Fire Ice nf-3 Page 34

  Slade took his hat off and tucked it under his arm. He was a dark-haired young man in his twenties, a couple of inches taller than Austin's six feet one. With his chiseled features and ramrod posture, he could have posed for a navy recruiting poster.

  "Welcome to Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned warship in the world, still manned by an active-duty U.S. Navy crew." The pride in his voice was obvious.

  " 'Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high,' " Austin said, quoting the first line of the Oliver Wendell Holmes poem, "Old Ironsides," that had inspired the nation to save the ship from destruction.

  Slade grinned and quoted the second line, " 'And many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky…' Sounds as if you know your naval history, sir."

  "I know the ship fought the Barbary pirates and gave the British a major headache during the War of 1812. That she was undefeated in battle. And during the fight with the British frigate H.M.S Guerriere, cannonballs bounced off her sides as if they were made of iron." His eyes fondly swept the two-hundred-four-foot length of the frigate, taking in the long bowsprit, We expansive spar deck with the neat rows of cannon and the two-hundred-twenty-foot-tall main-mast. "Hope I look half as good when I'm her age."

  "Thank you. We take great pride in keeping her ship-shape. She was built not far from here, launched in 1797. Actually, her sides were made of live oak from the south-eastern U.S. Her hull is twenty-five inches thick at the waterline. Paul Revere did the copperwork and made the ship's bell. Don't mean to give you the guide routine," he apologized, "but we're awfully proud of the lady." His face grew serious. "Instead of giving you a history lesson, I should call the Coast Guard and let them know we've got an injured man on board." Slade patted the pockets of his coat and frowned. "Damn. My cell phone must have fallen out when I got in the gig. I've got a walkie-talkie we use to keep in touch with the tugboat when we're being pushed or towed. I'll ask the crew to relay a message to the Coast Guard."

  While Slade retrieved his handheld radio, Austin went over to where Petrov was stretched out on the deck. Someone had covered him with a section of sail. A crewman was keeping watch.

  Austin knelt by Petrov's side. "How are you feeling, tovarich?"

  Petrov groaned. "I have a splitting headache, as you would expect after having a bullet bounce off a comer of my skull. Why is it that every time I get too close to you, I get blown up or shot up?"

  "Just lucky, I guess. Razovmust have taken something I said the wrong way. Sorry that you lost your man."

  "I am, too. He wasn't a bad sort for a Ukrainian. He was aware he was in a dangerous business, though. His family will be well-compensated."

  Austin told Petrov to take it easy, then he rose and walked to the thick wooden bulwark, the chin-high raised side that enclosed the uppermost deck. While he was scanning the harbor, Slade returned.

  "Mission accomplished," he said. "The tug crew will notify the Coast Guard and the police harbor patrol. They'll ask them to send some EMTs over to take care of your friend. How's he doing?"

  "He'll live. A half an inch lower and he would have lost some brain power."

  "Is he with NUMA, too?"

  "He's a Russian trade representative from Siberian Pest Control."

  Slade gave him that funny look again. "What's he doing in Boston Harbor?"

  "Looking for Siberian pests," Austin said.

  Slade noticed Austin peering back toward where the tugboat was nudged up against the stern of the ship.

  "The tug pushed us away from the wharf," Slade explained. "We were getting ready to raise sail after they got us into the outer harbor. We're supposed to do a run for the television cameras, then rendezvous with the tug and get a ride back to the navy yard."

  Austin was only half listening. He squinted into the darkness at the snarl of boat motors. The sound grew louder. Then he saw firefly points of light made by muzzle flashes.

  Traveling in a line, three fast powerboats materialized and raced toward the stern of the sailing vessel. Then came the snap and whine of rounds ricocheting off the tugboat. Sparks exploded where the bullets struck the steel hull. The tugboat crew got over its surprise at being fired upon. With a roar of its engines, the tugboat went into reverse and headed off at full throttle. The boats circled the slower craft, riddling the wooden pilothouse with bullets. The tug slowed, traveled a few hundred feet before it stopped completely.

  Austin clenched his fists in anger, helpless to prevent the cowardly attack on the innocent tugboat. He asked Slade to call the tug on his walkie-talkie. After several attempts, the sailor gave up. , "It's no use," he said. "Damn, why'd they attack those guys?"

  "They know the tug was our only propulsion."

  Although the boats were out of sight at the edge of darkness, Austin could hear their idling motors. Then he saw the gun flashes, followed by what sounded like a hundred woodpeckers attacking the ship. Slade tried to lean over the bulwark to check out the noise. Austin pulled him down on the deck.

  "Jeez, those idiots are shooting at us!" Slade yelled. "Don't they know this is a national treasure?"

  "We'll be fine," Austin said. "Old lronsides stopped cannonballs. A little automatic gunfire isn't going to sink her."

  "I'm not worried about that. I don't want my crew hurt."

  Austin had been listening with one ear to the gunfire. "They've stopped shooting. Tell your men to keep their heads down and wait for orders." Austin realized Slade was in command. "I'm sorry. Those are suggestions. This is your command."

  "Thanks," Slade said. "Your suggestions are well taken. Don't worry, I won't fall apart. I was a Marine before they gave me this duty. I'm only here because I hurt my knee in an accident."

  Austin studied the young man's face and saw no fear, only determination.

  "Okay, here's my take on that strafing run. They wanted to drive off the tug so we'd be dead in the water. They know they can't sink us. My guess is that they'll try to board us."

  Slade tucked his chin in. "That's unacceptable. No enemy has ever come aboard the Constitution except for prisoners of war. You can be certain it's not going to happen on my watch." He glanced around the spar deck. "There's only one problem. The ship originally carried more than four hundred men. We're a little shorthanded."

  "We'll have to make do. Can we get the old girl moving?"

  "We were about to hoist sail when we stopped to pick you and your friend up. The best we can get out of it is a couple of knots. lronsides is no speedboat."

  "The main thing is that we establish even a little control of the situation. It will keep them guessing. Speed's not important. What about weapons? Any on board?"

  Slade laughed and pointed to the cannon lined up on both sides of the deck. "You're talking about a fighting ship. Take your pick, thirty-two-pounder Carronades on this deck and twenty-four-pounder long guns below. Plus a couple of Bow Chasers. More than fifty cannon total. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to carry gunpowder."

  "I was thinking about something more practical."

  "We've got boarding pikes and axes and cutlasses. There are belaying pins everywhere. They make fine blackjacks."

  Austin told the young officer to do what he could. Slade gathered his men around, introduced Austin and told the crew that the people who shot up the ship might try boarding it. He ordered every light on the ship doused and told some of the crew to get aloft. They scrambled up the rigging and onto the yards, where they loosed the topsails. The inner jib was set and the ship began to move, on her own, at a speed of about one knot.

  The sail crew dropped down to the deck and hauled up the main topsail yard. The 3,500-square-foot mainsail filled with the breeze, and the mast began to squeak. The ship crept along at the speed of a fast snail. Then the outer jib was set, followed by the fore topsail. The ship tripled its speed. The movement would pose no problem for anyone trying to board, but it gave the crew a modicum of control. In the meantime, weapons were being stacked on the deck.

 
Slade picked up a cutlass and felt the sharp edge of the blade. "Warfare was a personal thing back then, wasn't it?"

  "Unless you know how to use that thing, this might be more practical," Austin said, hefting a boarding pike, basically a long wooden shaft with a sharp metal spearhead on one end.

  The crew split up into two parties, one for each side, and nervously kept watch. A party was dispatched to the fighting platform halfway up the main mast where Marines and sharpshooters used to rain death down on attackers. Austin paced restlessly back and forth, a belaying pin in his hand.

  They didn't have to wait long. The first sign of the renewed attack was the loud rapping against the ship's side. The attackers were trying to soften them up with automatic gunfire. The bullets chipped the black and white paint, but hardly put a dent in the two-foot- thick oak hull. The doughty old ship plowed through the water, brushing off the bullets as if they were a swarm of pesky mosquitoes. Like the Barbary pirates and the British navy, the attackers learned Old lronsides was no pushover.

  The attackers saw that their bullets were having no effect and stopped firing, instead switching on their spotlights, revving their motors and closing on their slow-moving target. Austin heard the boats thump against the hull. He had figured that the attackers would try to climb up the standing rigging that ran from the masts down the side of the ship like rope ladders, and when he saw a hand grab onto the bottom ledge of a gun port, Austin brought the belaying pin down on the attacker's knuckles.

  There was a shriek of pain. The hand let go, and the attacker fell into the harbor with a loud splash. A face appeared on the other side of the gun port. Austin set aside the belaying pin and picked up a boarding pike. He tucked the spearhead under the man's chin. Austin was practically invisible on the darkened deck. The attacker felt the sharp point tickling his Adam's apple and froze, afraid to move.

  Austin pushed the pike forward slightly, and the face disappeared. This time there was a loud thud, as the attacker fell into a boat. Seeing his gun port clear for the time being, Austin strode down the line of cannon. The ship's crewmen were using their boarding pikes with similar effect. Working in pairs, some of them tossed cannonballs over the side. Judging by the yells and crunching sounds, they were finding their mark.

  Slade came running up, still wearing his cocked hat. "Not one of those jerks has set foot on deck." His sweaty face beamed with pride.

  "Guess they're getting the point," Austin said. A face appeared over the bulwark behind Slade. Before Austin could warn Slade, the attacker had hooked a leg over the side and was bringing his assault rifle to bear.

  Austin threw the boarding pike like a Masai warrior taking on a lion. The pike struck the attacker in the chest, and he let out a cry of surprise and toppled back, his weapon firing uselessly in the air.

  Austin grabbed a cutlass and leaped onto the nearest cannon, intending to cut the rigging to prevent it from being used as a ladder. As he brought the sword back, he heard someone yell:

  "Starboard!"

  The shout came from the fighting platform. The assault had moved around to the other side of the ship.

  Two of Razov's men had climbed onto the bulwark and were unslinging their weapons, preparing to spray the defenders concentrated on the deck.

  Acting on pure instinct, Austin slashed the line nearest to him, grabbed onto the loose end like Tarzan swinging through the trees and launched himself across the deck, his legs extended in front of him. The attackers looked up and saw a dark Batman-like apparition flying their way. They tried to get their guns around, but Austin's feet struck them with the full force of his weight, and they pitched over backward. Austin reached the end of his arc and swung back, then dropped onto the deck amid loud cheers from the astounded crew.

  "Wow!" Slade said. "Where did you learn that trick?"

  "Watching old Errol Flynn movies in my misspent youth. Is everybody okay?"

  "Couple of cuts and bruises, but Old lronsides's deck has not been violated."

  Austin grinned and clamped the sailor on the shoulder, then looked around.

  "What's that?"

  "Boat motors," Slade said. They ran to the side of the ship and peered over. They could see three wakes. A cheer went up from the crew, but it faded when the boats came to a stop a few hundred feet away and the pinpoints marking muzzle fire began. But instead of aiming for the nearly impregnable sides of the ship, they were concentrating on the rigging. The sails were being shredded. Bits of rope and splinters of wood began to rain down on the deck. The observers scrambled down from their platforms.

  "Those cowards!" Slade yelled. "They can't board her, so they're going to rip her to shreds." Tatters of sail fell on his head. "We've got to do something!"

  Austin grabbed the sailor's arms. "You mentioned a twenty-one-gun cannon salute."

  "What? Oh, yeah, the two cannon on the foredeck. We fire them every morning and sunset. They're old breechloaders. We've jerry-rigged them to fire three-hundred-and-eighty-millimeter shells. But they shoot blanks, except for the time when someone forgot to remove a cap and we hit a police boat."

  "Our friends out there don't know they're blanks."

  "That's right."

  Austin quickly outlined his plan. Slade ran back and ordered the helmsman to steer a new course. The helmsman swung the wheel over, and the Constitution slowly came about so that its bow was pointed at the attack boats.

  Slade rounded up his gun crew and they climbed down to the gun deck and hurried forward. Within moments, the forward cannon were loaded. Austin peered through the gun port and saw the attack boats lined up. They had been readying for another assault when the ship turned and came at them. With Old lronsides taking the offensive, they seemed to be confused. Austin wanted them as close together as possible. The gap was closing. The boats started to move apart.

  "Now!" Austin ordered. He stepped away and covered his ears.

  Slade pulled the lanyards. There was a double roar, the foredeck was enveloped in smoke and the cannons leaped back, their recoil held in check by thick cordage. The gun crew had purposely left the caps in.

  The bluff worked. The attackers saw the big black ship bearing down on them behind a cloud of purple smoke, heard the twin projectiles whistle though the air and saw the geysers of water. The boats sprinted out of the way like startled jackrabbits, then headed at full throttle toward the mouth of the harbor where they disappeared in the darkness.

  The cannons roared again, with blanks this time, as the ship gave chase.

  Even as the echoes faded, a mighty roar went up from the crew.

  "Party's over," Austin said. Slade was grinning from ear to ear. The comment that followed might not have been in the same class of immortal words as "Don't give up the ship" or "Damn the torpedoes!"… but as Austin watched the departing wakes of the attack boats, he couldn't argue with the young sailor when he said, "Old lronsides still knows how to kick ass!"

  33

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  SANDECKER GLANCED AROUND the Oval Office and reflected on the life-and-death decisions that had been made in the famous room. It was hard to believe that the political currents that swirled around Washington had their center within these quiet walls. On his last visit to the White House, he'd been treated as a pariah and warned to butt out of national security matters, but after NUMA had rescued the NR-1's captain and crew and saved the White House major embarrassment, Sandecker had become the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla. He lost no time throwing his weight around.

  The White House's formidable appointments secretary hadn't hesitated when he called and asked to meet with the president on an urgent matter. The secretary bumped an ambassador and a congressional delegation from the president's busy schedule, and she never blinked when Sandecker asked that only the president and vice president attend.

  Sandecker had politely refused the offer of a White House limousine and made the trip in a Jeep Cherokee from the NUMA motor pool. The receptionist had ushered the admir
al, Rudi Gunn and Austin into the Oval Office and saw to it that a steward served them coffee on White House china.

  As they waited, Sandecker turned to Austin. "I've been meaning to ask you, Kurt. How did it feel to commandeer a national monument?"

  "Quite the rush, Admiral. Unfortunately, with only two cannon in the bow, I couldn't yell, 'Give 'em a broadside!' "

  "From what I've heard, you and the Constitution's crew acquitted yourselves with undeniable valor. Old lronsides lived up to her glorious name."

  Gunn said with a twinkle in his eye, "The scuttlebutt among the top navy brass has it that Old lronsides is being commissioned as part of the Seventh Fleet. After she's patched up, of course."

  "I understand that the navy plans to retire an aircraft carrier in her favor," Austin said, with a poker face. "The Pentagon sees great cost-cutting opportunities in the use of sail and belaying pins."

  "Cost cutting would be a new one for the Pentagon," Sandecker mused. "What happened to the men who attacked you?"

  "The Coast Guard and police scoured the harbor. They found three boats scuttled in the marshes on a harbor island, the hulls shot full of holes."

  "I understand there were some injuries."

  "The tugboat crewmen were wounded, but they had the presence of mind to play dead."

  "What of the Russian, the man you call Ivan?"

  "He was only grazed by the bullet and is doing fine."

  "What did Razov have to say about these pirates?"

  "Nothing. He cut his party short, kicked his guests off the yacht and sailed out of the harbor before anyone could ask him questions."

  "This Razov is a shifty character," Sandecker said with a j knitted brow. "We've got our work cut out for us. We've been keeping an eye on him since he left Boston?"

  Gunn nodded. "Satellite surveillance had him heading at a leisurely pace along the Maine coast."

  "Just a gentleman yachtsman out for a cruise," Sandecker said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  "I've asked the satellite department to run the latest results over here for this meeting," Gunn said.