Kill Decision

CHAPTER 29

Ritter contorted his body and pounded his feet into the wall panel. “Goddammit, David! What you’re doing is insane! You can’t stop this. You’re too late.”

Odin stared at the ocean passing below. He was now in the copilot’s seat, headset on, examining his map of the South China Sea. “You’d better hope we can stop it.”

“You’re the reason they activated it early. It’s already too late. What you’re doing is pointless.” Ritter nodded toward the instruments. “We’ve only got a four-hundred-mile range. We won’t have enough fuel to get back to land.”

“We’ll be landing on the Ebba Maersk.”

“No! You won’t. Goddammit, that’s what I’ve been… you won’t be landing on the ship. What sense does it make to throw all our lives away?”

Odin turned slowly in his seat to face Ritter, as did McKinney and Evans.

Foxy spoke into his pilot headset. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Odin nodded toward Ritter. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, if we approach that ship, we will die. Anything that approaches that ship in the next seventy-two hours will die.”

“Do you know how to stop it?”

“There is no way to stop it. That’s the whole point. They take care of it.”

“Who’s behind this, Ritter?”

“I don’t know! My job was to make you stop looking. But if you turn around, I’ll help you find out who’s in charge. I swear it. Just turn the chopper around.”

Odin turned forward again. “Sure you will.”

Ritter’s face contorted, and he started kicking the wall panel again. “Goddammit, turn around!”

“What’s that ahead?” Foxy pointed at a wisp of black smoke on the horizon.

Odin nodded. “Make for it.” He turned back to the others. “Get ready.”

“If you get too close, they’ll knock us out of the sky.”

Evans stared at Ritter, the man’s panic starting to rub off on him. “Maybe we should listen to him, Odin.”

“Mission’s not done yet, Mordecai.”

Evans sighed. “Fuck…”

The smoke on the horizon grew rapidly into a black plume, and then to a smoking ship wallowing on the waves.

Foxy brought them in low and fast as they passed over a two-hundred-foot-long fishing trawler crawling with what looked like black vampire bats the size of surfboards. The nets were torn apart on the booms, and the wheelhouse was engulfed in flames. There were burn holes in the steel hull. Bodies and debris floated in the water all around it. The ship was clearly sinking, its bow almost in the waves.

The black-winged drones swarmed over the surface of the vessel, showers of sparks flying up as they cut the ship apart even as it sank. Clouds of smaller drones hovered above them-and then rose to give chase to the passing helicopter.

“Heads up, heads up!”

Foxy leaned the chopper forward, increasing speed. “I’m on it.”

The smaller drones fell back behind them.

McKinney stared at the carnage, trying to come to grips with what they were heading into.

Ritter just groaned. “I told you. And this is nothing. We need to turn back.”

Odin nodded toward the horizon. “The colony ship must have left these behind.”

McKinney tapped his shoulder. “They wouldn’t know they’re on a ship. It’s just the nest to them. The model wouldn’t make it easy for them to find their home ship if they couldn’t see it.”

“Then they’re single-use. But I guess they have plenty of extras.”

Evans was still looking back at the drones devouring the trawler. “I was standing on solid ground. I could have just gotten out with the pilot, but no…”

Odin looked at the map. “The Ebba Maersk came straight through here.”

Ritter shouted, “I’m telling you, we need to turn back. It’s too late to do anything about this!”

Odin drew a. 45 tactical pistol and aimed it straight at Ritter’s face. “You want to add something constructive, or do you want to go out the door right now?”

Ritter just stared at the gun barrel, then turned away sullenly toward the wall.

McKinney eyed Odin, but he stowed the pistol and turned back toward the front. “Professor, please think of a way to stop this Frankenstein monster of yours.”

“It’s not my Frankenstein monster-and I don’t know. I’m… I’m thinking.”

They traveled for another thirty minutes in deep existential silence, listening only to the white noise of the engines. Then Foxy pointed to the horizon again.

“More smoke ahead.”

Odin nodded. “Two plumes this time.”

Foxy glanced down at the fuel gauge. They had traveled about four hundred miles in two and a half hours, deep into the center of the South China Sea. “Running low on fuel, boss. Probably not more than another thirty minutes’ running time.”

Odin nodded. “We saw the position of the ship. We’re within range of it. Just keep going.”

Ritter groaned in despair.

Soon they were roaring past two more vessels a mile apart, burning and adrift. One was a large pleasure yacht fully engulfed in flames on its way to burning to the waterline. The other was a rusted freighter, guttering plumes of black smoke from the stern, which just now rose up out of the water as the ship slipped beneath the waves-several drones still cutting into its keel with a brief shower of sparks and smoke.

Foxy grimaced. “Don’t see any survivors in the water. Those hovering drones are probably the people killers.”

Odin scanned the horizon with binoculars. He lowered them and pointed. “Up ahead. That’s gotta be it. It’s huge.”

After a few minutes they could see the ship with the naked eye. It was a massive light blue container ship leaving a broad wake. It was easily two hundred feet wide, but they could see what looked to be a dark cloud swirling all around it. And then part of the cloud split away-heading in their direction.

McKinney put on her headphones. “My God. There are thousands of them-there’s no way we’re getting near that ship.”

Ritter shouted, “I’ve been telling you. This is suicide!”

Odin turned to face McKinney. “The crew is probably dead and the ship on autopilot. If we can disable the rudder, we might be able to stop it from reaching the vicinity of the carrier strike group. That’s about two hundred miles south of here.”

Foxy veered the chopper to starboard, curving away from the Ebba Maersk — still only a blue smudge on the horizon. They were still about twenty miles from it at an altitude of five thousand feet, but the indistinct swarm was heading up toward them. “Those things aren’t slow. Best not to stick around.”

McKinney leaned forward to put a hand on Odin’s shoulder. “We have no choice. If we don’t leave their attack perimeter, they’re going to knock us into the sea.”

Odin stared straight ahead but then nodded. “Turn toward Paracel, Foxy. Maybe we can get some resources there.”

“Wilco.”

Odin was deep in thought while Foxy examined the GPS on the console. He pointed at the nav screen map. “With the fuel we have left, even Paracel is going to be dicey.”

McKinney pointed far off to the right, westward. “Is that another ship?”

Odin raised the binoculars to the western horizon. He pondered what he was looking at, then lowered them. “A cargo ship. A big one, headed north-away from the Maersk.” Odin pointed. “Make for it.”

“Maybe we can use their radio to warn away other shipping or contact the navy.”

Odin nodded.

It took several minutes for them to get into the vicinity of the second large ship. It had a sleek, aerodynamic design and was painted in bright orange and white. Despite its smooth shape, it was oddly tall and bulky for a cargo ship-shaped much like a passenger ship or high-speed ferry, but it had no windows along its side-just smooth white-and-orange-painted steel with the words Wallenius Wilhelmsen painted in two-story-tall letters.

Odin pointed down. “Car carrier. Bring us down.”

“You want me to land on that?”

Odin examined it with the binoculars. “It’s got a helipad right there in the center.”

“Yeah, meant for something like a Bell or an MD 520. This is a goddamned Sikorsky.”

Odin tapped the dash fuel gauge, which was already into the red. “We don’t have a choice.”

Foxy looked below again. “Oh, hell… aye, aye, skipper.”

They descended toward the fast-moving ship. As they came up on it, several of the crew on deck waved-obviously thinking the chopper was just doing a flyby.

Foxy leaned down to examine the equipment-and-ventilator-shaft-studded deck. “Should I try to hail them on the radio first?”

Odin shook his head. “No. Signal an emergency with your landing lights and get this bird down, Foxy.” Odin checked the safety on his stolen MP5 submachine gun, which he then slid into a satchel bag. He looked back to the others. “We are going to commandeer this vessel. Control must be established rapidly and with as little violence as possible.”

“As little violence…?” McKinney leaned forward. “My God, what are you doing?”

“Improvising. We’re going to ram the Ebba Maersk, Professor. This vessel’s clearly faster than that container ship.”

The faces of the others registered varying degrees of shock.

Foxy chuckled. “All those years in counterterrorism, and here I am hijacking a ship.”

Ritter stared in unbelieving amazement. “You can’t be serious? That swarm is designed to kill ships. That’s what they do.”

“We’ll see how long it takes them to do it.” Odin turned around in his seat. “I know you’ll try to warn the crew, Ritter. But in reality, you’re gonna help us.”

“The hell I am.”

Odin gestured to Smokey with a choking motion. Smokey immediately grabbed Ritter from behind in a chokehold. The man kicked and clawed at Smokey, but he was no match for the muscular commando.

McKinney shouted, “David, what are you doing! This isn’t right!”

“We’re not killing anyone. Just making sure he doesn’t mess up the plan.”

Even now she could see Ritter’s eyes rolling upward as Smokey’s chokehold blacked him out. “Mooch.”

Mooch had already opened his medical bag and was test-squirting a needle he’d prepared during the melee. “Roll up his sleeve.”

Ripper quickly did so, and Mooch delivered the injection. “I don’t know his health history, Odin, so this isn’t a big dose. You’ve probably got twenty minutes or so until he wakes up.”

“Good enough. If they ask, this is a medical emergency. He’s an oil executive returning from an offshore platform.” Odin tossed a container-yard hard hat into the backseat. “We think he had a stroke, and we need to see their ship’s doctor. The doctor’s cabin is usually close to the captain’s quarters, and the captain’s quarters are always next to any weapons.”

Foxy frowned. “It’s a commercial vessel, and this isn’t the Indian Ocean. They probably won’t have any weapons.”

“Mooch, you can speak the most convincing medical bullshit-you play the role of personal aide. Ripper, you’re his panicked wife.”

Ripper started peeling off her tactical harness. “Haven’t got a ring.”

“Evans!”

Evans tried to conceal his ring-covered hands. “Goddammit, are you for real?”

“Cough up one of those pinky rings for Ripper, and put another one on our disabled husband here.” Odin locked eyes with his team. “It’s a modern car carrier, so we’re probably looking at a crew of twenty to twenty-four people. We only need to gain control of the helm, engine room, and any weapons. Nonlethal force only. No knives-that means you, Ripper. No guns. Disable with hand-to-hand or lachrimatory agents only. Gear up.”

They were stowing their rifle cases, shedding military gear, and concealing pistols beneath their shirts as Foxy brought the chopper down to within a hundred feet above the moving ship. Wind turbulence buffeted them about. McKinney just now realized how perilous landing on the ship would be. Her nervousness about the imminent hijacking and drones faded in importance as the chopper lurched, dropped, and yawed to the side.

Odin shook his head. “Jesus, Foxy, you still remember how to fly this thing?”

“That helipad wasn’t meant for a chopper this size-and they’re going full steam.”

“Well, land this goddamned thing. We don’t have the fuel to mess around.”

Several crew members waved them away frantically as the large chopper continued its rapid descent, bucking against the turbulence.

McKinney felt her heart go into her throat as the Sikorsky quickly dropped half the distance to the helipad and slowed only ten feet or so off the deck. There was a bang as some part of the chopper hit a light mast or any of a number of objects crowding the helipad. Moments later the helicopter thumped down on the helipad, bounced slightly, and then finally came to a rest.

“Wow, you almost got part of the chopper onto the helipad.”

Foxy was busy shutting off the engines, which began to wind down. “I deserve a goddamned medal for getting it on the ship with all that turbulence.”

Odin noticed a half-dozen Caucasian men racing up a staircase toward the chopper, but they hesitated to be certain it had stopped moving. “Showtime, people.” He opened the copilot door, rapidly followed by Mooch and Smokey carrying the unconscious Ritter from the larger passenger door. Everyone else piled out, sincerely relieved to have landed.

The lead ship crew member was a bearded, husky blond man in a neat khaki uniform and captain’s hat. He didn’t look at all happy as he noticed the unconscious Ritter being carried toward him. He shouted to be heard over chopper wash and decreasing turbofan engine noise. His English had a slight Nordic accent. “What’s wrong with him?”

Odin leaned close, pointing to the stricken man. “Medical emergency. We think it’s a stroke. Big oil executive. His wife ordered us to land.”

“She could have gotten you all killed, not to mention my crew.”

“Do you have a doctor on board?”

The captain nodded, still looking annoyed. “The second mate is a paramedic. Follow me.” He turned to the other crew members. “Get that chopper tied down before it rolls off the pad. And deploy fire hoses.”

The crewmen launched into action as Odin pulled McKinney along, following Smokey, Mooch, the inconsolable Ripper, and the ship’s captain. Ripper shrieked, grabbing for Ritter’s suit sleeve and blurting out exclamations in some language McKinney didn’t recognize-possibly Dutch or German. It amazed her how quickly Ripper could transform herself.

In a few moments the captain brought them through a hatchway into the relative quiet and calm of the ship. As they moved down a stairwell, still more crewmen of various ethnicities-Asian, Caucasian, Latino, and Filipino-crowded the hall below and helped lower the unconscious Ritter down a narrow metal gangway.

They reached a pipe- and conduit-lined corridor below, and Foxy called after Odin, “You need us or should we wait, or…?”

Odin gestured to Foxy, Evans, and now Smokey, who had fallen behind. “Is there somewhere where they can make a call to shore?”

The bearded captain called out to another, younger, clean-shaven blond man in a green jumpsuit. “Valentin, ta dem till allrummet. ” The captain turned to Odin. “He’ll take them.”

Odin motioned for the remainder of his team to follow the younger seaman, and they continued carrying Ritter forward with the captain. After a few turns they arrived in a more comfortably appointed section, where the corridors were wider and better lit. There was even a room with a skylight, cabinets, and dining tables with chairs. This area was also painted in brighter colors and had wooden doors with names printed on them in English on black stenciled plaques.

A third Nordic man in a khaki uniform intercepted them. He was athletically built with dark hair, splotchy skin, and old acne scars.

The captain barked, “Joran, they think he had a stroke.”

The man became agitated. “Varfor fortsatte de inte till fastlandet?”

“Just help them.”

The second mate came alongside Mooch. “You should have kept going to the mainland. I don’t have real medical facilities here.”

The captain pushed forward. “The wife insisted they land. Joran, please!” He motioned for them to follow toward a nearby open door.

Odin was already scanning the corridor, surreptitiously inserting his earplug radios. McKinney felt her anxiety build as she noticed there were only three crew members present: the captain, the second mate, and another crewman helping to carry Ritter.

Odin spoke softly. “Execute, execute, execute.”

In an instant Ripper slipped a device from her sleeve into her palm and sprayed something in the second mate’s face, dropping the man as he screamed. Mooch twisted the captain’s arm back while he and Odin shoved him against the wall. Odin rapidly secured the man’s wrists with zip-ties. By the time McKinney was able to look over to Ritter, she could see that Smokey had likewise subdued the crew member there with chemical spray. Both he and Ripper were zip-tying their prisoners, who were groaning pitiably.

Odin pulled the captain forward, as the bearded, barrel-chested Swede shouted, “You scum! Du borde skammas! Taking advantage of our mercy-”

Odin produced the machine gun from his bag. He chambered a round. “Captain! What is your name?”

He stared daggers. “I am Birghir Jonsson, senior captain for W and W.”

“Captain Jonsson, where is your weapons locker?”

“We don’t have weapons on board this ship. We are civilized people.”

Mooch nodded. “If it’s a Swedish ship, I don’t doubt him. Owners don’t want the crew trying to resist pirates. They’d be outgunned.”

The captain stared in rage toward his second mate, who was still coughing and gagging on the floor under Ripper’s knee. “You’re animals…”

“He’ll be fine in a few minutes. How many others aboard?”

The captain spoke through clenched teeth. “Twenty-two crew.” McKinney noticed Odin listening to his earphone radio. “Okay… affirmative.” Odin focused back on the Swede. “Captain, your helm and engine room are now under my control. No one has been hurt, and I don’t want anyone hurt. Just order your crew to abandon ship.”

He eyed Odin with growing rage. “You think you’re going to just sail away with two thousand BMWs? You won’t get far. I promise you that.”

“We aren’t planning on getting far.”

Mooch raised his eyebrows. “Did he say two thousand BMWs?”

The captain was on a rant. “You’ll have no way of unloading the cars from the ship before they track you down. You’ll not reach land.”

“Right on both counts.” He pulled the bound captain toward his quarters and opened the door. “Get on the PA and order your crew to abandon ship. Time is a factor.”

“You are an imbecile, if you think you can get away with this.”

“The safest thing is for you and your crew to abandon ship. Without any hostages on board, the authorities can sweep down on us without innocent people getting hurt.”

The captain just glared at him for several moments.

Odin leaned in toward him. “I saw that free-fall emergency boat. You and the crew get inside and launch. The sooner you evacuate, the sooner you can radio for help.”

Jonsson narrowed his eyes. “There is something else going on here.”

“Get on the PA, Captain.”

“What are you planning on doing with my ship?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I don’t believe you now.”

“Very well. This ship is about to be attacked by thousands of military drones that will kill everyone on board as they cut it to pieces.”

The captain’s face went slack.

“Now, you can either stick around for that or bail out now with your crew and call for help. Which is it?”

He was weighing the matter. “Are you the group causing the distress calls we’ve been hearing?”

“What distress calls?”

“An Indonesian freighter said they were under aerial attack. We haven’t heard from them in the last twenty minutes. Search planes have been dispatched from the mainland.”

“That’s just going to wind up getting more people killed.”

“Killed?”

“We passed that freighter just as it was going under. Did any of their broadcasts make sense to you, Captain?”

The captain struggled to find words, then finally settled for “No. They said dozens of small planes were attacking them.”

“It’s a new class of autonomous combat drone, Captain-ship-cutters. And they’ve gotten loose.”

“You must be joking. Robot aircraft attacking ships?”

Odin grabbed the PA handset from the wall and shoved it in front of his face. “Get talking, Captain Jonsson. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that your entire crew will wind up dead.”

“But we are under way at twenty knots.”

Odin pounded the wall next to the man’s head. “I’m finished negotiating with you. We both know damn well that boat can be launched while under way.”

“It’s not safe.”

“ Safe is a relative term. Inside an hour there will be ten thousand killer drones on top of us.”

“Ten thousand?”

“Make the announcement-in English, please.”

The captain sighed deeply, and then nodded as Odin keyed the PA handset. “Attention, crew. Attention, crew. This is Captain Jonsson. The Tonsberg has been boarded and hijacked by armed men. Do not panic, and do not resist them. All crew members are to move with urgency to the free-fall boat. This is your order to abandon ship. Repeat: Abandon ship with urgency and prepare to deploy while under way.”

Odin nodded and hung the PA mic back on its hook. “Thank you.”

They could already hear shouting and footsteps running over metal plating elsewhere above and below them. The ship started to lean to the left as it went into a steep turn.

The captain frowned. “Why are we turning?”

“Head for the lifeboat, Captain.”

“Who is piloting my vessel?”

Two crewmen in blue coveralls came rushing out of a doorway and halted in surprise at the sight of Odin wielding the submachine gun.

The captain motioned to them. “Take Joran and Pindal to the escape boat.” On their uncertainty he added, “Now!”

Mooch was using wet wipes to wash away the mace from the faces of the stricken men. The two crewmen edged nervously alongside to take charge of them. “Kommer du, Kapten?”

“Jag stannar med skeppet.”

The crewmen looked grim-faced as they performed a capable fireman’s carry and shouldered the men down the hall.

“Get going, Captain.”

“I’m staying with my ship.”

Odin raised the gun.

“My crew is leaving, and I cannot let you take charge of this vessel in an active shipping lane. You could cause a collision, an oil spill, or worse. You tell me where you need to go, and I will take you there.”

Mooch was checking Ritter’s pulse. “We could use the help, chief.”

Odin shook his head. “He has no idea what we’re headed into.”

The captain looked down at Ritter. “Is that man really ill?”

Mooch put away his stethoscope. “He’s been sedated. If you have any doubts that we’re about to be attacked by drones, see how he acts when he wakes up.”

“I am staying. If what you claim is true, then a skilled captain will be useful. And I know my ship.”

Odin lowered the MP5. “I refuse to take responsibility for your decision. You were warned.” He gestured for the captain to walk first. “Now lead us to the bridge.”

Mooch called after Odin. “What about Ritter?”

“Secure him. We’ll deal with him later.”

McKinney followed Odin and the captain up several metal gangways, gaining height until they finally emerged in the center of a narrow but long control room running the entire width of the ship. It was lined, front, back, and sides, with tall, durable-looking windows fitted with vertical windshield wipers. The room was bordered at waist level with consoles populated by switches, phone handsets, radios, radar screens, and built-in computer displays. Behind that was another console with a ship’s wheel and throttle controls, along with wide counters on which sat navigational charts and remote camera monitors for various sections of the ship.

The helm had a commanding view of the sea in every direction as well as down onto the ship’s deck-a couple of hundred feet or so behind the control tower stood the Sikorsky helicopter, already lashed down on the small helipad. Beyond that McKinney could see the curving trail of the ship’s wake as they made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to the south in pursuit of the Ebba Maersk.

Evans stood at the wheel of the ship, examining computer screens. He glanced up when they entered. “How’s the hijacking going?”

“Don’t touch anything.” Odin nudged him aside.

“Foxy started the turn, and then took off with the crew. What’s going on?”

“He’s escorting them to the escape boat. The captain’s staying.”

Evans raised his eyebrows. “Really. Can I take his place in the lifeboat?”

Odin shook his head. “Mission’s not done yet, Mort.”

The captain had already picked up large binoculars and was scanning the horizon while McKinney sat in a chair next to the navigational charts. The captain spoke while scanning the sea. “Who is your pilot?”

Odin was examining the radar and GPS navigation screens showing ship traffic in the area. “I am. I’m a licensed sea captain.” He then moved alongside McKinney to examine the nav chart as well.

“Where are you heading?”

“In pursuit of the Ebba Maersk.” Odin pressed a finger into the navigational chart. “She’s approximately thirty-three miles southwest of our position, doing roughly eighteen knots. What’s the maximum speed of your ship, Captain?”

“We can do twenty-six in a favorable wind, but we’ll burn twice the tonnage.”

“Saving on fuel costs isn’t high on my priority list.” Odin moved to one of the ship’s control monitors and started changing settings.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Antiterrorism operators need to be able to pose as qualified airport and ship personnel, so we’re cross-trained in the equipment. I’m programming an interception course. When we finish our turn, we go to full speed, heading one-six-eight.”

A phone on the console rang. Odin grabbed it and listened for a moment. “Good. Get the team back here and let’s plan this operation.” He hung up. “Captain, your crew deployed the escape boat successfully. No injuries.”

The Swede nodded grimly. “If your purpose was to catch up with the Ebba Maersk, why didn’t you use your own helicopter?”

“Because the Ebba Maersk is infested with thousands of combat drones that will destroy anything that gets within twenty miles of it.”

The Tonsberg was already completing its turn and leveling out.

The captain threw up his hands. “What you’re saying is madness.”

Odin traced his finger along the map, passing two red pins. “Those distress signals. Look, you marked their location on your own map. It’s the same course the Ebba Maersk took.” Odin lifted a handset from the console and passed it to the captain. “Here. Try to raise them on the radio. You won’t be able to. The crew is either dead or in hiding.”

The captain grabbed the radio and eyed Odin before keying the mic. “ Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Do you copy?”

As the captain continued transmitting, Odin started making calculations on the relative movements of the two ships while McKinney watched closely. From his pencil markings she could see they weren’t going to close the distance for a while.

“Will we catch it in time?”

He started to rerun his calculations. “I think we can.”

In a few minutes Foxy, Mooch, Ripper, and Smokey entered, their pistols holstered. Foxy shrugged. “What’s the plan?”

Everyone on the bridge gathered around, including the dour-looking captain, who had given up trying to raise the Ebba Maersk.

Odin gestured to the navigational chart as he spoke. “At twenty-six knots it will take us roughly three hours and fifty minutes to close with the Ebba Maersk. During that time she will travel another eighty-one and a half miles closer to Carrier Strike Group Five. That puts them within the radius of their CAP and picket ships-but only just.”

Foxy nodded. “Hawkeye flights should spot the drones on radar.”

Odin gestured to the nearby console. “Look at the swarm around the Maersk on the radar screen, Foxy. What’s it look like to you?”

Foxy and the others turned to look at a nearby radar screen. “It looks like rain.”

“Right. There are so many of them hovering around the ship, so close together, it looks like a squall line-like no aircraft any radar operator’s seen before.”

Foxy nodded. “Tricky bastards…”

“I estimate we’ll be within the colony’s attack radius for almost two hours before we catch up with the hive ship.”

McKinney sucked in a breath. “Two hours?”

Foxy whistled. “That’s a lot of time for them to go to town on us.”

Odin nodded to McKinney. “The professor thinks there will be various morphologies of drones-and we saw that as we flew in. We can take some of this ship’s firefighting gear-the oxygen masks, for instance-to conceal our chemical signature and faces. As for the ship… we’ll just need to defend it as best we can until we reach our target.”

No one looked particularly enthused about this plan.

The captain frowned. “But if what you’re saying is true-that there are thousands of combat drones-what do you plan on doing when you catch up to the Ebba Maersk?”

Odin looked him straight in the eye. “We’re going to ram it.”

The look of horror on the man’s face broke new ground. “This is insanity! Do you realize that the Ebba Maersk is one of the largest ships in the world? The environmental damage-not to mention… that’s over a billion dollars’ worth of shipping not including my cargo-not to mention the cargo on the Ebba Maersk.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty certain they’re insured, Captain.”

Foxy was shaking his head. “This is one shitty plan, boss.”

Ripper nodded agreement. “He’s right.”

The Swedish captain nodded vigorous agreement, his accent thicker than usual. “I am in agreement that this iz a shitty plan.”

Foxy stabbed at the map. “How do we get clear? We sent the only damn lifeboat off with the crew. What happens when we ram this thing-we just hope we haven’t sustained enough damage to sink ourselves? And what about the swarms of drones still flying around?”

McKinney was staring at her backpack, also shaking her head slowly. “You’ll never get away even if this ship doesn’t sink from the collision.”

Odin stared at the navigation chart, obviously considering her words.

McKinney sighed. “But I have a better idea.”

Everyone turned to her-Odin looking most relieved of all. “Good. Let’s hear it, Professor.”

“Ichneumon eumerus.” She unzipped the backpack. “It’s a parasitic wasp that preys on ants. It does that by mimicking their pheromonal signature so it can get inside the nest without raising alarm.”

Ripper frowned. “You mean it pretends to be one of them?”

Evans leaned in. “Don’t the ants notice the wasp doesn’t look like them?”

McKinney shook her head. “That’s the thing. Ants don’t process physical appearance-their pheromonal signature is all that matters. That’s how they know their colony mates.” She removed the two metal canisters of perfluorocarbon from the backpack and placed them on the table. “I propose we do the same thing with the helicopter.”

From the expressions on their faces it appeared that minds had just been blown.

Ripper turned to Odin. “Is she fucking serious? Fly right into the middle of thousands of killer drones and do what?”

Odin was pondering it, nodding to himself. “Turn the ship.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Foxy was the first to recover. “That is fucking hard core. ”

Mooch shook his head. “But you have no idea whether this will work. And if you’re wrong…”

“We know they run on my software model-and that software model is looking for a match on a pheromonal signature variable. If there’s a match, no attack signal is generated. This is how they identify each other. I’m willing to bet my life on it.”

Odin looked up. “You don’t have to be one of those who go, Professor.”

“The hell I don’t. It will take some experimentation to get it right, and no one knows their behavior patterns better than me. Besides, what they’re trying to do with my work might wind up driving humanity to a new form of warfare. I can’t just stand by and let that happen.”

Odin nodded to her with respect. “Understood.”

Ripper was looking from one to the other. “Odin, are we really doing this?”

Odin took a deep breath. “No. The professor and I are doing this. You and the rest of the team are staying here. Except…”

Foxy nodded. “You need someone to fly the chopper.” He turned to face McKinney. “Count me in. It should be an interesting trip. So how do we work this pheromone with the chopper?”

McKinney was studying the canister. She tapped the nozzle at the top. “When I saw this on the complete drone we had in Mexico it was smaller, but the perfluorocarbon nozzle was aimed at the body of the drone itself-to mark it. We’ll need to fasten a rig aimed at the chopper fuselage. One that we can manually operate to depress the nozzle and spray the chopper as often as necessary to get the drones to view us as one of their own.”

Odin accepted one of the liter-sized metal canisters from her. “How long will this last us?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, but they can’t have to recharge too often or it would be impractical. Maybe we can find their supply somewhere on board?”

“We can’t rely on that. We’re just going to have to get this done as soon as possible. Figure we take firefighting gear from the Tonsberg here-oxygen masks to conceal our breath signature and faces. That’ll give us an hour of air.”

Foxy considered it. “As long as they don’t attack us, an hour should be enough time to fly thirty miles or so, land on the ship, get to the bridge, and steer it off course. Helicopter fuel might be a problem, though.” Foxy turned to the captain. “Do you have any Jet-A on board? Any aircraft in storage below?”

The captain shook his head. “No. Just automobiles, buses, heavy construction equipment, railroad cars, forklifts.”

“Great.” He turned back to Odin. “We probably have enough to reach the Maersk at thirty miles, but we won’t have enough to get back.”

“As long as we can get there and turn the ship, we’ll deal with the rest.”

Foxy frowned. “Why not just kill the ship’s engine?”

“Because it’s in the middle of a shipping channel.”

“If we had explosives, we could scuttle her.”

“Well, we don’t have explosives.”

“We could improvise shaped charges with wine bottles, some ball bearings, oil-”

“No, look here…” Odin was studying the chart again. He jabbed a finger at a line to the east of them. “Tancred Shoal.” He nodded to himself. “That’s just off the shipping lane-another twenty miles. This chart shows exposed rocks. We can run her aground.”

“That’s better than just sinking her?”

“Yes. Ritter said these things only have a seventy-two-hour operating life. Whoever’s behind this will try to conceal the fact that this ever happened. And we all know how deep inside our systems they are. If we sink the ship or let them tow it away, they’ll just rebuild and relaunch. But if we run the Ebba Maersk aground on the Tancred Shoals, it’ll take salvage crews months to clean up. A big public demise for the world’s biggest container ship in hotly contested waters-highly visible with lots of evidence left behind. That’s something the world won’t be able to ignore. The physical evidence of thousands of swarming ship-killer drones will show that this isn’t just some terror group. It might force international investigations.”

McKinney studied the chart along with Foxy. “So we run it aground. How do we get away?”

“The Ebba Maersk has an escape boat too. Assuming the crew didn’t have a chance to launch it, we cover ourselves in colony pheromone and head for the escape pod just before we run aground on the shoals.”

The ship’s captain was just shaking his head in confusion. “What the hell is everyone talking about-parasitic wasps and ants? What does this have to do with drones?”

Evans waved him off, looking considerably calmer than he’d been. “Believe me, ignorance is bliss.” He looked to Odin, McKinney, and Foxy. “Well, it’s big of you to take one for the team, guys. Best of luck.”

Ripper was studying the pheromone canister. “Don’t get too excited, Mort. We still need to chart a course to ram the Ebba Maersk.”

“But they’re going to-”

Odin turned to her. “Why, Ripper?”

“What if you fail, sir? This ship needs to already be on track to intercept, otherwise there won’t be time to catch up.” She jabbed a finger down onto the chart. “Which means this ship will be inside colony territory before we can be positive you’ve succeeded-at which point we can break off and head for safety.”

Evans’s eyes went wide. “For how long?”

Odin studied the map. “Probably fifteen minutes to a half hour.”

“It beats two hours plus.”

Odin nodded, then turned to the others. “She’s right. Any objections?”

Evans raised his hand. No one else moved.

“So that means we all have jobs to do. Let’s get moving, people. We’re leaving within the hour.”