The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  “I can cancel my participation in the tour,” Gustaaf said, “but if Antonovich wants to go forward with it this afternoon, I’m sure they won’t say no.”

  “Then it’s important that you don’t cancel. We need to be there when he and ShadowFoe are. We’ll have to be ready for anything.”

  “But what could they do? Even Antonovich, and anyone he’s with, couldn’t get inside without being screened. They can’t possibly be armed, and there are guards everywhere.”

  “Believe us, they’ll have a plan to account for that,” Linc said.

  “They’ll need access to the computers,” Murph said, “which means they’ll have to subdue the workers inside the command center somehow. No way ShadowFoe could hack into the system without anyone noticing.”

  “This all sounds so absurd,” Gustaaf said, “but I’m willing to take you with me if it means we can stop them.”

  “That’s all we ask,” Eddie said. “We’d like to take some time to go over these plans so we can come up with some possible scenarios they might use and develop our countermeasures. Will it be any trouble getting us in with you?

  Gustaaf shook his head. “I’ve already arranged for employee IDs for all of you, so—” He was interrupted by his phone. “It’s my contact at the Control Hub.”

  Eddie couldn’t understand what Gustaaf was saying in rapid-fire Dutch, but when the young businessman’s eyes went wide, he knew it couldn’t be good.

  “Antonovich is on his way to the Control Hub,” Gustaaf told them. “He asked them to push up the tour to this morning as a last-minute request.”

  “Right now?” Murph said.

  Gustaaf nodded. “His helicopter is about to take off from the airport to fly to the Control Hub.”

  “Please tell me you have a chopper, too,” Linc said.

  “Of course. It’s at the airport. But the Control Hub is in the other direction, near a small town called Terlinden.”

  “How far is that?” Eddie asked.

  “Twenty kilometers,” Gustaaf said. “We can be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “Have your car brought around. We need to go.”

  “I bet I can get us there faster than twenty minutes,” Linc said.

  Murph was already rolling up the building plans to look at in the car. As they hurried out of the office, Eddie called the Oregon.

  The Chairman asked, “Did you get in to see Gustaaf?”

  “We did, but we’re just leaving. At this moment, Antonovich is on his way to the Control Hub. We are, too.”

  “So he moved up the timetable even more. Smart. Luckily, so did we.”

  “You’ve caught up to the Achilles?”

  “We’ve got them on the screen, right in the crosshairs.” Eddie could hear the satisfaction in the Chairman’s voice. “And Golov has no idea we can see them.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY MILES OFF THE COAST OF ZINGST, GERMANY

  Sergey Golov watched the Achilles’s Russian flag whipping in the brisk wind and thought the morning couldn’t be more perfect. Although the sun was shining, the Baltic Sea was churned into frothy whitecaps by the steady breeze that caused the windmills in the far distance to spin at a furious pace. Over two hundred of the propellers, broader than the wingspan of a 747, fed their awesome power to the sprawling transformer station perched on the German coast.

  The Achilles was actually closer to Denmark than Germany, which would aid in its escape once the transformers were destroyed. The yacht would simply disappear into the maze of islands that made up a good portion of the Danish land area. Then they’d swing around into the North Sea and rendezvous with Ivana’s helicopter near Rotterdam before setting flank speed for Brazilian waters.

  The sunny day helped as well. Solar power was making up a larger and larger portion of Europe’s electricity supply, and because it was difficult to ratchet back solar cells during the daytime, the constant output made power regulation a challenge. The grid would be struggling to juggle the distribution from its maxed-out wind and solar farms while modulating the traditional gas, coal, and nuclear capacity. All it needed now was a nudge to throw it off balance and the system would collapse completely.

  Golov was happy to see that traffic on the sea was relatively light today in these often heavily traveled waters. A containership had passed a few minutes before, and was nearly out of sight around the headlands of Falster Island, while a massive white cruise ship approached from the east, likely on a Scandinavian tour coming from Helsinki or Stockholm.

  “Any other ships on the scope?” Golov asked the radar operator.

  “No, sir, but I’m reading a small contact bearing three five zero.”

  Something was coming at them from the north, almost directly behind them, over the island.

  The XO, Kravchuk, went over to the radar and leaned over the operator’s shoulder. “Speed?”

  “Eighty knots. It’s in the air.”

  “Range?”

  “Ten kilometers and closing.”

  Golov sat straighter in his chair. The Oregon. It had to be. “Is it a helicopter?”

  “No,” the radar operator replied. “Too small. It must be a drone. Probably not much larger than three meters wide.”

  “What are you up to?” Golov said under his breath. He eyed Kravchuk and ordered, “All hands to battle stations. Bring the laser and railgun online.”

  “Aye, sir,” the XO replied, and the klaxon sounded throughout the ship.

  Both the laser and railgun rose out of their hidden compartments.

  The Oregon had to be out of sight somewhere, concealed by Falster Island’s mass.

  Golov called Ivana.

  She answered on the first ring. “We’re just landing outside the Control Hub.”

  “Good,” he said. “I need you to send me a number.”

  —

  Juan was inside the op center aboard the Oregon. Eric guided the ship through the narrow channels separating the islands in this part of the chain, a position that made her undetectable to the Achilles. The yacht was exactly where he thought it would be to give Golov a clear shot at Zingst’s transformer station.

  The image of the Achilles on the main view screen came courtesy of an observation drone operated by Gomez Adams. The size of an albatross, it flew in a circular pattern above the island far enough from the yacht that it wouldn’t be recognized for what it was. Gomez’s expert flying skills were being put to the test by keeping multiple drones on course.

  At the same time, the large supply drone was now on a collision course with the Achilles. Golov had seen it by now, which was the reason that Juan could see the menacing railgun and telescope-like laser system rise from the yacht’s deck.

  “They’re getting ready to shoot it down,” Gomez said.

  “I’d say it’s a small price to pay,” Juan replied. He turned to Max. “I’m sorry we’re going to lose your baby.”

  “Hey, it was my idea to use it. I just wish we could shove it down Golov’s throat.”

  “Linda, are you ready?” Juan asked her. She was sitting at Murph’s normal position on weapons control.

  She gave him a smile. “I’ve been ready for days.”

  “Chairman, I’ve got a call for you,” Hali said. He was holding a cell phone. “It came in on Marie Marceau’s phone. I’ve been monitoring the traffic on it. The caller says it’s Sergey Golov.”

  “Put it on speaker.” Hali nodded, and Juan said, “Why didn’t you stick around in Vilnius, Golov? I had more to say to you.”

  “Why do you think I’m calling now? I’ve always enjoyed our interactions. And given how close we’ve become over the last week, don’t you think I should know your real name, Captain?”

  “I’m happy to let you know who beat you. My name is Juan Cabrillo.”

  “Captain Cabrillo,
a pleasure to meet a challenger who’s up to the task. But you have to know that an aerial attack against me is futile. You were threatening an admiral in Vladivostok during our two ships’ last engagement, but I’m sure you heard what happened. And don’t bother trying to disengage our weapons again. We’ve taken care of that issue.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any less,” Juan said. The supply drone was now only two miles from the Achilles. “By the way, thanks for leading us to Napoleon’s treasure. You’ve made the Russians very happy.”

  He knew Golov’s military history. The dig had to sting just a little.

  “Yes, you got me there,” Golov said. “But you won’t get me here. Watch.”

  The supply drone began to glow red. In a few seconds, its lithium-ion batteries overheated and exploded, ripping the drone apart and sending it fluttering in pieces into the sea below.

  Golov came back on the line. He was laughing.

  “By all means, keep them coming, Captain Cabrillo. We could use the target practice. I’m enjoying it so much, I could do this all day.”

  “Actually,” Juan said, “I don’t think you can.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “Watch.” Juan nodded at Gomez, who was flying a third drone, a quadcopter called a Wasp. It approached the Achilles from an angle perpendicular to the supply drone’s route. Because it was no larger than a gull, the radar signature was too small for it to be detected as it skimmed the waves under Gomez’s sure-handed piloting skills.

  At that moment, the Wasp hovered next to the Achilles’s white hull. The supply drone had been a decoy to get Golov to expose the laser, bringing it out of its protective covering. The Wasp rose until it was even with the yacht’s deck. The laser’s highly polished lens was the target.

  Gomez flew the Wasp up to the laser as it madly spun, searching for a new target. He lowered the drone until it was only inches from the lens. When it was in position, he detonated the two pounds of C-4 it carried.

  The Wasp’s video feed went dark, but shouts Juan could hear over the phone told him all he needed to know. The drone had done its job.

  “Having problems with your laser, Golov?” Juan casually asked. That brought a few smiles from his crew.

  Golov came back on the line, fury in his voice. “Cabrillo, I will hunt you down and make sure that disgraceful pile of rusting metal you call a ship is reduced to fragments scattered across the bottom of the ocean.”

  “I think you’d better worry about your own ship, Golov. Linda, fire one.”

  “With pleasure, Chairman,” Linda said.

  With the press of a button, an Exocet anti-ship missile blasted from its launcher and rocketed toward the Achilles.

  FIFTY-NINE

  “Flank speed!” Golov shouted, when the radar operator announced that an Exocet was on the way, and hung up on Cabrillo. “Evasive maneuvers!”

  The Achilles shot forward like a drag racer. But with no way to focus its deadly beam, the laser was a total loss. And Golov couldn’t use the railgun if he didn’t know where to aim it.

  He ran over to the radar station and yelled into the operator’s ear, “Find me a target!”

  “I can’t see them!”

  “Where did the missile come from?”

  “Over the top of Falster Island. Impact in ten seconds.”

  Golov spun on the XO. “Kravchuk, fire the railgun back along the missile’s trajectory.”

  “Captain, we can’t know where it was launched from or—”

  “I said do it!” Golov screamed.

  Kravchuk nodded grimly. “Aye, Captain.” He gave the order to aim the weapon along the missile’s flight path.

  The railgun spun on its turret, compensating for the Achilles’s movements.

  “Target locked.”

  “Fire!”

  A hypersonic round shot from the railgun, but Golov had his eye fixed on the flaming tail of the missile coming toward them.

  The radar operator yelled, “Brace for impact!”

  For a moment, Golov was certain the Exocet would blow apart the yacht’s bridge, but the missile hit the Achilles dead amidships in a fiery blast. The entire bridge crew was thrown to the deck, but the polycarbonate windows deflected the shrapnel from the explosion.

  As Golov scrambled back to his feet, he shouted for a damage report.

  Kravchuk peered at a monitor that was flashing red. “Fire suppression systems have activated. The fire is out, but the railgun turret was damaged. We have elevation control of the weapon, but the turntable is off-line. We can’t rotate it to aim it anymore.”

  “Can it still fire?”

  Kravchuk frantically typed into the computer. “Yes, but we’ve got a fault in the capacitor system. We might blow the whole ship apart if we continue firing.”

  “We’ll have to risk it.”

  “But shooting at them is futile!”

  “That’s for me to decide!”

  Golov’s phone, which he finally realized was still in his hand, rang with a jingle that was completely discordant with the chaos on the bridge.

  The Oregon was calling back.

  “Is there another missile coming?” Golov asked the radar operator.

  “No, sir.”

  “Get the helicopter in the air now.” He had ordered the Ka-226 fully fueled and armed with Russian Switchblade anti-ship missiles just in case he ran into a coast guard vessel that got too curious.

  The phone rang insistently. He gritted his teeth and answered the call, if only to buy some time.

  “What?” he growled.

  “Why’d you hang up on me, Golov?” Cabrillo asked in a mocking tone. “You guys busy over there or something? By the way, you missed us. It wasn’t even close.”

  “Calling to gloat over your victory?”

  “I’m calling to see if you want to surrender. Personally, I’m hoping the answer is no, but I have someone from Interpol here who wants to take you into custody and deliver you to any number of countries that would love to interrogate you and your crew about your activities over the last few weeks.”

  Golov slammed his hand on the chair. He wasn’t going to give up when he was so close to completing the operation. Not when Ivana was about to fulfill her part.

  But he couldn’t fire on the transformer station until she had deactivated the circuit breakers. If he destroyed it early, the cascade effect on the electrical grid wouldn’t work. It had to happen after she had uploaded her software.

  While Golov was contemplating his options, the helicopter took off. As he watched it swoop away toward the island, he locked his gaze on the cruise ship behind it in the distance.

  “Since you launched an attack chopper,” Cabrillo said, “I’m going to interpret your stunned silence as a big fat no to surrendering. Linda, fire two. Bye, Golov.”

  “Wait,” Golov said into the phone.

  “Too late. Missile’s away.”

  “Don’t you want to hear my counterproposal?” As he was talking, he pointed at the immense white cruise ship ten miles off their port bow and motioned for the helmsman to bring the Achilles around. Maybe the railgun couldn’t turn, but the yacht could.

  Cabrillo laughed. “Counterproposal? You’re joking, right?”

  “Missile incoming!” the panicked radar operator shouted. “Twenty seconds to impact!”

  “In ten seconds, I’m going to start firing on that cruise ship,” Golov said to Cabrillo with no bluff in his caustic delivery of the line. “And if you don’t kill me with this next missile, I’m going to keep firing until all five thousand people on that ship are dead.”

  —

  Juan and the rest of the crew inside the op center watched as the Achilles slewed around until the barrel of the railgun was pointed at the cruise ship. He knew Golov would fire. He could only imagine the dev
astation that the railgun’s round would cause if it struck a crowded part of the passenger decks.

  He didn’t have time to think about it further. The missile was too close to the Achilles.

  “Abort the missile,” he told Linda.

  “Aborting, aye,” she replied, and the Exocet detonated halfway to the target.

  “All right, Golov. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a Mexican standoff.”

  “That’s just the way it seems,” Golov said. “Don’t bother trying to warn the cruise ship. We’re monitoring the same radio frequencies they are.”

  “We’ll pull back,” Juan said.

  “Not good enough. As soon as that ship is out of range, I’ll be at your mercy again.”

  “Then what’s your counterproposal?”

  “Bring your ship out of hiding. I want it right next to the Achilles.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the one who’s going to surrender. I estimate the cruise ship will be in range for another fifteen minutes. You have ten minutes to bring the Oregon to me.”

  Juan signaled Hali with the finger-across-the-throat gesture so that he’d mute the call. Hali nodded that they were clear.

  Max erupted. “We can’t surrender to that madman!”

  “Golov won’t hesitate to blow that ship apart,” Gretchen said. “Since he thinks he can still win, prison isn’t an option for him, or anyone else on the Achilles. He has nothing to lose.”

  “I’m not inclined to give up any more easily than he is,” Juan said. “Is there any other way to take his railgun out?”

  Max shook his head. “Not before he could get off three or four shots. Even a ship as big as that one might not be able to survive that kind of barrage.”

  “Anyone else have an idea of how to take the gun out?”

  Silence was his only reply.

  “Then I don’t see any alternative,” Juan said. “We have to do what he says. Hali, put us back on.”

  Hali nodded again.