Golov pressed the button for the shipwide intercom.
“Attention. This is the captain. The railgun has been activated and is preparing to fire. Secure all breakables and clear the exterior decks. This is not a drill.”
After one minute, Kravchuk announced, “The capacitors are fully charged.”
“Very well. Open the roof.”
“Aye, sir. Opening the roof.”
Fifty feet of the white deck in front of them drew apart. When the doors were fully retracted, a sinister-looking, steel-gray barrel rose from the depths of the Achilles, riding atop a four-sided turret. Unlike the round barrel of a cannon, the railgun’s barrel was octagonal and lined with heat-dissipating fins to keep it from melting due to the fantastic temperatures generated by projectiles moving through it at eight thousand miles an hour.
When it had risen completely from its hidden chamber, the turret rotated around its full two-hundred-and-seventy-degree range of motion.
“Railgun ready to fire,” Kravchuk announced.
“Same firing profile we used on the real Narwhal,” Golov said. “I want to see that ship underwater in five minutes.”
“Aye, sir. Targeting profile entered and locked in.”
“Contact!” the radar operator shouted. “Thirty miles at bearing three four five.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It just appeared on the screen.”
“You didn’t see its transponder?”
“No, sir. It must not have one.”
That ruled out a cargo ship. Any ship larger than three hundred tons was required by international convention to carry a satellite-tracked automatic identification system.
“What’s its course and speed?”
“Same course as the Narwhal, sir. Speed twelve knots.”
“How big is it? A fishing vessel maybe?”
“No, much larger than that,” the radar operator said. “I’d say over five hundred feet long.”
Kravchuk frowned at him. “Naval warship?”
“Can’t be,” Golov said, but he had a bad feeling that’s exactly what it was. If some nation had sent out a destroyer to intercept the Narwhal, he’d have to come up with a new plan quickly.
He moved the exterior camera around and focused it on the ship that had intruded on their perfect, isolated location. He zoomed in until he had a good look at the ship’s profile.
He gaped when he recognized the outline. It was the wretched tramp steamer they’d passed when they were leaving Malta. The Nogero, as he recalled.
Did it follow the Achilles here?
“You said it’s running steady at twelve knots?” Golov asked the radar operator.
“Aye, sir. Almost perfectly in the wake of the Narwhal.”
So it was following the cargo ship with the Jaffa Column on it. But why?
He sat back to think for a moment. If he were trailing the ship, he’d be doing it to see where the next destination would be and then he’d take the container when the ship docked.
Therefore, ordering the Narwhal to come to a stop wouldn’t help. The Nogero would either do the same and wait or board the ship when they realized something was wrong.