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“Admiral Ruiz, I presume,” Juan said, the drawl gone. “I was hoping you were on board.”
“Whatever you think you have accomplished with your operation in Puerto La Cruz, I can assure you it is nothing more than a pinprick.”
“Is that sunken fake oil tanker the balloon in your analogy? Because if it is, it popped pretty well.”
“For that you will pay, one way or the other.”
“Oh, right. Arrest versus destruction. Why don’t you come and get us?”
“I plan to. I’d pr
efer to meet you face-to-face so that you see who it was that beat you. But I will settle for sending your ship to the bottom, if it comes to that.”
“You can try.”
Ruiz laughed. “I’ll do more than try. It’s been an interesting conversation, Captain. I hope to meet you someday.”
“The feeling isn’t mutual. Adiós.” He gave the cut sign to Hali and the connection ceased.
“She sounds like a charmer,” Max said.
“In addition to being a good ship commander,” Juan said, “man or woman, you get to the admiral level one of two ways: charm or ruthlessness. My guess is Ruiz can wield either, depending on her calculations. We shouldn’t underestimate her.”
“I’m not. My first wife had the same tone right before her divorce attorney took me to the cleaners. And I’m not letting us split the Oregon in half for Ruiz.” After three failed marriages, Max’s true love now was his ship.
“Chairman, Eric’s got the RHIB one mile off our bow,” Hali said.
“All stop. Open the boat garage.”
The Oregon came to a halt and a hidden hatch on the side of the ship at the waterline slid open to reveal a wide bay, where the Oregon’s complement of surface vessels could be launched and recovered. The op center’s front screen showed the feed from the boat garage. When the RHIB reached the Oregon, Eric Stone expertly guided it through the opening and Mark Murphy threw a line to a waiting technician. Without fanfare, they jumped to the deck and exited the garage.
“Close it up,” Juan said. “Juice the engines for a few minutes to make up for the lost time.”
The hull purred as the cryopumps spooled up and water was blasted from the stern.
A minute later, Eric and Murph sauntered into the op center, both looking pleased with themselves.
The two of them were the youngest senior officers on the ship. Eric, an Annapolis graduate with gentle brown eyes and a serious demeanor, took off his windbreaker to reveal his usual white button-down shirt and khaki slacks. He had come to the Corporation by way of a recommendation from a commanding officer who had served in Vietnam with Max. On board the Oregon, his technical acumen and computer skills were surpassed only by the man he’d brought with him to the Corporation, Mark Murphy.
Murph hadn’t served in the Navy but had worked with Eric on a top secret missile project as a civilian contractor, and he was the only member of the crew without a military or intelligence entry on his résumé. An arms development genius with a Ph.D. from MIT earned in his early twenties, Murph was a natural fit in his role as the Oregon’s weapons officer.
Disdaining any semblance of conformity, Murph let his dark hair sprout like a wild bramble, which was now further mussed by the wind. His chin sported the patchy stubble of a beard that refused to grow, and his lanky torso was covered by a T-shirt that read “Gorilla Biscuits,” which Juan assumed was the name of one of the punk rock bands that Murph blasted from his cabin stereo loud enough to wake Davy Jones.
The young crew members ceded their stations and Eric took his place at the helm while Murph sat at the weapons control console.
“From those smug looks on your faces,” Juan said, “I’d guess everything went as planned.”
“Affirmative, Chairman,” Eric replied. “We have everything in place.”
“What he means,” Murph said, “is that we’ve outdone ourselves this time. Wait ’til you see it.”
Before Juan could respond, Hali said, “Radar contact. We have an aircraft ten miles out, bearing one-eight-nine, approaching at a hundred and fifty knots.”
“That must be the Mariscal Sucre’s ASW chopper,” Juan said. “Threat assessment?”
Murph, a virtual database of weapons information, piped up. “Lupo-class frigates carry a single Agusta-Bell AB-212. In its role as an antisubmarine warfare helicopter, it can be equipped with two Mark 46 torpedoes and four AS.12 antiship missiles.”
“What’s their missiles’ range?”
