Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

Some of the prisoners were in ragged shape, and Raven and Hali were going to help two of the weakest make the journey while Eddie would lead the way and MacD took up the rear. They also gave pistols

to three of the prisoners who were veterans, including David, a former U.S. Army captain.

“Before we go,” David said, “there’s something else you should know.”

“Time is precious right now, David,” Eddie said. The security team could arrive any second.

“That self-destruct can be switched off.” He pointed to the speakers overhead.

“How?”

“Before you arrived, I noticed Colossus assessing threats to its survival on my terminal. It came to the conclusion that the self-destruct could be disabled manually at the location of the explosives on Colossus 5.”

Before Eddie could relay that information to Max, MacD, who was in the observation room, looked up from the camera feed showing the halls outside and shouted, “We need to go now!”

Eddie went out the door and saw two guards racing down the corridor from the direction of the superstructure. They went down with two salvos from his P90.

He motioned for David and the rest of the prisoners to follow him. If they could all get to the next fire door, they could jam it behind them. Then, the guards would have to go up to the deck to intercept them.

The woman’s unemotional alert came again. “Warning. Evacuate to lifeboats. Seven minutes to detonation.”

While they moved out, Eddie called Max and told him that Juan had a big problem.

* * *

—

Linda had to submerge to avoid gunfire from the deck of the Colossus 5. Juan’s team was just about to move to a new exit position when Juan stopped at the cabin door. “Are you sure?”

“That’s what Eddie said,” Max replied. “If Carlton is able to deactivate it, this whole mission has been for nothing.”

Murph and Linc, who heard Max’s call, looked at him with grim determination.

At least they had the layout of Colossus 5, which would show them the shortest route to the hold. He told Murph to bring up the deck plan on his tablet.

“The odds are against us. There’s just three of us, no matter how we count,” Juan said. “We just have to delay them.” He pointed to a catwalk overlooking the cavernous hold. “We can take up our position there and keep them from reaching those red boxes holding the explosives.”

“What about when the explosives go off?” Linc asked.

“From our view of the Colossus 3, it looked like the force of the blast was directed horizontally, not vertically, to blow holes in the hull below the waterline.”

“So you’re saying there’s a chance we can make it off the ship after the detonation,” Murph said with an appreciative nod. “I like those very unspecific odds.”

“Just think of this as the world’s most exciting roulette table,” Juan said with a tight grin. “Let’s go.”

“Six minutes to detonation,” the warning voice reminded them.

Juan radioed to Linda that she should get ready to recover them when they went overboard, and they exited the suite in a tactical formation. The entrance to the catwalk in the hold was three decks down.

They had to avoid some guards and got caught in two fights along the way, costing them precious time. Carlton had lost three men by the time they reached the door to the catwalk.

“Three minutes to detonation.”

They edged along the catwalk and spotted men huddled around the red box on the other side of the vast space. It was déjà vu seeing that this hold was identical to the one on the Colossus 3.

Juan recognized Carlton, holding a gun on a Chinese man who was tinkering with the bomb. It had to be the chief scientist, Chen Min. Four guards stood behind them, holding their weapons on Chen.

The tangle of large pipes and conduits made getting a clear shot on the group almost impossible, but at least they could disrupt their progress.