Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

“How do we get them out of there?” Raven said. “There are dozens of guards stationed on or around the ship.”

“And they’ll be on alert the rest of the night,” MacD said.

“Eddie and Linc still have their trackers,” Juan said, referring to the beacons implanted into the thigh of every Oregon crew member so they could be located in case of abduction. “At least we’ll know where they are while we come up with a plan to get them back.”

He didn’t wait for a response and began swimming toward their exit point, Taylor’s voice playing in his mind the whole way.

* * *

—

“Are you sure it was them?” Mallik asked as Torkan drove away from the Limassol port.

“Positive,” Torkan said.

“What were they doing?”

“I don’t know. But our initial assessment was wrong. They weren’t with Natalie Taylor at your house, and they don’t work for Carlton.”

“Then who sent them to tap my computer?”

“Maybe a foreign intelligence agency. Impossible to say.”

“So now we’re fighting Carlton and some unknown party,” Mallik said. “At least tell me that you got the bombs planted.”

“I did,” Torkan said without voicing his secret doubts about the ultimate success of the mission.

“Good,” Mallik said. “By this time tomorrow, Xavier Carlton will be dead. Hopefully, Lionel Gupta as well. If not, we’ll take care of him some other way, though I’m not sure we’ll need to. I don’t think he’d have the guts to go forward with Colossus on his own. In any event, I need you back here. Fly out on the helicopter and meet me on the Kalinga. Then, we’ll head to the launch command ship.”

“Yes, sir.” Torkan hung up. He decided that mentioning potential snags wouldn’t help at this point since he wouldn’t get another shot at Carlton, but one little problem still bothered him.

Before they exchanged gunfire, the black man must have realized that Torkan was coming out of the trailer.

FORTY-SIX

Carlton wasn’t pleased about being woken up in the middle of the night, but his spirits improved when he found out that an attack on the Colossus 5 had been foiled.

The two men that Taylor had caught were brought to the ship’s meeting room. When Carlton arrived, he found the two men cuffed and being watched over by six armed guards. Taylor stood when he entered.

He looked the intruders up and down before saying, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “They won’t talk. We’re not even sure they speak English.”

“They look like soldiers to me, but they’re not Indian or Iranian. What were they doing?”

Taylor tossed a toolkit on the table.

“Sabotage of some kind.”

The two men stared at Carlton with impassive faces.

“Who do you work for?” he demanded.

They said nothing.

He turned to Taylor. “Do you think Mallik and Torkan would hire mercenaries?”

“Always a possibility,” Taylor said.