Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

Horváth was sent to an asylum in Budapest, where he spent the rest of his life scribbling on the walls of his cell. It was only decades later when Farouk was conducting his own research in sound weapons that he came across an old photo of Horváth in his cell that was printed in a psychiatry journal. Farouk recognized the equations the scientist had written on the walls as the formulas for developing the sonic disruptor. He and Tate snuck into the still-standing asylum and found that the cell had been repainted long ago, but they recovered a trove of archived photographs from Horváth’s time there. To Tate’s delight, Farouk was able to re-create the Hungarian’s work, and even perfect it.

Then Brazilian locals stumbled across the U-boat, and Tate knew he needed to protect his investment. Horváth’s plans for the sonic disruptor could still be on board, rendering Tate’s monopoly of the weapon useless. He had to keep anyone else from getting their hands on it.

“We’re running low on fuel, Commander,” the pilot said. “We need to return to gas up.”

Tate grimaced and looked at the sun in the western sky. “How long will that take?”

“Including travel time to the heliport and back? An hour.”

Tate turned to Farouk. “Do we have time for another run?”

“Just barely.”

“Okay,” Tate said to the pilot. “Take us back.”

“Li will be waiting for us,” Ballard said. “I just heard from him on the radio.”

“Did he get the supplies?”

She nodded, which meant Li had acquired two hundred pounds of C-4 plastic explosives. Once they located the Bremen, Tate would make sure no one else found any remnant of the original sonic disruptor or its plans by blowing the entire U-boat to smithereens.

43

The Oregon navigated the tangle of forks in the vast Amazon Delta until she reached as far inland as she could without going aground. She dropped anchor in the muddy silt, far from any of the major river ports. When the boat garage door slid up, Juan could smell a mixture of flowers, fungus, and mold, which were all critical to the life cycle of the jungle. He didn’t have any worries that they’d be spotted by curious onlookers. Even this close to the coast, towns and settlements were sparse, and the nearest farms were fifty miles away.

Since the RHIB was a casualty of Overholt’s rescue in Buenos Aires, they’d have to use two Zodiacs to make it the rest of the way up river. In addition to Eddie, Linc, Raven, MacD, and Murph, Michael Bradley had insisted on coming along. Although the Navy SEAL still had the cast on his arm, Doc Huxley had molded the fiberglass in such a way that it allowed him to grasp objects, so he felt that he was up to partaking in the mission.

Juan initially denied his request to join them, preferring instead to return the lieutenant home to his unit, but Bradley had refused to leave until he helped them find the Bremen and guarantee that his crewmates hadn’t died for nothing. In exchange for bringing him with them on the jungle expedition, Bradley agreed to share his map, which turned out to be a photo of a drawing Carlos Jiménez’s cousins had sent him. Bradley’s phone had gone down with the KC, but he had backed it up to the Cloud before leaving port, so he could retrieve the picture simply by connecting to the internet.

When Murph and Eric got hold of the map, they cross-referenced it with a detailed satellite chart of the region. Within minutes, they had the supposed location of the U-boat pinpointed to a region south of the Amazon River in the Mapuá Extractive Reserve, a vast, protected rain forest that was crisscrossed by streams and supported a tiny population of native peoples. Jiménez’s cousins had lived in one of the reserve’s small riverside communities.

Juan was with Linc, Bradley, and Murph in one Zodiac, while Eddie, MacD, and Raven took the other one. All of them were armed with MP5 submachine guns except for Bradley. Despite his request for a weapon, that was one point on which Juan wouldn’t budge.

“We’ve got about four hours of daylight left to conduct our search of the jungle today,” Juan said. “Depending on how accurate that map is and how thick the jungle is, it might take several days to cover the whole area.”

“I’ll be keeping track of our search pattern,” Murph said, holding up a GPS locator. “Should keep us from getting lost and backtracking on grids we’ve already covered.”

Juan looked at Bradley. “You understand the terms of this deal, right?”

“I’m a Navy SEAL, not a baby,” Bradley grumbled.

“But when you’re with us, you’re under my protection and command. Deal?”

Bradley nodded and glanced at Linc. “I have to stay by his side at all times.”

“Well, don’t make it sound like torture,” Linc said, wiping his sweaty brow. “I don’t think I smell that bad yet.”

“In this humidity, it won’t be long,” Murph said, spraying himself with a generous dusting of DEET to ward off the rain forest’s wealth of bugs. “I wish I had something that repelled snakes.”

Linc tapped the machete on his hip. “That’s why I have this. For close encounters.”

Murph smiled at Bradley. “I’d stay by his side.”

They traveled two miles upriver to the point closest to the search area. The rest of the journey would have to be on foot.

They hauled the Zodiacs out of the river and walked into the dense forest. Trees soared high above, blocking most of the light trying to make it to the ground. In the few places where there was a gap in the canopy, the thick undergrowth was virtually impassable. Birds, frogs, and insects chirped constantly, and the sound of moving water and branches waving in the wind surrounded them. Dead leaves crunched underfoot, the remains of the dry season.

The term “dry season” was relative in this rain forest. They still had to wade through a multitude of sodden bogs and knee-deep creeks as they tramped through the jungle, guided by Murph and his GPS, which needed to be reset continually when its signal was obstructed by the foliage. Within fifteen minutes, Juan’s pants were soaked through, and his boots were caked with mud.