Deep Six

She expertly dropped the tires of the helicopter onto the crushed-shell road that ran along the top of the levee. Three minutes later Griffin ran across a creaking ramp to the barge. Another three minutes and he was back strapping himself in his seat.

“No luck?” asked Pitt.

“A bummer. The old tub is half filled with oil. Must be used as a refilling station for the dredge.”

Pitt looked at his watch. Two-thirty. Time was sifting away. A few more hours and Moran would be sworn in as President. He said, “Let’s keep the show moving.”

“Ah hear y’all talkin’,” Hogan said as she brought the craft up and over the river in one quick bank that had Giordino feeling his stomach to see if it was still in place.

Eight more miles and they drew another blank after spying a barge moored suspiciously under a marine maintenance repair shed. A quick search by the ground team showed it was a derelict.

They pushed on past the fishing towns of Empire and Buras. Then suddenly, after dipping around a bend, they saw a sight straight out of the golden years of the river, a spectacular and picturesque vision almost forgotten. Long white hull, wide beam, with a plume of steam drifting over her decks, a sidewheel paddle steamer sat with her flat nose nudged into the west embankment.

“Shades of Mark Twain,” said Giordino.

“She’s a beauty,” Pitt said as he admired the gingerbread carvings on the many-storied superstructure.

“The Stonewall Jackson,” Griffin explained. “She’s been an attraction on the river for seventy years.”

The steamer’s landing stages were lowered on the bank in front of an old brick fortress constructed in the shape of a pentagon. A sea of parked cars and a crowd of people wandered the parade ground and brick ramparts. In the center of a nearby field a cloud of blue smoke billowed above two opposing lines of men who seemingly stood shooting at each other.

“What’s the celebration?” asked Giordino.

“A War Between the States re-enactment,” Hogan replied.

“Run that by me again.”

“A staging of a historic battle,” Pitt explained. “As a hobby, men form brigades and regiments based on actual fighting units from the Civil War. They dress in authentic woven uniforms and shoot blanks out of exact- replica or original guns. I witnessed a re-enactment at Gettysburg. They’re quite spectacular, almost like the real thing.”

“Too bad we can’t stop and watch the action,” Griffin said.

“Plaquemines Parish is a storehouse of history,” said Hogan. “The star-shaped structure where they’re staging the mock battle is called Fort Jackson. Fort St. Philip, what little is left of it, is directly across the river. This is the area where Admiral Farragut ran the forts and captured New Orleans for the Yankees in 1862.”

It required no imagination at all to see and hear in their minds the thundering clashes of cannon fire between Union gunboats and Confederate batteries. But the curve in the river where Admiral Farragut and his fleet forced their passage over a century past was now quiet. The water rolled silently between the scrub-lined shores, having long ago covered the bones of the ships that sank during the battle.

Hogan suddenly stiffened in her seat and peered over the instrument panel through the cockpit window. Not more than two miles away, a ship with her bow aimed downriver was tied alongside an old wooden dock whose pilings ran under a large metal warehouse. Behind the stern of the ship lay a barge and a towboat.

“This could be it,” she said.

“Can you read the name on the ship?” Pitt asked from the rear passenger’s seat.

Hogan momentarily took her left hand off the collective pitch control lever to shield her eyes. “Looks like… no, that’s a town we just passed.”

“Which town?”

“Buras.”

“Could be it. Hell,” Pitt said with triumph in his voice, “this is it.”

“No crew members about on the ship,” Griffin observed. “You’ve got your high fence about the place, but I don’t see any sign of guards or dogs. Looks pretty quiet to me.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Pitt said. “Keep flying downriver, Slats, until we’re out of sight. Then swing back below the west levee and rendezvous with your people in the chase cars.”

Hogan continued her course for five minutes and then came around in a great half-circle to the north and landed on a high school football field. Two cars crammed with FBI agents were waiting when the helicopter touched down.

Griffin twisted in his seat to face Pitt. “I’ll take my team and enter through the front gate that opens onto the loading dock. You and Giordino remain with Hogan and act as aerial observers. Should be a routine operation.”

“Routine operation,” Pitt replied acidly. “Walk up to the gate, flash your shiny FBI badge and watch everybody cringe. Never happen. These people kill like you and I swat mosquitoes. Driving up in the open is an invitation to get your head blown off. You’d be smart to wait and call up reinforcements.”

Griffin’s face showed he was not one to be told how to run his business. He ignored Pitt and gave instructions to Hogan.

“Give us two minutes to reach the gate before you take off and circle the warehouse. Open a frequency with our field communications office and inform them of the situation. And tell them to relay our reports to Bureau headquarters in Washington.”

He stepped to the ground and got in the lead car. They drove around the high school gymnasium onto the almost invisible road that led to the Bougainville docking facility and disappeared over the levee.

Hogan raised the helicopter into the air and went on the radio. Pitt moved to the co-pilot’s seat and watched as Griffin and his men approached a high chain-link fence enclosing the pier and warehouse. With a mounting uneasiness he observed Griffin leave the car and stand at the gate, but no one appeared to confront him.

“Something’s happening,” said Hogan. “The tow-boat and barge are moving.”

She was right. The towboat began to slip away from the pier, pushing the barge with its blunt snout. The helmsman expertly maneuvered the two craft into the main stream and turned toward the gulf.

Pitt grabbed a spare microphone/headset. “Griffin!” he snapped, “the barge is being moved from the area. Forget the ship and warehouse. Return to the road and take up the chase.”

“I read you,” Griffin’s voice acknowledged.

Abruptly, doors flew open on the ship and the crew scrambled across the decks, tearing canvas covers off two hidden gun emplacements on the foredeck and stern. The trap was sprung.

“Griffin!” Pitt shouted into the microphone. “Get out. For God’s sake, get out.”

The warning came too late. Griffin leaped into the lead car, which roared off toward the safety of the levee as 20-millimeter Oerlikon machine guns began rapping out a deadly hail. Bullets tore into the wildly careening car, shattering windows, shredding the thin metal like cardboard and ripping through the flesh and bones of those inside. The rear car coasted to a stop, bodies spilling out onto the ground, some lying still, some trying to crawl for cover. Griffin and his men made it over the top of the levee, but all of them were badly wounded.

Pitt had whipped open the violin case, stuck the barrel of the Thompson out the side window and sprayed the bow gun of the Burns. Hogan instantly realized what he was up to and banked the helicopter to give him a better angle of fire. Men fell around the deck, never knowing where the deadly barrage came from. The gunners on the stern were more alert. They swung their Oerlikon from Griffin and his agents and began spewing its shells into the sky. Hogan made a game effort to dodge the fire that missed not by feet but inches. She kicked the helicopter around the ship as though it had a charmed life as the one-sided gun duel clattered over the river.

Then the trajectory from the Burns swayed through the air and hammered into the helicopter. Pitt threw up an arm to protect his eyes as the windshield disintegrated and blew into the cockpit. Steel-nosed bullets punctured the thin aluminum fuselage and wreaked havoc with the engine.

“Ah can’t see,” Hogan announced in a surprisingly calm voice. Her face ran crimson from several cuts, most of the blood streaming from a scalp wound into her eyes, blinding her.

Except for a few deep scratches on his arm, Pitt was untouched. He passed the machine gun to Giordino, who was wrapping a sleeve torn from his shirt around a shell gash on his right calf. The helicopter was losing power and dipping sharply toward the middle of the river. Pitt reached out and took the controls from Hogan and banked