Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

In seconds, the Suburban hit the ramp and was methodically drawn into the darkened trailer until the door snapped down behind them.

“I can see four of them,” Connolly said. “They’ve got ballistic shields. But if we—”

A single shot snuffed out Connolly’s last words. But it didn’t come from outside. Catherine Ballard had shot him in the back of the head with his own gun.

She turned it on Overholt, who looked at her in shock. She held up her hand for the men outside to wait. She seemed to want to savor the moment.

“So, you’re the mole,” Overholt said.

She nodded and grinned, apparently pleased with herself. “You would have eventually figured out that I was the one who compromised the identities of Machado, López, and Belasco. It was a risk, but I was confident we’d kidnap you before that happened.”

“How could you know I would invite you to ride with me?”

“Oh, I didn’t. That was pure luck. I was planning to follow you in my own car to signal the truck. But since I was in the car with you, tracking with the GPS on my phone made the job even easier.”

Overholt was furious at himself for being duped. “So the Oregon’s whole extraction mission was a setup?”

Ballard nodded. “From the very beginning. And you played right into it.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have any reason to suspect a decorated agent like yourself.”

“Of course not. Why would you? I’m as pure as fresh snow.”

“Then why throw it all away like this? What do you want from me?”

“You and Juan Cabrillo owe a debt to Zachariah Tate for what you two did to him,” Ballard said, motioning for the men in the truck to come get Overholt. “For what you did to us. Now it’s time for payback.”

21

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

After leaving Vitória, the next forty-eight hours on the Oregon were spent reconfiguring her profile to make her look different from the ship that sank the Avignon. They spray-painted the hull a patchy dull gray, added a false block to the superstructure, and were now taking apart two of the disabled cranes. Juan hoped it would be enough of a change that they could search for the doppelgänger ship without being readily targeted by the Brazilian Navy.

Juan walked across the deck to join Max, who was overseeing the alterations. His Hawaiian shirt was drenched in sweat from the midday sun.

“How long until we can get going?” Juan asked him.

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour to finish up here,” Max said. He had developed a modular system for assembling and disassembling the nonfunctioning cranes quickly.

“It’s time to give the ship another name.”

“Great minds think alike. I was just going to suggest that we make up a new one. We have to assume all of the go-to names we’ve used are compromised.”

Everyone in the crew called the ship the Oregon no matter what was listed on the stern, but they changed the visible name each time they arrived at a new port. The jackstaff often flew an Iranian flag to disguise her country of registry, and iron filings sprayed onto magnets embedded in the hull allowed them to change the name in seconds.

“Can we get away with Queen Anne’s Revenge?” Max asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Naming ourselves after Blackbeard’s pirate ship might be a tad obvious. How about Anacapa? We’ve never used that before.”

“In honor of the Q-ship? I like it.”

The Q-ship had its heyday during the Second World War. Like the Oregon, they were merchant vessels armed with concealed weaponry. The aim was to look like helpless cargo transports in order to lure submarines to the surface, rendering the subs vulnerable. The Q-ships were also used to target enemy freighters by coming close before revealing their true nature and opening fire. The Anacapa was an American Q that had operated in the Pacific Theater.

The sound of footsteps pounded across the deck behind them. Juan turned to see Eric Stone sprinting in their direction. Eric was the Oregon’s helmsman and a Navy vet. Although he and Mark Murphy were the same age, both certified geniuses, and nearly inseparable in downtime, spent largely on video games and computer hacking, their appearances couldn’t have been more different. While Murph favored the slacker look, Eric was always neatly dressed, usually in khakis and a blue button-down shirt. The two of them had worked together on a Department of Defense missile defense project before joining the Corporation. And they shared similar difficulties courting the opposite sex, despite MacD’s extensive coaching efforts.

As Eric came skidding to a stop in front of Juan and Max, he adjusted his black-framed glasses.

“What’s got you in such a hurry?” Max asked. “Did they announce a new Batman movie or something?”