Pitt's view through the windshield, it was impossible to predict when the nearest patrol boat would meet the Grand Banks on a converging course. The only certainty was that it would cross his bows before they reached the mouth of the ravine. Another six or seven minutes would spell the difference between survival and death.
They were well clear of the shipyard now, with less than two miles to go.
The outboard cruiser was less than a hundred yards off and slightly behind. The only reason the remaining security guard had not opened up with his own Bushmaster rifle was that he was afraid of hitting his partner.
Giordino returned to the cabin, carrying an armload of four bottles filled with solvent from a can used to clean oil and grease within the engine compartment. Thin strips of rags were stuffed in the bottle necks. He carefully set the bottles on the cushions of a bench. The beefy Italian was nursing a large bruise on his forehead.
'What happened to you?' Pitt asked.
'Some guy I know can't drive a boat. I was thrown all over the engine compartment and bounced my head off a water pipe during a series of wild gyrations.' Then Giordino spotted the unconscious body of the security guard lying partially in the door. 'My sincerest apologies. You had a social caller.'
'He failed to produce an invitation.'
Giordino moved beside Pitt and stared through the windshield at the rapidly approaching patrol boat. 'No warning shot across the bow with this crew. They're armed to the teeth and looking for any excuse to blow us out of the water.'
'Maybe not,' said Pitt. 'They still need the expertise of Pat to decipher their inscriptions. They might rough her up and slap Megan around, but they won't kill them. You and I will be history. I plan on giving them a bit of a surprise. If we can suck them in close enough, we might give them a bonfire to enjoy.'
Giordino stared Pitt in the eyes. Most men would have reflected inevitable defeat, but Giordino saw no such reflection. What he saw was calculated determination and a faint gleam of anticipation. 'I wonder how John Paul Jones would see it.'
Pitt nodded. 'You'll be busy with your toys. Lend me your piece. Then lay low on the far side of the bridge until you hear shooting.'
'You or them?'
Pitt gave Giordino a dour look. 'It doesn't matter who.'
Giordino handed over his Para-Ordnance automatic without question, as Pitt pushed against the throttles in a fruitless attempt to goad a few more revolutions out of the engines. The Grand Banks was giving everything it had, but it was a boat built for comfortable cruising, not speed.
The commander of the patrol boat had no reservations about closing in on the Grand Banks. He had no reason to believe that anyone on board was crazy enough to take on a boat armed with twin machine guns plus the weapons held by men who were trained to kill at the slightest provocation. He studied the Grand Banks through night glasses, saw only one man standing at the helm on the bridge, and made the ultimate mistake of an aggressor- he profoundly underestimated his adversary. The searchlights were trained on the Grand Banks, illuminating the boat in a blinding glare.
The bone of foam cut by the bow fell away as the thirty-eight-foot patrol boat edged closer to the Grand Banks and gradually pulled alongside, until it was less than twenty feet away. From his position on the bridge, Pitt squinted his eyes against the bright light and made out a man behind each machine gun, pointing the barrels directly at him in the bridge cabin. Three other men stood shoulder to shoulder on the open deck aft of the cabin, armed with Bushmaster automatic rifles. Pitt was unable to see Giordino crouched on the opposite side of the cabin, but he knew that his friend was poised with either a match or a lighter to ignite the wicks on the bottles filled with the solvent. It was a nerve-prickling moment, but not one of total hopelessness, certainly not in Pitt's mind.
He had no burning desire to execute anyone, not even the species of hardened killers whom he was looking at across the water, and whose mercenary comrades he'd met in Colorado. It was no mystery that his life and that of Giordino weren't worth two cents if they were captured. He watched as the commander of the patrol boat raised a loudspeaker to his mouth.
Pitt recognized that the word alto meant 'stop,' and he could only assume the words that followed were a threat that if he didn't do what he was ordered, the security guards would open fire. He waved that he understood, took one more look at the distance separating him from the ravine, now down to less than half a mile, and a quick glance at the second patrol boat to estimate when it would arrive to back up its escort five to six minutes. Next he checked to make sure the two automatics were snug under the belt behind his back. Only then did he pull back the throttles to the idle position, but he kept the boat in gear so that it still maintained very slow headway.
He moved to the doorway of the cabin, no farther, raised his hands, and stood properly subdued in the dazzling beam of the light. He didn't bother using his limited Spanish vocabulary. He shouted back in English. 'What do you want?'
'Do not resist,' ordered the commander, now close enough to dispense with the loudspeaker. 'I am sending men to board you.'
'How can I possibly resist?' Pitt offered helplessly. 'I have no machine guns like you.'
'Tell the others to come on deck!'
Pitt kept his hands in the air, turned, and made as if he were relaying the commander's orders. 'They are afraid you will shoot them.'
'We're not going to shoot anyone,' the commander answered, in a tone that was about as slimy as an eel.
'Please turn the light out,' Pitt begged. 'You are blinding me and frightening the women.'
'Stand where you are and do not move,' the commander shouted in exasperation.
In a few moments, the patrol boat slowed its engines to a slow throb and angled toward the Grand Banks. A few feet away, two of the guards laid down their rifles and began dropping bumpers over the rail of the patrol boat. It was the opportunity Pitt had been waiting for. Even the men behind the machine guns had relaxed. Sensing no sign of trouble, one lit a cigarette. The crew and their commander, their wariness sharply diminished at seeing not the slightest hint of a threat, felt they had the situation firmly under their control.
Their attitude was exactly what Pitt had hoped for. Coldly, precisely, he dropped his hands, whipped out the two automatics, aimed the one in his right hand at the man standing at the forward machine gun, and in the same moment in time lined up the left muzzle at the gunner in the stern, pulling both triggers as fast as his fingers could curl. At a range of fifteen feet, he couldn't miss. The machine gunner in the bow sank to his knees on the deck with a bullet in his shoulder. The gunner in the stern threw his hands in the air, stumbled backward, and fell over the gunwale into the water.
Almost simultaneously, flaming bottles of fuel soared over and past the Grand Banks' bridge like a meteor shower and dropped onto the cabin and decks of the patrol boat, erupting in a roar of flames as the glass shattered and the contents ignited. The fiery liquid pooled and spread across the patrol boat, turning it into a blazing funeral pyre. Virtually the whole open stern deck and half the cabin erupted into flame. Tongues of fire soon poked from every port. Finding themselves about to burn alive, the crew unhesitatingly hurled their bodies into the cold water. The wounded gunner on the bow also staggered across the deck through the flames and leaped overboard. His clothing afire, the commander ignored the flames and stared scathingly at Pitt, before shaking his fist and leaping over the side.
Truculent jerk, Pitt thought.
He didn't waste so much as a second. He rushed to the bridge console and thrust the throttles full forward again, sending the Grand Banks on its interrupted journey toward the ravine. Only then did he spare the time to turn and stare at the patrol boat. The entire craft was engulfed with contorted flames that danced high into the night sky. Black smoke curled and twisted upward, blotting out the stars. In another minute, the fuel tanks exploded, throwing burning debris into the air like a fireworks display. She began to sink by the stern, sliding backward with a hissing sound as the icy water met the blistering flames. Then, with a great sigh, as if she had a soul, the patrol boat sank out of sight.
Giordino came around the cabin and stood at the door, looking at the bits and pieces of burning debris and oil that floated on the surface. 'Nice shooting,' he said quietly.
'Good pitching.'
Giordino inclined his head toward the second patrol boat that was hurtling across the fjord. Then he turned
