off while she was at speed. Cabrillo didn’t consider the countless pitfalls in his crazy idea, he just set about getting it organized.
“Linc, Eddie, go down to the stores and get me two hundred feet of Hypertherm, the stuff with the electromagnets on the casings.” The plastic explosive–like material was a magnesium-based compound capable of burning at nearly two thousand degrees Celsius and was used in salvage operations to cut steel underwater. “Meet me in the hangar. Eddie, kit up on your way. I can’t guarantee what kind of reception we’re going to get on theSidra .”
“What about me?” Linc asked.
“Sorry, but we’ve got weight limitations.”
Max touched Juan’s shoulder. “Obviously you’ve come up with something devious and underhanded.
Care to enlighten us?” After Cabrillo explained his plan, Hanley nodded. “Like I said, devious and underhanded.”
“Is there any other way?”
31
GEORGEAdams’s face was a mask of concentration, his fingers curled tightly around the Robinson’s controls. Wind and the furiously spinning main rotor blades made the small chopper jittery on the raised helipad, but he wouldn’t take off until the timing was just right.
TheOregon dropped down the back of a large swell and a wall of water suddenly loomed up over the deck, its crest curled and threatened to swamp the helicopter and its three occupants.
“Talk to me, Eric,” he said as the ship started to climb the next wave.
“Hold on, the camera’s almost reached the top. Okay, yeah, there’s a large trough on the other side.
You’ve got plenty of time.”
The instant the ship reached the apogee of its ascent Adams gave the Robinson a bit more power, knowing that when they took off theOregon would drop from under them rather than rise up on a hidden wave and crash into the chopper. As they took to the air the tramp freighter plummeted. George dipped the nose to gain airspeed and then lifted out of the reach of the surging sea and into a maelstrom of wind.
He had to turn with the wind to gain more speed and altitude before swinging back into the gale.
Hammered by a fifty-knot headwind, the Robinson was making only sixty knots over the ocean, not much faster than theOregon herself, but Juan had wanted to get to theGulf of Sidra as quickly as possible.
If the plan held, his ship would be in torpedo range by the time he and Eddie had finished laying the Hypertherm charges.
“I calculate our flight time to be an hour and twenty minutes,” George said after settling in for the difficult flight.
“Juan?” It was Max over the radio.
“Go ahead.”
“Cassedine’s sending another SOS.”
“Okay, go ahead and answer it just like we talked about.”
“You got it.” Max left the channel open so Cabrillo could hear the conversation. “Gulf of Sidra, this is the MVOregon , Captain Max Hanley. I have heard your distress call and am making all possible speed to your location but we’re still two hours away.”
“Oregon, thank God!”
“Captain Cassedine, please advise on your situation.”
“There’s a split in the hull amidships port side and we’re taking on water. My pumps are going at full capacity and we don’t appear to be sinking, but if the tear gets any worse we will have to abandon ship.”
“Has the hole gotten any bigger since it first occurred?”
“Negative. A rogue wave running across the wind hit us and tore the plating. It has been stable since.”
“If you turn due east we can reach you quicker.” This wasn’t true but if theGulf of Sidra turned as she spewed her poison it would distort the hurricane’s eye somewhat. Basically it was a test to see who had control on the ship, its master or Daniel Singer.
Static filled the airwaves for almost a minute. When Cassedine came back there was a new current of fear in his voice. “Ah, that isn’t possible,Oregon . My engineer reports damage to our steering gear.”
“Most likely a gun to his head,” Juan said to Max.
They had considered this scenario, so Max went on as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Understood damage to your steering. In that case, Captain, we can’t risk a collision in these conditions. When we are ten miles from you I will request that you man your lifeboats.”
“What, so you can put a line on my ship afterward and claim her for salvage?”
Juan chuckled. “This guy’s facing death and he’s worried we’ll steal his vessel.”
“Captain, theOregon is a thousand-ton commercial fishing boat,” Max lied smoothly. “We couldn’t tow a tanker on a millpond let alone in the teeth of a hurricane. I am just unwilling to risk a runaway derelict ramming us in the middle of this storm.”
“I, ah, I understand,” Cassedine finally said.
“How many souls aboard?”
“Three officers, twelve crew, and one supernumerary. A total of sixteen.”
The extra man would be Singer, Juan thought, realizing that was a small number even by tanker standards, which were so automated nowadays that they typically carried just a skeleton crew, but he supposed it was enough for what Singer intended.
“Roger that,” Max replied. “Sixteen people. I will call you when we are in range.Oregon out.”
“Affirmative, Captain Hanley. I will radio immediately if our situation changes.Gulf of Sidra out.”
“Don’t get too used to that Captain Hanley stuff,” Juan said when the tanker was off the air.
“I don’t know,” Max said airily. “Has a nice ring to it. So do you think Singer will abandon with them?”
“Tough to say. Though he’s hit a setback he might try to complete his mission without the crew aboard.
They will need to slow in order to launch the lifeboat, but if Cassedine shows him how to get her back to speed then he could finish tightening the storm into an eye less than six miles across.”
“Would you?”
“If I were him and I’d come this far, yeah, I think I would see it through to the end.”
“Which means two things. One is that Singer’s crazier than an outhouse rat and two, you and Eddie better keep an eye out for him when you’re laying the cutting charges.”
“We’ll be careful.”
An hour later George radioed back to theOregon that they had reached their first waypoint on the flight.
It was time to clear theGulf of Sidra of her crew.
“This is theOregon calling Captain Cassedine.” Max said over the radio.
“This is Cassedine, go aheadOregon. ”
“We are ten miles from your position. Are you prepared to abandon ship?” Max asked.
“I do not want to argue, Captain,” Cassedine replied, “but my radar shows you are nearly thirty miles from us.”
“You’re trusting radar in twenty-foot seas?” Max scoffed. “My radar doesn’t even show you. I’m relying on my GPS and by our estimates you’re ten miles from us.” Hanley rattled off the longitude and latitude numbers of a spot ten miles due east of theGulf of Sidra . “That is our current location.”
“Ah, yes. I see that you are correct and are within the ten miles.”
“We can come in closer if you’ve made repairs to your rudder.”
“No, we have not, but the supernumerary has volunteered to stay aboard to keep working on it.”
“The rest of you are abandoning him?” Max asked, playing the part of a concerned mariner.
“He is the vessel’s owner and understands the risk,” Cassedine told him.
“Understood,” Max said with mock unease. “After you launch the boat and get clear of the tanker steer a heading of two seventy degrees and transmit a tone on the EPIRB emergency frequency so we can home in on
