Текст книги "Vixen 03"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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57

Pitt, Steiger, and Admiral Sandecker stood around a drafting table in Pitt's hangar at the Washington National Airport and examined a large-scale map of the area's waterways. "Fawkes did a radical facelift on the Iowa for a damned good reason," Pitt was saying. "Sixteen feet. That's how much he raised her waterline."

"You certain you have an accurate figure?" Sandecker asked. "That leaves a draft of only twenty-two feet." He shook his head. "It doesn't seem credible."

"I got it from the man who should know," answered Pitt. "While Dale Jarvis was on the phone to NSA headquarters, I questioned Metz, the shipyard boss. He swore to the measurements."

"But for what purpose?" said Steiger. "By removing all the guns and replacing them with wooden dummies, the ship is totally useless."

"Number-two turret and all its fire-control equipment is still in place," Pitt said. "According to Metz, the Iowa can lob a salvo of two-thousand-pound shells twenty miles into a rain barrel."

Sandecker concentrated his attention on lighting a large cigar. Satisfied that it was properly stoked, he blew a cloud of blue smoke at the ceiling and rapped the map with his knuckles. "Your plan is crazy, Dirk. We're meddling in a conflict way over our heads."

"We can't sit here and piss and moan," said Pitt. "The President will be persuaded by the Pentagon strategists either to blow the Iowa out of the water, more likely than not spreading the QD to the winds, or to send out a boarding party to capture the gas shells., with the idea of incorporating them into the Army's arsenal."

"But what good is a plague organism that can't be controlled?" asked Steiger.

"You can bet every biologist in the country will be funded to search for an antidote," Pitt replied. "If one makes a breakthrough, then someday, somewhere, a general or an admiral may panic and give the order for its dispersal. Me, I don't want to grow old knowing I had an opportunity to save countless lives but failed to act."

"Pretty speech," said Sandecker. "I'm in total agreement, but the three of us are hardly in a position to compete with the Defence Department in a race to recover the two remaining QD warheads."

"If we could sneak a man on board the Iowa first, a man who could disarm the firing mechanism of the projectiles and dump the organism pellets over the side into the water…" Pitt let his thought linger.

"And you are that man?" ventured Sandecker.

"Of us three, I'm the best qualified."

"Aren't you forgetting me, mister?" Steiger said acidly.

"If all else fails, we'll need a good man at the controls of the helicopter. Sorry, Abe, but I can't fly one, so you're elected."

"Since you put it that way," replied Steiger with a wry smile, "how can I refuse?"

"The trick is to ferret out the Iowa before the boys at Defense said Sandecker. "Not a likely event, since they have the advantage of satellite reconnaissance."

"What if we know exactly where the Iowa is headed?" Pitt said, grinning.

"How?" grunted a skeptical Steiger.

"The draft was the giveaway," answered Pitt. "There's only one waterway within Fawkes's steaming distance that would require a draft of no more than twenty-two feet."

Sandecker and Steiger stood silent and expressionless, waiting for Pitt to unravel the knot.

"The Capital," Pitt said with a certain finality. "Fawkes is going to run the Iowa up the Potomac River and hit Washington."

Fawkes's arms ached and the sweat of intense concentration rolled down his weathered face and trickled into his beard. But for his arm movements, he might have been cast in bronze. He was desperately tired. He had stood at the helm of the Iowa for nearly ten hours, wresting the mighty ship through channels she was never designed to enter. The palms of his hands were seeded with broken blisters, but he did not care. He was in the homestretch of his impossible journey. The long, lethal guns of number two turret were already within range of Pennsylvania Avenue.

He called for flank speed on the telegraph, and the vibration from deep belowdecks increased. Like an old warhorse at the sound of the bugle, the Iowa dug her screws into the muddy river and charged up the narrows beside Cornwallis Neck on the Maryland bank.

The Iowa looked like something not of this world; rather, it looked like a mammoth smoke-breathing monster erupting from the depths of hell. She forged ahead faster, sweeping past the channel buoys that fell back toward the first tendrils of dawn. It was as if she had a heart and soul and somehow knew this was her final voyage, knew she was about to die, the last of the fighting battleships.

Fawkes stared in fascination at the glow from the lights of Washington looming twenty miles ahead. The Marine base at Quantico fell behind the stern as the Iowa's irresistible mass hurtled around Hallowing Point and sped past Gunston Cove. Only one bend remained before her bows entered the straight channel ending on the edge of the golf course at East Potomac Park.

"Twenty-three feet," the depth reader's voice droned over the speaker. "Twentythree… twenty-two-five…"

The ship dashed by the next channel buoy, her eighteen-foot five-bladed outboard propellers flailing at the bottom silt, her bow throwing sheets of white foam as she plowed against the five-knot current.

"Twenty-two feet, Captain." The voice had a tone of urgency. "Twenty-two, holding… holding… Oh God, twentyone-five! "

Then she struck the rising riverbed like a hammer into a pillow. The impact seemed a sensation more known than felt as the bows bored into the mud. The engines continued to hum and the screws went on thrashing, but the Iowa lay still.

She had come to rest below the sloping grounds of Mount Vernon.

58

"I didn't believe it possible," said Admiral Joseph Kemper as he gazed in admiration at the Iowa's image on the viewing screen. "Sailing a steel fortress ninety miles up a narrow, meandering river in the dead of night is a remarkable feat of seamanship."

The President looked pensive. He massaged his temples. "What do we know about this fellow Fawkes?"

Kemper nodded to an aide, who passed a blue folder to the President.

"The British Admiralty obliged my request for Captain Fawkes's service record. Mr. Jarvis has added an addendum from NSA files."

The President slipped on a pair of reading glasses and opened the folder. After a few minutes he peered over the horn-rims at Kemper. "A damn fine record. Whoever picked him for the job knew his onions. But why would a man of his reputable background suddenly involve himself with such a bizarre venture?"

Jarvis shook his head. "The best guess is that the massacre of his wife and children by terrorists pushed him off the deep end."

The President mulled over Jarvis's words and turned to the Joint Chiefs. "Gentlemen, I'm open for proposals."

General Higgins took the cue and pushed back his chair and stepped to the screen. "Our staff planners have programmed a number of alternatives, all based on the assumption that the Iowa is carrying a deadly biological agent. First, we can call up a squadron of Air Force F-one-twenty Specter jets to blast the Iowa with Copperhead missiles. The attack would coincide with supporting firepower by Army units on shore."

"Too uncertain," said the President. "If the destruction is not immediate and total, you may well disperse the Quick Death agent."

"Second," Higgins continued, "we send in a team of Navy SEALs to board the Iowa from the water and secure the stern section, which contains a helicopter landing pad. Then Marine assault troops can land and seize the ship." Higgins paused, waiting for comments.

"And if the ship was battened down" this from Kemper – "how would the Marines gain entry?"

Jarvis fielded the question. "According to the shipyard people, most of the Iowa's armor and superstructure were replaced with wood. The Marines could blast through to the ship's interior, providing, of course, Fawkes's men hadn't cut them down while they were landing."

"If all else fails." said Higgins, "our final alternative is to finish the job with a lowyield nuclear missile."

For nearly a minute no one in the room spoke, each man unwilling to air the unthinkable consequences to the general's last proposal. Finally, as he knew he must, the President took the initiative.

"It seems to me a small neutron bomb would be a more practical out."

"Radioactivity alone won't kill the QD agent," said Jarvis.

"Also," Kemper injected, "I doubt if the lethal rays could penetrate the turret. They're nearly airtight when buttoned up."

The President looked at Higgins. "I must assume your people have weighed the terrible possibilities."

Higgins solemnly nodded. "It comes down to the age-old choice of sacrificing a few to save many."

"What do you call a few?"

"Fifty to seventy-five thousand dead. Perhaps twice that number injured. The small communities closest to the Iowa and the congested sector of Alexandria would be the hardest hit. Washington proper would receive minor damage."

"How soon before the Marines can go in. asked the President.

"They are boarding helicopters at the staging area this very minute," answered General Guilford, the Marine commandant. "And the SEALs are already on their way downriver in a Coast Guard patrol boat."

"Three combat units of ten men each," added Kemper.

A muted buzzer sounded on the phone beside General Higgins's chair. Kemper leaned over and answered it, listened, and replaced the receiver. He looked up at Higgins, who had remained standing by the viewing screen.

"Communications teams have set up cameras on the southern bluffs above the Iowa," he said. "They'll be transmitting pictures in a few seconds."

Almost before Kemper had finished speaking, the aerial image from the satellite cameras faded into blackness and was replaced by a shot of the Iowa that filled the screen with the ship's superstructure.

The President slowly poured himself a cup of coffee but did not drink it. He stared at the Iowa, his mind churning in search of a decision that only he could make. At last he sighed and addressed himself to General Higgins.

"We go with the SEALs and Marines. If they fail, whistle up the Specter jets and order your forces on shore to open fire with everything they've got."

"And the nuclear strike?" asked Higgins.

The President shook his head. "I cannot carry the burden of ordering mass murders of my own countrymen, regardless of the circumstances."

"We have another half hour before sunrise," said Kemper softly. "Captain Fawkes must have daylight to sight his guns. All radar-operated and automatic-fire control systems were removed from the Iowa before she was decommissioned. He cannot possess any degree of accuracy unless he has a spotter in or near the target area who can report the range and accuracy of the Iowa's fire by radio."

"Could be the spotter is sitting on a rooftop across the street," the President said, sipping at the coffee.

"I wouldn't be surprised," replied Kemper. "However, he won't be on the air for long. We have computerized triangulation monitors set up that can pinpoint his location within seconds."

The President sighed. "Then that about covers it for the moment, gentlemen."

"One more prospect, Mr. President, that I left for last," said Higgins.

"Shoot."

"The Quick Death projectiles. Should we capture them intact, I suggest they be analyzed by Defense Department laboratories – "

"They must be destroyed!" Jarvis cut in. "No weapon that ghastly is worth saving."

"I fear a more immediate problem has just cropped up," said Timothy March.

Every eye whipped back to the viewer at the sound of March's voice. Kemper swiftly snatched the phone and shouted into it. "Pull back your lens to the rear and above the Iowa's stern!"

Unseen hands dutifully did as they were told and the battleship's outline grew smaller as the camera increased the image area. A set of aircraft-navigation lights approaching upriver immediately gripped everyone's attention.

"What do you make of it?" demanded the President.

"A helicopter," Higgins replied angrily. "Some damned civilian must have gotten curious and taken it into his head to buzz the ship."

The men left their chairs and clustered around the screen – ' watching helplessly as the intruding craft beat its way toward the grounded battleship. The observers tensed, their eyes betraying helpless frustration.

"If Fawkes panics and opens fire before our forces are in position," said Kemper tonelessly, "a lot of people are going to get hurt."

The Iowa lay dead in the middle of the Potomac, her engines quiet, the telegraph turned to "all stop." Fawkes looked about him with guarded optimism. The crew was unlike any he'd ever commanded. Several of its members looked to be mere boys, and all were dressed in the camouflage jungle uniforms popularized by the AAR. And, except for the efficient manner in which they carried out their assigned duties, there was nothing about them that remotely suggested South African naval personnel.

Charles Shaba's job as chief engineer was terminated by the idle engines, and according to his orders, he now became the gunnery officer. When he climbed to the bridge, he found Fawkes leaning over a small radio set. He threw a smart salute.

"Pardon me, Cap'n. but can we talk?"

Fawkes turned around and placed a loglike arm on Shaba's shoulder. "What's on your mind," he said, smiling.

Pleased to catch the captain in a good mood, Shaba stood at attention and shot the question that was burning in the minds of the crew. "Sir, where in hell are we?"

"The Aberdeen proving grounds. Are you familiar with it, lad?"

"No, sir."

"It's a sprawling piece of land where the Americans test their weapons."

"I thought… that is, the men thought we were going to sea."

Fawkes looked out the window. "No, lad, the Yanks have kindly allowed us to hold gunnery practice on their target grounds."

"But how do we get out of here?" Shaba asked. "The ship is stuck on the bottom."

Fawkes gave him a fatherly expression. "Don't fret. We'll float her off at high tide as easy as you please. You'll see."

Shaba looked noticeably relieved. "The men will be glad to hear that, Cap'n."

"Good, lad." Fawkes patted him on the back. "Now get back to your station and see to the loading of the guns."

Shaba saluted and left. Fawkes watched the young black man fade into the darkness beyond the passageway, and for the first time he felt a great wave of sorrow for what he was about to do.

His reverie was diverted by the sound of an aircraft. He looked into the brightening sky and saw the blinking multi-colored lights of a helicopter flying upriver from the east. He grabbed a pair of night glasses and aimed them at the craft as it passed overhead. The letters NUMA were vaguely distinguishable through the lenses.

National Underwater and Marine Agency, Fawkes translated silently. No danger there. Probably returning to the Capital from some oceanographic expedition. He nodded at his reflection in the glass, a feeling of security growing within him.

He replaced the binoculars on the bridge counter and turned his attention once again to the radio. He held the headset to one ear and pressed the microphone button.

"Black Angus One calling Black Angus Two. Over."

A slurred, unmistakably Southern drawl answered almost immediately. "Hey man, we don't need all that coded jive. You're comin'in cool as a White Christmas."

"I'd appreciate economy of speech," snapped Fawkes.

"As long as the bread I signed for is good, you're the boss, boss."

"Ready, target range?"

"Yeah, movin' into position now."

"Good." Fawkes glanced at his watch. "Five minutes and ten seconds till Hogmanay."

"Hog… what?"

"Scots for a smashing New Year's Eve."

Fawkes clicked off the mike and noted thankfully that the NUMA helicopter had continued on its leisurely course toward Washington and disappeared beyond the bluffs upriver.

At almost the same instant, Steiger altered the controls and banked the Minerva M-88 helicopter in a wide, sweeping turn over the Maryland countryside. He kept low, shaving the tops of the leafless trees, dodging an occasional water tower, grimacing at the words that came over his earphones.

"They're beginning to get nasty," he said casually. "General Somebody-or-other claims he's going to shoot us down if we don't get the hell out of the area."

"Acknowledge," said Pitt. "And tell him you're complying."

"Who should I say we are?"

Pitt thought a moment. "Tell him the truth. We're a NUMA copter on special assignment."

Steiger shrugged and began talking into his microphone.

"Old General Whosit bought it," said Steiger. He angled his head toward Pitt. "You'd better get ready. I judge it about eight minutes to the drop."

Pitt unclasped his seat belt and waited until Sandecker did the same, then moved into the helicopter's small cargo compartment. "Do it right the first time," Pitt said into Steiger's ear, "or you'll make an ugly red mess on the side of the Iowa."

"You're looking at a neatness nut," Steiger said with a diluted smile. "All you have to do is hang tight and leave the driving to old Abe. If you have to drop early, I'll make damn sure you've got a nice cushion of deep water under your ass."

"I'm counting on it."

"We'll come around and swing in from the west to cloak our outline against whatever darkness is left." Steiger's eyes never strayed from the windshield. "I'm flicking off the navigation lights now. Good luck!"

Pitt squeezed Steiger's arm, stepped into the cargo section of the Minerva, and closed the cockpit door. The compartment was ice cold. The loading hatch was open and the wintry morning air whistled into what seemed a vibrating aluminum tomb. Sandecker held the harness out to him and he strapped it on.

The admiral started to say something and then hesitated. At last, his cast-iron features taut with suppressed emotion, he said, "I'll expect you for breakfast."

"Make my eggs scrambled.," Pitt said.

Then he stepped into the frigid dawn.

Lieutenant Alan Fergus, leader of the SEAL combat units, zipped up his wet suit and cursed the vagaries of the high command. Not more than an hour ago he'd been rudely awakened from a dead sleep and hurriedly briefed on what he regarded as the dumbest exercise ever to come his way during seven years in the Navy. He pulled on his rubber hood and tucked his ears under the lining. Then he approached a tall, burly man who sat slouched in a nonregulation director's chair. His feet were propped on the bridge railing and he peered intently down the Potomac.

"What's it all about?" asked Fergus.

Lieutenant Commander Oscar Kiebel, the dour skipper of the Coast Guard patrol boat that was ferrying Fergus and his men, twisted the corners of his mouth in an expression of distaste and shrugged. "I'm as confused as you."

"Do you believe that bullshit about a battleship?"

"No," Kiebel said in a rumbling voice. "I've seen four-thousand-ton destroyers cruise upriver to the Washington Navy Yard, but a fifty-thousand-ton battleship? No way."

"Board and secure the stern for Marine helicopter-assault teams," Fergus said irritably. "Those orders are sheer crap, if you want my opinion."

"I'm not any happier about this outing than you," said Kiebel. "I take my picnics as they come." He grinned. "Maybe it's a surprise party with booze and wild women."

"At seven o'clock in the morning, neither holds much interest. Not out in the open, at any rate."

"We'll know soon. Two more miles till we round Sheridan Point. Then our objectives should be within – " Suddenly Kiebel broke off and cocked his head, listening. "You hear that?"

Fergus cupped his ears and turned, facing the patrol boat's wake. "Sounds like a helicopter."

"Coming like a bat out of hell without lights," Kiebel added.

"My God!" Fergus exclaimed. "The Marines have jumped the gun. They're going in ahead of schedule."

An instant later every head on the patrol boat turned upward as a helicopter roared past at two hundred feet, a dim shadow against a gray sky. All were so engrossed in the mysterious, darkened craft they didn't notice the vague shape trailing below and slightly to the rear of the copter until it swept over the decks and carried away the radio antennae.

"What in hell was that?" blurted Kiebel in genuine astonishment.

Pitt would have been only too glad to supply the answer if he'd had the time. Strapped in the harness, dangling under the NUMA helicopter only thirty feet above the river. he barely managed to extend his legs forward as he crashed into the patrol boat's antennae. His feet took most of the shock, and fortunately – damned fortunately, he thought later – none of the wiring had entangled his body, sectioning him like a lettuce slicer. As it was, he would carry a nice welt across his buttocks where a piece of thin tubing had made brief contact.

The rising sun cooperated by hiding behind a low range of dark clouds, its filtered light obscuring any detail of the surrounding countryside. The air was keen, barbed with the energy of its chill, a polar frigidity that stabbed through Pitt's heavy clothing. His eyes were watering like faucets and his cheeks and forehead smarted with the intensity of overloaded pincushions.

Pitt was on a ride no amusement park in the country could equal. The Potomac was a blur as he soared over its lazy current at nearly two hundred miles an hour. Trees edging the banks hurtled by like cars on a Los Angeles freeway. He looked skyward and made out a small pale oval against the black doorway of the helicopter and recognized it as the anxious face of Admiral Sandecker.

He felt a sideways motion as Steiger banked the craft around a wide bend in the river. The long umbilical cable that held him to a winch in the cargo compartment arched in the opposite direction, swinging him outward, like the end child in a playground game of crack the whip. The momentum twisted him sideways and he found himself looking at the grounds of Mount Vernon. Then the cable straightened and the huge mass of the Iowa swung into view, her forward guns trained ominously upstream.

Overhead, Steiger eased back on the throttle and slowed the flight of the helicopter. Pitt felt the harness straps pressing into his chest at the deceleration and braced himself for the drop. The superstructure of the ship filled up the windshield in front of the control cabin when Steiger gently eased the helicopter into a hovering position above the starboard side of the ship, behind the main bridge.

"Too fast! Too fast!" Steiger muttered over and over, fearful that Pitt would be swinging ahead of the hovering helicopter like a weight on the bottom of a pendulum.

Steiger's fears were justified. Pitt was indeed pitching forward on an uncontrollable course. high above the main deck, where he'd planned to land. Narrowly missing an empty five-inch-gun turret, he came to the end of his arc. It was now or never. He made his decision and hit the quick-release buckle and dropped clear of the harness.

From the doorway of the helicopter Sandecker's eyes strained in the earlymorning gloom, his insides knotted, his breath halted, as Pitt's huddled figure fell behind the forward superstructure and vanished. Then the Iowa was gone too, as Steiger snapped the helicopter into a steep angle, the rotor blades biting the air, dipping over the forested shore and out of sight. As soon as the craft leveled, Sandecker released his safety strap and made his way back into the cockpit.

"Is he away?" Steiger asked anxiously.

"Yes, he's down," answered Sandecker.

"In one piece?"

"We can but hope," Sandecker said, so quietly that Steiger hardly heard him above the roar of the engine. "That's all any of us has left."