Клайв Касслер - Marauder

“Tanjung,” the man coming down called out softly. “Tanjung.”

The last thing Max wanted was for the terrorist to spray the boat with assault rifle fire. The second-to-last thing he wanted was for the man to take a pot shot at the Gator and put holes in it.

“Gomez,” Max said. “I could use a distraction.”

“One distraction, coming down,” Gomez said.

A couple of seconds later, Max heard a sound like an angry hornet approaching. The whine of the quadcopter’s propellers was intended to be confusing to the terrorist, which was exactly what Max needed.

The drone whizzed by, which was followed by a surprised yelp.

“I think I’ve got his attention,” Gomez said.

Max peeked out and saw the terrorist twenty feet above him holding out his AK-47 to try to get a bead on the flying menace. Max aimed the dart gun and fired.

The dart hit the terrorist in the backside, causing him to swat at what he might have thought was a hornet’s stinger. A moment later, his grasp on the ladder loosened, and he let go of the rung, falling the two stories onto the boat’s deck.

Knowing that the man at the railing wouldn’t take long to react to the strange events, Max scrambled over to the fallen man and picked up the AK-47. He pointed it up in time to see the terrorist above him swoon and fall back from the railing.

Juan peered over the side and smiled at Max.

“I see you’ve been making yourself useful,” he said.

“All in a day’s work,” Max replied.

“That’s seven of eight. One more hijacker unaccounted for. It must be Kersen. And he has the detonator.”

Juan disappeared. Max heard him talking in Arabic to the man he had felled.

After a pause, Juan said, “He doesn’t know where Kersen is, but he says the last bomb is inside the main pumping junction not far from here. They must have already been inside when we came on board.”

“Not to be a nervous Nellie,” Hali said, “but my bomb just ticked down to one blinking bar.”

“Ours, too,” Eric said. “Based on the time since the previous bar disappeared, I’d say we’ve got three minutes left before they blow.”

SEVEN

Hali dashed out of the Dahar ’s superstructure with a duffel bag in hand and stopped in front of Juan out of breath.

“Where should I put this?” Hali asked.

Before Juan could answer, Gomez called out, “Movement on the bridge wing.”

Juan looked up to see the final terrorist gaping at them from above. The mangled skin on the left side of his head identified him as Kersen, the leader of the terrorists.

The one with the detonator.

The distance was too far to use the dart gun. Juan snatched the submachine gun from his shoulder at the same time that Kersen fired his AK-47. Juan rolled across the deck, the bullets ricocheting behind him, and popped up to his knees to take aim, but the terrorist was already gone.

“He’s left the bridge,” Gomez said.

Juan sprinted toward the superstructure. “I’ll bet he’s heading for the free-fall lifeboat. As soon as he’s at a safe distance, he’ll blow the bombs with the remote detonator.” If Kersen had been planning a suicide mission, he would have blown them already. “Hali, find the last bomb in the pumping junction and make sure all three get off the ship.”

“Aye, Chairman.”

Juan flung the door open and ran inside to the stairs, the emergency arrows pointing the way to the lifeboat station on the stern of the ship.

He burst through the exterior door and emerged onto the gantry in time to see Kersen jump into the orange lifeboat and yank the hatch shut behind him.

Juan stopped to aim his submachine gun, but the lifeboat was already sliding down the rails by the time he got any shots off. The bullets hit the polycarbonate windows but did nothing more than crack them. Kersen stared at him with dead eyes and then went out of view as the lifeboat dropped into the water.

Juan went to the railing and saw the bullet-shaped boat surface after its brief plunge and begin motoring away. A short distance away was a derelict freighter hugging the shoreline of an Indonesian island. Kersen had no time to wonder where the ship had come from.

Juan keyed his molar mic. “ Oregon , you are weapons-free. Destroy that lifeboat.”

“Weapons-free, aye,” came the reply.

A round housing slid down from the top of the ship’s forward mast, revealing a nasty-looking two-barreled Gatling gun called a Kashtan combat module. The Russian weapon’s dual rotary cannons could fire 30mm explosive tungsten-tipped ammunition at a rate of ten thousand rounds per minute.

The twin Kashtan guns spun to life and swung around to aim at the lifeboat. Bright tracers lanced from them as the weapon system unleashed a torrent of fire, piercing the air with the sound of a giant buzz saw. The lifeboat was chewed to pieces, along with Kersen and the detonator. Within a second, it was nothing more than a burning hulk.

“All clear, Oregon ,” Juan said, a jolt shooting down his spine as he saw his ship on the high seas for the first time.

Juan gazed at the tired vessel, knowing it was covered with a special metamaterial camouflage paint. Even though he knew what was coming, Juan was still in awe as an electrical charge was applied to the Oregon’ s skin so it would change color. He watched as the rusty vessel changed appearance into a sparkling deep blue cargo ship with a white superstructure and black smokestack on the stern. She was less than a mile away off the Dahar ’s starboard stern.

Juan had never viewed the new and improved Oregon from a distance because she had been boxed up in a covered dry dock during construction. He’d been waiting a long time for this moment, and he swelled with pride now that he could take her in from bow to stern.

The 590-foot-long break bulk ship, designed to carry any kind of cargo in containers, boxes, crates, or barrels, was equipped with four cranes on the deck. Each of the two pairs of cranes had their booms turned toward the opposite tower and secured together to form the crossbar of an H. The Kashtan gun was situated on top of the forward crane’s tower. A sleeve rose back up to conceal it. No one seeing the ship would ever know that the Gatling gun was one of the many surprises hidden behind the ordinary-looking façade.

An object the size of a dishwasher took off from her deck amidships. It shot into the air and flew toward the Dahar . It was the Oregon ’s cargo air drone, an octocopter that could lift up to one hundred pounds with its retractable claw.

Juan wrested his eyes away from the ship and headed back to the bridge.

“Status, Hali,” Juan said.

“Gomez has the CAD on the way. All three bombs are ready for pickup. One minute left on the timers.”

Juan reached the bridge at the same time the CAD swooped over the Dahar . The drone came to a stop over the bow, and Juan watched as it descended until Linda could latch her duffel onto the vehicle’s claw.

As soon as it was secure, the octocopter leaped into the air and flew to Hali’s position.

The drone hovered over Hali just a few yards from Juan, its blades wailing like banshees. Hali hooked up his duffel to the claw and backed away.

“Go, go, go,” Hali yelled.

“I’m out of there,” Gomez answered.

The CAD shot into the sky and out over the water away from both the Oregon and the Dahar .

Juan watched it fly toward the horizon and silently counted down in his head. Finally, Gomez said, “A thousand yards out.”

“That’s good enough,” Juan said. “Get rid of them.”

“Bombs away.”

A speck dropped from the CAD, which sped off. As the package hit the sea, a bright flash erupted, throwing a huge geyser of water into the air. Three seconds later came a thunderclap that rattled the ship.