Skeleton Coast tof-4

by Clive Cussler

  To his immense relief, a tech on duty at the moon pool reported the two doors hadn’t been damaged and the subs were safely stowed in their cradles.

  Juan reached the boat garage at the ship’s waterline. The large space was lit by red battle lamps, giving it a ruddy cast, and it smelled of salt water and gasoline. The large door that opened along theOregon ’s flank was tightly sealed as crewmen prepared a black Zodiac inflatable. The big outboard on its transom could push the craft well past forty knots, though it also had a small electric motor for silent operations.

  The garage also housed a deep-hulled SEAL assault boat capable of even greater speed and with the capacity to carry ten armed men.

  Eddie and Linc reported in a moment later. It had been Eddie Seng who’d played the part of helmsmen when Linc was acting as captain. The two couldn’t have been more physically different. Linc’s body bulged with muscles hewn from hours of pumping iron in the ship’s weight room while Eddie was rapier lean, his physique the result of a lifetime of martial arts training.

  They wore black combat fatigues, matching belts festooned with ammo pouches, knives, and various other gear. Each carried M-4A1 assault carbines, the Special Forces version of the M-16.

  “What’s the op, boss?” Eddie asked.

  “As you know, we’re grounded and we don’t have time to wait for the spring rains. You remember that dam we passed a couple miles back?”

  “You want us to blow it?” Linc asked incredulously.

  “No, no. Just get inside and open the floodgates. I doubt they have guards, but if they do, go nonlethal if you can.” Both men nodded. “You probably won’t be able to catch up with us once the water hits us so we’ll link up in Boma on the coast.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Linc breezed, fully confident in their ability to execute the mission.

  Juan hit a wall mike. “Eric, I need to know when it’s clear to open the garage and launch a Zodiac.

  Where are those patrol boats?”

  “One’s standing off. I think to start in with the mortars again. The other just passed behind our stern and is coming up the port side.”

  “Anything from the shore?”

  “Infrared shows it’s clean, but you and I both know Abala won’t waste any time getting here.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Juan nodded to a crewman to open the outer door. The stench and heat of the jungle rushed into the garage as the door slid upward. The air was so humid you could almost drink it. It was also tinged with the chemical stink of the smoke screen Max had laid over the ship. The river’s edge was dark and overhung with dense vegetation. Despite Eric’s assurance that the shore was clear, Juan could feel eyes on them.

  Because theOregon rode so high in the water, the launch ramp was five feet above the river. Linc and Eddie shoved the boat down the slick ramp and dove after it when it hit the water. They emerged from the river and rolled over the craft’s soft side. Eddie secured their weapons while Linc engaged the electric motor. At slow speed and under the cover of darkness the Zodiac was all but invisible.

  As they pulled away from theOregon , Linc had to zigzag around arcing jets of water from the fire cannons that were keeping the two helicopters from getting close. The choppers dove and buzzed but never got nearear than a hundred feet before one of the cannons fired a blasting stream of water that forced the pilots to bank away sharply.

  Eddie could imagine the scene inside each of the helos as the rebels threatened the oil company pilots while at the same time knowing a direct hit from one of the fire hoses would drown the helicopter’s turbines and send it plummeting into the river.

  They emerged from the smoke screen and saw that the two patrol boats were far enough away for Linc to switch to the Zodiac’s outboard. The big four-stroke was well muffled, but it still sounded a deep bass tone that rumbled across the water as he brought the nimble craft onto plane.

  It was impossible to speak at forty knots, so they drove back upriver with their thoughts, both men keyed up on adrenaline and ready for anything. They didn’t hear the high keening of an approaching boat until it shot around a small island hugging the near shore.

  Link whipped the Zodiac hard to starboard as the two boats nearly collided. He recognized the scared face of Colonel Abala’s aide at the same instant the rebel officer recognized him. Link twisted the throttle harder against its stop as the aide-de-camp whipped the boat around and started to chase them. The boat was sleek, with two outboards and a low hull designed to ride atop the water. There were four other men with him, all carrying AKs.

  “You know him?” Eddie shouted.

  “Yeah, he’s Abala’s right-hand man.”

  The rebel boat began to gain on the Zodiac, a rooster tail of water jetting from its stern.

  “Linc, if he’s got a radio, the jig’s going to be up.”

  “Damn. I hadn’t thought about that. Any ideas?”

  “Let him catch up,” Eddie said, and passed one of the M-4s to Lincoln.

  “And don’t fire until I see the whites of their eyes?”

  “Screw that. Take ’em the second they’re in range.”

  “Okay, hold on.” Linc killed the throttles and as the Zodiac settled into the water he whipped it into a tight turn, its flat bottom skipping across the river like a stone. It came to a sudden stop, bobbing on waves of its own creation, but it was more than stable enough for Linc and Eddie.

  They brought their weapons to their shoulders as the rebel’s boat bore down on them at fifty miles per hour. At two hundred yards they opened fire; AKs immediately winked back at them, but the rebels’ aim was off because the boat was going so fast. Tiny fountains of water shot into the air well ahead and to the left of the stationary Zodiac. The Corporation men had no such difficulty, and every second brought the boat closer and increased their accuracy.

  Linc fired three round bursts that stitched the small windscreen and tore chunks of fiberglass from the boat’s bow. Eddie concentrated on the driver, calmly firing single shots until the man suddenly slumped.

  The boat veered for a moment before another rebel got hold of the wheel while the other three continued to rip through magazine after magazine. One burst came close enough to singe the air around Eddie and Linc, but neither man ducked or even blinked. They methodically fired at the oncoming boat until only one rebel remained crouched behind the wheel, covered by the long bow.

  Working in coordination, Eddie kept up a steady stream of fire as Linc moved back to the idling engine.

  The rebel boat was no more than fifty yards away, charging straight at them like a shark coming in for the kill. It was obvious that its driver intended to ram them. Linc let him come.

  When the speedboat was no more than twenty feet away he goosed the throttle and the Zodiac dashed under its high bows. Eddie already had a grenade in his hand, the pin pulled and the spoon long gone. He flipped it into the speedboat’s cockpit as it screamed by them, holding up five fingers then dropping them as the seconds ticked by. His last finger went down and the speedboat went up, the crump of the grenade followed almost immediately by the spectacular explosion of the boat’s fuel tanks. The hull cartwheeled across the water, chunks of fiberglass and the remains of its crew flying free amid the blazing rain of burning gasoline.

  “Strike one right-hand man,” Linc said with satisfaction.

  Five minutes later, the Zodiac coasted to a wooden jetty near the base of the Inga Dam. The massive structure loomed over them, a sculpted wall of ferro-concrete and steel holding back a huge reservoir above the Congo River. Because nearly all the electricity generated by the hydro-dam was used during the day in the mines of Shaba, formerly Katanga Province, there was just a trickle of water coming down the spillway. They dragged the boat well out of the river and secured it to a tree, not knowing how high the water would reach. They hefted their weapons for the long climb up a set of stairs built into the face of the dam.

  Halfway up the stairs the quiet of the night was shattered by gunf
ire erupting from below them. Shrapnel, bits of concrete, and bullets whizzed all around them as they stood exposed on the steps. Both men dropped flat and immediately returned fire. Down below two native boats had pulled up to the jetty.

  While rebels fired from the dock more began racing up the stairs.

  “I guess Abala’s guy had a radio after all.” Eddie said, dropping his spent M-4 and drawing his Glock.

  He fired rapidly as Linc hosed the dock with 5.56 mm rounds from his assault rifle.

  The three rebels charging the stairs went down with double taps from Eddie’s pistol, their bodies tumbling off the steps in a tangle of limbs and blood. By the time he’d changed out magazines for his M-4, the fire from the dock had withered to a single AK-47 and Linc silenced this gun with a sustained burst that blew the rebel off the dock. The current took him almost immediately and he vanished down the river.

  Above them an alarm horn had begun to sound.

  “Let’s go,” Linc said, and the two men raced up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

  They reached the top of the dam. Beyond it was the large reservoir and at the far end of the structure was a squat building with light spilling from its windows.

  “Control room?” Linc whispered.

  “Has to be.” Eddie pulled his throat mike into position. “Chairman, its Eddie. Linc and I are on the dam and about to approach the control center.” There was no need to tell him their presence had already been detected.

  “Copy that. Advise when you’re in position to open the gates.”

  “Roger.”

  Keeping low so they didn’t silhouette themselves against the starry sky, they raced silently across the top of the dam. To their left spread the reservoir, a calm lake bisected by a white slash of reflected moonlight. To their right was a hundred-foot drop to a jumble of boulders littering the base of the dam.

  When they reached the blockhouse, a boxy one-story concrete building with a single door and a pair of windows, they could see that beyond it were the sluice gates and penstock that diverted water to the facility’s turbines that were housed in a long building at the bottom of the dam. There was only enough water passing through the channel to provide electricity to the town of Mabati.

  With Linc on the other side, Eddie reached out and tried to open the blockhouse door. It was securely locked. Eddie motioned to the keyhole as if he had the key and cocked an eyebrow at Linc. Franklin Lincoln was the Corporation’s expert at lock picking and was rumored to have even broken into Juan’s gun safe on a bet from Linda Ross, but all he could do was shrug at his partner and pat his pockets. He’d forgotten to bring his picks.

  Eddie rolled his eyes and reached into one of the pouches hanging from his belt. He molded a small amount of Semtex plastic explosives around the handle and inserted an electronic detonator. He and Linc moved a short way off.

  Just before he keyed the detonator, a guard emerged from around the blockhouse. He wore a dark uniform and carried a flashlight and a pistol. Linc aimed instinctively and was an instant from firing before adjusting his site picture. He shot the pistol out of the guard’s hand. The man went down, screaming and clutching his arm to his chest. Linc ran over to him, pulling a pair of flex cuffs from his combat harness.

  He checked the wound quickly, relieved that it was superficial, and bound the guard’s hands and feet.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he said and rejoined Eddie.

  Eddie fired off the charge. The explosion blew the handle apart and Linc threw open the door, Eddie covering him with his M-4.

  The control room was brightly lit, an open space with banks of dials and levers along the walls and counters mounted with outdated computers. The three night operators immediately thrust their hands in the air when Linc and Eddie rushed into the room shouting for everyone to get down. They gestured with their rifles and the men sank to the concrete floor, their eyes wide with fear.

  “Do as we say and no one gets hurt,” Eddie said, knowing how trite it sounded to the terrified workers.

  Linc did a quick recon of the building, finding an empty conference room behind the control space and a closet-sized lavatory that was also empty except for a cockroach the size of his middle finger.

  “Do any of you speak English?” Eddie asked as he cuffed the three Africans.

  “I do,” one said, the tag on his blue jumpsuit showing his name was Kofi Baako.

  “Okay, Kofi, like I said we’re not going to hurt you, but I want you to tell me how to open the emergency floodgates.”

  “You will drain the reservoir!”

  Eddie pointed at a multiline telephone; four of its five lights were blinking. “You’ve already contacted your superiors and I’m sure they’re sending additional people. The gates won’t be open for more than an hour. Now show me how to open them.”

  Kofi Baako hesitated for another second, so Eddie yanked his pistol from its holster, making sure it was never pointed at the three men. His voice went from reasonable to savage. “You’ve got five seconds.”

  “That panel there.” Baako nodded at the far wall. “The top five switches disengage the safety protocols.

  The next five close the circuits to the gate motors and the bottom five open the gates themselves.”

  “Can the gates be closed manually?”

  “Yes, there is a room inside the dam with big hand cranks. They need two men to turn them.”

  With Linc still at the front door watching for any more guards, Eddie flipped the switches in turn, watching the jeweled lights that were built into the control panel switch from red to green with each toggle thrown. Before he started on the last row he rested his throat mike against his neck. “Chairman, it’s me.

  Be ready for it. I’m opening the gates now.”

  “Not a minute too soon. Abala transferred the mortars from the Swift boats and has set them up on shore. A couple more rounds and they have us ranged.”

  “Stand by for the big flush,” Eddie said and threw the last set of switches. With the last toggle in position a noise began to rise, low at first, but building to a rumble that shook the building. The gates were coming up and water was thundering down the face of the dam in a solid wall. It hit the bottom and exploded in a roiling cauldron that grew into a solid wave eight feet high that swept down the river, inundating the shoreline and ripping out trees and shrubs as it accelerated.

  “That ought to do the trick,” Eddie said and emptied his clip into the control panel. The rounds punctured the thin metal and shredded the old electronics in a blaze of smoke and sparks.

  “And that ought to buy us some time,” Linc added.

  They left the technicians cuffed to a table and made their way back down the staircase. The sound and fury of the water pouring over the dam’s face was a palpable sensation while spray soaked their partially dry clothing.

  By the time they reached the bottom and dragged the Zodiac to the river’s edge, the water had settled enough for them to launch the inflatable and start heading downstream for their rendezvous in Boma.

  Back aboard theOregon , Juan was getting concerned. Abala had realized the Swift boats were too unstable for the mortars so he’d unloaded them and now his men were dialing in the range. The last explosive had hit less than twenty feet from the starboard rail.

  To add to his problems, more and more native boats were arriving from upstream, loaded to the gunwales with rebels. While the water cannons were performing flawlessly, there were only four of them—and two were needed at all times to prevent the buzzing helicopters from getting close enough for the men aboard to jump down onto the freighter. Juan had called Hali Kasim back from the radar dome to coordinate communications so Linda Ross could lead Eddie’s shore operations fighters. Using only shotguns and pistols, they rushed to the side of the ship where Mark Murphy said a boat was getting too close. They fired down on the rebels while ducking blistering fire from both the shore and the pirogues.

  “All right,” Hali exclaimed from the
comm station. “My techs have the radar back.”

  “Will you be able to see the wave?” Juan asked him.

  “Sorry, Chairman, but with the bends in the river I won’t see it until it’s almost on top of us.”

  “Anything’s better than nothing.”

  Another mortar dropped near the ship, this time missing the port rail by inches. The rebels had them bracketed. The next rounds would fall with impunity all over theOregon and her decks were not nearly as heavily armored as her flanks.

  “Damage control teams, get ready,” Juan said over the shipboard net. “We’re going to take some hits.”

  “Holy God,” Hali shouted.

  “What?”

  “Brace yourselves!”

  Juan hit the collision alarm as he saw the wave on both the radar screen in the corner of the big monitor as well as the feed from the stern cameras. The surge stretched from bank to bank. Rearing up more than ten feet and easily traveling at twenty knots, the roiling wall of water bore down on them relentlessly. One of the Swift boats tried to twist away and race ahead of the swell, but was caught midway through its turn. The wave hit the vessel broadside. The patrol craft flipped instantly, tossing men into the maelstrom where they were crushed by the rolling hull of their boat.

  Pirogues simply vanished with nothing to mark their passing, and the rebels lining the shore taking potshots at theOregon fled for high ground as water washed away everything in its path.

  Juan took his hands away from the controls a moment before the wave slammed into theOregon , flexed his fingers like a pianist about to perform an impossible overture, and lightly rested them back on the keys and joystick that would maneuver his ship.

  He brought the unclogged drive tube up to twenty percent just as the swell lifted the stern of theOregon out of the mud. Like being caught in a tsunami the vessel lurched from a dead stop to twenty knots in an instant as a pair of mortar shells exploded in her wake, shots that would have blown through her rear cargo hatches and destroyed the Robinson R44 helicopter stored on a retractable elevator.