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“Not Oscar-worthy?”
Max wagged his hand side to side and smiled. “But, then, I know you better than Tate does.”
“I thought you were quite convincing,” Overholt said as he walked from the side of the room where he couldn’t have been seen on camera. “I’m sure Tate thinks your rant is still going on.”
“As long as he didn’t realize that the deepfa
ke software was overridden.”
Eric and Hali, who were sitting at the communications console, high-fived each other.
“The deactivation was invisible,” Eric said.
“I agree,” Juan said. “There’s no way he would have continued the conversation if he had known. Let’s bring back our friends on-screen, Hali.”
“Aye, Chairman,” Hali said. “They should have been able to see everything from both sides.”
Juan wished he could have revealed that Tate gave himself away and rubbed in his face the fact that his plan to frame Juan had been utterly wrecked, but Juan had resisted the urge, knowing that tipping Tate off would just make him go into hiding. Juan was playing the long game, and clearing their names and finding the Portland was more important than the momentary satisfaction of seeing his old partner enraged about being bamboozled. Tate, on the other hand, would have had no such impulse control.
All the time they had been talking, there was another video chat going on in the background, and now the participants in it appeared on the view screen. Two people sat at a conference table while a third lounged behind them, leaning casually against the wall.
The first person was Patricia Kubo, Director of the CIA. The former senator from Hawaii rubbed her forehead like she was massaging away a headache.
“What a mess,” she said in a strained alto. “If I hadn’t seen you talking to Zachariah Tate and Catherine Ballard in real time, I wouldn’t have believed they were teaming up together. We were so sure he was dead, and now he basically admitted to sinking a U.S. nuclear attack submarine and a covert CIA cargo ship.”
The other seated person had flaming red hair, a Vandyke beard, and was dressed in a bespoke gray suit. Vice President James Sandecker, the original founder of NUMA, chewed on his unlit cigar and nodded slowly.
“True, it’s a mess,” he said. “But it’s a mess we created for ourselves. And don’t forget the civilian freighter Avignon. There doesn’t seem to be much that Tate won’t do for revenge.”
The room’s tall and lean third occupant had a shock of black hair, tanned and rugged features from many hours in the sun and salt of the ocean, and opaline green eyes that glittered with sly intelligence just as Juan remembered from their first encounter. Dirk Pitt, the current Director of NUMA, seemed to be the only one in the conference room who was amused.
“That was quite a performance, Juan,” Pitt said. “I thought you were going to blow a gasket.”
“I had to make Tate believe that he won,” Juan said. “He’s a sore loser.”
“You’ve done a good job keeping him on the losing end recently.”
“I’ve got a better team than he has.”
Sandecker shook his head. “I have to say, Mr. Cabrillo, that I was reluctant to indulge your request when Dirk brought it to me. But as you’ve experienced in the past, he can be quite convincing himself.”
Pitt was on board the Oregon long ago when the Corporation was helping NUMA out with a secret mission in Hong Kong. It was during that operation that the Oregon had the encounter with the Chinese destroyer that cost Juan his leg. If it hadn’t been for Pitt’s quick thinking, Juan probably would have lost the whole ship and everyone on it.
“I know,” Juan replied. “That’s why I called Dirk to bring you on this call. I figured that the VP and the CIA Director wouldn’t believe fugitives like us without someone to vouch for us.”
“I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt since you saved my life several years ago,” Sandecker said. He was referring to the time when the Oregon destroyed enemy drones that were trying to down Air Force Two.
“I believe you now,” Kubo said. “Seeing Tate and Ballard in a replica of your op center was very convincing. Langston, I’m sorry for ever doubting you.”
“I understand, Patricia,” Overholt said. “Catherine Ballard has been concocting this plan for years. She duped me completely.”
“I assure you that the CIA will do everything in its power to bring her to justice.”
“Quietly,” Sandecker said. “I’ve spoken with the President, and he wants to keep the political blowback from this situation to a minimum.”
“That’s up to Zachariah Tate, Mr. Vice President,” Juan said.
Sandecker waved his hand dismissively. “Tate wants you dead and your reputation ruined. He knows the best way to do that is to make you a pariah to the U.S. government, not the public.”
