Shadow Tyrants

SIXTY-SEVEN

“Eric, two fish in the water!” Max radioed from the fake bridge of the Oregon. “Give me thrusters in reverse.”

“Thrusters full reverse,” Eric replied.

The Oregon crawled backward. Max willed her to move faster, but there was nothing else he could do.

The torpedoes sped by, missing the bow by just a few yards.

The captain of the Kalinga was a good shot. Next time, he might not miss. The Oregon was already sitting low in the water from the flooding caused by the last torpedo. Another one could sink her, especially because she wouldn’t be able to correct any list by filling ballast tanks.

“Hali,” Max called, “tell Murph that we need that satellite disabled or we’re dead.”

Murph was getting ticked-off. Every time he shut down the satellite targeting the Oregon, Mallik switched it back on.

“I just got a call from the Oregon,” Raven said. “The Kalinga is getting ready to sink her. Isn’t there anything you can do to disable that satellite?”

She indicated the screen listing all the Vajra satellites. Their current problem was caused by number seven.

“Not unless we can figure out how to stop Mallik,” Murph said in frustration. “The Chairman said the yacht moved away from the command ship, so we can’t get on board to stop him.”

If the Oregon had its weapons, they could just send another Exocet to take it out, but that wasn’t happening. And nothing they’d brought with them was powerful enough to destroy a 300-foot yacht. It would require a massive rocket…

He looked up at the screen. There was one rocket he could use.

Murph turned to Kapoor and said, “Mallik locked out the launch sequence. What about the descent of the first stage?” He knew the booster was reusable. After detaching from the orbital insertion package, it was supposed to return and land on the launch platform using its retrorockets.

Which meant it still had fuel aboard.

Kapoor hesitated until Raven shoved her assault rifle in his face.

“Okay, okay! It’s not locked out.”

“Show me how to change the landing coordinates,” Murph said, before nodding to Raven for emphasis. “Or she will find someone here who doesn’t want to die.”

Juan climbed aboard the surfaced Gator and opened the hatch as the speedboat jetted off and rounded the stern of the command ship.

“Gomez, hand me one of the AT4s. Linda, go after that speedboat.”

The Gator rose completely out of the water, and Linda gunned the powerful diesel.

Gomez reached up through the hatch with one of the recoilless weapons they’d brought along for air defense. It was a single-use tube armed with an unguided anti-vehicle rocket.

They raced around the command ship and saw the speedboat come to a stop directly beneath the mission control room. Torkan was already putting the RPG launcher over his shoulder.

Juan raised the AT4. He didn’t have time to aim carefully. He squeezed the trigger, and the rocket shot toward the boat.

For a millisecond, he thought he might get lucky, but he hadn’t compensated enough for the fast-moving Gator. The rocket detonated in the water ten yards in front of the speedboat.

That was just enough to throw Torkan off, though. The explosion rocked the boat. He fell backward just as he pressed his own trigger. The RPG shot up and over the command ship.

Juan called down to Gomez. “Get me another one!”

Torkan took his driver’s assault rifle and let loose a spray of bullets at the Gator. Linda turned a hard right, nearly throwing Juan off the boat. She veered away, and Torkan began to reload the launcher.

Juan took the radio clipped to his belt and called on the same frequency Torkan had been using.

“Asad, it’s me. The guy who killed your brother.”

Torkan lowered the RPG and stared at him.

“The Novichok really did a number on Rasul,” Juan continued. “It looked very painful as he choked to death right in front of me.”

Torkan’s face twisted in anger.