“Simplest solution is to chopper a team over there, take control of the tanker, and shut off her discharge pumps.”

“You know, Chairman,” Eric said, “if we sail her far enough away from the eye and start dumping the gel again, the heat should generate excess evaporation and create another powerful low pressure zone. It would disrupt the storm and literally tear it apart.”

“Oh, God!” Hali exclaimed suddenly. He hit a switch on his panel and a strident voice filled the control room.

“I repeat, this is Adonis Cassedine, master of the VLCC Gulf of Sidra. A storm has cracked our hull. We are under ballast so there is no oil spill but we must abandon ship if she breaks up any more.” He gave his coordinates. “I am declaring an emergency. Please, can anyone hear my signal? Mayday, mayday, mayday.”

“Under ballast, my eye,” Max grumbled. “What do you want to do?”

Cabrillo sat motionless, his hand cupped around his chin. “Let ’em sweat. He’ll keep making reports even if nobody answers him. Eric, what’s our ETA now?”

“Still looking at about three hours.”

“The Sidra won’t last that long in these seas with a cracked hull,” Max said. “Especially if her keel’s affected. Hell, she could break apart in three minutes.”

Juan couldn’t argue the point. They had to do something but his options were limited. Letting the tanker break up on her own was the worst of them and it seemed Eric’s idea of using her to defuse the storm was out. The best he could hope for was to put the ship on the bottom with the least amount of spilled gel. The Test-71 torpedoes could do the job, but it might take hours for the hull to finally disappear under the waves, which meant hours of her continuing to disgorge her cargo.

Inspiration came from his experience on the Or Death with Sloane, when the boat was hit by a missile fired from the yacht guarding the wave-powered generators. She’d sunk in an instant because her bow had been ripped off while she was at speed. Cabrillo didn’t consider the countless pitfalls in his crazy idea, he just set about getting it organized.

“Linc, Eddie, go down to the stores and get me two hundred feet of Hypertherm, the stuff with the electromagnets on the casings.” The plastic explosive–like material was a magnesium-based compound capable of burning at nearly two thousand degrees Celsius and was used in salvage operations to cut steel underwater. “Meet me in the hangar. Eddie, kit up on your way. I can’t guarantee what kind of reception we’re going to get on the Sidra.”

“What about me?” Linc asked.

“Sorry, but we’ve got weight limitations.”

Max touched Juan’s shoulder. “Obviously you’ve come up with something devious and underhanded. Care to enlighten us?” After Cabrillo explained his plan, Hanley nodded. “Like I said, devious and underhanded.”