Клайв Касслер - Typhoon Fury

When he was out of his cabin, Murph spent much of his time with the Oregon ’s vast array of hidden weaponry. The welded plates on the side of the hull could drop away to reveal 20mm Gatling guns modeled on the ones aircraft carriers used for antimissile defense, and clamshell doors in the bow opened for a 120mm cannon like those mounted on Abrams tanks. A Metal Storm hundred-barrel gun could rise out of the stern to fire tungsten projectiles at the fantastic rate of a million rounds a minute. Six of the leaky oil drums on deck held .30 caliber machine guns that would pop up to fend off boarders and were remotely manned from the operations center. A closed-circuit camera system gave expansive views of the ship itself and anything around it out to the horizon.

Defensive capabilities also included surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles, Exocet antiship missiles, and the latest Russian torpedoes, all purchased on the black market so they couldn’t be traced back to the U.S. Someday Murph hoped to add antimissile lasers and electromagnetic railguns to the arsenal after a previous mission had shown him up close how powerful they could be in battle.

In addition to the Magic Shop, which contained racks of clothing, various props, and a makeup department that would make a movie studio envious, the ship had a waterline boat garage for handling all types of small vessels, including wet bikes, Zodiacs, and her RHIB—short for “rigid-hulled inflatable boat,” the same kind Navy SEALs took into combat. The center of the Oregon contained the moon pool, the largest single space on the ship. The pool in the cavernous room had a water level equalized with the sea level outside and was used to launch underwater missions through massive keel doors—anything from scuba divers to its pair of submarines.

Of the five deep cargo holds in the Oregon , two of the forward holds had been modified to house the crew quarters, and one of the rear holds housed a hangar with the ship’s MD 520N helicopter that rose up on a platform for takeoff. Those three had been cleverly covered by false roofs of crates and containers to fool anyone looking down on them from the deck into thinking that the holds were full of cargo.

The other two holds, which could be serviced by the two working cranes on deck, often carried actual freight to throw off inspectors. But today the forward hold carried a secret cargo, which was Murph’s destination.

He opened the hatch to the hold, and instead of timber or containers, he was met by row upon row of server racks surrounding a massive computer that took up fully half the space. A giant refrigeration unit cooled the hold so that the electronics didn’t overheat in the sweltering tropical environment.

Three workstations were occupied by two men and a woman, all on loan from the National Security Agency. When the offer to sell the flash drive was made by the Ghost Dragons, Langston Overholt IV, Juan Cabrillo’s venerable CIA mentor who had been instrumental in encouraging Juan to build the Oregon and had assigned most of the Corporation’s missions from the government agency, had seen the potential for an opportunity that might never present itself again.

He knew that the Oregon had been operating in Southeast Asia hunting down pirates targeting American containerships and quickly got agreement from the NSA chief to provide the equipment they’d need for a special mission. Fort Meade’s newest cryptographic supercomputer, one of the few in the world that could break the Chinese code, was loaded onto a C-5 Galaxy cargo jet and flown to Guam, where it was transferred to the Oregon .

Not only did the Oregon have enough space to hold the computer, she had a revolutionary engine that could supply its huge power requirements. Instead of the original diesels, the Oregon was powered by a pair of magnetohydrodynamic engines that used magnets cooled by liquid helium to strip free electrons from the seawater. Four pulse jets forced water through Venturi tubes to propel her to speeds that shouldn’t have been possible on a ship her size, and the vector nozzles on the jets made her as agile as a jackrabbit.

“Here it is,” Murph said to Abby Yamada, a slender woman in her forties who was the NSA’s chief cryptanalyst on the mission. He removed the flash drive from the drone and handed it to her. He looked at his watch and added, “You’ve got six minutes fifteen seconds.”

“Thanks,” she said, inserting it into the USB port. “Let’s get this done.”

Since Murph had a top secret clearance, they allowed him to stay while they worked. English was the universal coding language, so he could understand most of what they were doing. He watched in curiosity as they attempted to hack into the drive without erasing it, but he would have much rather been doing it himself. He wasn’t used to being a bystander on his own ship.

A minute into the job, one of her colleagues said, “I’ve got a serious problem here.”

“What is it?” Yamada asked as she continued to type.

“When I was hacking into the code, I somehow activated a timer.”

All heads turned toward him. He looked ashen.

Murph went over to his terminal and saw that the drive was asking for a password. If the correct one wasn’t input within three minutes, the drive would erase itself and the entire mission would be for nothing.

10

Memories churned to the surface for Max Hanley as Vietnam’s coast passed by on the huge screen in front of him. He had served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War on Swift Boats patrolling the coastline and the Mekong Delta, sweating through every square inch of his uniform and swatting at the incessant mosquitoes as he and his fellow sailors waited for the ambushes they knew would come. His crewmates were some of the best men he’d ever known. Many of them had been killed or gone missing. He almost joined them when his boat was destroyed and he was captured. He spent six months in a POW camp before escaping.

Now, more than forty years later—with twenty extra pounds at his belly and a ring of ginger circling his chrome dome where a full head of hair used to be—it was hard to believe he was sitting in air-conditioned comfort as he watched another battle unfold on the same soil. The operations center was the heart of the Oregon . Located directly below the window-dressing bridge in the superstructure, virtually every function of the ship could be handled from this one room through a new Cray supercomputer. Max noted with pride that the Oregon ’s computer nearly matched the sophistication of the NSA’s, if not its raw computing power.

With its banks of touch screen workstations and a massive high-definition screen that dominated the front of the room, the op center resembled a futuristic bridge straight out of Star Trek , so much so that the large seat at the center of the room where Max sat had been dubbed the “Kirk Chair” by Mark Murphy and Eric Stone. The Oregon could even be operated from controls in the chair’s arms, if the need arose. As chief engineer, Max would normally be at his engineering station at the back, but with Juan away on the mission, the Corporation’s vice president was in command of the ship.

Linda Ross, a Navy vet and the Corporation’s vice president of operations, sat at the helm, which was usually Eric’s station. Except for Juan, Eric was the Oregon ’s best ship handler, but Linda wasn’t far behind them.

“I’ve got a fishing boat right in our path a mile ahead,” she said, pointing at the screen. Her pixie-high voice matched her petite figure, elfin features, and upturned nose, but having served as an officer aboard an Aegis cruiser, she spoke with authority. Known for updating her hair color and style regularly, she had recently grown out her dark tresses and tinged them with eggplant highlights. “Shall I adjust course toward the coast?”