol was still in its shoulder holster. Zakharin took it.
With a little more courage that the firearm gave him, he went back out into the hall and continued on the path toward the kitchen, keeping the gun in front of him.
He had reached the living room when a voice to his left startled him.
“Where are you going, Admiral?” the man asked in Russian.
Zakharin whipped around to fire, but an arm behind him came down on his wrist with immense force and knocked the pistol from his hand. Zakharin collapsed to his knees and held his wrist in agony. He tried to move his fingers, but all that did was send a shock of pain up his arm.
“Bring him over here,” the voice said.
The same hand that shattered his wrist squeezed his biceps and pulled him to his feet. The living room lights snapped on. The man holding him up was a huge Indian man, who dragged him to one of his handpicked antique Rococo chairs and tossed him into it as easily as a child would a stuffed toy.
Zakharin looked up at the man sitting on his sofa. He was much shorter than the Indian, with thinning, close-cropped hair and a scar on the left side of his neck. A red-haired man with the hardened eyes of a soldier stood behind him with an amused grin. A submachine gun with an attached sound suppressor hung from the soldier’s shoulder.
“Who are you?” Zakharin asked through gritted teeth.
“I’m a navy man, just like you,” the seated man said.
He recognized the Ukrainian accent. “Kiev?”
“Very good. Of course, you know that your navy has decimated my country’s navy.”
“I had nothing to do with that. My posting is nine thousand kilometers away.”
“Are you saying you disagree with your country’s policy toward Ukraine?”
Zakharin knew that to answer was a trap. He remained silent.
“No matter. That’s not why I’m here. My name is Sergey Golov and I would like to know why you gave someone the code to disable the weapons on a ship under my command.”
Zakharin sat up. “You’re the captain of the Achilles?” Immediately, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake in revealing any information about the yacht.
Golov’s eyes lit up. “Ah, so it was you.”
“My naval base was compromised,” Zakharin quickly sputtered. “I didn’t tell them anything. They accessed our files.”
“So you know who did this?”
“Yes, and I was trying to contact Mr. Antonovich to warn him, but he’s so reclusive, I couldn’t reach him.”
“No, you didn’t. If you don’t want to die right here, you’re going to have to stop lying to me. My ship was nearly destroyed because of your incompetence.”
Zakharin silently cursed himself. Being at the mercy of yet another ship captain was humiliating. As an admiral, he should be on the other side of this kind of interrogation.
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t know the real name of the man who took that code, but he has his own ship, one that we modified in the same shipyard where Mr. Antonovich refitted the Achilles. It’s called the Oregon.”
“Was he a tall blond man?”
“Yes.”
Golov’s eyes flicked to the Indian and then back to Zakharin. “Do you have the files on this ship?”
“No, they were destroyed.”
“But you know the specifications, don’t you?”
Zakharin nodded. “What do you want to know?”
Golov’s eyes gleamed as if he were peering at the world’s largest diamond. He set down a phone on the coffee table and pressed the button to start a voice recording.
“Tell me everything.”
FORTY-ONE
Max would never forget the sight of the Jim suit’s light being snuffed out by the collapsing ship. He had frantically radioed Juan, but his calls went unanswered. He and Linda wat
ched helplessly as Juan valiantly tried to follow the swinging container to safety, but something must have been wrong with his thrusters and he sunk instead. Their last view of the Jim suit was when the Narwhal’s hull came crashing down on the seabed in a cloud of silt, its black keel pointing toward the surface.
They circled the Narwhal in Nomad while the crane hoisted the container on board the Oregon. News came down that the container had made it in one piece, and the column, though marred and cracked, was intact. Max told Eric to take charge of examining it, while he continued scouring the shipwreck for any signs that Juan might still be alive.
“Do you think there’s any chance the suit survived the impact?” Linda asked. “Maybe under the wreckage?”
“The Jim suit was already under a lot of pressure at this depth,” Max said. “With a thousand tons of steel on top of him . . .” He didn’t complete the sentence, letting the implications hang in the air.
Their best hope was that Juan had been pushed clear of the wreckage. Max goosed the thrusters, and Nomad edged along the side of the Narwhal with a soft whine of the impellers. All of their lights were focused on the seafloor.
With the emergency buoyancy system, the Jim suit should have floated to the surface by now.
Linda called up to Hali. “Oregon, has the Chairman been spotted?”
“Nothing on the radio beacon, Nomad. We’ve got people on all sides of the ship looking for his light. It’s pretty dark up here, but no one has seen it yet. We did haul in his umbilical. It was sheared off. That must mean he’s still down there. What’s his oxygen situation?”
“He’s got two redundant breathing systems, including a carbon dioxide scrubber that should give him fifty hours of air.”
“Roger that, Nomad. We’ll let you know if we find him.”
“Same here. Have Mark Murphy send down Little Geek to expand the search,” Linda said. Little Geek was a remotely operated underwater vehicle. Murph named it after a similar design in the movie The Abyss.
“He’s already got it in the moon pool. It should be on-site in ten minutes.”
The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files) Page 24
