Marauder

by Clive Cussler

  “Thanks,” Cable said. “Mike might just do that while we’re here. Speaking of a drink, I’m going to pour myself a cup of coffee. Do you want one before we continue the inspection? It’s a special Vietnamese blend. I highly recommend it.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Gulman said.

  Cable filled a tall cardboard cup and handed it to Gulman. “Be careful. It’s hot.” He nodded to a cupholder next to the control panel. “You can put it there to cool off if you need to.”

  “Appreciate it.” Gulman took the cup and was about to take a sip when it began to warm up in his hand. Cable wasn’t kidding about the heat. Gulman had to put it down before it burned his fingers.

  He crossed quickly to the cupholder and was about to place it in the receptacle when the cup seemed to leap out of his hand as if he had a sudden muscle spasm.

  Gulman could only watch in horror as the cup landed on the control panel and splashed steaming coffee across the instrumentation.

  Alarms blared, and lights flashed on a number of screens.

  Cable rushed over and looked like he was going to tear his hair out.

  “What did you do?” he yelled. “Oh, no. The fire suppression system was activated.” He tapped furiously on one of the touch screens.

  “I’m sorry,” Gulman sputtered. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Cable calmed down and waved him off. “It was an accident. No worries.”

  “But—”

  Gulman was interrupted by a man on one of the video screens. He was covered in fire retardant foam and gesticulating in fury from what looked like the engineering control room.

  “What is going on up there?” he demanded. It was Michael Wong, the chief engineer. “My engine room is soaked with foam. It’ll take us two hours to clean this up.”

  The screen switched to the view of the engine room, and Gulman’s stomach sank when he saw foam all over the formerly pristine machinery.

  “We had a malfunction up here,” Cable said with a wink at Gulman. “Must have been a software glitch.”

  “A glitch. If I find who made that bonehead mistake, I’ll make sure he never works in this business again.”

  Wong stormed off, and Cable turned off the screen.

  “I . . . I don’t know what happened,” Gulman said. “I must have slipped when I put the coffee down.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Cable said with a surprisingly understanding and magnanimous tone. “Look, you seem like a nice guy. I don’t want to make you a laughingstock in the community or put a blot on your job record. We’ll get this sorted out. I’m sure no serious damage is done. Now, you’ve seen enough to know the Norego is shipshape.” He chuckled. “I mean, our fire suppression system obviously works. What do you say we wrap up the inspection here and forget the whole thing?”

  Gulman nodded vigorously. “That’s mighty kind of you, Captain. I don’t think I need to see any more. Everything seems to be in order. My apologies again.”

  He quickly signed the necessary forms and hustled off the ship as fast as he could, his stomach in knots hoping the Norego’s captain would keep this incident private. They would never trust him with the Melbourne posting if anyone found out about his embarrassing blunder.

  * * *

  —

  It worked,” Juan said as he watched the harbormaster scurry down the gangway. “You can come out.”

  Eddie emerged from the adjacent room in fresh clothes, toweling the last of the fake fire retardant foam from his hair with one hand and carrying a tablet in the other.

  “Did the harbormaster look as red in person as he did on camera?” Eddie asked.

  “I thought he was going to transform into a tomato right in front of me.”

  “At least now we know our little ruse works.”

  When docking in ports where oversight was lax and the underpaid administrators were corrupt, Juan could get inspectors to cut short their visits by buying them off or making the ship so disgusting that they couldn’t wait to leave. But that trick wouldn’t work in countries where the standards were higher and the harbormasters well paid and principled.

  The new Oregon could be made to look like a brand new technological marvel, allowing her to call on ports that were never available to the Corporation’s previous ship. To get past an inspection that might come uncomfortably close to revealing some of its hidden secrets, they had to come up with a new technique to get inspectors off the ship prematurely.

  Since the Oregon was actually controlled from the op center, the non-functional bridge could be made to look like a shambles or, as it was today, it could be dressed up to seem as if it were fresh from the shipyard. The process for embarrassing Gulman enough to make him leave before finishing the tour had several segments.

  The video of the fake engine room being doused with fire retardant foam had been filmed weeks ago on a movie set. The only part that was live was Eddie’s appearance on the monitor in his costume. The trick spill cup had been rigged up by Kevin Nixon. It had a hidden heating element that induced Gulman to put it down, and tiny neodymium magnets embedded inside pulled it over once he got it close to the control panel. The rest was theatrics and Juan’s improvisation.

  “Any more word on that incident in Port Cook?” Juan asked Eddie. News had been trickling out about a situation that sounded suspiciously similar to what happened on the Empiric.

  “The Australian military began flying in teams this morning,” Eddie said. “The latest is that they have five hundred and eighty-four casualties. Of that total, there were seventeen deaths, and the rest are paralyzed like Murph.”

  “Anyone not afflicted?”

  “Just the four airmen who were the skeleton crew of the nearby base. The rumor on the internet is that a gas leak at the base was caused by a fire in a top secret storage depot. A lot of Australians are convinced that both Port Cook and the Empiric are the fault of their own military.”

  “Or it was made to look that way. I don’t buy that the military could have two similar ‘accidents’ a thousand miles away from each other in just a few days. Port Cook and the air base are right on the coast.”

  “Do you think it was another attack like the one Sylvia Chang described?” Eddie asked.

  “Maybe. But we don’t have anything concrete to connect them. Eric and Murph are still working on the facial recognition of Sylvia’s mystery couple. The only lead we have is a crate she saw with a logo of Alloy Bauxite, and that’s pretty thin. Do you have the satellite photos of their facility?”

  “Right here,” Eddie said, tapping on his tablet. “But it doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy to get to.”

  The image from a few days ago showed a large rectangular building in the middle of a green expanse dotted with muddy bogs. It had a small annex attached to it. The structure looked more like a warehouse than a smelting factory. The Marsh Flyer was parked next to it, and several other vehicles were scattered nearby. Eddie zoomed out, and there was nothing but swampland for miles around, with just a corridor denuded of trees for the hovercraft to navigate to and from the bay.

  “We can’t go in by air,” Juan said. “The tiltrotor is too noisy. Can we get there by boat?”

  “Only part of the way,” Eddie replied. “Then it would be a long slog wading through those marshes, which happen to be filled with snakes and crocodiles. Exfiltration would be just as difficult.”

  “Not to mention that they might have guards patrolling the perimeter. Some of those smaller vehicles look like hovercraft as well.”

  “If they’re connected with the gas attack, we have to assume they have armed security,” Juan said. “And whatever that building is, it’s not configured like a bauxite processing plant. Which is why we need to see what they’re actually doing in there.”

  “Before we try to sneak in, some firsthand intel about the place would be helpful
,” Eddie said.

  Juan looked out at the giant hovercraft being loaded with trucks. “I think it’s time for me to have a chat with the pilot of the Marsh Flyer.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  When Juan entered the Lazy Goanna with Max, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Unlike the upscale bar and grill up the street, this tavern was the kind of dive bar where people came to either drown their sorrows or celebrate making it through the day. Tacky signs and knickknacks were nailed haphazardly to the walls, and in front of the mirror behind the bar there was a large neon Foster’s logo with half the letters burned out. The place reeked of beer, sweat, and testosterone.

  It was around dinnertime, and the place was filled with bauxite miners, mechanics, fishermen, and other working folk. The only group who looked out of place was a table of four men in their twenties doing shots and whooping it up, giving away their status as tourists every time they shouted taunts at each other in their American accents.

  “You think this is where they got the idea for Crocodile Dundee?” Max asked.

  “This might be where they filmed it,” Juan said, scanning the room now that he could see more clearly.

  “I don’t see Parsons.”

  “Neither do I. But the harbormaster was pretty certain he’d be here.”

  “Might as well have a brew while we wait,” Max said.

  They took two stools at the end of the bar. The only woman in the place was a pretty blonde bartender wearing a tight tank top.

  “What can I get for you fellows?” she asked in a chipper twang.

  “Two Victoria Bitters, please,” Juan said.

  “You got it.”

  As she filled two glasses from the tap, one of the Americans lurched over to the bar.

  “Four more Jagerbombs for me and my mates,” he said in an exaggerated Aussie accent.

  “You boys aren’t driving anywhere, are you?” the bartender asked.

  The guy leaned toward her. “Why? You want to join us?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on. We’re going hunting tomorrow at a private ranch. It’s my Christmas present. Wild boar, water buffalo, maybe even a camel.” He reached out and grabbed her arm. “It’ll be more fun with you there.”

  Juan was about to tell him to back off when a thick finger tapped the American on the shoulder.

  “I think you should let go of the lady,” he said with an Australian drawl that was dragged through gravel. “Right now.”

  The man was in his forties, six feet tall, his ropy arm muscles covered with sleeves of tattoos and his crew cut shot through with silver. The creases on his forehead made him look a bit older than the photos from his service record that Juan had seen, but it was definitely Bob Parsons.

  The American released the bartender, who said, “Never mind him, Bob. I’ve handled worse.”

  “You heard her, Bob,” the American slurred. “Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “I know you don’t need my help with him, Mindy,” Parsons said as he took a seat on a stool one down from Juan. “I just don’t like to see someone treat you rudely. I was hoping these loudmouths would be gone by the time I got back from the dunny. Just my luck that I have to keep hearing this one brag about the expensive vacation his daddy gave him.” He took a swig from the beer bottle that Mindy set out for him.

  Max leaned over to Juan and whispered, “I’m beginning to like this guy already.”

  The young American glanced at his friends and then snarled at Parsons. “Are you looking for a beating, old man?”

  “You tell him, Sawyer,” one of his buddies yelled.

  Parsons grinned at Sawyer. “Why would I want to give you a beating?”

  “Okay, tough guy. Let’s go outside and see who’s smiling after I smack you around.”

  The three other Americans stood up at hearing the challenge.

  “All right,” Parsons said. “You go out and practice falling down while I finish my beer.”

  Sawyer looked at the other Americans, all of whom nodded like they were giving him permission to knock the Australian out. Parsons, meanwhile, kept drinking his beer, his eyes focused straight ahead.

  With a wicked grin, Sawyer reared back to deliver a sucker punch to the side of Parsons’ head, but his fist found nothing but air as Parsons leaned forward out of its path. The mirror behind the bar had made it easy for Parsons to anticipate the right cross.

  With a single motion, Parsons was off his stool and grabbed the back of Sawyer’s head. He slammed it onto the bar, causing the other three to launch themselves at Parsons.

  With impressive speed, precision, and power, he whipped the beer bottle around and smashed it into the head of the lead guy, kicked the second in the groin, and hammered the kidney of the third with his elbow. All of them went down, holding their various injured body parts and wailing in pain.

  By then, Sawyer had shaken out the cobwebs and plucked the neck of the broken bottle from the floor, wielding it like a dagger. Parsons was so occupied with the others that he didn’t see the guy coming. Juan, who was already off his stool by this point, snagged Sawyer’s wrist and used a foot sweep to knock his legs out from under him. The tourist landed hard on his back. Parsons turned in time to see Juan bend Sawyer’s wrist until he dropped the bottleneck.

  “That’s not very sporting of you,” Juan said, letting him go and kicking the weapon away.

  The other three Americans staggered to their feet, but it was clear that they were all mouth and no spine. The fight was gone from them. They yanked Sawyer to his feet and carried him out the door.

  “Thank you, sir,” Parsons said. “I didn’t mean to get you involved.”

  “Happy to help a Marine.”

  “You’re American.”

  “Not all of us are snot-nosed brats. My name’s Juan. This is Max.”

  “You recognized my tat?” Parsons held out his right arm, which was emblazoned with the Marine Corps logo: an eagle atop a globe laid over an anchor.

  Juan did notice the tattoo, but he had also read up on Parsons before venturing out to the Lazy Goanna. Although Parsons had been born in Australia, his American mother had taken him to California when he was ten years old after his father died. He had been a Marine for five years, serving two tours in Afghanistan, before transferring to the Navy and becoming a LCAC pilot. The Landing Craft Air Cushion vehicles were giant hovercraft used to ferry tanks and personnel to shore during amphibious assaults.

  “We’re both veterans,” Juan said, which was close to the truth. “Navy.”

  “Well, I appreciate the backup,” Parsons said, sitting back on his stool. “Let me buy you two swabbies a drink.”

  * * *

  —

  After swapping sea stories over three rounds, Juan and Max were laughing with Parsons like they were old pals. Juan even showed him his prosthetic leg and made up a story about how he’d lost it in Iraq.

  “How long have you been in this town?” Juan asked, finally getting around to his job now that they’d gotten friendly with him.

  “Nhulunbuy?” Parsons said. “Oh, about a year now. Alloy Bauxite needed a hovercraft pilot, and I was the only one in these parts who could fly an SR.N4. Not too much different from an LCAC.” He pronounced it “L-Cack.”

  “Where did they find a Mountbatten-class transport like that?”

  “Ah, you know your hovercraft. They bought a scrapper that used to cross the English Channel and refurbished it. Even upgraded the controls so I could fly it without a navigator or flight engineer.”

  “She’s a beauty,” Juan said. “Too bad you have to be working so close to Christmas.”

  “I can’t complain,” Parsons said. “You wouldn’t believe what they pay me to drive through that swamp. Besides, tomorrow’s my last run and then I’m off for the holidays
.”

  “Seems like an odd place to build a factory,” Max said. “What do they make in there?”

  “I don’t know. I just move the trucks in and out.” Parsons tossed back the remainder of his beer and let out a huge belch. “And even if I did know, I couldn’t tell you no matter how drunk I got.”

  “Why not?” Juan asked.

  “Because they made me sign one of those non-disclosure agreements. Top secret and all that. If I so much as make a peep about what they do in there, they’d sue me so hard, my grandchildren would be bankrupt. And I don’t even have kids.”

  “We wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “Anyway, I think they’re closing up soon.”

  “Why do you say that?” Max asked.

  “Because the Shepparton left Nhulunbuy with a huge shipment, and my contract is up in a few days.”

  Juan and Max looked at each other knowingly. A huge shipment. They needed to find out what kind of cargo was already out to sea.

  Parsons got off his stool and said, “It’s been fun, gentlemen, but I need to sleep before my last flight of the year. Juan, Max, good to know ya.”

  “Nice to meet you, Master Chief,” Juan said.

  “Anchors aweigh and semper fi,” Max said.

  “Oorah,” Parsons answered with a crisp salute and staggered out the door.

  “He probably won’t even have a hangover,” Max said enviously. He turned to Juan and furrowed his brow. “I know that look. You’ve got an idea.”

  “We’ve been looking for a way into that factory,” Juan said. “Parsons is taking his giant hovercraft over there in the morning. The Marsh Flyer seems pretty roomy. Why don’t we just hitch a ride?”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was three in the morning when the operation began. Max, Hali, Eric, and Murph were in the Oregon’s op center watching the hovercraft on the large screen at the front of the room. The Marsh Flyer sat in the center of the concrete apron abutting the defunct aluminum refinery, a hundred yards of open space on all sides. One guard was posted at the bow while two other guards circled it on patrol.