He guessed she was making about fifteen knots, so more than likely if she was running from the scene of the crime, this was her maximum speed.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” Hanley asked.

At sea, the preservation of human life took precedence over everything else, there was no doubt about that. He couldn’t order the Oregon to deviate from her course and intercept this bizarre new weapon. And none of their missiles had the range to hit it, but that didn’t mean they were impotent.

“Give me a few minutes to figure out the vectors and relative speeds. I want you to be ready to launch Eddie and MacD in a RHIB to go after them.”

“That thing just capsized a three-hundred-foot mega-yacht. What do you think it would do to a puny RHIB?”

“I just want them to tail it. Once we’re finished with the rescue, we’ll track ’em down and handle it ourselves.”

“What about the storm?”

“There isn’t a gale on this planet a RHIB can’t handle.”

There was concern in his voice when Max cautioned, “It might take us days to find survivors from the Sakir.”

“We’re out of there as soon as the Coasties show up. You did radio them, right?”

“They’re three hours behind us.”

“There’s your answer. We do our thing for three hours and turn it over to the professionals. This is a good plan, Max.”

“A dangerous one,” Hanley retorted.

“Aren’t they all? Load the RHIB with extra fuel drums, and I’ll call when you’re closest to this stealth boat’s wake.”

“Okay,” Max relented. “But I’m not sending those boys out without full survival suits and redundant GPS trackers.”

“I didn’t think you would.” Juan had Max give him the Oregon’s relative position and speed and did the calculations. They would be on the Sakir when the Oregon was at its closest to the ship, so he radioed the time he wanted the RHIB launched and gave a relative bearing on their target.

“Juan,” Gomez said, “we’re approaching the Sakir’s last-known position. We could use extra eyes looking for her.”

“Okay,” Juan said, and over the radio to Max added, “We’re getting close. I’ll call again when we find her.”

“Roger. Good hunting.”

“You too.”

Chapter Nineteen

They were lucky in the sense that they knew to within a couple of miles where the Sakir had been when she’d been attacked. All members of the Corporation team had GPS tracking chips surgically embedded in their thighs. The chips weren’t powerful, so the signal was intermittent. But they had gotten a ping off Linda’s chip when she’d ventured on deck twenty minutes before the Sakir was capsized, cutting down the search area tremendously.