Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

Sandecker pounded his fist against a table. "He caught us napping like diapered infants."

"There's not much time to stop her before she reaches the lower bay and heads into the Narrows," Max remarked.

"What does the Mongol Invader look like?" Yaeger asked Max.

She revealed an image of the ship on the screen of a large monitor. The vessel looked like something out of a science-fiction comic book. The hull had the same lines as an oil tanker, with its engines and superstructure mounted at the stern, but there the resemblance ended. Instead of an expansive flat main deck, there were eight identical mammoth, freestanding, spherical tanks rising out of the hull.

Max began to tick off the ship's specifications. "The largest LNG tanker yet built. Overall length is one thousand eight hundred sixty feet with a three-hundred-sixty-foot beam. She carries a crew of only eight officers and fifteen crewmen. The low number is due to the fact that she is almost entirely automated. Her cross-compound, double-reduction gear turbine engines put out sixty thousand shaft horsepower to each of her twin screws. Her country of registry is Argentina."

Yaeger asked, "Who owns her?"

"I traced her pedigree through a facade of paper companies that led to the doorstep of the Cerberus empire."

Yaeger grinned. "Now, why did I think that's who you'd find?"

"LNG tankers have a much shallower draft than oil tankers due to the difference in weight between gas and oil," said Sandecker. "She could very well make it up the Hudson River before turning and running toward lower Manhattan, then slip between the docks without grounding until she struck the shore."

"Sally Morse said the Pacific Trojan was going to ram the city at the World Trade Terminal," said Yaeger. "Can we assume that Zale made a slip and meant the World Trade Center in New York?"

"Exactly where I would strike Manhattan's shore if I wanted to do the most damage," Sandecker said in agreement.

"What gas volume is she carrying?" Pitt asked Max.

"Seven million five hundred seventy thousand three hundred thirty-three cubic feet."

"Very bad," Yaeger muttered.

"And the gas cargo?"

"Propane."

"Even worse," Yaeger moaned.

"The fireball could be horrendous," explained Max. "A railroad tank car exploded in Kingman, Arizona, in the seventies. It held eight thousand gallons of propane, and the fireball extended almost an eighth of a mile. One gallon of propane will produce two hundred seventy of gas. Or, figuring one hundred sixty-two cubic feet of propane vapor per cubic foot of liquid, then multiply it by seven and a half million, you could conceivably produce a fireball almost two miles wide."

"What about structural damage?" Sandecker queried Max.

"Heavy," answered Max. "Major buildings such as the World Trade Center skyscrapers would still stand, but their interiors would be gutted. Most of the other buildings close to the center of the blast would be destroyed. I don't even want to speculate on the loss of life."

"All because that crazy Zale and the Cerberus cartel want to inflame the American public against foreign oil," Pitt muttered angrily.

"We've got to stop that ship!" said Sandecker in a cold tone. "There can be no mistakes this time."

Pitt said slowly, "This ship's crew won't allow it to be boarded like the Pacific Trojan. I'll bet a month's pay Omo Kanai has his Viper group operating the ship. Zale would never trust such an undertaking to amateurs."

Sandecker checked his watch again. "We have four and a half hours before she enters the Hudson River off Manhattan. I'll report what we've discovered to Admiral Dover and have him alert his Coast Guard units in the New York area to launch an intercept."

"You should also call the New York State Antiterrorist Division," suggested Max. "They train and run practice drills for just such a possibility."

"Thank you, Max," said Sandecker, warming to Yaeger's computer creation. Previously, he'd always thought Max was a strain on NUMA's budget, but he had come to realize that she was worth every nickel, and much more. "I'll see to it."

"I'll round up Al. Using NUMA's new tilt-wing Aquarius jet, we should be on the NUMA dock in New York inside an hour."

"What do you plan to do after you get there?" inquired a curious Max.

Pitt looked at her as if she were asking Dan Marino if he knew how to throw a football. "Stop the Mongol Invader from destroying half of Manhattan. What else?"

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