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“I call it a weakness That ferry has over twelve hundred passengers aboard My ed the lifeboats, thrown all the life vests overboard, and opened the sea cocks I estimate it will sink within the next twenty minutes What you e, for an island nation like ours, but true Most of theht of the shore” He paused, then said, “Unless you do so about it”

Juan seethed at hearing Locsin so casually talk about killingplace at the wrong tiht now

“The clock is ticking, Cabrillo I know you’ll ‘do the right thing’ You’ve been a challenging eneo now”

With a click, the line went dead

Juan kneas no choice at all He couldn’t take the chance that Locsin was bluffing

He looked at Eric and said, “Stoney, give me all available speed toward that ferry”

55

Re to escape from the police transport boat, Juan knew they would need to tread carefully As the Oregon raced to the sinking ferry, he had Hali send out a distress call to the Philippine Coast Guard, but he knew it ht be an hour or ers on board, they would have to carry out the rescue themselves

When the Oregon neared the ferry, which was already riding low in the water, Juan ordered Eric to coreeted the

Lining the railings were hundreds of people, including a large proportion of wo There was no doubt they were civilians Juan could not iine the mind of someone ould put in motion the atrocity that would occur if the ferry actually went under

“We’ll have to take Locsin’s ti at his word,” he said “That means we have fifteen minutes before that ferry sinks Options?”

“We can start bringing theon looks to be about twenty feet higher than the deck of the ferry With twelve hundred passengers, it would take at least half an hour for the evacuation even if everything went perfectly And we’re starting to get a lot of chop out there fro storm”

With the Oregon’s advanced stability systee waves would be discernible to the crew, so Juan hadn’t noticed the swells But the ferry was an older boat and rolling viciously and no longer under power Many of the passengers were getting sick Even if they could get a gangplank connected between the ships, bringing people across safely would be difficult

“What about going aboard and seeing if we can close the valves flooding her?” Max suggested

“Chaire” Eddie and the rest of his tea a severely daed Little Geek