Fate was about to intervene once again. Far from vacation, the Oregon and her crew were about to enter the fight of their lives.

Chapter Twenty-six

Max Hanley was a born pragmatist. He liked Cabrillo’s idea of laying up the ship for a bit and letting the entire crew take a vacation. He also knew where they could get a replacement for the Nomad 1000 submersible and he figured its current location was as good a place as any to let the crew off.

He had been negotiating with a Taiwanese university that happened to have a Nomad they no longer needed. The school had once been a technical training facility for commercial fishing, and the submersible had been an unsolicited gift. Max could have always bought a new one from the manufacturer, but he was not one to waste a penny, let alone several million dollars.

Max choppered in ahead of the ship as it sailed for Taipei, to meet with university staff. His cover was that he was brokering the deal on behalf of a start-up oil exploration company, the industry that snapped up the lion’s share of U.S. Submarines’ yearly production of Nomads and Discos. The Oregon was the freighter he had hired to transport the submersible to the offshore petroleum fields of the Gulf of Mexico.

The inspection went well. The school had mothballed the Nomad properly and had checked on her frequently. The batteries took a charge, although Max already knew they’d need to be replaced. Certain things one didn’t buy used. He had fresh ones aboard the ship. All the electronics and mechanical systems worked, and he found no corrosion or damage to any of the hydraulic lines. The only problem they found was the manipulator hand on the end of the robotic arm didn’t work properly. To Max, it was a simple fix, but he got them to shave a few thousand off the price.

When the Oregon arrived, it captured the attention of hundreds of students. They gawked at the massive vessel that blocked their view of the bay and open ocean beyond. Max had arranged a customs inspector to be here from Taipei and he signed off on the loading.

Juan himself, dressed like a scruffy sea dog for the benefit of the onlookers, was at the controls of the ship’s main crane. Crewmen rigged the lift, using slings under the submersible’s thirty-foot hull, and an hour after arriving it was lying crossways on the forward hold and the ship was ready to sail. Max had to stick to his role as broker, so he would drive to Taipei.