Clive Cussler: Dark Watch

He called the boat over his throat microphone. “Mike, can you hear me?” When there was no reply, he called again. The boat was still moving at fifty knots, enveloped in a cocoon of engine noise that made communications impossible.

He cursed and called up Mark Murphy. “Murph, we need you. There’s about fifty bandits above us. We’re pinned.”

“Mike’s about to hit the tug,” Murphy pointed out.

“And the longer you question me, the closer he’s getting.”

“Roger that,” he replied, then muttered under his breath, “Sorry, Mike.”

As soon as the last of the assault team jumped over the gunwales, Mike Trono reversed engines and drew the boat off the beach, maneuvering backward until he had the sea room to spin around.

He pulled down his headset to talk to Tory as the boat built speed. “Can I ask you something, ma’am?”

“Only if you promise to never call me ma’am again.”

“Sorry.” Trono grinned. “Force of habit.”

“What’s your question?”

“Do you know how to operate a boat?”

“I work for Lloyd’s of London. My entire life revolves around boats. I’m a licensed captain on anything up to twenty thousand tons, which includes your Oregon before you turned it into something out of Star Wars. ”

“So this assault craft?” He stamped the deck.

“Seems to handle as well as the Riva speedboat I rented on my last holiday in Spain. Why the inquiry?”

“Because we have a little job to do, and I need you to man the helm while Pulaski and I take care of it.”

“I assume it has to do with that piece of steel that was loaded before we left your ship?”

“Captain’s orders. He thinks we can salvage a bit more than a bunch of immigrants from this nightmare.”

A smile lit Tory’s eyes, and her cheeks blushed more than what the wind caused. “Why am I not surprised?”

They had shot across the bay, circling behind the Oregon again for cover, and now were headed for the tugboat. One of the trawlers was drifting away from the tug’s flank, while the other remained tightly lashed. There were men scrambling all over the decks. Most were pirates, but a few were crewmen desperately trying to defend their ship. Some of the pirates had added another level to their butchery by switching to machetes to dispatch the last of the crew.

The timing was critical, but with Murph watching their back over the Gatling’s sights, the assault boat charged into the battle. They were twenty yards out when Mike remembered he’d taken off his headset. As soon as he settled it over his ears, he heard the shrieking scream of the six-barreled Gatling gun, and he goosed the throttles a little more.

The expected destruction as the 20mm shells ripped apart the pirates’ boats and cleared the tug’s deck never came. Instead, pirates began shooting at the lightly protected assault boat from over the tug’s railing. The boat ran into a steam of gunfire. Rounds from their AK-47s punctured the inflatable curtain ringing the craft, raked the deck, and ricocheted off the outboards, miraculously missing everyone. Trono tried to wrench the wheel to get away from the tug as fast as possible, screaming to Mark Murphy to find out what went wrong.

The ground between Cabrillo and the Indonesians exploded, churned up by five hundred depleted uranium bullets. A four-foot-thick layer of earth was stripped away by the onslaught, exposing the gunmen where they’d been hiding behind the rim of the pond. Those that weren’t hit directly were torn apart by flying rocks. The entire group was blown into an oblivion of bloody mist and debris.

Linc took point to check for survivors, and while his search was thorough, he also knew it was unnecessary. Nothing could have survived that.

“We’re clear.”

Juan drew his people together. “From here on out our element of surprise is blown, but we’ll stick to the plan, flank the fighting down below, and try to find Eddie. I only hope he’s built a level of trust with some of the other Chinese because if we’re going to save any of them, we’re going to need him.”

They started off down the slope.

Eddie Seng had remained hidden, watching to see how the fighters would react to the Oregon steaming into the bay. As he’d expected, the Russians ignored the distraction and continued to fight with skill and discipline. They had made a sizable dent in the number of Indonesians, but the sheer numbers were becoming overwhelming. Of the dozen who’d been caught in the initial ambush, four were dead and three were wounded, although they could still defend their position. The tide of Indonesians continued to hammer at the hillock the Russians had taken as a crude fort. The outcome of the gun battle was inevitable, and the Russians knew it. They weren’t fighting for their lives anymore. This was now all about dying with honor.

Something caught Eddie’s attention on the far side of the processing building. The range was extreme, but he thought he saw Jan Paulus emerge from the dormitory ship. It was Paulus, and he was starting to climb up to the helipad where Anton Savich’s helicopter sat idle. He was with another man, and by the way they walked it appeared that Paulus was holding a pistol to his head. It was most likely he had taken the contract pilot hostage to fly him out. There was no sign of Anton Savich, and Eddie wondered if the South African had already killed him.

Pursuing the mine overseer was a tactical mistake, but the flame of rage that ignited in Eddie’s chest blocked out any chance of rationality. The weeks of pain, starvation, and deprivation had exacted a toll on his soul that would take a long time to heal. Killing the sadistic miner would at least start him on the journey. He’d already told Tang to gather as many of the other workers as he could and head for the newly grounded cruise ship. Of any of the vessels littering the forlorn beach, it had the best chance of surviving the eruption if Juan didn’t think of a way out of this mess.

His body was in no condition to chase Paulus, and yet when he started after the man, Eddie’s legs felt as powerful as coiled springs and his lungs pumped air like a blacksmith’s bellows. He felt alive for the first time since turning over his life to the snakeheads back in Lantan village. If any of the fighters noticed him as he dashed around rusted shipping containers and other equipment left lying about, they quickly dismissed him as just an anonymous worker trying to save himself. He’d hidden the AK-47 under the loose shirt he’d scavenged from a dead guard.

Once he was beyond the worst of the fighting he stumbled across the motor launch that had been used to transfer the gold out to the tug. It was in a secluded bay well sheltered from the rest of the beach by massive boulders, and as he stepped into the open, eight pirates who had been making ready to launch the craft looked up in unison. They should have ignored him like the others, but one went for his gun. Eddie dashed to his left as a stream of bullets chiseled at the boulder near his shoulder. He unlimbered his AK, waited for the firing to stop, and stepped back around the corner.

The gunman had turned to laugh with his comrades at the sport of it all. The first three-round burst sent his lifeless corpse sprawling into the startled arms of his friend. The second blew that man to the ground. Eddie killed one more before they got organized and made to fire back. He ducked out of the way again, quickly slinging his rifle, and began to climb the slick side of the boulder.

It was only eight feet tall, but Eddie barely had the strength to make it. His arms quivered at the strain of lifting his own diminished body weight, and the AK-47 felt like a hundred-pound rucksack. The boat’s motor roared to life just as he reached the summit. He slithered over the rounded top of the boulder, trying to bring his weapon to bear. The engine’s beat changed as the prop dug into the surf.