Piranha

—

Max Hanley was pleased to see that Lozada had gotten the message and was retreating. He recalled the gundogs and shut down the remotely aimed water ca

Max was watching the huge flat-panel front display from his engineering station in the Oregon’s Operations Center, a high-tech room the harbormaster couldn’t possibly have guessed was in the middle of the ship he thought was called Dolos. The op center was awash in blue from the i

Every aspect of Oregon’s operation could be controlled and monitored from this low-ceilinged nerve center, from weapons systems and helm control at the two front seats, to communications, engineering, radar, sonar, and damage control at the stations ringing the room’s perimeter. The chair in the center was currently unoccupied. Dubbed the Kirk Chair, Juan Cabrillo’s well-padded seat gave him an unobstructed view of the entire room, and he could control every function of the ship from its armrest, if necessary.

Max had to figure out a way to get the Chairman back in his proper place. He had protested mightily when Juan had told him to cast off, but the strange request for an Abrams tank manual made him believe Juan had something up his sleeve.

The door to the op center whisked open and Hali Kasim entered, gri

“That was fun,” Hali said. “I don’t normally like leaving my comfy chair, but I’ll make an exception when I get to shoot him.” He pointed at the door and the man Lozada knew as Gao Wangshu walked through without a scratch on him. Everyone on the Oregon knew him as Eddie Seng, director of shore operations.

He had already changed out of his bullet-riddled shirt, which had actually been perforated by squibs designed by Kevin Nixon. Like the fake gunshot wounds Hollywood stuntmen used in action scenes, Eddie’s were controlled by a tiny detonator hidden in his sleeve. He was supposed to have “died” during a gun battle while the Oregon was still tied to the dock, but Juan and Linc’s blown cover necessitated a change of plan. When Hali had come out of the bridge firing blanks, Eddie had set off the charges in his shirt, providing a convincing death for Mr. Gao. Harbormaster Manuel Lozada would never know that he’d been duped.

Raised in Brooklyn by Mandarin-speaking parents, Eddie had been recruited by the CIA as a field agent. His specialty had been long-term infiltration of the Chinese government, so he was well practiced at assuming a false identity in covert operations. It had been his idea to insert himself as the final witness to Oregon’s true nature, convincing the Venezuelans that it was the ship Admiral Ruiz had been searching for. For months now, word had gotten back to the Corporation that their cover as a tramp steamer was starting to crumble, given the number of battles they’d fought over the last few years. The Chairman had decided to do something about it, to get their anonymity back, and implying that they were no better equipped than Somali pirates was part of the plan.

Eddie’s part in the mission was to keep tabs on what the Venezuelans were pla

“You look well for a dead man,” Max said.

“It didn’t hurt a bit,” Eddie replied. “I’m just happy Hali is such a good shot.”

“You taught me well,” Hali said with a laugh. After an operation in Libya that resulted in Hali getting hit, he had asked Eddie for more combat training. Eddie held black belts in numerous martial arts and was one of the elite sharpshooters on the Oregon, so Hali had learned from the best.

“How are the Chairman and Linc doing?” Eddie asked.

“He’s on to Plan C,” Max said, knowing Eddie would understand that things had not gone as expected for them. He turned to Hali. “See if you can get Juan back on the line.”

A hiss came over the op center audio system, followed by a click and a roaring background noise.

“Frank’s Tanks here,” Juan answered. “How’s the ship?”

“Not a flake of rust out of place,” Max said.

“And Eddie?”

“Good to be back, Chairman,” Eddie said.

“Great. Now we just have the matter of getting me and Linc onto the Oregon.”

“I wouldn’t recommend commandeering a boat,” Max said. “The harbor is full of angry Venezuelans with itchy trigger fingers. They’re holding off from the Oregon, but you’d eat lead trying to get past them.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ve picked out a nice spot on the peninsula between Puerto La Cruz and La Guanta where we can meet you.”

Max checked his satellite map for that location. “Are you thinking of swimming? Because those rocks look pretty jagged. The waves would beat you to a pulp against the shoreline.”

“I don’t plan to get my feet wet. Bring the Oregon to three hundred yards offshore at the northernmost point.”

“That won’t be a problem. Why?”

“Remember when we tugged that containership off that reef in the Azores?”

“Yup. We couldn’t get anywhere near it because of the gale.”

“But we could get a line to it.”

Max snapped his fingers. “The Comet.”

“Eddie’s the best shot. Get a disguise for him and get him up on deck. We need him to throw us a lifeline.”

“On my way,” Eddie said, and hustled out of the room.

Max shook his head. In this case, the expression “throw us a lifeline” was going to be the literal truth.

MacD Lawless clung to the port side of the Sorocaima in defiance of gravity like Spider-Man. Mike Trono was next to him, suspended twenty feet above the water. Linda Ross maintained her position on the Discovery, her face visible through the front window as she craned her neck up to watch them.

The tanker’s hull was sitting low in the water with her holds full of diesel, but climbing the bare steel still presented a challenge. Not that MacD wasn’t up to it. Taking on a demanding mission like this was one of the reasons he’d joined the Corporation in the first place.

He disengaged the electromagnetic handhold in his left hand and moved it up a foot, placing the rubberized flat side against the hull before reengaging it. The magnet, a smaller version of the one built into the beatbox still attached to the underside of the Sorocaima, adhered to the metal with enough force to support four times MacD’s body weight. Shoes with high-friction toes allowed him and Mike to brace their feet against the side.

When they reached the lip of the deck, MacD nodded to Mike and they slowly lifted their heads to scan the area for any of the crew. A quick but careful look revealed no one in the vicinity. And since they were directly below the bridge’s flying wing, no one stationed inside would be able to spot them unless they happened to look straight down over the railing.