The Emperor's Revenge

by Clive Cussler

  Gretchen snapped her fingers and whispered, “We’ve got company. Main lounge.”

  “Send it,” Juan said quietly.

  “Already on its way,” Eric replied. “One more thing to do.” His fingers flew across the keyboard.

  “You’re done,” Juan said, pulling him up. Eric resisted for a moment and tapped the ENTER key before he was yanked from the chair. A window popped up on the screen, but Juan didn’t take the time to see what it said.

  Gretchen fired her MP5 in three controlled bursts at the main lounge. They were answered by screams of those hit and shouts of the remaining survivors.

  “Move!” she yelled, and unleashed an extended barrage of suppressing fire.

  MacD and Eric shot as they retreated in cover formation while Juan ran down the hall to clear their path. By now, he could see that the Achilles was beginning to pull away from the Oregon. They didn’t have much time before she would be free to maneuver into a firing position on the transformer station.

  Juan was met by three men attempting to flank them by coming down from the deck above. Juan got the first one in the chest as he was coming down the stairs, but the other two retreated upstairs, sporadically firing to cut off escape in that direction.

  Juan led MacD, Eric, and Gretchen down the stairs. Their destination was the railgun’s main power supply.

  “These guys don’t seem as well trained as the other mercs we’ve run into,” MacD said, barely breaking a sweat as they ran down the stairs.

  “Golov probably sent his best people on the raid in the Netherlands,” Gretchen said.

  “They still have us outnumbered,” Juan reminded them. “It won’t take them long to figure out where we went.”

  They sprinted through the corridor to the room housing the railgun power supply. Two men inside raised pistols as the team rushed in, but Juan put them down before they could fire.

  The large room, filled with electrical panels, consoles, computer terminals, and wiring conduits, hummed from generators charging the massive capacitors. It had doors on either end, one toward the bow and the other toward the stern, making defense of the space particularly difficult.

  “Gretchen, Eric, take the doors while MacD and I plant the explosives. MacD, set them for sixty seconds.”

  Juan worked as quickly as he could to mash the C-4 against the control panel.

  —

  Max had the Oregon’s engines at full throttle, but they still couldn’t keep up with the Achilles’s fantastic speed. Despite Linda’s expert helm control, the yacht was pulling away.

  Their hulls continued to grind together, but the armored plating of both ships withstood the enormous pressure. The Achilles’s stern was now almost even with the Oregon’s bow.

  Max forced a last few drops of power from the magnetohydrodynamic engines and ordered, “Hard aport!”

  Linda slewed the Oregon around and it mashed even harder against the Achilles’s stern in a shriek of metal.

  But it was no use. The Achilles was free.

  Max tried to open the panel to expose the 120mm cannon, but the impact had crushed the doors and jammed them shut. They were out of operational Exocet missiles, and the Oregon’s torpedoes were useless against the Achilles’s mini-torpedoes.

  He brought the Gatling guns to bear on the yacht. The angry buzz-saw sound of the rotating six-barreled guns was accompanied by the chunks of the Achilles flying away as the tungsten rounds chewed into her stern, but they did nothing to slow her down. In seconds, she’d be in position to fire on the transformers.

  Juan and his team were now the only ones who could take out the railgun.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  On the Achilles’s bridge, four of the monitors were showing live street webcam feeds from Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Brussels. When the screens went black, Golov would have confirmation that Europe’s power system had been fried.

  It was a struggle to keep his mind off Ivana’s death, but he did his best by focusing on the havoc he was about to wreak, a bittersweet revenge for his devastating loss.

  The Oregon was in pursuit but falling behind quickly. Her rotary cannons relentlessly hammered away at the Achilles.

  “Bring us around, Mr. Kravchuk,” Golov said, standing defiantly in the middle of the bridge to show that he would not succumb to the worst that Cabrillo could dish out. “Take aim on the main transformer housing.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The Achilles swung around, continuing at flank speed. The railgun’s elevation lowered. The targeting reticle on the screen was coming into focus on the transformer station.

  —

  Juan was planting the last explosive charge in the railgun’s power supply room when he heard Max in his earpiece.

  “Juan, you’re out of time. They’re lining up to fire.”

  “Got it.” Juan turned to MacD. “Okay, you heard him. Let’s cut down the time to fifteen seconds and hope that we—”

  A barrage of bullets from the aft door cut him short. MacD was hit in the shoulder and fell back. Juan dragged him out of the line of fire, while Gretchen took down the first of half a dozen attackers. Eric shot two men trying to box them in from the bow side. More rounds ricocheted around them, forcing them to retreat behind an equipment panel before they could arm the bombs.

  They all returned fire, but they were at a stalemate. Neither side could advance.

  “We’re stuck,” Gretchen said. “They’d cut us down before we could arm the explosives.”

  Juan reported the situation to Max while he pictured the layout of the Achilles in his mind. There was a corridor one flight up that would allow him to circle around and ambush the gunmen from the rear, if they remained where they were.

  “You two stay here and distract them,” Juan said to Eric and MacD.

  Without another word, he looked at Gretchen and tilted his head toward the door. She understood and nodded.

  Under cover of a withering fusillade from Eric and MacD, Juan and Gretchen crawled out of the room.

  As soon as they were out of sight, they sprinted up the closest set of stairs.

  —

  The command center personnel at the Continental Control Hub silently watched Murph as he waited in frustration for the program Eric sent him to install on his laptop. They all wanted to crowd around to see what was going on, but Linc and Eddie kept them back to give him breathing space. Although Murph was used to working under pressure, this was a whole new level. He was essentially trying to deactivate a nuke that was going to take out the entire grid for hundreds of millions of people, and the clock was ticking.

  Antonovich, who stood off to the side under the guard of the facility’s security team, had shown him the exact cable Ivana had connected her own computer to. The little blue progress bar on Murph’s screen filled in with excruciating sluggishness.

  Max was on a speakerphone, calling a play-by-play on the Achilles’s attempt to line up a shot on the transformer station.

  “He’s turning now,” Max said. “It’s allowing us to make up some of the distance.”

  “How much?” Eddie asked.

  “Not enough. They’ll be able to fire in less than a minute.”

  Linc leaned over the speaker. “Is there any way you can stall them?”

  “I’ve done everything I can. And Juan has his own problems. It’s up to you now.”

  Murph’s fingers hovered over the mouse and keyboard as the last five percent of the progress bar counted down.

  When it reached one hundred percent, the application opened. Several of the command center employees cheered, but Murph knew that they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  The app confirmed that he was connected to the Control Hub’s system. He swiftly scanned ShadowFoe’s user interface, searching for the command to deactivate the lock on the circuit breakers.

>   He found the proper menu item and a command window popped up: DEACTIVATE BREAKER LOCK. He clicked on it.

  A pop-up window helpfully asked, Are you sure?

  “What am I, an idiot?” Murph said, and clicked OK.

  Every eye turned to the big board. After an agonizing wait, one of the red lights turned to green. Then a second light switched to green. Dozens more remained red, but the program seemed to be working as a third red light converted to green.

  “The Achilles is in firing position,” Max announced.

  Murph held his breath. This was going to be close.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Juan and Gretchen reached the stairwell behind the crew attacking the power supply room.

  “What’s your sitrep, Stoney?” Juan whispered into his throat mic.

  “Still here,” Eric replied. “We got three of them. Three left, but I’m almost out of ammo.”

  “One mag for me,” MacD grunted.

  “Okay,” Juan said. “We’re in position. As soon as you start shooting, we’ll rush them. On my mark. Three . . . two . . . one . . . Now!”

  Two sustained volleys of fire came from below. Juan and Gretchen ran down the stairs and saw the backs of two men, crouching behind the doorjambs. The inexperienced crew members raised their assault rifles to fire, but Juan and Gretchen took them out with a couple of short bursts.

  The one remaining man, who had advanced into the power supply room, whirled around at the shots behind him, exposing his position. MacD and Eric brought him down before Juan and Gretchen could finish the job.

  They rushed in and found all but one of the bombs intact. Its timer had been damaged in the hail of gunfire. In spite of that, Juan thought enough explosives had been planted to take out the system.

  “Remember, fifteen seconds,” Juan said to Eric, while Gretchen helped MacD up and covered their path out.

  Juan entered the new time into the first detonator, but a high-pitched whine froze him before he could get to the next one. The eerie sound was followed immediately by a mammoth bang that shook the whole room.

  They were too late. The railgun had fired.

  —

  The superheated air and smoke around the railgun’s barrel cleared almost instantly in the strong wind. Golov raised binoculars to watch the results of all his and Ivana’s hard work come to fruition. He silently mouthed the seconds to impact.

  The vast station’s main transformer housing was unguarded except for a chain-link fence and barbed wire. Because it was unmanned, there would be no casualties—not that Golov cared. The building was shielded from the weather by a steel wall. The hypersonic round would drill through it as easily as it knifed through the air.

  When Golov mouthed, “One,” a huge explosion engulfed the housing. Sparks flew from the transformers as they short-circuited, their oil-cooling systems blowing apart in succession like dominos. The spectacular chain reaction was even better than what he’d hoped for.

  He dropped the binoculars and eagerly watched the TV monitors.

  For a moment, there was no change, but Golov knew that it would take a few seconds for the cascade effect to ripple through the electrical system.

  Then the first monitor went black. Amsterdam was dark. There was an elated cheer of victory from the bridge crew. They knew that meant their stolen money could no longer be tracked by investigators. By the time the grid came back online, the trail would be ice-cold.

  Golov smiled wistfully and imagined Ivana’s pride at their accomplishment. He watched expectantly for the other screens to go dark.

  But none of them did. The feeds remained up and running. The traffic lights remained functional. Vehicles continued to move.

  His smile faded.

  Then the live feed from Amsterdam came back online. The electrical grid was still intact. Golov stood staring in disbelief.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered, hoping that there was just a delay, but after another few seconds, it was clear that there would be no cascading grid failure.

  His mission had failed. Now there would be nowhere he could run without being tracked down.

  His phone rang. It was Marie Marceau’s number.

  He answered. “I’ll get you for this.”

  “And my little dog, too?” Cabrillo replied, his voice masked by the sound of machinery in the background. “Give it up, Golov. Ivana’s program was deactivated. You’re done. If I were you—”

  Golov hurled the phone against the bulkhead, shattering it.

  He yelled at his XO, “Turn so we can fire on the Oregon!”

  “But Captain, the railgun is overheating,” Kravchuk said. “It’s only a matter of time before the liquid-cooled capacitors explode, unless we shut it down.”

  Golov grabbed him by the lapel. “Don’t you see that our only chance to get away now is to keep them from following us?”

  “Sir, we risk destroying the Achilles if we fire a damaged gun.”

  “I don’t care!” Golov shouted, practically spitting the words. “Destroy that ship!”

  He stared down the helmsman, who finally set a new course. The Achilles began its turn. Kravchuk reluctantly ordered a new shell loaded into the railgun.

  —

  Now they’re turning on us,” Max told Juan.

  “Don’t worry,” Juan said. “We’re about to take care of that.”

  He pulled MacD to his feet and nodded to Eric. The timers were set at fifteen seconds. Eric flicked them on and they ran out of the power supply room. Leading the way and watching for any further gunmen, Juan sprinted up the stairs as Eric and Gretchen helped MacD behind him. They were two decks up, and moving down the hall toward daylight, when the detonators went off.

  The blasts tore through the power room, spewing a jet of fire out through the corridor and licking at the bottom of the stairwell. The railgun wouldn’t be firing again. The detonation worked just as they’d hoped.

  It was the next explosion that Juan wasn’t expecting.

  Their C-4 must have damaged some system they weren’t aware of, setting off a secondary reaction, because a huge blast threw him down the hall.

  Juan’s vision blacked out for a moment and then returned as he, strangely, found himself lying on the floor. He shook his head to regain his senses.

  Down the hall, Eric writhed on the ground, holding his leg. Juan crawled over to him.

  “Stoney, are you hurt?”

  “My leg,” Eric said, grimacing. “I think it’s broken.”

  “Hold on. We’ll get you out of here.” Flames crept up the walls on the other side of the yacht. The automated fire suppression system had been knocked out in the blast.

  Juan looked around and saw MacD propped up in a seated position, regarding him with a ragged smile.

  “Ah expected better amenities on a yacht like this.”

  “Where’s Gretchen?”

  MacD turned his head in surprise as if he’d forgotten she was with them.

  They both spotted her at the same time. She was motionless, with her hip pinned under a beam that had fallen from the ceiling.

  Juan ran to her and leaned down to check her breathing. She was still alive but unconscious.

  Eric was in no condition to help Juan, and MacD wasn’t much better, but at least he was mobile.

  “MacD, grab her arm and pull her out when I lift the beam.”

  Using his good hand, MacD got hold of her arm. Juan thrust his titanium-framed combat leg under the beam and pried it up. He got just enough leverage for MacD to drag Gretchen out. When she was clear, Juan lowered the beam and picked her up very carefully, not knowing the extent of her injuries.

  “Help Eric,” Juan said, then nodded toward the door leading out onto the deck. “There should be a life raft outside that exit. Come on. I don’t think the Achilles is going to be afloat much l
onger.”

  Outside, Juan put Gretchen down for a moment, opened a hatch, and withdrew a life raft canister. There were also several life vests, which he handed to MacD and Eric, before fitting one on Gretchen.

  The Achilles had slowed to half speed but was still traveling faster than most other ships could. It didn’t matter. They had to risk jumping overboard.

  “This is going to hurt, Stoney,” he said.

  Eric nodded in understanding. “I know.”

  Movement caught Juan’s eye. He looked up, past the ruined railgun, to a man dashing out onto the flying wing outside the bridge. Golov glared down at him from the railing, yelling something that Juan couldn’t understand.

  Juan gave Golov a mocking salute. Then with a nod to MacD, who was balanced on the railing alongside Eric, he threw the raft canister overboard at the same time that they jumped. The life raft inflated automatically when it hit the water. Juan gently lifted Gretchen’s limp body over the side and dropped with her into the Baltic Sea.

  —

  Golov watched as Cabrillo and the others with him were swept into the Achilles’s frothing wake.

  “Captain, I must insist that we go,” Kravchuk said as he joined him on the bridge wing. “The Achilles is doomed.” The XO waved his hand at the fire raging through half the vessel.

  Kravchuk was right. It was only a matter of time before the unchecked fire reached the fuel tanks.

  Golov tore himself away from the sight of Cabrillo and the raft receding behind them, no doubt thinking they had successfully escaped.

  But for Golov, this wasn’t over yet. He had one more card to play. An ace.

  “We’re abandoning ship,” he told the XO. “Ready the submarine for launch.”

  SIXTY-SIX

  Large wind-driven swells made it a challenge for Juan to reach Gretchen. With powerful strokes, he finally made it to her, latched her vest to his, and swam toward the large yellow life raft, bobbing on the sea, twenty yards away.

  As he swam, he saw the Achilles slow to a crawl. Several figures jumped overboard, but no lifeboats or additional rafts were launched. He thought he saw a splash in the dark space between the yacht’s twin catamaran hulls. He couldn’t be sure.