The Steel Shark

Chapter 46

Joe hated waiting. He spent way too much of his life waiting. Today was no different, but it felt different. Vivian was locked up on the submarine, maybe being tortured, maybe already dead. He should have been with her. Or they should both be back on the ship, safe. But he had persuaded her to put the transponder on the submarine in his stead.

Captain Glascoe had headed for the last-known location of the Roc, based on the coordinates of the Facebook photo. He’d poured on all possible speed, but even so, they wouldn’t meet up with the Roc for hours. They tried radioing, but the Roc’s radio operator wasn’t responding. Of course not, the ship was on a secret mission. They had left the land far behind to make their decision without anyone’s knowledge or interference. The last thing they’d do was respond to some random boat.

Joe had talked to everyone he could. He’d warned the US Navy via Mulcahy. He’d sent all the information he had to Mr. Rossi to have him work through his own mysterious channels. He’d persuaded Captain Glascoe to put his own ship and crew in danger. That hadn’t been easy. While Marshall seemed serious about finding Vivian, Glascoe didn’t. It had taken a lot of money to get him to change course. But Joe had prevailed. He’d done all he could.

Then he remembered his conversation with Vivian right after they boarded Voyager. She’d said he always found more things to do.

So he found one. He would backtrack the Roc’s voyage. Maybe there would be something there to tell him why that yacht was being targeted by the submarine, something beyond just the royal family. Their electing of a new leader was his guess, but maybe there was more. At the very least, he’d know more. The more he knew, the better.

He determined the Roc had left from the Emirates Palace Marina nearly four (green) weeks before, a few weeks after the princess had faked her own death in the plane crash. According to airlines records, some of the Roc’s crew would be flying out of New York the day after tomorrow, so the ship was probably due to arrive in New York before that.

He called Captain Glascoe’s cell phone and, after brief hellos, told him the Roc’s destination and projected course.

“I’ll adjust our course to intercept,” Glascoe said. “But they don’t seem to want our help.”

“Not yet,” Joe said. “But if they get attacked by a submarine and have people bailing out, I bet they’ll want our help.”

“It’s only your supposition this will even occur.”

“That and a check with a lot of zeroes on the end.”

Joe listened to static on the line.

“I’ll adjust course,” Glascoe said.

The pitch of the engine changed, and the ship listed slightly to the right. Glascoe had adjusted course. He glanced out the window. Blue water. Lots of it. It would be hours before that view changed.

He went back to his detective work on the Roc. It took some doing, but he eventually found footage of the yacht being loaded. Most items seemed straightforward, but a large box caught his attention.

The box looked heavy and awkward. The prince himself stood on the dock supervising the box’s arrival, although he hadn’t cared about anything else that went onto the ship. The crane operator seemed nervous, as the crane operated in jerks and stops, unlike the boxes he’d put on board earlier. Was it the content of the box or the presence of the prince that upset him? Or maybe he was just getting tired?

No matter how much Joe enhanced the footage showing the crate, he couldn’t read the markings on the outside. Orderly rows of black figures. He could tell they weren’t written in Arabic — too blocky. Or English. The symbols looked like Chinese characters, but he couldn’t be sure. He isolated each and tried to run them through translation software, but they were too indistinct.

Maybe it was a giant refrigerator or engine parts, but he didn’t think so. The Chinese hack of the submarine plans. The Chinese-made assault rifle recovered at the crash scene. They seemed to indicate the Chinese were supplying the royal family with weapons. He suspected whatever was in that box was some kind of weapon as well.

But what could it be?

He researched the yacht herself, from public records to building plans. The Roc had a private submarine on board, probably similar to the one the prince’s bodyguard had died in, a helicopter, and a missile defense system. It might even have anti-submarine weapons. The Roc might not be so easy for a submarine to sink. And the submarine might not escape unscathed. His worry for Vivian kicked up another notch, something he hadn’t even thought possible.

Out of ideas in the virtual world, he decided to visit the bridge and check on their progress. He walked down corridors lined with windows. Just the sight of them made his heart race, but if he closed his eyes when he got near, he was able to walk past them. Edison stuck close to his leg, and when his eyes were closed, he guided himself using the motions of the dog. He probably looked exceedingly lame, but to him it felt like progress.

He was exhausted by the time he reached the bridge. Before he boarded, he’d insisted the bridge be connected to the deck via a canvas tube, and he hurried through the tube, trying not to think about how thin the barrier was between him and the outside world. When he got to the bridge, he stood in the doorway. Glascoe and Marshall were the only ones there. Both staring forward. Windows surrounded the bridge, and Joe couldn’t step into the room without closing his eyes. That wasn’t going to give him any authority.

“Captain Glascoe?” he called from his position on the threshold. “Any news?”

“We’ve found the Roc with sonar.” Glascoe called over his shoulder. “We’re closing in.”

Joe looked at the wooden floor because he didn’t dare look at Glascoe with all that open glass behind him. A bow rested on the floor by the door. It seemed utterly out of place, but then he remembered Vivian telling him that Marshall used it to bowfish from up here.

“I suggest we keep a lot of space between us and the yacht,” Joe said.

“Why?” Glascoe sounded annoyed. Joe couldn’t blame him — first, he’d insisted they approach the yacht, and now, he was saying they should stay away.

“My research indicates she’s heavily armed — security forces, antiballistic missile defenses, probably also some kind of ship-to-ship defenses.”

“Great.” Glascoe’s shadow turned to Marshall, who was piloting the boat. “Maintain a distance. We’ll see what goes down and be ready to pick up any survivors.”

“You got it.” Marshall’s freckled hands moved easily around the controls. He clearly knew what he was doing.

“I’ll get drones in the air.” Joe turned and hurried from the tube to a tent pitched in the middle of the deck. He’d set up a backup computer station there where he’d intended to watch the sonar feeds and pilot the drones, although he hadn’t spent much time there since his arrival. He’d been too seasick before, but either he’d gotten used to the motion or the antiemetic in the IV was still working. Either way, he felt comfortable up here.

He stood by the drones. Each had a belly-mounted camera to relay information back to Joe’s screens, and he wanted them in the air. Maybe he’d be able to get a good aerial view of the Roc.

Unfortunately, the drones were under the tent. Ordinarily, he’d ask Vivian to drag them out onto the deck so he could pilot them. But she wasn’t there. It would be too embarrassing to ask Marshall or Glascoe or the other men on the ship. But he didn’t have to.

“Edison.” Joe pointed to a drone, then out to the deck near the railing. “Take the drone out there.”

Edison tugged a drone onto the deck where Joe had pointed. It was a day drone, painted blue on the bottom and white on top. On a sunny day like today, it would be hard to spot. Or at least he hoped so.

“Good boy!” He gave Edison a treat from his pocket.

Edison wagged his tail and crunched it down. He looked expectantly at the drone. Edison knew what was supposed to come next.

Joe worked the controls to make the drone take off. He didn’t have much practice, but the drone rose jerkily and hovered a few feet above the deck. He checked the camera — teak boards. So far, so good.

Joe aimed the drone toward the faraway yacht and flew it high above the waves, but not so high he didn’t feel queasy watching it. Maybe the motion sickness drugs were wearing off. He increased the drone’s altitude.

Slowly, the Roc came into view. The yacht was huge — white with teak decks and giant windows. At six hundred (orange, black, black) feet long and four hundred and fifty (green, brown, black) feet high, it was bigger than a naval destroyer. An H with a circle around it on the gleaming main deck was mostly obscured by the helicopter parked on it. The helicopter was white with blue stripes that matched the ship. Three (red) windows on the sides, several in front. It made him anxious just thinking about flying in it. He guessed it could hold eight (purple) passengers.

People strolled around on the main deck and on the upper decks. He counted about twenty (blue, black), but wondered how many people were below. Many. If his guess was correct, all at risk.

No one looked up at the drone, so he judged it high enough that they hadn’t noticed it.

Studying the yacht, he banked the drone in a large circle. The yacht looked just like its blueprint, which he’d seen online, except for a device mounted on top of the bridge. The device didn’t look like a standard antenna. He drifted the drone down for a closer look.

A copper coil glinted in the sunlight. A large conductor. A white tube that looked recently painted to match the ship. On the end, a cable ran out the back and down the side of the roof, presumably to a power source. The device looked like something his erstwhile ancestor Nikola Tesla might have built. A Tesla coil on top of the most expensive yacht in the world. It had to mean something, but he didn’t know what.

Joe stared at the image, trying to make the pieces fit into the list of things that might be expected to be on top of such a ship — antenna, wireless transmitters — but this device was different. Maybe it belonged to the missile defense system. Maybe the captain was a tinkerer. Maybe it transmitted porn.

Maybe it was none of these.

The device was approximately the size of the wooden crate he’d seen being loaded before the Roc left port.

The thoughts dancing around his head moved into formation.

This device was the weapon. An electronic weapon capable of delivering a large electromagnetic pulse.

An EMP bomb.

Heading straight for New York.