Marauder (Oregon Files 15)

“The Lazy Goanna?”

“Our local tavern. All he has to do is buy Bob a drink.”

“Thanks,” Cable said. “Mike might just do that while we’re here. Speaking of a drink, I’m going to pour myself a cup of coffee. Do you want one before we continue the inspection? It’s a special Vietnamese blend. I highly recommend it.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Gulman said.

Cable filled a tall cardboard cup and handed it to Gulman. “Be careful. It’s hot.” He nodded to a cupholder next to the control panel. “You can put it there to cool off if you need to.”

“Appreciate it.” Gulman took the cup and was about to take a sip when it began to warm up in his hand. Cable wasn’t kidding about the heat. Gulman had to put it down before it burned his fingers.

He crossed quickly to the cupholder and was about to place it in the receptacle when the cup seemed to leap out of his hand as if he had a sudden muscle spasm.

Gulman could only watch in horror as the cup landed on the control panel and splashed steaming coffee across the instrumentation.

Alarms blared, and lights flashed on a number of screens.

Cable rushed over and looked like he was going to tear his hair out.

“What did you do?” he yelled. “Oh, no. The fire suppression system was activated.” He tapped furiously on one of the touch screens.

“I’m sorry,” Gulman sputtered. “I don’t know what happened.”

Cable calmed down and waved him off. “It was an accident. No worries.”

“But—”

Gulman was interrupted by a man on one of the video screens. He was covered in fire retardant foam and gesticulating in fury from what looked like the engineering control room.

“What is going on up there?” he demanded. It was Michael Wong, the chief engineer. “My engine room is soaked with foam. It’ll take us two hours to clean this up.”

The screen switched to the view of the engine room, and Gulman’s stomach sank when he saw foam all over the formerly pristine machinery.

“We had a malfunction up here,” Cable said with a wink at Gulman. “Must have been a software glitch.”

“A glitch. If I find who made that bonehead mistake, I’ll make sure he never works in this business again.”

Wong stormed off, and Cable turned off the screen.

“I . . . I don’t know what happened,” Gulman said. “I must have slipped when I put the coffee down.”

“I’m sure you did,” Cable said with a surprisingly understanding and magnanimous tone. “Look, you seem like a nice guy. I don’t want to make you a laughingstock in the community or put a blot on your job record. We’ll get this sorted out. I’m sure no serious damage is done. Now, you’ve seen enough to know the Norego is shipshape.” He chuckled. “I mean, our fire suppression system obviously works. What do you say we wrap up the inspection here and forget the whole thing?”

Gulman nodded vigorously. “That’s mighty kind of you, Captain. I don’t think I need to see any more. Everything seems to be in order. My apologies again.”

He quickly signed the necessary forms and hustled off the ship as fast as he could, his stomach in knots hoping the Norego’s captain would keep this incident private. They would never trust him with the Melbourne posting if anyone found out about his embarrassing blunder.

* * *

—

It worked,” Juan said as he watched the harbormaster scurry down the gangway. “You can come out.”

Eddie emerged from the adjacent room in fresh clothes, toweling the last of the fake fire retardant foam from his hair with one hand and carrying a tablet in the other.

“Did the harbormaster look as red in person as he did on camera?” Eddie asked.

“I thought he was going to transform into a tomato right in front of me.”