Клайв Касслер - Marauder

At that moment, the second terrorist came around the shed from the other direction. He must have heard the commotion and simply came to see what it was, leaving his own AK-47 behind.

Still lying down, Linda snapped off a shot with the dart gun, but the angle was odd, and her dart hit the terrorist right in the leather belt he was wearing.

The man heard the sound but didn’t realize he’d been hit. Then he saw Linda scrabbling out from beneath the pipes and sprinted toward her. She leaped to her feet just as he arrived and pinned her against the pipes.

He chopped the dart gun from her hand and pressed his forearm against her throat, cutting off her air. His hot breath on her face reeked of tobacco and curry. Linda tried to push his arm away, but the wiry man was too strong for her. It was only a matter of time before she lost consciousness.

She let go of his arm and ran her hand down his torso until she reached the belt. She grabbed the dart still jutting from the leather and yanked it out. With her vision tunneling, she jabbed the dart into the terrorist’s neck.

His eyes went wide with shock, and he pulled out the dart, but it was too late. The injection directly into the artery made the effect of the drug nearly instantaneous. He sank to his knees and keeled over.

Linda took a huge breath and looked over to see that the terrorist Eric had been fighting somehow had rolled away from him and next to the MP5. He picked up the submachine gun and was about to fire when Linda snatched the dart gun from the deck and shot him in the back.

The terrorist whirled around and tried to grab at whatever had stung him. He stared at Linda in surprise, and then his eyes rolled white as he went down in a heap.

Linda went over to Eric and held out her hand to help him up. Eric was rubbing the back of his head.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“He got me good with the butt of the AK, but I’ll be all right.” Eric looked around and saw the two terrorists lying on the deck. “Looks like you got them both. Nice shots.”

She grinned at him. “Didn’t you know Annie Oakley was my great-grandmother?”

“I almost believe that.”

“Come on. Let’s take a look at that bomb.”

They went into the shed and found the bomb situated directly under the main valve unit that the mass of pipes fed into. Linda shined her flashlight while Eric inspected it. There was an indicator with two bars blinking.

Linda clicked on her mic. “Chairman, our hostiles are down, and the bomb is right in front of us.”

“Good work. What’s the word on the bombs? Can we move them?”

Eric, who could hear Juan as well, nodded. “That’s affirmative, Chairman. I don’t see any circuits or accelerometers that would be motion activated.”

“Did you hear that, Hali?” Juan said.

“Copy that,” Hali replied. “I’ll come up with it now. Are we dumping them overboard?”

“I don’t advise that,” Eric said, picking up the bomb and putting it back in the sack that the terrorist had carried.

“Why not?” Juan asked.

“It may short-circuit as soon as it hits the water, which could put a nice big hole in the ship. The Dahar might not sink, but she could spill thousands of gallons of oil before it was brought under control.”

“Might not sink?” Linda asked.

Eric shrugged.

“Is Eric shrugging?” Juan asked.

“Yes, he is.”

“Then we need to find that third bomb and get all three of them as far away from us as possible before they explode.”

SIX

Max Hanley, the driver of the Oregon ’s submersible, grunted as he climbed out of the rear hatch. His youth serving on a Swift Boat in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta was long behind him, and exercise wasn’t really his thing, as evidenced by the generous paunch that Doc Huxley was always trying in vain to get him to reduce. Still, Max thought he was reasonably fit for a man his age, and his role as the Corporation’s President and the Oregon ’s chief engineer kept him busy.

The humidity caused sweat to bead on his brow now that he was no longer in the air-conditioned comfort of the Gator . The submersible was one of two on the Oregon . While the larger sub, Nomad, was built for deep dives, with an airlock and room for eight divers in full gear, the Gator was designed for speed and stealth. It was powered by a potent diesel engine for cruising fast on top of the water and by battery packs for operating below the surface to sneak up on ships, as they had done with the terrorists.

Max had been listening in on the comm link and heard that the third bomb had still not been found.

“Sounds like you’re getting nothing out of the others, Juan,” Max said over his molar mic as he tied the Gator to the terrorists’ boat. “Maybe our friend Tanjung here can give us some more info.”

“Tell me you’re armed, Max.”

“You worried about the old man?” Max joked. He and Juan were best friends, and together they had created the Corporation, not to mention designing and constructing both the old and the new Oregon .

“I do hear a lot of grunting. You sound like a grandfather hoisting himself out of his favorite easy chair.”

Max made sure not to make any more noise as he heaved himself over the boat’s gunwale.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a dart gun with me in case it seems like he’s starting to come out of it. And if I’d wanted cracks about the sounds I make, I’d give one of my ex-wives a call. Now, are you going to help me translate or what?”

Max went over to Tanjung, who was dozing, and nudged him with a foot until he stirred. Max had a handheld radio that was tied into the comm system and held it up to Tanjung’s face.

“Go ahead, Juan.”

Juan spoke in Arabic, and for a moment it seemed like the young terrorist wouldn’t respond. Finally, he spoke as if he’d chugged a fifth of whiskey.

“What did he say?” Max asked.

“He’s convinced that what he originally told me is correct,” Juan said.

“He seems like a newbie hired to drive the boat. Maybe he’s out of the loop.”

“Could be.”

Before they could try another question, a different voice cut in. It was Gomez Adams, the Oregon ’s expert helicopter and drone pilot and a veteran of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the U.S. Army unit known as the “Nightstalkers,” responsible for carrying Special Forces operators into combat. He was back on the Oregon providing them an eye in the sky.

“Oh, man, where did they come from?” His voice sounded both puzzled and angry, which was a bit concerning coming from someone as experienced as he was.

“What is it, Gomez?” Juan asked.

“I’ve got two guys on the deck walking toward the ladder down to the boat. They’ll be able to see over the side in less than ten seconds. Max, get under cover now.”

Max may have been fit for his age, but getting back inside the Gator that quickly wasn’t going to happen. His only choice was to duck into the boat’s tiny wheelhouse.

He retreated under its roof and heard voices above him. The terrorists obviously thought they still had the ship to themselves because they didn’t care how loud they were.

Then they fell silent.

“They’re looking over the side of the ship,” Gomez said. “They see the Gator and the man down.”

“Where are you, Juan?” Max whispered.

“On my way up to you from the pump room,” Juan answered. Max could hear him breathing hard as he ran up the stairs.

“Now they’ve got their weapons out, and one is climbing down the ladder,” Gomez narrated.

“Great,” Max muttered, pulling the dart gun from his waistband. What he hadn’t told Juan was that the weapon had just one dart in it.