Typhoon Fury

by Clive Cussler

  “We’ll slow long enough for you to launch, then continue on our way. Good hunting. Chairman out.”

  When they reached the site of the Pearsall wreckage, Juan had Eric slow to a crawl. The door to the boat garage was already open, it took only a few seconds for the RHIB to shoot out of the Oregon.

  As soon as they were clear, Juan ordered Stoney to take her back up to flank speed.

  “Let’s stay alert,” he announced to everyone in the op center, his voice taking on a grave tone. He looked at each of his crew, in turn, as he talked.

  “From our run-ins with Locsin to this point, he’s shown himself to be ruthless and unpredictable. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him. He’s a dangerous man even if we are able to capture him, which is what our goal is for Beth Anders’s sake.”

  Raven nodded to Juan before his eyes finally settled on Max.

  “Be ready for anything.”

  • • •

  IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for the RHIB to reach the Pearsall. The Oregon was already well on its way toward the islet when Eddie throttled back and idled at the designated coordinates. Linda peered over the side of the boat’s inflated tubular gunwales. Even with the cloud cover dimming the view, the bow of the destroyer jutting from the seafloor sand was clearly visible.

  She finished prepping Little Geek and had MacD and Linc lift it over the side and into the water. Linda tested the onboard camera to make sure she was getting a good feed through the fiber-optic tether connected to her handheld control panel. The high-definition signal was strong, so she started its descent.

  When Little Geek reached the bottom, MacD pointed at the screen and said, “Ah think we know where they went in.”

  “I see it,” Linda said, pointing the ROV at the hole ripped in the Pearsall’s side by the torpedo that sank her.

  As Little Geek went inside the destroyer, she popped on its powerful LED lights. At the first room it reached, she saw a big X drawn on the open door.

  “That looks new,” Linc said.

  When Little Geek went past it to the next room and another X, Linda said, “They must have crossed off rooms as they searched them.”

  MacD nodded. “No Typhoon cargo inside. Makes it easier for us.”

  She kept going forward until she found the only door not marked. Little Geek went through and broadcast an image of a single sealed orange plastic barrel against the bulkhead. Another was overturned on the floor, its lid gone.

  “Typhoon?” Linc asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” she said. After circling the barrel and spotting no booby traps, she moved Little Geek forward and unfolded its small manipulator arm. Its claw reached out and gripped the lid. She tried lifting it up, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Must be pressure-sealed,” MacD said.

  “In this case, brute force is a good solution.” Linda revved the motors to full speed and yanked the arm at the same time.

  The lid popped off, and water rushed into the container. White cotton batting floated out. Linda angled the ROV so they could see the interior.

  The pills were already dissolving in the seawater, sending a cloud of white powder roiling through the boatswain’s locker.

  “No way there were two million pills inside these two barrels,” MacD said, who had been told about Overholt’s briefing about the Pearsall’s cargo and the implicit instructions to destroy the pills.

  “Wait a minute,” Linc said. “Back up and pan down.”

  “Did you see something?” Linda asked.

  “Shapes on the floor.”

  She moved Little Geek to give them a better view and saw what he meant.

  Algae had grown around the bottom of the barrels where they met the floor. She counted the bare circles.

  “Eighteen missing,” she said.

  “That means one-point-eight million pills are gone,” MacD said.

  “I’ll let the Oregon know,” Eddie said and radioed Hali.

  “Tell them we’re done here and we’re heading their way as soon as we get Little Geek back,” Linda said.

  Eddie nodded and told Hali. Linda maneuvered Little Geek back the way it had come. It was almost to the opening in the hull when a glint reflecting the ROV’s lights caught her eye.

  She turned Little Geek into the room and immediately saw stacks of shells for the destroyer’s five-inch guns. Some of them had spilled onto the floor. But what had caught her eye was a shiny metallic object unsullied by years of corrosion.

  She edged Little Geek closer until she got a good look at it. MacD must have recognized it at the same time she did because he said, “Uh, guys, that’s a bomb.”

  “And it’s got an acoustic detonator attached to it,” Linc said.

  At least six explosive devices were planted among the ammunition.

  Linda swiveled Little Geek around and quickly set it to automatic guidance so that it would follow its original path, exit the ship, and head for the surface.

  She yanked the fiber-optic cables from the controller and threw them over the side.

  “Eddie, get us out of here now!”

  Without hesitation, he jammed the throttle to its stop, and the RHIB took off like a rocket.

  53

  Brekker glanced back at the Oregon gaining on them from the direction of the Pearsall, amazed that such a large ship could move at that speed. But the strange cargo vessel wasn’t his highest priority, so he turned back to focus on the fishing boat ahead. Locsin was his primary target. Once he’d done away with the Filipino communist leader, he’d take care of Juan Cabrillo. He’d lure the ship back over the sunken destroyer and break its keel in two with the explosives he’d put in the ammunition magazine.

  Since both Brekker and Locsin had brought their bombs aboard as agreed, blowing up the fishing boat was no longer an option. Sporadic fire was coming from it, but few of the shots were connecting with the yacht. Brekker thought Locsin simply wanted to scare him off. That wasn’t going to happen. Not when Brekker had an RPG at his disposal.

  He’d acquired the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and ammo from a dealer he knew in Manila before heading out to the wreckage site. He hadn’t wanted to take a chance that NUMA had moved up their schedule and arrived while he and his men were diving on the Pearsall. Now he’d use the weapon to take out Locsin and have the world’s remaining supply of Typhoon to himself.

  When Brekker’s men brought up the weapon and unpacked it, he handed over the wheel and picked up the RPG, its grenade already loaded. He wanted to deliver the final death blow himself.

  He went to the yacht’s bow and knelt on the deck, the RPG on his shoulder. With the sight aimed at the fleeing fishing boat, he readied to fire.

  Locsin must have seen what he was preparing to do because a fusillade of automatic rounds zinged past him, and Brekker hit the deck as the yacht swerved to avoid the shots. He’d have to fire from a prone position.

  He turned back and waved to the man at the wheel, who looked at him through the bullet-riddled windshield.

  “Closer!” Brekker shouted, and the driver nodded.

  The yacht stayed on a steady course, and Brekker raised the RPG again, preparing to fire the kill shot.

  • • •

  LOCSIN WATCHED Brekker’s yacht closing the distance.

  “He’s persistent,” Tagaan said as he opened another barrel to inspect its contents. “We should get rid of him. Now.”

  “But he’s carrying seven barrels of Typhoon pills,” Locsin replied. He was hoping Brekker would simply make a getaway and Locsin could get the balance of the drug from him later, one way or the other. Killing him now would eliminate almost half their potential supply, and Locsin would rather concentrate on the pursuing Oregon that was looming close behind the yacht.

  “Fire another volley,” Locsin ordered. “See if we can at leas
t injure enough of his men to get him to back off.”

  His men unleashed another torrent of bullets, downing one of Brekker’s men, but the driver was uninjured, and the yacht continued its relentless chase.

  “Comrade Locsin!” Tagaan shouted in an excited voice as he looked into the barrel he’d opened. “Come quick!”

  Locsin hurried over and saw two pieces of cardboard pressed together under the remnants of the cotton batting that had been removed. He picked them up and pried them apart to find a dried flower flattened and taped to one of them. Locsin recognized it as a variety of orchid, though one he’d never seen before. Next to it was a label that read Typhoon—Cephalantheropsis inviolabilem—Mindanao.

  There was no formula, but this had to be the plant with the key ingredient that Ocampo had been missing. It even gave him a lead on where to look for what must be a rare flower. The island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines was large, but with the surplus of Typhoon pills he now had, and enough new recruits, he was sure he could find more of the orchids. With the flowers in hand, Locsin could build a new laboratory and hire more chemists to create new Typhoon pills, perhaps even make it more potent than it was now.

  “Do you realize what this means?” Tagaan said to him with awe.

  Locsin smiled and nodded. “It means Mr. Brekker has become expendable. Then we can deal with the Oregon.”

  He took the acoustic detonator from his pocket, then turned to the yacht and waved it over his head so that Brekker could see it.

  When he had boarded the yacht, he didn’t know the South African mercenary had stowed a second detonator on board the yacht, but he did find the bombs in the chest right away. In fact, from the very beginning he’d planned on using one to get rid of Brekker.

  • • •

  BREKKER WAS getting ready to fire the RPG when he saw Locsin waving something at him. It took him a moment to realize it was the second detonator he’d handed over to make their détente work.

  Why would he be showing it to me? Unless . . .

  An iciness suddenly chilled Brekker’s stomach. The threat of the bombs should have been long behind them when they’d both tossed theirs overboard. Had he overlooked something?

  Brekker leapt to his feet and raced back along the port railing, searching for anything that was out of place. When he didn’t spot anything unusual, he did the same with the starboard railing and froze at the sight of a thin nylon rope knotted to one of the cleats.

  He looked over the side and saw a bomb dangling in the water along the side of the boat, its submerged acoustic receiver ready to receive the signal.

  He shot a savage look at Locsin and saw white teeth grinning back at him and a thumb over the detonator’s button.

  Brekker lunged at the rope in a frenzy, desperate to pull the bomb from the water before it could explode.

  54

  Twin camera feeds on the op center main screen showed the RHIB racing away from the site of the Pearsall, on one side, and Gerhard Brekker frantically reaching over the side of the yacht, trying to reach something.

  “What’s he doing?” Juan asked.

  No one had time to answer before the yacht erupted in a fireball. Simultaneously, a massive water plume blasted hundreds of feet above the sunken destroyer’s location. If the RHIB hadn’t fled when it did, Eddie and the others would have been pulverized.

  “Find out how they’re doing, Hali,” Juan said as he watched the RHIB slow down.

  Hali radioed Eddie and put it on speaker. “Are you all still in one piece out there?”

  “No injuries,” Eddie replied. “Except for Little Geek. Linda says she saw it get thrown into the air by the explosion. We’ll go see if we can salvage it and then head your way.”

  “Eddie,” Juan said. “Hang back until we give you the all clear. I have a feeling Locsin has more tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Roger that, Chairman. We’ll stay here until you call back. Out.”

  The fishing boat was just rounding the north end of the islet.

  “We can’t let them get away,” Raven said. “We have to make us take them to Beth.”

  Max patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll get her. There’s no possibility that they’ll outrun us in that thing.”

  The Oregon’s camera picked up a green flash from the fishing boat.

  “That had to be a laser,” Max said. “We’ve just been targeted.”

  The fishing boat disappeared around the islet’s northern point. As soon as it was gone, small black shapes came racing at them across the water.

  “Those are the Kuyog drones,” Juan said. “I count ten. Prepare to take them out, Wepps.”

  “That’s a big affirmative, Chairman,” Murph said. “Gatling guns coming online.”

  The hull panels hiding the trio of 20mm weapons slid aside, and their six barrels whirred to life, spinning in preparation for the three thousand rounds per minute that would be fed by a belt from the mounted ammunition drum.

  “Chairman, I’m not showing any of them on radar,” Murph said. “That Chinese stealth technology seems to be working. I’ll have to target them manually.”

  “Mr. Stone, come ten degrees to port. That should give us the best angle to take them out.”

  “Coming about,” Eric said. “Ten degrees to port, aye.”

  “You may fire when ready, Gridley,” Juan said to Murph, paraphrasing Commodore Dewey’s order just before the Americans decimated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War in 1898.

  “Firing.” Murph let loose a torrent of tracer shells from the starboard Gatling gun. The chain saw buzz of the weapon resounded through the Oregon’s hull.

  The first Kuyog was blown apart by the tungsten rounds. Murph kept firing as the gun swung to the next drone, and Juan could see the rounds kicking up a trail of water as they lanced their way to the target. It blew up in a satisfying gush of flame.

  Murph systematically cut down the rest of the drones one by one. None of them got within a quarter mile of the Oregon.

  “Good shooting, Murph,” Juan said.

  Murph shrugged. “Just call me Deadeye.”

  “Keep a deadeye out for more.”

  “They can try again, but it’ll be a huge waste of hardware for them.”

  “As the wise Mr. Solo has said, Don’t get cocky.”

  “Moi?” Murph said, turning to show off the black T-shirt he was wearing. The white letters on the front read Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.

  “Glad to see I have a crew with their egos in check,” Juan said with a smile.

  “If you want to see a bruised ego,” Eric said, “watch me kick his tail at chess.”

  Before Murph could respond, the fishing boat came into view on the big screen, cruising along the opposite side of the islet.

  Another fishing boat appeared. It looked just like the first one.

  “What’s the double?” Murph said.

  Then another one. And another. Soon, there were twenty similar boats on-screen, all motoring toward Negros Island eight miles to the west. Every one was the same color and model, though each had slight differences.

  “Can anyone distinguish which was the one we were following?” Juan asked.

  “Playing back the video,” Hali said. The recording of their chase came on the screen next to the live feed. None of them matched the recording.

  “Did it disappear?” Max said, incredulous.

  Juan frowned. “Locsin must have changed the configuration of his boat while it was out of sight, just like we do. It means we can’t tell which of the boats is the original since we don’t know what changed.”

  “Can you disable all the boats with the Gatling guns?” Raven asked.

  “Not without killing potentially innocent fishermen,” Juan said, “which is probably what Locsin is co
unting on. We’ll have to board them one at a time.”

  “Chairman,” Hali said, “we’re being hailed. It’s Salvador Locsin. He wants to talk to us on a private channel.”

  “Put it on speaker.”

  Locsin’s accented but articulate voice came through with a jaunty tone. “Is this Juan Cabrillo that I’m finally speaking to after all these encounters?”

  “Are you calling to surrender?” Juan said. “It’ll save us some time.”

  “It’s hard to tell which boat I’m on, isn’t it? The fishermen on board the other nineteen have no idea what’s going on, of course. I was planning to use this tactic on the Philippine Navy, but I thought I’d put it to good use here. It seems to be working well.”

  “Just as long as it takes us to board every fishing boat in your fleet. Odds are, we’ll get to you sooner rather than later.”

  “I could simply have all the boats take off in random directions,” Locsin said. “That would slow you down.” Despite his threat, all of the boats continued on a steady pace.

  The obvious boats to start with would be the ones headed to Negros since it was the closest inhabited island, but Juan didn’t mention that. “The search would take longer, but we’d find you eventually.”

  “That was my conclusion, too,” Locsin said. “So I have a surprise for you. Look toward Negros Island and a little north.”

  Juan nodded to Hali, who panned the camera around until it was aiming northwest. A white ship was motionless five miles away. Juan’s stomach knotted when he recognized it as a passenger ferry.

  “What have you done, Locsin?”

  “You have a dilemma on your hands, Captain Cabrillo. I know the type of man you are. I saw it when you rescued Dr. Ocampo and his scientists from my laboratory, despite the fact that they meant nothing to you. You can’t understand that sometimes you have to sacrifice innocents for a larger purpose.”

  “Most would call it a virtue to value the lives of innocents.”