Kill Decision(134)

Odin looked at the map. “The Ebba Maersk came straight through here.”

Ritter shouted, “I’m telling you, we need to turn back. It’s too late to do anything about this!”

Odin drew a .45 tactical pistol and aimed it straight at Ritter’s face. “You want to add something constructive, or do you want to go out the door right now?”

Ritter just stared at the gun barrel, then turned away sullenly toward the wall.

McKinney eyed Odin, but he stowed the pistol and turned back toward the front. “Professor, please think of a way to stop this Frankenstein monster of yours.”

“It’s not my Frankenstein monster—and I don’t know. I’m . . . I’m thinking.”

They traveled for another thirty minutes in deep existential silence, listening only to the white noise of the engines. Then Foxy pointed to the horizon again.

“More smoke ahead.”

Odin nodded. “Two plumes this time.”

Foxy glanced down at the fuel gauge. They had traveled about four hundred miles in two and a half hours, deep into the center of the South China Sea. “Running low on fuel, boss. Probably not more than another thirty minutes’ running time.”

Odin nodded. “We saw the position of the ship. We’re within range of it. Just keep going.”

Ritter groaned in despair.

Soon they were roaring past two more vessels a mile apart, burning and adrift. One was a large pleasure yacht fully engulfed in flames on its way to burning to the waterline. The other was a rusted freighter, guttering plumes of black smoke from the stern, which just now rose up out of the water as the ship slipped beneath the waves—several drones still cutting into its keel with a brief shower of sparks and smoke.

Foxy grimaced. “Don’t see any survivors in the water. Those hovering drones are probably the people killers.”

Odin scanned the horizon with binoculars. He lowered them and pointed. “Up ahead. That’s gotta be it. It’s huge.”

After a few minutes they could see the ship with the naked eye. It was a massive light blue container ship leaving a broad wake. It was easily two hundred feet wide, but they could see what looked to be a dark cloud swirling all around it. And then part of the cloud split away—heading in their direction.

McKinney put on her headphones. “My God. There are thousands of them—there’s no way we’re getting near that ship.”

Ritter shouted, “I’ve been telling you. This is suicide!”

Odin turned to face McKinney. “The crew is probably dead and the ship on autopilot. If we can disable the rudder, we might be able to stop it from reaching the vicinity of the carrier strike group. That’s about two hundred miles south of here.”

Foxy veered the chopper to starboard, curving away from the Ebba Maersk—still only a blue smudge on the horizon. They were still about twenty miles from it at an altitude of five thousand feet, but the indistinct swarm was heading up toward them. “Those things aren’t slow. Best not to stick around.”

McKinney leaned forward to put a hand on Odin’s shoulder. “We have no choice. If we don’t leave their attack perimeter, they’re going to knock us into the sea.”

Odin stared straight ahead but then nodded. “Turn toward Paracel, Foxy. Maybe we can get some resources there.”

“Wilco.”

Odin was deep in thought while Foxy examined the GPS on the console. He pointed at the nav screen map. “With the fuel we have left, even Paracel is going to be dicey.”

McKinney pointed far off to the right, westward. “Is that another ship?”

Odin raised the binoculars to the western horizon. He pondered what he was looking at, then lowered them. “A cargo ship. A big one, headed north—away from the Maersk.” Odin pointed. “Make for it.”

“Maybe we can use their radio to warn away other shipping or contact the navy.”

Odin nodded.

It took several minutes for them to get into the vicinity of the second large ship. It had a sleek, aerodynamic design and was painted in bright orange and white. Despite its smooth shape, it was oddly tall and bulky for a cargo ship—shaped much like a passenger ship or high-speed ferry, but it had no windows along its side—just smooth white-and-orange-painted steel with the words Wallenius Wilhelmsen painted in two-story-tall letters.

Odin pointed down. “Car carrier. Bring us down.”

“You want me to land on that?”

Odin examined it with the binoculars. “It’s got a helipad right there in the center.”

“Yeah, meant for something like a Bell or an MD 520. This is a goddamned Sikorsky.”

Odin tapped the dash fuel gauge, which was already into the red. “We don’t have a choice.”