Golden Buddha (Oregon Files 1)

“We’ll watch for it.”

Then the captain turned to a sailor nearby. “Man the deck gun,” he said quickly, “and if any aircraft approaches, shoot it down.”

The first time had worked so well, Adams decided to do it again. Once again approaching from the port side, he lined up the crosshairs on the second harbor boat and pushed the button. Nothing happened. Perhaps the starboard weapons pod had been splashed with more seawater than had the port. Maybe it was simply that the few extra minutes of time had allowed the fog and rain to seep into the circuitry. It could have been a glitch—this was the first time the weapons pod had been used—and rarely did a system work flawlessly the first time out.

Whatever the case, the missiles wouldn’t fire from the tubes.

The R-44 passed over the harbor patrol boat just as the sailor yanked back the lever on the deck gun and flicked off the safety. He pivoted the gun to the correct height and started shooting at the rear of the retreating helicopter. Adams felt the cyclic get mushy as a single bullet nicked a control rod to the main rotor. He flew away into the fog to assess the situation.

“Control,” he said over a secure channel on the radio. “I’ve eliminated one target, but now my horse is wounded and they broke my bow.”

Hanley took the call in the control room of the Oregon.

He scanned the radar screen before answering. “Do you have control of the craft?”

“It’s not too bad,” Adams said calmly. “I think I can set her down okay.”

“We’re coming in your direction now,” Hanley said. “Blow the pods and bring the ship home.”

“What do you mean?” Adams asked.

“There’s a toggle switch on the weapons control panel,” Hanley said. “Flip up the cover and lower the switch and the racks will drop free. We’ll deal with the second boat.”

Adams started an arc toward the harbor boat. “Give me a second,” he said. “I have an idea.”

ACROSS the room, Juan Cabrillo was on the satellite telephone to Langston Overholt in Virginia.

“We had to sink the vessel closest to us,” he said. “But there’s a corvette and a frigate still to contend with.”

Overholt was pacing in his office while talking on the speaker phone. In front of his desk, sitting in a chair and dressed in full uniform, was a United States Navy commander who was attached to the CIA. “I have a naval officer here in my office. My superiors are worried about fallout if you attack and sink the other two ships. How far away from you are they?”

“We are in no imminent danger for a few more minutes,” Cabrillo stated.

“If we can stop them in their tracks,” Overholt asked, “can you effect an escape?”

Cabrillo thought for a minute before answering. “We can retrieve our men and the object we came for and be back at full steam in five to ten minutes,” he said. “As long as the Chinese don’t launch any planes at us, I think we will be home free.”

“As of this instant,” Overholt said, “the only radio transmission that got through was about a helicopter attacking a harbor police boat. Right now, at least as far as the Chinese are concerned, you’re just a cargo ship they can’t reach on the radio. That could change, however, once the survivors of the ship you sank are collected.”

“By then we should be far out to sea traveling south,” Cabrillo said, “and back into the fog bank. With the electronics on board, we can hide from ship-to-sea radar. The fog will keep us hidden from above.”

Overholt turned to the navy commander. “Will this new device affect our ship as well?”

“Not if they turn all the electronics off as it passes alongside.”

“Juan,” Overholt said, “did you hear that?”

“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t understand.”

“It’s a new toy the navy has,” Overholt said, “called a FRITZY. It is designed to short out electrical circuits and we believe it will disable the remaining ships. What we’ll need you to do is shut down all the systems on the Oregon when we give you the order.”

Eric Stone was scanning the radar and said, “We’re coming up

on the Zodiacs now.”

“Slow to stop,” Cabrillo ordered. “Prepare to take our people aboard.”

ADAMS climbed to three thousand feet, then dove toward the harbor boat in the steepest angle the R-44 could handle. He could feel his body go light in the seat, and then tighten against the shoulder harness. Through the Plexiglas bubble windscreen, the harbor boat came into view, then grew in size as he streaked down from above.