Текст книги "Vixen 03"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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59

Fawkes was not overly concerned with the helicopter so long as it continued on its way. He did not see a human form drop out of the twilight, as his attention was directed to the boat that was approaching downriver at high speed. There was no doubt in his mind that it was a welcoming committee, courtesy of the United States government. He spoke into a microphone.

"Mr. Shaba."

"Sir?" Shaba's voice crackled back.

"Please see to it the machine-gun crews man their stations and prepare to repel boarders." Repel boarders. My God, Fawkes thought. When was the last time a captain of a capital ship gave that command?

"Is this a drill, sir?"

"No, Mr. Shaba, this is no drill. I fear American extremists who support the enemies of our country may attempt to take the ship. You will instruct your men to fire at any person, vessel, or aircraft that endangers the welfare of this ship and her crew. Your men may begin by driving off a terrorist boat that is approaching from the west."

"Aye,'Captain." The radio could not hide the excitement in Shaba's voice.

Fawkes felt a growing urge to order his unsuspecting crew off the Iowa. but he could not bring himself to admit he was murdering sixty-eight innocent men, men who had been deceived into believing they were serving a country that treated them little better than cattle. Fawkes had a method of casting off any cold tentacles of guilt. He forced an image of a burned-out farm and the charred bodies of his wife and children into his mind and his resolve for the task at hand quickly hardened.

He picked up the mike again. "Main battery."

"Main battery ready, Captain."

"Single fire on command." He glanced once more at his computations on the chart beside him. "Range, twenty-three thousand nine hundred yards. Target bearing., ohone-four degrees."

Fawkes stared hypnotically at the three sixty-eight-fo ot guns stretching out of the number-two main-battery turret. each barrel and its mechanism weighing 134 tons, obediently lifting its herculean muzzle to an elevation of fifteen degrees. Then they stopped, waiting for the command to unleash their awesome power. Fawkes paused, took a deep breath, and pushed the "transmit" button.

"Are you in position, Angus Two?"

"Say the word, man," replied the spotter.

"Mr. Shaba?"

"Standing by to fire, sir."

This was it. The journey that had begun on a farm in Natal had relentlessly run its course to this moment. Fawkes stepped outside to the bridge wing and raised the AAR battle flag on a makeshift staff. Then he returned to the control room and spoke the fateful words.

"You may fire, Mr. Shaba."

To the men on the Coast Guard patrol boat it was as if they had sailed into a holocaust. Though only one gun of the triple battery had fired directly over the Iowa's bow, the blast created a path of turbulence and a great arm of incandescent gas that reached out and engulfed the small craft. Most of the men standing were knocked to the deck. The ones facing the Iowa at the moment of discharge actually had their hair singed and were blinded for the next several moments by the flash.

Almost before the effects of the muzzle blast had dissipated, Lieutenant Commander Kiebel had taken the helm and thrown the boat in a sharply cut S turn. Then the windshield across the bridge shattered and fell away. For a fraction of a second he thought he was being attacked by wasps. He could feel the hum as they flew past his cheeks and hair. Only after his right arm was jerked from the wheel and he looked down to see an evenly spaced set of reddening holes through his jacket sleeve did it dawn on him what was happening.

"Get your men over the side!" he yelled at Fergus. "The bastards are shooting at us!"

He didn't have to repeat the message. Instantly, Fergus scrambled across the deck, ordering and in some cases physically shoving his men into the dubious safety of the river. Miraculously, Kiebel was the only one who had been hit. Alone in broad view on the bridge, he stood as though on a stage in the eyes of the Iowa's gunners.

Kiebel brought the boat so close alongside the Iowa's hull that the sideboard bumpers were crushed against the vast wall of steel and torn off. It was a wise move; the gunners above could not depress their sights low enough to do more than shoot away part of the patrol boat's radar mast. Then Kiebel broke into open water, the bullet splashes falling fifty feet to starboard, attesting to the bad aim of his startled adversaries. The gap between them widened. He stole a quick glance aft and was relieved to see that Fergus and his men were gone.

He had ran interference for the SEALs. It was their ball game now. Gratefully, Kiebel turned over the helm to his first officer and watched dourly as a chief petty officer broke open a first-aid kit and started cutting away the blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket.

"Son of a bitch," Kiebel muttered.

"Sorry, sir, you'll just have to grit your teeth and bear it."

"That's easy for you to say," snorted Kiebel. "You didn't lay out two hundred bucks for the coat."

jogging his way across the pedestrian walk of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, Donald Fisk, an inspector with the Bureau of Customs, gasped out the crisp city air in wispy clouds of vapor.

He was on the return leg, passing around the Lincoln Memorial, his thoughts trailing from nowhere to nowhere from the boredom of the exercise, when a strange sound brought him to a halt. As it became louder, it reminded him of the roar of a speeding freight train. Then it turned into a screaming whoosh,and suddenly a massive crater appeared in the middle of Twenty-third Street, followed by a thunderous clap and a shower of dirt and asphalt.

Standing rigidly still after the explosion, Fisk was amazed to find he was untouched. The projectile had passed over him and struck the street at an angle, spraying its destructive force ahead of its trajectory.

A hundred yards away, a man driving a delivery truck had his windshield blown inward. He managed to stop the truck and stagger from the cab, his face sliced to hamburger.

Dazed, he held his hands in front of him and screamed, "I can't see! Help me! Someone please help me!"

Fisk shook off the cold shivers of shock and ran toward the stricken driver. The early-morning traffic rush was still an hour away and the street was empty. He wondered how he could call the police and an ambulance. The only other vehicle he saw was a street sweeper calmly whisking its way up Independence Avenue as though nothing had happened.

"Angus Two," Fawkes called. "Report effect of fire."

"Man, you sure tore up the street."

"Keep your remarks to a minimum," said Fawkes irritably. "Your transmission is no doubt being pinpointed."

"I read, big man. Your cock shot is seventy-five yards short and one hundred eighty yards to the left."

"You heard, Mr. Shaba."

"Adjusting, Captain."

"Fire as you bear, Mr. Shaba."

"Aye, sir."

Buried in the seventeen-hundred-ton steel turret, black South African gunners sweated and loaded the gaping breeches, shouting and cursing in tune with the clanging hoist machinery, while five decks below, the magazine crew sent up the shells and the silk bags containing the powder. First the conicalnosed twenty-seven-hundred-pound armorpiercing projectile was shoved into the breech's throat by a power rammer, followed by the powder charge, weighing six hundred pounds. Next the huge downswing carrier breech was twisted shut, providing a gas-tight seal. Then, on command, the great gun spat its devastating vehemence and recoiled four feet into its steel lair.

Fourteen miles away, Donald Fisk was attending the injured truck driver as the incoming freight thundered down from the sky and smashed into the Lincoln Memo-, rial. In one thousandth of a second the hollow ballistic cone on the projectile disintegrated as it crashed into the white marble. Then the heavy slug of hardened steel be- hind punched its way deep into the memorial and exploded.

To Fisk it seemed the thirty-six Doric columns peeled outward like the petals of a flower before crumbling to the manicured landscape. Then the roof and inner walls collapsed as great chunks of marble bounced down the steps like children's wooden blocks and a violent burst of white dust spiraled heavenward.

As the rumble of the explosion trailed off across Washington, Fisk slowly rose to his feet in numbed bewilderment.

"What happened?" shouted the blinded truck driver. "For God's sake, tell me what's happening! "

"Don't panic," said Fisk. "There's been another explosion."

The driver grimaced and clenched his teeth in agony. Nearly thirty splinters of glass had buried themselves in his face. One eye was filled with congealing blood; the other was gone, sliced through to the retina.

Fisk took off his sweatshirt and pressed it in the driver's hands. "Twist, tear, or bite it if you must to stand the pain, but keep your hands away from your face. I'm going to leave you for a few moments." He paused as his ears caught the distant sound of approaching sirens. "The police are coming. An ambulance will be right behind them."

The truck driver nodded and sat on the curb, wadding the shirt in a ball and squeezing the cloth until his knuckles turned ivory. Fisk ran across the traffic circle, strangely ill at ease without something to cover his naked chest. Dodging the jagged chunks of marble that littered the memorial's stairway, he trotted up to what had once been the doorway facing the mall's reflecting pool.

Suddenly he stiffened, and stopped in astonishment.

There, amid the vast pile of rubble and the settling dust, the figure of Abraham Lincoln sat virtually unscathed. The walls and roof of the structure had somehow parted as they crumbled, crashing around, but not upon, the nineteen-foot statue.

Unmarred and unchipped, the hauntingly melancholy face of Lincoln still gazed downward solemnly, into infinity.

60

General Higgins slammed the phone receiver into its cradle. It was his first show of temper. "We missed the spotter," he said bitterly. "Our monitor units zeroed his location., but he'd flown the coop by the time our nearest patrol arrived."

"Obviously a mobile unit," said Timothy March. "With three out of four cars on the road carrying a CB radio, identifying the bastard will be next to impossible."

"Our special-forces team and the city police are setting up roadblocks at key intersections around the Capitol area," said Higgins. "If we can keep the spotter out of visual contact of his targets, he won't be able to report range corrections to the ship. Then Fawkes will be firing blind."

The President's eyes were locked on the viewing screen, staring sadly at the enlarged satellite picture of the demolished Lincoln Memorial. "Shrewd planning on their part," he muttered. "A few dead would mean little more than a newspaper headline to most Americans. But destroy a revered national monument and you touch everyone. Rest assured, gentlemen, by this evening a lot of mad Americans are going to seek a way to vent their anger."

"If the next shell contains the QD… " Jarvis's voice trailed off.

"It's like playing Russian roulette," March said. "Two shells fired. That means the odds are down to two out of thirty-six."

Higgins looked across the table at Admiral Kemper. "What do you figure as the Iowa's rate of fire?"

"The time span between shells one and two was four minutes, ten seconds," Kemper answered. "Slow by half compared to former wartime efficiency, but respectable in view of forty-year-old obsolete equipment and a skeleton crew."

"What puzzles me," said March, "is why Fawkes is only using the turret's center gun. He seems to be making no attempt to operate the other two."

"He's going by the book," said Kemper. "Conserving his strength by firing one shell at a time for effect. He got lucky on the second shot and found his target. Next time he gets the range you can bet he'll uncork all three barrels."

The phone in front of Higgins buzzed. He picked it up, listened for a moment, his expression grim. "The third round is on its way. 11

The satellite camera pulled back to show a two-mile radius around the White House. Everyone's eyes roamed over the bird's-eye view of the city, fearful that this projectile held the Quick Death organism while at the same time trying to guess which landmark was the target. Then came a geysering explosion that pulverized a fifty-foot section of sidewalk and two trees on the north side of Constitution Avenue.

"He's going for the National Archives building," the President said, a bitter edge to his voice. "Fawkes is trying to destroy the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

"I urge you, Mr. President, to order a nuclear strike on the Iowa at once." Higgins's normally reddish coloring had turned to gray.

The President looked like one hunted. His shoulders were hunched as though he were cold. "No." he said with finality.

Higgins dropped his hands to his side and sat heavily in his chair. Kemper tapped the table with a pencil, quietly mulling something over.

"There is another solution," he said slowly, deliberately. "We knock out the Iowa's number-two turret."

"Knock out the turret?" Higgins said, a skeptical look in his eyes.

"Some of the F-one-twenty Specters are carrying Satan penetration missiles," explained Kemper. "Am I right, General Sayre?"

Air Force chief General Miles Sayre nodded in agreement. "Each aircraft is armed with four Satans, primed to gouge their way through three yards of concrete."

"I see your point," said Higgins. "But the accuracy? Miss, and you might unleash the QD."

"It can be done." said Sayre, a usually taciturn man. "As soon as the pilots fire the missiles, they switch guidance control to the ground troops. Your people, General Higgins, are close enough to the Iowa to lay a Satan within a two-foot diameter."

Higgins snatched the phone and stared at the President. "If Fawkes maintains his firing schedule, we have less than two minutes."

"Go for it," the President said without hesitation.

While Higgins gave instructions to the forces deployed around the Iowa, Kemper consulted a file on the ship's construction.

"That turret is protected with steel-armor plating seven to seventeen inches thick," said Kemper. "We may not destroy it, but we'll sure as hell stun the crew."

"The SEALs," said the President. "Can they be warned of our intentions?"

Kemper looked grim. "We would if we could, but there has been no radio contact with them since they took to the water."

Fergus could not make contact, because the radio had been shot out of his hands by a machine gun deployed on the Iowa's citadel. A bullet had neatly amputated the middle finger of his left hand before biting through the transmitter and his right palm. The backup radio was also gone, strapped to the belt of a team leader who took a hit in the chest and now floated lifelessly somewhere downriver.

Fergus had lost six men out of his original party of thirty while boarding the Iowa. They had climbed the sides after shooting and then looping small lines from crossbows across the ship's stern. These were attached to nylon ladders, which in turn were pulled up to the bulwarks. The SEALs were met with a scathing fire when they reached the main deck. Individually and in small teams they began pouring a return fire at the ship's defenders.

Fergus became cut off from his command and was pinned down behind the fantail mounting where the aircraft crane had once stood. Frustration overrode the pain in his wounded hands. Time was running out. His orders were to secure the landing pad before the South Africans could open fire. He shouted a curse as the burst from the third blast rumbled down the river channel.

Above the bluffs he could see the Marine helicopters hovering, waiting impatiently for his signal to land. Warily he poked his head around the crane mount and peered forward. The guns perched behind steel-armor plating atop the main bridge temporarily ignored Fergus and concentrated on his men, who had moved forward without him.

Cradling his automatic weapon in one arm, Fergus sprang to his feet and sprinted across the open deck, laying down a curtain fire. He'd nearly made it to cover beneath the aft turret when Fawkes's men repaid his attention, and a bullet tore through the calf of his left leg.

He stumbled a few steps, fell, and rolled under the bulk of the dummy turret. The new wound felt as though it were burning every nerve ending in his leg. He lay on the deck, listening to the gunfire forward, soaking up the pain as two Specter jets screamed out of the morning sun and expelled their lethal cargo.

If it weren't for the dull ache that clutched every inch of his body, Pitt would have sworn he was dead. Almost regretfully, he pushed the gray from his mind and forced his eyes opened.

Then he ran his hands over his legs and body. The worst he discovered, besides a horde of bruises, were two, possibly three cracked ribs. He probed his head and sighed gratefully when his fingers came back free of blood. The wooden splinters he found embedded in his right shoulder puzzled him.

He pushed himself to a sitting position and then rolled to his hands and knees. All muscles were responding to command. So far, so good. He took a deep breath and wove to his feet, no less elated at the accomplishment than if he'd climbed Mount Everest. A patch of daylight spilled through a jagged hole several feet away and he stumbled toward it.

His mind slowly began to hit on six of eight cylinders and analyzed why he hadn't been crushed to oatmeal when he smashed into the side of the ship's superstructure. The quarter-inch plywood panels installed to replace the steel bulkheads had broken his impact. He'd barreled through one outer partition like a cannonball and made a healthy dent in a second before coming to rest in a passageway outside the officers' wardroom. So much for the mysterious slivers.

Through the haze he recalled a great booming sound and vibration. The sixteeninch guns, he figured. But how often had they fired? How long had he been out? Sounds of small-arms fire rattled from outside. Who was fighting whom? He dismissed the thoughts almost as they occurred: they really didn't matter. He had his own problems to solve.

He moved twenty feet down the passageway, stopped, and pulled a flashlight from one pocket and a folded paper containing the Iowa's deck plans from another. It took him nearly two full minutes to pinpoint his exact location. Looking at the maze that made up the internal arrangement of a battleship was like looking at a cutaway view of a skyscraper lying on its side.

Tracking out a path to the forward shell magazines, he moved soundlessly along the passageway. He had covered but a short distance when the ship rocked under a barrage of solid blows. Dust accumulated during the Iowa's long years in mothballs erupted in smothering clouds. Pitt flung out his arms to maintain his balance, lurched, and grabbed the frame of a door that had opportunely swung open. He stood there choking back the dust while the tremors subsided.

He almost missed it, would have missed it if an indefinable curiosity hadn't tugged at his mind. Not a curiosity, really; rather an incongruity caught within his peripheral vision. He beamed the flashlight on a brown shoe – an expensive, handcrafted brown shoe – and saw it was attached to the leg of a black man stylishly attired in a business suit with vest. His hands were tied wide apart by ropes wrapped to overhead pipes.

61

Hiram Lusana could not distinguish the features of the man standing in the doorway of his prison. He looked large, but not as large as Fawkes. That was all Lusana could tell; the flashlight in the stranger's hands blinded him.

"I take it you lost the ship's popularity contest." came a voice that sounded more friendly than hostile.

The dark form behind the light moved closer and Lusana felt his bonds being loosened. "Where are you taking me?"

"Nowhere. But if you value social security in your old age, I suggest you get the hell off this boat before it's blown to pieces."

"Who are you?"

"Not that it matters, the name's Pitt."

"Are you part of Captain Fawkes's crew?"

"No, I'm free-lance."

"I don't understand."

Pitt untied Lusana's left hand and started on the other without answering.

"You are an American," said Lusana, more confused than ever. "Have you taken the ship from the South Africans?"

"We're working on it," said Pitt, sorely wishing he'd brought along a knife.

"Then you don't know who I am."

"Should I?"

"My name is Hiram Lusana. I am the leader of the African Army of Revolution."

Pitt finished with the last knot and stood back, aiming the light at Lusana's face. "Yes, I see that now. What's your involvement? I thought this was a South African show."

"I was kidnapped boarding an airplane back to Africa." Lusana gently pushed the light aside. Then a thought flooded his mind. "You know about Operation Wild Rose?" he asked.

"Only since last night. My government, however, was aware of it months ago."

"Impossible," said Lusana.

"Suit yourself." Pitt turned and started for the doorway. "Like I said, you better jump ship before the party gets out of hand."

Lusana hesitated, but only for a second. "Wait! "

Pitt turned. "Sorry, I can't spare the time."

"Please hear me out." Lusana moved closer. "If your government and the news media discover my presence here, they will have no choice but to overlook the truth and hold me responsible."

"So?"

"Let me prove my innocence in this ugly affair. Tell me what I can do to help."

Pitt read the sincerity in Lusana's eyes. He pulled an old Colt .45 automatic from his belt and passed it to the black man. "Take this and cover my ass. I need both hands to hold the flashlight and read a diagram."

Somewhat taken aback, Lusana accepted the gun. "You'd trust me with this?"

"Sure," Pitt said offhandedly. "What would you gain by shooting a total stranger in the back?"

And then he motioned for Lusana to follow and quickly darted down the passageway toward the forward part of the ship.

Turret number two had survived the onslaught from the Satan missiles. Her steel plating was gouged and sprung in eight places but never penetrated. The portoutside gun barrel was severely fractured at the recoil base of the turret.

Dazed, Fawkes saw all this through the shattered remains of the glass in the bridge windows. Magically, he was untouched. He had been standing behind one of the few remaining steel bulkheads when the Satans had unerringly zeroed in on number-two turret. He snatched the microphone.

"Shaba, this is the captain. Do you hear me?"

The only reply was a faint ripple of static.

"Shaba!" Fawkes shouted. "Speak up, man. Report your damage."

The speaker crackled to life. "Cap'n Fawkes?"

The voice was unfamiliar. "Aye, this is the captain. Where is Shaba?"

"Below in the magazine, sir. The hoist, she's broken. He went to fix it."

"Who is this?"

"Obasi, Cap'n. Daniel Obasi." The voice had an adolescent pitch.

"Did Shaba leave you in charge?"

"Yes, sir," Obasi said proudly.

"How old are you, son?"

There was a harsh, coughing sound. "Sorry, Cap'n. The smoke, she's real bad." More coughing. "Seventeen."

Good Lord, Fawkes thought. De Vaal was to have sent him experienced men – ' not boys whose names and faces he had yet to see in daylight. He was in command of a crew who were completely unknown to him. Seventeen. A mere seventeen years old. The thought sickened him. Was it worth it? God, was his personal revenge worth the terrible price?

Steeling his determination, Fawkes said, "Are you able to operate the guns?"

"I think go. All three are loaded and breeched tight. The men don't look too good, though. Concussion, I think. Most of them are bleedin' through the ears."

"Where are you now, Obasi?"

"In the turret officer's booth, sir. It's awful hot down here. I don't know if the men can take much more. Some are still out. One or two may be dead. No way of tellin'; I guess the ones that's dead are the ones bleedin' through the mouth."

Fawkes squeezed the microphone handle, his face filled with indecision. When the ship went, as he knew it surely must, he wanted to be standing on the bridge, the last battleship captain to die at his station. The silence over the radiophone became heavy with torment. Ever so slightly the curtain lifted and Fawkes glimpsed the terrible dimension of his actions.

"I'm coming down."

"The outside deck hatch is jammed tight, sir. You'll have to come up from the magazines."

"Thank you, Obasi. Stand by." Fawkes paused to remove his old Royal Navy cap and wipe the sweat and grime oozing from the pores of his forehead. He gazed through the splintered windows and studied the river. The cold mists rose along the shallows and reminded him of the Scottish lochs on just such a morning. Scotland: it seemed a thousand years since he'd seen Aberdeen.

He replaced the cap and spoke into the microphone again. "Angus Two, come in, please."

"Gotcha, big Angus One."

"Range?"

"Eighty yards short but right on the money. just compensate for elevation and you got her, man."

"Your job is finished, Angus Two. Take care."

"Too late. I think the dudes in the khaki suits are about to take me away. So long, man. It's been a heavy date."

Fawkes stared at the receiving end of the microphone, wanting to speak words of appreciation to the man he'd never met, to thank him for jeopardizing his life even if it was for a price. Whoever Angus Two was, it would be a long time before he could spend the money placed in a foreign bank account by the South African Defence Ministry.

"A street sweeper," snorted Higgins. "Fawkes's spotter drove a goddamned city street sweeper. The city police are booking him now."

"That explains how he moved through the roadblocks without arousing suspicion," said March.

The President seemed not to hear. His attention was trained on the Iowa. He could clearly make out small forms in black wet suits darting from cover to cover, pausing only to fire their weapons before moving ever closer to the machine guns that dwindled their numbers. The President counted ten inert SEALs sprawled on the decks.

"Can't we do something to help those men.

Higgins gave a helpless shrug. "If we open up from shore, we'd probably kill more SEALs than we'd save. I'm afraid there is little we can do for the moment."

"Why not send in the Marine assault teams?"

"Those copters are sitting ducks once they land on the Iowa's aft deck. They each carry fifty troops. It would be mass slaughter. We'd accomplish nothing."

"I agree with the general," said Kemper. "The Satans bought us a breather. Number-two turret appears to be knocked out. We can afford to give the SEALs more time to clear the decks of terrorist opposition."

The President sat back and stared at the men surrounding him. "Then we wait – is that what you're saying? We wait and watch while men die in living color before our eyes on that damned TV screen?"

"Yes, sir," Higgins answered. "We wait."