Shimatsume or Captain Otaka would be sending someone forward to find out what they were doing here.
'You men on the forward deck!' boomed suddenly from a loudspeaker above the foredeck. 'What are you doing there?'
They'd been seen. Inui raised an arm and waved. At the least, the gesture might confuse the bridge officers, might buy the two men another few seconds.
The Ishikari's bow rose, then plunged, sending a blast of cold spray over the bow. Inui and Yano clung to the railing and to the packaged life raft, waiting it out. As the bow rose again, Inui finally allowed himself to look at his watch. One more minute…
A watertight door opening from the deckhouse beneath the bridge banged open, and two petty officers in bright orange life jackets emerged, walking toward them.
Thirty seconds…
Kozo Fuchida walked onto the Sandpiper's bridge. He glanced at the armed security man standing by the starboard-side wing access way, half-expecting the man to challenge him, but he did not. Fuchida and Chujiro Moritomi, in their guise of Wanibuchi and Kitagawa, seemed accepted now as legitimate members of the ship's company. He saw Dunsmore give them a dark look as they came in, but the executive officer said nothing. The captain was on the bridge, in his high-backed chair with pipe and coffee, and if anyone was going to order the two of them off the bridge, it would be him.
But Jorgenson didn't seem to notice them. Both of them wore bright yellow plastic windbreakers with the PNTL logo — shipboard issue. The jackets were loose enough that when they were zipped up, the pistols tucked into the waistbands of the men's jeans were completely hidden.
Fuchida looked at his watch — synchronized earlier with Inui and Yano on the other ship. Another minute, perhaps less. He glanced out the forward bridge windows at the Ishikari in time to see the other vessel take a white plume of spray across the bow.
He didn't envy his KKD brothers over there.
Fuchida exchanged a glance with Moritomi, who nodded, then walked to the passageway leading aft from the bridge. The ship's radio room was located there, with one door opening onto the bridge, another onto the passageway. Moritomi took up his position outside the passageway entrance to the radio shack. A ship's officer was inside, headset in place as he monitored radio traffic over the ship's satellite and UHF links.
'Anything we can do for you gentlemen?' Jorgenson asked, swiveling his seat to face Fuchida.
'Not a thing, Captain,' Fuchida replied in perfect colloquial English. He'd lived for twelve years in England and for four before that in the United States. His bachelor's in economics was from Princeton. 'We were told to observe all ship operations, so…' He shrugged. 'We're observing.'
'Observe all you like,' Jorgenson replied. 'Just don't touch anything.'
'Of course, Captain.'
'Would you care for a tour?'
'If you — '
Fuchida caught the flash out of the corner of his eye and turned in time to see a black cloud shot through with flecks of orange roiling into the morning sky. Portions of the aft superstructure crumpled as though swept forward by a giant's fist as the first explosion was followed immediately by a second, a third, by several more blasts in rapid succession, each extending the billowing cloud up and out; the mast amidships with its forest of radio antennae ripped free, twisting, and slammed forward into the rear of the bridge tower. A shopk wave raced out from the stricken vessel in a perfect circle, taking several seconds to cross the half mile of open water to reach the Sandpiper
'Holy Mother of God!' Dunsmore cried suddenly, eyes widening.
As the shock wave passed, thunder boomed and the Sandpiper shuddered, the bridge windows rattling in their mountings. The black cloud continued to grow, engulfing most of the Japanese escort, swelling vast and horribly as the ship's fuel stores exploded as well. A volcano of orange flame boiled into the sky from the ruin of the aft deckhouse.
Splashes started rising in the water ahead. Something large and twisted hurtled out of the sky and struck the number three cargo hatch on the Piper's forward deck with a thump, bounced, and toppled over the side. Other bits and pieces of debris continued to rain about the ship.
'All back!' Jorgenson snapped. The Sandpiper needed a long stretch of water in which to stop. They were not in danger of colliding with the other vessel, fortunately, given their relative positions, but the Piper would need to come to a complete stop to pick up survivors in the water, if nothing else.
'All back, aye!' the rating at the engine telegraph replied, hauling back on the levers that communicated the order to Sandpiper's engine room.
'Sparks! Send an SOS! Give our position and report an explosion on board the Ishikaril' He hesitated. 'Add that we are providing assistance.'
'Sir!'
'My God!' Dunsmore said. 'What happened?'
'Offhand, Number One, I'd say that ship's armament magazine just blew. Those vessels carry eight Harpoons, six 324mm ASW torpedoes, and God only knows how much ammunition for its Melara cannon.'
Some of the cannon shells were cooking off, now, in the fierce blaze amidships, the sharp, flat reports banging across the water. 'Sir,' Dunsmore said. 'Is it a good idea to get too close?…'
'The law of the sea, Number One.' Jorgenson shook his head. 'Hell, I'm not going to leave those poor buggers!'
'No, sir. Of course not.'
Fuchida glanced back at Moritomi, who was still standing next to the door to the radio room. They were ready to act should Jorgenson order the Queen to shear off, but their orders were to do nothing so long as the Britishers followed the script. The longer the Japanese could wait before showing their hand, the better.
The Ishikari was settling low in the water already, her stern either submerged or, as seemed more likely, completely blown away. Everything from her ruined bridge tower aft was engulfed in black smoke, which was billowing rapidly into the gray sky. A pyramid of flame continued to burn amidships; she'd had her diesel tanks topped off at Barrow for the long voyage home and she was carrying a lot of fuel. Some of that fuel oil was spreading across the sea's surface now alongside the sinking ship, carrying the flame with it.
He wondered if his KKD brothers on board the Ishikari had survived.
Ichiro Inui literally had no memory of the explosion. One moment, he'd been standing next to Yano on the Ishikari's bow, watching the seamen approach and wondering how he could delay them for another precious few seconds. The next, he was underwater, struggling to reach the shifting, silvery gleams of light rippling across the surface far, far overhead. Sound — tearing, creaking, thundering sound — surrounded him. His lungs burned, and he fought to keep the rising panic at bay. He kicked wildly, reaching for the surface.
He broke through at last, lungs bursting, and emerged into a world of booming, flame-laced nightmare. He'd hit the water fifty feet from the Ishikari' s bow, which loomed above him now like a great, sharp-edged gray cliff. He gasped for air and nearly strangled on the stink of hot diesel-oil fumes. Fire and black smoke erupted into the sky, and the oil-covered water close by the ship was blazing.
He saw men on the ship's deck, racing this way and that like ants on a kicked-over anthill. The heads of other men bobbed in the water closer to the ship, men struggling to get clear of the spreading fires.
A wave swept under Inui, lifting him bodily, and for a moment he had a better view of the disaster area. The oil was everywhere, the fires spreading. On Ishikari's deck, a man emerged from a doorway aflame, fire clinging to his upper body as he vaulted the port side railing and plummeted into the sea like a burning meteor.
He tried to find the life raft. It had a compressed air bottle triggered by contact with seawater and should have inflated automatically when it fell into the sea, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't see Yano, either, or the men who'd been coming to get them. Then the wave passed and he slid down the back side into the trough. For a moment, he couldn't see anything but water below and flame-roiled smoke above.
By now, he knew, the Pacific Sandpiper ought to be on the way to pick up survivors, but she would still be half a mile away. Inui was already exhausted and half-drowned. He didn't expect to survive.
He thought of his father, and prepared for a welcome death.
