Still, they landed with a bone-jarring impact, and Hali cried out as he felt his knee buckle at an unnatural angle while Belasco’s helmet slammed into the hardened concrete.
MacD rushed over and knelt beside them. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Hali said, his jaw clenched in pain. “I think I tore something in my leg.”
MacD detached Belasco from him and turned her over, removing her helmet. Her eyes were closed.
“Knocked cold,” he said.
He lightly tapped her cheek until her eyes fluttered open.
“What happened?”
“Hali saved your life, but you probably got a concussion in the bargain. Unfortunately, we need to get out of here in case more of those drones show up.”
Belasco pushed herself up with his help. When she got to her feet, MacD helped Hali onto his good leg. With one person hanging on each side, MacD took them toward the jetty.
Getting down off the roof was a painful adventure for all three of them. By the time they were on the steel pier, the Gator had pulled up alongside it.
Juan hopped up onto the suspended jetty and with the help of Linc and Raven they were able to lower Hali and Belasco into the sub without incident. Juan immediately ordered them to dive and rendezvous with the Oregon.
Hali took a seat on the bench while one of the med techs from the Oregon inspected his leg. He winced as she manipulated his knee.
“Looks like a torn ACL,” she said. “We’ll have to do a CT scan when we get back to the ship.”
“Looks like I got off easy,” Hali said to Juan, nodding at the inert man lying on the floor.
“Knife wound,” Juan said. “Although he’s lost a lot of blood, López is tough. They say he’s going to live, but he’ll require surgery.”
“And Machado?” MacD asked.
The Chairman’s eyes darkened. “Doc says he didn’t make it.”
“Anyone else hurt?” Hali asked.
“Linda. Looks like both of her eardrums were ruptured by a flashbang grenade that went off next to her.”
“How could such a colossal mess happen?” MacD wondered, in shock at the extensive list of casualties.
“I don’t know,” Juan said with a look of grim determination. “But I promise you, we’re going to find out.”
18
PORTO DE SANTOS, BRAZIL
Harbormaster Matheus Aguilar wished he hadn’t eaten such a big lunch. The stench surrounding him in the captain’s office on the Salem wrestled with his stomach, and the smell was winning. But he wasn’t going to leave without his payoff, even if he had to throw up in the wastebasket to get it.
“I’m sure you understand that we have to be strict in our checks and precautions, Captain White,” Aguilar said, trying to hold down the bile rising in his throat. He glanced at the filthy bathroom, where the toilet was gurgling nonstop. He worried it would belch up its contents at any moment.
The fat old seadog behind the desk leaned back in his squeaky chair, nodded, and stroked his silver beard. Then he massaged his right pant leg around his stump. The captain walked with a pronounced limp and had shown Aguilar the prosthesis after the harbormaster had tripped over it accidentally during their tour of the ramshackle bridge.
“I’m sure security is very important in these parts,” White said. “You’ve got to make sure the port is safe.”
“Which is why I need to inspect your cargo areas and engine room. Look at what occurred in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. I don’t want a similar incident to happen here.”
The explosions and gunfights all around Rio and Guanabara Bay had dominated the Brazilian news for the past twenty-four hours. The Salem was currently tied up at the loading dock of Porto de Santos, which served São Paolo. It was the biggest port in South America, so any significant disruption to its operations would affect the country’s entire economy.
“So what are you looking for?”
“Excuse me?” Aguilar countered.
“The price,” White said. “Name it.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Aguilar had received many bribes during his stint as harbormaster, but no one had been so forward about it before.
White leaned forward, his shirt straining against the surprisingly ropy muscles underneath.
“I mean, I have a cargo to unload quickly and a few minor repairs to make in my turbines. Any bureaucratic hassles are going to slow me down. I’ve got to be out of here in three hours, and I don’t want to be late. So what’s your price?”
The way White’s eyes drilled into Aguilar was unsettling. There was something wrong about the situation, but he couldn’t tell why he was so on edge. Suddenly, the bribe didn’t seem worth it, no matter how much he could get.
“Maybe I should bring some more people on board to conduct the inspection,” Aguilar said, rising from his chair.
“Sit down,” White said without moving.
Aguilar puffed up his chest and projected his haughtiest voice. This was his port and he was in charge. No one talked to him like that.
“I’m leaving. We’ll go over this ship with a magnifying glass, down to every last rivet.”
He turned to leave.
“I wouldn’t do that,” White said with a mocking tone. “Not unless you want the port authority to know how much you’ve been skimming off the docking fees.”
Aguilar froze.
“It will set you up for a nice retirement one of these days,” White continued. “Of course, you won’t be able to spend it if you’re in prison. Once the papers find out about your scam, your trial will be a mere formality.”
Aguilar whirled around. “How do you know about that?”
“I have a computer guy who is a whiz at finding hidden documents. All I need to do is release them onto the Internet, and you’ll never get the cork back in the bottle. Corrupt politicians don’t like being cut out of the money flow by corrupt bureaucrats.”
Aguilar’s legs felt wobbly. He collapsed back into the chair.
“What do you want?”
“I expect to breeze through your inspection with a flawless rating. And if I come back through here again, I want the same kid-glove treatment the next time around. I’m a stick-and-carrot kind of guy, so here’s a fee for your troubles.”
White slid a thick wad of American dollars across the desk.
“There’ll be more of this when I return. I don’t want you to be unhappy with our arrangement.”
White stood and glared down at Aguilar, whose stomach was nearing full boil.
“But if my ship gets so much as a demerit for a typo on the manifest, you’ll be lucky to see the outside of a jail cell before you’re seventy. Entende?”
Aguilar gulped and nodded. “I understand.”
White beamed with a mirthless smile, which creeped out Aguilar even more. “Good. Now, I don’t want to see you or anyone who works for you near my ship again during this visit.”
Aguilar teetered to his feet and snatched the money off the desk. “You passed the inspection with flying colors, Captain White.”
White nodded and waved good-bye. “Adeus, amigo.”
Aguilar rushed out of the office. He made it all the way up to the outside deck before he vomited over the side.
* * *
—
As soon as Aguilar bolted from his office, Zachariah Tate laughed and started pulling off the false beard and nose, revealing his lean face, pinched nose, and cleft chin. The white wig came off next. Underneath was a shock of jet-black hair. Whether he was playing Charles White on the Salem or Chester Knight on the Portland, he always got a kick out of the acting gig.
“He’s gone,” Tate said to the hidden microphone. “Can we get rid of that hideous smell now?”
Fans sucked the artificial stink out of the office in secon
ds, replacing it with a pleasant sea breeze scent that Tate preferred.
Abdel Farouk walked into the office and smirked. “You didn’t have to use the nuclear option right away, Commander.”
“Oh yes, I did,” Tate said, pulling the stuffing out of his shirt. “That weasel would have nickel-and-dimed me for an hour. I’m a busy man. I don’t have that kind of time. Let’s go get our cargo off-loaded and make some money.”
The fake prosthetic leg was the last thing he removed. The plastic molding around Tate’s intact right calf was the least favorite part of his disguise because it was so itchy.
He left everything on the desk and led Farouk down a dingy hall with flickering fluorescent lights to a broom closet. The cleaning supplies strewn on the floor and shelves were unused and moldy, and the slop sink was crusted with grime. Tate turned the handles in a preset pattern like a combination lock. A soft click announced the opening of a secret door at the back of the closet.
Tate pulled it open and walked into a hall illuminated by tasteful wall sconces and with a floor covered with plush carpeting. It was as if he’d entered the lobby of a five-star hotel.
Farouk closed the closet door behind them. “Our buyers are ready to transfer the four containers over to their ship once we’ve unloaded them.”
“Have they agreed to our terms?”
Farouk nodded. “It was a fair offer. I wonder where the weapons will end up.”
“Who cares?” Tate dismissed it with the wave of a hand. “What I like is getting paid twice for the same shipment.” The Mantícora operation had gone just as planned. The payment from the CIA front company had been moved through myriad dummy accounts. They’d never be able to track it.
Tate went through a doorway into the Portland’s op center. The control hub embedded in the heart of the ship actually served as the bridge. Up above, the dilapidated bridge in the superstructure was merely for show.
Every function of the ship could be handled in the op center, from propulsion and steering to communications and weapons activation. The room itself was designed to resemble a starship, with flat-panel displays, touchpad controls, and a massive screen on the front wall. High-definition cameras mounted all over the exterior of the ship provided surveillance.
Tate took his seat in the swiveling command chair at the center of the room. It was built with controls in the armrest so that the commander could operate the most critical functions of the ship from this one spot.
“Status?” he asked.
His first officer, a Russian naval veteran named Pavel Durchenko, said, “We’re unloading the first container now, Commander.”
He nodded to another officer, and an image of the dockside crane lifting the shipping unit appeared on the main view screen.
“As soon as the last container touches the dock,” Tate said to Farouk, “I want that payment in our accounts.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two of the crew high-fived, and the rest murmured approvingly. They all shared in the spoils for every job pulled off by the Portland.
“Did we get the supplies we needed?”
“All food and ammunition stores will be replenished within the hour,” Durchenko said.
“All right. Show me our target for this evening.”
A different exterior view came on the screen, this one to the Portland’s stern. It showed a huge freighter being loaded with timber and coffee bound for France.
“That ship looks brand-new.”
“It is,” Farouk said. “That’s why the owners are drowning in debt. They can’t break the lease on it, and they’re bleeding red ink. They say the only way they can cover their losses is for the ship to sink and Lloyd’s of London to pay the claim.”
Tate held up his fingers and played the world’s smallest violin. “Cry me a river. They’ll pay our normal cut?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s make this a twofer.”
“How do you mean?”
“Our old buddy Juan Cabrillo had a bad day yesterday. We want to continue his misery, don’t we?”
Heads all over the op center nodded.
“Then we’ll make sure to sink that freighter before sunset and get some good video of the Portland doing it. I got word that the crew of the Mantícora was found in the middle of the Atlantic. The U.S. Navy is still searching for the missing Kansas City. Now it’s time to up the pressure on the Oregon by framing her for another atrocity.”
Once she was blamed as the culprit in these incidents, the Oregon would become a pariah to the United States, and so would her captain. Nobody in the CIA knew that she had a doppelgänger, an exact twin, down to her weapons systems and advanced magnetohydrodynamic engines.
Tate’s extensive plans were finally paying off, plans he’d developed during years of torture and solitary confinement. Like everyone else aboard the Portland, he wanted his revenge on Juan Cabrillo, the person responsible for all their collective misery.
But Tate wasn’t going to kill his former partner in the CIA. That would be too simple. What he wanted was far more punishing. First, Tate would ruin his reputation. Then he would kill Cabrillo’s crew, sink his ship, and leave him to rot in a Third World prison for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he’d lost everything he held dear.
Tate savored the thought of such complete suffering and grinned.
He was going to utterly destroy Juan Cabrillo.
19
VITÓRIA, BRAZIL
Juan entered the Oregon’s infirmary to find Julia Huxley making notes on a tablet computer. As the ship’s surgeon, she had been extraordinarily busy in the two days since they’d beat a hasty retreat from Rio Harbor. He could see the toll that the extended hours had taken on her.
Instead of a white lab coat, green scrubs hung loosely over her short, curvy figure. She drooped as she leaned against a counter, and there were dark circles under brown eyes that normally looked much more alert. Her dark hair was tied back in her usual ponytail that swayed back and forth as she yawned.
“Not getting much sleep lately?” Juan asked.
“Or any,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s been nonstop around here.”
“I came to tell you that López and Belasco made it onto the CIA charter back to the U.S. along with Machado’s body.”
Juan had decided to return to Vitória because it had a major airport as well as a network of fine hospitals and doctors.
“How did López look?” Julia asked.
“A lot better, thanks to you.”
“Luckily, the knife didn’t penetrate any vital organs. It was a pretty straightforward procedure to stitch him up once we got the bleeding under control. He should be up and about in a few days.”
Before joining the Corporation, Julia had been a skilled general surgeon and chief medical officer at the San Diego naval base. With the operating room and diagnostic facilities aboard the Oregon, she and her staff could handle any wounds that would normally require a big-city trauma center.
“What about the prognosis for Belasco?” Juan asked.
“She got a nasty concussion when she slammed her head into the concrete roof of that fort. She’d probably be brain-damaged or dead without the helmet. As it is, she’ll need weeks or months to recover.”
Juan crossed his arms and grimaced as he leaned against the counter next to Julia.
“I thought we had such a good plan for getting them out safely,” he said.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Julia said. “This is a dangerous business. We all understood that when we signed up.”
“But this time, it wasn’t bad luck. We screwed up. Did you find out what happened to Linda, Gomez, and Murph on the Gator?”
She looked puzzled and shook her head. “I did a full work-up on all of them and didn’t find anything unusual. The tox screen came back nega
tive for chemicals in their systems. Other than Linda’s injuries, there weren’t any residual effects.”
“What could cause them to lose their minds like that?”
“You know I hate saying that I’m stumped, but I’ve never run across anything like this. I’ll do a deeper search of the medical literature after I get a little sleep.”
The sound of creaking crutches preceded Hali’s tottering into the medical bay.
“I heard everything went well,” Julia said to him.
She had found an orthopedic specialist in Vitória who was renowned for his expertise in laparoscopic ACL repair.
“Only took an hour,” Hali said. “Did you know that doctor does the knee surgeries for all the famous soccer players here in Brazil?”
Julia nodded. “He studied at Harvard Med with me before coming back here. I had to pull some strings to get you in so fast.”
Hali smiled. “So that’s why he said I should be doing flying scissors kicks again in no time.”
“Why don’t you go into exam room one, and I’ll take a look at the incision in a minute.”
He gave her the thumbs-up and plodded away.
“He seems to be taking it well,” she said.
“I told him we’d get him a brand-new paraglider for his efforts, above and beyond, to save Belasco,” Juan said. “What’s the news on our other casualty?”
“Linda?” Julia affirmed. “Two ruptured eardrums. Almost total hearing loss.”
Juan swallowed hard. “Is it permanent?”
“I hope not. But it’ll be a while until we know. The tympanic membranes in both ears were severely damaged, but I’m hoping they will repair themselves. In the meantime, she can only understand visual communication.”
“I’ll check in on her later.” Juan sighed and stood up. “Right now, I have an uncomfortable call to make.”
“Langston Overholt?”
He nodded. “Time to give him an update on this debacle.”
Marauder (The Oregon Files) Page 9