Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

“What’s the matter?” Jefferson asked. “Can’t you get us through those straits?”

“I can. It’s just that the weather over the next week or so is going to be unpredictable there.”

“Storms?”

“No, but the conditions will be perfect for low cloud cover and thick fog. The mountainous . . . What’s the word?” Vargas paused as she searched for it. “Ah, yes. Topography. The mountainous topography makes it hard to tell when the fog is rolling in. It could happen very suddenly, and then we would have to move very slowly to avoid obstacles. There are many glaciers in the area, so we could run into calving bergs.”

“Then the sooner we start, the better,” Jefferson said. “After you stow your belongings, I’d like you back here in fifteen minutes so we can get going.” She ordered her XO to ready the ship for departure.

As Vargas hefted her duffel and walked toward the bridge door with the crewman who was to show her to her quarters, she turned to Jefferson and said, “There’s one advantage that will make it easier to navigate your route.”

“What’s that?” Jefferson asked.

“We’ll be in a very remote and isolated area,” Vargas said. “I doubt we’ll see another ship.”

52

CAPE HORN

Two days after hijacking the missile boat, the Portland passed the tiny Isla Hornos, marking the transition from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Abtao was following behind, crashing repeatedly through thirty-foot waves, while the Portland’s powerful engines and larger size made for little more than a mild bobbing. Tate could imagine Durchenko clutching the bridge console of his smaller vessel with every breaching crest. The Russian was actually lucky. It could have been far worse. The Drake Passage had a well-earned reputation for wicked gales and rogue waves that made it a ships’ graveyard.

Their target, the Deepwater, had left Punta Arenas a day earlier than expected, but it didn’t change the schedule by much. They would simply seize her crew farther north in the National Reserve, where the research ship had been planting webcams. Tate had even watched the webcast from a few of them and once caught a glimpse of the Deepwater in the background. In fact, that location would be even better. Less chance of running across a random fisherman or tourist boat. The tracker they’d installed made the future interception a done deal. The crosshairs indicating the Deepwater’s position pulsated on the main view screen.

Ballard, who looked a little seasick from the rocking motion in the op center, said, “Zach, we’ve got a call coming in on Overholt’s phone. It’s Juan Cabrillo.”

Tate frowned. Not because he was worried that the phone was being tracked. Its signal was being routed through a series of internet connections through a satellite feed that made it impossible to trace.

He was frowning because he was planning to call Juan later that day for another round of taunting and to lure him into the planned ambush.

“Do you want me to ignore it?” Ballard asked when she saw Tate’s expression.

“No,” Tate said after a moment’s hesitation. “Might as well get the call over with now. Make sure to patch it through the deepfake software. I like Juan looking at himself when he’s talking to me.”

“Done,” she said, and his old friend’s face appeared on-screen.

“Juan,” Tate said. “How did you know I was thinking about you?”

“Rough seas, Tate?” Cabrillo speculated. “That must be Catherine Ballard behind you. She looks like she’s sitting on a seesaw. I bet if I could see her face, it would be a pale shade of green.”

“And I’d bet you’d like to know where we are.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“You know what? I will. We’re near Tierra del Fuego. Where are you?”

Cabrillo shrugged. “You don’t expect me to make it that easy for you, do you?” He was throwing Tate’s expression back in his face.

Tate laughed. “Touché. But it doesn’t matter. You’ll come find me anyway.”

“And fall into another trap? How dumb do you think I am?”

“Please, Juan. I would never underestimate you. Why else do you think I didn’t follow you down the river? I knew you had the Oregon waiting to blow my helicopter out of the sky. By the way, did you find what you were looking for? I mean, before I destroyed the Bremen?”

“The secret behind the sonic disruptor? Of course. We found everything.”

Tate narrowed his eyes at Cabrillo, then smiled and wagged a finger at him. “Very good, Juan. I can’t tell if you’re bluffing or not. Again, it doesn’t really matter.”

“We did find Jiménez,” Cabrillo said. “That’s who you were trying to kill when you sank the Kansas City, wasn’t it?”