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“Well?” Cabrillo asked when Julia punched off the phone.
Hux looked pointedly at Soleil. “He’s quite the charmer. You’ll have to tell me the story of the mauve nightie.”
Soleil’s blush deepened. “Later.”
“Well?” Cabrillo asked a second time.
“He’ll do it. Tiny can pick it up tonight and be back with it by tomorrow.”
“Once we have his diagram, we can formulate our plan to take out Bahar’s computer.”
They headed back to the harbor and made a startling discovery. MacD Lawless was leaning negligently against a fence near where they had berthed the lifeboat.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Juan called out.
“Long story, but Ah came down to talk to the harbormaster to see if the Oregon had come in yet and saw the Or Death tied up pretty as you please.” His sunny smile faded. “We need to talk. Langston Overholt himself came to get me and had me flown here on an Air Force jet.”
“Let me guess,” Juan said knowingly. “Bahar has made his move with his quantum computer.”
MacD’s jaw dropped. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Eric and Mark figured out that he’d built it, and it stands to reason he’d use it against the United States. Tell me everything.”
They boarded the disguised hydrofoil as MacD told them what had been going on since he’d parted with the team in New Orleans, but it wasn’t until they were halfway back to the ship that the dread chill creeping up Juan’s spine went into overdrive. Linda had said Langston had phoned earlier about a mission involving a Chinese ship. That didn’t jibe with what was happening in Washington, and the sickening realization hit home.
As soon as they arrived on the Oregon he had Hali Kasim track Linda down.
“When you spoke with Overholt, did he sound different to you?” he asked without preamble.
“No. He sounded fine. Is something wrong with him?”
“Did you tell him we were headed here?” Trepidation carried in his voice. If she had, they were blown.
“No. I said we had another op and would need a week. He said it was no problem, since the Chinese looked like they were sticking around the Gulf of Alaska.”
Juan let out a long-held breath. “Thank God.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“That wasn’t Langston. That was the quantum computer you were talking to.”
Cabrillo had taken Eric’s and Mark’s warnings seriously, but this was the first time he truly understood the staggering capabilities Gunawan Bahar had at his disposal. Like the president had remarked earlier, they were squared off against a man who wielded the power of God.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Linda asked. She’d gotten it too.
“Yeah,” Juan replied. “Yeah, I think this time we really are.”
* * *
AS BADLY AS CABRILLO wanted a Predator drone over the Albatross Mine, he knew that the request was impossible because Bahar would get wind of it. Instead, Gomez Adams would be renting a helicopter there in Monaco and doing an aerial survey of the place. In the meantime they would have to make do with archived satellite imagery off the Internet. His concern went so deep that he had Mark ensure the images hadn’t been doctored recently. Fortunately, they were clean.
The mine sat in the Arc River Valley near the alpine town of Modane and, as Soleil had recalled, very close to the Italian border. From the air, there wasn’t much to look at. It was a basic industrial brownfield site, with several dilapidated buildings and the remains of the tower for the headgear hoist that once carried men into the mine and salt back out. A single access road snaked to the mine over an undulating series of switchbacks, but it also had rail access. Despite the graininess of commercial satellite pictures, they could see that some of the track bed had been removed, so that locomotives could no longer reach the facility.
A river approach was likely because the mine’s southern boundary ran directly along the banks of the Arc River. There was even a bridge crossing the river nearby that looked like it went to an abandoned gravel pit that must have worked in conjunction with the mine when it was in operation.
Linc, Eddie, Linda, and Juan were in the conference room, studying the images projected on the big flat-panel monitors.
“Why a mine?” Lincoln asked suddenly.
