Clive Cussler - Skeleton Coast

Just as she turned to check to the right of the door a strong hand clutched the back of her neck. She was pulled to her feet, the hot barrel of an assault rifle pressed into her kidney. The rebel spoke in his native language, panting out the words that Linda couldn’t understand but knew nevertheless. She was now his prisoner and if anyone tried to attack him he’d blow her spine out of her body before he went down.

IT had taken less than ten minutes for theOregon to reach the fourth platform and sweep the seas of the rebel boats. Only one had remained at the rig following the destruction of the first set of outboards, but Tiny Gunderson’s eye in the sky found three of them fleeing toward the tanker loading pier. Rather than let them reinforce the land-based attack, Max Hanley had ordered Murph to take them out. The range was growing extreme by the time Murph targeted the last boat so it took a five-second burst before eight of the Gatling’s rounds found their mark amid the explosions of water from shells impacting around the craft. The final outboard pinwheeled atop the waves after it had been cut nearly in two.

In a maneuver that made the hull plates moan in protest Eric had theOregon torqued around using her thrusters and drive tubes and was accelerating for the dock by the time the little boat sank.

“OregontoLiberty ,” Max radioed. Though never given official names,Liberty was what they called the primary lifeboat. The one Juan had had blown out from under him off the coast of Namibia had been nicknamedOr Death .

“This isLiberty ,” Mike Trono replied.

“We’ve secured the fourth rig and are now getting into position to cover your assault.” Approaching a well-defended dock in the unarmed lifeboat was suicide, but under the protection of theOregon ’s weapons, Cabrillo and the senior staff who’d come up with the plan were more than confident they’d land safely.

“Roger that,Oregon . I have you in sight. Looks like you need five more minutes before we can turn for shore.”

“Don’t wait for me,” Eric said from the helm, bumping the throttles even more. “I’ll be on station before you’re a mile from the beach.”

Max flicked his monitor to show the status of his beloved engines and saw Stone had them wavering just below redline. Any misgivings he’d had about damaging them when they had grounded in the Congo River faded. The old girl was giving them everything she had and more.

“We’re headed in.”

Mike had kept the hydrofoil two miles from shore, carving lazy circles until it was time to strike. He cranked the wheel eastward, aiming for the collection of huge storage tanks at the terminal’s southern edge. The UAV’s overflight had shown this to be the area of least rebel activity, but they were bound to be spotted as they approached, and men would certainly be shifted to repel the attack.

He had to steer around the oil slicks that were slowly coalescing into one massive spill. He had no way of estimating its size, but from what he could see it already looked frighteningly like Prince William Sound after theExxon Valdez holed herself on Bligh Reef.

He was standing in the rear cockpit to give himself 360-degree vision and didn’t hear the approaching UAV over the hydrofoil’s engine. Tiny buzzed him at no more than twenty feet, waggling the drone’s wings as he arrowed it in toward the seawall.

“Crazy SOB,” he muttered with a smirk and glanced at the flatscreen display that had been hastily installed the night before.

Everything looked the same as it had when the model plane made its first pass over the facility. There were no rebel soldiers around the tank farm or the power plant. It was only when Tiny guided the UAV

northward that he could see any insurgents. Some were guarding the entrance gates while others were draining a fleet of eighteen-wheeler tanker trucks. Thick ropes of oil snaked from the rear of each trailer and slithered over the seawall. Another contingent was on the floating pier getting the second set of loading gantries ready to begin pumping crude into the sea. Linc would be leading the attack there once Mike and his men were in position to back them.

Then, when they were a mile from the quay closest to the tank farm, he saw from the digital uplink that he had been spotted. Men were racing off the causeway and getting into Petromax vehicles in order to rush across the facility. They came in trucks, forklifts, even a large crane, anything their commander could get running. Others came on foot, swarming across the terminal like berserkers.

“Oregon, you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“We see it,” Max replied.

Mark Murphy retracted the hull plates shielding the ship’s 40 mm Bofors automatic cannon and activated the hydraulics that moved the weapon into firing position. His computer screen automatically split into two halves, one showing the targeting camera for the Gatling, the second for the pom-pom gun.

He started designating targets as fast as he could, moving the reticle around the screen with a pair of joysticks and designating vehicles in the sight as soon as the computer told him he had a lock. The Bofors began to pound out high explosive shells and the Gatling spit a tongue of fire fifteen feet from theOregon

’s side. The weapons were seeking new targets before the first salvos struck home.

The Gatling rounds raked the side of a dump truck, the near hypervelocity slugs tearing the engine off its mount, shredding everything in the cab, and punching fist-sized holes through the inch-thick dump bed.

The force of the impacts sent the twelve-ton vehicle careening onto its right-side wheels for an instant before it tipped completely.

A pair of 40-mm rounds blew twin craters in the asphalt in front of an SUV with armed men standing on the running boards and hanging on the doors. The driver veered sharply but the left front tire dropped into one of the smoking gouges just as a third round impacted behind the right front wheel. The blast tossed the truck through the air, rebels flying from its hurtling carcass like dolls thrown by a spoiled child.

“Eric,” Murph said without looking up from his computer, “turn us side on. We’re in range to deploy the deck .30 calibers.”

Controlled from other weapons stations, each of the .30-caliber M-60s could be individually targeted.

While they were used primarily for defense against boarders the six heavy machine guns were more than capable of engaging individuals onshore. They were disguised in oil drums on deck, and on a command from Murph the lids swung free and the guns popped up, their barrels swinging down to horizontal and pivoting outward. Each gun emplacement had its own camera with low light and infrared capabilities.

Once they were deployed, Mark turned his attention back to his own weapons systems and let his gunners do their job. In moments the machine guns added their chattering tones to the symphony he was conducting.

It took another five minutes to check the headlong rush of men to the tank farm pier where Mike was bringing the hydrofoil off plane in preparation to dock. Yet rebels still managed to cross the yard in twos and threes, leaping from cover to cover when the M-60s were engaged elsewhere, and a vanload of gunmen had circled along the outer perimeter fence, using the entire terminal to hide their advance.

Murph had done his job of clearing most of Mike’s LZ, but they were still in for a fight. And until Trono and his African troops had swept the yard of rebels, Linc and Ski couldn’t attack the tanker pier and prevent the insurgents from continuing to dump four hundred tons of toxic crude per minute into the sea.

28

EDDIESeng looked at the oil gushing up from the well drilled deep below the platform and wanted to shoot the fifteen rebels who’d surrendered five minutes into the gun battle. The Petromax workers trying to staunch the flow looked puny and ineffective compared to this awesome demonstration of man’s attempt to tame nature.