“How are our boys?” he asked, taking his command seat.
“Still in pursuit,” Max replied.
“What’s their fuel status?”
“If we can maintain forty knots, we’ll reach them when they still have an hour’s reserve.”
“That’s a bit tighter than I like,” Juan remarked. “If we’re delayed, they’ll need to break off the chase so they don’t run out.”
“Not much we can do about that,” Hanley said. “Coasties took their time reaching the wreck. Could’ve been worse if they’d wanted to board us and go over our papers.”
Juan didn’t reply. What so concerned him was that in these seas, his men needed to keep headway in the RHIB to avoid being swamped by a wave. If their fuel load dropped to a certain point, they would need to slow down to stretch out their time under power. That meant letting the stealth ship escape.
Over the next hours, Cabrillo sat wordlessly drinking coffee while the plot showing the Oregon’s position and the blip representing the RHIB according to its locator drew closer and closer. Because they didn’t know their quarry’s capabilities, they were maintaining strict radio silence. Juan was relieved by the fact that they were maintaining a steady southeasterly course. The RHIB hadn’t deviated more than a couple of degrees since the chase had begun nor had it changed speed. They’d also maintained a steady fifteen knots.
It was well past dusk when they had closed to within twenty miles of the RHIB and thus about twenty-one from the stealth ship. Juan judged they were close enough to have MacD and Eddie break off and return to the Oregon. He knew where his target would be over the next hour and wanted to be in a position to do something about it.
“Hali, open a line to Eddie.”
Hali Kasim, at the communications station, had been waiting for this for hours and had a channel open in seconds.
“Time to head home,” Juan said over the link. “Reverse course. Eighteen.”
Eddie Seng clicked his radio in response and knew to turn back and expect to find the Oregoneighteen miles away.
Because he was no longer shadowing the slow stealth ship, Eddie would doubtlessly firewall the RHIB’s twin outboards so the two vessels would have a closing speed in excess of eighty knots. The Chairman called down to the boat garage to inform them that the RHIB was inbound and should be off their beam in less than fifteen minutes.
It actually was just ten, but because the Oregonhad to come to an almost complete stop in order for the RHIB to enter the hull, it was seventeen minutes until Juan could give the order for full speed again. Only, this time, he took the Oregonon a wide arc around their target so when they finally approached, it would seem that they were coming from the east and not like they’d been trailing the rogue vessel.
Linda Ross finally sauntered into the op center, looking none the worse for her adventures.
“How are you doing?” Juan asked with genuine concern.
“Doc says I’m fine, and who am I to argue? Where do we stand?”
“Endgame’s coming,” Cabrillo said. “We’re flanking them now.”
“Anything on radar?”
“He doesn’t show at all,” Juan admitted. “But he hasn’t changed course or speed since fleeing the Sakir.”
As if on cue, Mark Murphy called out from the weapons station, “Contact bearing forty-seven degrees. Range twenty miles.” Cabrillo had already figured out the tactical positions before Murph added, “Directly in line with the stealth ship.”
“Rendezvous,” Cabrillo mouthed.
The situation had changed in an instant. Juan now had to get the Oregonbetween the stealth ship and this new contact before that vessel spotted them on radar. His ship had a much smaller radar cross section than she should thanks to signal-absorbing materials applied to her hull and upperworks, but she was far from invisible.
“Helm, make your course three-three degrees. All ahead flank.” Like a hunter, Cabrillo knew to lead his target so that the bullet — in this case, the Oregonherself — arrived where the target would be, not where it currently was. Like before, he had the angles and speeds worked out in his head. Eric Stone would double-check them with the ship’s navigation computer but as usual would find no error in the Chairman’s calculations.
“Wepps, prep the main gun. Once he figures out we’re coming, who knows what he’ll do.”
“Not missiles?” Murph questioned.
“If that ship can produce a magnetic field strong enough to capsize Dullah’s yacht, a missile won’t stand a chance. Load solid tungsten rounds. Field won’t affect them.”
Murph nodded at Cabrillo’s insight while mentally chastising himself for not coming to the same conclusion and set about readying the 120mm cannon secreted behind doors in the Oregon’s bow. The smooth-bore gun used the same sophisticated fire controls as an M1 Abrams main battle tank and could fire accurately no matter how the ship pitched or rolled.
“Curious, Juan,” Max said, fiddling with his pipe, “how are we going to hit it if it doesn’t show up on radar?”
“Easy. Launch a UAV.”
In minutes, the drone, little more than a large model airplane fitted with sophisticated cameras, was aloft and racing ahead of the Oregonat a hundred miles per hour. When it reached two thousand feet, its starlight camera picked up the stealth ship’s wake, a dazzling line of green phosphorescence that sliced across the ocean like an arc of electricity. Its terminus was the ship itself. The ungainly craft was fighting the seas but maintaining its steady pace. The rendezvous ship was too far to see, but they would tackle that after dispatching their primary target.
“I’ve got bearings,” Mark announced, “but we’re still a little out of range.”
“He’s going to see us soon,” Hanley cautioned.
Juan had to agree. He just didn’t know what would happen.
“Twenty seconds,” Mark said.
Come on, Cabrillo silently entreated.
“Ten.”
The image from the drone changed. The angular hull of the stealth ship began to shimmer, and a blue glow erupted from its center and spread outward. The ship blurred before vanishing altogether.
A second later, the feed from the drone turned to static as it was swatted from the sky by an expanding dome of electromagnetic pulses.
“In range!” Mark cried.
“Fire!” Juan shouted as the wall of invisible energy slammed into the Oregon.
He didn’t know if Murph got off the shot because a deafening blast of noise filled the ship as she began a rapid roll onto her port side, the red numbers on the digital inclinometer blurring to keep up with the list. Water was soon pouring across her decks and slamming into the superstructure. The combination of her speed and the pulse seemed to be driving her into the depths.
Then as suddenly as it started, the noise cut off like a switch had been flicked, and the ship began to right itself once again, albeit slowly as she had to shrug off hundreds of tons of seawater.
Cabrillo picked himself up off the floor, where he’d been unceremoniously dumped. Main power had tripped so the op center was bathed in emergency lights. All the computer monitors and controls were dead, and he became aware that he couldn’t hear the Oregon’s engines. “Is everyone all right?”
He received a slow roll call of muted responses. No one was hurt, but they were all rattled.