“Ten thousand?”
“Make the announcement—in English, please.”
The captain sighed deeply, and then nodded as Odin keyed the PA handset. “Attention, crew. Attention, crew. This is Captain Jönsson. The Tonsberg has been boarded and hijacked by armed men. Do not panic, and do not resist them. All crew members are to move with urgency to the free-fall boat. This is your order to abandon ship. Repeat: Abandon ship with urgency and prepare to deploy while under way.”
Odin nodded and hung the PA mic back on its hook. “Thank you.”
They could already hear shouting and footsteps running over metal plating elsewhere above and below them. The ship started to lean to the left as it went into a steep turn.
The captain frowned. “Why are we turning?”
“Head for the lifeboat, Captain.”
“Who is piloting my vessel?”
Two crewmen in blue coveralls came rushing out of a doorway and halted in surprise at the sight of Odin wielding the submachine gun.
The captain motioned to them. “Take Jöran and Pindal to the escape boat.” On their uncertainty he added, “Now!”
Mooch was using wet wipes to wash away the mace from the faces of the stricken men. The two crewmen edged nervously alongside to take charge of them. “Kommer du, Kapten?”
“Jag stannar med skeppet.”
The crewmen looked grim-faced as they performed a capable fireman’s carry and shouldered the men down the hall.
“Get going, Captain.”
“I’m staying with my ship.”
Odin raised the gun.
“My crew is leaving, and I cannot let you take charge of this vessel in an active shipping lane. You could cause a collision, an oil spill, or worse. You tell me where you need to go, and I will take you there.”
Mooch was checking Ritter’s pulse. “We could use the help, chief.”
Odin shook his head. “He has no idea what we’re headed into.”
The captain looked down at Ritter. “Is that man really ill?”
Mooch put away his stethoscope. “He’s been sedated. If you have any doubts that we’re about to be attacked by drones, see how he acts when he wakes up.”
“I am staying. If what you claim is true, then a skilled captain will be useful. And I know my ship.”
Odin lowered the MP5. “I refuse to take responsibility for your decision. You were warned.” He gestured for the captain to walk first. “Now lead us to the bridge.”
Mooch called after Odin. “What about Ritter?”
“Secure him. We’ll deal with him later.”
McKinney followed Odin and the captain up several metal gangways, gaining height until they finally emerged in the center of a narrow but long control room running the entire width of the ship. It was lined, front, back, and sides, with tall, durable-looking windows fitted with vertical windshield wipers. The room was bordered at waist level with consoles populated by switches, phone handsets, radios, radar screens, and built-in computer displays. Behind that was another console with a ship’s wheel and throttle controls, along with wide counters on which sat navigational charts and remote camera monitors for various sections of the ship.
The helm had a commanding view of the sea in every direction as well as down onto the ship’s deck—a couple of hundred feet or so behind the control tower stood the Sikorsky helicopter, already lashed down on the small helipad. Beyond that McKinney could see the curving trail of the ship’s wake as they made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to the south in pursuit of the Ebba Maersk.
Evans stood at the wheel of the ship, examining computer screens. He glanced up when they entered. “How’s the hijacking going?”
“Don’t touch anything.” Odin nudged him aside.
“Foxy started the turn, and then took off with the crew. What’s going on?”
“He’s escorting them to the escape boat. The captain’s staying.”
Evans raised his eyebrows. “Really. Can I take his place in the lifeboat?”
Odin shook his head. “Mission’s not done yet, Mort.”
The captain had already picked up large binoculars and was scanning the horizon while McKinney sat in a chair next to the navigational charts. The captain spoke while scanning the sea. “Who is your pilot?”
Odin was examining the radar and GPS navigation screens showing ship traffic in the area. “I am. I’m a licensed sea captain.” He then moved alongside McKinney to examine the nav chart as well.
“Where are you heading?”
“In pursuit of the Ebba Maersk.” Odin pressed a finger into the navigational chart. “She’s approximately thirty-three miles southwest of our position, doing roughly eighteen knots. What’s the maximum speed of your ship, Captain?”
“We can do twenty-six in a favorable wind, but we’ll burn twice the tonnage.”
“Saving on fuel costs isn’t high on my priority list.” Odin moved to one of the ship’s control monitors and started changing settings.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Antiterrorism operators need to be able to pose as qualified airport and ship personnel, so we’re cross-trained in the equipment. I’m programming an interception course. When we finish our turn, we go to full speed, heading one-six-eight.”
A phone on the console rang. Odin grabbed it and listened for a moment. “Good. Get the team back here and let’s plan this operation.” He hung up. “Captain, your crew deployed the escape boat successfully. No injuries.”
The Swede nodded grimly. “If your purpose was to catch up with the Ebba Maersk, why didn’t you use your own helicopter?”
“Because the Ebba Maersk is infested with thousands of combat drones that will destroy anything that gets within twenty miles of it.”
The Tonsberg was already completing its turn and leveling out.
The captain threw up his hands. “What you’re saying is madness.”
Odin traced his finger along the map, passing two red pins. “Those distress signals. Look, you marked their location on your own map. It’s the same course the Ebba Maersk took.” Odin lifted a handset from the console and passed it to the captain. “Here. Try to raise them on the radio. You won’t be able to. The crew is either dead or in hiding.”
The captain grabbed the radio and eyed Odin before keying the mic. “Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Do you copy?”
As the captain continued transmitting, Odin started making calculations on the relative movements of the two ships while McKinney watched closely. From his pencil markings she could see they weren’t going to close the distance for a while.
“Will we catch it in time?”
He started to rerun his calculations. “I think we can.”
In a few minutes Foxy, Mooch, Ripper, and Smokey entered, their pistols holstered. Foxy shrugged. “What’s the plan?”
Everyone on the bridge gathered around, including the dour-looking captain, who had given up trying to raise the Ebba Maersk.
Odin gestured to the navigational chart as he spoke. “At twenty-six knots it will take us roughly three hours and fifty minutes to close with the Ebba Maersk. During that time she will travel another eighty-one and a half miles closer to Carrier Strike Group Five. That puts them within the radius of their CAP and picket ships—but only just.”
Foxy nodded. “Hawkeye flights should spot the drones on radar.”
Odin gestured to the nearby console. “Look at the swarm around the Maersk on the radar screen, Foxy. What’s it look like to you?”
Foxy and the others turned to look at a nearby radar screen. “It looks like rain.”
“Right. There are so many of them hovering around the ship, so close together, it looks like a squall line—like no aircraft any radar operator’s seen before.”
Foxy nodded. “Tricky bastards . . .”
“I estimate we’ll be within the colony’s attack radius for almost two hours before we catch up with t
he hive ship.”
McKinney sucked in a breath. “Two hours?”
Foxy whistled. “That’s a lot of time for them to go to town on us.”
Odin nodded to McKinney. “The professor thinks there will be various morphologies of drones—and we saw that as we flew in. We can take some of this ship’s firefighting gear—the oxygen masks, for instance—to conceal our chemical signature and faces. As for the ship . . . we’ll just need to defend it as best we can until we reach our target.”
No one looked particularly enthused about this plan.
The captain frowned. “But if what you’re saying is true—that there are thousands of combat drones—what do you plan on doing when you catch up to the Ebba Maersk?”
Odin looked him straight in the eye. “We’re going to ram it.”
The look of horror on the man’s face broke new ground. “This is insanity! Do you realize that the Ebba Maersk is one of the largest ships in the world? The environmental damage—not to mention . . . that’s over a billion dollars’ worth of shipping not including my cargo—not to mention the cargo on the Ebba Maersk.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty certain they’re insured, Captain.”
Foxy was shaking his head. “This is one shitty plan, boss.”
Ripper nodded agreement. “He’s right.”
The Swedish captain nodded vigorous agreement, his accent thicker than usual. “I am in agreement that this iz a shitty plan.”
Foxy stabbed at the map. “How do we get clear? We sent the only damn lifeboat off with the crew. What happens when we ram this thing—we just hope we haven’t sustained enough damage to sink ourselves? And what about the swarms of drones still flying around?”
McKinney was staring at her backpack, also shaking her head slowly. “You’ll never get away even if this ship doesn’t sink from the collision.”
Odin stared at the navigation chart, obviously considering her words.
McKinney sighed. “But I have a better idea.”
Everyone turned to her—Odin looking most relieved of all. “Good. Let’s hear it, Professor.”
“Ichneumon eumerus.” She unzipped the backpack. “It’s a parasitic wasp that preys on ants. It does that by mimicking their pheromonal signature so it can get inside the nest without raising alarm.”
Ripper frowned. “You mean it pretends to be one of them?”
Evans leaned in. “Don’t the ants notice the wasp doesn’t look like them?”
McKinney shook her head. “That’s the thing. Ants don’t process physical appearance—their pheromonal signature is all that matters. That’s how they know their colony mates.” She removed the two metal canisters of perfluorocarbon from the backpack and placed them on the table. “I propose we do the same thing with the helicopter.”
From the expressions on their faces it appeared that minds had just been blown.
Ripper turned to Odin. “Is she fucking serious? Fly right into the middle of thousands of killer drones and do what?”
Odin was pondering it, nodding to himself. “Turn the ship.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Foxy was the first to recover. “That is fucking hard core.”
Mooch shook his head. “But you have no idea whether this will work. And if you’re wrong . . .”
“We know they run on my software model—and that software model is looking for a match on a pheromonal signature variable. If there’s a match, no attack signal is generated. This is how they identify each other. I’m willing to bet my life on it.”
Odin looked up. “You don’t have to be one of those who go, Professor.”
“The hell I don’t. It will take some experimentation to get it right, and no one knows their behavior patterns better than me. Besides, what they’re trying to do with my work might wind up driving humanity to a new form of warfare. I can’t just stand by and let that happen.”
Odin nodded to her with respect. “Understood.”
Ripper was looking from one to the other. “Odin, are we really doing this?”
Odin took a deep breath. “No. The professor and I are doing this. You and the rest of the team are staying here. Except . . .”
Foxy nodded. “You need someone to fly the chopper.” He turned to face McKinney. “Count me in. It should be an interesting trip. So how do we work this pheromone with the chopper?”
McKinney was studying the canister. She tapped the nozzle at the top. “When I saw this on the complete drone we had in Mexico it was smaller, but the perfluorocarbon nozzle was aimed at the body of the drone itself—to mark it. We’ll need to fasten a rig aimed at the chopper fuselage. One that we can manually operate to depress the nozzle and spray the chopper as often as necessary to get the drones to view us as one of their own.”
Odin accepted one of the liter-sized metal canisters from her. “How long will this last us?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but they can’t have to recharge too often or it would be impractical. Maybe we can find their supply somewhere on board?”
“We can’t rely on that. We’re just going to have to get this done as soon as possible. Figure we take firefighting gear from the Tonsberg here—oxygen masks to conceal our breath signature and faces. That’ll give us an hour of air.”
Foxy considered it. “As long as they don’t attack us, an hour should be enough time to fly thirty miles or so, land on the ship, get to the bridge, and steer it off course. Helicopter fuel might be a problem, though.” Foxy turned to the captain. “Do you have any Jet-A on board? Any aircraft in storage below?”
The captain shook his head. “No. Just automobiles, buses, heavy construction equipment, railroad cars, forklifts.”
“Great.” He turned back to Odin. “We probably have enough to reach the Maersk at thirty miles, but we won’t have enough to get back.”
“As long as we can get there and turn the ship, we’ll deal with the rest.”
Foxy frowned. “Why not just kill the ship’s engine?”
“Because it’s in the middle of a shipping channel.”
“If we had explosives, we could scuttle her.”
“Well, we don’t have explosives.”
“We could improvise shaped charges with wine bottles, some ball bearings, oil—”
“No, look here. . . .” Odin was studying the chart again. He jabbed a finger at a line to the east of them. “Tancred Shoal.” He nodded to himself. “That’s just off the shipping lane—another twenty miles. This chart shows exposed rocks. We can run her aground.”
“That’s better than just sinking her?”
“Yes. Ritter said these things only have a seventy-two-hour operating life. Whoever’s behind this will try to conceal the fact that this ever happened. And we all know how deep inside our systems they are. If we sink the ship or let them tow it away, they’ll just rebuild and relaunch. But if we run the Ebba Maersk aground on the Tancred Shoals, it’ll take salvage crews months to clean up. A big public demise for the world’s biggest container ship in hotly contested waters—highly visible with lots of evidence left behind. That’s something the world won’t be able to ignore. The physical evidence of thousands of swarming ship-killer drones will show that this isn’t just some terror group. It might force international investigations.”
McKinney studied the chart along with Foxy. “So we run it aground. How do we get away?”
“The Ebba Maersk has an escape boat too. Assuming the crew didn’t have a chance to launch it, we cover ourselves in colony pheromone and head for the escape pod just before we run aground on the shoals.”
The ship’s captain was just shaking his head in confusion. “What the hell is everyone talking about—parasitic wasps and ants? What does this have to do with drones?”
Evans waved him off, looking considerably calmer than he’d been. “Believe me, ignorance is bliss.” He looked to Odin, McKinney, and Foxy. “Well, it’s big of you to take one for the team, guys. Best of luck.”
Ripper was study
ing the pheromone canister. “Don’t get too excited, Mort. We still need to chart a course to ram the Ebba Maersk.”
“But they’re going to—”
Odin turned to her. “Why, Ripper?”
“What if you fail, sir? This ship needs to already be on track to intercept, otherwise there won’t be time to catch up.” She jabbed a finger down onto the chart. “Which means this ship will be inside colony territory before we can be positive you’ve succeeded—at which point we can break off and head for safety.”
Evans’s eyes went wide. “For how long?”
Odin studied the map. “Probably fifteen minutes to a half hour.”
“It beats two hours plus.”
Odin nodded, then turned to the others. “She’s right. Any objections?”
Evans raised his hand. No one else moved.
“So that means we all have jobs to do. Let’s get moving, people. We’re leaving within the hour.”
CHAPTER 30
The Swarm
Linda McKinney watched Odin gently playing catch with Huginn and Muninn on the deck of the Tonsberg, near the Sikorsky helicopter. She knew he was saying his good-byes, since it seemed likely they would not return.
He looked over to her, and McKinney came alongside and tossed a pellet of food to Muninn. The raven caught it without difficulty.
“We’ll be back.”
He was stone-faced. “I hope you’re right about this, Professor.”
Foxy was finishing up the twin pheromone canister rig on the nose of the chopper. A wrench clattered to the metal deck and he stood. “Well, this is what we’ve got.”
McKinney and Odin turned to see that the twin metal canisters had been clamped into place with fire extinguisher brackets bolted below the chopper’s nose. The nozzles of both were aimed straight at the fuselage, and a braided copper wire ran through a hole drilled in the windscreen.
Foxy ran his finger along the copper wire. “Pull on this and it directly depresses the nozzle valves.” He gave it the barest tug, and a cloud of pheromone vapor sprayed the chopper, leaving a wet spot two feet in diameter. “Voilà. What do you think?”