Piranha (Oregon Files 10)

She could now see that there were four men in the stairwell. The man she’d sprayed stood and put his hands up. A machine gun strapped to his shoulder dangled harmlessly by his side. He was a tall, athletic man with close-cropped blond hair. He beamed up at her with a smile, genuine and warm.

“It’s okay,” he said in American English.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Juan Cabrillo. I’m captain of the ship that responded to your distress call. This is Eddie, Linc, and MacD.” The three men nodded greetings. All of them were as heavily armed as their captain.

“You were the ones in the helicopter?”

Juan nodded. “Unfortunately, the pilot had to get back to our ship. Your arm looks like it needs some first aid. Why don’t you put that down?”

His story made sense, and she was desperate. She dropped the extinguisher. The four of them climbed out of the stairwell.

“Are you with the U.S. Navy?” she asked.

“No. Just Good Samaritans. Do you mind if one of my guys puts a new bandage on there?”

She nodded. Eddie sat her down, opened a first aid kit, and removed her slapdash bandage.

After examining the wound, he said, “It doesn’t look too bad, but it’s going to need a few stitches from Hux.” Eddie began to wrap it with gauze and tape.

“I’m glad your injury isn’t more serious. You’re the captain, I presume?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Maria Sandoval. How did you know that?”

“When we received the distress call, we did some quick research about your vessel and I saw your name as the master. I don’t imagine there are many other women on the crew.”

“My crew,” she repeated in a low tone.

“Where are they?”

“Dead. Those bastards killed them all after they escaped on our lifeboat.”

A haunted look flashed through Juan’s eyes. As a captain himself, he would be able to imagine what it would be like to lose a crew that way. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are they doing this?”

“We’ll talk about that later. First, we need to keep them from sinking this ship. We saw one of them on the bridge.”

Maria went ashen. “Then he set more of the ballast tanks to drain. That’s why the list is correcting itself. I emptied two of the tanks to keep us from capsizing.”

“That was quick thinking to save your ship.”

“When will your ship arrive?”

“It won’t be here for at least twenty minutes.”

Maria’s shoulders sagged at the news. “I don’t even know how they put those holes in my ship.”

“It has to be some kind of submarine,” Juan said. “We saw one of the holes when we flew in. It was a perfect circle.”

“There were eight holes put in the hull at the same time, and we didn’t detect anything on sonar. What kind of submarine can do that?”

“I don’t know. There may be more than one. If so, they’re probably remotely operated.”

“Then we’re dead. How can we stop them from attacking again?”

“They might be single-use weapons. The men outside wouldn’t be climbing onto the ship if the subs were coming back.”