Plague Ship

He could see the ocean surging about eight feet below him. It had to be high tide. Otherwise, water would pour down the exhaust duct when it came in. He imagined the vent had a cover that could be lowered in the event of a storm. Forcing the bulky helmet through the vertical bars proved impossible, so he had no idea what lay to the right or left of his position. He would just have to rely on luck.

He spun around so that he could ram one of the bars with the air tank. Lying on his side, he couldn’t get that much momentum, so he pushed himself back a bit and tried again. He could feel the impact through his hands as he hit the grille again and again. Weakened by the combined effects of salt air and corrosive exhaust, a weld on one of the vertical bars snapped with the fifth blow. He repeated his assault on a second bar and then a third.

Satisfied he had enough room to squeeze through, he gripped each thin metal bar and bent it outward. He poked his head outside. There was a narrow platform immediately below the diffuser, and a ladder to his right that led upward. He was just turning to look to the left when he was grabbed by the shoulders and yanked out of the exhaust shaft. It happened so fast he had no time to react before he was thrown onto a dock. Two guards stood over him, each with a submachine gun slung under his arm. Unlike the kid Max had knocked unconscious back in the generator room, these two had the look of professionals.

“And just what do you think you’re doing, mate?” The guard spoke with a thick cockney accent.

With the helmet on and his ears ringing from so much time spent in the duct, Max saw the guard’s lips moving but couldn’t hear the words. As soon as he moved to pull his helmet off, their fingers tightened on the triggers. One guard stepped back to cover his partner, who tore the helmet away. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Hiya, fellas, I’m Dusty Pipes from the Acme Chimney Sweep Company.” CHAPTER 36

"IT’S MAX!” HALI CRIED, AS SOON AS HE SAW THE guards haul a figure wearing a silver suit out of the exhaust vent.

Juan snapped around to look at George Adams. “Last resort. Let’s go!” The chopper pilot threw a toggle on his console that put the aerial drone into a mile-wide circle. It would maintain that pattern until someone took over the controls or it ran out of fuel. He swung the camera so it pointed directly at the dock and hit a button so it would track, to keep the dock in frame. “Giddy-up.” Cabrillo launched himself across the room, heading for a stairwell to the aft deck, the long-legged Adams barely keeping pace. Juan’s mouth was set in a tight line, but his body was loose and relaxed. He was wearing black fatigues, with one of the flex-screen panels sewn onto a sleeve. He carried a pair of FNs, Five-seveNs, in kidney holsters, and another two slung from his hips. With the chopper’s stability in question, he wasn’t going to risk anyone else on a flight, so he purposefully overloaded himself with weapons. In his thigh pockets were four stick magazines for the Heckler and Koch MP-5 machine pistol already stowed in the Robinson.

“How’d he do it, ya wonder?” George said.

“I keep telling everyone, he’s a crafty one.” Juan turned on his combat radio. “Comm check. Do you read?”

“Right here,” Hali replied.

“Helm, Wepps, do you copy?”

The man and woman ma

“Wepps, I want you to take over control of the drone from your console and fire up its laser designator.

I’m going to use its camera to call out targets. When I laze ’em, open fire with the one-twenty.” The Oregon’s fire control was nearly as sophisticated as the Aegis battle space computer aboard a Navy cruiser. The small laser in the chin of the drone would light up a target, the computer could automatically calculate its exact GPS coordinates, raise or lower the ship’s 120mm ca

“We need to close in on the island. Helm is taking us in now.” Juan activated his flex-screen panel. He could see Max still sprawled on the dock, but it wouldn’t be long before they tossed him in the back of the pickup truck and drove him to the bunker.

With the Oregon pounding through the sea at flank speed, the wind across the deck was like a hurricane.

Juan and George raced to the Robinson, where crewmen were holding open Adams’s door. Juan’s had been removed. They had caught a break. The engine had just been shut down, so when George fired it up again he could immediately engage the transmission and start the rotor spi

“Helm, this is Gomez. We’re ready to fly. Decelerate now.” The Oregon’s pump jets cut out immediately, and then they were fired in reverse. It looked as though a torpedo had struck the bow when a gush of water exploded from the front end of the ship’s drive tubes, as she went into an emergency stop. While most vessels her size needed miles to come to rest, the Oregon’s revolutionary propulsion system gave her the braking ability of a sports car.

When an electronic anemometer, placed on one corner of the elevator platform, indicated the wind speed had dropped to twenty miles per hour, George fed the chopper power and lifted off the deck.

“We’re clear,” he radioed as the skids whizzed over the stern rail.

The propulsors were reversed once again, and the Oregon began to accelerate back up to flank speed.

The maneuver had been so well timed that they lost less than a minute.

“Well done,” Juan said.

“They say practice makes perfect. ’Course, I always believed starting out perfect never hurt.” Cabrillo gri

“Chairman, this is Wepps. Computer says the one-twenty will be in range in eight minutes.”

“Fire off a triple salvo of flares,” Juan ordered. “Let Max know the cavalry’s coming.” He turned to George. “What’s our ETA?”

“I didn’t file a flight plan or anything. I don’t know, five minutes maybe.” Juan had synchronized his digital combat watch with the master countdown for the Orbital Ballistic Projectile’s impact. He had fifty-five minutes to rescue Max and get the Oregon out of the danger zone.

"ON YOUR FEET,” the English guard snapped, and when Hanley was slow to cooperate he was kicked in the hip.

Max held out his hands like a supplicant. “Take it easy, boys. You got me fair and square. I’m not going anywhere. Let me just get this tank off and get out of this suit.” Had he been thinking clearer, Max realized he should have rolled into the water. The suit was airtight, and the weight of the oxygen cylinder would have made him sink like a stone. Something out to sea caught his attention. He squinted into the setting sun and saw a tiny white orb hovering next to it. Another burst just below. And then a third.

If a hunter is ever lost in the woods, the internationally recognized call is to fire three evenly spaced rounds to attract search parties. The flares weren’t a distress call from a ship in trouble; it was Juan telling him the Oregon was here to rescue him.

He had never given up hope, so he really wasn’t that surprised, but it took effort to keep a smug look off his face.

Max slowly shed the heavy tank and peeled off the tattered remains of his thermal-insulation suits. While the front of the outermost suit remained shiny silver, the back was blackened by heat and soot.

One of the guards was on his walkie-talkie, getting orders from a superior.

“Nigel, Mr. Severance wants to see this bloke right away. They’re going to open the outer doors only when we arrive.” He poked Max in the back with his gun. “Move it.” Max took a halting step and collapsed onto the dock. “I can’t go on. My leg’s all cramped from crawling out here. I can’t feel it.” He clutched his knee with the theatrics of a soccer player hoping to draw a foul on an opponent.