Chapter 67
Aboard the Oregon
It was late, but Murphy couldn’t sleep and, worse, couldn’t game.
He was heartsick. It had been four hours since Linlin had left the ship and they were now far from shore.
The five-hundred-ninety-foot Oregon was well underway, flying at over sixty knots across the water like a cigarette boat, the air blowing across her decks like a windstorm.
Murphy wished he had told Linlin exactly how he felt about her. He also worried for her safety. The Chicoms were superlative spy hunters, and he couldn’t protect her now that she was out of his reach. She might not be safe in Toronto. She might not even make it there.
He asked Linda Ross for permission to call her at the hotel, but his request was denied for operational security reasons, which he completely understood.
He thought he might be able to tell her over the phone what he couldn’t in person, but in truth he was kind of relieved when he wasn’t allowed to make the call.
He didn’t want to scare her away or take advantage of the fact she trusted him enough to reach out to him for protection.
But he still missed her terribly. He decided to console himself by going back to her cabin. They had created a few great memories there. Maybe those could be a down payment on even better ones in the future.
At least a guy could hope.
Her cabin door was unlocked. Murph stepped inside, flipped the light on, and looked around.
He took a deep breath through his nose just to catch a whiff of her familiar scent before the room got nuked with industrial-strength Pine-Sol by the cleaning crew tomorrow.
The small bed was still neatly made, and the tiny desk cleared.
They’d spent a lot of hours there, catching up on the good times they shared and remembering the hard professors and tough classes they suffered through together at MIT.
Murph turned to leave, but a silvery flash in the corner of the floor caught his eye. He crossed over to the far bulkhead and picked up a curved piece of thin silver-plated metal about two inches long. It looked just like the pocket clip of a ballpoint pen.
Probably fell off some fancy pen she had, Murph told himself.
He started to toss it into the empty wastepaper basket by the desk, but something stopped him.
He pulled the clip close to his eyes and examined it with closer scrutiny.
He saw a tiny circular contact point at the base of the clip.
He’d never seen anything like that before. Or had he?
He took it over to the steel desk and set it down, putting the contact point down first.
Click.
The pen clip was now magnetically attached to the desk.
Murph’s confusion turned to worry as the subroutines of his computerlike brain began running emergency scripts. Something told him this was bad.
Really bad.
He dashed out the door and headed to his lab to figure out what it was.
★
Thirty minutes later, Cabrillo, Max, and Linda stood in Murphy’s research lab.
Cabrillo was in a set of silk pajamas and deerskin slippers, while Max wore a ratty old terry-cloth robe over a faded SEAL T-shirt and flip-flops, scratching his large belly and yawning like a hippo.
Linda in her duty uniform was the night watch officer on deck.
“What’s the emergency?” Juan asked, clearly agitated.
Murphy pointed to the pen clip on the desktop, stripped down to its component parts. The three officers leaned over to examine it.
“You want to show us some trash you found?” Max asked. “I’m heading back to my rack.”
Murphy pointed at the curved strip of silver. “This is a high-gain antenna filament.” He then pointed at the miniature magnet, now removed. “And this little speck is a magnetic contact point, used to attach to a micro transmitter.”
“Transmitter?” Linda asked. “Like for a radio?”
“A radio, or a computer.”
“Where’d you find this, son?” Juan asked.
“Linlin’s cabin, about half an hour ago. I brought it down here to examine it. I’m positive it’s for some kind of device she must have smuggled on board.”
“We checked her things,” Linda said. “All she had in that bag was a few personal items, an e-reader, and a bunch of pens. And of course, we had her phone until we gave it back to her today.”
Murphy shrugged. “If she’s with the MSS, they might have figured out a way to hide the component parts in ordinary things like pens. And I sure didn’t examine that e-reader. No telling what kind of motherboard or CPU it was hiding.”
“What could she do with a computer?” Max asked. “Isn’t our mainframe protected from all of that?”
“I already contacted Stoney. He’s checking computer logs now. If it was anybody else, I’d say she couldn’t have hacked our system. But Linlin Zhang is top drawer, and if she’s working for the Chicoms, she’s got the best in the business backing her up.”
“What are the chances she erased her logs to cover her tracks?” Linda asked.
“About one hundred percent,” Murphy admitted.
“So your little China doll is a spy,” Max said. He turned to Linda. “We should call the American embassy in San Salvador and have them pick her up.”
“I’ll call the Hilton first,” Linda said. “If she didn’t check in, we’ll know she’s flown the coop. If she’s still there, then we’ll have the CIA station chief pay her a little visit.”
“She’s the least of our problems right now,” Cabrillo said. “We have to assume she did hack the system, if she’s half as good as lover boy here thinks she is.”
“That means she knows what we know,” Max said.
Linda frowned. “And so do the Chinese.”
Murph shook his head. “I’m such an idiot. She played me.”
“Played you? That girl Jimi Hendrix’d your Stratocaster, son,” Max said. “With prejudice.”
Murphy turned toward Juan, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’m so sorry.”
“Your poor judgment has put our mission and our ship at risk.”
Max glowered at Murphy. “Too bad we never built a brig.”
“Never thought we needed one,” Linda said.
Cabrillo laid a hand on one of Murphy’s slumping shoulders.
“I’m confining you to quarters until I can figure out what to do with you.”
“But, sir, I’m your best gunner. We’re heading into battle—you said so yourself.”
“I know. And that’s on you, too. When you screw up, it doesn’t just affect you.”
Murphy reddened with shame. “So I’ve put the Oregon in double jeopardy?”
“When this is all over,” Max said, “you and me are gonna have a little talk about the birds and the bees and the Chinese double agents, capisce?”
Murphy nodded.
“Aye, sir.”