River of Ruin

“Roger, Angel. There’s only one ship at the facility at this time. It’s just now emerging from an enclosed dry dock.”

Mercer had a sneaking suspicion he knew what ship that was. “Heaven, any chance you can read its name?”

“We can read the magazine stuffed into the back pocket of a deckhand by her jackstaff. She’s the MV Korvald, registered in Liberia.”

“Korvald’s coming out of the dry dock,” Mercer told Harry.

He goosed the throttles a little farther “Say no more.” Harry looked up to speak to his ship. “Okay, baby, you hold together for old Captain Harry and he’ll give you a send-off befitting a dreadnought.”

“Are you going to ram the Korvald?” Rene asked.

“If the Rose’ll let me.” Harry smiled and patted the wheel.

“Are you insane? We’re loaded with thousands of tons of explosives and the Korvald’s carrying eight intercontinental ballistic missiles. You are going to kill us all and level five square kilometers.”

“Don’t worry, Rene.” Mercer interceded before Bruneseau completely lost it again. “Harry’s making another of his bad jokes. He’s not gonna hit her. What we’ll do is box her in and keep her from escaping. Those missiles are the perfect evidence against Liu Yousheng.”

The French spy seemed satisfied, but the scowl didn’t leave his face. It was clear that he would never trust Harry White.

Mercer moved close to his friend so Bruneseau couldn’t overhear. “You really weren’t planning on ramming the Korvald, were you?”

“Oh, I’m still planning on it.” Harry cackled. They were a half mile from the Hatcherly port. Against the backdrop of the storm, the tall Hyundai gantry cranes stood like colossal scaffolds. Behind them was a maze of shipping containers. Immediately next to the cranes was the dry dock. The tail of a ship was slowly backing from the cavernous entrance. “Take the wheel.”

“What?”

Harry stepped away from the ship’s controls. “I said take the wheel. We’ve got a couple minutes and I wasn’t kidding that I have to take a leak. Just keep her on course for the dry dock.”

By the time Harry returned from the head, the Englander Rose had started to list to port at an angle that deepened remarkably fast. They were separated from the dry dock by a quarter mile of choppy water and the Korvald was almost free from the enclosure. With the load of water filling her bilge and starting to swamp her lower cargo decks, the Rose became more sluggish. Her speed fell away to the point that Harry didn’t think they were going to make it. He eased back on the throttles.

“Okay, folks, this is what I want to do,” he said. “If we go, we’re going to roll to port. She won’t flip completely because the water here isn’t deep enough. She’ll just settle in the mud on her side. All of you go out on the starboard wing bridge and wait for it to happen.”

“What about you?” Foch asked.

“I’ve got to hold her on course as long as I can.”

“Someone find some rope,” Lauren ordered. “We can tie a loop around your waist and haul you up when the ship capsizes.”

Gathering the weapons, the group moved outside while Mercer jury-rigged a climber’s harness out of some rope and secured Harry to the wing-bridge railing. “How’s that?”

“Feels like a damned straitjacket,” Harry complained.

“You’d know.”

Mercer stayed at his friend’s side as the ship moved closer to its target and slid closer to overturning. By the inclinometer screwed into a bulkhead, her angle was twenty-two degrees. The measuring device had a mark stating she could recover from a forty-degree dip, but not with her holds flooded and probably only when wave action would help to right her. Harry leaned into his harness while Mercer was forced to hold the console.

They could see the Korvald clearly. She was newer than the Rose; larger too. Her cargo wasn’t heavy enough to hide the bright line of antifouling paint along her waterline. Men stood at the fantail, and others were visible on her wing bridge. Three were in dark naval-like uniforms while two others wore suits. Both civilians were shorter than average, although one had a thick build. Something nagged at Mercer about the thinner of the pair. He groped for the binoculars, swinging them up one-handed, and spreading his feet farther as the ship’s list deepened past thirty degrees.

He dialed in the focus, zeroing in on the men guiding the refrigerator ship from under a tarp protecting the exposed bridge from the rain. Facial features became clear. All were staring at the tired tramp steamer limping toward them. Mercer recognized none of the crew, nor the heavy-set civilian, but he knew the frail figure.

His hand tightened on the binoculars and began to tremble. “Sun’s on that ship.”

“Who? The torturer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, goddamn.”

“Harry, we can’t let them get away.”

“I’m working on it, pal, I’m working on it.”

Although she was barely moving under her own power, the current rushing down the canal was enough to keep the Rose charging at the Korvald. The range dropped to a hundred yards, then eighty. Armed men suddenly appeared at the rail of the Chinese ship. They opened fire, sporadically at first, and then more sustained and concentrated. For the third time, bullets ricocheted around the bridge. Harry and Mercer dropped to the deck to find cover.

“Shit!”

“What is it?” Mercer asked over the din, fearing Harry had been hit.

“I need to see which way the Korvald’s going to turn. She could back around and head straight for open water or she could cut inside us and circle the harbor to get out behind us.”

“How can you tell which way she’ll go?” A round blew the stuffing out of the chair Lauren had been using.

“I need to see the wash from her bow thruster and how her rudder’s cocked.”

Lauren shouted from the protection of the offside wing. “Get out here, you two. You’re going to get yourselves killed.”

“It isn’t worth it,” Foch added.

Mercer ignored them and tried his radio. “Heaven, come in. This is Angel Two. Where’s that chopper?”

No sooner had he asked than the beating rotors of an SH- 60 Seahawk filled the bridge with noise as it thundered twenty feet over their heads. The downblast whipped a brutal wind through the shattered windows. The chopper had come in low, using the drifting hulk of the Englander Rose as cover, popping into view at the last moment. It pirouetted to get an angle for a door gunner to rake the missile ship with his M- 60.

Hitting only two of the Chinese soldiers, he still managed to clear the railing as the others dove for cover.

Mercer helped Harry to his feet. There was a frothing patch of water near the Korvald’s bow. Using the powerful athwartship thruster she was beginning her turn, hoping to beat the Rose by swinging herself to shoot directly down the canal.

Harry spotted it immediately. “We’ve got them.” He cranked the wheel toward the big reefer ship.

Maneuvering her bow so that it was perpendicular to the dry dock but still pointed toward shore, Captain Wong had hoped to beat the derelict by dancing inside her. Had he known what Harry White knew, he would have spun out the other way and easily outflanked the sinking ship.

With twenty yards separating the ships, and both directed more or less downstream, Harry cranked the throttles one last time. Ever so slightly she built up headway, forcing more water into her holds. She started to capsize.

Mercer scrambled up the deck to the safety of the flying bridge and helped the others draw Harry up to them. They pressed themselves to the deck, holding fast against the bulkhead that would soon become the floor.