Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Gamay nodded, sat back down, and switched the light off. “So much for Duke’s piña colada. And our quick ride back into the sunlight.”

“It’s worse than that,” Elena said. “There are two of us in here. And we just vented all our spare air. By my calculations, we have less than two hours left.”

In a darkened room, very similar to the Condor’s control center, Sebastian Brèvard stared at the pair of flat-screen monitors in front of him. He grinned almost manaically in the cold computer light as Calista tapped away at the keyboard.

She looked up. “I’m afraid both links are dead, dear brother.”

“Yes, I can see that,” he said. “We’re receiving nothing from either the NUMA sub or the Condor.”

They’d just watched in living color—via NUMA’s own cameras—as a virus of Calista’s design unleashed chaos in the NUMA operation. By hacking a simple navigation update, they’d downloaded viruses on both the Condor and the Scarab. Those programs turned control of the computerized vessels over to a remote location—in this case, the Brèvard lair.

Only Scarab One had been immune, because its design was older and less automated.

With the skill of a hunter, Calista had used the controls at her fingertips to turn one of the NUMA submersibles into a killer, seeking out the other and smashing it against the hull of the wreck. Last she’d seen, they were locked in a death struggle with each other. Then all had gone dark.

“Well, you’ve gotten what you wanted,” she said. “They’ve discovered the missing survival pod. They’ll know the truth about the Ethernet ’s sinking before too long.”

“About time,” her brother said. “I was beginning to think they’d never go look for it.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have edited the sonar scan to show the vessel in ruins.”

“It was necessary,” Brèvard said dismissively. “Once Austin began to recover, he immediately started looking into it. He would have made a dive there months ago if we didn’t trick him. And that would have thrown our whole timetable off.”

Her brother and his timetables. Everything had to be so complicated. “Won’t they go after Westgate now?”

“Not right away. It will only ratchet up the suspicion. They will begin to investigate from afar. Hoping not to alert him.”

“And then?”

“And then we will prod them along with another clue at the appropriate time.”

One step at a time, she thought. But there was a problem. “We have to assume they know they’ve been hacked, at this point.”

“I would hope so,” he said. “We need them to understand just how vulnerable they are. It will get the gears turning in the minds of the powerful. It will begin the chemical reaction that leads to doubt and confusion, it will create a hidden sense of panic and a need to do something about it. Anything. That’s how they work. Action. Reaction. They will not sit still.” “You’re planting a seed,” she said.

He nodded. “One that will lead to the flowering of our plan.”

She pushed out from the console, leaned back in her chair, and put her feet up on the desk. Thigh-high boots with stiletto heels landed on the desktop, clipping the keyboard.

“I wish you would be careful,” he said.

She ignored him as usual.

“Now what,” she said.

“Acosta is going to trade the hackers to the Korean,” he said. “You and Egan are to take a group of the men and make contact with him. If you can bargain for them, then bargain. If not, let the deal go down and swoop in. Most likely, they will lead you right to Sienna Westgate. Bring her back so we can finish this.”

Paul Trout stood on the deck and watched as the Condor’s captain was airlifted in the ship’s helicopter. The same one that Kurt and Joe had been in when they’d discovered the Ethernet sinking three months before.

The captain objected to leaving, but the ship’s doctor confirmed that a major artery had been nicked in his leg. He was lucky not to have bled out and he needed surgery quickly.

Having lost so much blood, the captain was too weak to argue. “Take care of my ship,” he’d said to Paul as they’d loaded him on board.

As the helicopter disappeared toward the west, the Condor’s chief came up to Paul. “I guess you’re in command now.”

“Lucky me,” Paul said. “What’s our condition?”

“All systems are off-line,” he said. “We’re dead in the water.”