Клайв Касслер - Marauder

“No,” Murph said. “Open.”

“Can’t close. Switches broken.”

“Then we can’t stop the rocket launch,” Hali said. “Not even if the Chairman gets out of the citadel.”

“Put me in touch with Juan,” Max said. “We have to let him know.”

—

In the citadel, they’d been trying to open the doors for minutes now and had made no progress. Eddie was trying to activate the manual controls that had been disabled from the bridge. Juan had his knife jammed into the crease between the fire doors that had come together at the main entrance. His efforts to pry them apart hadn’t produced even an inch of movement.

He called out to Raven, who was working on the door the mercenaries had used.

“Any luck up there?”

“Nothing so far,” she said, her voice straining as she attempted to wrench the door open. “It’s hard to get much leverage when your rib is digging into your lungs.” But she kept at it.

Juan looked at his watch. Eight minutes before midnight.

“Juan, I’ve got an update for you,” Max said in his earpiece.

“Go ahead.”

“We’ve heard from Eric.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s alive.”

“So is Linc, but they’re both paralyzed. Eric says the cargo bay doors can’t be closed again. The switches were sabotaged.”

“Is Polk still on the ship?” Juan asked.

“Linda hasn’t reported anyone leaving.”

“And Sylvia?”

“We’ve lost contact with her. Can you get out of the citadel?”

“It’s not looking good on that front.”

“Then we’re in a bit of a pickle, aren’t we?” Max said.

“Seems like it.”

Juan considered their options. Disabling the rockets wasn’t going to happen, and now they couldn’t even contain them on the ship.

The backup plan to get the antidote off the ship and have the Oregon destroy the Centaurus once they were safely away wasn’t in the cards, either.

He couldn’t have MacD and Linda board the ship. If they came onto the Centaurus , they could be killed by Polk or prevented from getting back to the Gator . Then there would be no way to stop the rockets and their payload of Enervum from devastating Sydney.

That left only one choice. Eddie brought up what Juan was thinking.

“How long do you think it will take for the Centaurus to sink?” Eddie asked.

“The rail gun shells travel at seven times the speed of sound. With that kind of kinetic energy against an unarmored ship, the rounds will probably rip through the side and down through the keel. With four or five well-placed shots, I bet she’d go down in five minutes or less.”

Eddie nodded slowly and looked at his watch. “Seven minutes to go.”

Juan looked up the stairs. “Raven, any chance that door is going to open?”

She shook her head. “Not without an RPG.”

Juan leaned back as he thought about what he needed to do. That’s when he noticed the ventilation hatch thirty feet above them. There was no way to climb up to it even if they could detach the steel cable locking it down.

But there was one other way to get to it.

“We’re running out of time,” Eddie said. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ve got an idea, but it’s risky.”

Eddie shrugged. “I prefer your risky ideas to no ideas.”

Everyone in the crew knew what they’d signed up for when they joined the Corporation. They had lost crew members in the past, and their names were memorialized on a plaque in the ship’s boardroom as a reminder of what they’d sacrificed for the ship, their crewmates, and the greater good. Juan knew there was a very good chance their names would be added to the plaque if this didn’t work, but he didn’t see any other way.

“Max, you know how you don’t like my Plan Cs?”

“Yeah,” Max said dubiously. “They’re usually insanely dangerous.”

“I’ve got another one now. You’re going to hate it.”

“Why?”

“Ask Murph what will happen if the Centaurus is underwater when the rockets launch without the cargo bay doors closed to stop them.”

Max relayed the question. A few seconds later, he came back with, “He says the overpressure from the water in the tubes will cause them to explode as they launch.”

“Then it looks like we have our answer.”

“No,” Max said when he understood what Juan was planning to do. “There’s got to be another way.”

“Afraid not,” Juan said. “In fact, it’s our only chance to escape. You have to sink the Centaurus immediately. That’s a direct order.”

SEVENTY-TWO

The Oregon ’s op center was deathly quiet. Max could feel Hali and Murph staring at him. He was focused on the main screen showing the feed from the Port Authority camera showing the Centaurus in the distance. He couldn’t help but picture Juan and the others trapped in the depths of the ship awaiting their doom.

This was not the way Max had imagined the ship’s maiden voyage would go. When they’d departed unexpectedly early from the construction yard in Malaysia, it was just supposed to be a quick mission to stop a terrorist attack. Now he feared he was about to kill his best friend.

“Are we really going to sink the ship with everyone still on board?” Hali asked.

“You heard Juan’s order,” Max said. He tried to sound reassuring. “Don’t worry. He’s not giving up. Neither should we.”

“I know Sylvia is alive,” Murph said. He didn’t have to mention that his own best friend, Eric, would also go down with the Centaurus .

“Juan will do his best to find Sylvia and get Eric and Linc out of there. Are you going to be able to do this?”

“Yes. Sylvia would do the same to save the city.”

“Raise the rail gun,” Max said. “Hali, get me MacD.”

“Rail gun ready in all respects,” Murph said.

The image on the view screen changed. The Centaurus now much larger, with the camera panning slowly from bow to stern.

“Are you getting the picture?” MacD asked.

“We see it,” Max replied. “Murph has the rail gun armed and ready to fire.”

“What is the target?”

“The waterline,” Murph said. “Not the open cargo holds.”

“Remember,” Max said, “we want to sink the ship, not ignite the rockets. We’ll fire five rounds. That should put her under quickly.”

“I’ll target three in the bow and two in the stern,” MacD said.

The image slewed around to the bow. A green dot appeared on the screen. It was centered under the name CENTAURUS stenciled on the bow.

Max waited for Murph to confirm that the ship’s computer had automatically calculated the proper firing solution for the round.

He remained silent. Max could see that his chest was heaving.

“Mark,” he said. “We need to do this.”

Murph finally said, “Target acquired.”

“Fire.”

The Oregon shuddered as the rail gun launched its tungsten shell.

“Round one away,” Murph said. “Loading round two.”

—

Linda had repositioned the Gator another hundred yards away from the Centaurus . MacD was standing in the hatch with his eyes focused through the laser designator.

With the Oregon seven miles out to sea it would take five seconds for the hypersonic round to reach the target. The shell was unguided, so it was on a ballistic trajectory. MacD didn’t have to activate the laser again until he was selecting the next target.

Unlike in the movies, there was no high-pitched whistle to announce the incoming round. As if out of nowhere, a gaping hole was torn in the bow of the Centaurus . There was no explosive in the shell. It was purely a solid hunk of metal. The kinetic energy of the round did all the damage. Water poured through the black maw.