Piranha

“Oh, good, you speak English,” Linda said as if she were a tourist relieved not to have to break out her broken Spanish.

“We get many Americans here, of course. Are you and your friends interested in a dive trip?”

“We are, but we’re pla

That made the shopkeeper jump to his feet and forget his unpacking duties.

“You will not regret it,” he said, trying in vain not to stare at the pile of American dollars. “We have many of the best reefs in the world in the Dominican Republic.”

“Actually,” Linda said, pointing at a Nomad side mount tank rig, “we want to go cave diving.”

Although the sky was clear, the deck of the aging 200-foot cargo ship Reina Azul, or Blue Queen, bucked in heavy seas churned up by a storm east of Nicaragua. Dayana Ruiz longed for her sleek frigate Mariscal Sucre to slice through the waves, but this mission required a covert command. She’d selected a handpicked crew of her most trusted officers who’d collaborated with her on the smuggling operation. Their naval uniforms had been left behind in Venezuela.

For her absence, she’d given the excuse that she would be observing the UNITAS joint exercises from the deck of a Cuban frigate. A Cuban admiral who owed her a favor would provide a convincing alibi.

They were ten hours from the coast of Haiti. The Doctor had assured her that the Oregon’s destination was somewhere along the western shore, although he wouldn’t explain how he knew. Ruiz found the entire situation oddly unsettling. She wasn’t used to being kept in the dark about information. Information was power and in regard to the Doctor she had very little of either. However, the video images that he infrequently sent her showing the Oregon and her crew convinced her of the accuracy of his information but also enraged her every time she saw them. The most recent showed the ship departing from Puerto Plata on a westerly course toward Haiti, and she would make certain this would be their last rendezvous.

Taking the Mariscal Sucre into battle outside of Venezuelan territorial waters had been out of the question, especially when Ruiz was pla

She sca

“Begin the test,” she said to the captain.

He relayed the orders, and Ruiz trained her eyes on a gray cargo container bolted to the deck. It looked exactly like all the other cargo containers on board, but this one held a hidden surprise.

“Raising to firing position,” a voice on the intercom said.

The roof of the container pivoted up and four green tubes two-thirds the length of the container began to rise from beneath it, forced into place by a hydraulic ram. Encased in each tube was a Russian 3M-54 Klub-K antiship missile armed with a six-hundred-pound warhead. The turbojet engine enabled it to cruise no more than thirty feet above the waves until it got within three miles of the target, at which point its multistage solid-fuel rocket fired to propel it to supersonic speeds. Each missile was extremely difficult to evade or shoot down and she had four of them.

She had acquired the concealed weapons system to sell to a Hezbollah cell that pla

“Report,” Ruiz said after the tubes had stopped at their fully vertical launch position, conveniently hidden by the stacks of containers on either side.

“All systems functioning normally,” said the missile officer inside the cargo container’s tiny control room. “But Admiral, the targeting radar is completely dependent on the ship’s system, which is too crude for a lock, especially if there are multiple ships in the area. The missile will have to make target acquisition once it’s in flight, so we can only fire one at a time.”

“What?” she shouted. “Unacceptable!”

“I’m sorry, Admiral,” came the stammering reply, “but we’re not very familiar with this weapons system.”

“Fine,” she said, stewing in anger. “Then we will have to attack when there are no other ships around the Oregon.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

“Good. Close it back up.” She turned to the captain. “Have you heard from our escort ships?”

He nodded. “They will meet us in the Canal de la Gonâve near Port-au-Prince. All they know is that they are to sail alongside us.”

“Excellent. When we are in launch position, have our escape boat ready. As soon as the Oregon is sunk, we will scuttle the Reina Azul and our companion ships. By the time anyone has figured out what happened, we’ll be flying out of Haiti.” False passports would be the last measure to erase any links.

Ruiz couldn’t help but flash a smile, an unfamiliar expression that surely u

—

As Bazin walked toward the exit of Sentinel’s underground complex, the natural limestone caves with all their imperfections and protrusions made an abrupt transition to the smooth, rounded walls of the man-made tu

Fluorescent lights buzzed at regular intervals through the tu

When he was close enough to the exit to receive a signal on his phone, which was routed through the Internet to make up for the nonexistent mobile service in the region, he dialed Kensit.

“Status,” was the one-word greeting to his call.

“The engineers tell me that there are no mechanical issues they can foresee for Sentinel.”

Although a large contingent of engineers and technicians had been trucked in to build Sentinel, only a few were retained on staff to maintain it. The rest were taken back out blindfolded, just as they had been brought in, with all paper and electronic records of their work left behind. Bazin knew that Kensit intended to use their skills again, but each of them was aware of only a small part of the design and none knew the software code used to operate the equipment. If they had known how it worked, Bazin would have hired them himself, killed Kensit, and taken over the operation long ago. Instead, he became Kensit’s loyal right-hand man.