While Hali inspected the bomb, Juan spoke to the Indonesians.
“Where are your comrades?” he demanded in Arabic.
Both of them responded in a dialect of Indonesian. Juan was fluent in Arabic, Spanish, and Russian, but Indonesian wasn’t in his wheelhouse. He took out a small tablet computer loaded with translation software, chose Indonesian, and repeated his question.
The tablet spit out the audible translation. After a pause, the men responded, but the tablet flashed an error message.
Language not recognized.
He read it to Hali, who didn’t look up from his examination of the bomb.
“Must be some unusual dialect that the computer can’t interpret.”
“Then we have a problem,” Juan said. “Assuming there’s a bomb at the bow, that still leaves one bomb missing.” He checked his watch. “And now we have just ten minutes left to find it.”
Hali stood. “I think we have a bigger problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t deactivate the bomb. It’s a sophisticated design, and it’s riveted shut, so cutting wires isn’t an option. And if we start typing in random codes in an attempt to disarm it, that might set it off.”
Juan bent over to look at the device. It was far more complicated than a typical pipe bomb, with a transparent polycarbonate casing and a digital keypad. There was no countdown timer on it, just a set of blinking bars, like the battery-strength meter on a cell phone. There were currently four out of five bars left.
“Can we move it?”
“I’m no explosives expert, but I don’t see any mercury switches. I think it’s okay to move, but I’d like a second opinion.”
“We’ll get one soon. You stay here until we know we can move it. I’ll start searching for the other bomb team.” He took one last look at the device and saw it tick down to three blinking bars. “If it goes down to one bar, get out of here, and put the crew on the lifeboat.”
Hali nodded as he warily eyed the bomb. “If you insist.”
As Juan bounded up to the stairs to exit the engine room, he clicked his molar mic. “Linda, we’ve got a more complicated situation than we previously thought.”
Nothing.
“Linda, do you copy?” he repeated.
The silence in Juan’s ear was ominous, but he had to keep his mind on his task to find the third bomb. The team at the Dahar’s bow was three football fields away from him. If they were in trouble, there was nothing he could do to help them.
FIVE
It wasn’t that Linda Ross couldn’t hear Juan. It was that she couldn’t say a word. Even breathing might get her and Eric Stone killed.
The two of them were crouched in the shadow of a huge pipe, staring directly down the barrel of an AK-47. The terrorist with the gun didn’t see them at the moment, but one move—one sound—and he’d realize someone was there and pull the trigger.
Linda was the Vice President of the Corporation and a Navy veteran. She’d seen more combat since joining the Oregon crew than during her entire time in the service, but she still didn’t like having a gun pointed at her.
She was currently kneeling next to Eric beside the oil pumping unit closest to the bow. Neither of them had a clear shot at the man, whose attention had been drawn by the random clank of a metal chain behind them. A collection of pipes shielded his body, making a shot from one of their dart guns iffy at best.
The terrorist swept the area with his assault rifle, and when he was satisfied that he’d heard nothing unusual, he went back inside the shed to his comrade planting the bomb on one of the main release valves.
Linda finally drew a breath. “That was close,” she said to Eric in a quiet voice that was high pitched but still radiated authority. She tapped her balaclava. “It’s good I have this on.”
Linda was known for regularly changing the color of her hair to suit her mood. Right now, it was styled in a pixie cut dyed a bright green that would have surely been seen by the terrorist if she hadn’t been wearing the head covering.
“I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the Dahar’s captain telling him to make sure his crew locks down their equipment properly in the future,” Eric said.
Eric had also been a U.S. Navy officer and was now the Oregon’s helmsman. Usually, he was dressed in a button-down shirt and khakis, not combat gear. He and his best friend, Mark Murphy, were the smartest people on the crew, so they were normally tasked with figuring out technical solutions to problems that the Oregon faced rather than taking down armed terrorists.
Like Linda, however, he had seen his fair share of fighting over his years with the Corporation, and the Chairman had made sure to keep all their operational and weapons training current while they finished constructing their new ship. She was glad to have Eric with her, not only for his expertise on the analysis of the bombs but also because he had strong tactical instincts.
Now they just had to plan how to approach the terrorists without being seen.
The pumping units were housed in a small shack that protected the valves from the elements. Pipes snaked from the structure in all directions to the massive oil tanks beneath their feet. A bomb going off in there would rupture a dozen pipes, igniting the oil feeding them and providing oxygen to the fuel vapor in the tanks that could cause a giant fireball to erupt. The blaze would be visible from the coasts of Malaysia on one side and Indonesia on the other.
“I’m too short to climb over those pipes,” Linda said.
“I could give you a boost,” Eric said. He wasn’t big guy, but Linda was tiny, so she had no doubt he could do it.
“Too exposed,” she said.
“Going around will take too long.”
“Then we go under.” She pointed to a gap between the pipes and the deck. It was a narrow space, but they could belly-crawl through.
Juan’s voice came over the line again. “Linda, do you copy? We’ve taken down two hijackers so far. That leaves five more.”
Linda clicked her molar mic. “I read you, Chairman. We’ve got two hostiles here. About to make our move.”
“Good hunting,” he replied. They didn’t say “Good luck” on the Oregon. Depending on luck was a fool’s game. Although it didn’t hurt to have some good fortune in a pinch, Juan preached that preparation, training, teamwork, and skill were far more important to a successful mission.
“We’ll let you know when we’ve got the bomb in hand, Chairman,” Linda said.
“Copy that.”
She and Eric went to where the gap beneath the pipes was widest. Eric went first while Linda did her best to cover him with her MP5 submachine gun between the spaces in the pipes. The valve shed was ten yards away, and she wasn’t going to risk a dart shot through such a narrow opening.