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“We may be touching bottom at the bow, but I think I can get us free.”
“Then please do so.”
Eric pushed the engines to maximum reverse power. The Oregon resisted at first, but the remaining operational Venturi tubes must have acted like enormous dredges and scoured the sand out from under them. The Oregon moved away from the beach until Juan felt they were in safe waters. He ordered Eric to maintain position. Everyone relaxed and waited for Corporation crew members in the RHIB to retrieve Max and the others from the ferry.
By the time the RHIB returned to the boat garage, passengers were already scrambling down makeshift ladders from the bow into the surf and wading ashore, grateful to be on dry land again.
When Max got back to the op center, he began assessing the damage to his engineering systems. He looked at Juan and shook his head in disgust.
“Not good?” Juan asked.
“You’ve done a number on my ship while I was gone.”
“Yes, a lot has happened since you left us twenty minutes ago. Now, can we get out of here before the Coast Guard arrives?”
“Yes, but we can’t go far.”
“What do you mean?”
Max held up his fingers as he ticked off the problems one by one. “We’ve got a rupture in the starboard hull that we can’t repair until we get to a service dock. Our starboard Venturi tube is damaged and will need a refit. And the magnets have overheated, which means that they’ll have to be completely overhauled and recalibrated. I can do the last part myself, but it’ll take time, and, until then, we’ll risk a full system shutdown if we travel any appreciable distance.”
Juan had Eric put up the weather map tracking Typhoon Hidalgo. “You see the problem, right? Hidalgo is heading straight for us. According to the latest projections, it will pass directly over Negros Island.”
“And I would love to
get out of its way,” Max said. “But if we try to outrun it, we could be stuck in the middle of the open ocean without operational engines during a Category Five storm. Doesn’t sound very appealing to me.”
“I hope you have an alternative.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Max replaced the weather map on the screen with a detailed coastal map of Negros Island. He zoomed in on a bay only twenty miles away.
“That’s not a shipping harbor because the area around it is marshy,” Max said, “but it should provide us some protection from the storm surge. By the time the full brunt of the typhoon arrives, I’ll have the engines in good enough shape to ride it out.”
Juan didn’t like the idea of sitting in a bay during a storm like Hidalgo, but the notion of being stranded at sea in mountainous waves was even worse.
“Stoney, set course for that bay,” he said. “Top speed that Max allows.”
“Aye, Chairman,” Eric replied, and the Oregon began moving away from the beached ferry. Since the passengers had been moved away from the bow during the firefight between the Kuyogs and the Gatling guns, all they’d be able to report was that a mysterious ship and its crew had saved them from certain death amid dozens of explosions from unknown watercraft. Juan would have his people reconfigure the Oregon while it was idling so that even if the Coast Guard did subsequently come across them, they would look like a completely different ship.
“Congratulations, Mr. Cabrillo,” Raven said now that they were out of harm’s way. “I’ve never seen such a remarkable display of teamwork.”
“We only bring on the best. Every corporation says that, but we really mean it.”
“I can see that. But Locsin is still out there, and so is Beth.”
“I know. We’ll have to wait out the storm and plan our next step once it’s passed.”
Raven held up the temporary phone they’d loaned her to replace the one taken by Locsin. “I don’t think we have to wait that long. While we were recovering from the battle, I was finally able to check my email and found a message from an account that I’ve never seen before. It says, ‘Raven, this is Beth. In a huge cavern but don’t know where. Track this cell number to find me.’ I checked the number in the message, and it has a Philippines prefix based on Negros Island. If this is legit, Beth might have found a way to lead us right to Locsin.”
58
NEGROS ISLAND
By the time night had fallen in the cavern, Beth was lying on her bed going crazy from boredom. Besides her meal breaks, she’d had no human contact, and there was nothing to read or do in her cell. Because of the double doses of Typhoon, she felt better than ever. Her wound was healing well, but she also had the periodic urge to smash everything in the room from frustration at her predicament.
She wondered if her email message had been received. It was possible that it had gone straight to Raven’s junk mail because it came from an unknown number. And Beth had no idea if they really could track Dolap’s phone, nor did she know if the phone was actually broadcasting, especially given the depths of the cavern. She had a feeling that this is what Purgatory would be like.
The exquisite masterpieces she’d examined were the only thing keeping her sane. She could have kicked herself for assessing the value of the paintings so quickly. She should have said it would have taken days, not only so she could revel in their beauty but also to stave off the inevitable moment when she was no longer useful to Locsin.
