Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 2 - Final Flight

by Final Flight (lit)

  He waited for the bullets to come. He was sweating and his heart was pounding. Nothing. He peered again through the crack in the door, then eased it open enough to slip through. There were two men down in the passageway, here on the flight deck level. Garcia picked up the Uzis and pistols lying on the deck. One man was still alive, but he wasn't going anywhere with that hole in his gut. A gym bag lay near him.

  opened it carefully. Grenades and some stuff that looked like plastique. Some fuses.

  A crumpled body lay at the bottom of the ladderwell up to the next floor. It had almost a dozen wounds in it. Garcia could see the holes in the aluminum sheeting. One of his marines had fired an MI 6 clip through the aluminum and nailed this guy.

  The wounded man moved and groaned. Garcia swung the MI 6 in his direction. It was tempting. The bastard deserved it. But no.

  The sergeant looked up the ladderwell. What was waiting up there?

  Should he go find out? Or should he take another route? Another route would probably be healthier.

  He heard a door opening to his left and leaped right, toward a corner.

  Even as he did, he heard bullets spanging off the steel. In a corner of his mind it registered that there were no loud reports, and he knew the weapon had a silencer.

  He sprawled on the deck and scrambled furiously, trying to ensure his body and legs were behind cover. He rolled over and waited for the gunman to round the turn in the passageway. lowly, slowly he got to his feet, keeping the rifle pointed.

  He iped the sweat from his face with the front of his T-shirt and ried to visualize the corridor that he had just left. The door that pened must have been the door to Flight Deck Control. The bastards must be in there! With all those sailors. He couldn't hoot through the door for fear of hitting a sailor. Damn! His thigh felt like it was on fire. He looked. A bullet hole in his rouser leg. He felt his thigh.

  A slug had grazed him, but not too ad. The wound was bleeding some.

  Those motherfuckers! He could hear the sound of men running somewhere in the hip, minute vibrations that could be heard for hundreds of feet, and the faint clank of watertight hatches being slammed shut. these were normal noises mixed in with the hum and whine of machinery that was present every minute of every day. He stood istening now for the sound of a door being eased open or shoes craping on steel or a weapon clinking ever so faintly against a ulkhead. Of these noises, there were none. It was coming back to him now, those feelings of combat. always tense, always listening, always waiting... waiting to kill and waiting to die. He had not felt those feelings for twenty years. but now they were back and it seemed like only yesterday. He was weating profusely and his mouth was dry. He was desperately hirsty.

  He heard a watertight door being opened somewhere behind im but near.

  He pointed his rifle and waited. Now someone was oming around the corridor, in from the starboard side of the sland. It was only Staff Sergeant Slagle and a lance corporal. hat was his name? Leggett.

  Corporal Leggett. The l-MC hissed.

  "Men of United States. I am Colonel Qazi. I ave taken over the ship. We have your captain and your admiral with us here on the bridge.

  Further resistance by you is futile and ill result in the deaths of your officers and the sailors here with 5 on the bridge. If another shot is fired at my men by anyone, I ill execute one of the Americans here with me and throw his body down onto the flight deck. Now I want everyone to clear the flight deck. Clear the flight deck or I will execute a sailor." "What do we do now, Gunny?" Slagle asked.

  Garcia examined the silencer on one of the pistols he had picked up from the deck. The slide had been machined to take the silencer by someone who knew his business. He pushed the button on the grip and the magazine popped out into his hand. About ten rounds remained. He reinserted the magazine in the grip and checked that the weapon had a round in the chamber and eased the hammer down. Then he stuffed the pistol in his belt. He gave the other weapons to Slagle. "Get on a phone to Captain Mills-was "He's on the beach." Mills was the marine officer-in-charge. "So call the lieutenant," Gunny Garcia rasped. First Lieutenant Potter Dykstra was the second in command and the only other marine officer in the detachment. "Tell him the squad that was on the way to the bridge got wiped out by grenades. And there is at least one gunman in Flight Deck Control. Find out what the lieutenant wants to do. Leggett, you stay right here. If anybody carrying a weapon comes out of Flight Deck Control, kill him. These fuckers are dressed like sailors. I'm going up to the bridge and see what's what." Slagle turned and trotted away.

  "Listen, Leggett. These assholes got grenades. They're liable to toss one out here to see if they can perforate you. Keep your head out of your ass.

  "You bet, Gunny." Leggett licked his lips and started to peer around the corner.

  "Don't do that, dummy. If you've gotta take a peek, get down on the deck and peek around the corner down low. And don't let 'em shoot you. vunny Varcia turned around went up the ladder ahead of him with the butt braced against his hip.

  The fires on the hangar deck were out of control almost immediately after the paint lockers exploded. Men came pouring out of the shops and repair lockers and attacked the fires with AFFF (aqueous film-forming foam) from the fire-fighting stations located around the bay, but the burning paint and chemicals from the sabotaged lockers had been sprayed everywhere, on aircraft, in open cockpits, in the drip pans under the planes, and on aircraft tires. The tires ignited almost immediately and gave off a heavy, thick black smoke. When the CONFLAG watches failed to lose the two interior fire doors, the hangar deck officer, a lieuenant, ordered the doors closed manually. And he sent a man up to the nearest CONFLAG station to light off the hangar deck prinkler system.

  The men fighting the fires were relieved in shifts to don Oxyen. Breathing Apparatus (Oba's), which were self-contained reathing systems. Although the fires were producing immense uantities of toxic gases and smoke, most of it was being vented out the open elevator doors.

  And the wind was funneling in the oors, feeding the fires.

  A minute after he had been dispatched to the CONFLAG staion, the messenger was back and informed the hangar deck officer that the CONFLAG watch-stander was dead, shot, and the prinkler control system was shot full of holes. The hangar deck officer called Damage-Control Central.

  The hangar deck sprinkling system was turned on from DC Central, lmost four minutes after the paint lockers had exploded. The prinklers had little visible effect on the fires, so with the concurence of the Damage Control Assistant (the officer in actual harge of the ship's minute-to-minute damage control efforts) in C Central, the elevator doors on the sides of the bays were closed too. In seconds the interior of Bays Two and Three filled with black smoke and toxic gases.

  The smoke became so thick that the fire fighters were literally blind inside their flexible rubber masks.

  Men worked by feel. They hung onto hoses with a death grip, and if one tripped and fell, he dragged men down on both sides of him.

  A couple men panicked and hyperventilated inside the self-contained OBA'S and let go of their hoses.

  Lost, blind, and seemingly unable to breathe, they ripped off their OBA'S and passed out within seconds from the toxic fumes.

  Still, the fire-fighting effort continued. In less than ten minutes the fires in Bay One, the forward bay, were out, although the chief in charge there didn't realize it for another minute or two. In Bays Two and Three, amidships and aft, the fires continued. Since the air was opaque and the heat was building, the fires were difficult to detect unless someone actually walked into one, so some fires were not attacked by hose teams. Then an A-6 that still contained several thousand pounds of fuel blew up in Bay Two. The concussion and flying fragments cut down almost a dozen men and severed two hoses. The fires spread. Men staggered out of the bay almost overcome by the intense heat or passed out where they stood from heat exhaustion.

  In Bay Three, Chief Reed made a command decision. On his own initiativ
e he opened the doors to both Elevators Three and Four, on opposite sides of the bay. The wind rushed in the starboard door, El Three, and pushed the smoke and fumes out El Four. Reed's decision probably saved the ship. Although the fires burned more intensely in the draft, the overall heat level was lower and the air cleared. Fire fighters were now able to directly attack the flames.

  In the meantime, Bay Two had become a hellish inferno.

  In DC Central, which was located on the second deck in the main engineering control room, immediately below the aft hangar bay, the Damage Control Assistant had his hands full. On the wall before him were arranged three-dimensional charts that showed every compartment in the ship. Other charts showed the networks of fuel lines, power lines, fire mains, and telephone circuits. A crew of men wearing sound-powered phones marked these charts as they received damage reports from the various fire-fighting teams.

  The DCA was a busy man. He had an extraordinarily hot fire burning in the comm spaces and the fumes were spreading to surrounding spaces, which he had ordered evacuated. Every time someone opened a watertight door to enter the fire-fighting zone, the poisoned air spread a little further. All electrical power to the communications spaces had already been secured by the load dispatcher in the central electrical control station. He and the repair-party leader had already concluded that they were facing a magnesium fire, probably a flare, since nothing in the communications spaces would burn with such intensity or give off such toxic fumes.

  Consequently the fire was attacked with Purple K, a dry, dust-like chemical propelled by gas that would blanket the burning metal and cut off the oxygen supply. Water or AFFF would have merely caused the magnesium to explode, spreading it. The DCA knew that the electrical equipment in the comm spaces would all be ruined by the fine grit of Purple K. It was unavoidable. The fire had to be extinguished as quickly as possible, before the magnesium melted the deck and fell through to another compartment.

  Just now the DCA was checking the chart to locate the compartments that might be beneath the burning flare. He wanted to get earns in those compartments, ready to attack the flare if it burned its way through the steel deck it was lying on. The executive officer, Ray Reynolds, stood looking over his shoulder, listening to the reports that flowed in and the DCA'S responses, and using the telephone periodically. Since the I comMC nnouncement that the captain was hostage on the bridge, the CA had attempted to talk to the captain via the squawk box and he telephone.

  Both times there was no answer to his call. As far 5 the DCA was concerned, responsibility for the ship had now passed to the executive officer.

  But the DCA had no time to worry about the bridge. He had res to fight.

  A large portion of the communications spaces, the CA learned, protruded over the forward hangar bay, Bay One. He got onto the squawk box to repair locker IF, which was esponsible for that bay, and alerted them to the possible danger from the fire raging above their heads.

  Ray Reynolds stared at the charts of the ship and the greaseencil marks that adorned them. The first priority, he had already ecided, was to save the ship.

  Second was to capture the intruders or thwart them, and third was to free the captain and the admiral. He stood now absorbing the situation that the DCA faced.

  Two ad fires were out of control, and the DCA was marshaling every an he needed to fight them. He had secured electrical power ear the fires. He had drained the pipes that carried jet fuel to the flight-deck fueling stations and flooded the pipes with carbon dioxide. He was monitoring the level of AFFF in the pumping stations, and he had men relieving the men fighting the fires at egular intervals.

  Fire-main pressures were still good, both reacors were on the line, and the engineering plant had plenty of team. The auxiliary generators had been lit off and were ready to take the load if necessary.

  And the DCA had the repair teams not ghting fires searching the ship for unexploded bombs. Someone handed Reynolds a telephone. "XO, this is Lieutennt Dykstra." "We're up to our ass in alligators, Dykstra. Are you getting the wamp drained?" "The quick-reaction squad that was on the way to the bridge was wiped out. Grenades. I think most of the intruders are on the bridge." "Keep them there. Don't let them out." "That announcement. That colonel wanted everyone off the flight deck. We must be getting more company.

  Reynolds was aware of that, yet he had had little time to consider the implications. More armed intruders was the last thing he wanted. He turned away from the DCA'S desk and walked to the limit of the telephone cord. He had no doubt that the terrorist on the bridge-that's what he was, a maniac terrorist-would da exactly what he said.

  He would execute people if armed resistance continued.

  "Play for time, Dykstra. That's the only option we have. Until we know what they're up to, it's senseless to goad these men and have them kill our people for nothing. What'd their leader call himself?" "Put your marines in the catwalks forward and aft so they can control the helo landing area. Have everyone hold their fire. Unless these people are suicidal, they are going to want to leave the ship sooner or later, and we want to be ready when they do. Perhaps then we'll have a better handle on this." "Maybe they are suicidal, sir. Qazi?

  Maybe that's a play on 'kamikaze." 1 "You have any better ideas, Lieutenant?" "Shoot them when they get out of the helicopters." And the fanatics on the bridge would kill everybody there. Ray Reynolds was a poker player, and just now he wanted to see a few more cards. "No.

  Post your men.

  Time's on our side, not theirs." He broke the connection and called Operations. No one answered. He tried Combat.

  No answer there either. He reached for the squawk box, then became aware of the DCA'S voice. "Get everyone out of that area on the 0-3 level." When the DCA saw Reynolds looking at him, he said, "The temperatures are really rising in the spaces above Bay Two, XO. I'm ordering an evacuation. I'm going to have the repair crew up there put AFFF on the deck in all those spaces.

  Maybe that'll keep the temperature down and prevent flash fires." So the people in Ops and Combat had probably already left their spaces.

  With the communications gear in the comm spaces out of action and Ops and Combat uninhabitable, the ship could of communicate with the outside world. She was isolated.

  "Do t," Reynolds said. There was no other choice. Unless the fires were brought under control, United States was doomed.

  Gunnery Sergeant Garcia stood in the signalman" 5 locker on the after portion of the 0-9 level and peered carefully out the open door.

  Behind him three sailors shifted nervously from foot to foot. They had extinguished all lights in the compartment, at his request. Garcia looked left, up the length of the signal bridge, past the bin full of signal flags and the signal flashing light mounted high on a post, forward to the closed hatch to the navigation bridge. The signal bridge was open to the weather, without roof or walls. A solid, waist-high rail formed one side of this porch-like area and the island superstructure formed the other. Now Gunny Garcia examined the area to his right. The signal bridge curved around and expanded into a large portico on top of the after part of the island. He looked back left, toward the enclosed navigation bridge.

  There were windows beside the entrance hatch to the bridge in that portion of the bridge structure that jutted starboard almost to the edge of the flight deck fifty feet below. The back of a raised, padded chair was visible in the red light that illuminated the interior.

  That was the navigator's chair, and it was used by the conning officer when he brought the ship alongside a tanker or ammunition ship for an underway replenishment. Garcia wasn't thinking about unreps just now, he was thinking about people. And there were none in sight.

  He turned to the sailors behind him, who were staring at the rifle and the pistol butt sticking out of the waistline of his khaki trousers, trousers now heavily stained with Sergeant Vehmeier's blood.

  "What're you guys doing up here?" "We're signalmen. This is our GQ station." "Ain't nobody on the bridg
e gonna tell you to run up a signal flag tonight. You guys take a hike." The sailors didn't have to be told twice.

  They shut the door behind them.

  Garcia checked the bridge windows again. Still nobody visible. He looked around the dark signalmen's shack. There was just enough light coming through the door to make out a dark sweater lying on the worn couch. Garcia pulled it on over his white T-shirt, then buckled the duty belt around his waist. The belt had been draped over his shoulder.

  It contained spare magazines for theMore-I6.

  Too bad he didn't have any camouflage grease, because his face would show like a beacon on the dark signal bridge. He glanced at the coffeepot. Coffee grounds wouldn't help much. The chief's desk. He rummaged through the drawers and came up with a tin of black shoe polish. He smeared some on his face. A head was visible in the bridge window. The man wasn't looking back this way. The head disappeared.

  It was now or never. Garcia swallowed hard, gripped the rifle firmly, and sprinted toward the closed watertight entrance-door to the bridge.

  He huddled in the corner, out of the wind and rain, and placed his ear against the door. Nothing. Damn. He tried again. Only the pounding of his heart. He could smell smoke, heavy and acrid. It must be coming from the doors to Elevators One and Two, and being swirled up here by the wind.