The Emperor's Revenge

EIGHT

Curious stares from dockworkers greeted the odd-looking Daedalus when it arrived at the port, with the evening sun nearing the horizon. Juan was too concerned about the theft of Corporation funds to care. The old rust bucket tied to the dock may have been the ugliest ship in the harbor, but Juan was happy to see the Oregon again.

To say the 560-foot-long cargo freighter had seen better days was like saying Chernobyl had had a slight accident. The ship looked as if it might sink within minutes of setting sail. The peeling green paint was the color of something a seasick sailor might produce in heavy swells. Rust patches that dotted the hull were so pronounced, they seemed to be mere days from becoming holes.

The upper segment was even worse. Gaps in the bent railing were spanned by chains and bailing wire. The ship was equipped with five cranes, but three of them were in such disrepair that they were obviously useless. The single funnel was caked with soot. Barrels, both upright and overturned, and piles of trash littered the deck. The filthy white superstructure aft of amidships sported windows that were so etched, they looked as if they’d been cleaned with steel wool. One pane of glass was missing and replaced by a moldy piece of plywood.

“Home sweet home,” Linc said, echoing Juan’s thoughts.

The Daedalus was hauled up by one of the operational cranes and lowered into the hold.

They made their way up the gangplank and separated once they were on board. Eddie and Linc went to secure the Daedalus and its radioactive cargo, and Juan entered a companionway toward the crew area.

Buzzing fluorescent lights blinked overhead, providing dim illumination for the grimy bare metal walls and chipped linoleum floor. He passed the captain’s quarters, the pungent odor coming from it as overwhelming as ever. The interior was so sparsely furnished and dingy that it would have made a Third World interrogation chamber seem like a palace by comparison.

Juan reached a utility closet and opened it to find mops, brooms, and other cleaning supplies that had gathered dust from disuse. He closed the door behind him and turned the knobs on the slop sink in a practiced pattern, and, with a click, the back wall slid open, revealing lush carpeting and mahogany walls in a hallway lit by recessed lighting befitting a five-star hotel.

Juan went inside and the wall closed behind him, the buzzing of the fluorescents and the foul smell vanishing instantly. Paintings by impressionist masters lined the halls, which safeguarded some of the Corporation’s resources in assets that were stowed aboard the Oregon.

Selling them would be a last resort, but he was glad he had them as a backup, especially after hearing that a major portion of the Corporation’s cash reserve was now gone.

The biggest asset the Corporation owned was the Oregon itself. When Juan had created his brainchild for carrying out U.S. government operations off the books, his first task had been to find a ship appropriate for the job. After a long search, he found photos of an 11,000-ton lumber carrier destined for the scrapyard. The old freighter had performed well over a couple of decades hauling timber to Asia from the Pacific Northwest, but she had become too slow and obsolete to be profitable. She was so plain and unassuming that Juan knew she would be perfect for his purposes.

Although three breaker yards had bid against him, she was still far cheaper than a new ship. He took the junker to a covered dry dock in Vladivostok, where she spent six months getting a radical keel-to-deck overhaul, care of a friendly and corrupt Russian admiral who knew a good business opportunity when he saw it.

When the Oregon emerged from her refit, she actually looked worse than she had when she went in. But that only served the anonymity that Juan had desired.

It was underneath the skin where all the real work had been done. Stabilizing fins were added, and the frame was stiffened and fortified to withstand the stresses that would be placed on it by its cutting-edge power plant.

Her old diesels were gone, replaced by revolutionary new magnetohydrodynamic engines. Only a few vessels had ever been equipped with them. Four pulse jets were powered by supercooled magnets that stripped free electrons from seawater to produce practically unlimited electricity. Two thrust-vectored drive tubes focused the power, making the Oregon the fastest and most maneuverable ship in the world for her size.

Fiber optics and wiring throughout the ship allowed it to be upgraded on a regular basis with all of the latest technology and electronics, including high-definition closed-circuit cameras, encrypted satellite communications, centralized ship operations, and military-grade radar and sonar. A mighty IBM Vulcan supercomputer powered the Oregon’s network.

Her defensive and offensive capabilities were equally potent. Attacks could be carried out using Exocet antiship missiles and twin tubes that launched Russian-made Type 53–65 torpedoes, which had recently replaced its TEST-71s.

The ship’s vast array of guns were cleverly hidden by retractable hull plates. At the bow was a 120mm cannon like the one on an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. For defense against small vessels, missiles, and aircraft, the Oregon was armed with three General Electric 20mm Gatling guns, a Metal Storm electronically fired multibarreled-salvo array, and vertical launchers for surface-to-air missiles. A batch of remote-controlled .30 caliber machine guns could pop out of the deck oil barrels to repel boarders.

An MD 520N helicopter stored in the aft-most hold could be raised into position for takeoff on a hydraulic platform, while her two submarines could conduct covert missions by launching from the keel, where two huge underwater panels opened into a cavernous space in the center of the ship called the moon pool. At the waterline were the concealed doors of a boat garage that housed small craft, such as Zodiacs and a SEAL assault boat.

Should the need arise, as it sometimes did, the Oregon had a fully staffed medical bay with a sterile operating theater. The Magic Shop was the onboard facility where all of their made-to-order equipment, uniforms, disguises, and false identifications were created.

To attract a crew of the best and brightest in their fields, the accommodations were some of the most luxurious afloat. Chefs trained at the Cordon Bleu prepared gourmet meals made from the freshest ingredients. One of the ballast tanks doubled as a Carrara marble — lined Olympic-length swimming pool, in addition to the full-sized Jacuzzi and sauna.

Juan entered his cabin and office. Crew members were given generous allowances to decorate their quarters as they liked. Juan had recently updated his to a more sleek modern style. The feature he enjoyed most was the wall-mounted, 4K super-high-def LED screen that stretched the length of the cabin. Most of the time, like now, it showed the feed from an external camera. With the ships and harbor defined in crisp detail under the beautiful sunset, the illusion of a window was uncanny.

He called Max and Linda to come to his cabin in twenty minutes. After removing the fake nose and taking a quick shower to wash the grit off and the dye out of his hair, he changed into jeans and a linen shirt. As soon as he was dressed, there was a light knock on his door. He opened it to see Maurice, the chief steward, dressed in his impeccable suit and tie as usual. His left arm had a white linen napkin draped over it and held a covered silver tray. His timing was so spot-on that Juan sometimes wondered whether the dour Englishman had a camera in Juan’s cabin.

“Good evening, Captain,” Maurice said in his plummy British accent. As a veteran of the Royal Navy, Maurice insisted on using the nautical honorific rather than “Chairman,” which was what the rest of the crew called him as the head of the Corporation.

Juan waved him in and Maurice set the tray on his small dining table. Beneath the cover were a marinated rib eye, green beans, and potatoes O’Brien. Maurice poured steaming coffee from a china pot into one of the three cups. He even knew Linda and Max would be joining him.

“Thank you, Maurice. I hope you had a better day than I did.”

“That somewhat depends on whether we really did lose all of our money.” In addition to being the best steward on the high seas, Maurice had a nose for information. If Juan wanted the latest gossip on what was going on behind the scenes on the Oregon, Maurice was the first place he turned.

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” Juan said as he savored the Kenyan brew.

“I know you will, Captain.”

He slipped out of the room like a wraith a moment before Linda and Max appeared in the doorway.

“Come in,” Juan said. “Pour yourselves some coffee. Did you already eat?”

Max Hanley had been the first person Juan hired for the Corporation and its second-in-command as president. A former Vietnam War Swift Boat commander, Max was also the ship’s chief engineer and had helped design the Oregon, so he considered it his baby. Not only was he in charge of running the ship when Juan wasn’t on board but he was also Juan’s best friend. Though he was in his sixties, with gray licking at the red curls circling his balding head, Max seemed to have the attitude of a much younger man and was as cantankerous as ever.

“Chef fed me well tonight,” Max said.

“Well, I figured you ate,” Juan teased, looking pointedly at Max’s stomach. “I was asking Linda.”

“Are you kidding?” Max said. “She wolfed down more than I did.”

Juan raised an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”

Linda Ross, the Corporation’s vice president of operations and third-in-command, was as lovely as a wood elf and about as small. Her cute, upturned nose and high-pitched, girlish voice might have kept her from getting promotions when she served in the Navy on an Aegis cruiser and as a Pentagon staffer, but Juan brought her on because she had no trouble putting that voice to use when she was barking out commands during battle. She’d earned the entire crew’s respect for her skill and discipline. But now that she was out of the military, she took advantage of the less stringent rules and frequently changed the color of her hair. Today, it was a vibrant silver, cut in a shaggy bob.

“Believe it,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I was starving.”

“Me, too,” Juan replied, taking a seat. “I hope you don’t mind if I eat while you fill me in. Tell me what happened.”

Linda and Max sat as well. Max sipped his coffee while Linda explained the events of the afternoon.

“Hali is a big Formula 1 fan, so he was keeping an eye on the race and saw the whole thing in real time.” Hali Kasim was their Lebanese American communications officer. “By the way, he said Langston Overholt will be calling in a few minutes. As far as they can tell, the Credit Condamine president, Henri Munier, sabotaged his own bank and then went on a rampage. He crashed through a barrier and destroyed several race cars before smashing into a pit garage and setting off a fuel tank. They’re still cleaning it up, but the latest news is seven dead and dozens injured. I’ll show you.”

She tapped on her phone and the screen on Juan’s wall suddenly flickered to a view of the Monaco Grand Prix. They watched the recordings of the frenzy of destruction from multiple angles as Linda shared more of the details.

Juan shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. I met the guy once and he seemed as mild-mannered as you’d expect a bank president to be. Do the police have a motive?”

“Not that we know of,” Max said, “but the investigation is just getting under way.”

“And what about our account? The message I got was that our money is gone. Don’t you mean ‘stolen’?”

Linda gave him a grim look. She and Juan shared the duties of keeping track of the Corporation’s finances. “The problem is that we don’t know. It looks as if Munier somehow disabled the accounts. The money could still be locked in there somewhere, the money might have been transferred, or he could have done something else to destroy the accounts. I’ve been putting together our files here, but even if we prove what was in there, it could take months for the money to be accessible again.”

Juan didn’t like the sound of that. Cash flow was always an imperative for the Corporation. Running a ship this size wasn’t cheap. The outlay for the latest operation had been substantial: weapons, chartering the cargo jet, buying and modifying the Scorpions and the Daedalus. A bonus was due for finding the WMDs, but it wouldn’t tide them over for long.

The Corporation was run like a partnership, with each crew member getting a share of the profits, which also meant that they would share in any losses. They were paid extremely well for the hardships and hazards they endured, but their income and retirement savings depended on a healthy and financially solvent Corporation. They needed to find out what happened in the bank attack and get their money back.

Juan’s phone rang. It was Langston Overholt IV, Juan’s former boss at the CIA and the person most responsible for encouraging him to found the Corporation. He put it on speaker.

“Juan here, Lang,” he said. “I’ve got you on speaker with Linda Ross and Max Hanley.”

“I hear you have some good news for me,” said the octogenarian in a gravelly voice.

“We recovered two cases from a B-47, serial number 52-534. Each of them contains a nuclear weapon core.”

“Are they still intact?”

“The cases are a little worse for wear, but no leakage that we could detect.”

“And Nazari?”

“Dead, along with his soldiers. We also got a few Libyan terrorists who came to the party.”

“Excellent work as usual,” Overholt said. There was some clicking of a keyboard on the line. “There’s a U.S. destroyer in your region, the Bainbridge. Can we set a rendezvous tonight to make the transfer?”

“Yes,” Juan replied. “How about near Sicily? We’re headed in that direction anyway.”

“Right. I know about your problem resulting from the bank heist in Monaco.”

Linda spoke. “We’ve already changed all of our accounts and passwords in case any of them were compromised in the incident. I’ve forwarded you our new information for payment.”

“Yes, I received it. Your fee will be sent by wire transfer once we have the cases. In fact, your situation with Credit Condamine has national security implications for us as well. That’s why I want you to team up with an analyst we have embedded with Interpol. She’s a forensic accountant based in Paris who’s been authorized to investigate the incident on our behalf. Since you’re intimately affected by the results and have expertise that might help her, I thought it would be a good match.” There was a slight hesitation before he continued. “Her name is Gretchen Wagner.”

Juan’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth, a green bean dangling in midair. He put the fork down and sat back, his eyes looking into the unfocused distance.

“Gretchen Wagner?” he said.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Overholt asked.

Juan composed himself after a second and said, “No. No problem at all. Linda and I will head to Monaco to meet her, once we get the cases squared away.”

“Good. I’ll have the Navy contact the Bainbridge’s captain. I’ll send you the coordinates in a few hours. And we’ve begun negotiations with the Algerian government to retrieve the remains of the Air Force pilot and search for the others. I’m sure their families will be grateful for your discovery.”

He hung up.

Linda stared at Juan for a moment, but when she saw that further explanation wasn’t coming, she stood. “I’ll go make the arrangements to cast off and set course for the rendezvous.”

“Thanks, Linda,” Juan said. “Let’s book a flight out of Palermo to Monaco.”

“Got it.” She closed the door behind her.

Juan pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. He rose and made a motion to follow Linda out.

Max got up, too. “Where are you going?”

Juan opened the door. “To make sure those cases aren’t spreading radiation all over my ship.” He knew his voice sounded a bit more terse than usual, but he couldn’t help it.

“Wait a minute,” Max said, catching up to him in the hallway, all but blocking the way. “This Gretchen Wagner — it sounded like you knew the name. Do you two have a history together?”

“You might say that.”

“Why? How do you know her?”

“Well, for three weeks, she was my wife.”

Juan gave Max an inscrutable grin and left him standing in the cabin passageway, mouth agape.