Текст книги "Plague Ship"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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“That’s what the computer said. After that, there was an order out of the defense ministry to switch to something they call ‘the voice of the Prophet.’”

“That’ll be their military communications lines.” Juan clamped the cordless phone between his head and shoulder to free up his hands so he could dress. “Anything else?”

“Sorry, Chairman. That was it.”

Cabrillo put himself in the Iranians’ shoes and thought through what would come next. “They’re going to close Bandar Abbas and reinspect every ship in the harbor. The Navy’s going to be put on high alert, and they may try to stop vessels within fifty or so miles of the coast all along the Gulf of Oman.”

“We’re still within that radius,” Hali told him.

“Tell the helmsman to get us the hell out. I’ll be in the Op Center in two minutes. Assemble the senior staff.” Although Juan’s top people had been on duty until just a couple of hours ago, he wanted them manning the ship until they were well beyond Iran’s ability to strike.

When Juan had designed the Oregon, a tremendous amount of effort went into the ship’s Operations Center. It was the brain of the vessel, the nerve center from which everything could be controlled, from her engines and weapons systems to the fire-suppression sprinklers and communications. The room was as high-tech as the exterior of the Oregonwas decayed. Dominating the front wall was a massive flat-panel screen that could show dozens of images at a time, from the battery of ship’s cameras as well as feeds from her submersibles, the unmanned aerial ROV, and from cameras mounted on the Robinson R44 chopper. Sonar and radar images could also be flashed onto the screen.

The helm and weapons station was immediately below the flat panel, with Hali’s communications console, Max Hanley’s engineering station, and the principal sonar waterfall display ringing the darkened room. In the center of the Op Center was what Mark Murphy and Eric Stone had dubbed the “Kirk Chair.” From the command position, Cabrillo could monitor everything happening on and around his ship and take over any of the other stations if necessary.

With its low ceiling and the glow from dozens of computer displays, the Op Center had the palpable buzz of NASA’s mission control.

An exhausted Max Hanley was already in his chair when Juan strode in, as was Mark Murphy. Murph was the only member of the crew without a military or intelligence background, and it showed. Tall and gawky, he had nearly black hair that was long and unkempt, and he was trying to grow a beard, although, so far, his best efforts resembled an anemic billy goat’s. He possessed the highest IQ of anyone aboard ship, having gotten a Ph.D. from MIT while still in his early twenties. From there, he had gone into systems development for a major military contractor, where he had met Eric Stone. Eric was working procurement with the Navy but had already planned on resigning his commission and joining the Corporation. During the two months the pair of them had spent on a still-secret long-range cannon for the Arleigh Burke Class destroyers, Eric had convinced both Cabrillo and Murph to join up as well.

Juan couldn’t fault Murph’s proficiency with the Oregon’s weapons systems. He just hoped for the day young Mr. Murphy would stop dressing in all black and playing punk music loud enough to shake barnacles off the hull. This morning found him wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a pair of ruby lips. On the back it read THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. His workstation was littered with half a dozen empty energy drink cans, and Juan could see by the glassy look in Murph’s eye he was mainlining on caffeine.

Cabrillo took his seat and adjusted the computer display at his elbow. A steaming cup of coffee materialized at his side. Maurice had approached so silently Juan never heard him coming. “I’m going to have to put a bell on you.”

“To employ an overused cliché, Captain, over my departed corpse.”

“Or dead body, whatever.” Juan smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re most welcome, sir.”

Over the rim of his coffee, Juan studied the displays in front of him, especially noting the radar picture of the surrounding waters. The coast of Iran still showed at the top of the screen, at the radar’s extreme limit, while around them countless ships were heading into and out of the Persian Gulf. From the size of the returns, he knew most of them were tankers, and the traffic seemed as thick as Atlanta at rush hour.

Far to the south was a cluster of ships around one large vessel he guessed was an American aircraft carrier task force.

He checked their speed and heading, as well as the depth of the water under the ship. The bottom had dropped to four hundred feet, plenty deep enough for a lurking Iranian sub. But with the Americans so close, he was more concerned with a helicopter or aircraft assault, if they were linked to the theft somehow. A quick glimpse at the camera displays showed him that the Oregonlooked as she should, with her single funnel, and decks devoid of containers. Her name was back to normal, though he noted the Panamanian flag still flew from her jack staff. A prudent precaution, because the Iranians wouldn’t need permission to board a ship flying their ensign, as the Oregonnormally did. The mast camera high atop one of the cargo derricks showed a tanker they must have passed recently less than a mile astern and a containership steaming along their track a half mile to the north.

“Hali, anything on sonar?”

“Except for the noise from eight ships within range that the computer’s already scrubbed, there’s nothing out here but us innocent merchantmen.” He paused, as if to add something.

Juan saw his frown and said, “Tell me. No matter how small.”

“About a minute after communications from Bandar Abbas went dead, there was a burst of transmission from the naval base at Chah Bahar.”

“Have you heard it since?”

Hali shook his head. “Just that one time.”

Juan wasn’t sure what to do with that piece of information, so he let it go for the moment. “What about aircraft or helos?”

“An ASW plane off the carrier to our south did a pass an hour ago, but nothing from our friends to the north.”

Cabrillo relaxed slightly, and was beginning to think they might get away with it after all.

It was just as that thought entered his mind that Hali shouted, “Sonar contact! Bearing ninety-five degrees, seven thousand yards. Torpedo in the water. Damnit, he was waiting to ambush us, with his bow doors open and his tubes flooded.”

There was more than five miles separating the ship from the incoming torpedo, so Juan knew he had more than enough time to get the Oregonout of danger. His voice remained calm. “Track it, Hali. Let’s make sure we know where it’s going before we react.”

“Sonar contact!” Kasim cried again. “Second torpedo in the water, same bearing and range. I’m getting target extrapolation off the computer. The first fish is heading for the containership. I have her identified as the Saga, and she left Bandar Abbas twenty minutes before we did.” The tactical picture went from bad to worse.

“We’re getting a warning from the carrier battle group,” Hali called out. “They heard the shots and are launching aircraft.”

“This is turning into a hell of a fur ball,” Max said sardonically.

“Tell me about it,” Juan muttered.

“Come on!”Hali shouted. “New contact. They launched a third torpedo. It’s looking like a spread pattern targeting us, the Saga, and the tanker behind us, a Petromax Oil ULCC named the Aggie Johnston.”

Had there been just the one torpedo tracking the Oregon, Cabrillo could have handled it. Maybe even two, if he could put his vessel between the second one and the ship it had targeted, but with three fish in the water his options had quickly run out. Either the Sagaor the Aggie Johnstonwas going to take a direct hit. And with a full load of two hundred thousand tons of Gulf crude, there was no way he would let it be the supertanker.

“They just launched another,” Hali said with disbelief in his voice. “That’s four fish in the water. Range between the Sagaand the first is down to six thousand yards. This last fish is going much slower than the others.”

“It’s lurking to see what the others miss,” Max said. “And will go in to finish it off.” If one of the first three torpedoes missed or failed to detonate, this reserve salvo would be in position to destroy its intended target. Cabrillo was familiar with the tactic. He also had no defense against it. He was now thinking they would be lucky to get out of the Sea of Oman alive.

CHAPTER 4

MV GOLDEN DAWN

INDIAN OCEAN

THE MUGGER’S HAND WAS LIKE A VISE AROUND Jannike Dahl’s mouth and nose. She couldn’t breathe, and any effort to fight him off only made it seem worse. Wriggling against the restraint, she managed to draw a sip of air, barely enough to stave off the blackness threatening to engulf her. She twisted one way and then the other, only to have the hand inexorably stay with her.

She had seconds before unconsciousness overcame her, but there was nothing she could do. It was like drowning, the most terror-filled death she could ever imagine, only it wasn’t a cold water’s embrace that would take her life but the hands of a stranger.

Jannike fought one last time, a desperate lunge to break free.

She came awake with a wet gasp, her head and shoulders lifting from the bed only to be dragged back by the sheets and blankets covering her. The clear plastic cannula feeding pure oxygen into her nose had wrapped itself around her throat, choking her as much as the asthma attack she was suffering.

Filled with the chilling aftereffects of the nightmare that always accompanied an attack when she was asleep, Janni groped for the inhaler on the bedside table, dimly aware that she was still in the ship’s hospital. She placed the mouthpiece between her lips and fired off several blasts of medicine, drawing in the Ventolin as deeply as her fluid-filled lungs would allow.

As the medicine relaxed her restricted airways, Janni was able to inhale more of the drug and eventually calm the most acute symptoms of the attack. It didn’t help that her heart was still racing from the nightmare or that she had dislodged part of her cannula so only one nostril was getting oxygen. She readjusted the plastic tube and felt the immediate effects. She glanced at the monitor over her bed and saw her oxygen stats start to rise immediately. She smoothed her sheets and settled deeper into the inclined bed.

This was her third day in the dispensary, the third day of being alone for hours on end, bored out of her mind and cursing her lungs’ weakness. Her friends had stopped by regularly, but she knew none of them wanted to stay. Not that she blamed them. Watching her gasp like a fish and suck on her inhaler wasn’t a pretty sight. She hadn’t even had the strength to let the lone nurse change her sheets and could imagine what her body smelled like.

The curtain around her bed was suddenly drawn back. Dr. Passman moved so softly that Janni never knew he had entered the recovery room. He was in his sixties, a retired heart surgeon from England who had given up his practice following his divorce and had signed on to be a shipboard doctor with the Golden Cruise Lines to enjoy a more peaceful life and to deny his ex-wife half of the salary he had once made.

“I heard you cry out,” he said, looking at the monitors rather than his patient. “Are you okay?”

“Just another attack.” Janni managed a smile. “Same as I’ve been having for three days now.” She then added in her lilting Scandinavian accent, “It wasn’t as bad as before. I think they’re passing.”

“I will be the one making that determination,” he said, finally looking at her. There was concern in his eyes. “You’re as blue as a berry. My daughter has chronic asthma, but not like you.”

“I’m used to it,” Jannike shrugged. “I had my first attack when I was five, so I’ve been dealing with it for three-quarters of my life.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, are there other members of your family who have it?”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and neither of my parents had it, though my mother told me her mother had it when she was a little girl.”

Passman nodded. “It tends to run in families. I would have thought being at sea and away from pollution would have reduced your symptoms.”

“I had hoped so, too,” Janni said. “That’s one of the reasons I took a job waitressing on a cruise ship.

Well, that and to get out of a small town with nothing to do but watch fishing boats come in and out of the harbor.”

“You must miss your parents.”

“I lost them two years ago.” A shadow passed behind her dark eyes. “Car accident.”

“I am sorry. Your color’s coming back,” Passman said to change the subject. “And your breathing seems to be getting easier.”

“Does that mean I can leave?” Janni asked.

" ’Fraid not, my dear. Your oxygen saturation level is still below what I would like to see.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter to you that today is the crew’s social,” she said with a trace of disappointment. According to the clock on the far wall, the party was only a few hours away.

The dance was the first opportunity for the younger members of the ship’s hotel staff to cut loose a little since the Golden Dawnhad left the Philippines two weeks earlier. It was to be the highlight of the cruise for the waiters, waitresses, maids, and off-duty crew, which happened to be comprised of some devilishly handsome Norwegians. Janni knew some of the younger passengers were going to attend as well. It was all anyone had been talking about for a week.

“No, it doesn’t,” the doctor said.

The door to the small hospital ward opened, and, a moment later, Elsa and Karin, Janni’s best friends on the Golden Dawn, swept into the room amid a cloud of perfume. They were from Munich, a couple of years older than Janni, and had spent the past three years working for the cruise line. Elsa was a pastry chef, and Karin worked the same dining-room shift as Jannike. They were dressed to kill. Karin wore a black dress with spaghetti straps that accented her ample chest, while Elsa wore a tank dress and, from the lack of lines under the clinging fabric, nothing else. Both were heavily made up and giggly.

“How are you feeling?” Elsa asked and sat on the edge of Janni’s bed, ignoring Passman.

“Jealous.”

“You aren’t well enough to come to the party?” Karin scowled at the doctor as if it was his fault Jannike’s asthma wasn’t in check.

Janni pushed her damp hair off her forehead. “Even if I was, I wouldn’t stand a chance the way you two are dressed.”

“Do you think Michael will like it?” Karin pirouetted.

“He’ll die for it,” Elsa told her friend.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” Janni asked, caught up in gossip despite the pain constricting her chest.

Michael was one of the passengers who sat at the table they served, a Californian with blond hair, blue eyes, and a body honed from a lifetime of exercise. It was generally agreed by the female staff that he was the best-looking guy on the boat. She also knew that Karin and Michael had made out on more than one occasion.

Karin smoothed her dress. “He made sure to tell me himself.” Passman cut into their conversation, “It doesn’t bother you he’s a Responsivist?” She shot the doctor a look. “I grew up with four brothers and three sisters. I don’t think not having children is such a bad idea.”

“Responsivism is more than not having children,” he pointed out.

Karin took it as an insult that she didn’t know what the group who had chartered the ship believed in.

“Yes, it is also about helping humanity by making family planning an option for millions of third world women and reducing the burden our population places on the earth. When Dr. Lydell Cooper founded the movement in the nineteen seventies, there were three billion people in the world. Today, there are twice that many—six billion– and the rates aren’t slowing. Ten percent of all humans who have ever lived, going back a hundred thousand years, are alive right now.”

“I saw the same informational placards they have placed around the ship,” Passman said archly. “But don’t you think Responsivism goes beyond social consciousness? For a woman to join, she has to agree to have her fallopian tubes tied. It sounds to me more like, well, a cult.”

“That’s what Michael said people tell him all the time.” With the stubbornness of youth, Karin felt she had to defend her crush’s convictions. “Just because you don’t know all the facts doesn’t mean you can dismiss what he believes.”

“Yes, but surely you see . . .” Passman let his voice trail off, knowing that whatever argument was put forth would stand little chance against a twenty-something girl with raging hormones. “Actually, you probably wouldn’t. I think you two should let Jannike rest. You can tell her all about the party later.” He left Janni’s bedside.

“Are you going to be okay, Schnuckiputzi?” Elsa asked, touching Janni’s thin shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. You two have fun and I want lurid details tomorrow.”

“Good girls don’t kiss and tell,” Karin said, and grinned.

“In that case, I don’t expect either of you to be good girls.” The two Germans left together, but Karin returned a second later. She eased up to the head of the bed.

“I want you to know that I think I’m going to do it.” Janni knew what she meant. She knew that Michael was more than a passing crush for her friend, and that apart from kissing a few times he had spent hours talking to her about his beliefs.

“Karin, that is way too big of a step. You don’t know him that well.”

“I’ve never really wanted kids anyway, so what’s the big deal if I have my tubes tied now or in a few years.”

“Don’t let him talk you into it,” Janni said as forcefully as her weakened body would let her. Karin was nice, but not the strongest person Jannike had ever met.

“He didn’t talk me into it,” she dismissed too quickly. “It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. I don’t want to be worn out at thirty like my mother was. She’s forty-five now and looks seventy. No thanks. Besides,” she said with a bright smile, “nothing will happen until we dock in Greece anyway.” Janni took Karin’s hand to emphasize her point. “This is a decision that will affect the rest of your life.

Give it some more thought, okay?”

“Okay,” Karin said, as if to a parent.

Janni gave her a quick hug. “Good. Now, go have some fun for me.”

“Count on it.”

Their perfumes lingered long after the girls were gone.

Janni’s face was scrunched in concentration. The ship wasn’t due to dock in Piraeus for another week, giving her hope that she and Elsa could talk Karin out of her decision. One of the prerequisites for becoming a Responsivist is being sterilized. A vasectomy for men and a tubal ligation for women. It was part of their code to agree to not add more children to an already-overpopulated planet, a dramatic first step that was difficult, expensive, and, in later years, impossible to reverse. Karin was too young for that just so she could bed a good-looking guy.

She drifted off to sleep, and when she awoke a few hours had passed. She could hear the muffled rumble of the ship’s engines but could hardly feel the calm rocking of the Indian Ocean swells. She wondered how Elsa and Karin were enjoying the party . . .

Jannike woke again an hour later. She hated being in the hospital. She was lonely and bored, and, for a moment, considered grabbing her old clothes from under the bed and sneaking up to the ballroom for a peek. But her body just wasn’t up to it and again she closed her eyes.

She heard a crash the instant before the mugger wrapped his hand around her throat again and started to squeeze.

Jannike flashed awake, reaching for her inhaler just as the door to her room opened in a blaze of light from the office beyond. Stricken by the asthma attack, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Dr.

Passman staggered into the room. He wore a bathrobe and his feet were bare. It looked like the front of the robe and his face was covered in blood. Jannike sucked greedily on the inhaler, blinking to clear her eyes of sleep.

Passman made an obscene cawing sound, and more blood dribbled from his mouth. Janni gasped. He took two more faltering steps, and it seemed the bones of his knees dissolved. He fell back, and his body hit the linoleum floor with a wet smack. Janni saw that wavelike ripples traveled the length of his body, as though his insides had been liquefied, and in seconds he was surrounded by a viscous moat of his own blood.

She clutched her sheets tighter, drawing on the inhaler as she began to hyperventilate. Then another figure came into her room. It was Karin in her little black dress. She was coughing violently, wet, racking convulsions that spewed blood in a bright spray. Janni screamed through her own coughing fit, terrified at what she was seeing.

Karin tried to speak, but all that came out was a watery gargle. She stretched out with her arms in a supplicating gesture, her pale fingers reaching for Jannike. Janni hated herself for recoiling back to the far side of her bed, but she could not will herself forward. A crimson tear escaped the corner of Karin’s eye and left a thick red streak down to her jaw where it dripped, blooming like a rose when it pattered against her chest.

Like Passman seconds earlier, Karin could no longer support herself. She tipped backward, making no move to break her fall. When she hit the floor, it was as though her skin didn’t exist. Blood exploded everywhere as Karin’s body came apart, and in the instant before Jannike Dahl went into catatonic shock she was certain she was going insane.

CHAPTER 5

JUAN CABRILLO STUDIED THE TACTICAL DISPLAY ON the forward bulkhead of the Op Center for a few seconds, time he knew he didn’t have but needed to take anyway. Three of the four torpedoes fired from the Iranian Kilo Class sub were fanning out and tracking toward their targets, while the sonar showed the fourth had slowed so much that the computer gave only its approximate location.

There was less than two miles separating the containership Sagafrom the first torpedo, while the two-hundred-thousand-ton supertanker Aggie Johnstonhad another mile-and-a-half cushion. The third torpedo was coming straight for the Oregonat more than forty knots.

Cabrillo knew the Oregoncould take a direct hit, thanks to the reactive armor along her hull that exploded outward when struck by an incoming torpedo and negated the detonative forces, though it would likely damage critical systems. He could also dodge the incoming fish, using the Oregon’s superior speed and maneuverability, but the overshooting torpedo then would home in on the Sagaas a secondary target and seal her fate. There was simply no way for him to protect the two merchantmen and the Oregon, especially with the reserve torpedo lurking out there.

He was dimly aware of Hali Kasim sending a radio alert to the two ships about the inbound torpedoes, not that there was anything they could do. A ship the size of the Aggie Johnstonhad a pathetically large turning radius, and needed five miles to stop from her current cruising speed.

“I’m tracking two fast movers off the carrier,” Mark Murphy said from the weapons stations. “I suspect they’re S-3B Vikings, antisubmarine warfare planes armed with either Mark 46 or Mark 50 torpedoes.

That Kilo is going to have a real bad day starting in about ten minutes.”

“Which is five minutes too late for us,” Eric said.

“Hali, what’s the range to the fish tracking us?” Cabrillo asked

“Six thousand yards.”

And for the Saga?”

“Thirty-two hundred.”

Cabrillo straightened in his chair, his decision made. It was time to roll the dice and see what happened.

“Helm, increase speed to forty knots, put us between the Sagaand the torpedo headed for her.”

“Aye.”

“Wepps, open the ports for the forward Gatling and target that fish, slave your computer to the master sonar plot, and you might need the targeting reticle from the crow’s nest camera.”

“Just a second,” Mark said.

“Mr. Murphy.” Juan’s tone was sharp. “We don’t have a second.” Murph wasn’t listening. He was engrossed with something taking place on a laptop computer he had jacked into his system. “Come on, baby, learn it, will you,” he said anxiously.

“What are you doing?” Cabrillo asked, leaning over to compensate for the Oregon’s sharp curve through the water.

“Teaching the Whopper a new trick.”

Whopper was what he and Eric Stone called the Oregon’s supercomputer, having stolen the name from an old Matthew Broderick movie about a young computer hacker who breaks in to SAC/NORAD and almost starts a nuclear war.

“We don’t need new tricks, Wepps. I need that Gatling online and spooled up.” Murph spun around in his seat to look across the room at Max Hanley, who was engrossed with his own computer. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“Keep at it, lad,” was all Max said.

“You two mind telling me what’s going on?” Juan asked, looking at each man in turn.

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes,” Mark crowed, jumping up from his chair and pumping his fists over his head. He began typing furiously, not bothering to sit again, his fingers flying over the keyboard, as dexterous as a classical pianist’s. “Logarithm’s lining up, targeting’s coming online. The onboard computer’s in sync with ours. I have full control.”

“Of what?”

Mark glanced at him with a fiendish grin. “We’re about to have ourselves a whale of a time.” Cabrillo blanched and spun to glance at Max. Hanley looked as inscrutable as a Buddha statue. “You can’t be serious,” Juan said but knew his second-in-command was. “You do know the last time the Russians tried to fire one of those things it blew a hole in the side of the Kurskand killed all one hundred and eighteen aboard? And this one’s an Iranian knockoff, for the love of God.”

“There’s a thousand yards between the Sagaand the torp,” Linda Ross said. With communications swirling among the freighters, the American battle group, and the fast-approaching ASW aircraft, she had taken over the sonar station so Hali Kasim could concentrate on the radios.

“Just giving you an option, Chairman,” Max said broadly.

“Don’t ‘Chairman’ me, you crafty old bastard.”

Juan studied the tactical display again, noting the Oregonwas about to slip between the incoming torpedo and its intended target. Because of the water density they needed to be directly in front of the torpedo if they were to have any realistic chance of hitting it. By the time they got into position, there would be less than five hundred yards between them and the weapon barreling in just ten feet below the surface.

From the camera on the loading derrick, Cabrillo could see the wake line of the incoming torpedo, a faint disturbance in the otherwise tranquil water. It was approaching at better than forty knots.

“Wepps, we need to take it before it dives for the keel.”

“Tracking,” Murph said.

Eric Stone slid the Oregoninto position, using her athwartship thrusters and a heavy blast from the magnetohydrodynamics on full reverse, to place them directly in the path of the torpedo.

“Permission to fire,” Juan said.

Mark tapped a few keys.

Outside, along the Oregon’s flank, the armored plate over the Gatling redoubt slammed open and the six-barrel gun shrieked, a string of foot-long empty shell casings arcing from the mechanism in a continuous blur. A plume of smoke and flame erupted from the ship as a second’s-long burst from the 20mm machine cannon arrowed across the water. Just ahead of the onrushing torpedo the sea came alive, shredded by hundreds of depleted uranium shells. Gouts of water flew in the air as the slugs bored a hole in the ocean amid a cloud of steam.

The Russian-made TEST-71 torpedo, packed with over four hundred pounds of explosives, roared into the path of the Gatling gun. With enough water forced out of the way by the continuous stream of fire, four of the kinetic rounds hit the weapon dead center. The warhead exploded, sending a series of concussion waves racing across the sea, while, at the epicenter of the blast, a column of water rose eighty feet into the sky before gravity overcame inertia and the entire plume crashed back into the chasm.

Though located in the heart of the ship and well insulated from the outside, the crew heard the detonation as though it was thunder crashing directly overhead.

Juan immediately turned to Max. “That bought us about thirty seconds. Convince me.”

“Their torpedoes are all wire guided. If we can cut them loose, they should go inert. Not even the Iranians would let fish run around in these waters without some sort of control.”

“What do you propose?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Sink the damned Kilo.”

Juan looked at the tactical display again. He saw the red flashing lights indicating the two inbound American S-3B Vikings, as well as the track lines for the three remaining torpedoes. The reserve fish was beginning to accelerate toward the Oregon, while the primary weapon targeting her had altered course for interception.

“You sure it’ll work?” he asked without looking back.

" ’Course not,” Max told him. “It’s an Iranian copy of an already-flawed Russian weapon. But my crew worked through the night adapting the number one tube so we can fire it, and Murph seems to have the software worked out, so I say go for it. If it works as advertised, it’ll take out the three torpedoes long before they reach their targets.”

"Murph?”

“Whopper has it pegged, Chairman. I can control it as best as it can be controlled, but it’s mostly an aim-and-hope kind of weapon. At two hundred knots, it’s pretty damned hard to steer anything.” Cabrillo would either kiss Max and Murph in a few seconds or curse them in hell. “Helm, turn us bow on to the Kilo. Wepps, open outer door for tube one. Match bearings and shoot.” Foam creamed off the Oregon’s bow as Eric Stone brought the ship around, digging her deep into the waves, to give Murph his shot.

“Stoney, another two points to starboard,” Mark asked, and Eric goosed the thrusters to maneuver the ship so she was pointed directly at where the Kilo had fired the spread of torpedoes. “Linda, she hasn’t moved, right?”