The sub’s white pressure vessel broached the surface and the divers were already spinning its hatch open. The hostages, who had been untied by the pilot, hurried out and onto the lifeboat. When all of them had been evacuated, the divers joined them, the last one detaching the crane’s cable before he got in the boat.
Rather than rendezvous with the Oregon, the lifeboat motored away to put as much distance as it could between it and the sub, which continued to float, the barrels filled with explosives lining the pontoons and rear deck.
“Linda, get us out of here.”
Her eyes betrayed the same pain he had felt about leaving Linc and Eddie behind, but he had to put the safety of the ship first. Linda ran the engines up to full thrust and the revolutionary magnetohydronamic power plant accelerated the Oregon faster than any freighter had a right to go. Max watched the sub recede in the distance.
Hali had helpfully superimposed the countdown on the screen. When the timer read zero, they all braced themselves.
Nothing happened. A few more seconds elapsed. Still nothing.
Murph shrugged. “Maybe Kensit’s men aren’t as good at—”
He was interrupted by a huge geyser of flame that shattered the submarine, tossing fragments of metal hundreds of yards in all directions. The boom of the explosion reverberated around the op center two seconds later.
When the echo died down, Murph said, “I guess I spoke too soon.”
“How’s the lifeboat?” Max asked Hali.
“They report that they were pelted by a few pieces of the sub, but no damage or injuries.”
Max nodded. “Linda, turn us around and take us back to the Roraima. Get some more divers ready to look for Eddie and Linc. Have the lifeboat meet us there.”
She brought the Oregon about and headed back for the shipwreck. Only a few pieces of the sub remained on the surface.
As they approached the site of the Roraima, Max spied two heads bobbing in the water. Fearing the worst, he had Murph zoom the camera in.
Where he had expected to see lifeless corpses floating on the waves he instead saw Eddie and Linc waving to the Oregon and smiling. In Eddie’s right hand was a shiny metal box the size of a paperback book. The lifeboat motored over to pick them up.
Max breathed a sigh of relief and patted Murph on the shoulder.
“That was a nice maneuver with Little Geek,” Max said. “That probably saved Eddie’s life.”
Murph exaggeratedly cracked his knuckles. “All in a day’s work.”
“We’ll just dock your partner fee until a new one is paid for.”
Murph laughed until he saw that Max wasn’t joining in. He eyed Max with a serious look and then grinned. “Funny.”
Max winked at Linda and they shared a silent chuckle.
“Max,” Hali said, “I’ve got a call for you from Juan.”
Max went over to the comm station and picked up the handset.
“There’s the mystery man,” Max said. “You’ve missed all the excitement here while you’ve been gallivanting around to who knows where.”
“I know. Hali gave me the highlights.”
“Can you tell me your destination yet?”
“We were in Berlin, and we had a bit of a commotion ourselves.”
“You and Eric all right?”
“We managed to make it to the airport under the radar. If the police come calling, we’ll claim we were innocent bystanders to what happened.”
“Can you tell me what this top secret mission was now?”