The Jungle

“I figured as much,” Juan admitted, “but we have to try everything. Keep me posted.”

After a quick shower and shave, Cabrillo stopped in the medical bay. MacD Lawless lay on a standard hospital bed surrounded by some of the most high-tech lifesaving equipment in existence. A heart monitor beeped a strong measured cadence. He was able to breathe on his own, but a clear plastic cannula carrying pure oxygen had been fitted around his ears and under his nose. Juan noted that Lawless’s bruising was fading fast and that most of the swelling had gone down. Along with his good looks, the guy had the constitution of an ox.

Hux came around the curtain separating MacD from the rest of the sleek medical ward. As always, she wore her hair in a ponytail and sported a lab coat. Her face bore a doctor’s professional blankness.

“How is he?” Juan asked, trying not to sound grave.

Julia suddenly smiled, a beaming grin that lit up the already bright room. “He’s asleep.”

“I know. He’s been in a coma—”

“No,” she cut him off quickly. “He came out of the coma about three hours ago. He actually just barely fell back asleep.”

For whatever reason, there wasn’t a doctor in the world that was bothered by waking a patient no matter how badly his body needed sleep. Julia Huxley was no different. She gently shook MacD’s shoulder until his eyelids fluttered open. He stared blankly until his jade-green eyes could focus.

“How you doing?” Juan asked warmly.

“Great,” MacD replied, his voice raspy. “But, man, you should see the other guy.”

“I did,” Cabrillo said. “He had some of the worst bruised knuckles I’ve ever seen.”

Lawless started chuckling, but the pain made him moan. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.” MacD suddenly grew sober as he remembered who he was talking to and how he had crumpled under Soe Than’s torture. “Ah’m sorry, Juan. Ah really am. Ah had no idea it would be so bad.”

“Don’t worry about it. All you gave was my name and the name of the ship—a name, I might add, that rarely graces her fantail. Had you not told them who I was, the Chinese government wouldn’t have made a deal to haul us back to Beijing, and Eddie wouldn’t have been able to figure out a way to rescue our sorry butts. You unwittingly saved our lives.”

Lawless looked dubious, as if there couldn’t possibly be an upside.

“Seriously,” Cabrillo went on. “We’d both be in a Chinese prison right now, looking at life sentences, if you hadn’t told Than what you did. If you want to feel bad about breaking, man, I can understand that, but you also have to own up to the fact that in doing so you made our escape possible. It’s the whole gray cloud/silver lining thing. What you have to figure out is, which one you want to concentrate on. Choose wrong, and I have no use for you. Okay?”

MacD sniffed back to clear his throat. “Ah understand. And thanks. Ah hadn’t thought about it that way. It looks like that’s the second time Ah saved your life.” He tried to smile but couldn’t make it stick.

Juan knew that Lawless would come around, and he knew too that hiring him had been the smartest thing he’d done in a long while. “You get some rest. We’re tracking Linda as we speak, so in a few days it’ll all be just a story we tell each other over drinks.”

“What? Wait. You’re trackin’ Linda?”

“Every Corporation operative has a tracker chip embedded in the thigh. It runs biometrically and can be seen from satellites. We’re en route to Brunei right now. The last place her chip transmitted from. We’ll get her back. No worries.”

“No worries,” Lawless parroted.

Cabrillo nodded to Hux and left medical.

14

THE OREGON POUNDED ONWARD, DRIVEN AS MUCH BY HER anxious captain as by her remarkable engines. It was fortunate for them that the seas remained calm because the speeds they reached would have meant a terrifying ride had there been significant chop. Usually the ship would stray from a direct route so that no passing vessels would get an inkling of its capabilities, but not this time. Cabrillo didn’t care who saw them cutting through the waves at better than forty knots. They were hailed several times, usually by bored radio operators who wanted to know who or what they were. On the Chairman’s orders, the Oregon maintained radio silence.

The only attempt to look remotely normal was the fake smoke belching from the ship’s single funnel. Most sailors who saw her pass by assumed the old tramp freighter had been retrofitted with gas turbines.

Sitting in the Op Center, his arm still in a sling, Cabrillo watched the sea’s passage on the big monitor. A glance to his right showed him a big radar repeater dotted with nearby shipping. The Straits of Malacca were perhaps the busiest shipping route in the world, and the near-traffic-jam conditions had forced the Oregon to a fraction of her capabilities.

This wasn’t Juan’s normal watch. It was eight o’clock at night, and the third shift had the conn. The sun was sinking rapidly behind them, turning the sea into an undulating sheet of burnished copper. When it vanished completely, he knew the shipping would slow even further. The big containerships and tankers had modern navigational aids and could maintain their speed in nearly any condition. The delay would be caused by the dozens of fishing boats and small coastal freighters that they would need to go around.

His only consolation was that they were approaching the end of the narrow strait. Once they reached open waters again, he could give his beloved ship free rein and crank up the magnetohydrodynamics even higher.

“Good evening, everyone,” Julia Huxley announced herself as she entered the Op Center from a passage at the rear of the room. Seated in a wheelchair in front of her, and wearing a hospital johnnie, was MacD Lawless. “I’m giving my patient the nickel tour. You may recall, Juan, all he saw before was the hallway on the other side of the mess hall.”

“Wow,” Lawless said, wide-eyed. “This is like the bridge of the Enterprise. That’s where Chris Pine sat.”

“Who?” Cabrillo asked.

“Chris Pine. He plays Kirk in the movies.”

Juan let the comment pass rather than reveal how far behind the times he was. “How you doing?”

“Goin’ stir-crazy, to be honest,” he drawled. “The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Ah can’t stand lyin’ around in bed all day. Say, where are we?”

“Malacca Straits.”

“We’re makin’ good time,” Lawless commented.

“The old girl has a little something extra under the hood, though right now we’re down to fifteen knots because of the damned traffic.”

Lawless studied the view screen and said, “Looks like the I-10 back home.”

“I grew up in California,” Juan told him. “You don’t know traffic until you’ve seen the 405. So what else has Julia shown you?”

“Your dining room, which Ah have to say is about the swankiest Ah’ve ever seen. Um, the pool, which was amazin’, the gym, some of the crew’s quarters. What else? The boat garage and the hangar.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it. Down at the keel are doors that open to the sea where we can launch and recover submarines, and the Oregon packs more firepower than just about any ship afloat.”

“Don’t ruin my tow,” Julia interjected.

“Once you’re feeling better,” Juan said, “we’ll talk about your cabin. It’s empty right now, but you start figuring out how you want it set up, and we’ll make it happen.”

“Ah’ve been bunking with a bunch of other operators in a former auto body shop in Kabul, and, before that, housin’ was courtesy of Uncle Sam. Ah don’t know the first thing about decoratin’.”

“Talk to Linc, then. He opted for a cot and a metal locker and put the rest of his allowance into a Harley Fat Boy he keeps in the hold.”

“Ah like his style.”