by Jack Du Brul
“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” With an expert glance, Harry noted compass heading, speed, wind direction and velocity, temperature and the readings on a dozen other gauges. “Lauren, honey, do me a favor. There should be a plaque somewhere around here that gives the ship’s dead weight and some engine information. I need to know what this old girl’s made of before we get going.”
She started her search, saying, “Anyone but you call me honey like that and you can get yourself a good sexual harassment lawyer.”
Rabidoux continued to talk with Foch over their radio net as he dragged the corpses to the captain’s cramped office. “Oui . . . Oui . . . d’accord, mon lieutenant.” He sought out Mercer, who had gone to the port wing bridge to watch the ship slow as Harry reduced her speed. “Lieutenant Foch needs to see you right away.”
Mercer heard alarm in the young soldier’s voice. “What is it?”
“The bomb’s timer has already been activated. The lieutenant is in the aft hold.”
Mercer turned away without a word. He handed back the radio Captain Patke had given Lauren. “I’m going below. Foch thinks the bomb’s already primed.” Her face blanched. He wanted to assure her that everything was going to be all right, but she would have seen through the lie. “Coordinate whatever Harry needs with the McCampbell, just in case.”
She overcame her momentary flash of fear. Her color returned and she managed a weak joke. “Funny to think of Harry giving orders to the crew of an American missile cruiser.”
“I hope you mean funny as in bizarre and not funny ha-ha.”
Running hard, it took him five minutes to find the hatchway that led to the rear hold. The metal door was open and he could see the waving beam of a flashlight Foch must have found nearby. The dim lightbulbs placed high on the ceiling cast no more than a weak glow, accentuating shadow more than providing light.
He stepped over the coaming. His nose began to burn and his eyes water. Above the rust smell and the oily stench of fouled bilges was a chemical odor so sharp and so overpowering that even breathing through a flap of cloth from his sleeve couldn’t dull its reeking presence.
The hold was fifty feet deep, forty wide, and nearly twenty tall. The rush of water against her cold hull plates sounded like a steady escape of steam. The cargo wasn’t laid out in orderly stacks, as he’d anticipated. Instead it had been placed in precarious pyramids and triangular projections along the hull, secured in place with heavy chain or thick canvas belts. Higher up, what looked like thick pipes running the length of the hold revealed themselves to be tubes of a puttylike substance that had been stuck to the steel.
Having never heard of cargo being arranged in such an odd fashion, but knowing that there was no other explanation, Mercer gaped as he understood what lengths Liu had gone to to ensure the Panama Canal would be sealed for years to come.
Foch strode over with another trooper, who trained his light on various features in the nightmarish space. “Oui, mon ami,” Foch said. “It is what you think. The devious son of a bitch has turned the entire ship into one enormous shaped charge. The way he has placed the explosives guarantees that every bit of energy will be properly directed. It looks like she’ll blow downward first and then an instant later the outer charges go.”
Mercer said nothing, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. With the bomb ship tucked hard against one of the overshadowing hills in the Gaillard Cut, the detonative force would hollow out the seabed under the ship, probably fifty or even a hundred feet deep. The secondary charges, the thick tubes of plastic explosives running the length of the vessel, would then burrow into the rock underpinning the mountain. Add the synchronized explosion on the other ship, and the whole floor of the canal would be so fractured that the weight of the adjacent hills would deform the geology to the point where everything would fall in on itself.
He’d worked enough shots in his career as a mining engineer to understand what would happen. Especially when he took into account how the rain-saturated ground would transmit shock with little energy dissipation. Gold Hill and Contractor’s Hill would receive two enormous pressure waves an instant after the soils supporting them had been either removed or had surrendered to the phenomena of liquefaction.
“You have to hand it to him,” Foch said. “Ingenious.”
“Screw him,” Mercer snapped, hating that he did feel a grudging respect for Liu Yousheng. “You said the timer’s already running?”
“This way.” Foch turned and retreated deeper into the shadowy hold, the handheld light seeming puny in the presence of so much deadly force.
The men who’d set these charges, back in China most likely, hadn’t taken any precautions to hide the suitcase-sized timing and detonating mechanism. It sat openly on the deck next to one of the towering mounds of explosives. The wires running from it were thick, heavily insulated, and vanished to all points in the hold. Mercer looked at the digital timer set in a plastic panel on the otherwise blank case. They had fifty-one minutes exactly, and with each second he stared at the glowing numbers their window shrank that one second more.
Mercer didn’t know anything about this type of equipment. He assumed it was military and asked Foch the only logical question that came to mind. “Can’t we just cut the wires?”
“Possibly,” the soldier with Foch said. He was a German named Munz. “And it is possible that doing so will set off the charges.”
“Munz is our explosives man,” Foch explained. “If any of us has a chance defusing the ship he’s it.”
The German-born Legionnaire had already taken out some tools. They lay next to the evil-looking device like surgical instruments. And he showed the false quietude of a surgeon who hides that he’s not sure he can save the patient.
“Do you need anything else?” Mercer asked.
“I just called Rabidoux down to help,” Foch answered for the demolition man. “They work as a team.”
“What I need,” Munz said in his precise English, “is for you to assume that I will not be able to disable this device. You must do what needs to be done, thinking I cannot stop it.”
Mercer was shocked by the man’s pessimism. “Do you really think you can’t do it?”
“Sir, I approach all bombs thinking I will fail because there will be a time when I am right.” He bent to his task and Foch and Mercer started back for the bridge.
Once into the corridor beyond the hold, Foch elaborated on what Munz was saying. “It is the way it is done. We must never plan for a bomb to be defused. It is—” he searched for the appropriate English idiom—“wishful thinking. No one can guarantee they can take out a device so we must be prepared for it going off.”
“I think I understand,” Mercer replied. “It’s putting all your eggs in one basket. If that’s the case, let’s hope Roddy stopped the Mario from blocking the canal so we can sail this bitch into Lake Gatun where she can blow up without hurting anything.”
“Do you have another option if somehow Monsieur Herrara doesn’t succeed?”
Mercer closed his eyes, blocking the mental picture of what would have to be done in the event they couldn’t get the bomb ship to an isolated spot on the upper lake. “Oh, I got a plan all right,” he said without much enthusiasm. “Actually, the comm officer on the McCampbell thought it up.”
“Yes?”
“If we can’t go forward, then we’ll just have to take the Rose back through the Pedro Miguel Lock.”
Lieutenant Foch stared at him. “How? The Chinese guards will never open the gates for us.”
“No, but the United States Navy will.”
They entered the bridge just as Roddy made his call to announce the Mario diCastorelli had been grounded. Lauren handed Mercer the radio.
That was it, then, Mercer thought as he listened to Captain Patke’s report about the Robert T. Change being evacuated. They had no choice. He told them about the timing sequence and called for everyone on the radio link to switch over so they could hear him speakin
g to the USS McCampbell . “Heaven, Heaven, this is Angel, ah, Two.”
“Go ahead, Angel. We’ve been monitoring, and know your current situation.”
“Then you know what you have to do?”
“Roger that. Information from the spotter aircraft has already been fed into the targeting computers. We’re awaiting your order to go. Be advised that there will be no shots for ranging. All rounds are fired for effect.”
Mercer took that to mean that the first rocket-assisted rounds out of the six-inch semiautomatic VGAS cannon would land exactly where the computers said they would. “Roger that, Heaven. Please stand by.” He looked around the bridge.
Rabidoux had gone below to help Munz, while Bruneseau was still finishing up their security sweep with the remaining Legionnaire.
Harry was at the ship’s wheel. Being at the helm of the ship seemed to have shaved at least twenty years off his age. He stood more erect, his mouth’s usual scowl replaced by a determined smirk that bordered on cocky. His eyes were clearer than Mercer had ever seen them. Lauren sat on a tall swivel stool next to him, her gaze fixed on Mercer. Foch was behind her and it seemed all three were waiting for his orders.
As the Legion team leader, Foch had taken the point when it came to assaulting the ship. Combat was his profession, and he was very good at what he did, but now he, like the others, looked to Mercer to make the final decision. He’d been the man who’d held them all together from the first contact with Hatcherly Consolidated at the River of Ruin. It didn’t matter to Foch, or to Lauren for that matter, that he wasn’t a soldier. He was a leader, blessed or cursed with the ability to inspire others to push beyond their limitations and perform the impossible.
Mercer felt he could no longer take up that mantle. In light of his feelings about what the torturer, Sun, had done to him, he didn’t feel it was right for him to take the lead. He doubted himself, felt tentative despite the calm front he put up. He wanted nothing more than to turn the responsibility over to someone else.
He searched deep inside himself for that well of determination that had always sustained him. He found it. It was empty. He’d taken the team as far as he could. To hell with the canal, he thought. They’d accomplished enough to prevent Liu from stationing nuclear weapons in Panama. An investigation into the explosions would reveal that this was an overt act. The United States would be within their treaty rights to land a sizable force to protect what remained.
The smart thing to do was to evacuate the Englander Rose and let her blow where she was. There would be no avoiding the destruction of the Pedro Miguel Lock, but it could be rebuilt in a few years.
What is the right thing? Mercer asked himself. Risk a handful of people to save what was really just an old machine? Don’t forget the workers who run the lock, a little voice said, innocent men and women who have nothing to do with Hatcherly Consolidated or Liu Yousheng. They would surely die when the Rose exploded. Did he owe them something?
If they died, Mercer knew that Mr. Sun would have won his battle in the torture chamber. He would have taken enough of Mercer’s will so that he no longer cared. And that was the line he would not cross. He couldn’t live with himself knowing he’d surrendered so thoroughly. Acknowledging the emotional consequences of running away made the choice to stay undeniable.
The well of determination was still empty, but that didn’t matter in the face of logic. He would go on, if not for himself, then at least to deny Sun his victory.
“Okay,” Mercer said at last, “Munz and Rabidoux have to stay aboard to try to stop this ship from blowing up. Harry needs to be here because he’s the only one who can conn her. Harry, turn us around.” Harry worked the wheel and bumped the throttles, mindful that the ship was barely two hundred feet shorter than the canal was wide. “Lieutenant Foch, recall Rene and your other man then meet them at the lifeboat station. I can’t give you time to launch it, but there should be life rings nearby. Lauren, I want you to go with them.”
Her anger came swift and hot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving your lives. You don’t need to take this ride with us, and the more you protest the more I know you’re trying to play macho with me. Don’t. Get your ass off this ship and get as far from the canal as you can.”
“Philip Mercer, I should tell you where you can shove your idea and how far up there it should go.” Her eyes blazed like mismatched jewels.
“First day as captain and your crew’s already in mutiny,” Harry cackled at Mercer without taking his eyes off the water.
“I won’t speak for the French,” Lauren continued, “but my ass is staying right here. We’ve been through hell together and I’m going to see it through to the end.”
“Lauren, please—”
“Forget it. I’m staying.”
Foch had moved out of the argument, closer to the wing bridge so he could warn Harry if they got close to the shore. “It is a good thing, too.” He pulled his FAMAS off his shoulder in a sweeping arc. “We have company.” He moved farther out of the wheelhouse, clicking his radio to call Rene and the fourth soldier.
“What is it?” In their rush to reach the bridge door, Mercer and Lauren brushed against each other and didn’t break that slight contact until they hit the railing.
A pilot boat like the one they’d stolen had pulled from the marina. Its deck was loaded with Chinese soldiers, one of whom had set up a heavy machine gun on an improvised swivel mount. Whatever warning the captain of the Englander Rose had gotten out had been picked up by the shore-based guards, or perhaps they were suspicious about the ship beginning to turn in the narrow stretch of water just above the Pedro Miguel Lock.
“Oh, shit.”
The machine gunner down on the utility boat knew he was in range of the cluster of people on the exposed wing bridge the instant he saw them. The gun began to bark, a rapid choking sound that boomed louder than any thunder.
All three dropped flat as .30-caliber rounds chewed into the ship, blowing apart windows and ricocheting off steel as they sought to penetrate flesh. The five-second burst left the bridge reeking of scorched metal.
Foch wiggled forward and fired back, a barrage that missed the pilot boat altogether because he didn’t dare expose his head to properly aim. The counterfire came back even stronger, augmented by a half dozen type 87s.
“Take ’em out, goddamnit,” Harry shouted from inside. He’d ducked under the center console. “I can’t turn us around if I can’t see where we’re going.”
Foch fired another burst, covering Mercer and Lauren as they moved to the railing so they could get a bead on the soldiers below. All three fired simultaneously, forcing the pilot boat to sheer away momentarily. She began to draw near again with the machine gun blazing away. This time they were beaten back only a few feet from being able to heave grappling ropes over the Rose’s main rail.
This is why Captain Patke hadn’t tried to assault the Mario diCastorelli from the fishing boat, Mercer realized. They’d have been cut down if that ship had armed guards.
“Next time they may be able to board us.” Foch changed out his empty magazine without the need to look at his hands. “Bruneseau, where are you?” he shouted into his radio.
“Just cleared the forward hold. We’ll be on deck in just a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute,” Lauren said and sprayed a dozen rounds over the side of the ship.
“Heaven, Heaven, Heaven,” Mercer called into his radio. “Anything you can do about this?”
“Roger, we’re watching. Help is on its way. Ballistic trajectory of eighteen seconds. No guarantee the pilot boat will still be where we’re aiming, but it’ll rattle them some.”
“Do it!” Mercer checked the second hand on Harry’s watch, scooted so he could spot the thirty-foot gunboat and fired off the last of his clip.
Foch and Lauren concentrated their fire too, driving the Chinese away from the side of the Rose for what they hoped was their last time. Eleven seconds l
ater, Mercer tapped Foch on the hip and dragged Lauren back to the enclosed bridge.
At that moment a string of six-inch shells from the VGAS cannon were some six miles above the earth and four miles downrange. Such was their ballistics that in those last seconds they accelerated to hypersonic speeds. There was no warning whistle, no long, drawn-out scream, nothing to give away the presence of five explosive shells fired from thirty miles away with an accuracy never before achieved with anything larger than a sniper’s rifle.
Despite the seconds-long interval between their firing, the rounds hit almost simultaneously along the starboard side of the Englander Rose. Four produced towering geysers that reached higher than the superstructure and doused the ship with water. The fifth shot hit squarely on the aft section of the pilot boat, sliced cleanly through her fiberglass deck, and impacted her diesel engine.
Her destruction was complete. Nothing larger than a postage stamp remained as her hull blew apart under the triple assault of explosives, kinetic energy, and her own load of fuel. Steel, plastics, and the remains of her crew rose on a column of fire and water that exploded outward in a plume that raked the side of the Rose and the jungled bank of the canal. When the sound rolled away and Mercer dared look over the railing again, a pool of burning fuel was the only marker for the men who’d died.
“Heaven to Angel Two.”
“Go ahead, Heaven.” Mercer’s voice was filled with awe at the power the USS McCampbell was able to throw so accurately from so far away.
“Our screens show target destroyed. We’ve reacquired primary target and await your order.”
“Roger that, Heaven. Nice shooting. Stand by.” Mercer roused himself. Rene and the fourth Legion soldier burst onto the bridge. Their clothes were soaked because both had been on the deck when the cannon ripped along her rail.
Bruneseau was breathless. “Was that from your ship?” Lauren nodded. “Mon Dieu. I never imagined such a weapon existed.”
“That’s only the first generation,” she explained proudly. “The production guns don’t go into full service for a couple more years.”
