Клайв Касслер - Typhoon Fury

The hull panels hiding the trio of 20mm weapons slid aside, and their six barrels whirred to life, spinning in preparation for the three thousand rounds per minute that would be fed by a belt from the mounted ammunition drum.

“Chairman, I’m not showing any of them on radar,” Murph said. “That Chinese stealth technology seems to be working. I’ll have to target them manually.”

“Mr. Stone, come ten degrees to port. That should give us the best angle to take them out.”

“Coming about,” Eric said. “Ten degrees to port, aye.”

“You may fire when ready, Gridley,” Juan said to Murph, paraphrasing Commodore Dewey’s order just before the Americans decimated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War in 1898.

“Firing.” Murph let loose a torrent of tracer shells from the starboard Gatling gun. The chain saw buzz of the weapon resounded through the Oregon ’s hull.

The first Kuyog was blown apart by the tungsten rounds. Murph kept firing as the gun swung to the next drone, and Juan could see the rounds kicking up a trail of water as they lanced their way to the target. It blew up in a satisfying gush of flame.

Murph systematically cut down the rest of the drones one by one. None of them got within a quarter mile of the Oregon .

“Good shooting, Murph,” Juan said.

Murph shrugged. “Just call me Deadeye.”

“Keep a deadeye out for more.”

“They can try again, but it’ll be a huge waste of hardware for them.”

“As the wise Mr. Solo has said, Don’t get cocky.”

“Moi?” Murph said, turning to show off the black T-shirt he was wearing. The white letters on the front read Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken .

“Glad to see I have a crew with their egos in check,” Juan said with a smile.

“If you want to see a bruised ego,” Eric said, “watch me kick his tail at chess.”

Before Murph could respond, the fishing boat came into view on the big screen, cruising along the opposite side of the islet.

Another fishing boat appeared. It looked just like the first one.

“What’s the double?” Murph said.

Then another one. And another. Soon, there were twenty similar boats on-screen, all motoring toward Negros Island eight miles to the west. Every one was the same color and model, though each had slight differences.

“Can anyone distinguish which was the one we were following?” Juan asked.

“Playing back the video,” Hali said. The recording of their chase came on the screen next to the live feed. None of them matched the recording.

“Did it disappear?” Max said, incredulous.

Juan frowned. “Locsin must have changed the configuration of his boat while it was out of sight, just like we do. It means we can’t tell which of the boats is the original since we don’t know what changed.”

“Can you disable all the boats with the Gatling guns?” Raven asked.

“Not without killing potentially innocent fishermen,” Juan said, “which is probably what Locsin is counting on. We’ll have to board them one at a time.”

“Chairman,” Hali said, “we’re being hailed. It’s Salvador Locsin. He wants to talk to us on a private channel.”

“Put it on speaker.”

Locsin’s accented but articulate voice came through with a jaunty tone. “Is this Juan Cabrillo that I’m finally speaking to after all these encounters?”

“Are you calling to surrender?” Juan said. “It’ll save us some time.”

“It’s hard to tell which boat I’m on, isn’t it? The fishermen on board the other nineteen have no idea what’s going on, of course. I was planning to use this tactic on the Philippine Navy, but I thought I’d put it to good use here. It seems to be working well.”

“Just as long as it takes us to board every fishing boat in your fleet. Odds are, we’ll get to you sooner rather than later.”

“I could simply have all the boats take off in random directions,” Locsin said. “That would slow you down.” Despite his threat, all of the boats continued on a steady pace.

The obvious boats to start with would be the ones headed to Negros since it was the closest inhabited island, but Juan didn’t mention that. “The search would take longer, but we’d find you eventually.”

“That was my conclusion, too,” Locsin said. “So I have a surprise for you. Look toward Negros Island and a little north.”

Juan nodded to Hali, who panned the camera around until it was aiming northwest. A white ship was motionless five miles away. Juan’s stomach knotted when he recognized it as a passenger ferry.

“What have you done, Locsin?”

“You have a dilemma on your hands, Captain Cabrillo. I know the type of man you are. I saw it when you rescued Dr. Ocampo and his scientists from my laboratory, despite the fact that they meant nothing to you. You can’t understand that sometimes you have to sacrifice innocents for a larger purpose.”

“Most would call it a virtue to value the lives of innocents.”

“I call it a weakness. That ferry has over twelve hundred passengers aboard. My men have killed its crew, disabled its radio, sabotaged the lifeboats, thrown all the life vests overboard, and opened the sea cocks. I estimate it will sink within the next twenty minutes. What you may not know is that many Filipinos can’t swim. Strange, for an island nation like ours, but true. Most of them will die within sight of the shore.” He paused, then said, “Unless you do something about it.”

Juan seethed at hearing Locsin so casually talk about killing men, women, and children who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. What he would do if Locsin were in the room right now . . .

“The clock is ticking, Cabrillo. I know you’ll ‘do the right thing.’ You’ve been a challenging enemy, but I have to go now.”

With a click, the line went dead.

Juan knew it was no choice at all. He couldn’t take the chance that Locsin was bluffing.

He looked at Eric and said, “Stoney, give me all available speed toward that ferry.”

55

Remembering the ruse he’d read about Locsin using to escape from the police transport boat, Juan knew they would need to tread carefully. As the Oregon raced to the sinking ferry, he had Hali send out a distress call to the Philippine Coast Guard, but he knew it might be an hour or more before help arrived. If there really were passengers on board, they would have to carry out the rescue themselves.

When the Oregon neared the ferry, which was already riding low in the water, Juan ordered Eric to come up beside it but not too close. The sight that greeted them was disturbing.

Lining the railings were hundreds of people, including a large proportion of women and children, many of them terrified and crying. There was no doubt they were civilians. Juan could not imagine the mind of someone who would put in motion the atrocity that would occur if the ferry actually went under.

“We’ll have to take Locsin’s timing at his word,” he said. “That means we have fifteen minutes before that ferry sinks. Options?”

“We can start bringing them over,” Murph said, “but the deck of the Oregon looks to be about twenty feet higher than the deck of the ferry. With twelve hundred passengers, it would take at least half an hour for the evacuation even if everything went perfectly. And we’re starting to get a lot of chop out there from the coming storm.”

With the Oregon ’s advanced stability systems, only large waves would be discernible to the crew, so Juan hadn’t noticed the swells. But the ferry was an older boat and rolling viciously and no longer under power. Many of the passengers were getting sick. Even if they could get a gangplank connected between the ships, bringing people across safely would be difficult.