by Jack Du Brul
Wong made a point to study his watch. “At eleven o’clock, Mr. Liu.”
Liu tried to disarm the man. He smiled. “I can see why General Yu chose you for this job, Captain. Your dedication is laudable.”
“It is, yes,” Wong said without expression. “We have almost an hour to wait. Join me in my cabin for tea.”
“Is that really necessary?” Liu wanted those rockets on the dock as soon as possible. With those in his hands, General Yu couldn’t claim ignorance of what was happening if something catastrophic really was happening at Pedro Miguel.
This time, a hint of merriment touched the dour captain’s eyes. “Of course it isn’t. We can wait right here until the appointed hour.”
Bowing slightly in the face of such obstinacy, Liu made a gesture for Wong to lead the way. They waited in silence for a steward to bring the service and pour the tea. Liu felt the double pressure of Wong’s stubbornness, which bordered on insubordination, and the dissecting glances that Mr. Sun shot his way, as if he knew something was amiss. Only Sergeant Huai, a veteran of countless battles and a master of patiently waiting between them, seemed immune to the tension. He drank the tea and kept his eyes from meeting anyone else’s without seeming obsequious or arrogant.
Liu’s cell phone cried from inside his coat pocket. Rather than draw even more attention by excusing himself, he took the call and made sure his responses were guarded. “Liu Yousheng.”
“Sir, it’s Cheng.”
“Yes, of course. How may I help you?”
“Sir, the pilot boat was destroyed. I think by rockets from Gemini Two, but I can’t be sure. Now the ship is turning back for the lock. I think they mean to go back down.”
“Well, that is interesting news,” Liu replied mildly while his stomach erupted so fiercely that acid seared the base of his tongue. He fought not to wince and covered the pain by shifting in his seat. “Anything else?”
Either Cheng caught on to the fact Liu couldn’t speak openly or was too frightened to notice. He continued his report despite his superior’s easy tone. “The ship is about to reenter the lock. The bottom gates are closed so maybe they mean to ram it.”
“Let them try.” Liu’s laugh was genuine, for he knew nothing short of a battleship at full speed could break through the two sets of massive gates.
“Sir!” Cheng shouted. “More explosions! It’s not coming from the Englander Rose. We’re under attack. Artillery of some kind. They’re targeting the doors.” There was a pause. Liu could hear detonations over the crackling cellular connection. “They’re gone. The doors are gone. The ship just raced by me going so fast I couldn’t see who was on the bridge. They’re on Miraflores Lake.”
Liu stood. He could no longer keep up a façade in front of Captain Wong. He nodded to the men and stepped from the cabin, moving far enough down the hallway so he couldn’t be overheard. His voice became an angry hiss. “What are you saying?”
“A barrage of some kind blew apart the lower lock doors. Water is pouring through and the Englander Rose went with it. It just passed a freighter on Miraflores and looks like it’s heading for the next set of locks.”
“Listen to me very carefully. That ship must not get off the lake. If you can stop it and get aboard I’ve got the code that will let you reset the timer on the explosives. We can still get the ship to the cut and finish what we started.”
“Yes, sir. I have a force at the Miraflores Locks and I can get the rest of my men down there before the ship reaches it. We’ll stop them.”
“Make sure you do, Cheng.” Liu put his phone away and stood looking at his feet, his face creased in thought. The dice were still rolling and a chance remained to effect their outcome.
A voice from behind snapped him from his reverie, a voice that wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Panama, let alone on the Korvald.
“It seems you’re having a problem.” General Yu stood near the first officer’s cabin, where he’d been listening. There was a smirk on his pug face, delighting in seeing the younger executive about to have his world torn away from him. “It appears that we gambled and you lost.”
Mercer dove into the bridge. “Incoming!” he shouted again.
The rocket, a Chinese version of the Russian man-portable RPG-7, was primarily an antitank weapon with a five-pound shaped warhead capable of penetrating up to a foot of armor. Although their accuracy beyond three hundred yards was poor, and only a lucky hit could possibly disable a ship the size of the Englander Rose, everyone knew the wheelhouse was the missile’s target and a hit would turn it into flaming ruins.
They had all been under fire before, Harry during World War II and the others much more recently, and all knew to keep their mouths open to protect their inner ears from the overpressure of an explosion. Foch radioed a warning to his men in the hold and ducked behind the sturdy console to await the hit.
The rocket-propelled grenade flew unerringly at the vessel, a smoking slash of light that cut across the distance in seconds. The shaped warhead hit in the juncture where the superstructure met the deck and blew a cone of fire deep into the ship, shredding bulkheads and deck plates and leaving a four-foot smoking crater. The bridge rumbled and a gust of hot smoke blew through the aft doorway. For a fraction of a second, the crew waited for the secondary explosion, for surely such a strike could detonate the tons of explosives in her hold.
But then logic took over as they realized that they would never feel such a massive blast.
Mercer’s ears rang and his voice sounded unnaturally loud when he called, “Everyone okay?”
“We’re fine this time,” Rene said and ordered the Legionnaires to determine the extent of the damage and battle any fires the explosion might have ignited.
“Harry?”
“I’m good.” The old man got to his feet and immediately checked the ship’s gauges, grunting his relief that everything appeared in order.
Mercer’s earpiece crackled. “Angel Two, this is Heaven. Sit rep?”
“We’re still here.”
“We can target the seawalls with a strike before blowing the gates. The drone reports concentrations of troops along both sides of the lock you’ll be going through.”
“Hold on, Heaven.” Mercer went back outside and studied the barrier through his binoculars. Amid the uniformed troops, he saw dozens of workers being used as human shields by the Chinese. It seemed every soldier had at least two workers with him, men held by fright, not loyalty. Mercer couldn’t order their deaths. “Negative, Heaven. There are too many civilians out there. Lay a barrage along the wall to keep the rocket launchers pinned, but don’t hit the structure. Do you copy?”
“Roger. Retargeting now.”
The seawall dividing the two sets of locks was much longer than the one at Pedro Miguel, extending past the topmost lock by several thousand feet. Mercer tried to remain calm as he watched a team of soldiers at its tip readying another RPG. The range was sufficiently close to guarantee a hit on the Rose’s bridge. Through the powerful binoculars he could see the brightness in the gunner’s eyes as he swung the tubelike weapon to his shoulder.
Mercer was about to shout another warning when the water just feet off the concrete wall exploded in what looked like a precisely timed series of charges. The VGAS cannon walked its shots from the end of the seawall all the way to the lock. Each round exploded an exact distance from its predecessor in a string of geysers like some sort of overwhelming fountain effect. Men dove for cover, fearing the next string would tear up the cement. Some leapt into the opposite lock, others cowered behind the mule engines and others just froze as they were showered with water.
“Okay,” Harry called from the wheel. “It’s time to blow the doors.”
The upper lock chamber was already flooded and its gates were open to the Rose while a ship was just being drawn into the lower one by the mules, although it appeared work had stopped.
“Heaven, Angel Two. It’s open-sesame time.”
“Coul
d you repeat that, please?”
“Hit the goddamned doors!”
With the upper chamber fully flooded and the lower one drained to the level of the Pacific Ocean, only the doors separating the two locks had to be hit to allow the Rose to pass through. Because they closed at shallow angles, the cathedral-like primary and safety doors looked like a flattened two-striped chevron when viewed from above.
Twenty seconds later, the area around them erupted. The shots were perfectly placed, penetrating the first layer of steel and exploding inside the hollow gates. The following rounds worked at the hinge points, tearing them from their concrete redoubts. After a dozen hits, the safety doors failed and the twenty feet of water between them and the main doors rushed into the lower chamber, rocking the freighter held fast by the mules.
A savvy worker in the centrally placed control center slammed levers to try to close the upper gates in order to prevent a catastrophic flood like the one gushing through Pedro Miguel. He couldn’t chance ruining the mechanism by trying to close them against such a deluge, but they would hold if he could get them secure before the cannon destroyed the second doors and the chamber opened to the sea.
The VGAS continued its deadly work, six-inch shells raining down in a steady tattoo after their thirty-mile flight. The second door protecting the lower lock absorbed shot after shot. It had been holed several times, and water spurted in high-pressure jets that doused the trapped freighter below.
The canal employee in the control room realized he’d never beat the gun and reversed the upper doors in order to protect them, hoping that they could be deployed later under safer conditions.
At full speed, the Englander Rose couldn’t beat the gun either.
The ship’s bow had just entered the chamber, and was still one thousand feet from the doors, when two well-placed shots hit the lower hinges. The release was like a tsunami, a solid surge that deformed the doors into misshapen slabs before wrenching them free. The tidal wave slammed the freighter waiting below, raising it up and pushing it back. The four locomotives still attached by their tow lines didn’t stand a chance against such a titanic force. The drivers had leapt clear, but like toys, the engines were plucked from the tracks. All four were dumped into the boiling wash and dragged with the ship before the towing hawsers snapped. Caught like leaves in a liquid whirlwind, the electric locomotives continued to tumble along the rocky bottom.
The freighter’s captain put the rudder hard over to angle his ship out of the maelstrom, narrowly missing another vessel waiting to ascend the adjacent set of locks.
The way was clear for the Englander Rose, and like a log poised at the top of a flume, she shot forward.
The tired old ship accelerated as water went draining through the open locks in a maddened rush. As she shot into the middle of the lock, the level had drained enough for alert soldiers on the seawall to open fire almost directly into the bridge. What little glass remained was quickly shot away and bullets whipped around the wheelhouse in swarms.
Mercer unleashed a quick burst from his M-16 before remembering the human shields the Chinese were using. He held his fire as they ran the gauntlet.
Only Harry remained on his feet, concentrating solely on keeping his ship steady as she hurtled toward the shattered remains of the doors and the first great plunge from one basin to the next. He seemed oblivious to the deadly fire raking the bridge, his lips working as he drew each breath through a cigarette.
Soldiers continued to pour rounds at the ship as it raced past their positions, and Mercer almost regretted not allowing the USS McCampbell to clear their way first. A rocket was launched, but the shooter failed to lead his target. The errant missile streaked across the channel and blew apart a machine shop on the bank.
The water pouring over the boundary between the two lock chambers was barely deep enough to float the Englander Rose. Her bottom scraped the concrete threshold as she went through, a rending tear that produced a sound like a scream. She seemed to pause for a moment before the torrent overcame her again and she plunged down to the second chamber. Her bow was driven deep and spray blew into the air as if she were battling a heavy sea. Her keel hit the floor of the basin, a ringing collision that shook the entire vessel. She slowly righted herself, rushing along the chamber as though through a canyon whose concrete walls loomed higher than her wing bridges. The noise of so much turgid water was a sustained tornado-like shriek.
It was a feat that Harry had been able to keep the ship from nosing into the remnants of the doors so he didn’t feel too bad when her flank scraped the concrete as she plowed into the second chamber.
He eased the wheel over, giving just a touch of rudder. Because the flood bore her along, his adjustment had no effect. The water was carrying the Rose where it wanted. She scraped again in a continuous metallic squeal that set teeth on edge.
And then the Englander Rose was free. She shot past the end of the second lock and the flood surge spread and slowed as it met the brackish water that stretched the last few miles to the Bay of Panama. She’d survived the wildest ride a ship had ever taken, a journey that would have taxed a white-water raft to its very limits.
A normal passage through the Miraflores Locks took thirty minutes. They’d done it in less than thirty seconds. Bruneseau and Foch whooped while Lauren screamed in delight and threw her arms around Mercer’s neck. Their mouths met.
“Oh, that’s just freaking great!” Harry shouted at the couple. “I do all the heroic stuff and Mercer ends up kissing the girl. I am not happy about this. Not happy at all.”
Lauren released Mercer, crossed to Harry, and brushed her lips against his bristled cheek. “Better?”
He grinned lecherously. “How about some tongue?”
“Even Mercer hasn’t gotten that—” she looked over at him “—yet.”
The ship’s buoyancy had changed when she hit the salty, less-dense water. She should have become lighter and easier to control, but as Harry worked the wheel to avoid the drifting freighter to starboard, he noted the ship was sluggish. Dangerously sluggish.
“We’re taking on water,” he said, his pronouncement ending the celebration around him.
Mercer snapped a look at Foch. The Frenchman called Munz and Rabidoux.
“We know,” Rabidoux answered. “We can hear water rushing into the spaces below the hold.”
“Can you tell how fast?”
“Fast enough. When the ship tipped forward and her bow hit, it sounded like we were inside a bell that had just cracked.”
“What’s the status on the timing device?”
“We couldn’t bypass the security code pad so we’re taking off the entire cover. We just backed off the last of the screws securing it to the device. These aren’t ideal working conditions and every one of the screws was booby-trapped to prevent tampering. Someone didn’t want the crew disarming it once it had been set. I think that’s why they just let it sit out like it is. The crew must have known that tampering with it would detonate the bombs.”
“How much time is left?”
“Ah, twelve minutes nine seconds. From the sound of the flooding in the bilge, I don’t think it’ll matter.”
Foch addressed Harry and Mercer. “Twelve minutes remain. Rabidoux thinks the ship will sink before he can deactivate the timer.”
Mercer nodded. “Will that prevent the explosives from going off or will it short out and set them off prematurely?”
The Legion commander made a balancing gesture with his hands as if to say it was fifty-fifty.
Mercer looked at Lauren. Her face shone with the adrenaline rush of their ride through the locks and her smile touched deep inside his soul. He knew they would never be able to explore their growing feelings for each other. If they evacuated now, there was no hope of getting far enough away to avoid the worst of the blast. They were all as good as dead.
They’d saved most of the canal by wrecking part of it, and saved countless lives by moving the ship into a relativel
y deserted area. It was the best any of them could hope for.
The left bank of the canal was overgrown jungle interspersed with a few ramshackle houses. Around a curve up ahead lay the town of Balboa and the sprawling Hatcherly container port nestled in the shadow of Quarry Heights. Here was as good a place as any to stop the ship and let her blow. Collateral damage would be minimal once they moved a little farther from the locks.
“Tell Munz if he wants to knock off he and Rabidoux can come up to the bridge,” Mercer said slowly. “Harry, take us up to where that open field runs down to the canal. Doesn’t look like anyone lives close by. If anyone wants, I guess now would be a good time to abandon ship. Maybe you can make it.”
As he suspected there were no takers. They knew the odds. They’d lived together, fought together, and now they would die together.
To cover his surprise, Liu Yousheng snapped to attention. “General Yu. What brings—?”
“Shut up, Liu,” the general snapped. “Captain Wong, get out here, please.” Wong emerged from his cabin with Sergeant Huai and Mr. Sun. “Captain, get to the bridge and make ready to leave port. Inform the dockworkers that the rocket-launcher trucks should be brought aboard immediately. I fear that Liu’s operation hasn’t gone as planned.”
“Yes, sir.” Wong skirted past Liu in the cramped passageway.
Yu continued to address Liu. “You aren’t the only one receiving reports from the locks. I already know about the Englander Rose being hijacked. I assume by the same commandos who rescued Philip Mercer from the mine, attacked your installation near the River of Ruin, and a number of other acts that you assured me were merely annoyances.”
Yu’s anger suddenly exploded. “Your arrogance led to this disaster. You’ve reached far beyond your limits and now you are about to fall.”
Liu swallowed. “We can still recover. We can get the second ship back into the Gaillard Cut. I have men—”