Клайв Касслер - Marauder

She tried to look for any distinguishing markings, but the ship had no name stenciled on its hull, and it flew no flag. The only distinctive item she noticed was when four men were gingerly carrying a large plastic crate marked with a logo. It was a white A and a B layered stylistically one over the other and backed by a starburst pattern. The men seemed wary of its contents.

She couldn’t tell what country they might hail from. Two of them were talking, and she recognized right away that they were speaking in Mandarin. While her mother was of Irish descent, her father was originally from Shanghai. Sylvia had been born and raised in Northern California and understood a few Chinese words thanks to her dad, but the language was unmistakable.

The men were looking over the railings, searching for something in the water. Then one of the men pointed and shouted before firing an assault rifle into the sea.

An Asian woman in her thirties ran out onto the deck and ordered the man to stop firing. A white man the same age raced after her.

“What happened?” he asked in an Australian accent as the Chinese man slunk away in embarrassment.

The woman switched to English. “The lookout thought he’d spotted a survivor and shot at them. I told him we need to make this look like an accident.”

“Was it a person?”

“No, thankfully. Just a piece of wreckage. Nobody has spotted a real survivor yet. Looks like the cannon did its job.”

The white man looked toward the Empiric . “What about that ship?”

“It looks like the Enervum works just like we thought it would, but we’ll make sure before we leave. They had no idea the real experiment today would be ours.” She chuckled at that, which made Sylvia sick, reminding her of Kelly and all the others who had died on the Namaka . Her mind flashed to an image of Mark Murphy on the Empiric , and she agonized over his fate.

The man on the trimaran scanned the water and stopped to peer at the drone. Sylvia ducked behind it.

“What is it?” the Asian woman asked.

“That drone. I think we should sink it.” Sylvia heard the snapping of a bolt on an assault rifle. She prepared to dive under, but she saw no other place to hide once she came back up to the surface.

“No. Accident, remember? Leave it there. It’ll just make what happened here even more mysterious.”

A few moments later, the trimaran’s engines powered up, and it headed to the Empiric a mile away. Sylvia watched several figures board the Australian vessel, but they didn’t stay long. A few minutes later, they returned to the trimaran. It sailed off in the direction of Darwin.

The fact that they left the Empiric intact gave Sylvia an uneasy sense of foreboding. But she was glad it was still there, since it was the only ship visible on the horizon.

Sylvia left the security of the floating drone and began the long swim toward the Empiric , petrified about what she would find when she got there.

ELEVEN

BALI

Eddie Seng, the Oregon ’s Director of Shore Operations and a former CIA officer like Juan, sat in the front seat and watched the van with Raven inside. From the SUV’s parking space a hundred yards away, Eddie could see Sinduk and the four men with him milling about the van as they waited for her to change clothes.

“Should we take them out here?” Raven whispered.

“No,” Eddie replied. “Since they’re not armed right now, there have to be more of them inside with the bombs or weapons. I contacted the State Department, but the Senators’ families don’t have a security detail in the park, just a guard in the car that dropped them off. All the focus is on the conference center downtown. If we call in a threat to the park, an evacuation might cause one of Sinduk’s other cells to carry out their plan immediately.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“MacD has already gone in. He’ll be keeping an eye on you. Linc and I will follow you in.”

Sinduk banged on the van door and shouted something.

Raven’s voice became even quieter. “I’ve got to go.”

“One of us will have you in sight the whole time. Be ready for anything.”

“Copy that.”

The van’s door opened, and she stepped out wearing a bikini sport top, a sarong around her waist, and flip-flops. The terrorists openly ogled her tall, fit frame.

She said something in Arabic, and Eddie noticed a couple of them back away from her. She probably warned them what she could do with that knife they gave her.

As the six of them walked toward the park, Franklin “Linc” Lincoln appeared at the SUV’s window. Like Eddie, he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, which wouldn’t help them blend in, but they had nothing else in the vehicle to change into. Their attire was where the similarities between the friends ended. Eddie, who grew up in New York’s Chinatown, was wiry and lean from his martial arts training, much of it done these days sparring with Raven. Linc, on the other hand, was built like The Rock’s more muscular cousin and hailed from inner-city Detroit. He came to the attention of the Corporation because of his legendary exploits in the Navy SEALs as a deadly sniper.

Linc was grinning as he held two wristbands.

“Where’d you snag those?” Eddie asked as he got out.

“A couple of teenagers decided to make a quick buck by selling them to me at a steep markup,” Linc answered. “Now we don’t have to wait in line.”

“You’re full of good ideas.”

“Full of something, all right. Were you able to get in touch with the Senators’ families?”

Eddie shook his head. “They put their phones in a locker. Understandable in a waterpark.”

According to their intel, Senator Gunther Schmidt of Iowa and Senator Maria Muñoz from Florida were attending the summit. Emily Schmidt and teenage son Kyle were enjoying the free day at Ocean Land with Oliver Muñoz and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Elena.

“How do we find them? It’s a big place.”

“We may have to let Sinduk lead us to them.”

They walked to the entrance next to a family so they wouldn’t be conspicuous. Sinduk and his men checked their surroundings frequently, but Eddie and Linc studiously kept their eyes off their target. The terrorists took Raven through the bag check and metal detectors without incident.

Before Eddie went through security with Linc, he briefly looked out to sea. A fishing boat was the only vessel he saw, but he knew the Oregon was hiding on the back side of the island, which felt reassuring. He hadn’t seen the ship since a walk-through when it was still being built in the dry dock, so he’d never gotten a full view of it. He was eager to finish this mission and get properly acquainted with his new home.

First, however, his team had to live through the rest of the afternoon, and they had to do it unarmed.

He and Linc scanned their wristbands in the security line and entered the park, staying at least thirty feet behind Raven and Sinduk. MacD was nowhere to be seen.

“MacD, you there?” Eddie said into his molar mic.

“Ah have eyes on you and Raven,” MacD replied. “Just let me know when to move.”

“Will do.”

The main promenade was jammed with tourists, most of them in swimwear, some of them carrying towels and bags. Staff wore distinctive yellow polo shirts and shorts, and cheerful music blared over the loudspeakers to mix with the screams and shouts echoing from the numerous rides. Everything smelled of chlorine and suntan lotion.

In the distance at the end of the broad walkway was the park’s premier attraction, the Crazy Eights waterslide. The ten-story-tall octopus-themed ride had a wide central staircase around which eight tubular slides painted like blue tentacles snaked and coiled, leaving riders unsure where they would come out, which was part of the fun.