Piranha

10

Juan wasn’t going to captain his ship in combat wearing a soaking wet uniform of the Venezuelan Navy.

“Tell Max to put Chimana Grande between us and the frigate,” Juan said to Eddie. “That’ll buy us some time.”

Eddie nodded and relayed the message on his radio while Juan headed to his cabin.

The Oregon’s destination was a small cluster of uninhabited islets ten miles to the northeast. Though the Oregon was out of torpedo and gun range, Venezuelan frigates were equipped with Otomat Mark 2 surface-to-surface missiles, which had a range of one hundred and eighty miles. The mountainous terrain of the islands directly north of their current position, including the largest, Chimana Grande, would make it impossible for the frigate to get a radar lock until the warship was past them.

Juan entered his cabin to find Maurice, the chief steward, standing inside with a pristine white towel draped over his arm and a silver tray holding a steaming mug of coffee. The dignified septuagenarian was elegantly attired in a spotless black jacket, a crisply knotted tie, and shoes shined to a mirror finish. After having provided impeccable service to numerous admirals in the Royal Navy, Maurice prided himself on anticipating his officer’s needs, so Juan was not surprised to see fresh clothes laid out on the bed just moments after he had been pulled from the water.

Juan picked up the mug and took a sip, savoring the warm shot of caffeine. “You’re a lifesaver, Maurice.”

In a British accent fit for the House of Lords, Maurice replied, “Shall I serve you a light meal in the Operations Center, Captain?” Despite the rest of the crew calling Juan Chairman, in deference to his position in the Corporation, Maurice insisted on using naval terminology.

“It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid,” Juan said, peeling off his dripping uniform and donning the blue shirt Maurice had selected.

“Very good, Captain. For your post-action dinner, I will bring you a filet mignon with béarnaise sauce, roasted Yukon potatoes, and sautéed asparagus. Of course, I will be pairing it with an appropriate Bordeaux.” Maurice’s skills as a sommelier were unparalleled. He displayed nothing but sangfroid about the upcoming confrontation with the frigate, his subtle phrasing letting Juan know the steward had every confidence the Oregon would neither be sunk nor captured by the Venezuelans.

Without another word, Maurice slipped out of the cabin as silently as a ninja. Juan finished changing and went to the op center, taking the coffee with him.

He took his seat in the Kirk Chair and asked Max for a situation report.

“We’re in the shadow of Chimana Grande on a course bearing zero-four-five. The frigate, whose captain identified her as the Mariscal Sucre, won’t have a firing solution for another thirty minutes at their current closing speed.” The display showed that the Oregon’s pace was a leisurely twenty knots, far below its top speed but in line with the capability of an ancient cargo ship pushing its engines to the limit. As a Lupo-class frigate, the Mariscal Sucre’s maximum speed was thirty-five knots.

“ETA to Isla Caraca del Oeste?”

“Thirty-two minutes.”

“Cutting it close, aren’t we?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea.”

The Oregon could easily evade the frigate, if Juan gave the order. Instead of typical diesels, revolutionary magnetohydrodynamic engines provided the power via a pair of gigantic tubes that ran the length of the ship. Magnetic coils interacted with the free electrons in the seawater to accelerate it through the tubes. With the ability to thrust water like air through a jet engine forward or backward with equal force, the Oregon could not only accelerate like a dragster and stop like it had slammed into the Rock of Gibraltar, but she could also outrun virtually anything on the ocean slower than a cigarette boat. Venturi nozzles made it possible for the ship to turn on its own axis, and because she got her energy by stripping free electrons from the water, no diesel engine or fuel tanks were required. Her range was essentially limitless.

Juan smiled. “Steady as she goes. What about the Sorocaima?”

“They had a few hiccups, but the bacteria were successfully injected into the tanks. Only one small casualty. Mike Trono has a busted hand, but Linda says a few aspirin will hold him until we pick them up. I’ve already let Julia know.”

Juan had no doubt that Julia Huxley, the Oregon’s medical officer and a former U.S. Navy doctor, would be able to get Mike back on operational duty in no time. It wouldn’t present a problem on a ship equipped with a hospital-grade trauma unit and operating room.

Juan glanced at the helm and weapons control, the stations closest to the forward bulkhead and just below the enormous front screen. They were occupied by other Corporation members instead of Eric Stone and Mark Murphy, who were away on their own mission. With Linda gone as well, Max at engineering and Hali Kasim at communications were the only senior officers staffing the op center.

“Are Eric and Murph finished?” Juan asked.

“They’ve got everything in place and are headed our way on the RHIB. We should rendezvous with them in ten minutes.”

The rigid-hulled inflatable boat, the same type used by Navy SEALs, had a metal hull flanked by inflatable tubes, making it as seaworthy as Styrofoam. Eric had served in the Navy in research and development rather than a blue-water assignment, but since joining the Corporation he had become an expert helmsman, ranking just below Juan in his ship-handling prowess. He would be leaning on the throttle to get the RHIB back aboard the Oregon.

“Then I think we’ve kept our caller waiting long enough,” Juan said. “Mr. Kasim, hail our Venezuelan friends.”

After a few moments, Hali said, “You’re on the line with Captain Escobar.”

Juan switched to his Buck Holland drawl. “Captain Escobar, this is Buck Holland, captain of the Dolos,” he said in cheery greeting. “What can I do for you?”

“I order you to halt at once,” a heavily accented voice replied. “You and your crew will be placed under arrest and charged with espionage and sabotage, and your vessel will be impounded.”

“Those are some serious charges. What’s your proof?”

“Your crew has assaulted our harbor police, and you stole a tank, destroying a ship and dock in the process.”

“Oh, those were just misunderstandings.”

Escobar was practically apoplectic at Juan’s cheeky insolence. “‘Misunderstandings’? You will be lucky if you are not shot for your crimes, you piece of scum.”

“Now, there’s no need for name-calling.”

“You will stop your ship immediately.”

“Why should I do something like that?”

“Because if you do not comply, we will blow you out of the water.”

“Hmm. Arrest or destruction. Neither of those choices sounds very appealing. I’ll take what’s behind door number three.”

“What?”

“Don’t you have game shows down in these parts?”

“I don’t—”

The line went dead for a second before a woman spoke, staccato and more commanding than Escobar.

“Captain, drop the charade,” she said with only a hint of an accent. “I know that you are responsible for what happened at the warehouse.”

“Admiral Ruiz, I presume,” Juan said, the drawl gone. “I was hoping you were on board.”

“Whatever you think you have accomplished with your operation in Puerto La Cruz, I can assure you it is nothing more than a pinprick.”

“Is that sunken fake oil tanker the balloon in your analogy? Because if it is, it popped pretty well.”

“For that you will pay, one way or the other.”

“Oh, right. Arrest versus destruction. Why don’t you come and get us?”

“I plan to. I’d prefer to meet you face-to-face so that you see who it was that beat you. But I will settle for sending your ship to the bottom, if it comes to that.”

“You can try.”

Ruiz laughed. “I’ll do more than try. It’s been an interesting conversation, Captain. I hope to meet you someday.”

“The feeling isn’t mutual. Adiós.” He gave the cut sign to Hali and the connection ceased.

“She sounds like a charmer,” Max said.

“In addition to being a good ship commander,” Juan said, “man or woman, you get to the admiral level one of two ways: charm or ruthlessness. My guess is Ruiz can wield either, depending on her calculations. We shouldn’t underestimate her.”

“I’m not. My first wife had the same tone right before her divorce attorney took me to the cleaners. And I’m not letting us split the Oregon in half for Ruiz.” After three failed marriages, Max’s true love now was his ship.

“Chairman, Eric’s got the RHIB one mile off our bow,” Hali said.

“All stop. Open the boat garage.”

The Oregon came to a halt and a hidden hatch on the side of the ship at the waterline slid open to reveal a wide bay, where the Oregon’s complement of surface vessels could be launched and recovered. The op center’s front screen showed the feed from the boat garage. When the RHIB reached the Oregon, Eric Stone expertly guided it through the opening and Mark Murphy threw a line to a waiting technician. Without fanfare, they jumped to the deck and exited the garage.

“Close it up,” Juan said. “Juice the engines for a few minutes to make up for the lost time.”

The hull purred as the cryopumps spooled up and water was blasted from the stern.

A minute later, Eric and Murph sauntered into the op center, both looking pleased with themselves.

The two of them were the youngest senior officers on the ship. Eric, an Annapolis graduate with gentle brown eyes and a serious demeanor, took off his windbreaker to reveal his usual white button-down shirt and khaki slacks. He had come to the Corporation by way of a recommendation from a commanding officer who had served in Vietnam with Max. On board the Oregon, his technical acumen and computer skills were surpassed only by the man he’d brought with him to the Corporation, Mark Murphy.

Murph hadn’t served in the Navy but had worked with Eric on a top secret missile project as a civilian contractor, and he was the only member of the crew without a military or intelligence entry on his résumé. An arms development genius with a Ph.D. from MIT earned in his early twenties, Murph was a natural fit in his role as the Oregon’s weapons officer.

Disdaining any semblance of conformity, Murph let his dark hair sprout like a wild bramble, which was now further mussed by the wind. His chin sported the patchy stubble of a beard that refused to grow, and his lanky torso was covered by a T-shirt that read “Gorilla Biscuits,” which Juan assumed was the name of one of the punk rock bands that Murph blasted from his cabin stereo loud enough to wake Davy Jones.

The young crew members ceded their stations and Eric took his place at the helm while Murph sat at the weapons control console.

“From those smug looks on your faces,” Juan said, “I’d guess everything went as planned.”

“Affirmative, Chairman,” Eric replied. “We have everything in place.”

“What he means,” Murph said, “is that we’ve outdone ourselves this time. Wait ’til you see it.”

Before Juan could respond, Hali said, “Radar contact. We have an aircraft ten miles out, bearing one-eight-nine, approaching at a hundred and fifty knots.”

“That must be the Mariscal Sucre’s ASW chopper,” Juan said. “Threat assessment?”

Murph, a virtual database of weapons information, piped up. “Lupo-class frigates carry a single Agusta-Bell AB-212. In its role as an antisubmarine warfare helicopter, it can be equipped with two Mark 46 torpedoes and four AS.12 antiship missiles.”

“What’s their missiles’ range?”

“Max range is four and a half miles, but they could drop a torpedo at seven miles.”

“It’s unlikely they’d fire torpedoes in an active shipping lane, but let’s keep them at a respectful distance. Wepps, paint the target.”

Murph activated the targeting radar, which immediately locked onto the approaching helicopter. The chopper pilot would hear a high-pitched whine, indicating that a missile could be headed his way at any moment from the ship.

Juan didn’t want to engage, but blowing the helicopter out of the sky would be easy if it came to that. The Oregon concealed a formidable array of weaponry behind retractable plates in the hull. A 120mm tank cannon was hidden in the bow, while three radar-controlled 20mm Gatling guns could be activated for aerial self-defense and small-ship attacks. In addition to the water cannons, remote-controlled.50 caliber machine guns mounted inside fake oil barrels on the deck could be deployed to repel boarders.

The ship also featured hatches that could be blown away to fire Exocet antiship missiles and cruise missiles for land targets, and Russian-made torpedoes could be launched from tubes below the waterline. Surface-to-air missiles were at the ready in case the chopper pilot didn’t take the hint.

They hadn’t battle-tested their newest weapon system yet, a one-hundred-barrel multi-cannon based on a design by a company called Metal Storm. Unlike the Gatling gun’s six rotating barrels that fired a stream of rounds fed by a belt, the Metal Storm firing system was completely electronic, so there were no moving parts, making jams impossible. Rounds were loaded into the grid of barrels so that the projectiles lined up nose to tail. The electronic control allowed for a precise firing sequence that made the Gatling gun’s rate of three thousand rounds per minute seem pokey. With each barrel of the Metal Storm gun firing simultaneously at forty-five thousand rounds per minute, the entire weapon could pump out tungsten slugs at a staggering rate of four and a half million rounds per minute.

“The helicopter is turning around,” Hali said.

Juan wasn’t surprised. The latest shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile would seem like just the kind of weapon to be used by a spy ship with small arms and RPGs, so the pilot was wise to keep his distance. He would have no way of knowing that the Oregon’s missiles were orders of magnitude more potent.

“Let us know if he changes his mind, Mr. Kasim.”

The next twenty minutes passed without incident. The three islets they were heading toward curled around one another in two-mile-long angular ridges jutting from the sea. They lay directly across from a pair of uninhabited peninsulas. The islets were so close together that the spans of water between them were barely longer than the Oregon.

When Isla Caraca del Oeste was off their port bow, Hali called out, “Surface contact! Bearing one-six-eight at ten miles out. It’s the Mariscal Sucre. She must have her engines running flat out.”

With the Oregon in full view, the frigate’s next action was predictable, but even so, Hali’s next words got Juan’s attention.

“I have a missile launch!”

Juan leaned forward in his chair, his eyes on the map displayed on the front screen that showed a red blip racing toward the symbol for the Oregon. A video feed next to the map showed the image from one of the deck cameras. The missile wasn’t yet visible, but it would be soon.

“Wepps, time to impact?”

“Fifty-two seconds,” Murph said. The missile’s cruising velocity was just below the speed of sound.

“Ready the Metal Storm battery. Let’s see what it can do. But spool up the aft Gatling gun just in case.”

The Metal Storm multi-cannon rose into firing position from its hiding place behind the stern-most hold. The plate covering the Gatling gun flew open and the barrels spun up to firing speed.

“Both weapons have a radar lock on the missile,” Murph announced.

“Remember,” Juan said, “don’t fire until it’s only six hundred yards out.” That would only be two seconds before impact.

“Ready and waiting,” came Murph’s confident reply. “The system is programmed to fire automatically at that distance.”

On the front screen, a dot of fire bloomed in the night sky, growing brighter with each passing second as it skimmed low over the water. When the missile reached the six-hundred-yard mark, the Metal Storm battery fired without Murph having to lift his finger from the Gatling gun safety.

The Gatling would have taken ten seconds to fire five hundred rounds. The Metal Storm unleashed that many rounds in less than the blink of an eye. In fact, it was so fast that on the video feed it seemed to emit a single flash, accompanied by a sound like a jackhammer echoing through the ship.

The missile didn’t stand a chance. Murph had programmed the Metal Storm to fire the rounds so that they formed an impenetrable wall of tungsten in midair. The Otomat met the rounds three hundred yards from the Oregon’s stern and exploded in a fireball that temporarily overloaded the deck camera’s imaging system and blanked out the screen.

Despite the missile’s destruction, the Oregon didn’t come out unscathed. When the image of the outside deck returned, it showed a massive fire raging.