“All right. Show me our target for this evening.”
A different exterior view came on the screen, this one to the Portland’s stern. It showed a huge freighter being loaded with timber and coffee bou
nd for France.
“That ship looks brand-new.”
“It is,” Farouk said. “That’s why the owners are drowning in debt. They can’t break the lease on it, and they’re bleeding red ink. They say the only way they can cover their losses is for the ship to sink and Lloyd’s of London to pay the claim.”
Tate held up his fingers and played the world’s smallest violin. “Cry me a river. They’ll pay our normal cut?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s make this a twofer.”
“How do you mean?”
“Our old buddy Juan Cabrillo had a bad day yesterday. We want to continue his misery, don’t we?”
Heads all over the op center nodded.
“Then we’ll make sure to sink that freighter before sunset and get some good video of the Portland doing it. I got word that the crew of the Mantícora was found in the middle of the Atlantic. The U.S. Navy is still searching for the missing Kansas City. Now it’s time to up the pressure on the Oregon by framing her for another atrocity.”
Once she was blamed as the culprit in these incidents, the Oregon would become a pariah to the United States, and so would her captain. Nobody in the CIA knew that she had a doppelgänger, an exact twin, down to her weapons systems and advanced magnetohydrodynamic engines.
Tate’s extensive plans were finally paying off, plans he’d developed during years of torture and solitary confinement. Like everyone else aboard the Portland, he wanted his revenge on Juan Cabrillo, the person responsible for all their collective misery.
But Tate wasn’t going to kill his former partner in the CIA. That would be too simple. What he wanted was far more punishing. First, Tate would ruin his reputation. Then he would kill Cabrillo’s crew, sink his ship, and leave him to rot in a Third World prison for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he’d lost everything he held dear.
Tate savored the thought of such complete suffering and grinned.
He was going to utterly destroy Juan Cabrillo.
19
VITÓRIA, BRAZIL
Juan entered the Oregon’s infirmary to find Julia Huxley making notes on a tablet computer. As the ship’s surgeon, she had been extraordinarily busy in the two days since they’d beat a hasty retreat from Rio Harbor. He could see the toll that the extended hours had taken on her.
Instead of a white lab coat, green scrubs hung loosely over her short, curvy figure. She drooped as she leaned against a counter, and there were dark circles under brown eyes that normally looked much more alert. Her dark hair was tied back in her usual ponytail that swayed back and forth as she yawned.
“Not getting much sleep lately?” Juan asked.
“Or any,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s been nonstop around here.”
“I came to tell you that López and Belasco made it onto the CIA charter back to the U.S. along with Machado’s body.”
Juan had decided to return to Vitória because it had a major airport as well as a network of fine hospitals and doctors.
“How did López look?” Julia asked.
“A lot better, thanks to you.”
“Luckily, the knife didn’t penetrate any vital organs. It was a pretty straightforward procedure to stitch him up once we got the bleeding under control. He should be up and about in a few days.”
Before joining the Corporation, Julia had been a skilled general surgeon and chief medical officer at the San Diego naval base. With the operating room and diagnostic facilities aboard the Oregon, she and her staff could handle any wounds that would normally require a big-city trauma center.
“What about the prognosis for Belasco?” Juan asked.