theOregon with steady streams of fifty-caliber rounds.
“RPG launch,” Mark Murphy called out sharply.
Abala’s men must have had vehicles hidden in the jungle, which were now pacing theOregon as she fled down the Congo. The small missile arched out of the underbrush, raced across the water, and slammed into the bow. The ship’s armor protected the interior spaces but the explosion was deafening as the fireball rolled across the deck. Almost immediately another RPG came out of a tube held by a gunner on one of the Swift boats. This missile came on from a low angle, passing close enough to the stern rail to scorch paint and hit the ship’s funnel square on. Armored to protect theOregon ’s sophisticated radar dome hidden inside, the grenade still detonated with enough force to knock out the system.
“I’m on it,” Hali shouted as soon as his screen went blank. He ran from the op center as fire control teams and electronics specialists were automatically dispatched by the onboard computer.
Linda Ross, an elfin woman with freckles and a high, almost girlish voice took over his work station seamlessly. “Choppers are a minute out, Chairman, and the last image from the radar showed traffic ahead coming upriver.”
Juan called up higher resolution on the forward-facing cameras. The river was as black as oil, hemmed in with hills made silver by the moonlight. Just emerging from around a bend was a big river ferry. She had three decks and a blunt bow, but what caught the crew’s attention was the image from the infrared cameras. Her topmost deck was a sea of humanity, and it looked like every other deck was equally full of passengers headed inland toward the port of Matadi.
“God, there must be five hundred people on her,” Eric said.
“And I bet she’s rated for no more than two hundred,” Cabrillo replied. “Take her down our port side. I want theOregon between the RPGs and that tub.”
Stone edged his controls and took note of the fathometer. The riverbed was rising rapidly. “Chairman, we’ve got less than twenty feet under our keel. Eighteen. Fifteen. Ten feet, sir.”
“Hold us steady,” Juan said as a hail of fresh gunfire erupted from the jungle, AK-47s and a string of RPGs launched as fast as a Roman candle.
Explosions rocked the freighter as she raced toward the lumbering ferry, the sky lighting up with each hit.
One of the missiles went errant and for a horrified moment looked like it was going to hit the ferry broadside, but at the last second its motor kicked out and it detonated just shy of her hull, drenching the passengers who were frantically rushing around in a hopeless bid to stay out of the line of fire.
“Max, give me everything you’ve got,” Juan said angrily, sickened by the callousness of Abala’s troops.
“We’ve got to protect those people.”
Max Hanley released the safeties from the battery circuits and eked a few more amps out of them and into the pump jets. TheOregon gained another three knots but it would cost them more miles of range, miles they couldn’t afford to lose.
The ferry veered toward the middle of the river, giving theOregon just enough room to pass without grounding. Moments later, the Swift boats split around the oncoming vessel, cutting frothing arcs of water across the river. A motorized skiff that had been riding in the ferry’s wake emerged in the confusion, and one of the Swift boats rammed it under the waves, crushing its wooden hull and two occupants without a check in speed.
Juan watched Eric at the controls. Maneuvering such a large vessel in the tight confines of the river was bad enough, but dodging traffic while being shot at was something young Stone had never faced before.
Juan had full confidence in his helmsman but in the back of his mind he knew he could override Eric’s work station and take the helm himself.
A voice sounded over Cabrillo’s headset. “Chairman, it’s Eddie. I have visual on those two choppers.
Can’t tell the make but they look big enough to carry at least ten men. Now might be the time to splash them.”
“Negative. The pilots are civilians for one thing, kidnapped by Makambo’s rebels and forced to fly for them. And secondly, we can’t let them know our capabilities. We went over this before coming upriver.
We’ll take a pounding, but the old girl will get us home. Just be prepared if they try to drop men onto the deck.”
“We’re ready.”
“Then God help ’em.”
For an hour they raced down the Congo, dogged by the Swift boats and taking occasional fire from shore where the road came close enough to the river for the rebels to set up an ambush. The choppers continued to hover over theOregon without attempting to land or off-load troops. Juan assumed they wanted to board the ship once she’d been forced aground by the RPGs.
They cruised under the Inga Dam, a massive concrete abutment holding back a tributary of the Congo River. The dam and its twin were the main sources of electricity in this part of Africa. The ship encountered rough water where the two flows met, forcing Eric to reverse thrust on the pulse jets to keep theOregon from turning broadside to the current.
“Chairman, I have Benjamin Isaka on the line,” Linda Ross said. “Transferring him to your station.”
“Deputy Minister Isaka, Captain Cabrillo here. I assume you’ve been apprised of our situation?”
“Yes, Captain. Colonel Abala wants his diamonds back.” The deputy defense minister’s accent was almost too thick for Juan to understand. “And he has stolen two of our river patrol boats. I have a report that ten of our men are dead on the dock in Matadi where the boats were stationed.”
“He also has two helicopters from an oil company.”
“I see,” Isaka said noncommittally.
“We could use a little help.”
“Our mutual friend at Langley who recommended you said you are more than capable of taking care of yourselves.”
Juan wanted to scream at the government official. “Mr. Isaka, if I take out Abala’s forces he’s going to be very suspicious about the weapons he just bought. The radio direction tags embedded in them are well hidden but not undetectable. The whole plan was for him to take the guns back to Makambo’s jungle headquarters, giving your military its location once and for all. You can end the insurrection in a couple of days, but not if Abala leaves the weapons on the dock back at the plantation.” It was the third or fourth time he’d outlined his logic to Isaka since Langston Overholt at the CIA okayed Juan to undertake the mission.
The first part of Isaka’s reply was muffled by the sound of mortar fire coming from the Swift boats. They hit close enough to throw a wall of water against theOregon ’s side. “…they leave Boma now they will reach you in an hour.”
“Could you repeat that please, Minister?”
The entire crew in the op center was thrown forward as theOregon ’s keel slammed into the river bottom, the instant deceleration sending expensive china cascading in the mess and shattering a portable X-ray machine in the medical bay that Dr. Julia Huxley had forgotten to secure.
Juan was among the first to his feet. “Eric, what the hell happened?”
“The bottom shoaled suddenly, I never saw it coming.”
“Max, how’re the engines?”
As a safety precaution the computer automatically took the engines offline the instant the huge ship grounded. Max studied his computer screen, his frown deepening by the second. He worked the keyboard a moment longer.
“Max?” Juan said, drawing out his old friend’s name.
“Port tube is jammed solid with mud. I can get twenty percent through the starboard, but only in reverse.
We try to go forward and we’ll block up that one, too.”
“Eric,” Juan said, “I have the helm.”
“Chairman has the helm, aye.”
The pulse jet tubes were milled as smooth as rifle barrels from an exotic alloy to exacting standards,
