Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

Several minutes later, Durchenko called from the Abtao.

“Commander, except for some minor cosmetic damage from the crew before they left, the ship is in complete working condition.”

“See?” he said to Ballard with a grin. “Just like we planned.”

He ordered Durchenko to bring the Abtao next to the Portland so they could begin the resupply operation. Although she didn’t have any weaponry on board, that was about to change. The containers that they were supposed to transfer to the Mantícora before Tate sank her held all the munitions they needed to bring the missile boat to operational status. They even had a full load of fuel to transfer.

Despite the setbacks Ballard brought up, Tate was pleased with his growing fleet. He now had a mighty armada at his command. The three ships together—the Portland, the Wuzong, and the Abtao—had more than enough firepower to sink the Oregon, with or without the advantage of the sonic disruptor.

Once they had the Abtao fueled and armed, they would head to the southern tip of South America and the vast archipelago that snaked up the Chilean coastline. He’d never be able to ambush the Oregon in the open ocean, Juan was too smart for that. Tate needed a place to hem the Oregon in, and the maze of channels and islands near Tierra del Fuego suited his plan nicely.

Now he just had to get the right bait. Tate had considered a cruise ship, but corralling a thousand or more passengers and crew was too unwieldy. Instead, he’d found something smaller, a vessel with just enough crew aboard to be useful as hostages. And it was an American ship, the likeliest to bring Juan running to the rescue.

“Is the Deepwater still in port?” he asked Ballard.

She tapped on her keyboard, checking the tracker they’d secretly planted on the Deepwater more than a week before just in case, and nodded. “According to the port’s computer system, she’ll be docked in Punta Arenas for the next two days. Then she leaves for the Alacalufes National Reserve, and is scheduled to return in twelve days.”

Tate looked at his map and put a finger on Punta Arenas, the most populous city in southern Chile. It was a two-day sail from their current position. By the time they caught up with the Deepwater, she would be a hundred miles from the nearest Coast Guard station.

And they would catch her. It wasn’t as if the research vessel could outrun them.

NUMA hadn’t built the Deepwater for speed.

50

CRUISING DOWN THE BRAZILIAN COAST

The last place Juan saw Tate and the Portland was in Buenos Aires Harbor, so he had ordered the Oregon to head back in that direction at top speed in hopes of intercepting the Portland. He knew full well that she could be thousands of miles away from there by now, but with no other information to go on, it was better than idling in the middle of the ocean waiting for another taunting message from Tate.

He entered the infirmary to find Murph and Julia Huxley with sheets of paper strewn across one of the examination tables. Neither of them looked like they’d slept more than a couple of hours.

“I hope you didn’t stay up all night for nothing,” Juan said. “Tell me you found some useful information in that Hungarian’s notebooks.”

“We wouldn’t have made you come all the way down here if we didn’t,” Julia said.

Murph tilted his head back and forth, like he didn’t exactly agree with her. “More like so-so news.” To Julia he said, “Don’t get his hopes up.”

“You’re not going to let Eric and Hali outdo you, are you?” Juan asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Murph said sheepishly. “I heard they had a breakthrough on the deepfake malware.”

“They said it’s all ready to go for Tate’s next video chat.”

“How is that going to help us?” Julia asked.

It was Juan’s turn not to get their hopes up, so he kept it vague. “I’ve set something up that might clear our names if Tate cooperates with us.”

“That sounds cryptic and noncommittal,” Julia said.

“I can’t wait for that surprise,” Murph said. “But we do have something that might help us with the sonic disruptor.”

“A way to neutralize it?” Juan asked.

“Partially. Horváth’s notes were even harder to decipher than I thought they’d be. Plus the mildew obliterated some of the writing, so it’s not complete. I couldn’t reconstruct a duplicate of Tate’s weapon with what I have, but the notes sketch out the principle behind how it works. I’ll let the doc explain it.”

Julia picked up one of the sheets that had a series of formulas and waveforms on it. To Juan, it looked like a random series of numbers and letters with some squiggly lines thrown in.

“This shows the combination of resonant infrasound frequencies that are generated by the sonic disruptor. Although the sound is emitted at a powerful amplitude, it’s much too low in frequency to be audible. When the sound waves hit the inner ear, they cause vibrations that have a profound psychological effect. Neurotransmitters are released that put the brain into a fight-or-flight mode. Essentially, the response is an extreme panic psychosis.”