The Oceanic Princess (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 2)

by David DeLee

  She hesitated for a second then sparked the torch. It flared, producing a hot, blue-white flame. She touched the flame to the liquid spreading toward her. The fuel ignited with a whoosh.

  The man shouted, “No!”

  The flames shot across the room and ignited the man’s pants. He patted at the flames, a horrified expression on his face. He screamed. “Noooooooo!

  The flames engulfed his frantically writhing body.

  Tara slammed the door between the two engine rooms closed. She spun the wheel and ran for the stairs as fast as she could. The silent blue flames were racing across the floor toward the fuel tank at the same time. She needed to put as much distance between herself and that tank as possible. She ran up the stairs, two at a time, holding her arm with one hand. Her sleeve was wet with warm blood.

  She reached the abandoned upper vehicle deck level. She grabbed for the door. She pulled it open. Below her, the tank exploded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THEY FLEW DUE EAST. The rising sun had burned off the low-laying clouds. Now it hung like a large yellow ball in a flawless azure sky. Bannon and McMurphy slipped their sunglasses on to combat the glare. Outside of a few catnaps, they’d been operating without sleep for over forty-eight hours. Bannon’s eyes felt grainy.

  “I hate to be a pest,” McMurphy said. “But you want me to fly in any particular direction?”

  They had been on hundreds of search and rescue missions together over the years, doing just what they were doing now, looking for a ship on a vast flat expanse. Bannon remembered one of his instructors describing it as looking for a basketball in the state of Connecticut, from space.

  In those situations, they usually had a starting point from which to launch their search, a ship’s EPIRB, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, or a search and rescue transponder to give them a general location, within fifty miles. From that a radar and visual search pattern could begin.

  Bannon had contacted Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. The Dauphin had shut off its SAT-AIS, Automatic Identification System. With the device disabled, the Dauphin was untraceable, except visually.

  “Brice? You okay?” McMurphy sked.

  “Sure. Just thinking. You’ve got a gun that can fire a round with the kinetic force of a bus going at three hundred miles an hour with a range of one hundred miles—”

  “That sounds like one of those math word problems,” McMurphy said. “I hate those.”

  “I hate this,” Bannon said. “Where do you take it?”

  “With a range like that,” McMurphy said. “They can fire at anything anywhere along the coast.”

  “Head out fifty miles to start, follow the shipping lanes south.”

  After flying for several hours, while monitoring the Coast Guard and maritime channels for any sightings, they’d heard nothing regarding the Jean-Paul Dauphin. Bannon had even contacted NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and COSPAS-SARSAT, the international cooperative of maritime agencies and private companies that monitor with satellite-based assets, EPIRB and other types of distress beacons asking them to join the search. So far they’ve all come up empty.

  Bannon’s satellite phone rang. He answered.

  “Brice, where are you?” Kayla asked, hardly heard over the thrum of the helicopter’s rotors.

  “Looking for Tara.”

  “Vague much, Commander Bannon,” Kayla said. “Secretary Grayson wants to know if you and Skyjack had anything to do with a Marine helicopter being stolen from Logan Airport a few hours ago.” That she called her Secretary Grayson meant their boss was sitting right there with Kayla.

  “Don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.” He quickly changed the subject. “Tell me you’ve found something on your end regarding Tara or the Dauphin?”

  “Maybe. I just got a call from Air Station Cape Cod. They’re reporting a fishing trawler who’s spotted a plume of smoke out to sea.”

  “We’re monitoring emergency channels. We didn’t pick that up.”

  “Ship’s captain said he can’t afford a proper radio. Then gave them a long-winded tirade about the state of the New England fishery industry and how fishermen can no longer make a living. He used a cell phone, called 9-1-1. It was routed to the Coast Guard. That he even got a signal is a miracle.”

  “Give us the coordinates.”

  “I’ve texted them to you. And Brice…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Secretary Grayson says, and I’m quoting here, ‘put a single ding in the paint of that helicopter, don’t bother coming home.’”

  “Message received,” he said, “Over and out.”

  He read off the latitude and longitude Kayla had forwarded. McMurphy entered them into the console and immediately adjusted course.

  “How long?”

  “An hour. Maybe less.”

  “Make it less.”

  With a determined scowl he punched up the knots, too. “We’ll get her back, Brice. She’ll be fine.”

  Bannon nodded. “She better be, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Bannon leaned forward with a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes. His butt hurt from sitting and his body was stiff from not moving. He pointed in a southeasterly direction.

  “There!”

  A faint column of gray black smoke rose from the horizon. Its plume drifted north with the winds. They were too far away to see what was burning, and Bannon’s stomach tied in knots, concerned they were either on a wild goose chase or what they would find would be much worse.

  “Leave it to Blades to play Pocahontas and send up a smoke signal.”

  If that’s what it was, Bannon thought.

  Without another word, McMurphy adjusted course. The chopper’s nose dipped and the whine of the engines increased as he pushed the helicopter to it one hundred seventy-knot limit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  AS THEY MADE THEIR approach, the Jean-Paul Dauphin listed heavily to port. Oily black smoke rose from the port midsection. Flames licked upward from a hole in the hull at the waterline. That size catamaran would have four engines, two housed in each hull. Forward of that would be the fuel tanks. Water gushed into what Bannon guessed was the forward port engine and port fuel tank. Spilled diesel fuel blackened the water.

  The ship continued making headway, albeit slowly, turning left.

  “The port fuel tank’s ruptured. By the way she’s steering to the left, I’d say they’ve still got one port engine operational. Everything on the starboard side looks operational.”

  “Till Blades does her thing there, too,” McMurphy said with gleeful pride.

  “Let’s hope that’s what’s happening.” Bannon looked through the binoculars again. “If that railgun’s onboard, we need to stop that ship dead in the water.”

  On approach, McMurphy scanned the open water. There wasn’t anything else as far as the eye could see. “Nothing to shoot at out here.”

  “Remember, a railgun has target acquisition capabilities of up to one hundred miles. We’re not even fifty miles from the coast. Their target could be anything.”

  McMurphy nodded. “We stop her. Then we destroy her.”

  “And we get Tara back,” Bannon said. “What kind of armament does this thing have?”

  McMurphy frowned. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

  Bannon shot him a look without answering.

  “We’re equipped with two window-mounted and one ramp-mounted .50 cal. machine guns. But since this baby was on its inaugural press junket, meant only to dazzle the press, the politicians, and impress the public, there’s no munitions on board.”

  “Of course not.”

  Bannon pulled his .45 and checked the magazine. He’d reloaded after the incident at the Keel Haul. His backup Sig was strapped to his ankle. He was sure McMurphy was similar armed. The man didn’t go to the bathroom without his gun.

  “It’s not all bad news.” McMurphy pointed his thu
mb toward the cabin. “Check the gun locker in the back. According to the inventory list, it should be stocked.”

  Bannon unsnapped his five-point harness and ducked into the wide cabin. He found the gun locker and smashed the electronic keypad with the butt of his .45. Inside the locker were five M16s and five Beretta M9 handguns and enough ammunition for an army.

  He returned to the cockpit, but didn’t sit, looking through the windshield.

  The Jean-Paul Dauphin continued to list and spew out smoke. Bannon admired the hundred-meter-long Catamaran. It was a sleek ship with clean lines, though it rode low in the water. A ship that size, with its four marine diesel engines, would have a top speed of thirty-seven knots and the capacity to travel six hundred nautical miles fully fueled.

  What puzzled Bannon was there was no sign of the railgun or any weaponry at all on deck. Not even a downsized version. If the idea wasn’t to mount the weapon on the Dauphin, where the hell was it? Maybe they’re simply using the Dauphin to transport the weapon…

  McMurphy interrupted his musing. “We’re almost there. How do you want to play this?”

  Bannon put a fully-loaded M16 across the co-pilot seat for McMurphy. He slapped a magazine into the M16 he kept for himself. “The direct approach.”

  “Only place I can land this bird’s gonna be on the bow. The way she’s listing, it’ll be tricky. Not to mention, that tub tilts much more, this whirly-bird’s going into the drink.”

  “That happens, you’ll want to go down with her.”

  “Rather than face Lizzy’s wrath. No kidding.”

  Bannon clasped his shoulder. “Do what you can do. I’ll provide cover fire from the cabin. Just do it fast.”

  Bannon returned to the cabin and pulled the two side doors open.

  McMurphy flew along the ship’s starboard flank. The Dauphin was traveling at less than five nautical knots and pulling left. He flew ahead of the ship and expertly banked the chopper, aiming for the bow deck. By approaching straight on, he reduced their profile to any potential attackers, making them a smaller target than exposing their flank. Bannon leaned out of the cargo door, the M16 set to his shoulder, the strap wound around his forearm.

  McMurphy’s precautions and Bannon’s sharpshooter skills proved unnecessary.

  No one fired at them as they landed. No one even came out. From inside the ship, alarms and klaxons were going off like crazy. The smoke rising off the port side was thick and oily and hot. The wind blew the plume toward the bow.

  McMurphy dropped the chopper down through the haze. The skids touched down and Bannon leaped from the cabin door. Crouched, he covered McMurphy as he tied the chopper down. The bow continued to list at a thirty-degree pitch.

  McMurphy grabbed his M16. “Let’s get this done and get back here before this bird slips bye-bye into the briny blue.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Bannon said and they moved out.

  -----

  THE PORT SIDE FUEL tank exploded.

  Tara was thrown against the stairwell wall by the force of the blast. She shook her head and pulled herself to her feet, feeling the ship right itself under her before listing to port. Fire alarms blared throughout the ship. She grabbed for the stair railing but winced at the pain she felt. Her sleeve was soaked with blood. Just a flesh wound, she assured herself. Still it bled profusely and burned like the devil. “Terrific.”

  Red emergency lights cast an eerie glow in the stairwell. The alarms made her headache worse. Tired, she leaned against the wall and scrubbed her tired face with her hand. Her skin was greasy with girt and sweat.

  “The ship’s on fire, sinking,” she said. “You’re a terrorist. What do you do?”

  The answer was simple. You make like the rats you are and scurry off the ship. They were launching the railgun boat and getting the hell out of there.

  She needed a weapon.

  She went back down one flight of stairs. The rifle she’d used to jam the door shut was gone. That was too bad. She pulled open the door. It led into one of the control rooms. Empty, the room looked like a hurricane had blown through it. Papers, clipboards, and electronic tablets littered the floor. Styrofoam coffee cups rolled. Their contents had spilled and stained papers and console surfaces brown. A large crack ran through one observation window.

  A ceiling tile had loosened and dropped to the top of a console. From the ceiling a live electrical wire hung, sparking. The screens on the consoles flashed weird psychedelic colors and snowy static. A gray haze of smoke hung in the air.

  Tara stayed low under the windows and pushed through the door out to the grated passageway. No one was out there. Strange.

  Cautiously she glanced over the rail. The Sundancer Bridget and Zayd had arrived in had broken free in the explosion. It had drifted out under the Dauphin’s stern and now bobbed gently in the calm waves of the Atlantic, a good hundred feet away.

  As she suspected, Faaid, Bridget, and Zayd were on the railgun boat. Zayd had a panel open at the base of the gun’s two rails. She seemed to be tinkering with the wires inside. An electronic tablet was propped up on a metal bracket next to her. The other two were on the upper bridge. They were arguing, again. The gangplank still extended to the boat’s stern deck. Several of Faaid’s men were carrying containers from the passageway onto the boat. They stowed them and returned to the passageway.

  Tara couldn’t hear what they were arguing about, nor did she care. They were getting ready to flee. She needed to stop them. To do that, she needed a weapon. To get a weapon she needed to find a crewman and disarm him.

  She ran down the length of the passageway. At the stairwell she crashed through the door that would take her up to the passenger deck. All she needed was to find one person. Grab one gun. But she had to do it fast. There was no telling how much time she had before Faaid and the others cast off.

  She reached the passenger deck and pushed through the door into the stripped-down midsection. She started to go toward the first-class section when a voice behind barked a single word. “Freeze!”

  She did as she was told. She put her hands in the air and slowly turned around. At the far end of the room were Brice Bannon and McMurphy. A pair of M16s aimed at her.

  “Brice! John! How?”

  They lowered their weapons and rushed forward.

  “Tara, thank God.” Bannon embraced her in a hug, which she accepted enthusiastically. Words couldn’t express how deeply grateful she was to see them.

  McMurphy, being McMurphy, slapped her back with a great big grin on his face. “Blades. You look like hell.” He wrinkled his nose and frowned. “And smell like crap.”

  Her hair was damp and stringy and fell in her face. Her arm was bloody and sore, her muscles ached and yes, she still stunk like a sewer.

  She touched the bandaged cut over his eye. His one eye had blackened. “I’ve seen you looking better, too, big guy.”

  “Guess we’ve all got stories to tell,” Bannon said giving her good arm a squeeze. His smile was wide and genuine.

  “They’ll have to wait. Brice, it’s Aziza Faaid. He’s back.”

  “That’s impossible. We—”

  “Blew that camel turd up,” McMurphy said. “Hooked ’em up with his forty virgins.”

  “I thought so, too. But it’s him.”

  “How?” Bannon asked.

  “Ironically, he was in the head.”

  “Well, ain’t that poetic.” McMurphy shook his head.

  “Zayd’s here, too,” Tara said. “They’ve got a state-of-the-art weapon—”

  “An electromagnetic railgun,” Bannon said. “We know.”

  “It’s here,” Tara said. “But not for long.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s not mounted on the deck,” McMurphy said.

  The logical place for such a weapon, Tara agreed silently. Clearly Bannon and McMurphy didn’t know how small they’d managed to scale the weapon down.

  “Think smaller. It’s mounted on a thirty-five-foot Bowride
r. They’re trying to escape with it right now. We need to stop them.”

  Bannon handed her his .45. “Show us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  FAAID STOOD IN THE copilot position of the railgun boat. The canopy had been removed so the bridge was open with a pass through into the boat’s bow section. Bridget Barnes stood beside him, talking into a walkie-talkie, coordinating the search for the she-devil loose on his ship, while she oversaw the launch of the railgun boat. The gangplank had been retracted. Only Faaid, Bridget, and Zayd were onboard. Ms. Zayd busied herself working on the gun’s controls and keying information into her tablet and a podium-style computer console set off to the right side of the boat.

  “Forget the woman,” Faaid advised. “The fate of the Dauphin no longer matters.”

  “I want her dead,” Bridget told him then spoke again into the walkie-talkie. “Lower the sling. Now.”

  A crewman in the control room nodded through the observation window and punched commands into his console. Four hydraulic cranes began to lower the boat into the raising water.

  Faaid paced. There was nothing for him to do. He looked out to the ocean beyond the listing stern. Ghaazi Alvi had gone to great expense to acquire the Jean-Paul Dauphin, saving her from the scrapyard specifically for this purpose. Faaid wondered how the man would react to its loss. Badly, he hoped with a sardonic grin.

  Bridget held the wheel of the boat, strumming her fingers, waiting as the boat continued its slow descent into equally slowly rising water. “Come on. Come on. Could this go any slower?”

  “Your impatience will be your undoing, Ms. Barnes.”

  She glared at him but remained silent. Perhaps the insolent alkaliba was finally coming around. He left her and climbed to the bow. “And your progress, Ms. Zayd? How does it go?”

  Visibly annoyed by the disruption, she said, “I’m uploading the final calculations and inputs now.”