“Check the area closest to the fighting. If Eddie’s in any kind of shape, that’s where he’ll be.”
“Good thinking. Hali?”
“I heard,” the Corporation’s comm officer said. “Shifting focus now.”
Cabrillo and his people reached a level strip of land several hundred yards above the beach. Further toward the center of the site was an area that had been heavily dug up. Water cannons for blasting the tough soil lay abandoned, their nozzles pointed skyward. The ground was littered with shovels and buckets. All the workers had fled, and their guards had gone down to join the fight.
They approached the workings cautiously, weapons held at the ready, eyes never settling on one spot for more than a second.
An explosion echoed up from below, a grenade blast behind the barge that momentarily drew their attention. The black-clad body of one of Savich’s men pinwheeled in a lazy arc before falling to the beach in a broken-limbed heap. At the same second came the chatter of an AK-47 firing at point-blank range.
Cabrillo dropped flat as clods of mud were thrown up all around him. He stitched the area around one of the water cannons in a reflex shot that emptied half a magazine. It was poor fire discipline but it forced the attacker to dodge for cover, and his gun fell silent.
Linc had a better bead. He fired a three-round burst that sent the Indonesian pitching backward into a coffee-colored retention pond. His body vanished under the surface while his blood stained the water. The team found cover behind an earthen berm as more Indonesians appeared out of nowhere. The sheer volume of gunfire made the air ripple.
“We don’t have time for this,” Linda Ross shouted over the din, changing out her magazine.
Juan looked down the hill. The assault boat was getting into position, and they would need the cover fire from the Oregon’s Gatling gun, but he couldn’t afford to remain pinned down. The oldest adage of warfare, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, had never felt more true.
He called the boat over his throat microphone. “Mike, can you hear me?” When there was no reply, he called again. The boat was still moving at fifty knots, enveloped in a cocoon of engine noise that made communications impossible.
He cursed and called up Mark Murphy. “Murph, we need you. There’s about fifty bandits above us. We’re pinned.”
“Mike’s about to hit the tug,” Murphy pointed out.
“And the longer you question me, the closer he’s getting.”
“Roger that,” he replied, then muttered under his breath, “Sorry, Mike.”
As soon as the last of the assault team jumped over the gunwales, Mike Trono reversed engines and drew the boat off the beach, maneuvering backward until he had the sea room to spin around.
He pulled down his headset to talk to Tory as the boat built speed. “Can I ask you something, ma’am?”
“Only if you promise to never call me ma’am again.”
“Sorry.” Trono grinned. “Force of habit.”
“What’s your question?”
“Do you know how to operate a boat?”
“I work for Lloyd’s of London. My entire life revolves around boats. I’m a licensed captain on anything up to twenty thousand tons, which includes your Oregon before you turned it into something out of Star Wars.”
“So this assault craft?” He stamped the deck.
“Seems to handle as well as the Riva speedboat I rented on my last holiday in Spain. Why the inquiry?”
“Because we have a little job to do, and I need you to man the helm while Pulaski and I take care of it.”
“I assume it has to do with that piece of steel that was loaded before we left your ship?”
“Captain’s orders. He thinks we can salvage a bit more than a bunch of immigrants from this nightmare.”
A smile lit Tory’s eyes, and her cheeks blushed more than what the wind caused. “Why am I not surprised?”
They had shot across the bay, circling behind the Oregon again for cover, and now were headed for the tugboat. One of the trawlers was drifting away from the tug’s flank, while the other remained tightly lashed. There were men scrambling all over the decks. Most were pirates, but a few were crewmen desperately trying to defend their ship. Some of the pirates had added another level to their butchery by switching to machetes to dispatch the last of the crew.
The timing was critical, but with Murph watching their back over the Gatling’s sights, the assault boat charged into the battle. They were twenty yards out when Mike remembered he’d taken off his headset. As soon as he settled it over his ears, he heard the shrieking scream of the six-barreled Gatling gun, and he goosed the throttles a little more.
The expected destruction as the 20mm shells ripped apart the pirates’ boats and cleared the tug’s deck never came. Instead, pirates began shooting at the lightly protected assault boat from over the tug’s railing. The boat ran into a steam of gunfire. Rounds from their AK-47s punctured the inflatable curtain ringing the craft, raked the deck, and ricocheted off the outboards, miraculously missing everyone. Trono tried to wrench the wheel to get away from the tug as fast as possible, screaming to Mark Murphy to find out what went wrong.
The ground between Cabrillo and the Indonesians exploded, churned up by five hundred depleted uranium bullets. A four-foot-thick layer of earth was stripped away by the onslaught, exposing the gunmen where they’d been hiding behind the rim of the pond. Those that weren’t hit directly were torn apart by flying rocks. The entire group was blown into an oblivion of bloody mist and debris.
Linc took point to check for survivors, and while his search was thorough, he also knew it was unnecessary. Nothing could have survived that.
“We’re clear.”
Juan drew his people together. “From here on out our element of surprise is blown, but we’ll stick to the plan, flank the fighting down below, and try to find Eddie. I only hope he’s built a level of trust with some of the other Chinese because if we’re going to save any of them, we’re going to need him.”
They started off down the slope.
Eddie Seng had remained hidden, watching to see how the fighters would react to the Oregon steaming into the bay. As he’d expected, the Russians ignored the distraction and continued to fight with skill and discipline. They had made a sizable dent in the number of Indonesians, but the sheer numbers were becoming overwhelming. Of the dozen who’d been caught in the initial ambush, four were dead and three were wounded, although they could still defend their position. The tide of Indonesians continued to hammer at the hillock the Russians had taken as a crude fort. The outcome of the gun battle was inevitable, and the Russians knew it. They weren’t fighting for their lives anymore. This was now all about dying with honor.
Something caught Eddie’s attention on the far side of the processing building. The range was extreme, but he thought he saw Jan Paulus emerge from the dormitory ship. It was Paulus, and he was starting to climb up to the helipad where Anton Savich’s helicopter sat idle. He was with another man, and by the way they walked it appeared that Paulus was holding a pistol to his head. It was most likely he had taken the contract pilot hostage to fly him out. There was no sign of Anton Savich, and Eddie wondered if the South African had already killed him.
Pursuing the mine overseer was a tactical mistake, but the flame of rage that ignited in Eddie’s chest blocked out any chance of rationality. The weeks of pain, starvation, and deprivation had exacted a toll on his soul that would take a long time to heal. Killing the sadistic miner would at least start him on the journey. He’d already told Tang to gather as many of the other workers as he could and head for the newly grounded cruise ship. Of any of the vessels littering the forlorn beach, it had the best chance of surviving the eruption if Juan didn’t think of a way out of this mess.
His body was in no condition to chase Paulus, and yet when he started after the man, Eddie’s legs felt as powerful as coiled springs and his lungs pumped air like a blacksmith’s bellows. He fe
lt alive for the first time since turning over his life to the snakeheads back in Lantan village. If any of the fighters noticed him as he dashed around rusted shipping containers and other equipment left lying about, they quickly dismissed him as just an anonymous worker trying to save himself. He’d hidden the AK-47 under the loose shirt he’d scavenged from a dead guard.
Once he was beyond the worst of the fighting he stumbled across the motor launch that had been used to transfer the gold out to the tug. It was in a secluded bay well sheltered from the rest of the beach by massive boulders, and as he stepped into the open, eight pirates who had been making ready to launch the craft looked up in unison. They should have ignored him like the others, but one went for his gun. Eddie dashed to his left as a stream of bullets chiseled at the boulder near his shoulder. He unlimbered his AK, waited for the firing to stop, and stepped back around the corner.
The gunman had turned to laugh with his comrades at the sport of it all. The first three-round burst sent his lifeless corpse sprawling into the startled arms of his friend. The second blew that man to the ground. Eddie killed one more before they got organized and made to fire back. He ducked out of the way again, quickly slinging his rifle, and began to climb the slick side of the boulder.
It was only eight feet tall, but Eddie barely had the strength to make it. His arms quivered at the strain of lifting his own diminished body weight, and the AK-47 felt like a hundred-pound rucksack. The boat’s motor roared to life just as he reached the summit. He slithered over the rounded top of the boulder, trying to bring his weapon to bear. The engine’s beat changed as the prop dug into the surf.
One of the pirates must have guessed his intentions, because chips of rock were suddenly blown from the boulder as at least four guns opened up from below. Eddie clamped his hands over his head as stinging chips of stone struck his skin like he’d fallen into a wasps’ nest. They maintained their fire until the boat was so far away that they couldn’t keep the boulder steady in their sights.
Eddie chanced looking up. The pirates were headed for the tug where a SEAL assault boat from the Oregon was coming under heavy fire from gunmen aboard the large vessel. Whatever plan Juan had devised had seriously come part. There were only a couple of people on the assault boat. They needed cover fire from the Oregon if they were going to attack the tug, and yet the Gatling remained silent.
Then the multibarreled machine gun opened up. A ten-foot tongue of flame jetted from the weapons bay, and a section of hill where there were a bunch of retention ponds high above the beach vanished in a hammering volley that sent dirt flying thirty feet or more into the air.
Unable to warn the assault boat about the approaching tender, Eddie slithered down the boulder and took off again after Jan Paulus.
Firing with one hand while the other worked the wheel, Mike Trono added to the gunfire pouring off the assault boat as they countered the pirates’ initial barrage. Tory was hunkered low on the floorboards, firing precisely aimed shots at the pirates lining the tug’s rail. She had the accuracy of an Olympic marksman and the patience of a sniper.
The weapon felt perfectly balanced in her hands as she squeezed the trigger for a fifth time. Her target had ducked behind the railing’s metal plating, but the shot would keep his head down for a few critical seconds. Another gore-spattered gunman raised himself suddenly, hosing the sea with his AK-47 before homing in on the fleeing boat. Tory aimed carefully, her body anticipating the wave action, and she pulled the trigger. The light bullet sparked off the railing just in front of the Indonesian and ricocheted into his chest just below the sternum, lifting him high off his feet.
“Hold on!” Trono shouted. “We’re going back in. Cease fire.”
He twisted the wheel once again and set the boat on a collision course with the squat tugboat. Because they weren’t being fired on, many of the pirates stood up to draw a bead on the craft.
“Showtime,” Murph said over Trono’s radio.
The Oregon’s weapons officer shifted the Gatling from the hill and sent a few seconds’ burst into the drifting trawler. The boat was ripped to pieces in a hail of wood splinters and shredded netting. The pilothouse disintegrated. Seabirds gorging themselves on offal left to slop on the deck took flight as their world came apart. Then the stream of bullets penetrated the engine room, tearing the big diesel from its mount before puncturing the fuel tank. The resulting explosion sent a greasy fireball climbing into the sky, and the seas were raked with shrapnel.
What little remained of the trawler sank instantly, snuffing out the flames in a gout of steam.
The destruction on the tug was less dramatic when Murph pivoted the Gatling gun and gave the trigger another squirt. As though caught by a broadside of grape shot, the pirates were scythed down by the fusillade. A hundred ragged holes appeared in the big shipping containers lashed to the deck, and glass from the aft-facing secondary bridge, used by the crew to check their charges under tow, fell in a glittering cascade that further mutilated the corpses. Murph hosed the deck with autofire, making certain that no one was left alive.
“That should hold ’em,” Murph whooped.
Mike Trono danced the assault boat up to the lowest section of railing and turned the controls over to Tory. “Just hold it here. We won’t be a minute.”
“Why are you doing this, anyway?” she asked, standing aside while Pulaski and Trono manhandled the heavy steel girder onto the tug’s low deck.
He handed her his tactical radio and gave her a wolfish smile. “Chairman thinks there’s booty aboard, and not the kind a Hollywood hottie’s packing.”
The men levered themselves onto the deck. Hard years of training forced them to visually check to make sure no one had survived. It was a gruesome task, something out of a horror movie, because the Gatling had minced the bodies into what Trono could only describe as a sort of chunky paste. Leaving the assault boat burbling along the tug’s flank, they hoisted the beam onto their shoulders and waded through the carnage toward one of the containers.
Trono pulled his Glock and shot the lock off one of them while Pulaski maneuvered the beam so they could drag it up to the top. The hinges screamed as Trono swung open one of the doors and just as quickly closed it again. Pulaski shot him a questioning look.
“Chairman’s right again.”
“Gold?”
“Gold.”
He hoisted himself up the container with a boost from his partner, and together they levered the two-hundred-pound beam to the top. Trono looked up as they began to thread the lengths of chain through the lifting hardpoints. A small runabout was racing out from shore, hidden from Murph’s vantage by the bulk of the tugboat. He counted a half dozen armed men bobbing in the craft as it crashed through the surf line and into smoother water.
“We got trouble.”
Pulaski looked over his shoulder. “Damn!”
The boat would reach them in seconds, not the minutes they needed to secure the beam to the container, but they weren’t about to abandon their prize. Mike shouted down to Tory, “We’ve got company. Bunch of goons in an open tender. Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
“We’re not being heroic. We need you to draw them out so Murph can hose ’em with the Gatling.”
Tory understood and slammed the throttles to their stops. The assault boat shot away from the tug, turning sharply so she passed behind the ship. She’d forgotten about the thick tow cables still securing the tug to the barge on shore. With no time to maneuver she shot under the first cable, ducking as the thick steel tore the standing cockpit from its mounts. Had her reactions been an instant slower, the hawser would have decapitated her.
The boat flashed under the second cable, angling to cut off the approaching tender. She was going so fast that the men on the boat could only stare as she bashed her boat into theirs. One of the men tumbled over the tender’s side, and by the time any of them thought to reach for their guns, Tory was twenty yards away
and accelerating like a greyhound.
She slalomed the assault boat as the men began firing on her. She was exhilarated by the adrenaline pumping through her veins. “I know, I know, bloody women drivers. Hit you then try to run away. How about you come and catch me, and we’ll exchange license and insurance information.”
She looked back to see if they’d taken the bait but was horrified to see they were intent on reaching the tug. She whipped Trono’s radio set over her head. “This is Tory. I’m with Trono and Pulaski on the assault boat.”
“Tory. It’s Max Hanley. What’s the problem?”
“There are six terrorists in a small boat about to reach the tug. Your guys are trapped on board with only pistols. They haven’t a chance.”
“Where are you?” Max asked in a reassuring tone to calm her down.
“On your SEAL boat. Mike wanted me to draw them away, but they weren’t having any of it.”
“Okay, just you hold on for a second. Pulaski? Trono? You there?”
The reply came in a faint whisper. “Max, it’s Ski. We’re on top of one of the shipping containers. The pirates just came aboard.”
“Do you think they know you’re there?”
“Negative. Mike grabbed a tarp just before they got here. Unless they check the top of the container, we’re hidden. And it doesn’t appear they’re searching the ship.”
“What are they doing?”
“It looks like they want to release the tow cables and get out of Dodge. What do you want us to do?”
“Help them,” Juan Cabrillo said over the open comm channel.
“What?” Max and Ski said in unison.
“I said help them. Ski, you and Mike hang tight. Max, I want you to cut the tow cables.” Juan’s radio carried the sound of the gunfight raging on the beach — the sharp crack of rifle fire, the staccato bursts from AK-47s, and the agonized screams of the wounded.
“I can do it with the Gatling,” Mark Murphy chimed in. “A direct hit on the big cable drums on the tug’s stern should do it.”
Dark Watch of-3 Page 34