Even as the thought occurred to the chief, the paint locker on the opposite side of the bay exploded. In an instant the flammable chemicals stored there were burning fiercely.
The chief looked wildly about for the nearest fire alarm. He saw it against the wall right by the fire-fighting station and lunged for it. His motion galvanized his men into action. They energized the pumps and began dragging the hose out. They had the nozzle half way across the hangar when two more paint lockers exploded.
Qazi and his men huddled under an aircraft wing immediately forward of the island. He counted them. Seven plus himself. “Who’s not here?”
“Mohammed. Apparently he only wounded one of the marines on the machine guns and they fought. He may have gone overboard.”
“Did you set his charges on the antenna leads?”
“Mine and his both.” So all the radio-antenna leads of which Qazi was aware had been severed. The damage could be repaired fairly quickly as soon as the Americans discovered where the breaks were, but the search would take time, and time for the Americans was running out.
Qazi looked up at the dark windows of the bridge, eight decks above him in the island superstructure. The glare of the red flood-lights around the top of the island made it impossible to see if any lights were illuminated on the bridge. Of course, the ship’s senior officers were there. They had to be. The quick-reaction team couldn’t have made it to the bridge yet, but they were undoubtedly on their way. Qazi had to reach the bridge before the marines did or he might not be able to get there at all. Time was running out for him too.
He gestured to two of his men, pointing out the positions he wished them to assume on the flight deck, positions from which they could command the helicopter landing area on the angle, abeam the island. Since the ship’s rescue helicopter was airborne, most of the helo landing area was empty and the whip antennas that surrounded the flight deck had been lowered to their horizontal position. Qazi wanted to ensure everything remained that way.
The rest of his men he led across the deck through the wind and rain toward the hatch that opened into Flight Deck Control, the empire of the aircraft handler. E-2 Hawkeye radar reconnaissance planes were parked beside the island, their tails almost against the steel and their noses pointed across the deck at the helicopter landing area. The wet metal skin of the airplanes glistened in the weak red light. The colonel went under the tails and glanced through the porthole into Flight Deck Control. The compartment was full of men. He stopped in front of the entrance door and motioned for two of his men to grab the handle that would rotate the locking lugs.
Reports were arriving on the bridge over the telephones, the squawk boxes, and the sound-powered circuits. Damage-Control Central reported fires in the comm spaces and on the hangar deck. The airborne helicopter had been unable to find the second man overboard. Fully 20 percent of the ship’s company was still ashore. Most of the ship’s radios seemed to be off the air with suspected antenna problems. As Captain James tried to sort it out, Jake and the admiral stood in the corner and listened to the reports coming in.
Jake looked at his watch. Two minutes had passed since general quarters had sounded.
“What are they after?” the admiral asked, more to himself than Jake. “And where are they?”
The door to Flight Deck Control swung open and Qazi followed two of his men into the space. They had their Uzis in front of them. The rest followed him into the compartment.
“Silence. Hands up,” Qazi shouted in English.
A sea of stunned faces stared at Qazi. He waved at the area behind the scale model of the flight and hangar deck. “Over there. Everyone. Over there!”
No one moved. Qazi pointed the Browning Hi-Power, with its silencer sticking out like an evil finger, at the chiefs and talkers near the maintenance status boards. “Move. Headsets off.”
They stood frozen, staring. The silenced pistol swung toward the status board and popped, but the smack of the bullet punching its way through the plexiglas and splatting into the bulkhead was louder. Eyes shifted hypnotically toward the neat, round hole in the transparent plexiglas. In the silence Qazi could hear the tinkle of the spent cartridge case as it caromed off a folding chair and struck the metal bulkhead.
“Do as he says. Get over here, people.” The speaker was an officer in khakis, a lieutenant commander sitting in a raised padded chair.
The men moved with alacrity, shedding the sound-powered telephone headsets.
When everyone was crammed thigh to thigh in the indicated space with their hands on the back of their necks, Colonel Qazi spoke again. “You will stand silently, without moving. My men will kill every man who moves or opens his mouth. They understand no English. And they know how to kill.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “They enjoy it.”
He turned and went through the doorway that led to the ladder up into the island. He would have to hurry. Were the marines ahead of him?
Qazi went past the door to the down ladder, a standard nonwatertight aluminum door, and opened the door to the ladder going up. Although Qazi didn’t know it, this was the only place on the ship where the ladderwells were sealed with doors and aluminum bulkheads. This feature prevented fumes and noise from the flight deck from penetrating deeper into the ship.
He heard a thundering noise immediately beneath him. Men running up the ladder beneath his feet! Marines on the way to the bridge! He gestured frantically to the men following him. Just then the door from below burst open and one of Qazi’s men triggered an Uzi burst full into the chest of the marine coming through. He fell backward onto the man behind him. The door sagged shut on his ankle.
On the ladder below the marine who had been shot, someone fired his M-16 upward, through the thin aluminum bulkhead. Once, twice, then an automatic burst.
“A grenade,” Qazi whispered hoarsely.
The man nearest the colonel pulled the pin and tossed it over the booted ankle trapped in the door as everyone else fell flat on the deck.
The explosion was muffled. “Another,” Qazi ordered.
This time the explosion was loud and shrapnel sprayed through the aluminum ladderwell wall.
The grenades would merely delay the marines below. They would seek an alternate route upward, and they knew the ship. He had purchased himself mere seconds. Maybe that would be enough. “Quickly now, let’s go.”
Two of his men failed to rise. Someone turned them over. One was dead, a rifle bullet through the heart, and the other had a piece of shrapnel in his abdomen. No time to waste. Qazi charged up the ladder two steps at a time with those of his men who were still on their feet right behind. More gunfire. Qazi paused at the top and glanced back. The last man was down holding his leg. The marines had fired through the aluminum sheeting under the ladder. Even as he looked, another burst came through the aluminum and the wounded man lost his balance and fell. But he still had two men on their feet behind him. Qazi circled the open turnaround and leaped onto the next ladder.
O-5 level, O-6 level, O-7 … On the O-8 level he passed the flag bridge. No marines in sight. Maybe, just maybe …
As he came up the ladder to the O-9 level he saw a marine wearing a pistol belt standing in front of the door to the navigation bridge. The marine had his pistol in his hand and looked apprehensively at Qazi as he took the steps two at a time. Qazi glanced over his shoulder as his head reached the landing coaming — no more marines — and leveled his pistol as he topped the ladder. He shot the surprised sentry point-blank. The body was still falling as Qazi jerked open the door to the navigation bridge and hurtled through.
22
When Gunnery Sergeant Tony Garcia reached the bottom of the island ladderwell on the O-3 level, he stood stock still and looked at the carnage, stunned. He had eaten dinner tonight in Naples with two friends and had been sound asleep when general quarters was called away. He had pulled on trousers, shirt, and shoes and raced for the armory, where the corporal on duty had tossed him an M-16 and duty belt. Then he had run for the bridge. Normally
