They strode past countless cabin doors until reaching the operations center at the heart of the freighter. It was as high-tech as NASA’s mission control, with computer work stations and a wall dominated by an enormous flat panel display currently showing the chaotic scene along the pier. Mark Murphy and Eric Stone sat at the forward work stations directly below the wall monitor while Hali Kasim, the ship’s chief communications specialist, was to the right. Along the back wall stood a pair of damage controllers monitoring the ship’s integrated safety systems and a bank of computers where Max Hanley could watch over the Oregon’s revolutionary magnetohydrodynamic engines.
It was no mistake that the op center had the feel of the bridge of television’s starship Enterprise, right down to the large seat set in the middle of the room. Juan sat in what the crew called “The Kirk Chair,” looped a pin microphone over his ear, and adjusted his own small computer display.
“I’ve got a pair of inbounds,” Hali said, his dark features made a ghastly green by his radar scope. “They must have been flying nap of the earth, suggesting choppers. ETA four minutes.”
“There are no known reports that Makambo has helicopters,” Mark Murphy said, turning to the chairman. “But Hali just got a bulletin about a pair of choppers stolen from an oil exploration company. Details are sketchy but it reads like the company’s pilots were hijacked.”
Juan nodded, not sure what to make of this development.
“I’ve got movement behind us,” Eric Stone called out. He’d switched his personal view screen to show the view from a stern-mounted camera.
A pair of patrol boats had rounded a bend in the river. Lights atop their pilothouses made it difficult to tell how they were armed, but Mark Murphy at the weapons station called up a database of Congolese military craft.
“They’re American-built Swift boats.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max said. He’d served aboard Swift boats for two tours in Vietnam.
Murph continued as if Hanley hadn’t spoken. “Displaces twelve tons, has a crew of twelve, and comes armed with six fifty-caliber machine guns. Top speed is twenty-five knots. Note here says that Congo’s riverine forces have also added mortars and they might be carrying shoulder-fired missiles.”
With the situation worsening by the second, Cabrillo made his decisions. “Hali, get me Benjamin Isaka.” Isaka was their contact in the government. “Tell him that elements of his military might have found out about our mission and don’t realize we’re on their side. Or that two of his Swift boats have been taken by Makambo’s men. Eric, get us the hell out of here. Murph, keep an eye on, well, everything, but do not fire without my say-so. If we give away our capabilities, Abala’s going to know he’s being set up and will leave the guns where they are. Speaking of that. Hali?”
Hali Kasim pushed a shock of curly black hair off his forehead and typed some keystrokes into his computer. “RDF tags are activated and broadcasting five-by-five.”
“Excellent.” Cabrillo spun in his chair to look at Max Hanley. “How about it, old boy?”
“You know we’re only on battery backup,” Max Hanley told him. “I can’t give you more than twenty knots.”
The Oregon had the most sophisticated marine propulsion system ever built. Her magnetohydrodynamic engines used superconductive coils cooled by liquid helium to strip free electrons from seawater. The electricity was then used to power four massive pump jets through two vector nozzles at the ship’s stern. The engines could move the eleven-thousand-ton ship at speeds approaching that of an offshore race boat, and since she used seawater for fuel she possessed an infinite range. Because of a fire two years earlier on a cruise ship powered by magnetohydrodynamics, most of the world’s maritime safety boards had banned their use until they could be further tested, which was why the Oregon flew the flag of Iran on her jack staff, a nation with a decidedly cavalier attitude toward maritime law.
Tied to a dock eighty miles up the Congo River from the Atlantic Ocean, the Oregon was surrounded by freshwater and thus couldn’t power up her engines. She had to rely on energy stored in ranks of silver-zinc deep cycle batteries to force water through her pump jets.
Having worked so closely with the navel architects and engineers when the ship was converted from a conventional lumber carrier, Cabrillo knew that even with the current running in their favor the batteries wouldn’t last more than sixty miles at full speed, twenty miles short of where the river discharged into the sea.
“Mr. Stone, what are the tidal conditions going to be in about three hours?” Cabrillo asked his helmsman.
“Mean high tide is in two hours thirty minutes,” Eric Stone replied without having to access the database. As part of his job he kept track of tidal charts and weather forecasts five days out with the diligence of an accountant chasing a penny across a spreadsheet.
“This is going to be close,” Juan said to no one in particular. “Okay, Eric let’s get out of here before Abala’s men launch their assault.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
With a deft hand, Eric Stone ramped up the pulse jets. Without the whine of the cryopumps and ancillary equipment for the magnetohydrodynamic engines, the sound of water being forced through the tubes was a deep rumble that reverberated through the entire vessel. He dialed up the bow and stern thrusters and the massive ship moved laterally away from the dock at the same time she started straining against her mooring hawsers.
Sensing their quarry was about to escape, the rebels lining the quay opened fire with long sustained bursts from their automatic weapons. Bullets raked the ship from stem to stern. Windows lining the bridge exploded under the onslaught and portholes winked out in cascades of glass. Sparks flew from the Oregon’s hull as hundreds of rounds were deflected by her armored belts. While it was a spectacular sight, the rebels did nothing but mar paint and destroy a few pieces of easily replaceable glass.
From astern, the approaching patrol boats added the pounding rhythm of their fifty calibers. In order to reach the rendezvous, the Oregon rode high in the water, the special ballast tanks running along her flanks used to simulate her carrying a load of goods pumped dry. This afforded the gunners racing down the river a clear view of her rudder. They concentrated their fire on the rudder post, hoping to dislodge it from the steering gear and render the big ship helpless to the whims of the current. On a normal vessel their strategy was sound; the Oregon’s rudder could turn the ship when necessary, like in a port under the watchful eye of harbor officials, but she got most of her maneuverability from the vectored nuzzles of her drive tubes, which were well protected below the waterline.
Eric Stone ignored the distraction of the assault, instead watching the iron bollards bolted to the dock through his closed-circuit television. The hawsers pulled taut as the ship edged further from the dock. A pair of enterprising terrorists rushed for the stern line and started scrambling up like rats, weapons slung over their shoulders. Stone gunned the stern thruster. With the sound of tearing rotted wood, the mushroom-shaped bollard was yanked out of the dock like a festering tooth. Its tremendous weight made it pendulum against the Oregon’s side with a clang like an enormous bell.
One rebel fell immediately, and was sucked into the blades of the stern thruster when Eric reversed power to correct the ship’s course. All that emerged from the other side of the ship was a dark stain that tinged the waters red before fading in the current. The other gunman managed to cling to the rope as automatic capstans reeled it up. When he reached the hawsehole he tried to scramble on board the ship only to be greeted by Eddie Seng and Franklin Lincoln, who’d watched his boarding attempt from tactical view screens attached to their combat vests.
Eddie had come to the Corporation after premature retirement from the CIA, and while he didn’t have the combat experience of Linc’s SEAL career, he more than made up for it in single-minded determination. This was why Juan had made him chief of shore operations, the head of the gun dogs, as Max called their cadre of e
x-SEALs, Force Recon, and Special Forces operators.
The rebel’s eyes went wide when he tried to heave himself to the deck. Linc regarded him over the sites of a Franchi SPAS-12 combat shotgun while Eddie jammed the barrel of a Glock to the soldier’s temple.
“Choice is yours, my friend,” Eddie said mildly.
The terrorist let his fingers go lax and plummeted into the frothing water below.
Back in the op center, Eric watched the second bollard. Despite the tons of force, it refused to pull free from the dock. Instead, large tears appeared in the wood as the underlining timbers were wrenched from their positions. A fifteen-foot section of the quay was torn away, tossing three more soldiers into the water and causing a much larger section of the dock to sway precariously.
“We’re free,” he announced.
“Very good,” Juan replied, checking his tactical display. The choppers were two minutes away and closing at over a hundred miles per hour. He imagined that the stolen oil company helicopters would be large and state of the art. With the weapons arrays secreted around his ship, Cabrillo knew they could gun down every soldier still on the dock, knock both helos out of the sky, and turn the pursuing patrol boats into so much flotsam—but that wasn’t the point of the mission they’d been hired to perform. “Bring us up to twenty knots.”
“Twenty knots, aye.”
The big freighter accelerated smoothly, the extra drag of the water finally tearing away the section of dock still attached to the bollard. Soon the autofire from shore stopped, but the two patrol boats continued to pound the Oregon with steady streams of fifty-caliber rounds.
“RPG launch,” Mark Murphy called out sharply.
Abala’s men must have had vehicles hidden in the jungle, which were now pacing the Oregon as she fled down the Congo. The small missile arched out of the underbrush, raced across the water, and slammed into the bow. The ship’s armor protected the interior spaces but the explosion was deafening as the fireball rolled across the deck. Almost immediately another RPG came out of a tube held by a gunner on one of the Swift boats. This missile came on from a low angle, passing close enough to the stern rail to scorch paint and hit the ship’s funnel square on. Armored to protect the Oregon’s sophisticated radar dome hidden inside, the grenade still detonated with enough force to knock out the system.
“I’m on it,” Hali shouted as soon as his screen went blank. He ran from the op center as fire control teams and electronics specialists were automatically dispatched by the onboard computer.
Linda Ross, an elfin woman with freckles and a high, almost girlish voice took over his work station seamlessly. “Choppers are a minute out, Chairman, and the last image from the radar showed traffic ahead coming upriver.”
Juan called up higher resolution on the forward-facing cameras. The river was as black as oil, hemmed in with hills made silver by the moonlight. Just emerging from around a bend was a big river ferry. She had three decks and a blunt bow, but what caught the crew’s attention was the image from the infrared cameras. Her topmost deck was a sea of humanity, and it looked like every other deck was equally full of passengers headed inland toward the port of Matadi.
“God, there must be five hundred people on her,” Eric said.
“And I bet she’s rated for no more than two hundred,” Cabrillo replied. “Take her down our port side. I want the Oregon between the RPGs and that tub.”
Stone edged his controls and took note of the fathometer. The riverbed was rising rapidly. “Chairman, we’ve got less than twenty feet under our keel. Eighteen. Fifteen. Ten feet, sir.”
“Hold us steady,” Juan said as a hail of fresh gunfire erupted from the jungle, AK-47s and a string of RPGs launched as fast as a Roman candle.
Explosions rocked the freighter as she raced toward the lumbering ferry, the sky lighting up with each hit. One of the missiles went errant and for a horrified moment looked like it was going to hit the ferry broadside, but at the last second its motor kicked out and it detonated just shy of her hull, drenching the passengers who were frantically rushing around in a hopeless bid to stay out of the line of fire.
“Max, give me everything you’ve got,” Juan said angrily, sickened by the callousness of Abala’s troops. “We’ve got to protect those people.”
Max Hanley released the safeties from the battery circuits and eked a few more amps out of them and into the pump jets. The Oregon gained another three knots but it would cost them more miles of range, miles they couldn’t afford to lose.
The ferry veered toward the middle of the river, giving the Oregon just enough room to pass without grounding. Moments later, the Swift boats split around the oncoming vessel, cutting frothing arcs of water across the river. A motorized skiff that had been riding in the ferry’s wake emerged in the confusion, and one of the Swift boats rammed it under the waves, crushing its wooden hull and two occupants without a check in speed.
Juan watched Eric at the controls. Maneuvering such a large vessel in the tight confines of the river was bad enough, but dodging traffic while being shot at was something young Stone had never faced before. Juan had full confidence in his helmsman but in the back of his mind he knew he could override Eric’s work station and take the helm himself.
A voice sounded over Cabrillo’s headset. “Chairman, it’s Eddie. I have visual on those two choppers. Can’t tell the make but they look big enough to carry at least ten men. Now might be the time to splash them.”
“Negative. The pilots are civilians for one thing, kidnapped by Makambo’s rebels and forced to fly for them. And secondly, we can’t let them know our capabilities. We went over this before coming upriver. We’ll take a pounding, but the old girl will get us home. Just be prepared if they try to drop men onto the deck.”
“We’re ready.”
“Then God help ’em.”
For an hour they raced down the Congo, dogged by the Swift boats and taking occasional fire from shore where the road came close enough to the river for the rebels to set up an ambush. The choppers continued to hover over the Oregon without attempting to land or off-load troops. Juan assumed they wanted to board the ship once she’d been forced aground by the RPGs.
They cruised under the Inga Dam, a massive concrete abutment holding back a tributary of the Congo River. The dam and its twin were the main sources of electricity in this part of Africa. The ship encountered rough water where the two flows met, forcing Eric to reverse thrust on the pulse jets to keep the Oregon from turning broadside to the current.
“Chairman, I have Benjamin Isaka on the line,” Linda Ross said. “Transferring him to your station.”
“Deputy Minister Isaka, Captain Cabrillo here. I assume you’ve been apprised of our situation?”
“Yes, Captain. Colonel Abala wants his diamonds back.” The deputy defense minister’s accent was almost too thick for Juan to understand. “And he has stolen two of our river patrol boats. I have a report that ten of our men are dead on the dock in Matadi where the boats were stationed.”
“He also has two helicopters from an oil company.”
“I see,” Isaka said noncommittally.
“We could use a little help.”
“Our mutual friend at Langley who recommended you said you are more than capable of taking care of yourselves.”
Juan wanted to scream at the government official. “Mr. Isaka, if I take out Abala’s forces he’s going to be very suspicious about the weapons he just bought. The radio direction tags embedded in them are well hidden but not undetectable. The whole plan was for him to take the guns back to Makambo’s jungle headquarters, giving your military its location once and for all. You can end the insurrection in a couple of days, but not if Abala leaves the weapons on the dock back at the plantation.” It was the third or fourth time he’d outlined his logic to Isaka since Langston Overholt at the CIA okayed Juan to undertake the mission.
The first part of Isaka’s reply was muffled by the sound of mortar fire coming from the S
wift boats. They hit close enough to throw a wall of water against the Oregon’s side. “…they leave Boma now they will reach you in an hour.”
“Could you repeat that please, Minister?”
The entire crew in the op center was thrown forward as the Oregon’s keel slammed into the river bottom, the instant deceleration sending expensive china cascading in the mess and shattering a portable X-ray machine in the medical bay that Dr. Julia Huxley had forgotten to secure.
Juan was among the first to his feet. “Eric, what the hell happened?”
“The bottom shoaled suddenly, I never saw it coming.”
“Max, how’re the engines?”
As a safety precaution the computer automatically took the engines offline the instant the huge ship grounded. Max studied his computer screen, his frown deepening by the second. He worked the keyboard a moment longer.
“Max?” Juan said, drawing out his old friend’s name.
“Port tube is jammed solid with mud. I can get twenty percent through the starboard, but only in reverse. We try to go forward and we’ll block up that one, too.”
“Eric,” Juan said, “I have the helm.”
“Chairman has the helm, aye.”
The pulse jet tubes were milled as smooth as rifle barrels from an exotic alloy to exacting standards, eliminating the possibility of cavitation, the formation of microscopic bubbles that induce drag. Juan knew that the mud and silt had likely pitted the tubes already and to force any more muck through them might make them inoperable. He would take the responsibility for further damaging his ship himself.
He set the port tube on standby and slowly fed reverse power to the starboard jet, his eyes darting between the outside cameras showing water boiling under the ship’s bow and the indicators monitoring the jet’s status. He edged the controls higher, up to twenty-five percent, knowing he was scouring the tubes as surely as if he’d gone into them himself with an impact wrench.
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