Mirage (Oregon Files 9)

A hundred feet in front of the flattened apex of the wake, occasional puffs of white water appeared, like the bow of a ship cutting through the swells, but between these two points was nothing but open water.

Juan blinked and looked harder. No, not open water, a distortion of what open water looks like, a facsimile of nature, not nature itself. Then the reality hit.

“Science fiction. Those two aren’t going to let me hear the end of it.”

“You want me to get closer?” Adams asked.

“No. Keep true. Maybe they don’t know we’ve spotted them.” Juan handed the binoculars back to Linc and keyed on his radio. “Max, you there?”

“Standing by.”

“Go to encrypt beta,” Juan ordered, and Gomez switched to the chopper’s secondary encrypted channel. “You still with me?”

There was a second delay in the rest of their conversation because the computers needed the extra time to decrypt the secure comm line. “Still here.”

“I don’t know how Kenin capsized the Emir’s yacht, but I know how he got close enough to activate the weapon. We’ve got eyeballs on a ship’s wake, only there isn’t a ship making it.”

“Come again.”

“They have some sort of optical camouflage. The ship he used to target the Sakir is, well, it’s invisible.”

“You sure this isn’t a delayed symptom of the bends?”

“Linc sees it, or doesn’t see it, too.”

“Juan,” Lincoln said urgently, thrusting the binoculars back at him. “Check it out now. They must think they’ve cleared the danger zone.”

Juan found the wake again and again followed it to its source. This time, the ship was there, and what a craft it was. It reminded him of the U.S. Navy’s pyramidal Sea Shadow, an experimental stealth ship with a design based loosely on the F-117 Nighthawk. This boat was painted a muted gray that perfectly matched the surrounding seas, and it had sloped, faceted sides that met at a peak about thirty feet above the waves. Unlike the Sea Shadow, it wasn’t a catamaran but a monohull, with a flat transom and a long overhanging deck above her bow. Function rather than aesthetics had gone into her design, making her the ugliest vessel Juan had ever seen.

He guessed she was making about fifteen knots, so more than likely if she was running from the scene of the crime, this was her maximum speed.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” Hanley asked.

At sea, the preservation of human life took precedence over everything else, there was no doubt about that. He couldn’t order the Oregon to deviate from her course and intercept this bizarre new weapon. And none of their missiles had the range to hit it, but that didn’t mean they were impotent.

“Give me a few minutes to figure out the vectors and relative speeds. I want you to be ready to launch Eddie and MacD in a RHIB to go after them.”

“That thing just capsized a three-hundred-foot mega-yacht. What do you think it would do to a puny RHIB?”

“I just want them to tail it. Once we’re finished with the rescue, we’ll track ’em down and handle it ourselves.”

“What about the storm?”

“There isn’t a gale on this planet a RHIB can’t handle.”

There was concern in his voice when Max cautioned, “It might take us days to find survivors from the Sakir.”

“We’re out of there as soon as the Coasties show up. You did radio them, right?”

“They’re three hours behind us.”

“There’s your answer. We do our thing for three hours and turn it over to the professionals. This is a good plan, Max.”

“A dangerous one,” Hanley retorted.

“Aren’t they all? Load the RHIB with extra fuel drums, and I’ll call when you’re closest to this stealth boat’s wake.”

“Okay,” Max relented. “But I’m not sending those boys out without full survival suits and redundant GPS trackers.”