Hell Gate (Richard Mariner Series Book 9)

by Tonkin, Peter

  “All engine control can be done from the bridge. The systems down here are maintenance and breakdown diagnosis mostly. They’ll need them if anything goes wrong but not until then, as far as I can see.”

  “Probably safe to assume there won’t be anyone watching them then. And there’s been no sign of anyone going past on patrol while we’ve been down here. And again, why bother? They think they’re secure.”

  “Right then. Let’s do it.”

  Pitman moved forward towards the bomb hole in the metal wall. As she did so, she reached in under her blouson and slid her hand up to the waistband of her combat trousers. When her fist reappeared it was holding the skeletal form of her beloved stripped-down 9mm ASP.

  *

  “Hell, I wish I knew where they were and what’s taking them so long,” said Bob.

  “It can’t be anything too bad,” said Ann. “They said they’d report in if they were thinking of leaving the hold, didn’t they?”

  They looked across to the column of the stairwell in the distance. The hole where Merrideth had blasted into the engineering areas was hidden behind the hill of Semtex. It was the Semtex, rather than Harry and Pitman’s whereabouts, that was preoccupying Richard, however. Even if Harry found a way to spy on the bridge, it would not do any of them much good if the Semtex remained armed. And even if they managed to disconnect all the fuses and get away, 13 Int. could just re-arm the explosive if they wanted. Their only option was to remove the hill of Semtex altogether. Over the plastic sheeting covering it, a cargo net secured the mound to the deck. If they could release or cut the cables holding the net to the floor and reattach them to act as a tow line, the whole pallet on which the Semtex was sitting might be moved — if they could find the power to do it.

  They had one source of power immediately at their disposal, if Harry’s tinkering with the computer could be made to harness it for them. If they could attach lines tightly and securely to the rear doors and then activate the opening mechanism, the whole pallet might be pulled aft and out of the ship. And if the lifeboat they were occupying could be positioned to take advantage of the opening doors as well, then maybe they could do what they had come aboard to do and walk away after all. To do this, they would have to move the lifeboat out of its cradle. Thanks to 13 Int. themselves, this ought to be possible, for the strong lines that had brought Marshall and his men aboard were still secured to the deck head just above them. Various slings and pulleys dangled there ready and waiting to take the weight of the boat. If the SEALs’ lines could be run through the pulleys above and then re-attached to the lifeboat’s lowering winches, it ought to be possible to swing the boat into the middle of the hold instead of out over the side. Then they could attach it by a long line to the Semtex and by a much shorter one to the tailgate. Once all these lines were secure they might indeed be in business.

  *

  SAC kept the FBI informed of New England’s movements with hourly pictures, taken by satellite and aircraft, giving latitude and longitude readings. The ship’s flickering identity beacon allowed her progress to be plotted only erratically, but they kept track of her this way as well, knowing that all too soon the satellites and aircraft would be effectively blinded by the darkness.

  The FBI passed the information to the Coastguard and the New York Harbour Authority, as well as to UN security and the White House. No one had any real doubt that New England was going to try to get to Hell Gate tonight, but they were confident they could stop her. Once they were sure of her preferred route, whether up past Staten Island or down Long Island Sound, the shipping nearest the first choke point in the channel would simply be directed to form an impenetrable barrier.

  But, as the senior harbourmaster pointed out to Professor Miles and the FBI, they would have to be careful how they called it because high tide would be running fast tonight. And the harbour was likely to furnish only enough ships to close one choke point. They could close the river at the Triborough Bridge or they could close it at the Brooklyn Bridge. But not both. So they had better be sure. And did they actually know this was a suicide mission? The Hell Gate programme might after all be an escape route…

  Unknown to mere mortals at Professor Miles or the harbourmaster’s level of clearance, the plan was to blow the ship out of the water if it came anywhere near New York Harbour, long before it even got a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty or the Manhattan skyline, let alone attained the choke points of Brooklyn or Triborough Bridges. And that was just as well, for Hiram Hoover’s guests, including Senator and Mrs Charleston, were already getting ready, the UN hospitality staff were busy in their hundreds setting up the reception areas, and the cooks were preparing mountains of refreshments. The police, firemen, ambulance-men and paramedics were all on alert and overtime. The local hospitals had all been briefed for huge crowds were expected. The first sightseers were assembling behind the barriers along Second Avenue, hoping to catch a glimpse of the powerful and famous from all over the world; the first police helicopters buzzed noisily just above them. And the men from Macey’s were finalising the sequences for the tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of fireworks they proposed to set off at midnight from Southpoint on Roosevelt Island opposite the UN building, halfway across the East River.

  *

  The computer in the engine control room was up and running. The twisted monitor showed the strangely misshapen men coming and going on the bridge. Pitman watched the monitor as Harry worked on the computer, going in through her female passwords, deeper and deeper into the control areas.

  “What are you doing?” asked Pitman after a while.

  “I’ve tried to get to the modem via the library computer but it’s switched off. So I’m putting some quick releases in place for when I get up there. It won’t be as safe or as quiet there as it is down here.”

  “I guess not. I wish I could see into the minds of those guys up there. Find out exactly what they plan to do.”

  “Nice dream. Or maybe not so nice, all things considered. I can’t get into the Hell Gate program from down here. It’s the only one that’s still closed. But I imagine it’s just a series of directions and measurements. It’ll all come down to turn a bit left or turn a bit right in the end.”

  “I guess. So you’re going to have to go up to the library?”

  “If I can. It’s the only way I can link the whole system to this handset.”

  “Well, if these guys don’t know we’re aboard, then sneaking through the air ducts like you did last time can’t be much more dangerous than what we’re doing now.”

  Famous last words, thought Harry.

  The engines immediately outside suddenly began to whine with new deep-throated urgency; Harry felt the surge beneath her feet and one of the automatic read-outs on a screen to her right began to wind up. New England was coming up towards full speed.

  *

  It was sunset, and as soon as the light began to change, Merrideth called for more speed. Full speed was out of the question for the time being. They had to be very careful not to go too fast too soon or the powerboat would leave the foredeck and come in through the clearview. But the surge of speed sent a kind of electricity through the whole command. Although it was too early for them to be needed yet, many of the men came to their positions and began to sort their weapons. Marshall and Merrideth did not stop them. There were no more commands for them to give. Everyone was fully briefed. Each man knew what he had to do and was well able to improvise according to circumstance. Such was the nature of Special Forces. The objective was agreed. The plan was set. The final briefing had been held. The action would either follow its predicted course within parameters they could handle, or they would fail. That was all there was to it. And failure was not something any of them was contemplating as the sun set upon them for the last time and New England came towards forty knots, cutting in along the sun’s blood-red track westwards.

  *

  “You see how it will work?” Richard asked. Harry and Pitman both n
odded, both of them impressed by the ingenuity of his plan to use the lifeboat and the long lines. “But we’ll have to be quick to pull it off. We’ll have to activate everything at the critical moment. Is that possible, Harry?”

  “Yes. As long as I can set up the library computer.”

  “But how can you control the computer without a keyboard?”

  “I can set it up to read from the numbered keypad as though it was a mouse. Use the numbers two, eight, four and six to go up, down, left and right. Zero to activate. If I can get the screen on the videophone handset to show the computer screen, I can move the cursor anywhere I want, pull down any list of commands I need and get the programs to do what I tell them. I’ve set up some quick releases that will cut in past my security walls so I won’t have to type in the codes. If I can just get the modem in the library switched on and adjust this thing to the correct frequency…”

  “We’ll be in business,” supplied Pitman. “And none too soon, judging by the way New England’s moving now.”

  Just as she said this, the great grumble of the jets behind the drawbridge aft of them lessened and the hull stopped vibrating as New England began to slow again.

  *

  There was almost total darkness now. Low cloud obscured the stars and the moon. The three men walked down the deck under a glimmer of light from the bridge and pulled the cover off the powerboat. Tom swung himself up into the cockpit and while Marshall opened the black box at his side, Merrideth strapped him in. “You still fit for this, old man?” Merrideth asked quietly.

  Tom nodded, his face the slightest doughy smudge in the darkness.

  “You know where you’re bound?”

  “Same place as all of us, boss,” Tom said, but as he spoke, his black-gloved finger flicked a switch and a navigation screen lit up, its green display marked with his route.

  “Good man,” Merrideth said almost silently.

  Marshall raised his arm and the gesture was just visible enough to call forth a squad of men from the bridge. In a matter of moments, the powerboat was swung up and over the side. As soon as it sat safely in the water, Tom fired up the motors and the almost invisible shape began to move away south and west, bearing New England’s identification beacon down towards Cholera Bank and Coney Island, powering up towards speeds which only the jet-ship was apparently capable of.

  Marshall and Merrideth ran back up to the bridge and New England began to come back up to speed, turning away north towards Montauk Point and Long Island Sound.

  *

  Pitman followed Harry into the air duct. The soldier hated confined spaces but, as with so much else in her life, she had learned to overcome her fears. The battle between her iron will and her psyche filled her blood with a dangerous cocktail of hormonal drugs, however, the most plentiful of which was adrenalin. Within moments her face was burning and her breath was short. And her nipples were hard and her loins were burning. Every time she looked up, there was Harry, slim and sinuous, slithering away from her with the merest sibilance of crisp cotton over slick steel.

  By good chance the women had started their sortie just at the right moment. The powering-up of the great engines had summoned all the men of 13 Int. to arms. There was no one at all in the accommodation areas now. Everyone was at his post, and all the posts were up on the command bridge. The engines would hold up or they would not; no guarding or nursing could change that now. There was no more food to be eaten; no more coffee to be drunk. And if anyone got caught short, the water bottles and the plastic bags were to hand. Even the communications kit was closed down now and Op was standing at his steel-guarded window with the rest of them, for there was no one left that they would listen to and nothing left to say. The men were in full battle dress — or as close to it as they could manage now. They were four hours at most from the climax of their mission and all the way in they would standing to and waiting.

  Harry eased the cover off the air duct and lowered it silently to the floor. Lithe as a constrictor, she wound her way out into the dark room. She pulled a torch from her pocket and flashed it around. The computer was sitting dark and dead and she crossed to it at once. Pitman eased herself stiffly out as the screen lit up and the library was flooded with flickering light. Harry tapped the keys and patched the monitor into the security net, revealing the bridge at once.

  “Shit!” whispered Pitman, running an experienced eye over the picture. “These guys have been busy, and they’re loaded for bear with a vengeance! You see what they’ve done? Each of those embrasures has a pair of men and at least one Stinger. Looks like the ones at the front have all got two Stingers and one man strapped in tight. Jesus! This is something to tell the grandchildren about.”

  “If we live to have any,” said Harry.

  “Can you traverse that thing so I can see the full disposition?”

  “No chance, Angela. If they even dream they see the security camera move they’ll be down here like gangbusters. You know that. Anyway,” the picture died and the screen filled with icons, “we’re not here to sightsee. Let’s get this modem connected to the ether and then set the videophone.”

  But like many an apparently simple plan it was easier said than done and as Harry worked and Pitman watched, their time was running away.

  *

  “There she is!” exclaimed Professor Miles, looking at the little screen in the harbourmaster’s office which was video-linked to SAC for the evening. The screen showed a schematic of the waters off New York Harbour and there, moving unmistakably down towards Cholera Bank, was the bright display emitted by New England’s automatic identity beacon. “She’s making what? Fifty knots?”

  “Dangerously fast for those waters, ship that size,” said the harbourmaster.

  “But you know which way she’s coming in,” enthused Miles, carried away by the fact that they had found her, too excited to see the implications.

  “Too late to change her heading now,” said the harbourmaster, speaking more loudly so that his voice carried into the conferencing facility. “She’ll have to come in through the main harbour entrance. We’ll stop her at Brooklyn Bridge if not before.”

  “Please arrange to do that, sir,” came a distant, anonymous voice. “In the meantime, gentlemen — ” Whatever else was said died as the sound and then the picture vanished.

  The silence and the shadows washed into the office, then the harbourmaster was up and reaching for the phone. “That’s it,” he said. “He’s coming in past Staten Island. The hogwash about Hell Gate was a bluff after all.”

  *

  Only the straps held Tom in the powerboat as it hurled forward towards the shipping lanes at full throttle. No one had bothered him so far and he was mildly surprised that there had been so little shipping, military or civilian; and no air traffic to talk of at all. He knew this state of affairs could not last very much longer. He lifted his hand from the steering wheel and twisted his thick, unhandy, insensitive wrist until he could see the illuminated display of his watch. It was after ten. If they didn’t stop him soon, he thought, he would be up with Lady Liberty herself, under the lights, out in the open, as exposed as the Staten Island Ferry, and that would never do. His mind and spirit as carefully insensitive as his body, he pushed the throttle forward and hammered onwards at the better part of sixty knots towards the bright horizon.

  *

  The F18s came out in a squadron of four. During the day they had dropped out of a clear blue sky onto a discreetly isolated runway of John F. Kennedy Airport overlooking Jamaica Bay on the south side of Long Island. Here they had refuelled and sat waiting as helicopters buzzed around them delivering and removing maintenance personnel and equipment. By the time they were called to action it was well after ten at night and the weather had closed in. Still they went up through the low, drizzling cloud, confident that they would have no trouble locating their prey, led by the strong signal from its identity beacon. And so it proved. They slipped away over the incoming shipping along the Fairway f
rom the Great South Channel, dropped to zero feet and skimmed in through the low overcast over the outbound fairway, the telltale signal in their sights. Neither fairway was particularly busy. None of the pilots — nor the men at SAC they were reporting to were of maritime background. SAC was not communicating this down the “need to know” chain anywhere near as low as the New York harbourmaster now they had closed the conference facility down, so no one saw anything unusual in a ship the size and speed of New England passing through these waters unremarked and in the wrong lane.

  The jet jocks armed their smart seekers, watching the head-up bifurcate as the upper quadrants displayed what the rocket’s onboard guidance system could see while the lower continued to show the signature of the radio beacon. As the beacon settled brightly and unmistakably into the centre of the target area, the lead fighter pilot fired, and watched the picture in the upper quadrant unroll as a haze of cloud, spray and water whirled towards him.

  Tom heard the fighter aircraft and a kind of madness overtook him at the sound. It was not any desire to spoil the boss’ plan, or even the faintest dream of survival. It was, if anything, a desire for one more gesture. A wish to go out laughing. Tom began to jink the powerboat to the limits of what it, and he, could handle. As the missile, designed to target on the heat from New England’s jet motors, came screaming down towards him, Tom had just a fleeting chance to whirl the boat out of the way. The rocket sensed no heat. The powerboat had not been illuminated. It was moving, suddenly erratic, at nearly sixty knots, and the man at the wheel was still smarter than the bomb. The missile plunged into the water harmlessly. “One up to me, you arrogant son of a bitch,” yelled Tom, then hurled the powerboat hard over, knowing there would be another on its way.

  And as luck would have it, he turned exactly into the path of the second one, so that even had he been able to, he would not have felt a thing.