Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (8 page)

John Taylor, Commander of the stealth ship and many times
decorated special forces veteran, drummed his fingers on the arm of
his seat and stared at the charts and information displayed on the large
glass screen in front of him. The bridge was buzzing with activity
and anticipation as the order was given to bring the one hundred
and seventy foot vessel to a stop. The turbines wound down and the
sinister looking black painted hulk came to rest on the swell of the
sea. Taylor glanced across at his second-in-command, Steve Kramer
who had been on the bridge for a straight twelve hours and had a
worried expression on his unshaven face as he studied the charts and
data stream running across the glass display panel. The Commander
smiled warmly, and dismissed the man.

For the past six months the Americans had been working
alongside the British Government and Ferran & Cardini’s research
department in an attempt to erase a glitch in the new Kirill-Chimera
seek - retrieve - and destroy programme. The
Sea Predator’s
computer
system had been loaded with the prototype and while undertaking
trials ona number of Russian mafia targets - had momentarily become
visible to them. Kirill had written the programme in such a way for it
to constantly alter its script, once it had infiltrated the target’s hardrive
and operating system - allowing all data to be extracted remotely
and sent back to the
Sea Predator
- Kirill had then created a deletion
protocol that was activated after releasing a death virus onto the
target’s hardrive.

A young rating by the name of Zak Ryan had immediately spotted
the glitch. Had informed Taylor, who barked the order to get off-line
and shut down the programme. He was now hoping that their invasive
snooping had not been noticed by any eagle-eyed nerds working for
the Russian Mafia... The border of Kazakhstan with Russia had, in
recent times, seen a hundred fold increase in drug smuggling activities
by the Mafia cartels, who were using the inhospitable terrain of the
Ural Mountains to transport raw opium all the way up to the coast
of the Kara Sea. The opium would then be processed in laboratories
and distributed throughout Europe by a sophisticated network of
transport routes. From the same labs came the latest designer drug
- peddled to the higher end of the market and only available to the
wealthiest of addicts with the promise of a never before experience.
What they found was narcotic hell. This drug, Red Horse as it had
been nicknamed, had made the Mafia-led cartels billions of dollars
and even more powerful, but was costing the government financially,
politically and, of course, socially. Ferran & Cardini had asked the
American Navy if they could have the assistance of the
Sea Predator
in
an attempt to locate the labs that were producing and distributing the
Red Horse drug and erase them with her lethal payload of missiles.

A day earlier, the
Sea Predator
had been tracking an unnamed
vessel that was under suspicion of drug trafficking; the vessel was the
size of a container ship, of unknown origin, and had been making
slow progress from the north-east, close to Russia’s Artic coast. Its
heading had been on a direct course towards the island of Ostrov
Kolguev.

Now however, the vessel had disappeared.
Taylor used every resource that the
Sea Predator
had to find it, to
no avail. As a last resort he dispatched two tracking torpedoes, these
did not have warheads, instead they were equipped with the latest
satellite navigation and tracking systems housed in the nose cone.
The torpedoes had a two hundred mile range and had never let the
commander of the stealth ship down before. If the mysterious ship
that had so far evaded their state-of-the-art searches was there, then
they would find it.
For now, though. They were playing the waiting game.
Taylor shook his head and sighed, running a hand through his
fair coloured hair. He stood up, and paced around the bridge, if for
no other reason, than to stretch his legs and relieve the tension he was
feeling in his neck and shoulders. He went and took his seat again.
“Anything back from the torpedoes?”
“Negative, Commander.”
“What about the satellite video stream?”
“The same Commander, negative. We currently have three
satellites passing over this sector, and according to the data they’re
sending back down to us. There are no vessels visible to them.”
Taylor cursed.
“What is the position of the torpedoes?”
“They’ve separated, Commander. The first is ninety-five miles
due north of us, the other due east approximately seventy miles. If
there’s
anything
out there, they will find it and report back.” Taylor
moved across the bridge to where the young Navy rating was sitting in
front of his monitor screen. He looked up and said, a little nervously.
“Commander, they’ve never missed a target.”
Taylor nodded, rubbing wearily at his temples. “Have you
informed command HQ or Ferran & Cardini of this?”
“No Sir, I haven’t.”
“Do so. They may have further intelligence relating to this vessel.
What did we find out before it - vanished?”
“Only that the vessel is approximately four hundred and twentyfive feet in length. That there is a possibility of some sort of weapons
system on board.
Predator’s
system has also calculated that the vessel’s
speed and distance it covered during the time we were tracking - is
much faster than any ship of that size has a right to move at.”
They waited, watching the torpedoes progress on the display
screen. A tense silence filled the entire bridge with the glittering glow
of computer monitors displaying data feeds and map co-ordinates.
Blue light scattered like sapphires across Taylor’s haggard unshaven
face, and his eyes narrowed as his gaze fixed on one of the torpedoes.
He pointed, “What’s that?”
There was an instant where the screen went completely blank,
resuming a moment later - minus both of the torpedoes.
“What information was sent back by the torpedoes and can you
confirm that they have been terminated?”
“Zero information, Commander. And yes both torpedoes have
been destroyed.”
“That’s impossible! They’re supposed to relay data back to us on
a constant stream. Could there have been a system failure - are you
positive that they have been destroyed?”
“Affirmative, Commander. Both torpedoes have definitely been
terminated.”
Taylor continued to stare at the blank monitor screens, frowning.
And then like a tiny Sun exploding from a central black pinpoint,
they turned white and then in reverse action - went black again. The
Commander turned his attention to the two torpedo-linked scanners
before them. A stream of encrypted data started to appear on the
screens at lightning speed - lasted for approximately fifteen seconds -
and then, like a visual tidal wave, the lines were swept out and into a
virtual darkness and
death.
Taylor stared, numbed, at the scanners. Both were now black.
Both torpedoes had been destroyed.
“Report status.” he asked, his voice a dry croak.
“Negative, Commander. All information relating to both
torpedoes - appears to have been deleted from our system.”
“Deleted?”
“Affirmative, Commander. Deleted.”
Both torpedoes destroyed; and not a single shred of information
left to give the
Sea Predator
a clue to their attackers, had been registered;
not a single warning given. Nothing.
Taylor could taste the sweet Bourbon on his tongue and he
longed for a drink.
Then, his common sense shouted at him.
“Contact Command HQ and Ferran & Cardini, again. Tell them
we have an
emergency
situation.”
“Transmitting, Commander.”
They waited fifteen seconds - a very long fifteen seconds of
tense wondering filled with uneasy sweat and thoughts about death as
every man on the bridge waited for a reply, looking out of the stealth
ship’s windscreens into total darkness and the black waters of the
Barents Sea below their craft. Imagining their enemy with incredibly
superior technology - the sort of technology that could make a
container ship disappear, the sort of technology that could evade
their most sophisticated scanning systems, and the sort of technology
that could seek and destroy two fast moving torpedoes that were also
equipped with a stealth mode - without giving away any indication of
their location or weapons used.
The reply came back...
“Two Ferran & Cardini tech officers and one CIA station officer
will be with us in approximately three and a half hours from Bergen
in Sweden. They’re being flown up by helicopter; we are to deploy
one of our mini-predator jet boats to meet them on the Finnish coast.
They recommend that we sit tight and do nothing - merely to report
any change in our status.”
Taylor nodded, deep in thought - and then he started to pace
across the bridge.
The ship’s perimeter scanners and monitors remained dark, still
and without life; this was not helping when you had started to believe
the enemy to be
invisible.

The
Sea Predator
received the
Mini Predator
jet boat back into its
huge labyrinthine hull. Winches whirred, and within a few seconds
the outer doors were watertight, ramps engaged and one uniformed
woman and two civilian-suited men walked down the ramp towards
Commander John Taylor.

“I believe you have a problem, Commander, said the tall, blondhaired female. She had cold blue eyes and high cheekbones that
highlighted her incredible beauty. She looked at Taylor, assessing the
legend that stood before her, as they shook hands. “Major Deborah
Armstrong at your disposal, Commander. I have a master’s degree
in marine engineering and my expertise is covert marine surveillance
and tracking systems. I was part of the design team that invented the
stealth torpedoes and I’m currently working with the CIA.”

Taylor nodded. “Your reputation precedes you, Major
Armstrong.”
“Thank you, Commander. But in these emergency situations
- my reputation is of little consequence. Let me introduce to you,
from Ferran & Cardini, Simon St Vincent, weapon’s expert, and Tim
Greenwood, who has an incredibly detailed working knowledge of
warships utilised by most world governments.”
Formalities were speedily dispensed with, and Taylor led the trio
straight to the bridge.
“We have all the data from the ship’s computer system for the
last twelve hours, as sent via the upload link at Langley. This shows
that no malfunction occurred, at any time, with any of the torpedoe’s
systems. It also confirms that no data survived - at all, about any ships
or other craft within one-hundred miles of them. At the time of their
termination, not one scanner showed anything out of the ordinary?”
Taylor nodded.
Deborah Armstrong seated herself in front of one of the
monitor screens, and began to type; she merged with the ship’s
computers and for a few moments all was silent as data flashed across
the main screen located at the centre of the bridge. Eventually, she
clasped her hands together, as if she were about to prey, eyes distant.
“Gentlemen. I think we are in extreme danger.”
“You’ve found something, Major?”
Armstrong nodded. “It was hidden within the data flow; you did
receive the reports back from the torpedoes, but they were
scrambled
so that the
Sea Predator’s
computers would not recognise the codes.”
“What destroyed the torpedoes?” Asked Taylor slowly.
“I don’t know. But they were tracking an extremely large ship, is
that correct? Much larger than your run-of-the-mill container ship.”
“Yes.”
“But now it’s tracking you, Commander. And it is closing fast.”
“That’s nonsense. How is it possible to track a stealth ship?”
“I think it’s obvious, Commander. You are up against a much
superior vessel with far superior systems.”
“Weapons?” Asked Taylor.
“Oh yes. You’re going to need every weapon you’ve got,
Commander.”

The
Sea Predator’s
twin hulls cut through the dark waters of the
Barents Sea with ease. Turbines roared, all need for stealth thrown
off as the sleek craft surged forward towards the protection of the
nearest Finnish naval base. A distance of three hundred and sixtyseven nautical miles.

As the stealth ship increased its speed, so it increased the heat
signature in its stern; nose raised, it powered through the water,
cloaked only by darkness. Something thumped against the starboard
side hull and then another a moment later. On Deborah Armstrong’s
instruction they slowed their speed and she analysed the boat’s
perimeter scanners, calling for Greenwood’s assistance in quickly
disassembling the data. She looked up at Taylor, who was standing off
to her left, and said, “The hull sensors are confirming that we haven’t
hit anything sinister, like a mine. That it was much more likely to be
some sort of floating debris.”

Suddenly, a siren sounded and a constant flow of data started
flashing across all the screens on the bridge simultaneously; Taylor
moved forward to the main control console as his second in command
looked round and informed him that they were being tracked. A
moment later the radar operator shouted in a panicked voice, “They’ve
locked on to us, Commander.”

Taylor snapped; “That’s impossible.” And then immediately gave
his crew a string of commands. The
Sea Predator
was fitted with the
latest anti-detection systems, and a state-of-the-art predictive combat
analysis programme. The
Sea Predator
was supposed to be completely
hidden from its enemy - the enemy was not supposed to be able to see
the stealth boat - at all.

“Arm and lock-on the Venom IV missiles!” snapped Armstrong
as the bridge exploded with activity. Every man and woman present
knew their jobs and knew them well; this was what they had been
trained for - and now they all knew what they had to do and were
doing it well.