Marauder (Oregon Files 15)

I BELIEVE YOU. CHAIRMAN WILL, TOO.

She appreciated his faith in her, but it was heartbreaking to see her brilliant older brother like this, robbed of his voice and mobility. Seeing that she could not convince Womack about what really had occurred that day, for now Sylvia would play along with her theory. She agreed that Juan Cabrillo might be the only person who would believe her besides Mark. But somehow, some way, she vowed to herself that she would find whoever was responsible for killing and injuring her friends and colleagues.

And when she did, she would make sure they never hurt anyone again.

TWENTY-ONE

NHULUNBUY, AUSTRALIA

Late December was smack in the middle of monsoon season in the Northern Territory. An afternoon downpour pounded April Jin as she disembarked from the trimaran Marauder, named for the experimental plasma weapon stolen from the Americans that served as its main armament. It was docked next to the cargo ship Shepparton, which was awaiting its final load before sailing. She hurried toward the temporary office set up beside the concrete apron abutting the shore.

The deepwater port was located next to a giant aluminum factory that had permanently shut down a few years before, its tanks and processing equipment now rusting in the tropical humidity. Although the local bauxite mine was still operating, the closure of the refinery and the loss of its jobs had hit the small town of Nhulunbuy hard. The town on the Gove Peninsula was so remote that one had to drive the seven hundred kilometers of dirt road from the nearest paved highway to reach it. The townspeople were happy to get an infusion into the economy from a new business called Alloy Bauxite, a shell company created by Lu Yang.

Jin’s stepfather had bought up fifty square miles of worthless land in the middle of a secluded swamp on the other side of the bay and built a secret facility there far from any prying eyes. The only difficulty was getting through the muddy marshland and shallow rivers to reach it where there were no roads at all, but Lu had thought of that, too. Jin’s husband would be arriving on Lu’s transportation solution momentarily.

She entered the office and shook out her raincoat before pouring herself a cup of coffee. She stared at the laptop on the desk, barely able to control her curiosity. The final piece of stepfather Lu’s plan was to be revealed today. Jin was tempted to begin the video now, but she had agreed to watch it with her husband, so she surfed Australian news websites instead.

Their attack from the day before was all over the internet, exactly as planned. She scanned the articles for details. The Australian Maritime Border Command had responded to a distress call from two ships in the Timor Sea, one American and one Australian. There were survivors that were flown to a hospital in Darwin, but they were all seriously ill. Rumors were swirling that they’d been poisoned by some kind of gas in an accident, that the patients were paralyzed after exposure. According to reports, the ships had been performing a classified experiment in a joint operation between the U.S. and Australian militaries, so speculation was rampant that it was a chemical weapon test that got out of control. Preprogrammed bots set up by Jin on social media were fueling conspiracy theories that a secret Australian weapon was responsible for the tragedy.

Jin smiled in appreciation of Lu’s careful planning. The seed of doubt and fear were already being planted in the public’s mind. Even if the U.S. and Australia decided to reveal what those ships had been really experimenting on, the truth would be scoffed at as a ridiculous cover story concocted to deflect blame for the accident.

She was still savoring the irony when she heard the drone of huge propellers approaching. She rose and went to the window, looking not into the sky but out to the sea. Although the thick rain obscured the view, she could make out the white spray around the vessel racing toward the shore. It wasn’t a ship. It was a giant hovercraft called the Marsh Flyer.

The rebuilt SR.N4 was the type of hovercraft used to transfer passengers and vehicles across the English Channel before the opening of the Chunnel made them obsolete. Its body was painted green, with windows where four hundred passengers would have been seated and large doors at the front and back for loading up to sixty cars and small trucks. On its flat top were a pilot’s cockpit and four gigantic propellers on steerable pylons used for propulsion and navigation. A black skirt captured the air blown downward by the lift fan, which allowed the Marsh Flyer to cruise from the secret Alloy Bauxite facility through the swamps and across the bay back to Nhulunbuy.

The Flyer slowed as it approached the apron. Jin always enjoyed watching it float out of the water and onto land in defiance of all normal expectations. When it was on dry land, the hovercraft spun around on its axis until its tail was facing the docked Shepparton. Then the lift fan was shut down, and the skirt deflated, easing the Flyer to the ground.

A ramp lowered from the aft end, and trucks started driving off in the direction of the freighter’s waiting cranes. When they were all unloaded, Angus Polk came down the ramp and trotted toward her through the rainfall.

As he came through the door, he said, “Did you watch it yet?”

“I was just about to, but I got caught up reading how the press is ablaze over the Aussie military’s sloppy handling of their secret chemical weapons research. Pretty soon, they’ll be wondering if the Enervum was actually a lethal nerve gas like VX.”

“In a way, you could say it’s a nerve gas,” Polk said. “But as long as they blame their own government for it, I don’t care what they call it.”

“Did we make our quota of Enervum?” Jin asked.

Polk nodded. “The last batch of canisters is being loaded onto the Shepparton right now. It should be able to sail by nightfall.”

“Good. And I’ll leave for Port Cook at the same time.”

“The press will go nuts when another ‘accident’ happens so quickly after the first one. Lu planned it out well.” He noticed Jin frowning at him. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m having concerns,” she said.

“We’re a little past the point of no return, if you’re getting cold feet.”

“I was just hoping for a single operation, and then we’d be finished. The risk grows with each step, and I would like to see the exit point.”

“Lu has been right about everything so far. The factory, the gas, the Marauder, the plasma cannon, even how the press would react to our first attack with the Enervum. The locked cryptocurrency deposit has gone up in value by thirty million since we started this. We must be close to his final objective, he can’t ask for much more. We have little choice but to see it through.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “I know. It’s too late to back out now.”

The fact was, their seed money had been spent quickly and their deadline was fast approaching. If they didn’t go through with the plan, they’d be penniless and potentially wanted for capital crimes.

Polk nodded at the laptop. “Let’s watch Lu’s last video and find out what our objective is.”

Up to this point, the final target for the Enervum had been held in secret by Lu. Today’s date was the first time they could access the recording, when he would reveal the plan’s endgame to them. Jin and Polk had been waiting for this moment ever since they saw Lu’s first video in Melbourne.