Marauder (Oregon Files 15)

Linda took a huge breath and looked over to see that the terrorist Eric had been fighting somehow had rolled away from him and next to the MP5. He picked up the submachine gun and was about to fire when Linda snatched the dart gun from the deck and shot him in the back.

The terrorist whirled around and tried to grab at whatever had stung him. He stared at Linda in surprise, and then his eyes rolled white as he went down in a heap.

Linda went over to Eric and held out her hand to help him up. Eric was rubbing the back of his head.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“He got me good with the butt of the AK, but I’ll be all right.” Eric looked around and saw the two terrorists lying on the deck. “Looks like you got them both. Nice shots.”

She grinned at him. “Didn’t you know Annie Oakley was my great-grandmother?”

“I almost believe that.”

“Come on. Let’s take a look at that bomb.”

They went into the shed and found the bomb situated directly under the main valve unit that the mass of pipes fed into. Linda shined her flashlight while Eric inspected it. There was an indicator with two bars blinking.

Linda clicked on her mic. “Chairman, our hostiles are down, and the bomb is right in front of us.”

“Good work. What’s the word on the bombs? Can we move them?”

Eric, who could hear Juan as well, nodded. “That’s affirmative, Chairman. I don’t see any circuits or accelerometers that would be motion activated.”

“Did you hear that, Hali?” Juan said.

“Copy that,” Hali replied. “I’ll come up with it now. Are we dumping them overboard?”

“I don’t advise that,” Eric said, picking up the bomb and putting it back in the sack that the terrorist had carried.

“Why not?” Juan asked.

“It may short-circuit as soon as it hits the water, which could put a nice big hole in the ship. The Dahar might not sink, but she could spill thousands of gallons of oil before it was brought under control.”

“Might not sink?” Linda asked.

Eric shrugged.

“Is Eric shrugging?” Juan asked.

“Yes, he is.”

“Then we need to find that third bomb and get all three of them as far away from us as possible before they explode.”

SIX

Max Hanley, the driver of the Oregon’s submersible, grunted as he climbed out of the rear hatch. His youth serving on a Swift Boat in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta was long behind him, and exercise wasn’t really his thing, as evidenced by the generous paunch that Doc Huxley was always trying in vain to get him to reduce. Still, Max thought he was reasonably fit for a man his age, and his role as the Corporation’s President and the Oregon’s chief engineer kept him busy.

The humidity caused sweat to bead on his brow now that he was no longer in the air-conditioned comfort of the Gator. The submersible was one of two on the Oregon. While the larger sub, Nomad, was built for deep dives, with an airlock and room for eight divers in full gear, the Gator was designed for speed and stealth. It was powered by a potent diesel engine for cruising fast on top of the water and by battery packs for operating below the surface to sneak up on ships, as they had done with the terrorists.

Max had been listening in on the comm link and heard that the third bomb had still not been found.

“Sounds like you’re getting nothing out of the others, Juan,” Max said over his molar mic as he tied the Gator to the terrorists’ boat. “Maybe our friend Tanjung here can give us some more info.”

“Tell me you’re armed, Max.”

“You worried about the old man?” Max joked. He and Juan were best friends, and together they had created the Corporation, not to mention designing and constructing both the old and the new Oregon.

“I do hear a lot of grunting. You sound like a grandfather hoisting himself out of his favorite easy chair.”