“I found a video of Admiral Ruiz taken last night.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It starts with an overhead shot of three ships, then zooms down to the bridge and there’s Ruiz talking on the phone. According to a sign on the bridge, the ship is called the Reina Azul. I think she’s speaking with Kensit and he was watching her.”
The Blue Queen, Juan thought. “Can you play back the conversation for us?”
“Yes, but you can only hear Ruiz’s part of it. Here it goes.”
Juan immediately recognized the dusky voice that threatened him just a week ago off the coast of Venezuela. Pauses interrupted her speech while she listened to Kensit.
They’re launched from a container, she said. No, even the Oregon will have trouble evading them. They’re called Carrier Killers for a reason . . . Don’t worry. The captains of the Maracaibo and Valera think we’re going into Port-au-Prince to pick up a huge load of cement bound for Puerto Cabello . . . Through a shell company. They have no idea I’m on board . . . I had my men attach bombs to their hulls during the night. There won’t be survivors or witnesses . . . Then I expect you to deliver . . . Yes, we’ll be there on time.
“That’s it,” Eric said.
“Not good,” Murph said as he watched Trono’s video. “Carrier Killer is the nickname for the Russian 3M-54 Klub antiship missile. It’s very hard to shoot down because it accelerates to mach three during the final approach to the target and has thrust vectoring for high-angle defensive maneuvers.”
This was sounding worse and worse to Juan. “Can the Gatling guns hit them?”
“If we’re lucky, but it’s not a sure thing. The Klub’s speed is over three times as fast as our own Exocets. I’d say the Metal Storm gun is our best shot.”
“Why the other two ships?” Max wondered. “Safety in numbers?”
Juan nodded. “Human shields. Ruiz knows we won’t attack unless we know which ship to sink.”
“But we’ll know as soon as they launch. Those tailpipes spew out a lot of smoke.”
“There’s something we’re missing,” Juan said. “Linda, get on the radar and keep an eye out for any three-ship convoys. I’ll control the helm from here. Wepps, be ready on the defensive weapons.”
Murph lowered the false doors hiding the radar-guided Gatling guns and raised the Metal Storm array into place on the deck. “Weapons ready.”
Juan thought about the names of the two ships Ruiz mentioned. Maracaibo was a large lake in Venezuela. It made sense that Ruiz would dupe cargo ships from her own country. It was possible that their guest Maria Sandoval knew one of the ship captains who was unwittingly serving as a decoy for Ruiz. She did say that the Venezuelan ship captains were a tight-knit group.
“Hali,” Juan said, “ask Captain Sandoval to join us in the op center.”
“After the great smuggling cover story we got her to swallow?” Max said in amazement. “She won’t believe that after seeing what we’ve got in here.”
“I have a feeling we don’t have much time left, we need to get her on the satellite phone. We’ll get her to pinkie-swear not to talk, if that makes you feel better.”
Max shrugged in acquiescence. “That’s a binding contract, as far as I’m concerned.”
“She’s on her way,” Hali said. “I’m putting the transponders up on the view screen.” A map of the Caribbean appeared with parts of Cuba, the Bahamas, and Haiti visible. Graphics of three red planes just north of Cuba was slowly converging with a blue-plane graphic northwest of Haiti. “That blue one is Air Force Two. The red ones represent three drones.”
“What happened to the rest of them?” Juan wondered.
“They must have crashed or we’d be getting a signal from them.”
“Murph,” Juan said, “tell me you can disable those drones.”
Murph was bent over his console in concentration and didn’t respond.
“Murph?” Juan prompted again after a few seconds.
Murph finally raised his head. “It looks like he’
s controlling one of the drones manually and letting the other two fly on autopilot.”
“Can you interrupt the signal?”