Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

“That’s why I brought this to you. Max can’t go it alone.” It was clear Julia was relieved, though there wasn’t much doubt Juan would help his best friend.

“Thanks, Hux. One day, Max’s obstinacy is going to get him into trouble, but not this time.”

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, a freshly showered Juan Cabrillo strode into the Operations Center. Stone and Murphy were in their chairs at the helm and weapons control. Hali sat at the communication’s station, while Linda Ross covered the sonar suite. Unlike during their escape from Bandar Abbas, there was a relaxed feeling in the room. Transferring the remaining rocket torpedo from the Oregon was going to be a relatively straightforward job. When Max entered a few minutes later, the atmosphere seemed to chill by a couple of degrees. He went straight to the engineering console without a word to anyone.

Juan slid out of his chair and approached him.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Hanley said, not looking up from his computer monitor.

“We’ll lay in a course for Pakistan as soon as we’re done, and I’ll get someone on buying us plane tickets. In the morning, you and I are going to sit down together and figure out our next move.” Max glanced up at Cabrillo and was about to protest. Juan held up his hand. “Our next gig is a straightforward eavesdropping job. Linda and Eddie can handle it without us.”

“This isn’t your fight,” Max said.

“Like hell, it isn’t. Someone kidnapped a member of your family. To me, it’s the same as if they’d taken one of my parents. I would expect nothing less than your help, so don’t expect me not to be here for you.”

Max paused a beat before saying, “Thanks, Juan.”

“Don’t mention it.” He returned to the command chair, the matter settled. “Linda, anything yet?”

“Negative, but there’s still twenty minutes to go.”

“Okay. Max, everything set on your end?”

“The torpedo’s up on deck in a sling and a technician is standing by the derrick controls.”

“Hali, anything on radar or over the comm channels?”

“No, sir. We’re in about the deadest spot you can find in the Indian Ocean. I haven’t seen or heard from another ship in about eight hours.”

The rendezvous was to take place far from conventional shipping lanes to avoid detection from freighters and tankers, and, in an area devoid of much sea life, that would attract commercial fishing vessels. The timing of their operation coincided with a gap in satellite coverage, just in case anyone was looking down from above.

Fifteen minutes trickled by before Linda called out, “Contact. I’ve got machinery noises almost directly below us, four hundred feet down. Ballast tanks are being purged.” She washed the noise picked up by the passive sonar through the computer to cross-check the sound with a loop of tape provided by Overholt. “Confirmed. It’s the USS Tallahassee, making for the surface.”

“Very good,” Juan said. “Helm, keep sharp. You dent that sub, you bought it.”

Another few minutes passed as the Los Angeles Class fast-attack submarine climbed up from the depths, rising so slowly that she was dead silent from more than a couple miles away. Eric Stone had split his computer display so he could watch the sonar returns as well as the Oregon’s GPS coordinates, to make certain the sub wouldn’t crash into the underside of the hull. It was the responsibility of the crew aboard the Tallahassee to hold their position stable relative to the freighter. Any corrections would come from Eric’s controls.

“One hundred feet and fifty,” Linda said. “Her ascent is slowing. Slowing. Leveling off at one hundred.”

“She’s holding about two hundred yards off the port beam,” Eric said.

“Slide us over so she’ll surface within fifty yards, please, Mr. Stone.”

Eric punched up the bow and stern thrusters to shove the eleven-thousand-ton ship laterally through the water, placing her exactly on her mark, and reactivated the dynamic positioning system so the computer would hold them steady.

“She’s coming up again. Ten feet per minute.”

“Very good, Sonar. You have the conn.”

“I have the conn,” Linda repeated. Juan got up and went to the elevator in the back of the Op Center, joined a second later by Max. Together, they rode up to the Oregon’s bridge. As soon as the floor hatch opened, they could feel the sultry night air.

The ramshackle bridge was pitch-black, but both men were so familiar with their ship they didn’t need light to make their way aft to a set of stairs that would take them to the main deck. Outside, the stars shone with particular brilliance because the sliver of moon had yet to rise.

Over the port rail, the inky water began to grow agitated as the three-hundred-and-fifty-foot submarine neared the surface. Her conning tower appeared first, and then the vessel seemed to grow as she shed water, fore deck and long aft deck emerging, as well as her stiletto rudder. She came up on an even keel so slowly that there were hardly any waves. She rode low in the water, menacing in her silence, like a sea monster basking on the surface.

Juan had a handheld walkie-talkie and brought it to his lips. “Mr. Stone, ballast us down about fifteen feet. I want our decks to be lined up a little closer.”

Eric acknowledged, and a moment later the pumps that filled the tanks spooled up and the Oregon began to settle deeper in the water.