The boat flashed under the second cable, angling to cut off the approaching tender. She was going so fast that the men on the boat could only stare as she bashed her boat into theirs. One of the men tumbled over the tender’s side, and by the time any of them thought to reach for their guns, Tory was twenty yards away and accelerating like a greyhound.
She slalomed the assault boat as the men began firing on her. She was exhilarated by the adrenaline pumping through her veins. “I know, I know, bloody women drivers. Hit you then try to run away. How about you come and catch me, and we’ll exchange license and insurance information.”
She looked back to see if they’d taken the bait but was horrified to see they were intent on reaching the tug. She whipped Trono’s radio set over her head. “This is Tory. I’m with Trono and Pulaski on the assault boat.”
“Tory. It’s Max Hanley. What’s the problem?”
“There are six terrorists in a small boat about to reach the tug. Your guys are trapped on board with only pistols. They haven’t a chance.”
“Where are you?” Max asked in a reassuring tone to calm her down.
“On your SEAL boat. Mike wanted me to draw them away, but they weren’t having any of it.”
“Okay, just you hold on for a second. Pulaski? Trono? You there?”
The reply came in a faint whisper. “Max, it’s Ski. We’re on top of one of the shipping containers. The pirates just came aboard.”
“Do you think they know you’re there?”
“Negative. Mike grabbed a tarp just before they got here. Unless they check the top of the container, we’re hidden. And it doesn’t appear they’re searching the ship.”
“What
“It looks like they want to release the tow cables and get out of Dodge. What do you want us to do?”
“Help them,” Juan Cabrillo said over the open comm channel.
“What?” Max and Ski said in unison.
“I said help them. Ski, you and Mike hang tight. Max, I want you to cut the tow cables.” Juan’s radio carried the sound of the gunfight raging on the beach — the sharp crack of rifle fire, the staccato bursts from AK-47s, and the agonized screams of the wounded.
“I can do it with the Gatling,” Mark Murphy chimed in. “A direct hit on the big cable drums on the tug’s stern should do it.”
“But why?” Max asked.
“Because there are a thousand or more Chinese workers caught in the crossfire down here, and the longer this battle lasts, the more of them are getting killed. The Russians look like they can hold out for hours still. Right now that tug is the pirates’ only way off the beach, and if they see it’s about ready to make way, you can bet they’re going to forget all about their fight and hightail it over there.”
“Which gets them away from the civilians…”
“Which gives Murph the opportunity to hose ’em down,” Juan finished.
“What about the Russians?”
“We’ll give them a chance to surrender and get off this beach alive. If they don’t take it, you can take them.”
As if to underscore the urgency, a tremendous crack split the air. A fresh explosion of ash spewed from the top of the volcano, billowing ever higher like a nuclear mushroom cloud. Juan had no idea how long they had. Hours or minutes. They still hadn’t located Eddie, and if his plan to end the gunfight quickly didn’t work, he had to seriously consider evacuating his people from the beach and making a run for it.
Hali Kasim’s excited voice cut through Cabrillo’s grim thoughts. “Chairman, I found Eddie! He’s on the far side of the barge. It looks like he’s tracking two people, one of whom appears to be a hostage.”
“Where are they headed?”
“Up away from the beach. The range is pretty extreme, but I think they have a helicopter up there.”
“Take it out,” Cabrillo ordered, and then he and Linc exchanged a look. It was all the communication they needed. Linc was now in charge of the field team while Juan took off in a ground-eating run. He had only covered forty yards when his ankle caught on a loose stone. Had it been his real leg, the ankle would have broken or at least suffered a major sprain. All that happened was the chairman fell hard, but his clumsiness saved his life as the air above him came alive with automatic fire. He combat rolled a dozen times to find cover behind a pile of stones. The gunman was below him, hidden behind a pyramid of fifty-five-gallon drums.
Juan checked the load on the grenade launcher slung under his M-4, steadied the rifle against his shoulder, and fired. The weapon made a comically hollow sound, and a second later the grenade impacted behind the drums. The grenade’s primary explosion detonated the fuel. Three-hundred-pound drums were launched into the air like rockets, some exploding in flight, while others hit the ground and spilled their flaming contents across the beach.
Juan scrambled to his feet as a drum arced high and began to fall straight at him like a meteor. It landed five yards from him and slightly higher on the hill, so when it split, a burning lake of gasoline roared over him. He fought the instinct to run down the hill. He ran at a diagonal instead, flames licking at his knees and the heat enough to sear his lungs, but in just moments he was through the conflagration with nothing more than singed hair.
“Out of the frying pan…” he wheezed as he continued after Eddie Seng.
A one-second burst from the Gatling was enough to shred the steel tow cables, and the timing couldn’t have been better, because the pirates on the tug had just bumped the engines to high idle, sending a thick plume of smoke from her funnel. The reaction on the beach was exactly as Juan had predicted.
The pirates almost instantly disengaged the Russian holdouts and began running for the shore. Some kept their weapons, but most dropped them as they plunged into the frigid water and began to swim out to the tug. Watching
