“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Juan said. “How long will it take?”
“It’s been running for a few hours now and should come back with a list of possible hits any minute. Oh, and I decided to start with Haiti. If we don’t find any leads there, it will take a lot longer if we have to look in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Mexico. At least Florida is out because it’s as flat as a day-old beer.”
“All right. Once we know where to look, we’ll have to come up with a game plan. Remember, we only have a day left before Kensit puts into play whatever is going to change the world. However, our approach will be tricky because of the neutrino telescope that Eric thinks Lawrence Kensit has developed.”
“Who came up with that name?” Murph asked.
“I did,” Eric replied. “Although the existence of neutrinos was first proposed by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, the particle Lutzen describes in his thesis much earlier is clearly a neutrino. He just didn’t have a name for it.”
“Yeah, yeah, great name,” Linc said. “How does it work?”
“As far as I can tell, Lutzen theorized that intercepted neutrinos could be reconstructed to create the state of the place they passed through.”
“Like an X-ray?”
“Yes, but far more advanced. It could show you literally any spot on earth. Not only that but you could also hear what was going on in that space because it would also intercept the air particles that are conveying the sound.”
Murph said, “Think of what the NSA could do with technology like that. Say bye-bye to any secrets.”
Linc scoffed. “You think Kensit actually made this thing? A telescope that can see through walls? And around the world? Has he also cracked the code to warp drive?”
“I know it sounds bizarre,” Juan said, “but imagine explaining the idea of X-rays before they were discovered. We have to go under the assumption that this neutrino telescope exists. Kensit and Bazin have anticipated our every move. They beat us to Jamaica, New York, and Berlin, and they knew exactly where we’d be each time. Kensit could have been watching us type in log-ins and passwords, giving him full access to our communications and computer networks.”
“That’s why you had me shut down any external access to our main computer,” Murph said, nodding.
“Right,” Juan said. “In the case of Berlin, Bazin knew where we’d be even though I never breathed a word of it over any line of communication. It’s very possible that he’s watching and listening to this meeting right now.”
Everyone paused to soak in the likelihood that their privacy was completely gone.
Finally Hali spoke. “Then how can we possibly defeat this guy? He’ll know whatever plan we come up with.”
“He’s obviously not infallible,” Juan said. “You proved that by foiling his sub plan in Martinique. Eric has a theory why.”
Eric cleared his throat. “I think he only can see one place at a time. It lets him spy on our plans, but if there are multiple situations happening simultaneously, he has to choose what to observe.”
“We have another advantage.” Juan looked each of his officers in the eye. “Our shared history. If we talk in code, relating key information about our upcoming plans using past experiences that only we know between us, he’ll never be able to decipher it even if he’s listening in. That coupled with Max’s idea to wait until the last moment to reveal our tactics gives us a fighting chance against Kensit.”
Murph’s tablet computer dinged. “The results are back. We got a couple of hits at more than fifty percent probability but only one that is better than a ninety-five percent match.” Murph tapped on the screen, then groaned when he saw the results.
“What’s the matter?” Max asked. “Is it a false lead?”
“No, it’s a match. But you’re not gonna believe where the cave is.” He took over the main view screen from Linda and put up the map from his tablet.
A yellow dot was superimposed on a satellite image of the area, with the ridge outline in red. Instead of the dot appearing in a green valley, it was planted inside the blue water of a lake.
“Your comparison model must be wrong,” Eddie said. “How could the cave be at the bottom of a lake?”
“Because that is Lake Péligre on the Artibonite River in central Haiti,” Murph said with a dejected sigh as he read from his screen. “It was formed by the construction of the Péligre Hydroelectric Dam in 1956, more than fifty years after Gunther Lutzen visited it. The cave entrance is now under forty feet of water.”
By midday the Oregon had reached the Dominican Republic’s largest northern port, Puerto Plata. Lake Péligre was situated almost directly in the center of Haiti and would require travel over twisting and rutted roads; it would take Linda and her team seven hours to make the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-mile journey. The easier part was getting their transportation into the country.
Normally, prior approval from the customs office was required to off-load cargo, but greasing palms of the DR’s low-paid civil servants took care of the “misunderstanding” that the clearance hadn’t been preauthorized. Then after the thirty minutes needed to unload the PIG, the Oregon put back to sea. Crossing the border by land into Haiti unhindered would require another generous bribe.
Linda checked, but no one was following. Eric, who was riding shotgun in the truck’s four-person cab, confirmed that they weren’t being tracked electronically. If Kensit were watching them with the neutrino telescope, they’d never know. MacD and Hali sat in the backseat, rechecking their gear.
Since Max was the one who’d designed the vehicle, he was given the honor of naming it and he dubbed it Powered Investigator Ground, but, much to his chagrin, everyone else in the crew simply referred to it as the PIG. It was the Corporation’s land-based version of the Oregon herself. To an outside observer, the PIG seemed to be nothing more than a beat-up cargo truck carrying fuel drums, down to the logo of the fictitious oil company on the side. The rear could even be opened by dockside inspectors, who could remove the six full drums that served as the vehicle’s spare fuel and that could extend its range to eight hundred miles. Removing the first row of drums revealed a second row that was merely a façade hiding the rest of the PIG’s interior. They took the calculated risk that no one would ever go to the trouble of completely emptying the cargo bed.
In reality, the PIG was an all-terrain platform built on a Mercedes Unimog chassis and featuring an 800-horsepower turbodiesel engine with a nitrous oxide boost that could push it over 1000. The four-person cab and cargo area that could transport ten fully equipped soldiers were armored to deflect high-powered rifle rounds, and the self-sealing tires and fully articulated suspension with two feet of ground clearance meant it could conquer any terrain short of a cliff face.
The PIG could be configured to serve any mission required, from search and rescue to mobile command station to ground assault. Much of Max’s attention had focused on its offensive and defensive capabilities. The front bumper concealed a .30 caliber machine gun, and hidden racks on either side of the truck swung down to launch guided rockets. A seamless roof hatch allowed the PIG to fire mortar barrages, while a smoke generator at the rear could belch out thick plumes.
The newest modification had been the addition of remote operation capability. The drive-by-wire system could be maneuvered by a handheld control with a range of five miles. The operator used cameras mounted on the front and rear that had both daylight and night vision settings.
Linda took several sharp turns through the city. If Kensit didn’t have the neutrino telescope trained on them, there was no way he’d be able to find them now. Although she didn’t often get the chance, Linda always liked driving the PIG the good old-fashioned manual way. There was nothing more macho than motoring along on its ultra-large tires, perched higher than any other vehicle, fully encased in a truck that could take on anything else on four wheels.
“You think Kensit’s got his eyes on us?” Hali asked, the same question everyone else was thinking.
“Let’s hope he’s too focused on the Chairman,” Linda replied as she steered the PIG onto the coastal highway.
That was the primary reason it was just the four of them and not a full assault team. The goal was to make Kensit think they were simply on a recon mission so that his attention would be elsewhere.
“Ready for the briefing?” Eric asked.
“Go for it,” Linda said, not letting her apprehension show. She didn’t like talking about this openly, but it had to be done eventually.
“Okay, the cave opening is underwater, but there is an old cement factory less than a mile away situated between the mountains and the lake, with just a dirt road leading to the highway. Limestone is the one thing Haiti has a lot of, and the cement made from it was used to build the Lake Péligre dam. Once the dam was completed, the cement plant went bust and was abandoned until it started operating two years ago under the ownership of an untraceable shell company.”
“Too coincidental, if you ask me,” MacD said.
“You’d be right,” Eric said. “The factory is producing cement, but barely. According to CIA sources, the output isn’t enough to profitably support a factory that size. And it’s low-grade stuff. You wouldn’t want your house built out of it.”
Hali leaned on Eric’s seatback. “So you think this is a cover for digging tunnels into the cave?”
“Right. Since the original entrance is now inaccessible, Kensit needed another way in. If Gunther Lutzen provided him with some kind of map of the cave system, Kensit could have drilled holes into the mountain until he found a way in and then bored a tunnel big enough to move his equipment. A cement factory would be the perfect cover to transport the waste material from the dig away without anyone noticing.”
“Ah may not be the sharpest tool in the shed,” MacD said, “but if the cave is underwater, how did Kensit build this telescope inside it?”
“Either he built a barrier to keep the lake water out and pumped it dry,” Eric said, “or the cave he’s using is above the level of the lake. Remember, cave systems can ascend and descend drastically.”
“What about intel on the cement factory defenses?” Linda asked.
“Nothing. We have to assume Bazin has his forces ready for any incursions.”
The scope of the “recon” mission was agreed to back on the Oregon. The planning had been extremely awkward because of the precautions they had to take. Without naming it, Juan referred to the sunken ship on their coldest-weather mission. Everyone on the team immediately knew that meant the Silent Sea, a Chinese junk that had gone down off the coast of Antarctica. Their mission go time tomorrow would be 1600 hours minus the number of letters in the ship’s name. Nine letters meant that they all understood the mission start time to be seven a.m. Sunrise.
As for the role of their recon mission, Juan told them that they would be his Aggie Johnston. The Aggie Johnston was a supertanker that had served as a screen for the Oregon so that it could sneak up on an enemy frigate off the coast of Libya. Linda’s mission was to provide cover for the Chairman. She and her team were the distraction for what he was planning.
Juan proposed sneaking past the guards in the cement plant using the same method he did at Karamita, which Kensit would not know was a now defunct ship-breaker yard in Indonesia. Juan asked Linda and her team to place two sets of the equipment so that they would be ready for use when the mission started. They couldn’t requisition the equipment from the ship’s stores without Kensit seeing what they were acquiring, so they planned to buy it locally in the hope that Kensit would still have his eye on the Oregon by then. Linda didn’t like using off-the-shelf equipment, but she would go over it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it was all working properly.
“How far?” Linda asked.
Eric looked at his GPS, then craned his neck and pointed. “That should be it up on the left.”
The sign above the shop read “Buceo De Diego.” Next to the name was a red flag with a white diagonal slash through it, the international symbol for scuba diving. It had the reputation for the best equipment outside of Santo Domingo.
They all got out of the PIG and entered the shop. It wasn’t a huge establishment, but the walls were lined with all of the latest tanks, regulators, fins, and buoyancy vests.
The athletic shopkeeper, who looked like a diver himself and was busy unpacking a box of masks, said, “Buenos días. Can I help you?” The four of them obviously weren’t locals.
“Oh, good, you speak English,” Linda said as if she were a tourist relieved not to have to break out her broken Spanish.
“We get many Americans here, of course. Are you and your friends interested in a dive trip?”
“We are, but we’re planning to go on our own, so we’d like to buy our equipment.” She withdrew a thick wad of cash from her pocket.
That made the shopkeeper jump to his feet and forget his unpacking duties.
“You will not regret it,” he said, trying in vain not to stare at the pile of American dollars. “We have many of the best reefs in the world in the Dominican Republic.”
“Actually,” Linda said, pointing at a Nomad side mount tank rig, “we want to go cave diving.”
Although the sky was clear, the deck of the aging 200-foot cargo ship Reina Azul, or Blue Queen, bucked in heavy seas churned up by a storm east of Nicaragua. Dayana Ruiz longed for her sleek frigate Mariscal Sucre to slice through the waves, but this mission required a covert command. She’d selected a handpicked crew of her most trusted officers who’d collaborated with her on the smuggling operation. Their naval uniforms had been left behind in Venezuela.
For her absence, she’d given the excuse that she would be observing the UNITAS joint exercises from the deck of a Cuban frigate. A Cuban admiral who owed her a favor would provide a convincing alibi.
They were ten hours from the coast of Haiti. The Doctor had assured her that the Oregon’s destination was somewhere along the western shore, although he wouldn’t explain how he knew. Ruiz found the entire situation oddly unsettling. She wasn’t used to being kept in the dark about information. Information was power and in regard to the Doctor she had very little of either. However, the video images that he infrequently sent her showing the Oregon and her crew convinced her of the accuracy of his information but also enraged her every time she saw them. The most recent showed the ship departing from Puerto Plata on a westerly course toward Haiti, and she would make certain this would be their last rendezvous.
Taking the Mariscal Sucre into battle outside of Venezuelan territorial waters had been out of the question, especially when Ruiz was planning to attack so close to another country’s coastline. Subterfuge had been the only alternative. With a top speed of just fifteen knots and no defensive capabilities, the Reina Azul was obviously no match for the Oregon in a one-on-one duel, but hiding on her deck in plain sight was a secret that would give Ruiz the opportunity to sink her.
She scanned the horizon and saw no ships. The rudimentary radar on board confirmed that they were alone.
“Begin the test,” she said to the captain.
He relayed the orders, and Ruiz trained her eyes on a gray cargo container bolted to the deck. It looked exactly like all the other cargo containers on board, but this one held a hidden surprise.
“Raising to firing position,” a voice on the intercom said.
The roof of the container pivoted up and four green tubes two-thirds the length of the container began to rise from beneath it, forced into place by a hydraulic ram. Encased in each tube was a Russian 3M-54 Klub-K antiship missile armed with a six-hundred-pound warhead. The turbojet engine enabled it to cruise no more than thirty feet above the waves until it got within three miles of the target, at which point its multistage solid-fuel rocket fired to propel it to s
upersonic speeds. Each missile was extremely difficult to evade or shoot down and she had four of them.
She had acquired the concealed weapons system to sell to a Hezbollah cell that planned to target Israeli shipping. One of the few pieces of hardware Juan Cabrillo hadn’t managed to destroy in his raid would end up sending him to the bottom of the Caribbean.
“Report,” Ruiz said after the tubes had stopped at their fully vertical launch position, conveniently hidden by the stacks of containers on either side.
“All systems functioning normally,” said the missile officer inside the cargo container’s tiny control room. “But Admiral, the targeting radar is completely dependent on the ship’s system, which is too crude for a lock, especially if there are multiple ships in the area. The missile will have to make target acquisition once it’s in flight, so we can only fire one at a time.”
“What?” she shouted. “Unacceptable!”
“I’m sorry, Admiral,” came the stammering reply, “but we’re not very familiar with this weapons system.”
“Fine,” she said, stewing in anger. “Then we will have to attack when there are no other ships around the Oregon.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
“Good. Close it back up.” She turned to the captain. “Have you heard from our escort ships?”
He nodded. “They will meet us in the Canal de la Gonâve near Port-au-Prince. All they know is that they are to sail alongside us.”
“Excellent. When we are in launch position, have our escape boat ready. As soon as the Oregon is sunk, we will scuttle the Reina Azul and our companion ships. By the time anyone has figured out what happened, we’ll be flying out of Haiti.” False passports would be the last measure to erase any links.
Ruiz couldn’t help but flash a smile, an unfamiliar expression that surely unnerved the captain. She savored the irony that she would be destroying Juan Cabrillo and the Oregon using their own stealth tactics against them.
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