Clive Cussler - Plague Ship

“How do you know it didn’t work?” Eric asked Juan.

“Because one of my first Black Ops for the agency was to infiltrate the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where it was being launched on an Energia rocket, and disable it. I rigged it so the satellite couldn’t receive a signal from the ground because of earth’s magnetic field. It will only react if the order comes from above the atmosphere.”

“Why not just blow it up on the pad?”

“It was a manned mission. Two cosmonauts went up with it to manually deploy its solar panels. It was three days into the mission before they discovered the bird had been sabotaged.” Hali asked, “They couldn’t just boost a ground signal?”

“It would have fried the electronics.”

“Couldn’t they have sent a signal from Mir , their space station?”

“They knew the jig was up, so they left it floating around up there in a polar orbit.”

“Do you think it still works?” Eric asked.

“Unless it’s been hit by space debris, it should work perfectly.” Cabrillo was warming to the idea.

“Okay, hotshot, you found us an alternative to a nuke. How do you propose we get a transmitter sixty miles into space so we can commandeer the satellite?”

“If you can get me the codes from Ivan Kerikov”—Stone typed again and brought up yet another picture—“I’ll get it up there using this.”

Juan and the others stared slack-jawed for a moment at the audacity of the plan. Cabrillo finally found his voice. “Eric, you got yourself a deal. I’ll call Overholt to arrange your transport. Eddie and Linc, come up with a plan to get those codes from the Russian arms dealer tonight. Then, we leave port.”

“You still want to head to Eos Island? Eddie asked.

“I’m not abandoning Max.”

CHAPTER 30

LOOKING AT HIS REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR, JUAN couldn’t tell where his face ended and Kevin Nixon’s makeup began. He glanced at the enlarged pictures that Kevin had taped to the mirror as a guide and then at his face again. It was a perfect match. The wig he wore was the exact shade, and the style was the same as well.

“Kevin, you’ve outdone yourself,” Juan said, and plucked away the paper collar Kevin had put around his throat to protect the tuxedo shirt he was sporting.

“Making you look like Arab terrorist Ibn al-Asim is nothing. If you’d asked me to make you look like one of their floozies, then you can call me a miracle worker.” Juan deftly tied his bow tie and shrugged his broad shoulders into a white dinner jacket. While nearly every man looks good in a tux, Cabrillo pulled it off with extra aplomb, even with the padding around his middle that filled out his physique to match al-Asim’s. It didn’t hurt that their surveillance showed the terrorist financier favored Armani. He had a flat holster at the base of his spine for his preferred weapon, the FN, Five-seveN, automatic pistol.

“You look like James Bond with a paunch,” Mike Trono said from across Kevin’s cluttered workroom.

In his best Sean Connery brogue, Juan shot back, “The janitorial staff is to be seen and not heard.” Mike and Jerry Pulaski were wearing uniforms that matched the janitorial staff of the world-renowned Casino de Monte Carlo, having gotten the designs during a brief afternoon reconnoiter. Kevin and his staff kept hundreds of uniforms, everything from a Russian general to a New Delhi traffic cop to a Parisian zookeeper, so it took them only a few minutes to modify a standard jumpsuit to the style they wanted.

Mike and Jerry carried a heavy-duty trash can on rollers, as well as a rolling mop bucket, and a plastic sign warning SLIPPERY FLOOR.

The chief steward appeared at the doorway, silent and unobtrusive as always. He wore a crisp white apron over his suit. There was a debate among the crew as to whether he changed aprons before leaving the pantry or simply never spilled anything on himself. The odds favored the latter by a huge margin. He held a sealed plastic container in one hand like it was loaded with live snakes, and his face was cleaved by a deep frown.

“For Pete’s sake, Maurice,” Juan teased, “it’s not the real stuff.”

“Captain, I made it, so it is real enough.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Maurice set the container on Kevin’s makeup counter and stepped back, steadfastly refusing to remove the lid. Juan pried it off and quickly turned his head. “Whoa! Did you have to make it so pungent?”

“You asked me to make you fake vomit. I treated this as I would any dish. So smell is as important as appearance and texture.”

“Kinda smells like that fish thing you made for Jannike,” Mike quipped, resealing the lid and placing the container in his mop bucket.

Maurice threw him the look of a school principal dressing down a rowdy pupil. “Mr. Trono, if you want anything other than bread and water for the foreseeable future, I would apologize.”

“Hey, I liked that dish,” Mike said, backpedaling as fast as he could. No one on the Oregon took Maurice’s threats lightly. “So what’s in it?”

“The base is pea soup, and the rest of the recipe is a trade secret.” Juan looked at him askance. “You’ve done this before?”

“A prank in my youth against Charles Wright, the captain of a destroyer I was serving on. He made Bligh look like Mother Teresa. The prig prided himself on his iron stomach, so during an inspection we poured some of this concoction in his private head moments before a visiting admiral used it. The nickname Upchuck Chuck dogged the remainder of his career.”

They all laughed harder than the story warranted, as a means of releasing tension. They always played their emotions close to the vest, especially just before an operation, so any chance to vent was seized on immediately.

“Will that be all, Captain?”

“Yes, Maurice. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He bowed out of the room, passing Dr. Huxley as she made her way to the Magic Shop.

The men gave a chorus of catcalls and whistles. Hux wore a strapless dress in magenta silk that clung to her curves like a second skin. Her hair had been teased from its regular ponytail into an elegant halo of curls and ringlets. Makeup accentuated her eyes and mouth, and gave her skin a healthy glow.

“Here you go,” she said, and handed Cabrillo a slim leather case. He folded open the top to reveal three hypodermic needles in protective slots. “Inject this in a vein and it’s night-night in about fifteen seconds.”

“The pills?” Juan asked.

She pulled a standard plastic pill bottle from her matching clutch purse and shook the two capsules. “If al-Asim has kidney problems, he’s going to end up in the hospital before he needs to use the bathroom.”

“How long before they take effect?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.”

“You’re sure he won’t taste them?”

Hux rolled her eyes. They had already gone over this three times. “Completely undetectable.” She also showed him she had her passport. Because native Monegasques aren’t allowed into the casino, identification is verified at the entrance.

“Everybody have phones?” Juan asked. Rather than draw attention to themselves with earbud radios and lapel microphones, they would use the walkie-talkie mode of their cell phones for communication. When everyone nodded, he said, “All right, then, let’s get ashore and do this.” DESIGNED BY CHARLES GARNIER, the architect of the fabled Paris Opera House, the Casino de Monte Carlo is nothing less than a cathedral dedicated to gambling. It was built in the sumptuous Napoleon III style that Garnier created, with beautiful fountains at its entrance, two distinctive towers, and an aged copper roof. The elegant atrium was lined with twenty-eight onyx columns, and marble and stained glass abounded in every room. When Juan arrived, there were three Ferraris and a pair of Bentleys lined up under the porte cochere. The clientele streaming inside were the crème of society. The men were uniformly dressed in tuxedos, while the women looked like jewels in their gowns and dresses.