Chapter 24

24

Ten minutes in Huxley’s clinic turned into almost an hour as she hooked Juan up to a cocktail of intravenous fluids and painkillers and began her examination. Expert at medical triage, the trained Navy surgeon did a brief but thorough physical before rolling the Chairman into an MRI machine.

Huxley read his MRI imagery while Juan devoured a skillet-toasted Reuben sandwich dripping with tangy sauerkraut, homemade Thousand Island dressing, and melting Swiss cheese he’d ordered from the galley.

Huxley could only shake her head at the scan results. Though he wouldn’t admit it, she could tell he’d been through the ringer. And though he was clearly battered, bruised, and swollen, Cabrillo’s supreme physical conditioning had prevented any serious injuries. The only surgical intervention he needed was a couple of stitches for the knife wound in his hip he inflicted upon himself.

For a moment during the physical, Huxley was convinced he had suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury. He hadn’t been able to clearly explain to her how he managed to parachute down beneath a cargo canopy ill-designed to carry the weight of a man.

But what appeared to be temporary memory loss gave way to a familiar twinkle in Cabrillo’s clear blue eyes. She suddenly realized it wasn’t a brain injury or even a faulty memory at work, but an act of willful obfuscation. She wasn’t sure why Cabrillo didn’t want to tell her the truth about what happened at altitude, but she’d find out eventually. Since the MRI came out completely clear and the DSM-5 didn’t list either fibbing or dissembling as diagnosed mental disorders, she couldn’t justify deactivating him from service.

“Anything else, Doc?”

“Not that you ever listen to me, but I highly recommend you take a few days off. Give yourself a chance to recover.”

“I’m good to go.”

Huxley wrinkled her nose.

“Well, at least take a shower. You smell like old bait.”

---

★Cabrillo was more than happy to take Huxley’s recommendation to heart. He made his way straight to his cabin and headed for the green-marble-tiled shower.

Like every other member of the Oregon, Cabrillo was given an allowance to decorate his private quarters according to his own taste. With the help of Kevin Nixon’s Magic Shop, his suite was transformed into a stylized version of his favorite movie, Casablanca. The pièce de résistance was a working copy of Sam’s upright piano, upon which Juan belted out his own soulful rendition of “As Time Goes By” when properly lubricated with strong drink.

Stripping off his clothes and prosthetic leg, Juan headed for the shower, grabbing the support bar as he blasted himself with hot water from the multidirectional showerheads. He let the nearly scalding hot water work its magic deep into his muscles as he sucked in great draughts of steaming air to clear his lungs. Finally, he snapped the faucet controls in the opposite direction and blasted himself with ice-cold water until his hot pink skin was numbed to the bone.

Clean as a newborn babe and fully refreshed, Cabrillo pulled on a pair of skivvies, spiked his hair with a dab of hair putty, and hit the intercom to call for a meeting in the conference room in ten minutes.

---

★Cabrillo marched into the walnut-paneled conference room, clearly energized and ready to rock and roll. He, Linda, and Callie were dressed in Oregon-branded blue coveralls.

The Oregon’s conference room design was inspired by the White House Situation Room. The Oregon’s version featured big-screen monitors on the walls and a long mahogany table surrounded by high-backed leather chairs with each position fronted by a small videoconferencing station.

Max, Linda, and Callie were already seated at the table. So were best friends Eric Stone and Mark Murphy.

Eric Stone, the Oregon’s chief helmsman, was dressed like a refugee from an accounting firm in his pressed chinos, oxford shirt, and Warby Parker glasses.

On the other hand, the Oregon’s chief weapons officer, Mark Murphy, looked like he’d just fallen out of a Mexican wedding hammock at the Bonnaroo music festival. His head was crowned with a dandelion’s mane of unkempt hair and his chin was dusted with what looked like dryer lint. He wore black skater pants and black Doc Martens combat boots. His psychedelic concert T-shirt announced:

The Uncertainty of Punk Tour

Featuring:

Johnny Heisenberg and the Double Slits

Melbourne, Australia

TBD

Juan took his customary seat at the head of the table.

“I trust you all read my report,” Cabrillo said. He had dictated a brief summary of the events in Afghanistan in between bites of his Reuben sandwich while still in the clinic. It provided details on the vast numbers of weapons in Taliban hands and Juan’s concern regarding the mysterious Vendor.

“Those fanatics have more distribution centers than Amazon Prime,” Max said. “But it’s this Vendor character we need to chase down. Too bad about the plane.”

“Any idea who shot it down?” Juan asked.

“No missile track was recorded,” Murph said.

Juan frowned with confusion. “Are you suggesting a catastrophic failure? Or did it self-destruct?”

“My guess is the latter,” Eric said. “Murph and I think that you must have initiated a self-destruct sequence when you overrode the automated system and manually dropped the ramp and launched his pallets.”

“Kinda makes sense,” Max said. “Automated aircraft and forklifts and whatnot means this Vendor either has a severe aversion to union labor or he’s trying to maximize his anonymity. Blowing that plane out of the sky was a costly but effective way to cover his tracks.”

“Hard to believe a pilotless cargo plane was also operating as a commercial airliner,” Linda said. “How did he pull that off?”

“Maybe that was all a ruse. Could be a transport network for smuggling terrorists, illegals—people who don’t care about planes and pilots, just destinations.” Juan turned to Linda.

“Did you locate the crash site?”

“The debris field was distributed over two miles.” Linda checked her watch. “As of six minutes ago, the Oregon was stationed smack-dab in the center of it.”

“You know what I’m looking for,” Juan said.

Linda nodded. “The flight data recorder.”

“Bingo. That’ll tell us where it was headed, and if we’re lucky, everywhere it’s been in the past thirty days.”

“Unfortunately, where we’re anchored is exactly 9,207 feet above the seafloor. You’re looking for the head of a needle at the bottom of a nearly infinite haystack.”

Cabrillo noted the wry smile curling her mouth.

“And?”

“Tell him, Murph,” she said.

Murph pressed a remote control. One of the big monitors popped on, displaying a sonar field. A red dot flashed in the four o’clock position.

“We either got lucky or he got lazy, but either way our friend with the automation fetish forgot to disable the plane’s underwater locator beacon. As soon as the tail section hit the water, the underwater locator beam began firing a signal at thirty-seven point five kilohertz.”

“That’s a pretty typical locator frequency,” Eric said, turning to Callie. Annapolis had drilled into him the need for analytical specificity, but he was also trying to impress the stunning engineer. “And the locator beam tells us exactly where the flight data recorder is.”

Murph leaned in close to Eric and whispered loudly, “Well said…Captain Obvious.”

Eric ignored him, and turned toward the Chairman.

“Our hydrophones picked up the locator pings and, as you can see, the tail section—”

Murph hit another button on his remote, overlaying a digitized image of an intact tail section resting precariously on a ledge.

“—where the flight data recorder is located, is perched on this ledge just 7,214 feet down.”

“Just?” Max asked.

“Just,” Callie said with a smile.

Juan swiveled his chair in her direction.

“Is the Spook Fish prepped?”

“Prepped and ready.”

Juan stood. “Good. Then let’s see what your little deuce coupe can do.”