Ford cleared his throat. "It might be defective."
"Defective?" Chaudry looked surprised.
"It's old. It's been sitting for a long time," said Ford. "If it's damaged, maybe there's a way to mislead it. Fool it. Trick it in some way. Its behavior up to this point has been erratic, unpredictable. That may not be deliberate--it may be a sign of malfunctioning."
"How?" asked Mickelson.
At this a silence fell. Lockwood glanced at his watch. "It's almost dawn. I ordered a quick breakfast at five in the private dining room. We'll patch over the others and continue the discussion there."
Ford rose, deliberately leaving his jacket draped on the back of the chair. He exited the room and waited in the hall for the room to empty, the stragglers emerging and making their way to the dining room at the far end of the hall. Ford lingered near the door, watching everyone leave. The second to last to leave was Marjory Leung. She looked like hell. Ford had been sure she was the mole, but she hadn't taken his bait.
Chaudry was the last to emerge from the conference room.
The mission director came out, his hand just withdrawing from his suitcoat pocket. Ford stepped up quickly as if to speak to him confidentially, shot his hand into the pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper.
"What the hell--?" Chaudry cried, his wiry body moving like lightning, his arm shooting out to snatch back the paper, but Ford sprang back out of reach.
He held the paper up before a group of astonished witnesses. "This is the password to the hard drive. Dr. Chaudry here just lifted it out of my jacket pocket. I said there was a mole in your group. And we just caught him."
85
Burr stood in the pilothouse, swiveling the spotlight around, peering into the storm. The beam stabbed into the raging murk, showing nothing but boiling water and rocks. Where were they? Had they drifted out of the lee? He fiddled with the dials of the radar, trying to tune in a coherent image beyond the limited range of the light, but all he could get was static.
A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the towering rocks on his right. The roar of surf was almost deafening and the water around him was webbed with spindrift, the sea heaving.
"Son of a bitch!" Burr pulled down the VHF mike and pressed transmit. "Where are you?"
No answer.
"Respond or he's dead!"
Still no answer. Was it a trap? He hollered into the VHF, "I got the gun at his head and the next one's for him!"
With a sudden roar the boat surged forward, throwing Burr off balance. He seized the passenger seat and arrested his fall, trying to pull himself up as the boat accelerated. "What the hell are you doing?" he cried, struggling to brace himself and get the gun back over on the fisherman. He stared through the pilothouse windows: the son of a bitch was accelerating the boat straight for the reef, a wall of rock rising from a hell of boiling surf, rain streaming from its ramparts.
"No!" He lunged for the wheel with his left hand while bringing the gun up with his right and firing it almost point-blank at Straw. But the fisherman anticipated the move and jerked the wheel, causing the boat to careen sideways, throwing him off balance. The shot went wide and Burr fell hard, crashing through the flimsy wheel house door to end up sprawled in the rear cockpit.
"Motherfucker!" He struggled to rise, grasping the gunwale railing and pulling himself up into the teeth of the storm. The boat had swung ninety degrees and was still tilting to one side, coming broadside to the sea. Straw jerked the wheel back again, trying to keep Burr off balance. But he seized the rail and hauled himself to his feet despite the tilting deck, bucking and heaving, and braced himself while bringing the gun up and aiming it into the pilothouse at Straw. He was about to fire when he heard a new sound--a full-throated roar of an engine--and turned to see a terrifying sight. A boat suddenly materialized out of the storm, bulling straight at him at full speed, gleaming steel keel splitting the black sea, throwing water to either side. And standing in the forepeak, gripping the rails, like a figurehead from hell, was the girl. He scrambled backward, trying desperately to get out of the way, but at that very moment Straw threw the Halcyon into reverse, guaranteeing a collision and throwing him sideways again. Off-balance, one arm wrapped around the rail, Burr could do nothing but point the weapon and unload it, pulling the trigger one, two, three, four times--
With a deafening crash of pulverized fiberglass, the bow slammed into the gunwale, bursting through it and riding up on the deck; Burr made one final effort to throw himself out of the way but he still didn't have his footing on the bucking deck. The bow struck him square in the chest with a massive bone-crunching blow. It felt like his rib cage had been shoved into his spinal cord and he hurtled through the air, plummeted into the raging waters, sinking helplessly down into the black, cold, crushing depths.
86
With a sickening smack, Abbey saw the body fly head over heels into the sea and disappear. The force of the collision threw her forward into the curved rail and she almost went over. With a roar Jackie reversed the Marea II's engines, the water boiling around the stern, and Abbey clung for dear life while the Marea II ground to a halt, heeling to one side and almost capsizing; after a moment of terror the boat backed off and righted itself. Abbey hadn't had a chance to board. Her boat's momentum pushed the other into the breaking seas, where a large incoming comber caught it and carried it onto the rocks with a shuddering crash. Abbey, horrified, could see her father in the pilothouse, struggling to free himself from the handcuffs on the wheel.
Without waiting for orders, Jackie slammed the Marea II into forward and brought it up to the crippled stern of the other boat.
"Dad!" Bolt cutters in hand, Abbey took a flying leap off the bow, landing in the sinking stern. An incoming wave heaved the boat up against the rocks a second time with an enormous crunching sound, throwing her down. Gripping the bolt cutters, she grabbed a broken rail and struggled to her feet, trying to maintain her balance on the buckling, splitting deck. A bolt of lightning blasted the scene with spectral light, followed by a thunder crack. She staggered toward the pilothouse. Her father was inside, still shackled to the wheel.
"Dad!"
"Abbey!"
A vertiginous comber materialized out of the dimness, rising like a mountain above the boat. Abbey braced herself, wrapping her arms around the rail as the wave came crashing down, throwing the boat full against the wall of rock and crushing the pilothouse like a Styrofoam cup. Buried in roiling water, Abbey clung on for dear life, trying to keep from being ripped from the boat by the withdrawing surge. After what seemed like an eternity, her lungs almost bursting, the swirl of water subsided and she surfaced, gasping for breath. The boat was a sudden wreck, lying on its side, the hull split, the ribs sprung, the pilothouse in pieces--and the helm underwater. Her father, gone.
With a superhuman effort she grabbed the railing, hauling herself to the shattered pilothouse. The boat was sinking fast and everything was underwater.
"Dad!" she screamed. "Dad!"
Another wave slammed the boat, throwing her so violently into the smashed wall of the pilothouse that it tore the bolt cutters from her hands, and they vanished into the black water.
She held her breath and dove down, her eyes open underwater in the dim turbulence. She saw a thrashing leg, an arm--her father. Handcuffed to the wheel. Underwater.