Platinum? That was different. The American platinum Eagles were okay, and this metal was harder and worth almost twice as much as gold at current market prices. He had a few of those, but the white metal seemed colder, more… sterile than gold. He had nearly two hundred one-ounce Maple Leafs now, and in a few months, he would have three times that many. A year from now, maybe a thousand altogether. Paper came and paper went, especially back home, but gold was forever. When he had a thousand coins, then he could go home. It would not be enough to make him a millionaire, but still, he would be a man of substance. Worth more on the black market there than here, too. He could teach his art and not worry about the rent. If he had students who were adept but poor, he could carry them, as his
“Are you listening to me, Roberto?”
He smiled at her. “I am listening, though I do not see why I should bother. A trained monkey with a stick of dynamite could do this.”
“And he’d be cheaper and would eat less than you,” she said. “But we aren’t going to blow up anything. We take out a section, no matter how big, they can fix it in a matter of hours. Even if we took the bridge down, a boat would lay a temporary cable in a day or less. No, we cut it in six places, each break many miles apart. They fix one, it still doesn’t work. They find the second one and fix that, it
“A good plan,” he said, more to keep her happy than because he really cared. Cutting plastic cables was no work for a fighter. A man needed challenges, real challenges, from other men. Facing off, one-on-one, or one- against-many, that was worthwhile. But such work allowed him to amass wealth, and that was a goal to be attained for the long run.
He followed her with half his attention, nodding or murmuring now and then so she would see that he was listening, but considering with more of his thoughts the more important question of acquiring more gold…
John Howard’s assault team swam through the cold and murky waters, using rebreathers instead of scuba to better hide their exhaust bubbles. The wetsuits and gloves were the best quality, but the chill still seeped in around the seals. They used flippers and muscle power, no sleds or scooters, to make sure they didn’t make any noise a sound sensor listening for motors might pick up.
The target was two hundred meters ahead, and they wouldn’t be able to see it until they were almost there. Not that they would miss it — an oil tanker almost as long as three football fields and riding deep and heavy in the water wasn’t something you were going to swim around or under with it laying broadside to you — it drew more than ten meters. At five-meters approach depth, what they would see would be a wall of steel plates above and below.
The tanker had been hijacked in Indonesian waters by Tamil terrorists and sailed to a spot just outside San Francisco Bay to draw attention to the terrorists’ cause, whatever the dickens that was. If their demands were not met, they would, they threatened, blow the vessel to kingdom come, allowing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil to escape along the California coast.
Such an event would be an ecological disaster, not to mention very bad for tourism from Big Sur to Santa Barbara, at the least.
This wasn’t going to be allowed to happen. While authorities negotiated and delayed the terrorists, Howard and his team moved. The plan was simple: Get to the ship, scale the hull, prevent the terrorists from rupturing the bays holding the cargo, by whatever means possible. They would have to be quick, and they would have to be perfect — one psychotic with a fast hand would be disastrous.
They weren’t expecting enemy frogmen, but they were prepared, just in case. Their dive suits were equipped with the latest high-tech toys. They had LOSIR coms, infrared sensors, and bubble comps that fed heads-up displays in their full-face masks. Aside from that, each member of the six-man team carried weapons that would work in water or in air. Primary defensive arms were the Russian 5.56mm APS underwater assault rifles. These were selective-fire, gas-operated weapons. The firing mechanisms for these were based on the Kalashnikov rotating bolt system, and except for the oversized magazines that held twenty-six rounds, they looked a lot like an AK assault rifle. The projectiles were drag-stabilized darts, the cartridges based on 5.56 X 45mm NATO rounds. The darts were twelve centimeters long. The effective soft target killing range in air was slightly over 100 meters. The underwater range at this depth was about thirty meters. In water this murky, if you were close enough to see an enemy diver, you would have more than enough punch to take him out — the flechettes would blast through a face mask or wetsuit, no problem.
Each of Howard’s divers also carried 7.62 X 36 H&K P11 dart pistols, five-barreled weapons with sealed chambers. The effective range of these was much less than the Russian assault rifles, about thirty meters in air, half that or less underwater. Furthermore, once you’d fired your five shots to reload the weapon you had to send it back to the armorer — it was a factory-only procedure. Howard figured if it came to that, things would be pretty bad — if two dozen-plus rounds from the Russian weapons weren’t enough to do the job, another five from the handguns probably weren’t gonna help too much. Still, it was better to have it and not need it…
Suddenly Howard got a shimmery red sig on his heads-up display. His team’s transponder-coded heat-sigs were false-colored blue, so red meant company. A beat later, a second red image came into view. His display told him they were thirty meters out, right at the limit of their assault guns. The pair of reds moved slowly from east to west.
Visibility was no more than seven or eight meters in the cold water, with nightfall coming on fast and about to drop that to almost zero. They wanted to be at the tanker hull soon, where they’d use the gecko-foot climbing pads. As soon as it was dark, they’d ascend. Timing was critical; they couldn’t afford to mess around out here.
Howard stopped swimming forward and used hand jives to signal his men, all of whom but the tail were in visual range. He could have used the line-of-sight infrared coms, but it was possible the enemy had LOSIR, too, and even though his transmissions would be coded, the unfriendlies might pick up a stray signal. They wouldn’t know
Howard pointed into the murk, held up two fingers, then pointed at his eyes, ending with the jive for a question.
He got affirmative hand signals from everybody.
He pointed at his two best men, in the direction of the enemy divers; he pointed at his watch, then made the classic fingertip drag sign across his throat.
His two men affirmed the order and quickly swam off into the gloom.
Howard turned to watch them go, following them visually for the few meters he could still see them, then with his sensors.
The two blue forms slowly closed on the two red ones. When they were within visual range of each other, the enemy divers apparently noticed his men. They took evasive action—
It seemed as if it took a long time, but in reality it was over in a couple of heartbeats. He didn’t hear it, and he couldn’t see it, except for the sensor images, but the two red forms stopped moving. The blue forms approached, merged with the red, and formed an odd-looking purple as his suit computer tried to figure out what color to paint. Then the two red forms began to sink, vanishing from the sensor’s range in a few seconds.
Howard waved at the rest of his team. Time to move in…
The priority call bell chimed and automatically cut the VR scenario as it had been programmed to do. Since only two people had that priority code number — his wife and his boss — Howard was quick to answer. He did so without checking the caller ID.
“Yes?”
“John, it’s me,” his wife said. Her voice was tight, on the edge of panic.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Tyrone. He’s been in a car wreck. He’s at Mercy General. I’m on the way there now. The nurse who
