The Emperor's Revenge

  Sirkal threw his hands up and screamed as he saw the massive main rotor churning toward him. It caught him in midflight, chopping him to pieces in a spray of blood and gore. Nothing larger than a hand made it to the ground.

  The fragile rotor came apart and the Eurocopter slammed into the ground. The fuel tank ruptured as the fuselage collapsed from the crushing impact. The entire chopper exploded, taking the rest of the occupants with it.

  Despite the pain in her shoulder, Ivana looked around for any way to escape. Then she saw her one chance.

  A Mercedes was idling by the Control Hub’s entrance.

  —

  After Eddie and Linc crawled from the SUV’s remains with little more than scratches and bruises from the crash, they ran toward the smoke that was billowing up over the Control Hub building.

  Eddie came around the corner to see Ivana pick up a briefcase and throw it into the burning hulk of the helicopter. She held one arm close to her body as if it were injured while she ran toward Gustaaf Dijkstra’s Mercedes, which was idling at the front entrance. Its driver, who had gotten out after the helicopter crashed, fled toward the building’s entrance when he saw Ivana waving a pistol at him.

  Eddie sprinted toward her with Linc hot on his heels, but she climbed into the car and slammed the door. The Mercedes screeched away toward the facility’s gate.

  “Close the gate!” he yelled at the guards.

  One of them pressed the button to raise the cylindrical truck barriers.

  Instead of slowing, the powerful Mercedes, which had already reached highway speeds, continued to accelerate in an attempt to make it across the top of the cylinders before they were fully raised.

  But the top of the cylinders had risen just enough to catch the front of the chassis. The Mercedes catapulted over the cylinders and somersaulted in the air.

  The air bags deployed, but the car continued to tumble over the pavement. Ivana, who hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, was slingshotted from the car and bounced across the pavement like a rag doll before the Mercedes came to rest as a jumble of nearly unrecognizable metal.

  Eddie and Linc were the first ones to reach her. She stared up at them with unseeing eyes, her neck broken from the impact.

  Eddie’s phone dinged. It was Murph.

  “Eddie, are you and Linc okay? We heard an explosion.”

  “We’re fine. The helicopter went down in front of the building.”

  “Did Ivana Semova make it out? Because the electrical grid is about to melt down and we need her alive to stop it. And see if you can find that laptop she was carrying.”

  “I’ve got bad news and worse news,” Eddie said as he looked at Ivana’s corpse. “Ivana survived the crash, but the bad news is that she threw her briefcase into the fire. I assume her laptop was inside. The worse news is that she’s no longer in a position to help us restore the grid. Her next destination is the morgue.”

  “Then we are supremely hosed if Golov hits that transformer station.”

  “Actually, there is one survivor,” Linc offered. “Antonovich might be able to help.”

  —

  Now that Beatrix Dräger and her team were freed from the offices, they assessed the damage that Ivana Semova had done to the grid. As Murph continued to see nothing but red lights on the big board, the shouts that echoed around the room were panicked, some in English, most in Dutch.

  “I’m still locked out!”

  “I can’t access the breaker subroutines!”

  “What did she do?”

  Gustaaf Dijkstra watched helplessly as Dräger begged Murph to help them.

  “If you have any idea what that woman did to our system, we need to know right now.”

  “There’s one possibility outside,” Murph said, hustling to the emergency exit. “I’ll be right back. Keep the door open for me.”

  “Where is he?” he asked Eddie, who was still on the line.

  “The last I saw, he was near a blue Audi.”

  “You sure Semova was trying to kill him?”

  “Sure looked that way to me.”

  Murph spotted the billionaire, who was still huddled behind the car. “I guess I’ll ask him.”

  “Linc’s on his way to give you a hand.”

  Murph hung up and ran over to Antonovich, who was holding his left leg. Blood oozed through his fingers and down his pant leg. When he saw Murph, Antonovich spoke at him in rapid-fire Russian.

  Murph didn’t speak the language, so he tapped on the same language translation application he’d used at the Albanian Mafia castle. He spoke into the phone as it interpreted his words.

  “Mr. Antonovich, my name is Mark Murphy. Speak slowly and clearly.”

  Antonovich nodded and said, “They made me do this. I’m innocent.”

  “They who?”

  “Golov and his daughter.”

  “Ivana Semova was his daughter? Was she also a hacker named ShadowFoe?”

  Antonovich nodded and winced from the pain as he moved his leg. “They’ve been holding me captive for nearly a year. My whole crew mutinied and took over the Achilles under Golov’s direction. He’s the one behind this attack.”

  Linc rushed up and knelt beside them. He rolled up Antonovich’s pant leg to reveal a bullet hole in his calf.

  “He says he’s completely innocent,” Murph said as Linc took off his jacket and put pressure on the wound.

  “Sounds like a convenient story,” Linc replied.

  “Then why did Semova shoot him? And Dräger said he didn’t seem to be directing her inside. If anything, he seemed to be at her mercy.”

  “Then he won’t mind helping us, will he?”

  “Good point,” Murph said, and turned the translation app back on. “Mr. Antonovich, if you’re telling the truth, then how do we reactivate the continental grid’s circuit breakers?”

  Antonovich shook his head. “I don’t know. Ivana had a program on her laptop. It let her lock out access from the Control Hub’s systems. Her program is the only way to control the breakers.”

  “Her laptop is destroyed and Ivana is dead. There must be some other way.”

  “There isn’t. You would have to get another copy of her program.”

  “How can we do that? Do you know someplace online where we can find it?”

  “No,” Antonovich said. “You won’t be able to get it. There’s only one place she would keep a backup of that file.”

  Murph wanted to shake the answer out of him. “Where?”

  Antonovich shook his head in hopelessness. “In her cabin on the Achilles.”

  SIXTY-TWO

  Juan had his phone on speaker while he quickly donned his wetsuit and slung a Heckler & Koch MP5 over his shoulder. Next to the Oregon’s moon pool, Eric, MacD, and Gretchen were doing the same.

  “I’ve got the Achilles in sight,” Max said over the phone. “We’re two minutes out.”

  “Take your time,” Juan said.

  “Not up to me. Hali’s got Murph on the line for you.”

  “Chairman, we’ve got a big problem,” Murph said. “The Control Hub’s system is locked up. Ivana Semova, aka ShadowFoe, designed a program that is the only way to unlock it quickly, but her laptop with the program was destroyed. They’ve got calls in to reset the breakers manually at each station, but that could take hours.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Dead, along with the rest of her accomplices. And here’s something we didn’t know. She’s Sergey Golov’s daughter.”

  That information might be useful, Juan thought. “Tell Max to share that news with Golov when the time is right. He’ll know the moment. What about Antonovich? Is he dead, too?”

  “No, he’s alive and mostly well. According to him, he’s a victim in all this. We’re inclined to believe him because Ivana tried to kill hi
m. He says the only other existing copy of the program we need is on his yacht in Ivana’s cabin.”

  Juan shot a look at Gretchen. “We might be able to help you out, then. We’re about to board the Achilles. Which one is her cabin?” He had memorized the layout of the Achilles, thanks to the blueprints they’d obtained in Vladivostok.

  There was a pause before Murph responded. “He says it’s on deck four, the same level as the main lounge. Third door on the right as you exit the lounge toward the bow.”

  Eric, who’d been listening to the conversation, said, “But even if we get there, she’ll have it password-protected, won’t she? I’m good, but I can’t crack it that fast.”

  “You don’t need to,” Murph said. “Eddie retrieved her phone and unlocked it with her thumbprint. It has a password manager on it. It’s got to be one of those passwords. If you can get into her computer and send the program to me, I can load it onto a computer here and reactivate the circuit breakers.”

  “We’ll call you when we’ve got it,” Juan said.

  “Okay.” Murph was gone.

  Juan could feel the Oregon slowing as it approached the Achilles. Eric had just a minute to instruct Juan, MacD, and Gretchen on the use of the Jetlev-Flyers. If they were going to get onto the Achilles to find ShadowFoe’s circuit breaker program and disable its railgun, they’d have to be fast. Climbing up a conventional rope ladder wouldn’t work. They’d be picked off long before they could get aboard. The water-powered jetpacks gave them their only chance.

  Like the gas-powered jetpack Juan had used once on a mission in China, the Jetlev-Flyers were mounted on a backpack with two nozzles pointed downward. Arm braces controlled the angle of the water jets, and a motorcycle-style throttle at the right hand determined how much pressure shot from the nozzles.

  For recreational use, the pressurized water for the jets was supplied by a small surface vessel with a four-stroke marine engine, which would follow them around while they performed aerial maneuvers. But for this mission, technicians had linked together as much fire hose as they could so that the water could be pumped directly from inside the moon pool chamber.

  They put on the jetpacks and climbed into the pool. Each of them did a brief test to make sure they could propel themselves both in and above the water.

  There was no room to wear scuba tanks along with the jetpacks, so they had to use miniature tanks connected to regulator mouthpieces, rigs that were normally used in emergencies by divers and kayakers.

  “Remember,” Juan said to the others, “we’ll only get about thirty breaths once we go under, which gives us three minutes at most.”

  They all nodded. Gretchen was the least experienced diver among them, but Juan detected no apprehension in her face, only nervous energy.

  They donned their masks as they bobbed in the moon pool waiting for the signal from Max that the ship was in position. After a short delay, a technician said, “We’re a go.”

  Juan clamped his teeth over the mouthpiece and submerged, making sure that his hose, which was now fully pressurized, didn’t get fouled in the massive doors in the Oregon’s keel. Once he was in the open, he could see the white double hull of the Achilles.

  He checked with Eric, MacD, and Gretchen and they all gave him the OK sign. He oriented himself into a horizontal position, throttled up his jetpack, and shot toward the massive yacht.

  —

  Golov was pleased to see that the Oregon had eased to a stop next to the Achilles on her starboard side. Still, he made sure that the yacht kept yawing in place to maintain a railgun lock on the cruise ship, which was still ten miles away. The Oregon matched his turn so that it remained parallel.

  The faux cargo ship’s deck was deserted and no weapons were visible. The Ka-226 helicopter hovered above them with its missiles trained on the Oregon.

  Golov called Marie Marceau’s phone again.

  “Very good seamanship, Captain Cabrillo. Now we will discuss your method of surrendering your ship to me.”

  “This isn’t Cabrillo,” another voice said. “My name is Max Hanley.”

  “Where is Cabrillo?”

  “He’s on his way up to the deck, just like you asked. But first, we want assurances that no one will be harmed.”

  “I only want your ship. Once we have attached a towline, you will abandon ship in your lifeboats.”

  “How do we know you won’t kill us, once we’re in the water?”

  “Remember, Mr. Hanley, I know the specifications on those lifeboats. They’re armed, armored, and fast. You’ll be out of range of the Achilles in minutes, once you find the shelter of the islands.”

  Of course, he was lying. He had no intention of letting them get that far. The helicopter would track them and take out both lifeboats before they reached the islands.

  Hanley sighed. “I suppose we don’t have any choice.”

  “You don’t.”

  “We’ll move the Oregon close enough for you to shoot over a towline.”

  “Slowly, Mr. Hanley.”

  Golov ordered some men onto the Achilles deck with a towline as the Oregon nudged into range to receive it.

  “Now show me Mr. Cabrillo,” he said.

  “Actually, Mr. Cabrillo just received a phone call. He said it relates to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at your phone.”

  Look at my phone? What kind of message was that?

  His phone rang. It was Ivana’s number.

  “Better get that,” Hanley said.

  Confused, Golov switched over to her call.

  “Ivana? Where are you, my dear? On your way to Rotterdam, I hope.”

  He was stunned to hear a man reply and it wasn’t Sirkal.

  “Captain Golov, this is Eddie Seng. I’m a crew member on the Oregon, and Juan Cabrillo asked me to give a message to you. Your daughter is dead.”

  Then four things happened simultaneously.

  On Golov’s phone, a photo appeared in his text messages. He started shaking in rage and grief when he saw an image of his lifeless daughter, lying in the grass.

  On the port side of the Achilles, four people shot up out of the water, each balanced on a pair of water jets shooting from contraptions on their backs, before each of them landed on the deck. They unlatched their jetpacks, spit tiny air tanks from their mouths, and disappeared into the yacht’s interior.

  On the deck of the Oregon, an air-to-air missile rocketed from a hidden canister toward the stationary Ka-226 helicopter. The chopper pilot banked abruptly but couldn’t escape the warhead. The helicopter and its anti-ship missiles exploded in a huge fireball.

  And on the starboard side, the Oregon suddenly lurched sideways toward the Achilles.

  Thrown off by the anguishing news about his beloved daughter and distracted by the sudden appearance of the odd commando raiders, Golov hesitated before he realized what he had to do. He yelled, “Fire!” just as the Oregon smacked into the Achilles’s starboard hull.

  The entire bridge crew was knocked off their feet. The weapons officer recovered first and punched the button to fire the railgun.

  A round blasted from the barrel. Golov got to his feet and watched the cruise ship as he shouted for them to load another shell.

  He counted down the seconds until the cruise ship erupted in fire.

  Instead, the hypersonic round plunged into the water a hundred feet off the big liner’s stern, spewing a gigantic fountain of water into the air.

  The Oregon continued to push, preventing them from turning to aim the railgun. They had no shot at the cruise ship now.

  If they could get free of the Oregon, they could once again target the transformer station and finish the mission that he and his daughter had started.

  “All engines full speed ahead!” he commanded, before wheeling on Kravchuk. r />
  He pierced his XO with a venomous glare. “Secure the bridge and all critical areas of the ship. I want every available person searching for that boarding party. If they aren’t dead in the next five minutes, I will personally see to it that no one gets off the Achilles alive.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  As the Achilles surged forward, Juan, Eric, MacD, and Gretchen proceeded with caution through the interior. Juan thought there was still a chance that Antonovich was lying and leading them into a trap.

  They reached the main lounge and crept through it, keeping their eyes on all of the doors. Through the panoramic windows, Juan could see the bulk of the Oregon pressed against the yacht’s hull, trying to drive her sideways and keep her from getting in position to fire on either the cruise ship or transformer station. The .30 caliber machine guns hidden in the rusty barrels aboard the Oregon had popped up and were firing at unseen targets on the deck above. Max could stop any boarding party Golov tried to send over.

  Juan was sure Golov had a shipwide search going on for them. When they got to the bow end of the lounge, Juan took point and moved down the hall.

  At the third cabin on the right, Juan tried the door handle, but it was locked.

  With everyone ready, he kicked the door in. He rushed inside with his submachine gun prepared to fire, but the room was deserted.

  “Hurry up, Eric,” Juan said. “We don’t have much time.” Gretchen kept watch at the door, and MacD prepped the C-4 they’d brought with them to sabotage the railgun.

  “On it,” Eric said, taking a seat at the keyboard. The array of monitors came alive with a tap on the space bar. He input several passwords from the list Murph had sent over. The fourth one worked and he was in.

  All of the file names were written in English, the universal language of hackers. Eric looked up which files had been copied most recently.

  “I think this is it!” he announced triumphantly. He pointed at a file called Dynamo Break Config. He opened it to display a control panel for operating the circuit breakers remotely. “I can use the Achilles’s network to get this to Murph.”