He took the mouthpiece from Tory, careful not to let water enter the system where it would cause a caustic reaction in the CO2 scrubbers. Despite the polluted salt water, he could taste her on the rubber. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and then maneuvered the Draeger pack over his shoulders. The mechanical parts of his artificial limb were completely destroyed, so he fitted his fin onto his good leg, giving the other fin to Tory.
Once he had cleared water from his mask and they were both settled, he became aware of another sound: gunfire. And not the maddened fusillades fired by the guards. It was the rhythmic pulse of a weapon he knew well. He couldn’t suppress a smile. Singh’s men were attempting to board the Oregon, and he could imagine Mark Murphy ensconced behind his video screens as he opened up with the ship’s Bofors 40mm autocannon.
That’s when the men above him must have seen their motion through the water, because suddenly bullets were striking all around them, cutting cavitation trails that looked like white arrows.
21
MAX Hanley ordered Franklin Lincoln and his SEAL assault team to launch their Zodiac as soon as he heard the ship saw whining from inside the shed across the bay. Max hurried from the boat garage to the operations center buried below the Oregon’s superstructure. The red battle lights were on, which blended with the blue computer screens to make the room glow an awful shade of purple. Why Max had never noticed this detail before was just one of the million things swirling through his mind.
With the rest of the breaker’s yard quiet so late at night, Max was certain that Shere Singh had fired up the ship saw because he had caught the chairman. Eric Stone was at the helm, Murph had the weapons station, and Hali Kasim and Linda Ross were watching the threat board. Max settled in the command chair, hooking a hands-free microphone over his balding head.
“Linc, you on the net?”
“Roger, Oregon. We’re approaching in stealth mode. ETA seven minutes.”
Max was about to ask why they didn’t open up the Zodiac’s big outboard, because the sound of the saw would surely mask the engine’s throaty roar, but then remembered that in the moonlight the Zodiac’s wake would show as a white crescent on the otherwise black sea.
Lincoln continued, “Oregon, be advised that there is a lot of traffic pulling away from the beach. I count four, repeat, four utility boats. Thermal scan shows they’re loaded to the gunnels with men.”
“I have ’em,” Mark Murphy called from the weapons station. His screen showed the feed from the thermal/IR/ low-light camera mounted on the Oregon’s main mast. “I estimate fifty soldiers in total, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.” He typed commands into his computer to call up the ship’s vast arsenal. His screen split so that each forty-foot boat approaching from the beach was on its own display. A sight reticle appeared over each dark-hulled craft. “Targets designated tango one through four. I have tracking on all inbound.”
“Where’s the Zodiac?” When the Oregon’s batteries opened up, the last thing he needed to worry about was a friendly fire accident.
“Linc’s angling out of the way, but he’s moving slow.”
Max brought up a wide-angle camera shot on his screen. Singh’s men were coming straight for the Oregon as the Zodiac slowly motored off to the starboard. The ex-SEAL couldn’t gun his engine because the guards would open fire as soon as they saw his wake. Max was forced into a waiting game between Linc’s progress out of the line of fire and the speed of the approaching utility boats.
“Incoming!” Linda Ross called out from her station. “Missile launch from the beach.”
In the two seconds it took her to shout the warning, the RPG had covered half the distance to the Oregon, and before anyone could react, it finished the other half. The five-pound missile struck the anchor fairlead high on the bow and exploded. The Soviet-made RPG mangled a good-sized chunk of steel and blew a hole up through the deck but didn’t damage the anchor chains or machinery.
“We’ve got more. Multiple launches!”
Wallowing this close to the beach, the range was too short for the ship’s automated defensive systems to engage the incoming missiles.
Max had no other choice. “Helm, all back full!”
Eric Stone had anticipated the order, and his hands were already drawing back the dual throttle controls. Deep within the ship the four massive magnetohydrodynamic engines came to life. Like flicking a light switch, the revolutionary engines were running at full power in an instant, drawing seawater’s naturally occurring electric charge, amplifying it through the cryo-cooled magnets, and creating a force wave that pumped water though her drive tubes with unimaginable power.
The backward acceleration was enough to send dishes tumbling in the galley and toss a batch of files on Cabrillo’s desk into the air. But they weren’t quick enough to avoid the incoming volley of RPGs.
Six of the notoriously inaccurate missiles fizzled harmlessly into the sea. Another impacted one of the Oregon’s dummy cargo derricks, dropping it like a felled tree. The heavy steel mast crashed against the deck hard enough to make the eleven-thousand-ton vessel shudder. The eighth missile slammed into the superstructure below the bridge. The shaped high-explosive warhead was designed to punch through a tank’s thick armor, so when it exploded through the half-inch steel, much of its force remained. Two of the mock-up cabins the Corporation used during harbor inspections were gutted by the kinetic force of the explosion, but the damage was mostly cosmetic. The damage control computer activated the fire suppression system without need for human intervention, and it also directed damage control teams to the area.
“I want a report in thirty seconds,” Max said over the ship’s emergency channel.
He checked the GPS display and speed indicators. They were backing out of the breaker’s yard at twenty knots and accelerating. A few seconds more, and they’d be out of range of Shere Singh’s RPGs. But if he had more sophisticated weapons, Stinger missiles, for example, they still needed more room to shoot the rockets out of the air.
“Linc, give me a sit rep.”
“They’re on to us,” the SEAL called back. Over the voice channel Max heard the bellow of the Zodiac’s engine and the crackle of machine gun fire. “One boat is chasing us. The other three are still closing on you.”
“Give us a minute to get out of those missiles’ range, and we’ll provide cover fire. Gomez Adams is about to launch our second UAV, so we should have a good view of the battlefield in a few minutes.”
“Roger.”
Arrowing across the bay at nearly forty knots, Linc couldn’t hope to hit anything as he sprayed rounds at the utility boat with his M-4A1. The three-round bursts were intended to keep the pursuers from firing at him. So far, the few return volleys had been wild. The men had simply propped their weapons against the utility boat’s gunwales and fired without looking.
He couldn’t believe the hits the Oregon was taking and realized that they had been expected. But it didn’t matter if the Sikh owner of the breaker’s yard was on to the Corporation. What mattered now was finding the chairman and then beating a fast retreat.
The ship saw had stopped its ungodly racket a moment earlier, and Linc didn’t know if this was a good sign or bad, but until the Oregon took out the utility boat chasing in their wake, they couldn’t risk making a run for the shed. Or could they?
Mike Trono was at the Zodiac’s helm, and Linc used his hands to indicate what he wanted to do. Trono nodded wordlessly and sent the lightweight boat skidding in a tight turn that would take them past the back of the huge shed.
The maneuver allowed the utility boat to cut the distance between it and the Zodiac, and the guards on board were emboldened by the opportunity. A dozen guns opened up at the same time and had Trono not juked the Zodiac, its rubber hull and the four men riding in her would have been cut to ribbons.
Linc and the others fired back. Even Trono fired his pistol with one hand while gunning the throttle with the other. One of the
guards on the utility boat clutched his throat as he fell forward over the rail. He struck the roiled water of the bow wave and was sucked under. Even if the wound wasn’t fatal, the props would dice his body into hamburger as the boat motored over him.
The utility boat peeled away, giving Trono the opportunity to slow as they passed behind the warehouse just as the ship saw came back to life—quieter this time because it wasn’t cutting through metal.
Clutching his rifle tight to his chest, Linc rolled over the soft side of the Zodiac, absorbing the impact with the water on his massive shoulders. He was left bobbing in the wake as Mike brought the Zodiac back onto plane and rocketed parallel to the beach.
He ducked under the shed’s metal skirt and came up inside the structure.
There was enough light to see that the name of the ship inside had been removed from her stern. But, with the chain saw whirring farther toward the beach, it was impossible to hear any voices that would tell him what was happening.
“Oregon, this is Assault One,” he radioed. “I am inside the shed preparing to look for the chairman.
“Roger that,” Max replied instantly. “We’re almost ready to engage, so your extraction will be clear. Good luck.”
Linc clicked his radio in response and began to swim down the length of the ship, searching for a way to reach the deck. Then he heard the distinct crack of a pistol up near the ship’s truncated bow.
Seconds later two bodies tumbled over the ship’s rail. Both wore black, one in a combat uniform and the other wearing a wet suit. It had to be Cabrillo. Linc didn’t know the identity of the other person but wasn’t surprised the silhouette had a woman’s curves. Only the chairman could find a date in a place like this.
No sooner had the pair sunk below the water when two guards appeared at the rail, their gun barrels tracking back and forth as they searched for the two people who’d leapt overboard. The range was too long for Linc to guarantee his shot, so he silently swam on, keeping near the catwalk that ringed the shed a few feet above the tide mark. Twice he watched Cabrillo and a woman who looked vaguely familiar bob to the surface for air. Linc was sure they were headed for an open metal stairwell. That’s where Juan must have stashed his rebreather, he thought.
The guards fired down into the water, but Linc could see they had no idea where Cabrillo had fled. By Linc’s estimate, a full minute had passed since the last time Cabrillo had surfaced. He knew the chairman to be an excellent free diver capable of staying under for two minutes or more but not after a shoot-out on a ship and having fallen thirty feet from her deck. He must have reached the Draeger set.
Just as he reached this conclusion, he heard Max’s voice over his radio say they were engaging at the same time he heard the 40mm automatic cannon mounted on the Oregon’s fore quarter start to pound away.
Undistracted by the cannon outside, the guards began concentrating their fire at a spot about ten feet from the staircase. Something had drawn their attention. In a move that took tremendous strength because he was wearing combat boots rather than swim fins, Linc kicked his legs to thrust his upper body out of the water and brought his M-4A1 to his shoulder. Before gravity dragged him back down again, the former SEAL got off a pair of three-round bursts. One of the guards had his AK shot from his hands. The other’s head vanished in a crimson mist.
He sank back down under the surface and waited for any other gunman to rake the water. What he got instead was a hand clamped around his ankle. He resisted the urge to kick it away. The chairman.
Linc felt Cabrillo thrust the regulator mouthpiece to his lips and took a few grateful breaths before passing it back. Juan must have then given it to the woman because he could feel her chest moving against his shoulder. Together the three of them began an awkward swim that was more dog paddle than any other stroke with each taking turns at the regulator. It took several minutes to retreat down the length of the tanker.
Once at the shed’s rear doors, Cabrillo brought his party to the surface below the catwalk. His forehead stung from where he’d torn away the flap of skin, and his right leg throbbed from the groin all the way to the toes he’d lost years earlier.
“Your timing couldn’t have been better,” he told Linc. “I think my fin broke surface and gave away our position.”
“Any more in here, boss?”
“Shere Singh took off the instant I pulled my gun, and if you capped the last two on the Toyo Maru, then that’s all I know about.”
“Let’s not wait for reinforcements, shall we?” Tory said.
“I’m with the missus.” Linc keyed his tactical radio. “Oregon, this is Assault One. I’ve got the chairman and the mermaid we pulled off the Avalon. We’re ready for extraction by Zodiac.”
“You have to wait. There’s still one more utility boat out here. We’re tracking it now with the eye in the sky, but we need a few minutes to try to destroy it.”
Cabrillo took Linc’s headset. “Negative, Oregon. Shere Singh could be escaping as we speak. We need him.”
“Okay, Juan. I’ll vector the Zodiac to your position.”
A moment later the Zodiac roared over to the spot where Linc had performed his roll-off and throttled down to a low burble. Juan abandoned the Draeger rebreather and followed Tory and Lincoln under the door. Linc’s SEALs easily plucked her from the water and helped Cabrillo and the team leader into the rubber-hulled craft. Juan wasn’t fully inside before Mike Trono opened the throttle gates and shot the nimble boat across the waves.
They came under immediate fire from men on the beach, their weapons winking in the darkness like angry fireflies. Trono twisted the boat away from shore and out toward the open bay where the Oregon was trying to find the final utility boat. The other three were flaming wreckage that would soon sink to the bottom of the harbor. The fourth had to be hiding amid the dozens of rusted hulks awaiting their turn in the shed or on the beach for dismantling.
Juan moved to the Zodiac’s bow to call directions to the helmsman as they entered the flotilla of derelict ships. He’d donned a pair of night vision goggles. The outboard reverberated between the decaying hulls as they threaded their way toward the Oregon. With this many vessels, it was like running full speed through a maze. Trono bobbed and weaved the Zodiac, following Juan’s hand signals, barreling past a supertanker that had to be a thousand feet long and between a pair of car ferries that still carried the livery of the English Channel company that ran them.
They rounded the bow of the ferry, and were angling for a gap between a partially sunken tugboat and another container ship when the last utility boat appeared from behind another ship. The Corporation team responded a second quicker and raked the utility boat from stem to stern with well-aimed fire.
The utility boat cut a tight arc in the water and took off after the Zodiac. With the tide changing, the bay was growing rougher. Both boats buffeted in the rising swells, making it impossible to engage with their weapons. In calm seas the Zodiac could more than outrun the heavily laden work boat, but the waves were acting as a great equalizer.
Every time Trono tried to break out of the forsaken armada, the utility boat was there to cut off their escape back to the Oregon.
The outboard coughed, dropping power for a moment before rehitting on all cylinders. Mike Trono felt around the big engine cowling and cursed when his fingers felt a bullet hole. They came away wet, and he sniffed at the liquid clinging to his skin.
“Juan, they got the gas tank,” he shouted over the engine noise. “I don’t know how much longer we can play cat and mouse.”
The utility boat had broken off pursuit, but the Zodiac was headed away from the Oregon and still boxed in by so many ships they couldn’t tell where Singh’s men would attack from next.
“Did they head back to shore?” Tory asked.
“I doubt it,” Juan replied just as the work boat leapt from behind a big commercial fisherman.
More gunfire stitched the seas around the Zodiac as Trono tried to squeeze
another half a knot out of the engine. He could smell oil burning inside the cowling. The bullet had done more than hole the gas tank. They zigzagged past the ferry boats again when something caught Cabrillo’s eye.
“Mike, take us back to that sunken tugboat. I have an idea.”
They raced across the bay toward the dark shape of the sunken ship. She’d settled awkwardly on some obstruction on the seafloor so that her bow was thrust out of the water and her back deck was awash. A broken crane dangling over her deck was nearly invisible in the moonlight.
Cabrillo concentrated on the course he wanted to take, ignoring all other distractions, including the fire coming from the utility boat. He had one shot to make this work. With his arms outstretched he called minute direction changes that the helmsman responded to instantly, feathering the hurtling Zodiac with a light touch.
“Okay, slow us down, draw them in.”
Everyone heard the crazy order, but no one questioned it. The Zodiac dutifully slowed, which allowed the utility boat to cut their separation to seventy feet. As if senseing the moment of victory, the utility boat’s driver hammered his throttles to their stops in hopes of running down their quarry.
Juan continued to feed course changes to Trono, guiding them so they would pass astern of the sunken ship. He looked over his shoulder to see the utility boat bearing down on them like a shark making its final lunge. Through his goggles’ enhanced optics he could even see the delight on the helmsman’s face as he prepared for the kill.
A few more seconds, Juan told himself, studying his target once again. A few more seconds. Now!
He dropped his left hand to order Mike to make a hard turn to port. The Zodiac was now racing for the gap under the tugboat’s broken crane. The larger utility boat was cranked over in pursuit, its driver never seeing he was being led into a trap.