The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

Visser was almost more terrified by Bodeker’s stricken look than by the prospect of seeing the damage. He forced himself to turn and face what had become of the Narwhal.

He gagged when he saw the remains of his home at sea. The tidy ship had been reduced to a ruin, the Narwhal’s red and black hull transformed into battered metal. Its stern was already underwater. They watched without a word as the ship’s bow pointed straight up into the sky and then slipped beneath the waves. The refrigerated containers bobbed on the surface until they drifted from view.

Visser cried, the tears stinging even more than the salt water. Bodeker linked arms with him, and they helped each other keep their heads above the waves, but with a storm coming their chances were slim. The cold water sapped their strength with each passing minute.

An hour later, Visser was exhausted and about to give up in despair despite Bodeker’s staunch faith that they could make it. But when he saw an approaching ship in the distance, he began to believe.

They both shouted for joy and waved their arms as the ship neared. It was another container vessel about the same size and shape as their own sunken ship. It even had the same red and black livery.

As it got closer, the similarities became even more apparent, down to the same types of cargo containers Visser had watched being loaded in Rotterdam.

Then an icy hand gripped his stomach when he read the name on the bow.

“No,” he said, sputtering salt water. “No, it can’t be!”

The white lettering said Narwhal.

It was as if his own ship had never sunk.

Visser assumed he was hallucinating, but the look on Bodeker’s face made it clear that he saw the same thing. Although they couldn’t make sense of the vision, they desperately screamed and waved their hands as much as they could without going under themselves.

The ship got within five hundred feet of them, but it showed no signs of slowing, and Visser couldn’t see a single face in the bridge windows. It sailed on, implacable. The crew were either ignorant or uncaring, leaving him and Bodeker alone in the mounting waves without another ship on the horizon.

TEN

NICE, FRANCE

The midnight transfer of the nuclear cases from the Oregon to the Navy destroyer Bainbridge went off without a hitch. After almost sixty years, the atomic weapon cores would be headed back to Norfolk, and a Broken Arrow nuclear event could be scratched off the list.

Once the handoff was complete, Juan ordered the Oregon to make a dash to Palermo, where they caught a midmorning flight to Nice, the Côte d’Azur airport that served the principality of Monaco. Thirty minutes after landing, four of them were in a rental car, taking the winding coast road for the short drive. In addition to Linda Ross, Juan had decided to bring two other crew members along with him, Mark Murphy and Eric Stone, the Corporation’s resident computer experts and research specialists. If their money was still in Credit Condamine’s computers somewhere, he wanted his own people on the job to find it.

Murph and Stoney were in their twenties, making them two of the youngest crew on the Oregon. They spent much of their downtime together, playing video games and complaining about the pitfalls of trying to date over the Internet. Their latest pastime during R & R was racing around on Jetlev-Flyers, water-powered packs that they’d somehow convinced Max to buy as a complement to the ship’s Jet Skis. Although Murph and Eric stuck with each other like conjoined twins separated at birth, their appearance and demeanor couldn’t have been more different.

Murph, the only Corporation employee who had never served in the military or intelligence services, had graduated from MIT with a Ph.D. at the age most kids were getting their first jobs out of college. He went on to use his incomparable computer and mathematics skills as a top weapons designer for a U.S. Navy contractor until he’d been recruited by the Corporation. His appearance would make him fit right in at a comic book convention, with uncombed dark hair, wispy chin stubble, and a scrawny frame typically clad in a T-shirt from his enormous collection. His idea of dressing up for the mission had been to put on a black jacket over a T-shirt that read Give me ambiguity or give me something else. Not only was he a whiz with anything electronic, he also served as the Oregon’s weapons officer.

Unlike Murph, Annapolis graduate Eric Stone had been a naval officer in research and development, which is where he’d first met Murph, brought together by their rare technical acumen. Although he was no longer in uniform, Eric preferred to dress in crisp white button-down shirts and chino slacks, adding a blue blazer to the ensemble for today. He chose to wear glasses instead of contacts over his soft brown eyes, and his short hair looked as if it were parted with a straightedge. Despite little experience on the high seas during his stint in the Navy, he had honed his skills as a helmsman to the point that he was the Oregon’s best ship driver other than Juan himself.

Overholt had made some phone calls during the night, which resulted in the four of them being brought onto the case under the guise of private insurance investigators assisting Interpol. Kevin Nixon, the Oregon’s special effects and prop master, provided them with flawless fake IDs crafted in the ship’s Magic Shop.

Murph, who sat next to Eric in the backseat, was grimacing at his ID. “I still think it was you who got Kevin to change my undercover name.”

Eric could barely contain a smirk. “You don’t like Christopher Bacon?”

“You mean Christopher Paul Bacon.”

Juan, who hadn’t heard the full name until now, looked at Linda and chuckled. She laughed and shrugged her shoulders as if to say Don’t blame me.

Juan glanced in the rearview mirror. “Your name is Chris P. Bacon?”

Murph groaned and nodded, then pointed a thumb at Eric. “And his name is Colt B. Patton. He might as well have called himself Hombre T. Rockpuncher.”

Eric put up his hands. “I swear I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Right,” Murph grumbled as he put the ID away.

“I don’t know,” Linda said. “I think your name sizzles.” The three of them laughed, and Juan spotted the corner of Murph’s mouth turn up in a reluctant smile. He was proud that his crew could keep their sense of humor intact even in the face of losing a good portion of their savings. Facing adversity head-on instead of hanging their heads in despair was what they did best.

They arrived at Credit Condamine to find police cars swarming the block. Juan got out, flashed his ID, and asked an officer who was in charge. He was directed to a trim man in his fifties, arguing with a striking raven-haired woman. Heated French words were flying back and forth so quickly that neither of them noticed Juan’s approach.