Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

“How does that affect us?”

“In the past when the canal has been hit with sandstorms, they’ve closed it to ship traffic because the visibility can be reduced to zero.”

Carlton’s good mood vanished, and he glowered at Chen.

“I don’t care what you have to do. You make sure we’re in the Suez Canal and on time for our rendezvous with the other ships or I will get rid of you and promote the next person in line.”

Carlton’s eyes flicked to his new bodyguard, Bondarev, the intimidating and muscular ex-Spetsnaz soldier who had betrayed Gupta.

Chen gulped, then shouted at the captain of the ship to push the engines to their maximum power.

The ship increased speed. Nothing, not even Mother Nature, was going to delay Carlton’s plans to dominate the world.

FIFTY-FOUR

THE SUEZ CANAL

Predating the Panama Canal by forty-five years, the Suez Canal differed from its Central American cousin in one fundamental way. While the link between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans required a series of locks to carry ships up and over the mountainous terrain of the Panamanian jungle, the isthmus between the main body of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula barely rose above sea level. No locks were required for the vessels that passed between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

From its completion in 1869 until 2015, most of the canal was too narrow for two-way traffic and was strictly one-way only. Ships in flotillas of a dozen at a time proceeded single file from the Mediterranean to Great Bitter Lake seventy miles to the south. There, they would wait in the fifteen-mile-long lake for the ships traveling in the opposite direction from the Red Sea to complete their traverse of the southern part of the canal before continuing on.

Then in 2015, Egypt added a second waterway parallel to the first for forty-five miles of the northern segment. Each side was linked at regular intervals by connector canals to allow for small maintenance vessels to cross from the northerly canal to the southerly half.

A satellite image of that segment of the canal was now laid out on one half of the big screen of the Oregon’s op center. Juan was back in his command chair, a cup of coffee in his hand to keep him awake after the long night and day. He was still sorry he had had to abandon Carlton’s Cadillac in the city of Suez, where they boarded the Oregon.

It was now six in the evening, and they were heading north in the canal approaching Great Bitter Lake. The view from the bow of the ship covered the rest of the screen. The berms on either side marking the walls of the canal were drawing away to reveal the expansive body of water in the middle of the desert.

“We’re entering the lake,” Eric said.

“Steady as she goes, Stoney,” Juan said. “Can we see the Colossus ships?”

Murph panned the camera to starboard past the mass of cargo ships gathered in the lake and zoomed in on three identical ships anchored a hundred yards from one another at the east side of the lake. Juan recognized the helical masts and large satellite dishes from his dive on the Colossus 3.

“Which ship is Colossus 1?”

Murph zoomed in even more until they could read Colossus 1 on the stern of the closest ship.

“That’s our target,” Max said.

“That’s your target,” Juan corrected. “How many prisoners do we think are aboard her?”

“Lyla Dhawan said that more than twenty passengers from the jet were taken,” Eric said.

“Sorry to be the Gloomy Gus here,” Murph said, “but, for all we know, they could have been killed by now.”

“Lionel Gupta’s information said that they were still alive two weeks ago,” Juan said. The series of characters Gupta had written down before he was killed turned out to be a link to a cache of files about the Colossus Project that he’d kept secret from the other Nine Unknown Men, confirming that the cabal still existed and had planned this artificial intell

igence initiative. Gupta’s engineering firm, OreDyne, had been the lead developer of the computer systems. “Unless Carlton has had them killed since then,” Juan went on, “they’re still alive on that ship. We have to proceed on the assumption that they are and rescue them.”

“Once we get them off the Colossus 1, what options do we have for disabling Colossus?” Max asked.

Juan shook his head. “I already spoke to Langston Overholt about the choices. It’s too late to use Julia’s cyanobacteria. The Colossus ships will be able to link up long before the infection can take effect. Who knows the havoc the fully operational AI could cause by then? And sinking the ships by gun or torpedo is out of the question. He thinks attacking unarmed vessels in the middle of a vital international waterway wouldn’t be such a good idea for some reason.”

“But if they happened to sink because of a design flaw on their own ships?”

“Like a faulty self-destruct mechanism?” Juan said with a smile. “Perfect.”

“Then it’s all on you.”