Not waiting to see what happened, Paul lurched to the second launcher. He began readying it, but raised his torso and the launcher slowly in order to keep his balance throughout the procedure.
An explosion sounded from the sky.
“Hit!” Romo shouted. “You destroyed it.”
Paul grinned savagely.
Romo dropped the binoculars and picked up an oar. He began paddling, working them closer to the waiting submersible and the SEAL shouting at them.
Paul aimed the last GD Blowdart. He searched until he had a beep. Then he waited.
“Fire,” Romo said, breathing hard as he paddled. “Fire the thing.”
Then Paul saw the second UAV. He nodded to himself, checked where the back-blast would go and shifted his position. He heard another radar lock-on beep and pulled the trigger. The rocket climbed.
Paul saw metallic flutters up there, a second’s flash in the sunlight. The UAV must have launched an anti- radar packet. He couldn’t do anything about that. Either the missile had good tech or—
Paul pitched aside the empty tube. He heard it plop into the water. Then he grabbed a paddle and dug the blade into the lake. The two LRSU men forced the dinghy closer to the waiting submersible.
“Do you think—” Romo shouted.
Before his blood brother could finish the thought, Paul heard an explosion in the sky.
Romo laughed, and he grinned at Paul. “We’re going to make it. We outfoxed them one more time.”
“Here’s hoping,” Paul said, and he dug the blade into the water with everything he was worth.
“It’s our game now,” Lieutenant Smith from London said. He’d just witnessed the destruction of two UAVs. “It’s up to us to finish it.”
“They’re cagey bastards,” Holloway said grimly.
“Neptune’s beard,” Smith said into the microphone, “a two-prong approach.”
“Roger,” Smith heard in his headphones. The lieutenant of the GDN Galahad 3/C/2 roared into battle with him.
“Ready the cannon,” Smith told Holloway.
“You can bet I have a present for them, sir.”
“I doubt they were expecting us,” Smith said. “Now we’re going to show them who has the rights to this batch of water. Rule Britannia,” he added.
Holloway didn’t answer as he squinted at his control screen.
“They had planes waiting,” Sulu shouted in the cramped compartment. “Now the hovers are going to get us.”
“Our guests have teeth,” Captain Green said. “I’ve told you before that Allah watches his own. Those were my prayers being answered.”
“Yes, sir,” Sulu said.
Captain Green laughed in a low-throated manner that had chilled pedestrians in Chicago before. “Let’s show the invaders that we are from the windy city and exactly what that means.”
“I’m not from Chicago,” Sulu said. “I’m from Springfield.”
Darius Green wasn’t listening. His eyes were on the control screen. He’d been waiting for something like this. The invaders had come a long ways to get to Lake Ontario. The Navy had given him a flimsy sub and an escort job. Allah hadn’t raised him to chauffer warriors to battle. He was a warrior. This was hardly his first battle, either, but he’d never fought with modern weapons before. In Chicago, he’d fought with fist, club and blade. Now he battled with missiles and wits.
“Look!” Sulu shouted. “There are more hovers on their way here.”
Darius’s eyes narrowed. He saw the blips. He had a decision to make and he needed to make it
Sighing heavily, Darius Green made his decision. He would have to trust to Allah to see him through. One thing he knew: he wanted to kill the enemy, not just wound them. That helped him make the decision.
“I’m ready,” Captain Green said. “Are you?”
Paul Kavanagh could have reached out and banged the submersible with his oar when the first modified Javelin launched.
“Jump!” the man with the bloody bandage shouted from the sub’s hatch. “We have to get out of here.”
“Just a little closer,” Paul told Romo. “None of this matters if we don’t get our prisoner and his equipment into the boat.”
“Jump!” the man shouted. “Jump! We have to leave.”
Together, Paul and Romo paddled, shoving the dinghy against the submersible’s side. Paul dropped his oar into the water, grabbed a rope and tossed it at the waiting sailor. The man grabbed and might have caught the rope. But at that moment, a second Javelin launched from the mount. The Navy man flinched at the hissing noise and the rope dropped out of his reach.
Romo paddled, and that twisted the dinghy, shoving it against the submersible and then pushing them away.
Paul coiled the rope madly.
With his hands behind his back, Hans Kruger twisted around to watch the hovers. He swore in German, and he seemed to be weighing odds. Maybe he was thinking about jumping overboard.
Paul threw the rope again. He expected another Javelin to launch. It did with a hiss. This time, the one-eyed man caught the rope and pulled the dinghy tight against the sub.
An explosion in the distance made Paul turn. A hovercraft burned. Another hiss told him of the fourth launch.
Romo pulled out a wicked-looking blade, with serrated edges, teeth like a saw. He grabbed one of the prisoner’s forearms. The man sobbed in German, shaking his head, pleading. With a short chop, Romo deftly sliced the prisoner’s plastic ties.
“Jump,” Romo told him. “Climb aboard the sub.”
Hans Kruger blinked at the distant hovers.
Paul saw something in the prisoner’s eyes. With the flat of his hand, he knocked the man against the back of his head. “Jump!” he said, in an ugly voice. “Or I’ll kill you right here and leave them your carcass.”
Fear washed over the prisoner’s face. He must have believed Kavanagh. Hans Kruger leaped for all he was worth and scrambled onto the slippery desk. The one-eyed man climbed out of the hatch and made way. Hans hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he slid into the hole and disappeared into the submersible.
Another Javelin hit another enemy hover.
Paul didn’t have time to watch. Romo leaped and made it, and Paul began pitching him equipment.
“There are more hovers out there!” the sailor shouted at him.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “I figured as much. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”
Paul pitched the last few pieces of equipment. Romo dropped each one down the open hatch. Finally, Paul jumped and made it onto the slippery sub. It was a mere foot above the water. Once, a wave slapped up high enough to spill water into the hatch. Was this thing big enough to hold all three of them?
The sailor disappeared into the hatch.
Paul looked back. Two hovers burned on the waters. A third machine roared toward them, skimming across the waves. Its cannon belched flame. For a second, Paul could only watch. The projectile screamed near as Paul crouched on the submersible. His guts tightened. Then the shell fell fifteen feet short of him. A waterspout shot up and droplets struck him in the face.
The distant hover’s cannon belched flame once more.
Paul might have stayed to watch, but the sub lurched and began to sink. Lake water sloshed against Paul’s boots. That tore him free of his momentary paralysis. Thrusting his legs through the nearby hatch, Paul climbed down a short ladder.
