Piranha (Oregon Files 10)
“Do you think this jeopardizes the plan?” Pasquet asked.
“That’s up to the Doctor.”
Once the jet took off, Bazin braced himself for the phone call he had to make. It wasn’t going to be pleasant.
When the Doctor answered, he was his usual curt self. “Well?”
“They got away.”
“How many of them?”
Bazin grimaced. “All of them.”
There was silence on the phone for a gut-churning moment. “I give you literally the best intelligence money can buy and you let them escape?”
“The plans were put together at short notice,” Bazin said, a defense he knew was lame.
“You know we’re only four days away from the drone intercept mission. We can’t afford to commit unforced errors.”
“I can assure you this won’t happen again.”
“If the U.S. military finds out that their Piranha drones were not only stolen but also put to active use, it could eventually lead back to you and me. If that happens before the mission, the whole plan could fall apart. Do you understand?”
“Should we warn the Venezuelans that their operations may be compromised?”
“No. I kept a back door into the code controlling the drones. Once they’ve done their work today, I’ll set them to self-destruct. They’ll sink, and that will be the last anyone hears of them.”
“What about Admiral Ruiz?”
“What about her? The drones have done the job for her. Besides, this is her fault. If she hadn’t let the Oregon go, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“And the Oregon?”
“I’ll keep tabs on her just in case.”
“They’ve left Montego Bay. They must be near where I had to abandon my pursuit of Juan Cabrillo’s fishing boat.”
“I can’t surveil them unless I know exactly where they are. Have the jet circle the area and tell me the coordinates.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far in the time it took me to get to the airport,” Bazin said. “We’ll find them for you.”
Bazin told the pilot where to fly, tracing the route the Oceanaire had taken from Montego Bay Harbor to the fishing grounds and then adding on the distance the ship had time to travel since it left. The cloud cover was low, under three thousand feet, so the pilot had to dip below it to search for the ship.
They descended from the clouds, and Bazin was ready to transmit the GPS coordinates to the Doctor as soon as he spotted the ship. But when they reached clear sky, all they saw was an expansive carpet of blue stretching in all directions from the Jamaican coastline. The only visible vessel was a cruise ship on the distant horizon. Otherwise, the sea was unbroken. There wasn’t even a sign of the Cast Away, which presumably meant it was now sitting on the bottom of the ocean. As for the freighter, Bazin was mystified.
The Oregon was gone.
Thirty miles east of Jamaica
Juan was sure the Jamaican authorities were asking a lot of questions about why dead men were cropping up all over the island and two charter fishing boats had disappeared. He didn’t want to risk returning to Montego Bay.
Instead of repairing Craig Reed’s fishing boat and returning it to Montego Bay without him aboard, they used one of the Oregon’s cranes to hoist it into the largest hold, where technicians would fix the engines and patch up the damage free of charge for all the trouble they’d caused.
As soon as the Cast Away had been secured, Juan ordered the Oregon at full speed to get out of the area as fast as they could in case their attackers had something more up their sleeve. Three hours later, they had Eddie, Linc, and his motorcycle on board via a side trip from one of the Oregon’s high-powered lifeboats into Ocho Rios. The local Harley shop would have to send someone to retrieve Eddie’s rental.
Once Juan had his crew back together and they were sailing out into blue water, he went to visit the medical bay. He entered to find Julia writing some notes on her tablet.
“How’s our guest doing?” he asked.