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“I can put you right below the superstructure,” Linda said

“Perfect,” Juan said “We can go through the cabininstead of the interior hallways”

The ship layouts in Lionel Gupta’s records showed that the cabin where Juan and Linda had broken out of the Colossus 3 was one of the luxurious staterooned for members of the Nine It was in the saain access to the cabin without the risk of using the stairs inside, and, according to Gupta, the back door self-destruct system would be accessible from it

“What’s our distance to Great Bitter Lake?” he asked Linda

“Thirty-onefive knots We won’t reach the twenty-e of the Colossus 5’s microwave transmitter for another two hours”

Juan nodded “That gives us plenty of tiet back down before they can link up all four biocomputers”

Linda surfaced the sub with the deck barely above the canal’s choppy waves Juan pushed the hatch open A black cliff of steel rose above them

He turned to Linda and said, “Tell Max to start his part of the mission”

“Aye, Chair into the radio

Juan pulled hinetic claan to climb

—

When Max got word froinher thrusters The raging stor on radar it would look like the Oregon was adrift and heading straight for the Colossus ships

When they ithin a half mile of the Colossus 1, Max hailed her from his seat in the command chair

“Colossus 1, this is the Norego Be advised our anchor failed and we are drifting in your direction”

“We are also at anchor, Norego,” came the reply in heavily accented Chinese “We cannot raise it fast enough to keep fro”