Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

“The phone in my front pocket,” Rasul said with a smile.

With his boot still on Rasul’s good hand, Juan reached down and pulled out the phone. He pushed the HOME button, and the screen asked for the passcode. Juan’s gloves were designed to work with touchpads.

“What’s your passcode?”

“I’ll never tell,” Rasul said with a gurgle. The smile had disappeared. His lips were turning blue.

It was the Novichok. The nerve agent had gotten into the suit where Juan had shot him.

“You only have a few seconds left to live,” Juan said. “Tell me the passcode or I’ll just use your thumbprint when you’re dead.”

His back arched, and he screamed in agony as the Novichok took control of his body. Then he went silent and rigid, but Juan could see that the eyes were still seeing. They began to water from the misery he was going through.

Juan yanked off Rasul’s gloves and tried to unlock the phone with the fingerprints on both of the assassin’s thumbs.

Nothing. Even if there was an abort signal to be sent from the phone, they’d never be able to crack it and gain access in the next five minutes.

That left one chance. Juan ran toward the Oregon. If he couldn’t stop that missile from detonating over Diego Garcia, every person at the military base would suffer Rasul’s gruesome fate.

ELEVEN

As he raced across the weather deck, Juan activated his earpiece mic.

“Eddie, get back to the Oregon right now. I’m covered in Novichok dust, so you go over first.”

“On my way,” Eddie replied.

“Max,” Juan said, “I’m heading to the op center. Have you gotten in touch with Lang yet?”

Langston Overholt IV had been Juan’s boss in the CIA and was still allowed to serve even into his eighties since he knew where all the bodies, both figurative and literal, were buried. Overholt encouraged Juan to form the Corporation and build the Oregon, and all of their CIA assignments, including this operation, came through him.

“He’s a little groggy and not particularly happy that we woke him up,” Max replied. “Said something about recovering from a 10K yesterday. But he’s on the line now.”

“And Barbara Goodman?”

“Overholt’s pulling all his strings to get her on the line.”

“Good, because we struck out with the BrahMos abort system.” He quickly told Max about what had happened to Rasul as he watched Eddie run across the gangway.

When Eddie was safely inside the Oregon, Juan entered the tent holding the portable decontamination system. He activated it, and his suit was bathed with a concentrated hypochlorite solution formulated to react with any Novichok particles on his suit and render them harmless. Ninety seconds later, a green light flashed, indicating that he was clean. He threw off the mask and shucked the suit before running toward the op center.

When he got there, Max got up from the command chair and went to his engineering station.

“Stoney, raise the gangway and move us away from the Triton Star,” Juan said to Eric as he sat down. He didn’t want the Oregon to get contaminated by any stray Novichok floating over.

The huge viewscreen at the front of the room showed Langston Overholt’s craggy face staring at him. He was wearing a silk bathrobe over a pajama top buttoned at the collar.

“I know this must be important, Juan,” Overholt said with a gravelly baritone, “because I haven’t heard you mention the Theseus operation in years.”

“It is,” Juan said, dispensing with their usual back-and-forth. “There’s a cruise missile headed to Diego Garcia carrying a nerve agent warhead, and we can’t warn them to shoot it down. We estimate impact in a little more than three minutes.”

Overholt nodded. “Max said it was a BrahMos. You sure this will work?”

“No, but we’re out of time and options.”

“Chairman,” Hali interrupted, “I’ve got Barbara Goodman on video.”

“Put her on-screen,” Juan said.