Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey

The words were barely out of Pitt's mouth when one of the crewmen of the luxury yacht fired a handheld rocket launcher. The missile soared through the port door of the pilothouse and out the starboard window before impacting with the water fifty yards abeam and exploding.

"Good thing I wasn't in there yet," said Gunn, trying to act as if he was on a walk in the park.

"See what I mean about crouching down?"

Gunn jumped in the pilothouse and spun the wheel, sending the hull curling away from the muck rising from below the water. But before he could bring the boat up to speed, another rocket smashed through the side of the hull amidships and struck the starboard engine. Miraculously, it failed to explode, but it caused a fire by igniting oil spilling from the shattered engine. Almost as a reflex, Gunn immediately closed the throttle to prevent any broken lines from spraying fuel on the fire.

Dodge took the initiative, dove down the hatch into the engine room and snatched a fire extinguisher mounted on a bulkhead. Pulling the safety pin and squeezing the trigger, he smothered the flames until only a billow of black smoke spiraled through the open hatch.

"Are we taking on water?" Pitt shouted from under the fishnet.

"It's an ungodly mess down here, but the bilge is dry!" Dodge yelled back between coughing fits.

To those on board the pirate yacht, it looked as though the fishing boat was mortally hit, as they watched the column of smoke billowing from inside her hull. Believing her crew dead and too injured to resist, the yacht's captain backed off on his engines, slowed the vessel and drifted across Poco Bonito's, bow.

"Do we still have power, Rudi?"

"Our port engine is dead, but the starboard is still turning over."

"Then they just made a big mistake," Pitt said with a cold grin.

"And what was that?" Gunn replied.

"Remember the pirate ship?"

"I do indeed." Gunn cut back on the throttle to the good engine for the sucker play, allowing the little research boat to stop dead in the water. The ploy worked. Certain that his victim was about to sink, the yacht's captain swallowed the bait and idled closer.

Seconds crawled by, until the yacht was almost sitting on top of them at point-blank range. Seeing no movement on board and smoke still gushing from the hull, no small-arms fire was poured into the seemingly stricken vessel. Then a bearded man leaned out the window of the yacht's pilothouse, and with an American Deep South accent spoke through a bullhorn.

"Y'all who can hear me. If y'all do not abandon your boat, it will be blasted to kindlin'. Do not attempt to use any communication devices. Ah repeat, do not open communications. We'all have detection equipment on board and will know immediately if y'all transmit. Y'all have exactly sixty seconds to take to the water. Ah promise y'all safe passage to the nearest port."

"Shall we reply?" asked Gunn.

"Maybe we should do as he says," muttered Dodge. "I want to see my children and grandchildren again."

"If you trust a pirate's word," said Pitt coldly, "I've got a gold mine in Newark, New Jersey, I'll sell you cheap."

Seemingly ignoring the yacht, Pitt rose into view and climbed through the gear piled on the stern and approached the jackstaff on the transom that was flying the Nicaraguan flag. He lowered the flag, unclasped the fasteners and removed it. Then he retrieved the bundle he'd been carrying inside his shirt. In a few moments, a silk, three-by-five-foot emblem was raised.

"Now they know where we come from," Pitt said, as everyone stared reverently at the stars and stripes snapping defiantly in the breeze.

Renee returned on deck, carrying two glass jars and a wine bottle topped with gasoline. Quickly sizing up the situation, she suddenly had a revelation. "You're not going to ram him?" she cried.

"Say when," yelled Gunn, in a voice edged with anticipation and the stony face of a poker player bluffing to win a pot.

"No!" Renee moaned. "That isn't a hologram. It's a solid object. Ram that and we'll fold up like Lawrence Welk's accordion."

"I'm counting on it," Pitt snapped back. "You and Patrick light the wicks and get ready to toss the cocktails as soon as we collide."

There was no more hesitation. The yacht was creeping past Poco Bonito's bow, now less than a hundred feet away.

Giordino threw Pitt one of the M4 carbines and they began blasting away at the yacht. Giordino fired full automatic, sending a spray of 5.56-millimeter NATO rounds into the pilothouse, while Pitt aimed and accurately fired single shots at the crewman holding the rocket launcher, taking him out with his second shot. Another man leaned down to pick up the weapon, but Pitt canceled him out too…

Stunned that Poco Bonito was unexpectedly fighting back, the crew of the yacht dashed for cover without returning fire. Giordino did not know it but he had put a bullet in the shoulder of the captain, who had fallen out of sight onto the deck of the pilothouse. At the same moment, the helmsman was dropped by the shower of shells, and the yacht began to lose steerage and angle away. With only just one engine providing power, Poco Bonito flattened out at less than half her top speed, but she still gamely thrust her bow through the water with more than enough power to do the job.

No one had to be told to sit against the bulkhead with their arms protecting their heads. Renee and Dodge shared apprehensive looks at the orange life jackets that Gunn had passed out. In the pilothouse, he stood firm, hands clutched on the wheel, knuckles turning ivory. The single screw chewed the water, driving the boat straight toward the big, opulent yacht. Its crew stared back, numbed with horror and disbelief, as they realized the innocent-looking fishing boat was not throwing in the towel but rather attacking them with the intention of ramming. A fox in sheep's clothing, surprise was total, no other boat or ship had offered resistance before being captured. They were also shaken by the unexpected show of the American flag.

Pitt and Giordino kept up their devastating fire, sweeping the decks and clearing them of the yacht's crew as Poco Bonito closed the gap. The Epona looked bigger than ever, as they surged toward her hull amidships just aft of the wheelhouse. The decks had been cleared. Like scared rabbits, the crew had concealed themselves belowdecks rather than risk the accurate fire pouring from the oncoming boat.

Poco Bonito looked like the boat from hell, with exhaust fumes issuing through the engine room hatch along with smoke, blown back on a ninety-degree trail astern by the wind over the bow. Gunn had served as executive officer of a missile destroyer that had rammed an Iraqi submarine in the Mediterranean during the conflict to rid the area of Saddam Hussein. But the conning tower of the sub was all that had been visible then. Now, he was looking at a big, solid ship that towered over him.

Ten seconds to impact.

Pitt and Giordino laid aside their carbines and braced themselves for the collision. From her curled-up position against the deckhouse bulkhead, Renee could see that the two men's faces were impassive, with no indication of fear or stress. They seemed as indifferent as a pair of ducks sitting under pouring rain.

In the pilothouse, Gunn was planning his moves in sequence. He aimed the bow to strike into the yacht's engine room just aft of the main dining salon. After impact, the next trick was to reverse the engine and pray it could pull Poco Bonito out of the hole she just gouged and keep afloat while the enemy made a one-way trip to the seabed. The sleek hull of Epona looked so close now, Gunn felt as if he could reach through the shattered windshield and touch the elongated image of the horse.