by Ted Bell
The two men kept low and out of sight, moving in tandem through the jungle, one on either side of the trail. This was good, Harry thought. His leg had stopped hurting so much, thanks to the morphine injection. They hadn’t been spotted yet. And they knew exactly where the new target was headed.
“COME TO NEW HEADING ZERO-ZERO-SIX,” Hawke said, his eyes trained on the puffs of artillery smoke rising up near the top of the mountain. The Howitzer crew was already taking evasive action, not waiting around for one of the ship’s gun crews to get a lock on the cannon’s location. This surprise appearance of heavy artillery was definitely a wild card dealt into the war game at the last minute. Once the gunners up there found the boat’s range, all bets were off.
The fighting around the harbor was growing more intense. Cuban shore batteries were now pounding the vessel. Most of the rounds were falling harmlessly into the sea, thanks to the ship’s armor plating and the relatively poor training of the Cuban artillery crews by their Russian “advisors.”
Also helping the ship were the very effective evasion tactics displayed by Geneva King, manning the battle helm of Blackhawke. The shells that hit were inflicting superficial damage, but nothing that could sink the ship. Not so far, anyway.
The Howitzer was another situation entirely. A direct hit in a vulnerable spot by a 105mm shell? “Say sayonara, Suzanne.”
Stoke’s last situation report had Redcoat moving into the warehouse district proper. Here is where the resistance of Cuban and Russian commandos was heaviest. And where Blackhawke’s gun crews had been concentrating their fire to soften up the resistance. Redcoat had rejoined with Bluecoat just in time to present a unified show of force. Both squads had suffered casualties in breaching the main and secondary gates.
Even though the black-uniformed Russian Spetsnaz forces were concentrated in this central location, Stoke said, 12-Gauge and his squad had already managed to rig charges in the two smaller warehouses. They were now working on an approach to the third. The Russians were clearly determined to protect the largest cache of explosives, the cases of Feuerwasser located in the largest of the three warehouses, which butted up to the concrete seawall.
“You’ve got twenty-eight minutes, Stoke,” Hawke said. “Get it done and get the hell out of there. Once that big Howitzer dials us in, I can’t guarantee anything anymore.”
HARRY AND GATOR RACED AHEAD of the surprisingly fast-moving tracked vehicle upon which the mighty cannon stood. Their destination was now only a few hundred yards up the winding trail. Gator had a plan, he told Harry, but they had to get up to the clearing first to have any chance of success taking out the monster gun.
“Here, take this!” Gator shouted, tossing Brock a spool of wire he’d pulled out of his satchel while still on the run.
“What the hell is it?” Harry said. He had a bullet in his leg, after all, and he couldn’t quite keep up with the star running back from Gainesville ascending a sloppy muddy trail.
“You’ll see,” Gator said, breaking first into the clearing. He had a spool of his own and was running from palm to palm around the perimeter of the cleared tract, taking a couple of turns around the trunks of each tree with the wire before racing to the next.
“Do the same on the other side,” he shouted to Brock, “and meet me in the middle of the clearing with what’s left on your spool!”
When they met in the middle, Harry saw that the whole of the clearing was now crisscrossed with the wire web they’d woven in under five minutes. The big gun was coming into view around a wide bend in the trail when Gator pulled a dull black box out of his vest pocket and jammed the two ends of wire into slots in the side.
“Explosive?” Brock said.
Gator smiled as he punched in a sequence on the little black box.
“Sort of. The wires are impregnated with explosives,” Gator said. “This is the detonator. Sends out signals. Any metallic solid coming with fifty yards of this box ignites the wires. The wires are coated with stuff called Willy Pete. White phosphorous. Burns at ridiculous temperatures and incinerates anything it comes into contact with—like, say, Big Bertha coming up that trail right now. Better run for the woods, sir; this could get ugly.”
They ducked beneath the spiderweb of death and sprinted for the safety of the green wall of jungle at the edge, Brock lagging behind because of his wounds. He stumbled, almost fell, and looked back at the black-uniformed Russian storm troopers coming in advance of the tracked vehicle and—shit—he had about one minute to make it to the trees or he was one gone cat.
“Wrap your arm around my shoulder and hold on,” Gator said. “Hurry up, I’ve got you, sir!”
The man had come back for him. And Brock knew he’d never have made it were it not for Gator’s bravery. Bullets were sizzling all around the two men as they neared the green stuff.
Diving into the dense jungle foliage, they just had time to turn around and see the big Howitzer rolling into the explosive spiderweb they’d strung up . . .
The whole world lit up in a blaze of white-hot fire and billowing white smoke—one minute the cannon was clanking forward—the next it had simply burned up along with the wires, turning into white ash and powder before their eyes. The troops who’d accompanied the vehicle were likewise consumed in the chemical fire. And then the 105mm ammo blew sky high. The clearing was a horrific and short-lived nightmare one moment, a smoking emptiness the next.
Brock was staring at the devastation, shaking his head.
“How the hell do I get my hands on some of that funky wire, Gator?” he said.
“You can’t, Brah. It’s illegal.”
STOKE DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE HE’D been shot.
He was way, way too busy. He’d gotten his guys this far. The two smaller warehouses to either side of the old courthouse building were gonzo. Now 12-Gauge needed to finish rigging the third. The blackshirts were well entrenched in a small square outside the entrance to the three-story warehouse building. On the top floor were port offices: harbormaster, excise, logistics, and all that crap. On the first and second floors were cases and cases of the most powerful explosive anybody’d ever seen, stacked up to the roof.
Hawke had said this secret stuff of Putin’s was dynamite to the thirtieth power. Hell, President Vlad had knocked Miami off the damn grid with it and sunny South Florida was still reeling in the dark.
Stoke knew old Vladimir was just getting warmed up. Feuerwasser was leaving this port by the boatload on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. Headed for the United States and God knows where else.
“Fat, listen up,” Stoke said. He and his wingman had been rigging charges up on the warehouse roof and now they were hunkered down near the oil storage drums on the dock. Not a great place to be hunkered down when the shooting started, Stoke told Fat, but then he had a better idea.
He’d stashed a bottle of Feuerwasser from the second warehouse just before they’d blown the roof off the damn building. You never knew when extremely high-powered explosives might come in handy. Like . . . now.
“Talk to me, bossman,” Fat said.
“We need a diversion if we’re going to go through those doors alive. This is it.”
“What?”
“Our diversion. We use it to blow the used oil dump right next to the warehouse. The fire might even spread inside and trigger the heat charges on the roof. You with me on this? Blow the oil cans and get the hell out. Join the assault mounting in the plaza.”
“I guess.”
“Got a better idea, Fat?” he said, jamming a fuse through the metal twist cap of the bottle and setting the primer.
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so,” Stoke said, picking up his radio. “Bluecoat, this is Redcoat One. Fat and I are going to blow the east wall on the count of five. That’s your signal to advance into the square and enter through the front. We’ll be right with you. First man inside secures a case of the contraband and heads for the boats. Over.”
“We roger that, Redcoat One. On five, ove
r.”
Stoke said, “Five, four . . . three, two . . . Let’s go!” He backhanded the vodka bottle into the midst of the oilcans and the two of them ran like hell for their lives.
CHAPTER 75
What happened?”
That’s what Fat said, running as fast as he could away from the oil dump, trying to keep up with Stoke.
“Nothing happened, that’s what happened,” Stoke said, looking back over his shoulder at all the oil cans still stacked up beside the warehouse.
“Bad fuse,” Fat said as they turned the corner and ran smack-dab into mass confusion. “It happens.”
“I guess,” Stoke said, shocked at what he saw. “What the hell?”
Redcoat and Bluecoat squads, still waiting for an explosion to signal their advance and the attendant diversion on the rear side of the three-story building, were pinned down by superior numbers. Blackshirts were guarding the wide stone staircase leading up to the second story of the warehouse. Sniper fire was coming from windows overlooking the little plaza. Nobody pinned by the withering fire could get off a shot.
Stoke immediately raced up the stairs of the empty building. He and Fat had both cover up on the second floor, and the angle on the blackshirts firing from windows in the building across the alley. Fat immediately dropped one with a head shot while Stoke heaved a few grenades through the windows to take out whoever the hell remained undead among the snipers up there.
He and Fat ducked back behind their cover and got on the radio. Bravo wanted to know what the hell had happened to their diversion.
“Bad fuse, Bravo One. No time to worry. We’ll just have to gut it out, Raiders. I’ve got a satchel full of grenades. Fat and I will pull the pins and toss them at the troops down on the steps. We’re under nine minutes—we gotta get something going, damn it!”
At that very moment, an old Russian-made jeep, painted jungle camo, came roaring around a corner on two squealing wheels. It got straightened out and barreled into the heart of the square. At the wheel was Harry Brock, driving like a madman on steroids. And, in the rear, manning a smoking .50 cal., was none other than the Gator himself. The gun barrel was red hot and getting hotter as Luttier whirled around unleashing a hail of lead in every direction . . .
It was a sight for sore eyes, and it was all the troops needed to rally.
With a loud “Hoo-ah!” Raiders exploded up out of their cover and started racing toward the phalanx of stunned blackshirts now being shredded on the steps under Gator’s withering .50-cal. fire and Stoke’s grenades. The man was a blur, swiveling his smoking barrel through 360 degrees and back around again.
The roar of cheers from the attacking Raiders rose in volume and scope, reaching a crescendo that rose above the square and seemed to hang in space.
“What the hell’s all that noise about, Fat?” Stoke said.
“Let’s go!” Saunders responded and lit out down the stairs.
The two of them ran out into the square just in time to see another miracle in progress.
“Holy shit, Fat! Will you look at Harry!”
It was Harry. And there was no stopping him now.
He plowed that jeep right through all the guards firing at him from the bottom steps. Bodies went flying as the jeep reached the bottom of the wide stone staircase leading up to the second floor. That was where the warehouse full of Firewater was located. Somehow, they had to get inside and check on the Semtex charges that 12-Gauge had strung all over the place earlier. They would destroy the rest of the cache when this was over.
This was the moment when this battle would be won or lost, and everyone knew it.
But the thing was, Harry’s jeep didn’t stop at the foot of the steps. He just downshifted to second gear, floored the accelerator, and kept on going. He drove that damn jeep straight up the steps! “Hold on, Gator!” Stoke heard Harry yell, and he saw that boy holding on to that hot fifty for dear life as the jeep bounced and careened upward until it reached the top. And then blasted forward, splintering the double wooden doors before disappearing inside the cavernous warehouse.
12-Gauge had used Hawke’s idea of creating gaping holes in the floors of all three warehouses for the huge vodka runoff. Stoke had been told it seemed to be working. Now he’d see if it was.
Stokely and his Raiders had the Big Mo now.
THE RAIDERS WERE HOPPING AND popping all over the square now, preparing for one last surge that would take them inside the target. Two guys in Bravo were fighting for their lives, being attended to by medical corpsmen away from the skirmish. And the Americans were still taking casualties when the tide of battle shifted permanently. It was the Harry Brock Show once more.
His battered jeep reappeared. Only this time Harry and his wingman, Gator, were going in the opposite direction. They came out flying at full speed, exploding out of that blasted-out building and going airborne before landing with a bang and bouncing and skidding down the rest of the steps. Gator was still hanging on, still shooting when they came out, and Harry was still driving but just barely.
He had it, though. He had Hawke’s heavy wooden case of Feuerwasser balanced on his lap. It was interfering with his steering a little bit. But once Harry managed to crash-land the machine back down on solid ground, well, there was just no stopping him.
Brock braked hard, which sent Gator pitching forward, almost over the windshield, but then Harry put the big black wheel hard over, and somehow, maybe God knows how, still managed to keep both Hawke’s special reserve Feuerwasser and the kid named Gator from going overboard.
And then Harry and Gator disappeared gone-baby-gone down a twisting narrow side street that led, Stoke knew, directly back to the boat ramp where the two minisubs were waiting to ferry them all home safely to Mother.
It was time to go.
The Raiders melted away into the jungle and toward the docks.
But not before one man slipped through the chaos on the steps and disappeared inside the warehouse to set the timers. The Semtex charges were all in place, set a little earlier by 12-Gauge and his guys. Harry and Gator had made sure they were all set to blow.
It was only fitting that Stoke be the last man out, the one to finally bring down the house.
“Boom!” he said to himself as he slipped away.
“ALL AHEAD FLANK SPEED,” HAWKE SAID.
He’d relinquished the conn to the boat’s skipper during the recovery of Stoke’s Raiders. He wanted to welcome the men back aboard. There were casualties, of course. Four of them had not come back alive. Harry’d been hurt, and Stoke had a bullet in his shoulder. They were bloodied, but unbowed; and they had accomplished their mission. The entire harbor was a smoking ruin. There’d be no more sabotage attacks on America’s coastal cities now, not from Isla de Pinos at any rate.
Vladimir Putin knew who the enemy was by now. News of Hawke’s naval attack had surely made its way to the Kremlin. He’d know Alex Hawke was coming for him. The two men had old scores to settle. And though fate would play a hand, the Englishman was nursing hopes of final victory. He felt Putin might have overplayed his hand in the global game. And that, maybe, all was not what it seemed in this conflict . . .
The big black warship was finally under way once more; headed for the harbor mouth and open sea beyond. Only one thing stood in her way: a Russian missile frigate armed to the teeth that wanted to sink her.
The Russian skipper had positioned his vessel so that it now lay stationary. It blocked the narrow harbor opening. This clever maneuver put Hawke in a nautical box. Go to port and present a very broad target? Or go starboard and present an equally broad profile? He found himself at a distinct disadvantage before the naval battle had even started.
But Hawke on the bridge was a picture of quiet confidence as they sailed into the thick of it. He was, as many said of him, simply good at war. And moments like the one approaching were what he lived for. His father had drilled a sentence from Kipling into his young head: “If you can keep your head when all around
you are losing theirs . . . yours is the earth, my son, and—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!”
“Hard a’starboard, all ahead flank,” he said quietly to the helmsman.
“Hard starboard, all ahead flank, aye,” came the somewhat nervous reply.
Hawke could read the helmsman’s mind, betrayed by his eyes and furrowed brow. Intuition was telling the helmsman that something terrible would happen if they maintained the new heading and—the speaker crackled.
“Helm, Fire Control, enemy vessel now with two missiles locked on, preparing to launch.”
Hawke thumbed the radio, only the protrusion of tendons on the back of his hand betraying the tension now everywhere on the bridge.
“Fire Control, Hawke, you on this?”
“Aye-aye, sir. Turrets one and four,” the fire control officer said.
The speaker squawked again.
“Missile batteries amidships enemy vessel now preparing to launch . . . suggest AMMS activation to preempt, over, sir.”
“AMMS, aye, Fire Control.” AMMS was the ship’s advanced antimissile missile system. Blackhawke’s defensive systems were designed to impact enemy missiles at their slowest point, just when they were leaving the tube. This caused maximum destruction to the enemy.
“Fire Control, five seconds to enemy launch . . . and . . . AMMs away!”
All eyes on the bridge were locked onto the two Blackhawke missiles streaking toward the incoming fire.
“Uh, Helm, Fire Control . . . one direct hit . . . and . . . second AMM missed the target . . . enemy missile still incoming!”
Hawke instantly dropped his radio and grabbed the helm, spinning the wheel hard to port. The ship instantly heeled sharply as the boat veered away to a new course. The incoming fire must have missed by a matter of inches. The fierce explosion upon impact with the sea drenched the aft gun crews with a towering tsunami of seawater.
“Helm, come back to course six-zero-six,” Hawke said. “Steer her right down that bastard’s throat . . .”
“Six-zero-six, aye-aye, sir!”