Typhoon Fury

10

Memories churned to the surface for Max Hanley as Vietnam’s coast passed by on the huge screen in front of him. He had served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War on Swift Boats patrolling the coastline and the Mekong Delta, sweating through every square inch of his uniform and swatting at the incessant mosquitoes as he and his fellow sailors waited for the ambushes they knew would come. His crewmates were some of the best men he’d ever known. Many of them had been killed or gone missing. He almost joined them when his boat was destroyed and he was captured. He spent six months in a POW camp before escaping.

Now, more than forty years later — with twenty extra pounds at his belly and a ring of ginger circling his chrome dome where a full head of hair used to be — it was hard to believe he was sitting in air-conditioned comfort as he watched another battle unfold on the same soil. The operations center was the heart of the Oregon. Located directly below the window-dressing bridge in the superstructure, virtually every function of the ship could be handled from this one room through a new Cray supercomputer. Max noted with pride that the Oregon’s computer nearly matched the sophistication of the NSA’s, if not its raw computing power.

With its banks of touch screen workstations and a massive high-definition screen that dominated the front of the room, the op center resembled a futuristic bridge straight out of Star Trek, so much so that the large seat at the center of the room where Max sat had been dubbed the “Kirk Chair” by Mark Murphy and Eric Stone. The Oregon could even be operated from controls in the chair’s arms, if the need arose. As chief engineer, Max would normally be at his engineering station at the back, but with Juan away on the mission, the Corporation’s vice president was in command of the ship.

Linda Ross, a Navy vet and the Corporation’s vice president of operations, sat at the helm, which was usually Eric’s station. Except for Juan, Eric was the Oregon’s best ship handler, but Linda wasn’t far behind them.

“I’ve got a fishing boat right in our path a mile ahead,” she said, pointing at the screen. Her pixie-high voice matched her petite figure, elfin features, and upturned nose, but having served as an officer aboard an Aegis cruiser, she spoke with authority. Known for updating her hair color and style regularly, she had recently grown out her dark tresses and tinged them with eggplant highlights. “Shall I adjust course toward the coast?”

“Yes,” Max said. “I don’t want to get any farther away from the train than we have to. Give the fishing boat a wide berth, but once we’re past them, get us back to our original distance.”

“Changing course,” she said, and deftly moved the Oregon to its new heading.

“Max, I just got a call from Murph,” said Hali Kasim, the ship’s Lebanese-American communications specialist. He lowered the old-fashioned headset he preferred, but his mop of crushed hair didn’t move. “He says they’ve got a problem down in the hold. He’s on his way back up here.”

“Did he say what kind of problem?”

“No. He sounded out of breath, like he was running.”

“What’s going on with Juan?”

“They’ve run into resistance from the back of the train, but they’re taking care of that. He said they’ve moved on to Plan C.”

“Already? I didn’t even know we’d tried Plan B. Did he say what Plan C was?”

Hali shrugged. “Sorry.”

Max peered up at the screen and saw someone hanging from the door at the rear of the train’s seventh car on the side away from the Oregon. From the size of the man, he guessed it was Linc doing something with the train coupling.

“I can’t tell what he’s doing. Gomez, can you zoom in any closer on the train?”

Seated next to Hali was George “Gomez” Adams, their resident drone and helicopter pilot. Dressed in a flight suit in case his services were needed in the air, his matinee idol looks rivaled MacD’s. The main difference was that Gomez sported the handlebar mustache of a Wild West gunfighter. The nickname stuck after he had an illicit liaison with a drug lord’s wife who was a dead ringer for Morticia Addams, the matriarch on the sixties television show The Addams Family.

“It’s already zoomed in as far as it’ll go,” Gomez said, “but I can fly Drone Two closer.”

“Not too close. We don’t want to take the chance that it will be seen from the train.”

“No problem. I’ll keep it between the train and the sun.”

As Gomez flew the observation drone in for a closer look, Murph burst into the op center, panting from the run. He took his seat at the weapons control station next to the helm and began to furiously type on his keyboard.

“What’s going on?” Max asked.

“One of the NSA guys triggered a password entry screen on the flash drive,” Murph said breathlessly while his fingers continued to fly. “If we don’t get the right one, the flash drive will erase itself. Even with that monstrosity in the hold, they’ll never crack it in time.”

“How long do they have?”

“Two minutes.”

“You mean we’re going to lose the data?”

“Not if I can help it. Hali, get the NSA team on the line.”

Hali tapped on his workstation. “On speaker.”

Max had the urge to ask what Murph was doing, but he didn’t want to be a distraction. If Murph thought he had a solution, Max trusted him.

With a flourish, Murph finished typing. “Done! Abby, the link is established.”

From the hold, Abby Yamada said, “Thanks. We’ve nearly doubled the processing speed. It’s cranking through the possibilities now.”

“Okay,” Murph said. “Let me know if it works.”

“What did you do?” Max asked.

Murph swiveled in his chair to face him. “When we installed their supercomputer in the hold, we added some compatibility software to our Cray so we could test the linkage to our power system. With the connection already made, I just had to hand over control of our computer to theirs so they could draw on its power to crack the password.”

“Will that affect our systems?” Linda asked.

“Nothing vital,” he said with a grin, “but the Internet may be slow if you’re looking to download any videos.”

Max leaned forward. “How will this affect the time to decipher the data?”

“Hard to say. But the minutes we’ve spent cracking the password are delaying the data decryption.”

“Then we might not have as much time as we thought.” Max looked at Linda. “We’ll have to chance them seeing us. Take us within three-quarters of a mile of the coast.”

“Aye, aye,” she said, an old Navy habit, and the Oregon edged closer to the coast.

The plan for the mission wasn’t to steal the flash drive. The goal was to download the data on it and get it back to the Chinese without them knowing it had been read. Learning the identities of the undercover MSS agents operating in the U.S. would be a major intelligence coup, but if the Chinese knew their agents were compromised, they’d pull them out or shut them down. The few that were captured and interrogated might reveal some useful information, but the real value would be lost. The Chinese would send in new agents, and the cat-and-mouse game would start all over.

But if they could return the flash drive without them knowing it had been read, the Chinese would think the identities of their agents were secure. Then the NSA, FBI, and CIA could not only track their movements and conversations but could feed false information to the Chinese for years. It was a dream scenario for U.S. intelligence, which was the reason for the highly risky, off-the-books operation.

While they waited for news from the NSA people, Gomez was able to get the observation drone close enough to see Linc’s distinctive form clamping something onto a hose linking the seventh car to the one behind it. Max could see flashes of gunfire coming from the eighth car. The train was approaching yet another tunnel.

“Put Juan on speaker,” Max said.

“You’ve got him,” Hali said.

The sound of gunshots came through the speakers.

“Everybody okay?” Max asked.

“No casualties,” Juan replied, “but we’re trying to even the odds a little.”

“I can see Linc working on Plan C.”

“We’re about to say good-bye to three of the MSS agents.”

“Anything we can do to help?”

“Let us know if there’s anyone hanging out a window.”

“You got it.”

On-screen, MacD leaned out and handed a gray block to Linc, who stretched his long arms and mashed it against the coupling. He pulled himself back in and gave a thumbs-up before he disappeared from view.

“Fire in the hole!” Juan shouted.

The coupling disintegrated in a ball of flame. As the train entered the tunnel, the accordion windscreens between the two cars ripped apart as they pulled away from each other. Then they were gone into the darkness.

Static came on the line.

“The tunnel’s blocking their signal,” Hali said.

Gomez gunned the drone and flew it to the other end of the tunnel.

Max kept his eyes on the screen. When the train emerged, it was missing two cars.

“They’ll be stuck in there,” Juan said when the static disappeared. “The air brakes kicked in as soon as Linc severed the line. And if we’re lucky, their radio won’t work in the tunnel, so their comrades up front won’t notice they’re gone.”

“Nice work for a Plan C.”

“It’s not over yet. How’s the decryption coming?”

“We’ve hit a snag there,” Max said. “Long story, but we’re working on it.”

“That doesn’t sound hopeful.”

Murph, who had gone over to Hali’s station and picked up a spare headset, looked at Max and said, “Got some good news on that score.”

“They cracked the password?”

Murph nodded. “With about twenty seconds to spare. Now do you want the bad news?”

Max frowned. “What?”

“The data is going to take longer than they thought to decrypt, even with the Oregon’s computer helping.”

“How long?”

“They estimate that it won’t be done until two minutes before Juan and the others reach the extraction point at the river.”

“And it needs to arrive at the train a minute before that. Can you fly it back that fast, Gomez?”

Gomez stroked his mustache and grimaced. “From this distance? It’ll be really close.”

Murph took the cue and left the op center so he’d be ready to put the USB drive back in the drone the moment it was available.

Max turned to Linda. “Get us within a half mile of the coast, and let’s hope Juan keeps the Chinese too distracted to notice us.”