“There are no known reports that Makambo has helicopters,” Mark Murphy said, turning to the chairman. “But Hali just got a bulletin about a pair of choppers stolen from an oil exploration company.
Details are sketchy but it reads like the company’s pilots were hijacked.”
Juan nodded, not sure what to make of this development.
“I’ve got movement behind us,” Eric Stone called out. He’d switched his personal view screen to show the view from a stern-mounted camera.
A pair of patrol boats had rounded a bend in the river. Lights atop their pilothouses made it difficult to tell how they were armed, but Mark Murphy at the weapons station called up a database of Congolese military craft.
“They’re American-built Swift boats.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max said. He’d served aboard Swift boats for two tours in Vietnam.
Murph continued as if Hanley hadn’t spoken. “Displaces twelve tons, has a crew of twelve, and comes armed with six fifty-caliber machine guns. Top speed is twenty-five knots. Note here says that Congo’s riverine forces have also added mortars and they might be carrying shoulder-fired missiles.”
With the situation worsening by the second, Cabrillo made his decisions. “Hali, get me Benjamin Isaka.”
Isaka was their contact in the government. “Tell him that elements of his military might have found out about our mission and don’t realize we’re on their side. Or that two of his Swift boats have been taken by Makambo’s men. Eric, get us the hell out of here. Murph, keep an eye on, well, everything, but do not fire without my say-so. If we give away our capabilities, Abala’s going to know he’s being set up and will leave the guns where they are. Speaking of that. Hali?”
Hali Kasim pushed a shock of curly black hair off his forehead and typed some keystrokes into his computer. “RDF tags are activated and broadcasting five-by-five.”
“Excellent.” Cabrillo spun in his chair to look at Max Hanley. “How about it, old boy?”
“You know we’re only on battery backup,” Max Hanley told him. “I can’t give you more than twenty knots.”
TheOregon had the most sophisticated marine propulsion system ever built. Her magnetohydrodynamic engines used superconductive coils cooled by liquid helium to strip free electrons from seawater. The electricity was then used to power four massive pump jets through two vector nozzles at the ship’s stern.
The engines could move the eleven-thousand-ton ship at speeds approaching that of an offshore race boat, and since she used seawater for fuel she possessed an infinite range. Because of a fire two years earlier on a cruise ship powered by magnetohydrodynamics, most of the world’s maritime safety boards had banned their use until they could be further tested, which was why theOregon flew the flag of Iran on her jack staff, a nation with a decidedly cavalier attitude toward maritime law.
Tied to a dock eighty miles up the Congo River from the Atlantic Ocean, theOregon was surrounded by freshwater and thus couldn’t power up her engines. She had to rely on energy stored in ranks of silver-zinc deep cycle batteries to force water through her pump jets.
Having worked so closely with the navel architects and engineers when the ship was converted from a conventional lumber carrier, Cabrillo knew that even with the current running in their favor the batteries wouldn’t last more than sixty miles at full speed, twenty miles short of where the river discharged into the sea.
“Mr. Stone, what are the tidal conditions going to be in about three hours?” Cabrillo asked his helmsman.
“Mean high tide is in two hours thirty minutes,” Eric Stone replied without having to access the database.
As part of his job he kept track of tidal charts and weather forecasts five days out with the diligence of an accountant chasing a penny across a spreadsheet.
“This is going to be close,” Juan said to no one in particular. “Okay, Eric let’s get out of here before Abala’s men launch their assault.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
With a deft hand, Eric Stone ramped up the pulse jets. Without the whine of the cryopumps and ancillary equipment for the magnetohydrodynamic engines, the sound of water being forced through the tubes was a deep rumble that reverberated through the entire vessel. He dialed up the bow and stern thrusters and the massive ship moved laterally away from the dock at the same time she started straining against her mooring hawsers.
Sensing their quarry was about to escape, the rebels lining the quay opened fire with long sustained bursts from their automatic weapons. Bullets raked the ship from stem to stern. Windows lining the bridge exploded under the onslaught and portholes winked out in cascades of glass. Sparks flew from the Oregon ’s hull as hundreds of rounds were deflected by her armored belts. While it was a spectacular sight, the rebels did nothing but mar paint and destroy a few pieces of easily replaceable glass.
From astern, the approaching patrol boats added the pounding rhythm of their fifty calibers. In order to reach the rendezvous, theOregon rode high in the water, the special ballast tanks running along her flanks used to simulate her carrying a load of goods pumped dry. This afforded the gunners racing down the river a clear view of her rudder. They concentrated their fire on the rudder post, hoping to dislodge it from the steering gear and render the big ship helpless to the whims of the current. On a normal vessel their strategy was sound; theOregon ’s rudder could turn the ship when necessary, like in a port under the watchful eye of harbor officials, but she got most of her maneuverability from the vectored nuzzles of her drive tubes, which were well protected below the waterline.
Eric Stone ignored the distraction of the assault, instead watching the iron bollards bolted to the dock through his closed-circuit television. The hawsers pulled taut as the ship edged further from the dock. A pair of enterprising terrorists rushed for the stern line and started scrambling up like rats, weapons slung over their shoulders. Stone gunned the stern thruster. With the sound of tearing rotted wood, the mushroom-shaped bollard was yanked out of the dock like a festering tooth. Its tremendous weight made it pendulum against theOregon ’s side with a clang like an enormous bell.
One rebel fell immediately, and was sucked into the blades of the stern thruster when Eric reversed power to correct the ship’s course. All that emerged from the other side of the ship was a dark stain that tinged the waters red before fading in the current. The other gunman managed to cling to the rope as automatic capstans reeled it up. When he reached the hawsehole he tried to scramble on board the ship only to be greeted by Eddie Seng and Franklin Lincoln, who’d watched his boarding attempt from tactical view screens attached to their combat vests.
Eddie had come to the Corporation after premature retirement from the CIA, and while he didn’t have the combat experience of Linc’s SEAL career, he more than made up for it in single-minded determination. This was why Juan had made him chief of shore operations, the head of the gun dogs, as Max called their cadre of ex-SEALs, Force Recon, and Special Forces operators.
The rebel’s eyes went wide when he tried to heave himself to the deck. Linc regarded him over the sites of a Franchi SPAS-12 combat shotgun while Eddie jammed the barrel of a Glock to the soldier’s temple.
“Choice is yours, my friend,” Eddie said mildly.
The terrorist let his fingers go lax and plummeted into the frothing water below.
Back in the op center, Eric watched the second bollard. Despite the tons of force, it refused to pull free from the dock. Instead, large tears appeared in the wood as the underlining timbers were wrenched from their positions. A fifteen-foot section of the quay was torn away, tossing three more soldiers into the water and causing a much larger section of the dock to sway precariously.
“We’re free,” he announced.
“Very good,” Juan replied, checking his tactical display. The choppers were two minutes away and closing at over a hundred miles per hour. He imagined that the stolen oil company helicopters would be large and state of the art. With the weapons arrays secreted around his ship, Cabrillo knew they could gun down every soldier still on the dock, knock both helos out of the sky, and turn the pursuing patrol boats into so much flotsam—but that wasn’t the point of the mission they’d been hired to perform. “Bring us up to twenty knots.”
“Twenty knots, aye.”
The big freighter accelerated smoothly, the extra drag of the water finally tearing away the section of dock still attached to the bollard. Soon the autofire from shore stopped, but the two patrol boats continued to pound
