as possible.'
Moving quickly, Mason led his team to the wheelhouse. On the way, they passed men who were stationed on the decks and wings of the bridge keeping watch.
'Anything?' Mason said to the man who carried the shotgun.
'No, sir.'
Mason made his way into the wheelhouse. The 2IC and several of his team were waiting for him. Nothing seemed out of place. 'What did you want to show me?'
'This is it, sir. Nothing. There's nobody here.'
As he looked around at the computer monitors glowing with blue light and the blinking faces of the digital readouts, the truth dawned on Mason. He and his men were the only human beings on the great ship.
CALLS WERE COMING in from the other Omega teams. Louis and Carmichael reported that the Ataman II and III were deserted. As he listened to the reports, Mason detected a change in the ship's movement. He was sure of it. The ship had stopped its forward motion. He went over to the big window that overlooked the deck and stared out into the darkness. Something was definitely happening. He couldn't be sure, but the ship seemed to be moving laterally.
'Lieutenant,' one of his men called. 'Look at this.' The man was standing in front of a large computer monitor. Pictured on the screen was what looked like an archery target. The image of a ship was slightly off to one side of the bull's-eye. The ship was turning on its axis as it moved closer to the center of the concentric circles. Red lights flashed intermittently on both sides of the ship image. The situation became clear to Mason in an instant. The ship was a drone. The vessel and its sister ships were being controlled from another location.
Mason ordered his 2IC to secure the bridge and called the choppers and told them to land. Then he instructed Joe Baron to assemble with the squad members trained in explosives on the foredeck. He called the other Omega teams and instructed them to proceed to the main objective, the bombs. Mason raced down to the first level and led the way inside the ship, with Baron and the other SEALs pounding down the stairs behind him until they came to the sealed door they had seen on their first exploration.
The lieutenant checked their location against the ship's diagram. They were outside the bomb chamber. Baron got to work right away and taped strips of plastic explosive C-4 onto the door. He inserted the blasting cap into the puttylike material and ran an attached wire around a corner. Mason and the other men cleared out of the area and squatted a safe distance away, with their hands covering their ears. Baron squeezed the M-57 firing device attached to the other end of the wire. A loud, hollow thump echoed through the passageway. They rushed back to the smoking door, now marked by a ragged-edged square hole. Baron, who was as skinny as an eel, easily wriggled through. The others handed their packs to Baron, then squeezed through the opening after him. Flashlight beams stabbed the darkness. Then someone found a wall switch, and the chamber was flooded with light.
The SEAL team was standing on a platform with a large rectangular opening in the center. The missile hung down through the opening from the ceiling, held in place by gantries that extended from the walls like helping hands. There was silence as the men gazed with awe at the huge cylinder. The light gleamed off the metal skin and the rotor housings.
'Look sharp. No time for sightseeing!' Mason barked.
Baron ran his fingers over the surface of the missile. Then he inspected the intricate network of hoses and elecical connections that snaked down to the missile from a ole in the ceiling. He sucked his breath in. 'Man, I've ever seen anything like this.'
'The question is, can you deactivate it?'
Baron grinned and rubbed his palms together. 'Does the pope live in Rome?'
'No, actually he lives in the Vatican.'
'Close enough.' Baron dug into his pack, pulled out a stethoscope and plugged it into his ears. He listened at several points on the outside of the missile, smiling and frowning like a heart specialist examining a patient.
'She's all dressed up and ready to go. I can hear humming.'
'What about those connections?' Mason asked.
'Fuel and electrical. I could cut them, but that might tell this baby it's operating on its own.'
'In other words, it might start the launch.'
Baron nodded. 'I've got to cut the heart out of this thing.' He ran his fingers along the slightly raised edge of a panel on the side of the missile. Then he dug out a set of tools from his rucksack, and after a couple of tries found a lug that fit the nuts holding the panel cover on. Using a battery-operated wrench, he started to unbolt the panel cover.
Like a sportscaster broadcasting play-by-play, Mason kept up a running account of Baron's work for the other teams, instructing them to stay one step behind. His men, in the meantime, had scoured the area and come up with one-inch cable they'd found in a storeroom. They ran the cable under the thrusters, hoping to rig up restraints on the projectile.
Baron was making slow progress. He stripped some bolts that had rusted in the dampness of the big room and had to use a special attachment to get a grip on them. He was leaning against the missile, his head close to the exterior. All at once, he stopped his work and listened.
'Crap!' he said.
'What's wrong?' asked Mason, who'd been peering intently over Baron's shoulder. Baron started to answer, but Mason stilled him with a hand signal. The 21C was calling from the wheelhouse.
'I don't know if this means anything, Lieutenant, but all the screens and panels are going crazy up here.'
'Stand by.' Turning to Baron, he said. 'That was the wheelhouse. The instruments are showing unusual activity.' Mason cocked an ear. A loud humming that grew in intensity filled the chamber.
Baron looked around as if he could see the sound. 'The damned thing is about to launch.'
'Can you do anything?' Mason said evenly.
'There's a chance. If I can get this panel off, maybe I can sabotage its activation circuit. Stand by with those wire cutters.'
Baron unscrewed another bolt and was working on the next one when they heard a new noise, like the grinding of great gears. The sound was coming from below. They looked down, which probably saved them from eye damage when the electrical conduits and hoses blew off the sides of the missile a few feet above their heads. They dove onto their stomachs. Below them, the moon pool gates started to move apart.
Then the rotors inside the thruster housings began to whir.
As the moon pool fully opened, there was another explosion and the gantries holding the missile blew off. The jerry-rigged cables snapped like thread and the loose ends sliced the air and would have decapitated anyone in the way.
Then the bomb dropped.
VOICES WERE YELLING in Mason's ear. The other teams were seeing similar developments. Joe Louis was yelling. 'Omega Two. Bomb has dropped.'
Then Carmichael's voice came on. 'Omega Three. So has ours.'
Mason and his men crawled to the edge of the opening once occupied by the bomb and stared down. Waves and froth created where the missile splashed into the sea and its thrusters dug in. As they peered into the dark roiling sea, it was as if they were looking into the bowels of hell.
36
PETROV'S LEAD MAN, a giant whom Austin had nicknamed Tiny, stepped forward and drove the wooden butt of his AKM into the side of the guard's head. The guard's legs turned to rubber and he crashed to the deck. Figures were running toward them. Someone flicked on a flashlight that caught Austin in its beam. An AKM burped once. At a firing rate of six hundred rounds per minute, even a short burst was deadly, especially at close range.
The flashlight skittered across the deck, but in its quick flicker, Razov's men had sized up the strength and position of the assault group. White-hot muzzle bursts blossomed in the darkness. They dove for cover. In the stroboscopic effect created by the fusillade,.Petrov's men looked as if they were moving in slow motion.
Austin and Zavala hit the deck belly first and rolled over until they were behind the protection of a bollard.
