Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) by Andrew Towning Page A

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