'How many of those big missiles does that frigate carry?' Briggs asked.
'Koni-class frigates carry four SS-N-2s,' Luger responded.
'Then I'll stay to see if they fire any more missiles,' Patrick said.
'I'm staying too,' Hal Briggs said.
'I'm not leaving,' Chris Wohl said with pure titanium in his voice. 'We've got two Stingers and some ammo leftthat should be enough for the last two SS-N-2s.'
Patrick nodded. He was happy to have such good fighters and close friends on that fantail with him. He had no way to fight off two big antiship missiles by himself, but he had been ready to order both of them to the lifeboats anyway.
'Here they come, guys,' Hal shouted. It seemed as if he barely had time to raise his Stinger missile before he fired. The antiaircraft missile missed, plunging into the sea without ever locking onto the target. Wohl's cannon fire hit the missile, but it still continued on, skipping across the ocean like a stick of dynamite thrown across a pond before slamming into the Catherine near the bow. Patrick's last Stinger missile shot missed as well, and the second SS-N-2 Styx missile hit just aft of the first missile's impact point. The ship shuddered, which soon progressed with terrifying speed to an earthquake-like trembling. The deck heeled upward, slammed down hard, then heeled up again. The bow was already going under.
It took every bit of strength for the three commandos to struggle to the port-side lifeboats. Luger had already lowered a boat to the water and had its engines started, and it took only seconds for the three to climb down, unfasten their lines, and motor away from the Catherine.
Through his electronic visor, Patrick could see the big Libyan frigate on the horizon. It was already turning toward them-the rapidly sinking salvage ship could no longer screen them. The lifeboat could only putter along, barely making five or six knots-the frigate would catch up to them in no time. Moments later he saw a muzzle flash, and seconds later a huge geyser of water erupted just a few dozen yards away-the Libyan frigate was already firing on them!
Wohl was twisting and pulling the lifeboat's tiller, trying to spoil their targeting. 'Come and get us, sucker,' he muttered. 'Just hope there's nothing left of me when you catch up to me.' Another geyser of water and an earsplitting BOOM! erupted, closer this time-they were getting the range. Another couple shots and..
Suddenly a fountain of fire appeared on the horizon. 'Something hit the Libyan frigate!' Patrick shouted. 'The FlightHawk! It must've kamikazied on the frigate! Not a moment too soon!' On the command net, he radioed, 'Wendy, this is Castor. Are you in contact with the Egyptian patrol ships? They should be able to screen you against any other Libyan fighters. Are you heading toward Egypt?' No response. 'Wendy, you copy?'
'This is the Hammer,' the pilot of the CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft replied. 'Are you trying to call us?'
'I was wondering if Wendy got in contact with the Egyptian navy.'
'Wendy's not on board, Castor,' came the response.
Patrick's mouth turned instantly dry, and his knees wobbled, even though his legs were supported by the high-tech exoskeleton. 'Say again, Hammer?'
'Sir, Wendy is not on board,' the pilot acknowledged. 'She told some of our passengers to lift off without her, that she was going in a lifeboat after she got a FlightHawk ready to attack.'
'Wendy?' Patrick shouted. 'Can you hear me? Where are you? Answer me!' He was breathing so hard into his helmet that he was in danger of hyperventilating. 'I want a search of every lifeboat and every square inch of the Hammer! Turn this boat around! We're going back!'
But by the time they turned around, the S.S. Catherine the Great had slipped beneath the dark burning waters of the Mediterranean Sea. They searched for several minutes until they heard patrol helicopters from the Libyan frigate heading in their direction and they were forced to withdraw. The Libyans pursued them until Egyptian navy patrol planes forced the Libyan helicopters to return to their stricken ship, but by the time Patrick, Briggs, and Wohl were picked up by an Egyptian frigate, the area where the Catherine had gone down was surrounded by Libyan coastal patrol ships. There was no way they could return, and they easily outnumbered the Egyptian patrols. Patrick interrogated Wendy's subcutaneous microtransceiver, checking for life signs or even a position, but there was no reply.
Patrick could not bear to turn away from the spot where the Catherine had gone down. He didn't care if the whole world heard the strange high-tech-looking commando sobbing inside his battle armor.
CHAPTER 2
'I can't take a meeting today. Can't you see this place is a madhouse?' Jon Masters shouted when his assistant, Suzanne, interrupted him for the third time in the past hour.
'Jon, the Duffields have been waiting since yesterday…'
'I asked to reschedule the meeting.'
'They've already rescheduled twice,' Suzanne reminded him. 'They've flown out all the way from Nevada each time. They're trying to accommodate you all they can.'
'Have them try harder.' He jabbed a finger at the door, dismissing her, then recited more commands into his voice-command computer terminal.
Suzanne sighed and gave up, but as she departed Jon's wife, Helen, who was the chairman of the board of their high-tech defense contractor aerospace company, Sky Masters Inc., walked in. Helen was several years older than her husband, but these days their age difference seemed to grow less and less noticeable. Helen was now wearing her dark hair a bit shorter, accentuating her long neck, slender face, and dark mysterious eyes; through the magic of laser surgery, she was also able to forgo the thick matronlylooking glasses she had worn since childhood. 'Jon, we have that meeting with the Duffields right now. Let's go.'
'I just got done telling Suzanne-'
'I know what you're telling Suzanne, but I'm telling you-we can't put this off any longer,' Helen insisted. 'Just a couple hours, that's all. A quick tour, review the prospectus, meet and greet, perhaps talk about the reorganization…'
'Helen,' Jon began, rubbing his temples quickly with his fingers, 'give me a break, okay?' He put his head down and concentrated on his self-massage, and Helen waited patiently for him to finish. Jon Masters was only in his mid-thirties, but his short, frizzy, rather unkempt hair looked like it was already turning gray at the temples, and many speculated he rubbed his temples more and more these days to rub the gray off. He had stopped wearing ball caps and drinking from big thirty-two-ounce squeeze bottles like a preschooler; and Helen, his wife of only a few years, noticed that her younger husband was starting to feel his age as well as look it.
It was about time, she thought. Jon Masters's entire life had been one adventure after another: his first of several hundred patents at age ten; his first million-dollar tax return by age eleven; his first Ph.D., from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age thirteen; control of the company, the one she had slaved for years to build, before age thirty. He had completely bypassed childhood and gone from infant to adult. Jon had never really known failure or pressure in his young life-he was always the one in control. Even in his clumsy, boyish, but charming courtship of her, he managed to learn how to charm and please a woman quickly enough to avoid losing her completely. He did not make her feel like just another conquest-he had learned well enough to avoid that trap.
'In case you've forgotten, Helen,' Jon muttered, 'Paul is dead; Wendy is missing; and Patrick, Hal, and Chris are being detained in Egypt.' Sky Masters Inc. was the secret major weapons and technology supplier to former president Kevin Martindale's commando force, the Night Stalkers. It was not a closely guarded secret: Wendy, Patrick, Hal Briggs, and Chris Wohl were all employees of Sky Masters Inc., and Paul McLanahan, although employed as an attorney in California, had worked closely with Sky Masters for years on development of the Tin Man battle armor and other weapons. 'I'm a little preoccupied right now.'
'But the Duffields don't know any of that,' Helen said, closing Jon's office door behind her. 'We can't tell them several of our people are involved in secret commando attacks in Libya. We have to carry on as if everything is okay. If we don't, it'll look like we're just blowing them off-and we definitely don't want to do that.'
