Marauder (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  Tiny called over his shoulder. “What’s our destination?”

  Juan read off the coordinates.

  Tiny shook his head. “That’s pretty close to the airport’s glide path. I might have to get a bit creative in my approach.”

  “Good,” Juan replied. “Then it’s less likely that Tate will expect our plan.”

  He called up Eric Stone, who was currently piloting the Nomad submersible through Buenos Aires Harbor.

  “Did you get the coordinates I sent you?” Juan asked, testing out his molar mic. He’d texted the position of the diving bell to Eric on the way to the airport.

  “Affirmative, Chairman,” Eric answered. “We’re motoring our way there now.”

  “Be careful. We don’t know all the ways Tate is monitoring the capsule. And we don’t want to tip him off to our intentions.”

  “All my running lights are off, and the water down here is pretty murky. Eddie and Linc are in their scuba gear and set for extraction.”

  “Acknowledged. As we expected, Tate has a video feed from the diving bell.”

  “Then the plan is a go?”

  “Yes. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way down.”

  “Copy that.”

  As the Porter took off, Juan went over the controls for the RHIB. Murph had modified the boat to be operated remotely. With a press of a button, the RHIB would start up and race at top speed to Juan’s location in the harbor. It would give him the choice of escaping the diving bell’s spot by boat or by floatplane.

  Next, he checked Fred, the dummy. He was packed into a case designed to absorb a tremendous amount of shock. Juan shrugged into a sturdy harness and clipped the case to his waist.

  Finally, Juan put on his parachute.

  25

  SOUTHEAST OF MONTEVIDEO

  As the Oregon approached Tate’s specified coordinates a hundred miles off the coast of Uruguay, Max entered the moon pool to see how the preparations were going. If the Kansas City really was in the vicinity and had a bomb planted on its hull, this would be an incredibly dangerous operation.

  Murph and Hali were up in the op center, getting ready to search for the KC using the ship’s sonar array, while MacD prepared the heliox dive gear. According to Tate, the nuclear sub was grounded near the edge of the continental shelf at two hundred fifty feet, well below the maximum depth for using normal scuba tanks. Heliox was a combination of helium and oxygen that eliminated the danger of nitrogen narcosis in deep dives. The Gator would be used to support MacD, and Linda Ross was doing what she could to help get the submersible ready for work, despite her hearing loss. She was communicating with the other technicians via a special set of glasses that Murph had rigged for her, in addition to hand signals and a whiteboard.

  Julia Huxley was watching anxiously from the catwalk, and Max stepped up beside her.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked the doctor.

  “As well as can be expected,” Julia said, “but she’s frustrated by her limitations. I told her she needed to rest, but she said she was going nuts staring at the walls in her cabin.”

  “I’d be the same way. Any better idea of what happened to her, Murph, and Gomez in the Gator during the Rio op?”

  Julia shrugged. “Lots of theories, but nothing definitive.”

  “Like what?”

  “There are a few things I think we can rule out. I did a full work-up on all three of them and didn’t find any residual evidence of unexplained chemicals in their systems.”

  “So they weren’t poisoned?”

  “No. Or drugged. Besides, there was no vector for them all to be drugged simultaneously. They didn’t consume any of the same food or drinks, and the only other possibility would be an aerosolized gas pumped into the Gator while they were submerged. Murph went over the sub with a fine-tooth comb and didn’t find any hardware that didn’t belong.”

  “What about an illness?”

  “I didn’t find any virus or bacteria in their cultures, but that was unlikely anyway. They all described the visions hitting them quickly and then turning off like a switch. An infection would take hours or even days to develop and then clear up.”

  “So what does that leave us with?”

  Julia shook her head, puzzled. “There are a few prospects, but they’re all pretty out there.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Microwaves could have the effect of causing neurological changes in the brain. Is it possible for such waves to penetrate the water as well as the hull of the Gator?”

  “No way. The water around them would absorb the waves and boil first. What else have you got?”

  She looked a little embarrassed when she said, “Hypnosis.”

  “Brainwashing? Really?”

  “I told you these ideas were out there, but I’m otherwise stumped. Intelligence services have experimented with hypnosis combined with psychedelic drugs to improve the power of suggestion and subliminal direction, but the results have been mixed at best. Again, I didn’t find any hint of drugs in the systems, so it’s far-fetched, but I can’t rule it out.”

  Max tried not to roll his eyes. “Anything else?”

  Julia took a breath. “Auditory psychosis.”

  Max frowned at her. “What’s that?”

  “In my review of the literature, I found research that suggests high-volume auditory stimuli at certain frequencies can cause the vestibular system to convulse, producing a disturbing resonance in the neural pathways.”

  Max gave her a look that said You’re going to need to dumb that down for me.

  “We get our sense of balance and gravity from the inner ear,” she continued. “Those sensory organs can be thrown out of whack by high-intensity sounds, even if they’re ultrasonic or infrasonic—high and low frequencies that are out of the range of hearing for humans. Sonic warfare dates back to World War One. And the Nazis developed a parabolic dish to emit extremely loud noises as a battlefield weapon, but it was never put to use.”

  Max nodded. “I’ve heard of something similar called LRAD, a Long Range Acoustic Device. It emits ear-splitting sounds that are unbearable. Cargo and passenger ships are mounting them on deck to use as a nonlethal way to repel pirates.”

  “Right. And remember the incidents in the U.S. embassies in Cuba and China? Personnel were experiencing all kinds of ill effects that were later attributed to being bombarded by high-frequency noise.”

  “How would the crew in the Gator be affected by something like that?”

  “They were wearing headsets. I asked Mark Murphy to inspect all of the software to see if something was installed to broadcast a signal directly into their ears. In the meantime, if you see anyone wearing a headset that’s behaving strangely, remove it immediately.”

  Max nodded. “I’ll send out an alert to the crew to be aware of that possibility.”

  Max’s phone went off. It was Hali.

  “I’ve got Tate on the line,” he said.

  “Patch it through.” Max nodded at Julia and exited the moon pool on his way to the op center.

  The phone clicked. “This is Max Hanley.”

  “Yes, I remember you. So Juan left you in charge? Interesting choice.”

  Max had no patience for Tate’s games. “Where is the Kansas City?”

  “You are correct. No time for chitchat. You’ve got sixty minutes until the bomb on the KC’s hull explodes, so you’re going to have to move quickly.”

  “Where?”

  “If you’re where I told you to be, you’re only eight miles away. I’m texting you the precise longitude and latitude now.”

  “How do I know the bomb won’t go off just as we get to it and kill my people?”

  “That wouldn’t be very sporting, but, then, I’m not very trustworthy. It’s just a risk you’re going to have to take, isn’t it? Good luck.�
��

  Tate hung up. Max put the phone in his pocket, grinding his teeth in fury. It didn’t help that Tate used a phrase that wasn’t uttered on the Oregon. It was considered bad luck to wish someone “Good luck” before a mission.

  When he got to the op center, Max asked Murph to pull up the depth charts for the location Tate had texted to him.

  “Two hundred fifty feet, just like he told us,” Murph said.

  Max ordered the Oregon to set course for that spot. “When we get there, I want to begin a full sonar search of the seafloor.” He called down to the moon pool and told them to be ready for the dive in twenty minutes.

  “Any radar contacts?” he asked Hali.

  “One boat eight miles to the west. Forty-footer. Looks like a fishing vessel. Nothing else on the scope.”

  The boat could belong to Tate for observing them, but he didn’t have time to go check it out. He’d keep an eye on it, even though a boat that small was no threat to the Oregon.

  * * *

  —

  Normally, the Oregon would be too far over the horizon to observe from their chartered fishing boat, but Abdel Farouk was using a drone high above them to watch the Oregon. Doubling the owner’s normal fee gave him and Li Quon the boat to themselves. He was pleased to see the spy ship rushing off at top speed to the northeast.

  “Are they coming toward us?” Li asked uneasily.

  “No,” Farouk answered. “They’re sailing for the coordinates the commander gave them.”

  “Showing them the SEPIRB from the Kansas City must have been convincing.”

  “The commander is no fool.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take for them to realize the sub isn’t there?”

  “Long enough for us to hit them with the sonic disruptor.” The drone holding the weapon was in place. As soon as the Oregon was in range, all Farouk would need was the commander’s order to activate it.

  “Do you think it’ll have the same effect as in Rio?”

  Farouk shook his head. “Better.”

  “Even on a ship that size?”

  “I’m turning it up to full power, just like we did with the KC. The crew should begin to react within seconds.”

  “What do you think the chances are that they blow up or sink their own ship?”

  Farouk shrugged. “Hard to say. Of course, that’s not the commander’s first choice.”

  “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks they do it.”

  Farouk lowered the binoculars and grinned at Li. “Make it five.”

  “You’re on,” Li said. He had turned away and was walking into the bridge when the radio crackled. As Farouk thought about how he’d spend his winnings, he made some final adjustments to the sonic controls.

  When Li returned, he said, “The helicopter is in position forty miles out. They’re just waiting for your signal.”

  The Sikorsky hovering to the north was carrying a ten-man assault team. It would take the chopper fifteen minutes to make the trip to the Oregon once the acoustic weapon was transmitting. By that time, the crew should be incapacitated, overboard, or dead. When they landed on the deck, the assault team would encounter little to no resistance.

  “They’ll be in the position in five minutes,” Farouk said, shaking his head in admiration for how Tate had foreseen everything. It had all lined up so perfectly.

  The commander’s plan wasn’t to sink the Oregon. The plan was to steal it.

  26

  BUENOS AIRES

  Juan put on his goggles, braced himself in the open door of the seaplane, and stepped out onto the pontoon. He looked down and saw Buenos Aires Harbor five thousand feet below.

  “Approaching drop point,” Tiny said over the comm system.

  “Roger,” Juan answered. He pulled out the pack containing the dummy until it was balanced on the edge of the plane’s floor. “Ready.”

  “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Jump!”

  Juan pushed the pack over the side and followed it into the slipstream.

  The sound of the plane receded quickly and was replaced by the sound of the wind buffeting him in free fall. The pack exerted less resistance to the wind than his body, so it dangled below him, dragging him toward the water. He imagined Tate watching him fall, scrambling to get whatever plans to capture or kill him in motion.

  He wouldn’t have much time once he hit the water, so he was going to open his chute as low to the surface as possible. A thousand feet was the target. The altimeter counted down every five hundred feet in his ear. It went awfully fast.

  Juan took a moment to verify that the pack was still securely attached to his harness. During D-Day, U.S. paratroopers invading Normandy were given heavy equipment bags that strapped to their legs. Apparently, they’d never been tested in battle conditions before because most of the bags ripped loose when the chutes deployed. The packs then plummeted to the ground and were lost in the darkness.

  If Fred the Dummy detached prematurely, Juan would plunge right to the bottom of the harbor, and his mission would fail almost as soon as it began. He’d never tested this scenario out in a real-world environment, either, but his buckles seemed latched and tight.

  “Two thousand,” the mechanical voice called out. “Fifteen hundred.”

  Juan anticipated the thousand announcement and pulled the ripcord when it came. The parachute yanked him upward, as the harness around his chest and waist cut into his wetsuit, but it held. The pack swung wildly beneath him. Tate was surely wondering what it was.

  The water came up fast, and Juan took one last glance around him. No boats were anywhere close to him. He pressed the RECALL button on his wrist, which started the remote control on the RHIB. The speedy boat would now be heading his way. At the same time, Tiny would be descending to land as backup.

  When he splashed down, Juan pulled the release on the chute and turned around until he saw the small buoy indicating the location of the diving bell. He swam to it, trailing the floating pack behind him.

  When he reached the buoy, he removed a tiny tank called Spare Air that was clipped to his harness. It was for divers to use in the case of emergency and held enough air for fifteen breaths. That was all Juan would need.

  He put in the mouthpiece and cracked the pack containing the dummy to release the air inside. It sank and pulled Juan down with it.

  Juan snapped on his headlamp and saw the yellow diving bell resting on the muddy harbor floor.

  As he got closer, he spotted the bomb stuck to the hull. As he expected, it was Tate’s fail-safe. But Juan’s old CIA partner wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just to kill him. At least that’s what he was hoping.

  When he got to the top of the diving bell, he took out a small electronic device and clamped it to the cable carrying the interior and exterior camera feeds from the bell to the buoy. The unit was designed to insert itself into the middle of the connection, buffering the video and then rebroadcasting it. The display indicated that it was successfully intercepting the signal.

  Juan double-tapped twice on the molar mic with his tongue to indicate that the feed was in place.

  “Acknowledged,” Eric said from the Nomad’s cockpit. “Two hundred meters out and approaching.”

  Juan double-tapped again and lowered himself to the window of the diving bell. He saw Overholt inside, alive but looking worn out. The interior wheel of the hatch had been removed. Juan caught Overholt’s eye and held a whiteboard up to the window.

  Stay perfectly still for one minute.

  Overholt knew not to ask questions. He nodded slightly and remained in his seat, looking blankly at the wall.

  Juan pressed the button on his remote, and the unit was now recording the video from the diving bell and any cameras on its exterior. In a minute, it would begin broadcasting that video as a loop. To Tate, it would look like
nothing was going on in the capsule.

  Juan opened the pack and extracted Fred’s inert form. As promised by Kevin Nixon, the dummy’s hair and facial prosthetics had stayed in place. From any distance farther than ten yards, it would look like a soaked version of Overholt.

  He dropped the pack and looked at his watch. Based on his math, the RHIB should be approaching any moment, which was great because he only had one or two breaths of air left in his mini-tank. Then he heard the engine of the speedy boat as it raced toward him.

  As he rose to the surface, he saw the headlights of the Nomad below him as it approached the diving bell.

  * * *

  —

  Linc and Eddie were in scuba gear holding on to the railing around the Nomad’s air lock hatch. The diving bell came into view as the submersible’s lights focused on its resting place on the seabed. Silt rose behind them, mixed into the water by the Nomad’s propellers.

  Eric, who was driving the sub, brought it to a halt only a few yards away from the bell and expertly hovered there.

  “I’ll turn around while you go get him,” Eric said.

  “On our way,” Eddie replied. He and Linc were wearing full-face masks so they could talk.

  They let go of the Nomad and swam toward the capsule. Linc was carrying a snorkeling mask for Overholt, who would buddy breathe using one of their backup octopus regulators.

  Eddie checked his watch. It had been more than a minute since Juan started the countdown on the camera feed interrupter. He held a whiteboard up to the window and knocked.

  You can move now. We’re getting you out of there.

  Overholt looked at it and nodded.

  Linc pointed at the bomb stuck to the capsule.

  Eddie nodded. “Let’s move.”

  They sank to the bottom of the diving bell and swam to the hatch.

  Eddie yanked on the wheel to open it. The wheel spun, and Eddie felt the mechanism click, but when he pulled on it the hatch wouldn’t budge.

  “Tate wasn’t going to make it that easy,” Linc said and traced his finger along the edge of the hatch.