The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“If we keep running at full power, we might do irreparable damage to the engines.”

Max grimaced. He hated to let the Achilles get away, but following them farther would be futile at this point. And if the Achilles figured out how to get the weapons back online quickly and turned around to attack again, the Oregon obviously couldn’t outrun her.

He sighed and said, “Let them go. Reduce to half speed and put us on a heading to Naples. I know a guy there who owes me a favor. If we need any additional equipment to make repairs, he’ll get it for us.”

As the ship came about, the looks of worry on the faces of the rest of the op center crew mirrored Max’s own concern. It was an unfamiliar sensation, contemplating a scenario that had been to this point unthinkable. If they ever again had to battle the Achilles, a ship that was faster and more powerfully armed than the state-of-the-art Oregon, how could they possibly win?

THIRTY-FIVE

Once Juan was certain the Oregon was out of danger, he hung up the phone and stared at Admiral Zakharin with a steely gaze.

“You’re lucky no one on my ship was injured,” he said.

“What about the Oregon?” Eddie asked.

“Some damage, but Max thinks we can get everything back in working order within a day or two at a maintenance facility. He’s sending the destination to Tiny so we can meet up with them.” Juan didn’t say that their destination was Naples so that the admiral wouldn’t overhear it.

“Why did you think ShadowFoe hadn’t disabled the disarming codes like you did?” Gretchen asked.

“I’m sure when Zakharin’s predecessor found out we’d discovered ours, they began to do a much more thorough job of hiding it. Besides, ShadowFoe thinks like a hacker. She might not have specifically looked for something like a kill code. I, on the other hand, think like a spy.”

Linc nodded at the admiral. “What do we do with him?”

“Well, I was going to have him escort us back to the airport,” Juan said. “But I don’t think that’s necessary now.” He looked pointedly

at Gretchen, who was huddled over the accounting ledger with her phone, snapping photos.

“Just about done here,” she said, then trained her eyes on Zakharin. “This is a lot of incriminating evidence you have here. I’ve just uploaded it to the servers at Interpol. We’ll keep the information to ourselves, unless, of course, there’s reason for us to release it to—I don’t know—the Kremlin?”

Juan smiled mirthlessly. “I don’t think the current leadership in Moscow would forgive reading in the news about a Russian admiral turning his naval base into a personal piggy bank, especially when he isn’t sharing all the profits.”

Zakharin glared at them. “What do you want now?”

“You’ve probably built up substantial savings from your activities here—enough to fund a generous retirement at a very nice beach resort, I imagine. So this is where it ends. No more ships will be refitted here.”

Zakharin’s eyes bugged from his head. “What? You want me to give up a multimillion-dollar business?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Zakharin focused on the vial of clear liquid in Eddie’s hand.

“No, we’ll share your illicit moneymaking with the public and expose what really goes on here.”

“And expose yourselves at the same time.” The admiral grinned. He obviously thought he held the ace.

Juan walked over to Gretchen and picked up two file folders that were under the one she was using.

“You mean these?” He slammed the files on the desk. Each of them said OREGON on the cover. He had removed them from the vault when he took the Achilles files. “No sense in leaving these lying around here.” Juan had noticed the one piece of up-to-date equipment in the admiral’s office was a high-capacity-level P7 paper shredder, the kind the CIA used to destroy classified documents.

He dropped each file on the Oregon into the shredder. The machine whined as it tore the paper into particles smaller than a grain of sand.

“I still know.”

“All you know is the name of a ship that can be easily altered. And I don’t think you’ll be able to share the information if Moscow decides to send you to the same Siberian prison that the previous base commander went to.”

Zakharin slumped back in his chair, knowing he’d been beaten. He nodded at Eddie’s vial. “Can you at least put that away?”

“This?” Juan said, taking the vial from Eddie. He approached the admiral, who cringed back in his chair. Juan raised it over Zakharin, then tipped the contents into his own mouth.