He entered the power plant by shooting the lock off a side door. The sound of the jets intensified; without ear protection they’d only be able to remain inside for a few minutes. He raced in, his H&K’s laser sight sweeping the massive space. Lined up in a row on concrete and steel supports were the three General Electric jet engines, their intakes fed air through gleaming ducts, their exhaust vented out the back of the building through conduits blackened by the tremendous heat.
Only one of the engines was in operation. Max had explained during their briefing that a facility like this would alternate between two of the engines and have a third as backup for times of peak load. Rather than level the powerhouse with the Oregon’s 120 mm cannon, they decided to take just the one operational engine offline, knowing the men dealing with the cleanup would need electricity.
Mike ran for the control room near the front of the building, protected by his phalanx of men. They could see a pair of workers through the triple-layer sliding glass doors overlooking the power station with a trio of guards watching over them. The Petromax employees were studying a tall display board festooned with lights. The guards and workers stood too close together to risk a shot, so as Mike approached he fired over their heads, blowing out the glass in a hail of scintillating chips. The shock alone of the engine noise penetrating the insulated room was disorientating enough, but Mike also heaved a concussion grenade called a flash/bang through the ruined pane.
He ducked so the detonative force rolled over him and was in the room before anyone could get to their feet. He clipped one of the rebels with his weapon’s stock and his men covered the other two with their AKs. Mike tossed one of them a handful of flex cuffs and went to check on the engineers. One had been cut by flying glass, but it didn’t look too bad. The others were just dazed.
He looked the least shaken man in the eye and had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard over the banshee scream of the nearby jet. “Can you shut that down?” he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
The man looked at him blankly. Mike pointed at the engine again and made a cutting motion across his throat. The universal gesture sank in. The engineer nodded and went to a control station. He used a mouse to scroll through a number of screens on a computer, clicking icons as he went. It seemed like nothing was working until suddenly the piercing whine began to fade past the point of pain to the merely uncomfortable. It continued to wind down as the compressor blades slowed until finally it fell silent, although Mike’s ears continued to ring.
He turned to the leader of his scout party. “Stay here and don’t let anyone refire that engine.” He’d already given him a walkie-talkie. “Call me if any rebels do show up.”
“Yes, Nkosi.” By his tone it was obvious he didn’t like being left out of the fight. “What about them?” He waved the barrel of his assault rifle toward the bound rebels.
Mike started jogging for the exit. “If they give you any trouble, shoot them.”
“Yes, Nkosi.” The reply came with a bit more enthusiasm.
AS Linda led her men toward the platform’s main deck she was in communication with Juan, getting situational reports about the fluid gun battle. Rather then head to the nearest hatch leading out to the open, Cabrillo ordered her to thread her way through the lower floor so she would emerge on the rig’s far side, behind the greatest concentration of gunmen.
He had her pause just out of view as he made hand gestures to his remaining fighters, coordinating what he hoped would be a final push to either break the rebels’ will to fight or overwhelm them altogether. With only two magazines left in his ammo pouches, this was his last gambit.
“Okay, Juan, we’re in position,” Linda said. “I can see four of them. They’re behind that big storage tank. There’s another one angling to get close to the crane.”
“Tell me when he’s a yard from the crawler tread. I’ll take him. You guys take the four you can see. I think a couple more are hanging off the side of the rig holding on to the safety net. I don’t know if they’ve given up or what, so keep an eye out for them.”
“Roger that. Your guy’s got ten more yards to go.”
Juan waited with his back pressed to the warm pipes. Through all the chaos and adrenaline, part of his mind remained focused on the problem of Daniel Singer’s timing. No matter how far-fetched the idea, he was convinced that Singer had found a way to make a hurricane do his bidding. Singer was an engineering genius after all. His invention had made him a millionaire a hundred times over while he was still in his twenties. As Max would say: The man might have a screw loose, but the machine was still humming.
“Five yards,” Linda radioed.
Whatever Singer had planned had to be on a large scale, but Juan didn’t know what it could be. He knew of nothing that could affect a hurricane’s formation, severity, or the path it takes. A new anger hit him. If Singer had developed such a technology, why use it like this? Hurricanes and their Pacific and Indian Ocean cousins, typhoons and tsunamis, caused billions of dollars in damage, killed untold thousands of people every year, and left untold numbers of ruined lives in their wake. If Singer wanted to save the planet, ending such misery would be a fantastic first step, in Juan’s opinion. It was the senseless waste that angered him. Like this attack here, like Samuel Makambo’s revolution of personal self-aggrandizement, like the corruption that plagued Moses Ndebele’s homeland. All of it sickened him.
“Two yards.”
God, how he was tired of the fight. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed his superiors at the CIA sat around and patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Juan had known the worst was yet to come as the world splintered on religious and tribal lines and the fighting emerged from the shadows.
He hated being right.
“Take him.”
Cabrillo’s concentration returned to the fighting without a moment’s hesitation. He burst over the top of the drill pipes and loosed a three-round burst that hit the crawling gunman across the side and back. A barrage of fire erupted off to his left as more rebels targeted him. They were cut down by Linda and her team. Juan sprinted from behind the pipes, intentionally drawing fire to get the attackers to show themselves. His remaining people were prepared for this and for the second time since the battle started autofire blazed across the platform as though the gates of hell had opened.
It was the most intense close-quarter combat he had ever experienced. Bullets filled the air, some passing close enough for him to feel their heat. He dove over an oil barrel that had been knocked flat and had it pushed into him by a stuttering burst from at least two AKs stitching its side.
Linda saw one of the men firing at Juan but her snap shot missed as he vanished around a knot of pipes. She ran from her position and chased after him. It was like running into a forest of metal trees. The way the pipes crisscrossed and doubled back on themselves gave the gunman the advantage; no matter where she looked, down low or up high, her view was constantly blocked.
Realizing she could walk into a trap at any second, she started to retreat out of the maze, her eyes never lingering on a single spot for more than a second in case the gunman had outflanked her.
She rounded a vertical pipe as thick as a culvert and a hand reached out and yanked her machine pistol’s barrel, sending her sprawling. She wished something profound would pop into her head in the second she had remaining, but her last thought was how she’d gotten herself killed by a rookie mistake.
The gun sounded like a cannon. The rebel who’d been standing over her had his head stretched like a Halloween mask before it simply vanished. She looked up to see Jim Gibson standing a few feet away in his size 13 Tony Lama’s holding a huge revolver with its barrel pointing skyward and smoking.
“Strictly speaking, I’m not allowed to have my leg iron on the platform, but I always figured rules are for suckers.” He reached down a big hand and hauled Linda to her feet. “You okay, darling?”
“Saved by a real live cowboy. How
much better can I be?”
Knowing every rivet, screw, and weld on the rig, Gibson led her unerringly out of the labyrinth. When they got close to where Linda had first entered she realized she could no longer hear any gunfire.
She looked out cautiously. Five of the terrorists were standing up, their arms thrust so high they might have been standing on tiptoe. Two more emerged from where they’d been hiding in the safety net.
“Juan, I think it’s over,” she said into her throat mike.
Juan slid around the barrel and got to his feet, his aim never wavering from the marauders. He ran to them, shouting, “Down! Get down! Everybody down!”
Linda raced over to help cover them as they dropped flat. The Zimbabweans began to check the injured and dead while Juan cuffed the survivors. When he was finished he called his ship.
“Nomad to Oregon, target is secure. Repeat, target is secure.”
“Heard you the first time,” Max drawled. “I may be older than you but I’m not deaf.” Then he added, “Good job. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.”
“Thanks. What’s the situation?”
“Mike’s shut down the power plant. Oil’s still flowing from the loading gantries but nowhere near as hard without the pumps. It’s just gravity forcing crude through the lines from the tank farm.”
“Is Linc ready?”
“Our cue to launch the SEAL boat was five minutes after Mikey took out the generators. He’s leaving now.”
LIKE a jet fighter being catapulted off an aircraft carrier, an actuator punched the semi-rigid black boat down a Teflon ramp from the boat garage and into the ocean. With a deep V hull for stability and an inflatable curtain for additional payload, the boat had been built by Zodiac’s military division in Vancouver, Canada. She could cut across almost any sized wave as nimbly as an otter and hit speeds in excess of forty knots thanks to a pair of 300 hp outboards.
Linc had the wheel while Jerry Pulaski stood at his side. Both men wore two flak jackets over their utility uniforms. Bulletproof shields had been screwed into place so the helm amidships was nearly invulnerable. At their feet sat two long black cases containing Barrett M107 .50-caliber rifles. They had an effective range of a mile, making the thirty-two-pound guns perhaps the finest sniper rifles ever created.
With so much crude contaminating the waters around the loading terminal neither Juan nor Max were willing to risk the Oregon’s drive tubes becoming clogged with oil. And neither was willing to risk firing at the sensitive loading gantries if they couldn’t guarantee one hundred percent accuracy from her weapons systems. It would be up to Linc and Ski to form the backstop for Mike’s charge down the causeway.
They raced across the waves toward the bow of the supertanker lying at anchor and only slowed when the boat started cutting through the slick. The scum of oil was at least six inches thick and clung to the rubber pontoon ringing the hull. Fortunately, the props were below the toxic sludge; otherwise they’d barely make headway.
Behind them the Oregon was in motion again, maneuvering to get an oblique firing angle on this critical part of the facility. Though they wouldn’t aim directly for the causeway or the acres-sized floating pier, Max had no qualms about tearing up the ocean all around them with the Gatlings.
Peering through a large pair of binoculars, Ski scanned the slab-sided tanker for any signs that the terrorists were using her as an observation platform. She looked clear. Just to be safe they would board her at the bow, more than a thousand feet from the superstructure, the most obvious place for a lookout.
They reached a string of buoys marking the hundred-yard off-limits zone surrounding the massive ship and there was still no fire from above.
“Dumb as we thought,” Linc remarked.
From up close the ship’s hull under its coat of red antifouling paint looked more like a steel wall rather than something designed to cruise the oceans, and with her tanks nearly empty, the deck rail loomed sixty feet over their heads.
As Linc worked the wheel and throttle to bring them up to the bow, Ski readied a grappling gun with rubber-coated tines. Just before the assault boat slid under the bow’s curve he fired the hook skyward, two strands of nanofiber line trailing behind it. It sailed over the rail and when he drew back on the line it caught hard. Linc tossed a painter attached to a powerful magnet against the tanker’s hull to secure the assault boat.
Though too thin to climb, the nanofiber was stronger than steel. Ski threaded the line through a winch bolted to the boat’s deck and made sure the foot stirrups were secured. When he was ready he saw that Linc had opened the padded cases that held the two sniper rifles. Each already had a ten-round magazine in the receiver and they carried ten more apiece.
“Your chariot awaits,” Ski said and stepped into the stirrup.
Linc did likewise and hit the button to start the winch. The nanofiber line started to slide through the pulley on the grappling. Ski’s stirrup tightened and he was lifted off the assault boat, holding the rifle in one hand and the line in the other. When he was eight feet off the assault boat, the line took Linc’s weight, and both men were lifted up the side of the tanker.
It took just seconds to reach the top. Ski kicked himself out of the stirrup and leapt over the rail. He landed softly and immediately brought the rifle at his shoulder and his eye to the scope, scanning the deck and superstructure for any movement. His stirrup jammed in the small pulley, arresting the nanofiber wire, and leaving Linc to climb the rail in order to reach the deck.
“Clear,” Ski said without looking at him.
They started for the stern, each man running fifty feet and finding cover while the other kept the superstructure in his sights. Although there was no sign of activity anywhere on the ship, they maintained the leapfrog technique as a precaution. It took three minutes to reach the wheelhouse and, for the first time, they went to the port side of the tanker to look down at the loading pier. The twin gantries were taller than the ship, but their fat hoses dangled negligently, so the oil spewing from them fell only twenty feet before splashing to the dock and eventually oozing into the sea.
A rough count showed at least a hundred insurgents prepared to defend the dock. They’d had time to build barricades and fortify their position. Trono and his men were in for a tough slog if Linc and Ski couldn’t disrupt the defense.
“What do you think?” Ski asked. “Is this good enough or do you want to get higher?”
“The height’s good but we’re too exposed if there is someone skulking around the ship. Let’s get to the roof of the superstructure.”
While they made their way into the ship and up a seemingly endless set of scissor stairs, Linc gave Max a situation report and learned that Mike and his men had fought their way across the terminal and were now in position.
A door opened near the top of the stairs. A man wearing a pair of black trousers and a white shirt with epaulettes emerged. Linc had his pistol out and pressed between the officer’s eyes before the man had realized he wasn’t alone in the staircase.
“No, please,” he cried sharply.
“Quiet,” Linc said and pulled back his automatic. “We’re the good guys.”
“You are American?” The officer was English.
“That’s right, Captain,” Linc said, noting the four gold stripes on his shoulder boards. “We’re about to put an end to this situation. We need to get to the roof.”
“Of course. Follow me.” They started up. “What’s going on? All I know is one minute we’re taking on our normal load of crude and the next some idiot has yanked the hoses, damaging my ship. I called the marine office but no one picked up. Then my lookouts report armed men on the pier. Now it sounds like my days in the Falklands out there.”
“Suffice it to say, your crew is going to be okay. Just don’t let any of them near the deck or any open spaces.”
“That’s been my standing order all morning,” the captain assured him. “Here we are.”
They’d reached
the top of the stairwell. There were no doors but there was a hatch in the ceiling accessible by a ladder. Ski started up without a word.
Linc held out his hand, “Thank you, Captain. We’ll take it from here.”
“Oh yes, right. Good luck to you,” he said and shook Linc’s outstretched hand.
Ski got the hatch open, flooding the stairwell with brilliant sunlight. He climbed through, followed by Linc. There was no way to lock the portal from the top, so they would have to keep an eye on it to make sure that no one came up after them.
The roof of the pilothouse was a featureless plane of white-painted steel shadowed by the ship’s funnel and an antennae array. When they neared the edge they dropped to their bellies so as not to show themselves and again looked down over the dock. At the end of the causeway they could see Mike’s small army awaiting their signal. The UAV buzzed nearby.
“Oregon, this is Linc. We are in position. Give us some time to designate targets. Stand by.”
After setting up their rifles and placing full magazines along the lip of the roof so they could quickly shift positions, the two men scoped every one of the enemy soldiers, figuring out who the officers and noncoms were so they could decapitate the leadership, as the saying went.
“I’ll be damned,” Linc muttered.
“What?”
“Eleven o’clock. Guy with the shades chewing out some teenager.”
Ski shifted his rifle so he could see who Linc was talking about. “Got him. Yeah? So? Who is he?”
“That, my friend, is Colonel Raif Abala, the sneaky bastard who pulled the double-cross on us when we were selling him the guns. He’s General Makambo’s right hand.”
“Seems to be out of favor if Makambo sent him here,” Ski said. “Want to take him first?”
“No, I think I’d rather see his face when he realizes what’s what and who’s who. You ready?”
“I’ve got at least four officers on my half of the dock and six more who seem like they know what they’re doing. Rest are cannon fodder.”