Marauder

by Clive Cussler

  The deepwater port was located next to a giant aluminum factory that had permanently shut down a few years before, its tanks and processing equipment now rusting in the tropical humidity. Although the local bauxite mine was still operating, the closure of the refinery and the loss of its jobs had hit the small town of Nhulunbuy hard. The town on the Gove Peninsula was so remote that one had to drive the seven hundred kilometers of dirt road from the nearest paved highway to reach it. The townspeople were happy to get an infusion into the economy from a new business called Alloy Bauxite, a shell company created by Lu Yang.

  Jin’s stepfather had bought up fifty square miles of worthless land in the middle of a secluded swamp on the other side of the bay and built a secret facility there far from any prying eyes. The only difficulty was getting through the muddy marshland and shallow rivers to reach it where there were no roads at all, but Lu had thought of that, too. Jin’s husband would be arriving on Lu’s transportation solution momentarily.

  She entered the office and shook out her raincoat before pouring herself a cup of coffee. She stared at the laptop on the desk, barely able to control her curiosity. The final piece of stepfather Lu’s plan was to be revealed today. Jin was tempted to begin the video now, but she had agreed to watch it with her husband, so she surfed Australian news websites instead.

  Their attack from the day before was all over the internet, exactly as planned. She scanned the articles for details. The Australian Maritime Border Command had responded to a distress call from two ships in the Timor Sea, one American and one Australian. There were survivors that were flown to a hospital in Darwin, but they were all seriously ill. Rumors were swirling that they’d been poisoned by some kind of gas in an accident, that the patients were paralyzed after exposure. According to reports, the ships had been performing a classified experiment in a joint operation between the U.S. and Australian militaries, so speculation was rampant that it was a chemical weapon test that got out of control. Preprogrammed bots set up by Jin on social media were fueling conspiracy theories that a secret Australian weapon was responsible for the tragedy.

  Jin smiled in appreciation of Lu’s careful planning. The seed of doubt and fear were already being planted in the public’s mind. Even if the U.S. and Australia decided to reveal what those ships had been really experimenting on, the truth would be scoffed at as a ridiculous cover story concocted to deflect blame for the accident.

  She was still savoring the irony when she heard the drone of huge propellers approaching. She rose and went to the window, looking not into the sky but out to the sea. Although the thick rain obscured the view, she could make out the white spray around the vessel racing toward the shore. It wasn’t a ship. It was a giant hovercraft called the Marsh Flyer.

  The rebuilt SR.N4 was the type of hovercraft used to transfer passengers and vehicles across the English Channel before the opening of the Chunnel made them obsolete. Its body was painted green, with windows where four hundred passengers would have been seated and large doors at the front and back for loading up to sixty cars and small trucks. On its flat top were a pilot’s cockpit and four gigantic propellers on steerable pylons used for propulsion and navigation. A black skirt captured the air blown downward by the lift fan, which allowed the Marsh Flyer to cruise from the secret Alloy Bauxite facility through the swamps and across the bay back to Nhulunbuy.

  The Flyer slowed as it approached the apron. Jin always enjoyed watching it float out of the water and onto land in defiance of all normal expectations. When it was on dry land, the hovercraft spun around on its axis until its tail was facing the docked Shepparton. Then the lift fan was shut down, and the skirt deflated, easing the Flyer to the ground.

  A ramp lowered from the aft end, and trucks started driving off in the direction of the freighter’s waiting cranes. When they were all unloaded, Angus Polk came down the ramp and trotted toward her through the rainfall.

  As he came through the door, he said, “Did you watch it yet?”

  “I was just about to, but I got caught up reading how the press is ablaze over the Aussie military’s sloppy handling of their secret chemical weapons research. Pretty soon, they’ll be wondering if the Enervum was actually a lethal nerve gas like VX.”

  “In a way, you could say it’s a nerve gas,” Polk said. “But as long as they blame their own government for it, I don’t care what they call it.”

  “Did we make our quota of Enervum?” Jin asked.

  Polk nodded. “The last batch of canisters is being loaded onto the Shepparton right now. It should be able to sail by nightfall.”

  “Good. And I’ll leave for Port Cook at the same time.”

  “The press will go nuts when another ‘accident’ happens so quickly after the first one. Lu planned it out well.” He noticed Jin frowning at him. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m having concerns,” she said.

  “We’re a little past the point of no return, if you’re getting cold feet.”

  “I was just hoping for a single operation, and then we’d be finished. The risk grows with each step, and I would like to see the exit point.”

  “Lu has been right about everything so far. The factory, the gas, the Marauder, the plasma cannon, even how the press would react to our first attack with the Enervum. The locked cryptocurrency deposit has gone up in value by thirty million since we started this. We must be close to his final objective, he can’t ask for much more. We have little choice but to see it through.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “I know. It’s too late to back out now.”

  The fact was, their seed money had been spent quickly and their deadline was fast approaching. If they didn’t go through with the plan, they’d be penniless and potentially wanted for capital crimes.

  Polk nodded at the laptop. “Let’s watch Lu’s last video and find out what our objective is.”

  Up to this point, the final target for the Enervum had been held in secret by Lu. Today’s date was the first time they could access the recording, when he would reveal the plan’s endgame to them. Jin and Polk had been waiting for this moment ever since they saw Lu’s first video in Melbourne.

  “Let’s do it,” Jin said. She was too antsy to sit, so she got to her feet and typed in the code to play the video.

  Lu came on the screen, unchanged from the last time they’d seen him, his body ravaged by the cancer that later ended his life.

  “Good day, April and Angus,” he said, his voice weak and gravelly. “I expect you’ve been eagerly awaiting this moment. I know I would be in your position. I would give anything to see your faces when I reveal what will happen.” He took a sip of water and cleared his throat.

  “He just loves his dramatic moments,” Polk muttered, “even beyond the grave.”

  “You should have seen him when he was alive,” Jin said.

  “First, I would like to congratulate you on your success to date,” Lu said. “There is still much to be done, but in just a few short days, your mission will be complete. You will have served China most honorably, and will inherit my wealth. While you may have to say farewell to your former lives in Australia, you will have friends in Asia, and the resources to live well anywhere else you desire.”

  “Okay, already, tell us what we need to do,” Polk said anxiously.

  Lu continued. “The carrot is still waiting for you. Hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency will be yours at the end of this, as promised. You hold your end up, and I will do the same. Now for the objective.” He went into another coughing fit and quenched it with a drink of water.

  Jin and Polk looked at each other. It was all or nothing. Jin took her husband’s hand.

  “If you’ve followed my instructions, the Shepparton should be holding a full load of Enervum along with its delivery system,” Lu said. “The amount of gas on board is enough to poison five million people, the entire population o
f Australia’s largest city. You will take the ship, and at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, nine days from now, release its cargo into the air in the middle of Sydney Harbour. That is your final objective. I hope you succeed.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  DARWIN

  After transferring a stabilized Oliver Muñoz and the two Senators’ families to a hospital in Bali’s capital, Juan had pushed the Oregon’s new engines to their limits to reach the Empiric, but Sylvia and Murph were long gone by the time they arrived. The ship kept going, and when they were within three hundred miles of Darwin, Gomez took off from the Oregon’s deck in the tiltrotor with Juan, Julia Huxley, and Eric Stone, who had insisted on coming when he heard about his best friend’s condition. They landed an hour later, and Juan drove a rental van carrying Julia and Eric out of Darwin International Airport while Gomez stayed behind to refuel the plane.

  “I can never get used to a hot Christmas,” Eric said idly from the back seat as they passed a city bus plastered with an ad for a local bank. Its loan offer featured Santa on his sleigh even though it was a hundred degrees in the midday sun. Yet the grass under the eucalyptus and palm trees lining the road remained green thanks to frequent downpours during the summer’s wet season.

  Juan glanced at Julia with a concerned expression, and she silently nodded. Eric was trying to distract himself from what he’d find when they arrived at the hospital.

  “We’ll do everything we can for him,” she said.

  “Maybe it’s only temporary,” Eric said. “He could be back on his feet by Christmas morning.”

  “Maybe,” she replied with an air of hope. But the discouraged look she gave Juan made it clear she was dubious of that outcome. The holiday was only three days away.

  The rest of the drive was quiet except when they stopped at a medical supply store to pick up an order Julia had called in. It was a motorized wheelchair for Murph to use. According to the reports they’d received from the Royal Darwin Hospital, he could still control one of his fingers enough to guide the chair with the joystick. Eric spent the rest of the ride attaching a custom-made device to the chair’s armrest.

  When they reached the hospital, they found it swarming with Australian soldiers as well as various government officials. Thanks to fake U.S. government IDs, the three of them were allowed to enter and went up to the fifth floor, where the patients from the Empiric were being cared for.

  Julia stopped at the central desk and announced, “We’re here to see Mark Murphy.”

  The duty nurse squinted at her and then looked at Juan and Eric. “I’m not sure he is allowed visitors.”

  A doctor who had been peering at a computer screen looked up. He was a trim man in his thirties with short black hair.

  “I’m Leonard Thurman,” he said. “Mr. Murphy has been under my care. Are you Dr. Huxley?”

  She nodded. “How did you know that?”

  “We’ve been expecting you. I received a most unusual phone call from my government an hour ago. The U.S. State Department apparently requested that I show you and your colleagues every courtesy. Mr. Murphy and his sister Ms. Chang are the only American survivors of the tragedy that brought them here. Please, follow me.”

  Thurman led Julia down the hall, and Juan and Eric trailed behind them.

  “Dr. Thurman,” Julia said as they walked, “what is their latest condition?”

  “Ms. Chang seems to have suffered no ill effects of what we think is a poison gas attack. The status of Mr. Murphy, on the other hand, has not changed since he arrived. He has not gotten any worse, which is good news, but he remains almost totally paralyzed from the neck down.”

  “Do you know the mechanism of the paralysis?”

  “Not at this stage. None of the victims have sensory loss and can still feel pain, heat, and cold in their extremities. I’m truly puzzled. I’ve never seen such a quick onset of paralysis in a large group of people except from an unfortunate case of botulism at a family reunion.”

  “Could it be a form of curare?” Juan asked. “Central American indigenous tribes using the poison in blow guns. It causes paralysis.”

  “I don’t think so. We’ve tried treating the patients with a cholinesterase inhibitor, but it had no effect. The symptoms show both upper and lower motor neuron involvement, like a combination of cerebral palsy and Guillain-Barré syndrome. Functional MRIs have shown that the neurons have become quiescent but are not dead.”

  “Is there a cure?” Eric asked.

  “I suppose we might be able to synthesize an antidote if we could isolate the cause of the condition,” Thurman said. “But that could take months or years of research. Barring that, I’m sorry to say that the paralysis may be permanent.”

  Thurman stopped at one of the rooms and gave a perfunctory knock as he entered. Murph was propped up in his adjustable bed in a hospital gown, and a young woman was sitting next to him with his right hand in hers. She looked at the new visitors warily, and then suddenly her expression changed.

  “You’re Mark’s friends,” she said, then paused for a moment before continuing. “He says your names are Juan . . . Eric . . . and Doc Huxley.”

  Juan noticed Murph’s finger tapping on her palm and recognized the cadence of Morse code.

  “You must be Sylvia,” Juan said.

  “I’m glad you came. So is Mark.”

  “How are you two?”

  “I’m fine. Mark feels okay. He’s just frustrated that he can’t move.”

  Eric walked over to the bed. “Hey, buddy. Good to see you,” he said, trying to keep the mood light.

  Murph grunted and Sylvia interpreted his rapid Morse taps. “He says, ‘I know I sound like . . . Frankenstein’s monster . . . but tell me I don’t . . . look like him.’”

  Eric smiled. “I’m sorry to say you still look like you. I brought a surprise. You’ll be able to talk for yourself now. Sort of.”

  He put on a pair of augmented reality glasses, walked over to the motorized wheelchair, and rapidly manipulated the joystick with his finger like he was playing a video game. A voice that sounded like Stephen Hawking’s halting robotic tone said, “I’ve modified the controls so that you can switch back and forth between operating the chair and speaking with the synthesizer app. The glasses let you see what you’re typing.”

  “Don’t worry,” Eric added in his own voice. “That’s just one of the four hundred voices programmed into it. Max and I threw this together when we found out what happened. You can sound like Mickey Mouse, Samuel L. Jackson, Marilyn Monroe . . . anything that’s in there. I did, however, remove the Gilbert Gottfried and Kim Kardashian choices.”

  “Wow. That’s amazing, Eric,” Sylvia said. “Mark says he wants to try it out.”

  Dr. Thurman called for an aide to help get Mark into the chair, and while that was going on, Juan pulled Thurman and Julia into the corridor.

  “We would like to take them with us,” Juan said. “It seems like Sylvia is uninjured, and Dr. Huxley has the resources and equipment to look after Mark.”

  Thurman frowned. “They just arrived yesterday. I’m reluctant to let him go so quickly in his condition.”

  “He isn’t a threat to anyone since he isn’t infected with a contagion,” Julia said. “Is there any reason to expect Mark’s status to worsen?”

  “We don’t really know anything about what’s happening to him.”

  “Can you do anything for him here that my hospital couldn’t?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Then I’d prefer to have him in my care,” Julia said. “You did say that you were to show us every courtesy.”

  “I’ll arrange with our State Department to authorize the transfer,” Juan said, which meant going through Langston Overholt.

  “Fine,” Thurman said. “But I would appreciate you sharing any changes in his condition or progre
ss in finding an effective treatment. I will do the same.”

  “Of course,” Julia replied, and exchanged numbers.

  Murph rolled out of the room in his wheelchair and did a three-sixty. Eric and Sylvia followed close behind. When Murph came to a stop, he smiled the best he could, his eyes glittering with intensity behind the special glasses.

  “Looks like you picked that up quick,” Sylvia said.

  He rotated to face her. The artificial voice spoke again, but this time it sounded like James Earl Jones’s commanding basso. “I find your lack of faith disturbing. Now, before we leave and look for a way to get me free of this chair, can I please have my clothes?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Sylvia was amazed at how fast Juan Cabrillo could get her and Mark out of the hospital. She expected all kinds of red tape, but less than an hour later they were climbing on board a sleek tiltrotor aircraft at Darwin’s airport.

  “Where are we going?” she asked him.

  “To the Oregon,” Juan said before climbing into the copilot’s seat.

  “She’s a ship,” Eric said as they strapped in. “Our home and base of operations. Mr. Overholt told us you have a top secret clearance, so the Chairman says we can show you around once we arrive.”

  “What does my security clearance have to do with it?” Sylvia asked.

  Eric smiled at her. “You’ll see.”

  “Can’t wait to lay my eyes on it,” Murph said. His artificial voice was now closer to his real voice. Even he was getting sick of constantly sounding like Darth Vader.

  Once they were in the air, Juan joined them in the main cabin. Sylvia spent the rest of the ride briefing them on the attack by the trimaran. At Mark’s urging, she even shared the goals of her experiment and a description of the plasma cannon that sank the Namaka.

  When she was through with her story, Juan said, “The trimaran sounds like the design of a new patrol ship used by a lot of navies in this region, including the Australians. It’s fast and has a long range for coastal and deep sea operations, so it could have come from anywhere. But the plasma weapon sounds too sophisticated for a terrorist group.”