The Gulf (63 page)

Sorry, Ola. Have to watch that goddamn swearing.

He remembered the towline then. He went back, tied it with elephant fingers to the after lug, and retreated again. Without further thought, he gave the lanyard a smooth, hard yank. Beside him he glimpsed Everett's arm coming back at the same moment.

There was a bubbling hiss and the bags began to bulge. The two divers watched them. There was no point in trying to escape. They could barely swim. With this much explosive, the kill radius would be hundreds of yards. So they just watched.

The bags unfolded. Little pops and cracks snapped through the water as air sought out the crannies and folds. The hissing continued, louder now, and the heavy canvas surged and quivered like soap bubbles as the trapped air yearned for the surface. He tried to calculate how much lift they'd get, forty cubic feet of air at four thousand pounds pressure, corrected for seventy feet of depth. But the arithmetic was too complex for his novocained mind.

The tail of the mine jerked upward. Containing fins and sensors, it was lighter than the explosive-packed forward section. The mud burst suddenly apart like a small bomb, swirling out to diffuse and then obliterate the fading beams of their lights. Gordon backed a few more feet away.

The bags strained silently now. The last air hissed and then trickled to a stop.

They hung there. He could feel their pull in his bones. But though the tail swayed free, the nose was still buried.

Shit, he thought.

He moved forward then, and gripped the rusty rails; braced his knees and shoved. The mine grated, metal screeching on gravel or coarse sand. It swung away from him, and then, suddenly, freed itself from the mud and began to rise, penduluming gently.

At the same moment, there came to his ears, through the distant rumble that had never stopped, the mosquito whine of a propeller.

It was time to leave. He signaled Everett and they valved gas into their vests. They began to rise, slowly at first, then more rapidly. The sea rushed past their faces. Gordon breathed steadily, in, out, in, feeling the residual air grow in his lungs. As they ascended the whine came now louder, now softer, as they passed through layers of different temperatures.

They broke surface to a continuous thunder from the island. There were many fires there now, he saw. Then he turned his eyes away.

The mine was free of the bottom. But it was still live, still dangerous, and still in the channel.

Now they had to tow it out.

The raft bobbed where they'd left it, lashed to the float. Lurid gleams played over wet rubber as Gordon pulled himself over the gunwale. He scrambled forward awkwardly to cast off. Behind him Everett's fins thudded into the floorboards. The starter putted, putted again, and then caught and roared out. He flinched, then realized it didn't matter. They could run it as loud as they wanted now.

He glanced at his watch and his throat closed. Only ten minutes before the ships would be here. “Move it, Lem, move it
now!
”

The throttle came open. The line came dripping out of the sea. Everett aimed the bow left, into the unswept portion of the mine field. As good a place as any, Gordon thought, pulling off his mask, then tripping his weight belt and gear and Mark 16, dumping them all pell-mell. If there were more contact mines, what they towed might bump one. But he had no more time for safety. Only just time to haul it clear, drop it, pick up his men, fire the charges, and clear out.

He saw the boat then. A sharp shadow between him and the fires. He heard shouting, distant but clear, and for a moment didn't realize what it meant. Then he did.

“Down, Lem! Get low!”

Flashes from the dark, a stutter of automatic fire. He sprawled into wet wood and rubber. The little raft, burdened deep with the drag of mine and bags, made way with agonizing slowness across the flame-lit sea.

Another flash and stutter. This time, the Z-bird flinched as humming things plucked their way through rubber and air. One clanked and sparked by his feet, and Gordon started. How could they see to aim? The boat was black, both divers were dressed in black.

Then he saw how. Behind them, aft of the prop, glowed a phosphorescent arrow. Pointing right to them.

If only they'd brought rifles. Anything to keep them off for a few more minutes.

He blinked then, and clawed beneath the floorboards. He came up with Tupperware. He popped the lid, and the Browning dropped into his hand.

Looking back, he saw the silhouette shorten, swing bow on to them. Then it was obliterated in the muzzle flash.

Gordon pumped out fourteen rounds as fast as he could pull the trigger, hardly bothering to aim. No chance of a hit at this range. All he wanted to do was persuade them they were facing rifles, or a machine gun. When the automatic was empty he dropped it, ducking again as a fresh fusillade came in.

They did seem to be lagging back now, though. Two minutes later, he judged that this was far enough. “Cut it!” he shouted to Everett.

But he didn't seem to hear. Gordon flung himself back down, pulling his knife free of the calf sheath, and hacked desperately at the line. It separated with a snap, and they leapt forward.

The acceleration tumbled Everett back, and Gordon saw the gleam of blood across his chest. He shoved him aside and grabbed the throttle. The motor yammered as he shoved it hard over.

The lightened boat swapped ends like a squirrel on a branch and headed back for the channel. Behind him he saw the pursuers hesitate, then turn to follow. They were close, no more than a hundred yards behind, but freed now of its burden the Z-bird romped, throwing luminous curving sheets of spray. He was thinking he might outrun them when he noticed that the raft was sagging in the middle. And that there was water in the bottom now, too.

So that was that.

He froze as suddenly and simultaneously the howl of a powerful engine burst over him, a new stick of bombs tore the shoreline apart, and over it all rose the terrifying clatter of automatic rifles.

Gasping as something seared the back of his thigh, he went over the side as the raft slid downward, pulled under by the still-running Evinrude.

Then he was in the water, enfolded by warm darkness through which bullets slid like frying bacon and propellers whined like a sawmill at full blast.

He wondered then, burrowing for the depths like a wounded mole, whether the rest of the team had seen the boat. Or guessed, from the firing, that he and Everett weren't going to be back to pick them up.

Burgee and Maudit and Terger. They were good men. He'd done his best. As had Lem. As they all had. Now, at the end, it was in God's hands.

He hoped God had read the plan.

0206 HOURS: U.S.S.
TURNER VAN ZANDT

At that moment, Lenson, sweeping the night sea with the low-light goggles, saw it come on ahead. Low in the water, bobbing up and down and being waved back and forth. He searched to the left, but couldn't see any in that direction. Nor was there one to starboard. Which side was the cleared lane on?

“Light in the water!” he yelled, then lowered his voice instinctively. “Light in the water. Off to port. Only one.”

The 21MC said: “Bridge, Sigs: infrared light, one point off starboard bow.”

Dan saw it at the same moment, dimmer than the first, but indisputably there. It didn't look like a hundred yards between them. “Christ,” muttered Shaker, beside him, “I hope Jakkal picks those up. Steve!”

“Ahead two-thirds, indicate ten knots, come right, steer three-two-five.”

“Coming right, new course three-two-five,” said the helmsman.

“Farther right,” said Shaker. “Farther! I don't like the heading Jakkal's on.”

Dan pushed up the goggles, leaning over the chart as McQueen plotted the lights.
Van Zandt
was headed fair for the channel, but he couldn't tell where
Adams
was going. By his chart, they were thirty, forty yards too far to port.

They couldn't both be right. But he trusted McQueen. He straightened now and put his hand on the older man's shoulder. “Okay, Mac, I'm gonna be with the captain from now on. Keep a good track. Yell loud if there're any problems.”

“Got it, Commander.”

Standing beside Shaker now, gripping his binoculars and sweating under the long-sleeved jacket and canvas hood, Dan recast his mind into taking responsibility for it all: the whole dark length of her, and all her men. For this was how a captain thought, not of the part, but of the whole ship.

He'd felt it before, understudying Bell. He hoped he wouldn't have to take over tonight. But if he did, there'd be no time for hesitation, confusion, or fear.

The whole ship … he knew that throughout her now men were leaning into their sights. The target-designation transmitters, atop the pilothouse, where the 76mm was laid from. The .50 machine guns. The Phalanx. The men on the torpedo tubes, ready to fire by hand in case power failed. And the small-arms party aft. He hoped they maintained discipline. Held their fire, held their talk, showed no lights.

The bobbing light slipped down the port side. Through the binoculars he caught for a second the black blur of a head beneath it, an arm.

He turned, to see McQueen lay a tiny triangle just inside the crosshatched boundary.

Suddenly the night split apart. Huge detonations shook the ship like a puppy, rolling her hard to starboard. The men on the bridge cried out. Dimly through the thunder, the shouting, cut Shaker's voice, angry and at the same time cold. “I don't know what it is. And it's too late now. Fuck the mines! All ahead flank!”

It had begun already, he thought, crouching behind the splinter shield. The utter confusion of battle.

The sea leapt up around them in huge columns, wiping out the island, the stars, the very darkness, like a new Deluge.
Van Zandt
plunged through them, still accelerating, as they toppled and roared down like a dozen waterfalls.

The distant whine and howl of jet engines dwindled. Across two miles of water came the frying crackle of small arms and the occasional deeper note of heavier guns. Dan leaned against steel, sweating, waiting for the first flash of a shot aimed their way, the first glowing ball of missile exhaust.

With naked eyes, he could see lights moving on the shore now, trucks or possibly flashlights. They were close enough for that. The island lay behind and above them, a darker darkness, more menacing by the second. He remembered a passage from an old story; the looming island to leeward, the deserter's hat drifting past, telling the new captain when he had steerageway. He yanked his mind back. Against the flickering sky, he could make out the double crest of Jabal Halwa.

“Halfway through,” came the chief quartermaster's quiet voice. No one on the bridge said anything for a moment; then Charaler, also quietly, gave the official response: “Very well.”

Something had changed. It was suddenly quieter, like a theater before curtain. The pop and clatter came clear and distant. Then he knew what it was. The endless whistle of the
shamal
was gone. They were in the lee of the island. The enemy was only seconds away now. Yet still his lights searched skyward, still his tracers blinked upward in fiery streams; here and there a rocket kindled and rose in its fiery arc, detonating long seconds later over the water as its warhead self-destructed. He was still firing at the departed aircraft.

There was a bump under the hull, and Dan caught his breath. Other gasps came from around him. But no explosion followed. He had no idea what it was.

“Bridge, Sigs: Challenge from the island.”

He swung instantly, lifting his glasses, getting them tangled with the goggle straps, yanking them apart with a curse. The blue light glinted across the water from the spit, laying a fan-shaped glisten on the waves. It tapped out slowly P Q P.

Shaker: “Don't answer. Maintain course. Pass the word to pick out your targets.”

Charaler: “Aye, sir.”

McQueen: “Sir, navigator holds us passing the inner boundary of the mine field.”

Shaker, calmly: “Very well.”

Ahead of them, at that moment, the profile of a destroyer leapt suddenly from blackness, outlined by two balls of brilliant-hot gas. Dan could see the dwindling red dots of the shells. Seconds later, two novas ignited over the island, painful brightnesses suspended from streams of smoke. They swung, then steadied beneath parachutes. They stripped night from the shore, the hummocks, the tortured rocky crags, the sand spit to port.

And directly ahead, frighteningly close, showed them a huddle of prefabricated huts and tents, and two piers outstretched. One long, one short. Several boats—he couldn't tell how many—were near the short one, not tied up but standing a few yards off, as if just getting under way. A shapeless dark mass, probably more craft moored in a nest, occupied the southern side of the long pier. And the harsh light showed him more, five or seven more, scattered between him and the beach.

“Illuminate! Radars on!”

Wise, from CIC: “CWI in radiate. All radars coming up.”

“Weapons free,” he heard Shaker shout into the intercom.

“Cover your eyes!” Dan shouted. He ducked below the level of the windows, and squeezed his own shut.

The world lit red even behind his covering hand. The bellow rattled the deck plates and windows like a beast shaking a cage. One after another, five missiles flung themselves off the forecastle, filling the pilothouse with unbearable sound, glare, heat, and an incredible density of bitter, choking smoke.

When he straightened, cracking one eye to check, he caught the last at the apex of its trajectory. A moment later, it nosed over and curved down, a ball of lucent fire that was still burning fiercely when it merged with one of the hillocks in a blinding flash.

He thought, They've got to know we're here now. In the guttering light of the falling star shells, the huge fluffy cotton trails of solid-fuel boosters led directly to
Van Zandt.