“We were so worried about you two,” she told them breathlessly, embracing them and kissing their cheeks. “We were off doing our own thing, but we were always wondering how you guys were. We had to rescue a bunch of really unfortunate people from Gottabang and then these really bad pirates called the Bum Cats kept attacking us, but we fought them off because of these poor people—we just had to save their lives even though they’re wracked with disease and malnutrition, and…”
She went on and on … and on, telling it all, at times hugging Nolan, at times laughing and then almost crying, and then laughing again.
It was so unexpected, that at the end of it, in perfect deadpan, Twitch had asked her, “And who are you again?”
* * *
THEIR CONVERSATION CONTINUED while the Shin-1 was being gassed up and the Alpha Squad was introduced to Bobby Murphy.
It was clear that a lot of strange things had gone on with both teams, especially when Batman pulled Nolan aside and told him the unusual spiritualized way he’d so quickly won the immense fortune playing cards.
But they really didn’t have enough time to ponder any of it. They had to concentrate on the two most important items of information: that Beta now knew what the Z-box was, and that Alpha had a good idea where it was—at an address with the zip code of 10007.
When a quick Internet search told them that 10007 was located in lower Manhattan, frighteningly close to where the Twin Towers once stood, everyone agreed that, considering what had transpired and what was at stake, it was up to Whiskey to stop the Jihad Brothers before they got where they were going.
Which is why they were now on the Numero Two.
* * *
THEY HAD A plan.
They’d worked it out during the flight from Monte Carlo to this point almost 800 miles off the French coast.
The plan was typical Whiskey: highly improvised and held together by Band-Aids and duct tape. That’s what had worked best for them in the past. They had no time to change their technique now.
Most of the team’s special combat equipment had remained aboard the Shin-1 after Gottabang, so now they had access to it again, including their sniper rifle, a Barrett M107 LRSR capable of firing a .50-caliber round almost four miles, an astonishing distance. If the person firing it knew what he was doing, the M107 could be an extremely effective weapon.
It would have to be for Whiskey’s plan to work.
They’d immediately discounted any kind of ship-to-ship boarding action as a way of stopping the Smoke-Lar. Though it was more their forte, attempting such an attack would almost definitely cost Murphy’s protégé Li her life, not to mention it would have to be done while both vessels were traveling in excess of 80 mph.
So their idea was this: If they could get within four miles of the Smoke-Lar, then they would use the M107 to shoot the terrorist who was piloting the boat, and hopefully his engineer as well.
It seemed crazy, killing the two people who were in control of the high-speed vessel. But in theory it would work because just like Numero Two, the Smoke-Lar was basically run by a computer. As long as its autopilot was engaged, whether a human was at the helm or not, the boat would continue going where it was supposed to go.
But Whiskey also figured that, with both terrorists dead, the beautiful female hostage would be able to figure out how to take the computer off-line and stop the boat. Or even if that failed, by not changing out the fuel tanks, the vessel would eventually stop on its own.
Another advantage of the plan was that the Jihad Brothers would probably never know what hit them, at least not until the last moment. The roar of the Smoke-Lar’s turbine engine would be Whiskey’s ally here. Just as its racket masked the sound of the terrorists killing the Dutch support crew back on the dock in Monte Carlo, so now it would mask the sound of any gunfire being aimed in their direction.
The hope was neither terrorist would realize anyone was even shooting at them until the first sniper bullet hit. And as far as they knew, as the race was still on, the only people following them were the two people trying to beat them to the finish line.
Finally, because they were still about 3,000 miles from the U.S., mainland, Whiskey would have almost forty