Клайв Касслер - Typhoon Fury

“Yes,” Max said. “I don’t want to get any farther away from the train than we have to. Give the fishing boat a wide berth, but once we’re past them, get us back to our original distance.”

“Changing course,” she said, and deftly moved the Oregon to its new heading.

“Max, I just got a call from Murph,” said Hali Kasim, the ship’s Lebanese-American communications specialist. He lowered the old-fashioned headset he preferred, but his mop of crushed hair didn’t move. “He says they’ve got a problem down in the hold. He’s on his way back up here.”

“Did he say what kind of problem?”

“No. He sounded out of breath, like he was running.”

“What’s going on with Juan?”

“They’ve run into resistance from the back of the train, but they’re taking care of that. He said they’ve moved on to Plan C.”

“Already? I didn’t even know we’d tried Plan B. Did he say what Plan C was ?”

Hali shrugged. “Sorry.”

Max peered up at the screen and saw someone hanging from the door at the rear of the train’s seventh car on the side away from the Oregon . From the size of the man, he guessed it was Linc doing something with the train coupling.

“I can’t tell what he’s doing. Gomez, can you zoom in any closer on the train?”

Seated next to Hali was George “Gomez” Adams, their resident drone and helicopter pilot. Dressed in a flight suit in case his services were needed in the air, his matinee idol looks rivaled MacD’s. The main difference was that Gomez sported the handlebar mustache of a Wild West gunfighter. The nickname stuck after he had an illicit liaison with a drug lord’s wife who was a dead ringer for Morticia Addams, the matriarch on the sixties television show The Addams Family .

“It’s already zoomed in as far as it’ll go,” Gomez said, “but I can fly Drone Two closer.”

“Not too close. We don’t want to take the chance that it will be seen from the train.”

“No problem. I’ll keep it between the train and the sun.”

As Gomez flew the observation drone in for a closer look, Murph burst into the op center, panting from the run. He took his seat at the weapons control station next to the helm and began to furiously type on his keyboard.

“What’s going on?” Max asked.

“One of the NSA guys triggered a password entry screen on the flash drive,” Murph said breathlessly while his fingers continued to fly. “If we don’t get the right one, the flash drive will erase itself. Even with that monstrosity in the hold, they’ll never crack it in time.”

“How long do they have?”

“Two minutes.”

“You mean we’re going to lose the data?”

“Not if I can help it. Hali, get the NSA team on the line.”

Hali tapped on his workstation. “On speaker.”

Max had the urge to ask what Murph was doing, but he didn’t want to be a distraction. If Murph thought he had a solution, Max trusted him.

With a flourish, Murph finished typing. “Done! Abby, the link is established.”

From the hold, Abby Yamada said, “Thanks. We’ve nearly doubled the processing speed. It’s cranking through the possibilities now.”

“Okay,” Murph said. “Let me know if it works.”

“What did you do?” Max asked.

Murph swiveled in his chair to face him. “When we installed their supercomputer in the hold, we added some compatibility software to our Cray so we could test the linkage to our power system. With the connection already made, I just had to hand over control of our computer to theirs so they could draw on its power to crack the password.”

“Will that affect our systems?” Linda asked.

“Nothing vital,” he said with a grin, “but the Internet may be slow if you’re looking to download any videos.”

Max leaned forward. “How will this affect the time to decipher the data?”

“Hard to say. But the minutes we’ve spent cracking the password are delaying the data decryption.”

“Then we might not have as much time as we thought.” Max looked at Linda. “We’ll have to chance them seeing us. Take us within three-quarters of a mile of the coast.”

“Aye, aye,” she said, an old Navy habit, and the Oregon edged closer to the coast.

The plan for the mission wasn’t to steal the flash drive. The goal was to download the data on it and get it back to the Chinese without them knowing it had been read. Learning the identities of the undercover MSS agents operating in the U.S. would be a major intelligence coup, but if the Chinese knew their agents were compromised, they’d pull them out or shut them down. The few that were captured and interrogated might reveal some useful information, but the real value would be lost. The Chinese would send in new agents, and the cat-and-mouse game would start all over.

But if they could return the flash drive without them knowing it had been read, the Chinese would think the identities of their agents were secure. Then the NSA, FBI, and CIA could not only track their movements and conversations but could feed false information to the Chinese for years. It was a dream scenario for U.S. intelligence, which was the reason for the highly risky, off-the-books operation.

While they waited for news from the NSA people, Gomez was able to get the observation drone close enough to see Linc’s distinctive form clamping something onto a hose linking the seventh car to the one behind it. Max could see flashes of gunfire coming from the eighth car. The train was approaching yet another tunnel.

“Put Juan on speaker,” Max said.

“You’ve got him,” Hali said.

The sound of gunshots came through the speakers.

“Everybody okay?” Max asked.

“No casualties,” Juan replied, “but we’re trying to even the odds a little.”

“I can see Linc working on Plan C.”

“We’re about to say good-bye to three of the MSS agents.”

“Anything we can do to help?”

“Let us know if there’s anyone hanging out a window.”

“You got it.”

On-screen, MacD leaned out and handed a gray block to Linc, who stretched his long arms and mashed it against the coupling. He pulled himself back in and gave a thumbs-up before he disappeared from view.

“Fire in the hole!” Juan shouted.

The coupling disintegrated in a ball of flame. As the train entered the tunnel, the accordion windscreens between the two cars ripped apart as they pulled away from each other. Then they were gone into the darkness.

Static came on the line.

“The tunnel’s blocking their signal,” Hali said.

Gomez gunned the drone and flew it to the other end of the tunnel.

Max kept his eyes on the screen. When the train emerged, it was missing two cars.

“They’ll be stuck in there,” Juan said when the static disappeared. “The air brakes kicked in as soon as Linc severed the line. And if we’re lucky, their radio won’t work in the tunnel, so their comrades up front won’t notice they’re gone.”

“Nice work for a Plan C.”

“It’s not over yet. How’s the decryption coming?”

“We’ve hit a snag there,” Max said. “Long story, but we’re working on it.”

“That doesn’t sound hopeful.”

Murph, who had gone over to Hali’s station and picked up a spare headset, looked at Max and said, “Got some good news on that score.”

“They cracked the password?”

Murph nodded. “With about twenty seconds to spare. Now do you want the bad news?”

Max frowned. “What?”

“The data is going to take longer than they thought to decrypt, even with the Oregon ’s computer helping.”

“How long?”

“They estimate that it won’t be done until two minutes before Juan and the others reach the extraction point at the river.”