Sea Of Terror (2010)

by Stephen - Deep Black 08 Coonts

  They'd located the positions of the ship's guns during their first inspection of the vessel, days ago. The number two gun was on the starboard side of the deckhouse forward, three decks down from the bridge. Holding his pistol behind his back, he reached the door, turned the handle, and pulled it open.

  A cool breeze slapped him in the face. The compartment's outer panels had been dropped, converting it to a kind of outdoor balcony overlooking the forward deck to the left and the wreckage-strewn ocean off the ship's starboard side straight ahead. Two of the civilian guards were inside, one leaning against a stack of ammo cases, the other in the saddle behind the 30mm chain gun.

  "Well, hello," the man by the ammo cases said, looking around at Moritomi's entrance. "Whose little wog are you? ..."

  The gunner turned, startled. "Here, now! You're not allowed--"

  Except for the M230 chain gun, neither man was armed. Moritomi brought his pistol around, put two shots into the gunner's head, then shifted aim and shot the loader as he lunged for the door.

  Stepping through the door, Moritomi turned, pulled the door shut, then shoved the body of the gunner out of the saddle. The M230 was aimed in the general direction of the helicopter off the ship's starboard beam.

  Moritomi had trained with these weapons at the camp in Syria. He checked the ammo feed, made sure the power was on, and dragged back the charging lever with a rasping snick. Then he swung the weapon around to the left, depressing the barrel to aim at the Sandpiper's crowded forward deck, and switched off the safety.

  Forward Deck, Pacific Sandpiper 49deg 21' N, 8deg 13' W Saturday, 0923 hours GMT

  Jack Rawlston turned from the ship's starboard railing and looked at the crowd in disgust. "Here, you lot!" he shouted. "Clear the deck!"

  There was, inevitably, a certain amount of friction between the regular crew and the "specials," the civilian security guards provided by PNTL and the UK Atomic Energy Authority "Up yours," an older seaman growled. "Who made you captain?"

  "Clear the fucking deck!" Rawlston bellowed, swinging his arm. "We need some order up here!"

  He was assuming they would be bringing survivors up onto the forward deck, and this crowd of rubbernecking tourists was going to be in the way. The skipper might want that helicopter to land, too, and they would need the entire length of the deck clear for that.

  "You heard the man!" Timmy Smithers shouted. "You people make yourselves useful and--"

  He never finished the sentence. Rawlston heard an angry high-speed rattle of automatic gunfire, and then the Pacific Sandpiper's steel deck was erupting in white puffs of smoke and hurtling shards of shrapnel. Smithers was jerked to one side, his upper chest and left shoulder exploding in a pink spray. Merchant seamen began falling as explosions ripped through the crowd with murderous detonations.

  It reminded him, Rawiston thought as he dived for cover behind a hold cover, of autocannon fire from a helicopter gunship, and he assumed the helicopter was firing on them. He hit the deck, pulled his SA80 off his shoulder, and came up with his weapon aimed and tracking, ready to return fire.

  But the fire wasn't coming from the helicopter, not so far as he could tell. The aircraft was circling now past the starboard bow, still a hundred yards off, but he saw no weapons pods or gun mounts on the helicopter, no door gunner or clattering minigun trailing streams of spent shell casings. If it wasn't the French helicopter . . .

  More high-explosive rounds slammed into the deck, tearing a safety stanchion free and cutting down three men running toward the bow, and two shells hit the lip of the cargo hold cover a foot from his face, stinging him with specks of flying metal. The way the impacts tracked up the deck, moving forward, made him look aft.

  Rawlston saw the muzzle flash from the starboard-forward chain gun as it hosed down the Piper's forward deck with explosive rounds.

  What the bloody hell? . . .

  He twisted around, leveling his rifle at the Piper's superstructure. From here he couldn't see the gunner, but if he could lay down a heavy enough fire, aimed into the open gun housing, he might drive the bastard to cover.

  Before Rawlston could fire, however, bullets whined and shrieked, ricocheting off the deck beside him. He turned again. That fire was coming from the helicopter, which had changed course suddenly and was flying straight toward the Sandpiper's forward deck. Several more security guards and seamen, caught in the open in a deadly crossfire between the helicopter and the superstructure of their own ship, jerked, spun, and fell. Rawlston saw at least a dozen men sprawled in bloody heaps across the deck, maybe more . . . some of them still moving, trying to rise, trying to seek cover.

  The helicopter roared low overhead, so low that Rawlston instinctively ducked as its shadow engulfed him and then swept on. Men inside the helicopter now shot at the open port side gun mount, pouring automatic rifle fire into the opening from almost point-blank range. Rawlston changed targets again, drawing a bead on the helicopter . .. and then a savage hammer blow struck him in his side, slapping him back and away from the meager shelter of the hold cover. The 30mm chain gun on the starboard side was firing now in short, precise bursts, and a piece of shrapnel blasted from the hold cover had struck him in the side, hard.

  There was no pain... and then he drew a breath and the pain shrieked inside his brain. A broken rib at least, and maybe a punctured lung as well. He clutched his side and his hand came away wet with blood. His gun had spun away with the impact, was lying on the deck five yards away.

  Rawlston started crawling toward it, staying on his belly as the chain gun continued to fire bursts, sometimes at him, sometimes at other survivors taking shelter on the blood-spattered deck.

  The helicopter was hovering now, just above the center of the long forward deck between Rawlston and the ship's deckhouse. The portside gun wasn't firing at what should have been an easy target, so Rawlston had to assume that his mates on the number 1 gun were dead ... the number 2 gun as well, come to think of it, since neither Marty nor George would have opened fire on their own people.

  The helicopter slowly descended toward the deck, and men were jumping out of the open side doors even before the wheels kissed steel. Armed men, lots of them. Men in kaffiyehs and combat vests, men with AK-47 assault rifles and two, Rawlston saw, with longer, heavier RPGs.

  They leaped onto the deck and began spreading out, bending low beneath the still-turning rotors of the helicopter. Two headed straight for him, their rifles up to their shoulders, the muzzles aimed at his head as they screamed orders at him. He couldn't hear what they were saying over the thunderous pound of the aircraft's rotors, but he rolled onto his back with his hands up beside his head.

  The impossible, Rawlston realized, had just happened.

  Terrorists had just seized the Pacific Sandpiper

  Chapter 10

  Bridge, Pacific Sandpiper North Atlantic Ocean 49deg 2V N, 8deg 13' W Saturday, 0939 hours GMT

  captain jorgenson trembled with shock and horror as the man who called himself Wanibuchi ordered him and Kinsley, the helmsman, to their feet. Mathers, the navigator, was on his knees in the corner, hands behind his head, with Wanibuchi's pistol pressed up against the back of his neck. Dunsmore was still whimpering on the deck, badly wounded.

  "You, helmsman," Wanibuchi said. "Take the wheel." Kinsley looked at the captain for confirmation. "Go to hell, Wanibuchi, or whatever your name is," Jorgenson growled.

  Wanibuchi shifted his aim from Mathers' head to Dunsmore, several feet away, and fired a single, hissing shot. Dunsmore jerked once, then lay still. The pistol whipped back to cover Mathers.

  "Captain Jorgenson, we are not going to play games with you. Your helmsman will take the wheel and you will order half ahead to the engine room. If you do not, this man dies."

  Mathers flinched as Wanibuchi bumped his skull with the sound suppressor screwed to the muzzle of the pistol. "Captain, please!" Mathers screamed. "For the love of God!..."

  The port wing door opened, and three of the terr
orists off the helicopter strode in. They were armed with AK-47 assault rifles; the two with beards wore kaffiyehs, making them look like desert sheiks in olive-drab utilities. The third, with a mustache and dangerous eyes, wore a black leather beret. He said something to Wanibuchi in a language that sounded Arabic; Wanibuchi replied in the same language.

  "My compatriot," Wanibuchi said, "tells me they have eighteen prisoners. You can see them out the bridge window."

  Jorgenson stepped closer to the window and looked down. Along the starboard railing, between the helicopter and the deckhouse, eighteen of his men were being prodded into line, hands behind their heads, facing away from the ship and out over the water. Arab terrorists paraded back and forth, shoving and prodding men into position, shouting orders. Several of the prisoners were obviously badly hurt; their friends to either side were allowed to hold them upright.

  "I am going to give you several orders, Captain," Wanibuchi said. "Each time you refuse, each time you hesitate, one of your men on the deck will be shot. Do you understand me?"

  "I... I..." Jorgenson shook his head, stepping back from the window. "Listen, there's no way I--"

  Wanibuchi snapped something, and the man in the beret stepped back onto the bridge wing and raised his right arm. Instantly there was a crack, a puff of smoke, and the Sandpiper crewman standing farthest in the line from the deckhouse pitched forward over the railing and into the sea.

  "Do you understand me?" Wanibuchi asked again.

  "I... understand."

  "Good. We will leave this area. Order half speed ahead."

  The Pacific Sandpiper was almost at a halt, her engines churning at full astern to stop her ponderous forward momentum. Jorgenson grasped the engine telegraph lever and moved it to half ahead. The device was electronic these days, rather than the manual lever of the older days of seafaring, but the idea was the same. They ran the engines from down in engineering.

  "What about the people in the water?" Jorgenson asked.

  "I'm sure this area will be filled with rescue vessels in short order," Wanibuchi said.

  The other Japanese liaison, Kitagawa, entered the bridge and said something to Wanibuchi in Japanese.

  "Perhaps I was too hasty," he said. "Order the engines stopped."

  Jorgenson moved the lever again.

  "Now order the appropriate people in your crew to bring your small boat onto your ship. I'm told some of our friends are on board."

  Realization struck Jorgenson like a fist in the gut. There must have been Japanese terrorists on board the Ishikari, moles or plants or sleepers or whatever the appropriate spy term would be, men who'd sabotaged the vessel and blown her up.

  The scope of this attack, the planning and the detail that must have gone into it, was staggering.

  He reached for the telephone handset that would connect him with the shipboard boat crew aft. Wanibuchi gestured with his pistol. "While you're at it, Captain ... after ordering the boat brought back on board, you will pass the word over the ship's intercom, telling all personnel to surrender themselves to us. We estimate that there are still ten to fifteen of your people on board, including those in the aft 30mm cannon housing, in engineering, and in the ship's crew's quarters. We know you have twenty-eight crewmen and thirty security personnel... a total of fifty-eight men aboard. A number of those are dead, now, and seventeen are still lined up at the railing outside. We will be checking to make certain that everyone is accounted for. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes."

  "Very good. Cooperate with us, and no more of your men will die."

  "Aren't you going to kill us all anyway?"

  Wanibuchi looked surprised. "Of course not, Captain! We intend to make a certain strong demonstration that will result in an end to the use of nuclear power in Japan, and an end to these plutonium shipments. When our demands are met, you and this ship will be released. You have my word on that."

  Jorgenson said nothing, but his dark eyebrows rose high on his forehead at that. This man had just ruthlessly killed a large number of his own crewmen, and the people working with him had killed many more on the Ishikari and were leaving the survivors to their own devices in the open ocean.

  Wanibuchi's word, Jorgenson knew, was worth nothing but more blood.

  Atlas Pool, Atlantis Queen 49deg 21' N, 8deg 13' W Saturday, 0950 hours GMT

  David Llewellyn stepped onto the Atlas Pool deck, located at the extreme aft end of Deck Nine, and looked around. He'd gotten the day off by logging in on-duty the night before, though as head of security he had a lot of leeway in the hours he actually spent in uniform. Technically, he was always on-duty. His passkey was in the mesh-net inside pocket of his swim trunks; they could find him if they needed him.

  At the moment, though, things were quiet, the passengers settling into the routine of their first day at sea. The south coast of England was a gray-green smear low on the northern horizon. And according to his check of ID chips, the delicious Miss Johnson had come up to the Atlas Pool a few moments before.

  David Llewellyn was on the prowl. His hopes for the evening before with that sweet young SOCA bird hadn't panned out the way he'd hoped, but he still had the files on Miss Tricia Johnson. He'd had her spotted ever since he'd seen her walk through the X-Star scanner at Southampton .. . and that prig of an MI5 bastard be damned.

  He looked up. The morning was overcast, with only a few scattered patches of blue showing through, and the breeze was quite cool. Not exactly sunbathing weather, but. . .

  There she was. Lounging on a deck chair in a disappointingly one-piece bathing suit, that long blond hair wrapped up in a bun behind her head. He walked toward her, pretended he was going to step past between her chair and the pool, then stopped and did a dramatic double take. "Tricia?"

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him, frowning as she tried to place his face.

  "Tricia Johnson!" he exclaimed. "Gosh, it's been ... what? Five years?"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "Do I know you?"

  "David Llewellyn!" he told her. "Penn State University? Pennsylvania? Way up there in the mountains? My God, it's good to see you!"

  Tentatively she shook his offered hand. She still looked puzzled, trying frantically to remember his face or his name, but she was smiling. People, Llewellyn knew, and women especially, didn't want to appear to be rude and so tended to assume they'd simply forgotten if a stranger claimed to know them. And they tended to be friendly and go along with the flow of conversation while they tried to figure it out.

  "I'm so sorry," she said. "I knew a lot of people at Penn State, but..."

  I'll just bet you did, Llewellyn thought. A gorgeous girl like you would have been Miss Popularity. He laughed. "You don't remember me, do you?"

  Her nose wrinkled charmingly as she tried to think. "I think .. . maybe ..."

  "We had an economics class together. Professor Marston, remember?"

  "Yeah! Yeah, I think I remember you now!"

  Llewellyn had been a psych major during his college days--though he'd never been within three thousand miles of Penn State. It actually didn't take much to plant false memories that were as real as the real thing. All you needed was an initial hook and a confident tone of voice.

  "Mind if I join you?" He gestured toward the deck chair next to hers. "If I'm bothering you, I'll just--"

  "Oh, no! No! Sit down, please!"

  "I was kind of a wallflower back then," he told her with a self-deprecating shrug. "I don't blame you if you don't remember. I did have a major crush on you, though. You have no idea how much I wanted to ask you out, but I could never get up the nerve. Anyway, you had a boyfriend ... Tom? Ted?"

  "George, actually."

  Llewellyn snapped his fingers. "George! That was it! How is George? Is he with you now?"

  "He dumped me for an art major. Ancient history. What about you ... David, you said? What are you doing these days?"

  "Ah, the heady world of international finance," he said with an airy wave
of his hand. "Moved to England to take a job with a British banking firm, and it's been up, up, and away ever since!"

  "Oh, really?"

  "Well, I couldn't manage a cruise like this flipping burgers, right?"

  It truly was amazing how much information could be gleaned from various sources, once you had a person's Social Security number or, in Great Britain, their National Insurance number. With Tricia Johnson's credit history, in particular the information on her student loan, he'd been able to get a transcript of her four years at Pennsylvania State University and dug up the names of several of her professors.

  He knew her address--in upstate New York--and he knew she'd been working as a waitress and as an exotic dancer since college, never quite able to pull her life together. He knew she'd been briefly married, that she was now single, and that she was deep in debt. He'd also learned she had grandparents living in England--Suffolk--and that they were quite well-off, well-off enough to purchase this cruise package for her. His guess was that she'd visited them for the summer after an unhappy divorce and that they'd given her the cruise as an opportunity to "find herself," or some such.

  It was a good thing he'd found her first.

  He looked at the bar overlooking the pool. "May I buy you a drink?"

  Bridge, Atlantis Queen 49deg 21' N, 8deg 13' W

  Saturday, 1010 hours GMT

  "That looks like the plutonium ship there," Vandergrift said, lowering his binoculars. "I see smoke, but I can't see the Ishikari."

  Captain Eric Phillips continued watching through his own binoculars. The Atlantis Queen was approaching from the southeast, slowing now until she was barely making headway. It was possible that the Ishikari was hidden behind the bulk of the freighter, but Phillips feared the Japanese escort ship had already sunk. A pillar of oily black smoke was still boiling off the sea, but as far as he could tell at this distance, still almost half a mile, the smoke was coming off of burning oil on the surface of the ocean itself.