Deadly Impact--A Richard Mariner nautical adventure Read Online Free PDF

facility in Japan, apparently yet to be given new programmed orders, and still, therefore, on course to reach Japan in a little over eighty hours from now.
    The young ex-officer bounced on the balls of his feet and stared around the room. ‘We have to act fast, therefore. As soon as we have deplaned, we will use these forward access points to take our various teams of experts below. Remember, our first function is to secure these points that the engineers from NIPEX, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu need to access in order to find out what the opposition has been up to, especially with regard to the ship’s cargo, hull and computer systems. Then we need to keep those areas – and those personnel – safe from enemy action. Thirdly – and only
in extremis
– we may need to engage with the enemy, when we have worked out who they are, what they have done and what their overall plan is. And, indeed, whether this is the most testing exercise so far, or the real thing. Are there any questions?’
    In the face of continued silence, Aleks continued, ‘The point of this briefing, the fact that it is being held here and now, is that we need to be aware of elements that our Japanese and American colleagues do not need to be aware of. We are the iron fist. They are the velvet glove. We will be going in fully armed and combat ready. It is our job to get them where they need to go, to protect them while they are there and to help them reclaim control of the ship – if necessary – by
electronic
means. Not by
physical
means if it can at all be helped. We must still treat this as an exercise, not a war.’ The cold grey eyes rested for a moment on Richard. ‘Keep that fact at the forefront of your minds at all times, gentlemen. We are not there to start a fire fight. Quite apart from the fact that we are as yet unaware of the precise identity of whoever is onboard, or what their plans are, we can be absolutely one hundred per cent sure that they will have done their best to secure the ship against us – and that particular vessel is the last place on earth you want to start a fire fight in.’
    He leaned forward, raking the room with his steely eyes. ‘With the exception of a shootout on board an airliner in flight, this is the most dangerous place it is possible to imagine bullets going astray. The five Moss-type tanks are insulated, but they are not bulletproof. Each tank holds about thirty-five thousand cubic metres of gas in liquid form. And in order to remain liquid, the gas must be stored at minus one hundred and sixty degrees Celsius. There are carefully choreographed processes for getting it to and from that temperature, into and out of the tanks safely. None of which involve sending several ounces of steel-jacketed hot lead into the works. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to calculate what might happen under those circumstances …’ He looked once more at Richard, who picked up his cue without missing a beat.
    Richard stepped forward. He hit the keys on his laptop and YouTube flashed up on the screen. ‘This is what happens,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s footage taken in China back in 2012 when a road tanker carrying LNG crashed and ruptured. Five people died. As you will observe, they were lucky it was so few. You will also want to bear in mind that a standard road tanker carries about thirty thousand
litres
of LNG. As Lieutenant Zaitsev has observed, a Moss tank holds just under thirty-five thousand
cubic metres
. That’s just over a thousand times as much, in each of the five Moss tanks on board. The whole cargo is just shy of one hundred and seventy thousand cubic metres, therefore.’
    He looked around the room at a lot of very serious faces. He pressed PLAY and talked over the picture as it jumped into motion on the screen behind him. ‘What we see first is a video shot from a bus held up by the accident …’ A curve of highway