Skeleton Coast

  He had the lifeboat on plane in no time. Then he extended the foils and poured on the power. The ugly looking craft skimmed across the water like a flying fish, keeping well out of any terrorist’s range as he waited for the order to turn east and make landfall near the Petromax terminal’s tank farm. From there he’d lead the counterattack to wrest control back from Makambo’s men.

  There was an unexpected explosion on the rig the Oregon had targeted. Tiny zoomed in with the camera to show a pair of rebels in one of the aluminum outboards reloading a rocket launcher. Flames and dense smoke coiled from a catwalk where moments before two oil employees had been shooting hundreds of gallons of seawater at the attackers. The men were gone and the water cannon was a twisted ruin.

  “I’m getting another call from the rig to Petromax headquarters in Delaware,” Hali said, holding up a finger as he listened. “They’re abandoning the platform.”

  “No they’re not,” Max said savagely. “Wepps?”

  “I got ’em.”

  Mark loosened the safeties on the Gatling and gave the computer permission to fire. Capable of throwing a stream of 20-mm depleted uranium slugs at six thousand rounds per minute, Murph had dialed back the barrels’ rotation speed, so in the two seconds that ammunition blurred through the loading feeds, only eighty rounds erupted from the weapon with a sound like an industrial buzz saw.

  Under the platform the cheering terrorists never knew what hit them. One moment the four boats jinked and juked and the next two of them had vanished in a pall of shredded aluminum and vaporized flesh.

  The Gatling had destroyed Tangos Two and Four. The driver of Tango One must have seen where the fire had originated because he shot his boat around the far side of one of the columns and didn’t reemerge into the Oregon’s sights. The computer waited for the boat a moment longer than Murph would have liked, so as he flipped a toggle to override the Gatling’s automatic fire controls he made a mental note to check the system’s programming.

  On his main flat panel display a reticle appeared where the barrel was currently aiming, the curved gray side of the support leg. He tracked back the camera’s zoom and found the fourth outboard speeding off for the next oil rig. A tiny movement of a joystick centered the sight on the fleeing craft and a second’s long touch of the trigger blew it to oblivion.

  He reset the weapon to automatic and the multibarrel gun pivoted back to the platform for the last boat. A sliver of the outboard’s stern appeared from around the column, a target that was less than a square foot. Even at five hundred yards from an unstable ship it was more than enough. The Gatling shrieked again. The outboard’s motor exploded, blowing the boat out of the water, sending its eight occupants flying in every direction. Some were launched into the sea, others were slammed into the column, and two of them seemed to have simply vanished in the blast.

  “Platform three secure,” Mark said, exhaling a long breath.

  “Helm, get us to the last rig under attack,” Max grunted, knowing the two submersible teams wouldn’t have it so easy.

  CABRILLO was thinking the exact same thing as he crouched on an exposed stairwell hanging over the side of the platform. Below him the oil slick pulsed like a living thing even as it killed the surrounding ocean. It had stretched in an inky bloom as far as he could see and had probably already reached the concrete breakwater running along the front of the Petromax terminal. With a freshening wind out of the south the smell wasn’t as bad as it had been down below, but the petrochemical taint still hung in the air.

  Unlike the mammoth oil rigs of the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico that could house hundreds of workers for months at a time and stood taller than many skyscrapers, this platform was no more than four hundred feet square, dominated by the spidery drill tower and a brightly painted mobile crane used to raise and lower supplies from tenders.

  There were several metal-sided buildings clinging to the deck and cantilevered over the edges of the structure. One would be a control center; the others housed machinery to regulate the flow of crude from the well head on the sea floor. The deck was also crisscrossed with a maze of pipes and littered with equipment—broken auger bits, lengths of drill string, and a couple of small cargo containers for storage. Though only a few years old, the platform was streaked with grime and showed signs of neglect. He thought it was a good sign that he didn’t see any bodies of dead workers.

  At the base of the drill tower was an ever-erupting volcano of oil gushing from deep within the earth. The ebony fountain reached a height of fifteen feet before collapsing under its own weight, only to be replenished with fresh crude. The flow poured through openings around the rotary table and drained into the Atlantic. With that much oil bursting up the riser it was impossible to tell if the pipes had been permanently sabotaged or if the safety valves had been cracked open.

  Cabrillo was ever mindful that a stray spark could ignite the oil. The resulting explosion would probably level trees along the coast.

  When he and his team had first arrived at the top of the platform the terrorists had been milling around. A few peered disinterestedly over the sides of the structure just to make sure no one was approaching, but on the whole they seemed certain they had the situation well in hand.

  It wasn’t until the Oregon approached the third rig and blew away their comrades like so much chaff that they found their discipline once again. The leader of the thirty-man contingent organized lookouts to watch for any approaching ships and had others prep their RPGs in case the freighter came within range. Juan had hidden himself and his people in a chain locker when a four-man patrol circled the catwalk ringing the lower of the platform’s two decks.

  Now that the Oregon was moving farther down the string of offshore rigs, the terrorists seemed to be losing their vigilance somewhat. The lookouts’ attention wandered and men lined the far rail, watching to see what effects the ship would have on their compatriots attacking the final platform. Juan had recalled that many of Makambo’s forces were little more than teenagers, and he doubted the rebel general would supply Daniel Singer with his best troops no matter what he was being paid. He wouldn’t let himself dwell on how poverty and hopelessness had brought these men here, only that they were now perpetrating a terrorist act and had to be stopped.

  He tapped Mafana to take his position at the top of the stair and retreated downward to confer with Linda Ross. “This was the first rig attacked so I think they probably took it without meeting any resistance,” he whispered, though his voice couldn’t carry over the sound of the spilling oil. “It was when they hit the second rig that the crew put up a fight.”

  “You think they rounded them up and locked them away?”

  “I know these guys are ruthless, but it would be more practical than executing a hundred workers.”

  “Want me to go find them?”

  Juan nodded. “Once we take over the rig we’re going to need them to shut off the oil, and if there are no survivors on Eddie’s platform we’ll need to transport them over to work on that one, too. Take three men and scout out the interior spaces. There has to be a rec room or dining hall, something big enough to hold the entire crew.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Cabrillo had to smile at the sight of Linda leading three men more than twice her size through a doorway into the rig. It reminded him of Goldilocks with the three bears in tow, only Baby Bear tipped the scales at one eighty. He climbed back up the steps and lay next to Mafana. He scanned the scene once again, calculating firing angles, cover positions, and areas they could fall back to if necessary. He could feel Mafana’s eyes on him.

  “You just want to charge them, don’t you?” Cabrillo asked.

  “It is the best plan I have,” he admitted with a wide grin. “And it has always worked for me before.”

  Juan shook his head and gave Mafana his orders. The sergeant relayed them to his men. Wordlessly, the Africans crested the stairs; Cabrillo had designated the ambush sites with the finesse of a chess mas
ter moving his pieces for the final gambit.

  Though used to jungle fighting, the men moved well in the unfamiliar environs, stalking across the deck with the patience of seasoned hunters—hunters who had spent their youth chasing the most dangerous prey of all: other men. It took ten minutes for them to deploy, and Juan studied the deck again, making sure everyone was where he intended them to be. The last thing he wanted on his conscience was a friendly fire incident.

  Satisfied, he launched himself up the last couple of steps and raced to the corner of a nearby container, pressing himself flat against the wall and triple-checking that his assault rifle’s safety was off. The terrorist commander was a hundred yards away and talking on a large radio, presumably with the overall leader of the attack, who was probably still onshore. Juan hefted the MP-5 to his shoulder and put the laser sight on the man’s chest, just left of center.

  An instant later, the laser’s red dot was replaced with a dime-sized bullet hole. The man simply collapsed as though his bones had vanished. The silencer prevented anyone from hearing the shot, but a handful of men had seen their leader go down. It was as if the rebels were a single entity with a single mind because it seemed that everyone came alert at once. Guns were gripped tighter as men sought cover.

  When one of Cabrillo’s soldiers opened up with the unsilenced AK-47 he’d been issued from the ship’s stores, thirty guns replied. Swarms of rounds crisscrossed the deck in every direction but one. Cabrillo had made sure that none of his people were close enough to the drilling derrick to cause the rebels to fire anywhere near the volatile upsurge of oil.

  Six rebels were felled in the opening seconds of the attack, and Juan took out two more with a hip shot on automatic as they appeared around the container, but if anything the ferocity and intensity of the battle increased. One of his men dashed for his secondary cover position and took a bullet to the leg. He rolled flat on the hard deck ten feet from Cabrillo. Without giving it a moment’s thought, Juan laid down a wall of suppression fire, dashed into the open, and dragged the man to cover by his collar.

  “Ngeyabongo,” he gasped, clutching his bloody thigh.

  “You’re welcome,” Juan said, understanding the sentiment if not the word. An instant later his world turned upside down as an RPG exploded on the far side of the container.

  LINDA wished the lights inside the platform were off so she could switch on her night vision goggles to give her an edge, but the utilitarian corridors were brightly lit.

  The rig’s lower level was mostly machinery housed in four large rooms, but when they climbed to the upper deck they found themselves in a maze of passageways and interconnected rooms. They found several small dormitories for men who spent more than their shift on the platform as well as a suite of offices for the administrative staff.

  It was slow going checking each room, but there was no other way. She could feel the press of time. The longer it took, the longer the Chairman was fighting without almost half his force. She didn’t disagree with his tactics, but she wanted to be more involved in the fight.

  She peered around another corner and saw two rebels leaning on either side of a door, their AKs slung from their shoulders. She withdrew her head quickly, her unexpected motion drawing her men’s attention. Linda pointed at her eyes, made a gesture of around the bend and held up two fingers. The sign language was nearly universal to anyone who’d fought in a war and her men nodded. She pointed at one of them and made a motion for him to get down on the floor. He shook his head, pointed at a comrade, made a gesture like firing a gun, and flashed a thumbs-up. No, he was saying, this man is a better shot. Linda acknowledged the sniper and he got into position.

  Her H&K’s laser sight cut random patterns across the ceiling as she inched closer to the corner. She carefully drew down on the weapon as she peeked around the wall again. She double-tapped the farthest guard in the chest at the same time the sniper put a single round into the closer one, the crack of his AK masking the whisper of her silenced machine pistol.

  Her entire team rushed around the corner and ran for the door. A third guard appeared around a far bend and all four of them opened up, the kinetic impact of so many bullets tossing the corpse against a bulkhead. When the firing stopped Linda could hear autofire coming from beyond the door and the screams of men in panic and pain.

  She was the first to reach the door and blew off the handle with a three-round burst. She hit the door without slowing, exploding into the room, her lithe body sailing a few yards before she landed on her shoulder, letting her momentum carry her back onto her knees, the MP-5 pulled tight to her shoulder. Alerted by the gunfire outside the mess hall two rebels were firing indiscriminatingly into the throng of terrified oilmen.

  The scene was utter chaos, with men running and screaming, falling over one another in their rush to get away from the onslaught, while others went down with horrifying wounds. Linda was jostled by a pair of men making a break for the door the instant she pulled the trigger and her three rounds passed through the opening leading to the kitchen and punched a tight group of holes in a stainless-steel vent duct. Another two workers were gunned down before she could adjust her aim and kill the first rebel with a head shot.

  Her three men had pushed their way into the dining room shouting for the workers to get down as they sought the second terrorist. He had stopped firing as soon as Linda had killed his comrade and was trying to blend in with the workers as they rushed for the exit.

  “No one leaves,” she shouted, her high-pitched voice almost lost in the tumult. But the sniper had heard her. He and the others moved back to block the door and no matter how the workers tried to force their way through they held fast.

  Linda got to her feet, scanning faces. She’d caught the barest glimpse of the second rebel but didn’t see him now. Then there was movement to her left. The kitchen door had moved slightly on its two-way hinges. She rushed across the room, the men moving out of her way because of the gun in her hands and the murderous look in her eye.

  When she reached the solid door she rammed it inward with her foot. It slammed against something solid after opening halfway then recoiled back. When there was no reaction from inside the kitchen she hunkered low and slowly eased her way inside. She could see a dishwashing station to her left and a hallway that seemed to lead to either a storage area or maybe out of the kitchen entirely, but her view of the rest of the kitchen was blocked by the door.

  Just as she turned to check to the right of the door a strong hand clutched the back of her neck. She was pulled to her feet, the hot barrel of an assault rifle pressed into her kidney. The rebel spoke in his native language, panting out the words that Linda couldn’t understand but knew nevertheless. She was now his prisoner and if anyone tried to attack him he’d blow her spine out of her body before he went down.

  IT had taken less than ten minutes for the Oregon to reach the fourth platform and sweep the seas of the rebel boats. Only one had remained at the rig following the destruction of the first set of outboards, but Tiny Gunderson’s eye in the sky found three of them fleeing toward the tanker loading pier. Rather than let them reinforce the land-based attack, Max Hanley had ordered Murph to take them out. The range was growing extreme by the time Murph targeted the last boat so it took a five-second burst before eight of the Gatling’s rounds found their mark amid the explosions of water from shells impacting around the craft. The final outboard pinwheeled atop the waves after it had been cut nearly in two.

  In a maneuver that made the hull plates moan in protest Eric had the Oregon torqued around using her thrusters and drive tubes and was accelerating for the dock by the time the little boat sank.

  “Oregon to Liberty,” Max radioed. Though never given official names, Liberty was what they called the primary lifeboat. The one Juan had had blown out from under him off the coast of Namibia had been nicknamed Or Death.

  “This is Liberty,” Mike Trono replied.

  “We’ve secured the fourth rig and are now
getting into position to cover your assault.” Approaching a well-defended dock in the unarmed lifeboat was suicide, but under the protection of the Oregon’s weapons, Cabrillo and the senior staff who’d come up with the plan were more than confident they’d land safely.

  “Roger that, Oregon. I have you in sight. Looks like you need five more minutes before we can turn for shore.”

  “Don’t wait for me,” Eric said from the helm, bumping the throttles even more. “I’ll be on station before you’re a mile from the beach.”

  Max flicked his monitor to show the status of his beloved engines and saw Stone had them wavering just below redline. Any misgivings he’d had about damaging them when they had grounded in the Congo River faded. The old girl was giving them everything she had and more.

  “We’re headed in.”

  Mike had kept the hydrofoil two miles from shore, carving lazy circles until it was time to strike. He cranked the wheel eastward, aiming for the collection of huge storage tanks at the terminal’s southern edge. The UAV’s overflight had shown this to be the area of least rebel activity, but they were bound to be spotted as they approached, and men would certainly be shifted to repel the attack.

  He had to steer around the oil slicks that were slowly coalescing into one massive spill. He had no way of estimating its size, but from what he could see it already looked frighteningly like Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez holed herself on Bligh Reef.

  He was standing in the rear cockpit to give himself 360-degree vision and didn’t hear the approaching UAV over the hydrofoil’s engine. Tiny buzzed him at no more than twenty feet, waggling the drone’s wings as he arrowed it in toward the seawall.

  “Crazy SOB,” he muttered with a smirk and glanced at the flatscreen display that had been hastily installed the night before.