Arctic Drift dp-20 Page 37
A short seam of bullets struck the tabletop inches from Pitt’s head, but the thick mahogany surface devoured the lead slugs. Protected by the hard wood, Pitt propelled the table with rising momentum. Driving against the wooden legs, he bulled forward with every ounce of energy he could muster, ignoring the ache in his arm and the dizziness in his head.
The far edge of the table caught Zak in his midsection, throwing him back into his chair before he could get to his feet. The pile of glass plates dumped on top of him, disrupting his attempts to keep firing. Pitt continued to drive his rectangular battering ram, which now took Zak with it, sliding him backward in his chair. Both bits of furniture slid several feet until the rear legs of the chair struck an uneven deck plank. The legs held while the table kept coming, knocking Zak over and backward, where he fell to the deck with a crash. In his hand, the Glock still barked, firing harmlessly into the tabletop even as Zak tumbled over.
Pitt heard the crash, but it was only through the brief muzzle flash that he knew Zak was knocked down. He was now exposed to Zak’s fire from under the table, but he didn’t hesitate, even as he heard the gun discharge again. Digging his shoulder into the underside of the table, Pitt drove his legs into the deck and pushed upright with his last burst of strength, tilting the burly table up on its end, until it landed on Zak’s legs. Pitt nearly had the table turned over when he felt his left leg buckle from under him. Lying on his back, Zak had fired three blind shots under the table, then slid his legs free. Two rounds whizzed by harmlessly but the third found Pitt’s leg, burying the bullet into his thigh. Losing his balance, Pitt quickly shifted his weight onto his right leg and leaned into the table.
He was a second too late. Zak had got to his knees and deflected the table to the side, shifting Pitt’s momentum. As the massive table began to totter, Zak rose and used his superior strength to twist it aside.
Suddenly lacking in leverage, Pitt was thrown sideways with the table, crashing into the bookshelves in the stern. The sound of shattering glass filled the darkened bay as Pitt was flung into the paned shelf doors. He then dropped to the deck, followed by the hefty table that collapsed onto him with a dull thud. The table ripped through a half dozen bookshelves along the way, releasing a cascade of books and wooden shelves and glass that tumbled on top of the overturned table.
Zak stood nearby, breathing heavily as he caught his wind, while keeping the gun pointed at the table. But straining his ears, he heard not a sound. There were no groans, no shuffles or movements at all from Pitt’s buried body. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Zak could faintly detect Pitt’s lifeless legs protruding from beneath the table. Scouring the floor around his own feet, he put his hands on the heavy ship’s logbook. Pulling it to his chest, he stepped cautiously toward the lighted passageway, then moved slowly down the corridor without looking back.
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Above deck, Giordino was having his own troubles. After a lengthy break in the action, he spotted three new gunmen broaching the base of the ravine undercover. While he crouched at the rail waiting to get a clear shot, additional gunfire broke out somewhere on the ice. Blocked by the ravine and misting fog, Giordino had no clue what the firing was about but noted that it had no effect on the three men advancing toward the ship. He let them draw closer before popping up with the musket and firing at the nearest gunman. The man dropped to the ground at the sight of the defender, and Giordino’s shot just barely missed, the bullet ripping harmlessly through the man’s parka. The gunmen learned their lesson and began to provide covering fire alternately, allowing the others to advance. Giordino moved along the ship’s rail, sprouting up and firing from different locations before having to duck the return fire. He wounded one of the gunmen in the leg before the other two closed on the ship under combined fire. Emptying the last of his loaded muskets, Giordino was forced to fall back to the ladder well, wondering what was taking Pitt so long. Focused on his own firefight, he had not noticed the gunshots fired below in the Great Cabin.
“Dirk, I need a reload on the muskets,” he shouted down the ladderway, but there was no answer. He aimed the shotgun at the side rail, then readied two percussion-cap pistols in his lap. Just a few more shots and he’d be helpless, unless Pitt arrived quickly.
Near the base of the ladderway, a tall figure slowly waded through a mass of antique armament lying on the deck and peered up. Giordino sat ten feet above, perched on the top two steps with his eyes fixated on the side rail. Had he looked down, he probably wouldn’t have even spotted Zak staring at him from the dimly lit lower deck. Zak contemplated letting his security team finish the job but figured it would be more expedient to kill Giordino himself. Shifting the ship’s logbook into his left arm, he steadied his feet and raised his automatic pistol at Giordino.
He failed to detect the sound of pained steps shuffling down the passageway somewhere behind him. But he flinched when a loud warning cry suddenly echoed down the corridor just as he was about to squeeze the trigger.
“Al! ”
Zak turned and gazed down the passageway in disbelief. Standing beneath a candle lantern twenty feet away and looking like death personified was Dirk Pitt. His face was a bloody mess from a dozen glass cuts while an ugly purple knot glistened on his forehead. His right sleeve was wet with crimson, matching his left leg, and a bloody trail followed him down the corridor. He held no weapons and leaned on his good leg with a grimace of agony on his face. But battered and shot, he stared at Zak with complete defiance.
“You’re next,” Zak hissed, then turned his focus back up to Giordino, who had returned Pitt’s call but was still unaware of the situation below. Zak aimed the Glock at Giordino a second time but was distracted by a bright blur that flashed toward him. Turning to Pitt, he saw that the wounded man had hurled the candle lantern at him. A weak throw, Zak thought to himself, as the lantern fell short of the mark. He gazed at Pitt and snickered with a shake of his head as the lantern shattered near his feet.
Only the throw wasn’t weak. The lantern struck the deck exactly where Pitt had aimed it, a few inches shy of the black powder cask they were using to reload the muskets. Awash with powder spilt from their rapid reloadings, the deck beneath the ladderway was an inferno-in-waiting. The shattered lantern immediately ignited the loose powder in a flash of smoke and sparks that flared at Zak’s feet. The assassin instinctively recoiled, backing away from the flare-up while unknowingly moving closer to the black powder cask. An instant later, a trail of black powder burned up to the cask and it detonated in a deafening explosion.
The blast rocked the ship, shooting smoke and flames up and out the ladder well. Pitt was knocked to the deck and showered with flying debris, most of which was absorbed by his heavy wool jacket. With his ears ringing, he waited several minutes for the smoke to clear before limping over to the ladderway, coughing from the acrid residue in the air. The side bulkheads were blown out and a large hole in the deck now opened through to the orlop deck, but the remaining damage was relatively limited.
Pitt saw a boot lying near the hole and realized grimly that a detached foot was still inside. Looking up, he saw the boot’s owner a few feet away.
Clay Zak had been blown partially up the ladder well, and his mangled body was now embedded in the steps. He hung upside down, his open eyes staring vacantly off into space. Pitt stepped closer and stared at the dead assassin without pity.
“I think you were due for a blast,” he said to the corpse, then turned and peered up the smoky ladder well.
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The force of the black powder explosion had launched Giordino up and off the top steps of the ladderway, throwing him onto the deck eight feet away. His clothes singed, his lungs burning, and his body nicked by a bounty of splinters and bruises, he had nonetheless survived the blast in one piece. As the explosion’s thick cloud of black smoke drifted away from the ship, he struggled to shake off the daze. He fought a pounding in his head and a symphony of bells ringing in his ears as he painfully rolled
to his side. Wiping some grit from his eyes, he stiffened as one of the black-clad gunmen poked his head over the rail.
Giordino had lost his weapons in the explosion and the gunman quickly realized it. Rising without fear, he stood at the rail and calmly swung his machine gun to bear on Giordino.
The burst was short, just four or five shots. Giordino could barely hear it through his ringing ears. Yet he saw the results. Not a ripping seam through his own flesh or the deck about him. Instead, it was the gunman himself who was ruptured by the shots. A mouthful of blood spilled from his lips, and then he slowly sunk beneath the rail, dropping to the ice-covered ground below.
Giordino stared blankly, hearing additional bursts of gunfire. Then another body appeared at the rail, armed like the last and pointing a gun in his direction. Only this gunman was dressed in white, with an ivory ski mask and protective goggles covering his entire face. A second armed man in white joined him, and the two scaled the rail and stepped toward Giordino, their guns trained on him.
Giordino was too focused on the approaching men to notice a third man appear at the rail. The newcomer looked across the deck at Giordino, then shouted something at the other two men. It took a second or two for Giordino’s ringing ears to decipher the words.
“Hold your horses, Lieutenant,” the third man yelled in a familiar Texas accent. “That man is one of ours.”
The two Navy SEALs from the Santa Fe stopped in their tracks but held their weapons fixed until Jack Dahlgren rushed to Giordino’s side. Grabbing the sleeve of Giordino’s antique wool jacket and helping him to his feet, Dahlgren couldn’t help but ask, “You go and join the Royal Navy?”
“We got a little chilly when you weren’t around to pick us out of the drink,” Giordino managed to reply, stunned at Dahlgren’s appearance.
“Where’s Dirk?”
“He was below. That’s where the explosion originated,” he replied with a concerned look.
Wincing in pain, Giordino staggered past Dahlgren to the edge of the ladderway and peered down. A few feet below, he saw the singed and smoking body of a dark-haired man sprawled on the steps, and he shut his eyes. It was nearly a minute before he could open them again, by which time Dahlgren and the SEALs had crowded around him. When he looked down, he suddenly saw a light wavering from the deck below. A bloody and battered Pitt slowly staggered into view at the base of the steps and peered up at his friend. In his arms, he clutched a large and slightly singed leather book.
“Somebody got a light?” he asked with a pained grin.
* * *
Pitt was immediately carried back to the Santa Fe and ushered into the submarine’s sick bay with Giordino in tow. Despite a severe loss of blood, Pitt’s injuries were not life-threatening, and his wounds were quickly cleaned and bandaged. Though the ship’s surgeon ordered him to remain in bed, Pitt found a cane and was hobbling around the sub an hour later, reuniting with the crew of the Narwhal. Limping into the officers’ mess with Giordino, they found the three captains, Campbell, Murdock, and Stenseth, seated at a table discussing the icebreaker.
“Shouldn’t you two be bedridden?” Stenseth asked.
“There will be plenty of time to sleep on the voyage home,” Pitt replied. Stenseth helped him to a chair while Campbell grabbed coffees, and the men swapped tales of their ordeals and discoveries.
“You boys flipping a coin to see who drives the icebreaker?” Giordino asked a short while later.
“We boarded her strictly to search for you two,” Campbell replied. “I had no intention of confiscating her, but these gentlemen were just telling me the details of her full role in the Polar Dawn crew’s abduction and the sinking of the Narwhal.”
“There’s something else you need to know about her,” Pitt said. “Al?”
Giordino described the underlying coat of gray paint on the icebreaker’s hull and the partial appearance of the number 54 in white lettering.
“I’d bet the farm she destroyed the Canadian ice camp while masquerading as a Navy frigate,” he said.
Campbell shook his head. “These people are some serious maniacs. They’re on the verge of starting World War Three. I guess we’ve got no choice but to take her to port in U.S. waters as soon as possible.”
“She’s a known Canadian-flagged ship, so there shouldn’t be any trouble clearing the passage,” Pitt said.
“And you’ve got two captains ready and willing to take her back,” Stenseth said, with Murdock nodding in agreement.
“Piracy it is, then,” Campbell said with a smile. “We’ll head for Anchorage, and I’ll be your underwater tail just in case of trouble.” He gazed around the small confines of the mess. “Truth be told, we’re a bit overcrowded as it is.”
“We’ll take both our crews to man the ship,” Murdock said, nodding his head toward Stenseth. “Captain Roman reported plenty of empty berths on the icebreaker.”
“Al and I will be happy to accompany the icebreaker,” Pitt said. “Al’s claustrophobic, and I’ve got some reading to catch upon.”
“Then we have our traveling orders,” Campbell agreed. “I’ll transfer half my SEAL team aboard to help with security, then we can be on our way.”
The three captains excused themselves to organize the crews as Pitt and Giordino finished their coffees. Giordino leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling with a broad smile.
“You seem awful merry,” Pitt remarked.
“You heard what the man said,” Giordino replied. “We’re going to Anchorage. Anchorage, Alaska,” he repeated lovingly. “South of the Arctic Circle. Did ever a place sound so warm and inviting?” he asked with a contented grin.
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The B-2 Spirit had been airborne for over five hours. Taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the wedge-shaped stealth bomber had flown west on what appeared to be a normal training flight. But five hundred miles out over the Pacific, the black-and-gray aircraft, which resembled a giant manta ray in flight, turned northeast, flying toward the coast of Washington State.
“AC-016 bearing zero-seven-eight degrees,” the mission commander said in a soft Carolina accent. “She’s right on time.”
“I’ve got her,” replied the pilot.
Tweaking the throttles on the four turbofan jet engines, he banked the plane by thrust until matching the flight bearing, then closed in on a small white target visible out the cockpit window. Satisfied with his position, the pilot backed off on the throttles to match the speed of the leading aircraft.
Less than a quarter mile ahead and a thousand feet below was an Air Canada Boeing 777, bound for Toronto from Hong Kong. The pilots aboard the commercial airliner would have choked had they known that a billion-dollar bomber was tailing them into Canadian airspace.
With a nearly invisible radar signature, the crew of the B-2 need not have worried about hiding in the 777’s shadow to complete their mission. But with heightened military alerts on both sides of the border, they were taking no chances. The bomber tailed the jetliner over Vancouver and across British Columbia into Alberta. Approximately fifty miles west of Calgary, the Canadian airliner made a slight course adjustment to the southeast. The B-2 held its position, then veered sharply to the northeast.
Its target was the Canadian Forces Base at Cold Lake, Alberta, one of two Canadian air bases that housed F-18 fighter jets. A “quarter stick” of seven five-hundred-pound laser-guided bombs was to be dropped on the airfield, with the intent to damage or destroy as many fighter jets as possible while minimizing loss of life. With no response from the Canadian government after his twenty-four-hour admonition, the President had elected to halve the first-strike recommendation from the Pentagon and proceed with an attack on a single military installation.
“Eight minutes to target,” the mission commander announced. “Performing final weapons arming now.”
As he cycled through a computerized weapons-control sequence, an urgent radio call suddenly transmitted over their headsets.
The mission commander acknowledged receipt of the last-minute command, then immediately cycled down the bomber’s armaments. The pilot slowly reversed course, flying back toward the Pacific before setting a course to their home air base.
“The boss man cut it a little close there,” the pilot said a short while later.
“You’re telling me,” the mission commander replied, a deep sense of relief in his voice. “That’s one mission I’m glad was scrubbed.”
Gazing out at the Canadian Rockies passing beneath their wings, he added, “I just hope nobody else finds out how close we really came.”
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Bill Stenseth listened to the deep rumble of the icebreaker’s powerful gas turbine engines, then nodded at the Narwhal ’s helmsman beside him to get the big vessel under way. As the ship slowly began to bull its way through the ice, Stenseth stepped out onto the frozen bridge wing and gave a friendly salute to the Santa Fe, still positioned in the ice a short distance away. Standing atop the sail, Commander Campbell returned the gesture, then prepared his own vessel to return to the depths.
The Otok turned and forged its way through the ice toward the NUMA submersible, easing to a halt just alongside. A pair of crewmen were let down onto the ice, where they attached a lifting cable to the Bloodhound. A large swing crane then lifted the submersible aboard the icebreaker, depositing it in a tight corner on the stern deck. In an adjacent unheated storage shed, the bodies of Clay Zak and his dead security team mercenaries were laid out, wrapped in makeshift canvas body bags.