Page 75 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

What she found stunned her.

Her first surprise was the discovery that the unremarkable cargo ship possessed a Cray supercomputer, one of the most advanced machines on the planet. Why?

She could hardly believe it. Every fiber of her being told her everything she was looking for would be found aboard theAgua Linda.

She was suddenly flooded with pure elation—a near euphoria. She took several deep breaths to calm herself.

Best to start with small steps.

She did a quick inventory of the ship’s primary systems including navigation, power plant, and…weapons? Interesting.

But there was so much more. She skimmed past folders markedPersonnel Files…Regulatory Compliance…MaintenanceSchedules…Port Operations…Logs and Records. She opened up a few of them and found more granular subfolders likeKitchen Supplies,W-2 Forms, andBerthing Invoices. But that wasn’t what she was looking for.

And according to internal memoranda, the ship’s true name wasOregon, notAgua Linda.

She kept rooting around until she bumped into another unexpected firewall—also typical of Murph. It took her a few moments to punch through, but there it was.

TheOregon’s security system.

Linlin dove in and accessed the onboard closed-circuit TV cameras. A single, multi-view screen generated small thumbnail images and sound from nearly every location on the ship. Fortunately for her, each of the nearly two hundred cameras was clearly identified.

She opened up the list of cameras and scrolled down until she found Mark Murphy’s cabin and activated its single camera.

She had a hard time believing what she was seeing. She rotated the camera around. It hardly looked like a cabin on board a cargo ship—or any other ship for that matter.

But then again, this was turning out to be a very unusual vessel. She finally figured out what she was looking at.

“Of course,” Linlin whispered to herself. “The Matrix.”

Murph’s darkly lit cabin was modeled after the cockpit of the hovercraft featured in the movie. The exposed metal beams, hanging cables, and grungy steel walls contrasted with the glowing green Matrix code scrolling across several oversize, high-end gaming monitors attached to reclining gaming chairs. This is where the uber nerd totally nerded out, she told herself. But the more she explored it, the more she began to admire it.

Actually, it was kind of cool.

She was tempted to keep investigating to find some piece of incriminating information, but it wasn’t necessary. Her fingers were tightly interlaced with his childish heartstrings—the slightest tug could get her whatever she needed.

Linlin backed out of Murphy’s cabin and reexamined the camera list. One name stood out. Her instincts told her it would prove to be an audio and visual gold mine.

The op center.

And she was right.

?

Cabrillo had already put in his laps in theOregon’s Olympic-size pool and now was settling into his evening routine to wind down from the long day. He propped himself into a period-accurate overstuffed chair sipping from a grand snifter of fine sherry and reading one of his favorite Alan Furst novels.

He was looking forward to crawling under his silken sheets. Tomorrow’s meeting with President Olmedo was inconvenient to say the least, but he was eager to meet the man touted to be the future of Latin American politics.

“Chairman, Linc on line four,” the comms said overhead.

“Thanks.” Juan crossed over to his mahogany desk and yanked the receiver off his Bakelite rotary phone.

“Brother Lincoln, Max was getting worried about you guys. All good on your end?”

“Not Bora-Bora-luxury-villa good, but good enough.”

“Are you calling for a cab?”

“Not yet. Just reporting in. I know what a nervous Nellie you are.”