Skeleton Coast tof-4

by Clive Cussler

  “We’re headed in.”

  Mike had kept the hydrofoil two miles from shore, carving lazy circles until it was time to strike. He cranked the wheel eastward, aiming for the collection of huge storage tanks at the terminal’s southern edge. The UAV’s overflight had shown this to be the area of least rebel activity, but they were bound to be spotted as they approached, and men would certainly be shifted to repel the attack.

  He had to steer around the oil slicks that were slowly coalescing into one massive spill. He had no way of estimating its size, but from what he could see it already looked frighteningly like Prince William Sound after theExxon Valdez holed herself on Bligh Reef.

  He was standing in the rear cockpit to give himself 360-degree vision and didn’t hear the approaching UAV over the hydrofoil’s engine. Tiny buzzed him at no more than twenty feet, waggling the drone’s wings as he arrowed it in toward the seawall.

  “Crazy SOB,” he muttered with a smirk and glanced at the flatscreen display that had been hastily installed the night before.

  Everything looked the same as it had when the model plane made its first pass over the facility. There were no rebel soldiers around the tank farm or the power plant. It was only when Tiny guided the UAV

  northward that he could see any insurgents. Some were guarding the entrance gates while others were draining a fleet of eighteen-wheeler tanker trucks. Thick ropes of oil snaked from the rear of each trailer and slithered over the seawall. Another contingent was on the floating pier getting the second set of loading gantries ready to begin pumping crude into the sea. Linc would be leading the attack there once Mike and his men were in position to back them.

  Then, when they were a mile from the quay closest to the tank farm, he saw from the digital uplink that he had been spotted. Men were racing off the causeway and getting into Petromax vehicles in order to rush across the facility. They came in trucks, forklifts, even a large crane, anything their commander could get running. Others came on foot, swarming across the terminal like berserkers.

  “Oregon, you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “We see it,” Max replied.

  Mark Murphy retracted the hull plates shielding the ship’s 40 mm Bofors automatic cannon and activated the hydraulics that moved the weapon into firing position. His computer screen automatically split into two halves, one showing the targeting camera for the Gatling, the second for the pom-pom gun.

  He started designating targets as fast as he could, moving the reticle around the screen with a pair of joysticks and designating vehicles in the sight as soon as the computer told him he had a lock. The Bofors began to pound out high explosive shells and the Gatling spit a tongue of fire fifteen feet from theOregon

  ’s side. The weapons were seeking new targets before the first salvos struck home.

  The Gatling rounds raked the side of a dump truck, the near hypervelocity slugs tearing the engine off its mount, shredding everything in the cab, and punching fist-sized holes through the inch-thick dump bed.

  The force of the impacts sent the twelve-ton vehicle careening onto its right-side wheels for an instant before it tipped completely.

  A pair of 40-mm rounds blew twin craters in the asphalt in front of an SUV with armed men standing on the running boards and hanging on the doors. The driver veered sharply but the left front tire dropped into one of the smoking gouges just as a third round impacted behind the right front wheel. The blast tossed the truck through the air, rebels flying from its hurtling carcass like dolls thrown by a spoiled child.

  “Eric,” Murph said without looking up from his computer, “turn us side on. We’re in range to deploy the deck .30 calibers.”

  Controlled from other weapons stations, each of the .30-caliber M-60s could be individually targeted.

  While they were used primarily for defense against boarders the six heavy machine guns were more than capable of engaging individuals onshore. They were disguised in oil drums on deck, and on a command from Murph the lids swung free and the guns popped up, their barrels swinging down to horizontal and pivoting outward. Each gun emplacement had its own camera with low light and infrared capabilities.

  Once they were deployed, Mark turned his attention back to his own weapons systems and let his gunners do their job. In moments the machine guns added their chattering tones to the symphony he was conducting.

  It took another five minutes to check the headlong rush of men to the tank farm pier where Mike was bringing the hydrofoil off plane in preparation to dock. Yet rebels still managed to cross the yard in twos and threes, leaping from cover to cover when the M-60s were engaged elsewhere, and a vanload of gunmen had circled along the outer perimeter fence, using the entire terminal to hide their advance.

  Murph had done his job of clearing most of Mike’s LZ, but they were still in for a fight. And until Trono and his African troops had swept the yard of rebels, Linc and Ski couldn’t attack the tanker pier and prevent the insurgents from continuing to dump four hundred tons of toxic crude per minute into the sea.

  28

  EDDIESeng looked at the oil gushing up from the well drilled deep below the platform and wanted to shoot the fifteen rebels who’d surrendered five minutes into the gun battle. The Petromax workers trying to staunch the flow looked puny and ineffective compared to this awesome demonstration of man’s attempt to tame nature.

  He glanced again at the kneeling terrorists lined against the edge of the platform, their arms bound behind them with the flex cuffs he’d brought and electrical wire the workers had provided. None were older than twenty-five, and as his eyes swept the line none of them could meet his cold stare. The bullet-ridden bodies of the six fighters taken out in Eddie’s lightning attack had been laid together and covered with an old piece of tarp.

  Only one of Eddie’s men had been injured during the minute-long assault and that was just a flesh wound in the leg from a ricochet. As soon as the remaining rebels realized the ferocity of the attack they dropped their weapons and threw up their hands. A few of them had even begun to cry. Eddie had gone below and found the rig’s crew unguarded in the mess hall and learned eight of their coworkers had been gunned down when the platform was first assaulted.

  The rig’s tool pusher had been killed when the rebels swarmed the platform, so it was his second in command who was in charge of shutting off the flow. He detached himself from the men gathered around the well head and approached Eddie. His coveralls and gloves were black with oil and his ebony face was streaked with the grease.

  “We can fix it,” he said in accented English. “They replaced the topside Christmas tree with a twelve-inch shunt valve. They opened that valve to let the oil come out and broke off the handle. I think they dropped the Christmas tree over the side.”

  Eddie imagined a Christmas tree was what the oilman called the well cap that diverted oil to pipelines connected to shore. “How long?”

  “We have another tree in the stores. It’s not as strong as the one we lost, but it will take the pressure.

  Maybe three hours.”

  “Then don’t waste time talking to me.”

  Though it was a mile away, and the crude belching out of the well made a sound like a train roaring past, Eddie could still hear the sustained gunfire from the Chairman’s rig and knew Juan was having a much harder time of it.

  FOR a stunned moment Cabrillo had no idea where he was or even who he was. It was only when the constant bark of distant automatic weapons finally cut through the ringing in his head that he remembered what was happening. He opened his eyes and nearly cried out. He hung forty feet over the bubbling mass of oil lapping against the platform’s legs and would have been blown off the rig entirely if he hadn’t gotten tangled in the safety nets encircling the upper deck. The container he’d been hiding behind bobbed on the sea of crude but there was no sign of the wounded man who’d been next to him when the RPG

  detonated.

  He flipped onto his back and spider-crawled across the shaky n
et, keeping one eye on the deck perimeter to make sure none of the rebels saw his vulnerable position. When he reached the platform he cautiously peered over the edge. Terrorists still had control of the rig and return fire from his own men was diminished. He could tell only a couple were still in the fight, and by the way they fired only single shots he knew they were low on ammunition. The rebels didn’t seem to have such a shortage and blasted away indiscriminately.

  When Juan was sure no one was looking in his direction he rolled off the net and under the crawler treads of the mobile crane. He checked over his weapon and changed out the half-depleted magazine.

  He didn’t have a good enough view of the battle to start sniping the rebels without risking another blast from an RPG. He scooted around and wriggled to the back of the crane, cautiously looking around for better cover.

  An insurgent suddenly sprang up from behind a crate and was about to toss a grenade across the deck at where a wounded Zimbabwean cowered behind a huge valve. Juan drilled the terrorist with a single shot and a moment later the grenade went off, lifting his corpse and the mangled body of a comrade on a column of smoky flame.

  Before anyone could pinpoint where the shot had originated, Juan rushed out from under the crane, running doubled over across the deck, and threw himself behind a pile of six-inch-thick drill pipes. He edged around the pipes so he could look down their lengths. The effect was disorientating, like a rendition of a fly’s prismatic eyes, but he could see one of the rebels moving across the ironworks tower a few feet from where the oil fountained from the well head.

  Juan thrust the barrel of his MP-5 into a pipe and triggered off a three-round burst. Two of the bullets struck the interior of the pipe and went wild, but one hit the terrorist low in the abdomen. He staggered back and was caught in the avalanche of oil. One second he seemed to be leaning against the surging mass and the next he’d been pulled in, like he’d been absorbed, and vanished in the cascade draining down to the ocean.

  Cabrillo circled back around the pile of pipes when a half dozen rebels raked it with autofire, the impacts making the steel pipes sing. He was beginning to realize the attack might fail. If Linda didn’t finish up below and add her team as reinforcements, Juan had to seriously consider calling retreat. There was nothing theOregon could do to help, not without risking setting the rig ablaze.

  With so many rebels still fighting he knew that the climb down to the minisub would be suicide. They’d be picked off before they were a quarter of the way down the ladder. Juan had to think of an alternative and considered taking the platform’s lifeboat, a reinforced fiberglass escape pod that could be automatically lowered. The only problem was the lifeboat’s davits were on an isolated spot on the far side of the deck, surrounded by open space—a killing field if Juan had ever seen one.

  He tapped his radio to get Linda’s frequency as another fusillade slammed into the drill string. “Linda, its Cabrillo. Forget about the workers and get your butts up here double time.” When she didn’t respond Juan repeated her name. “Where in the hell is she?”

  SHE’D spent five hours a week every week for two straight years. More than five hundred hours training on the mats Eddie Seng had brought into theOregon ’s fitness center dojo. He’d learned from a master who no longer bothered with rankings because there were few people on the planet capable enough to certify him.

  Hearing Juan’s voice was enough to get Linda Ross over her moment of panic and into action. She stepped out and back so quickly that the killer didn’t realize the receiver of his gun was now against her hip. Slamming her elbow into his sternum sent a wave of rancid breath across her face. She then smashed her fist between his legs, recalling Eddie’s words at this point in the oft-practiced counterattack: “If you feel his weight on your back, toss him. If not, grab on until he goes down.”

  But she felt the man deflate against her. She reached for his arm, cocked her hip, and threw him over her shoulder, holding on to him so their combined weight crushed him against the deck. Unable to get air into his deflated lungs the terrorist gasped like a fish. Linda chopped him at a pressure point on the side of his exposed throat and his eyes fluttered and rolled back into his head. He’d be out for hours.

  She got to her feet to see the man she thought of as “the sniper” peering at her through the open counter to the dining hall. He was just lowering his AK for a shot he hadn’t dared to take. She gave him a little curtsy and was rewarded with a broad smile.

  Linda threw a pair of flex cuffs around the nearby stove’s leg and secured the terrorist’s wrists as a precaution. Returning to the mess hall, she saw her other two men still guarding the door to make sure none of the workers left to face another slaughter on the deck.

  Bodies littered the floor. A few of them were dead but most had just been wounded in the mindless melee. Some of their coworkers were already trying to help get them into more comfortable positions and pressing rags and wads of napkins into their wounds. One man in particular seemed to be leading the medical efforts. He was a white man with a fringe of sandy hair around his red scalp and the biggest hands she had ever seen. He was also one of the most ruggedly handsome men she’d ever seen. When he got up from examining a crewman leaning against an overturned table he noticed her and came across the room in five long strides.

  “Little lady, I don’t know who you are or where in all get all you came from, but damn, darlin’, am I glad to see you.” He towered over her and his voice was pure west Texas. “I’m Jim Gibson, this here rig’s tool pusher.”

  Linda knew that was the title given to the boss on an offshore platform. “Ross, my name is Linda Ross.

  Hold on a second.” She resettled her radio earpiece, which had been dislodged during the fight. “Juan, it’s Linda.”

  “Thank God. I need you and your men up herenow . We’re taking a pounding. Worry about the workers later.” The sound of a firefight raging in the background underscored his urgent words.

  “They’re secure and I’m on my way.” She looked back up at the big Texan. “Mr. Gibson.”

  “Jim.”

  “Jim, I need you to keep your people here. There’s still terrorists topside. They’ve done something to the platform so oil’s pouring into the ocean. When we take care of the rebels, can you guys stop the crude?”

  “Hell yeah we can. What’s going on?”

  Linda put a fresh magazine into her machine pistol as she answered. “A group of rebels from the Congo were hired to take over several platforms and the main tanker terminal.”

  “Is this some political thing?”

  “Jim, I promise when this is over I’ll explain it all, but right now I’ve got to go.”

  “You can tell me over dinner. I know a great Portuguese restaurant in Cabinda City.”

  “I know a better one in Lisbon,” Linda called over her shoulder, “But you’re still buying.”

  MIKE kept theLiberty driving straight for the seawall before cranking the wheel and chopping the throttles at the very last second. Though already off her foils, the boat settled deeper in the water as her side kissed the concrete so lightly that it didn’t disturb any of the mussels clinging to its side.

  The forward hatch was open and men began streaming out of the boat and onto the quay, seeking whatever cover they could find. A smattering of small-arms fire came from the direction of the terminal, but between Mark Murphy’s efforts and Trono’s deft abilities with a boat, only a few of the rebels were yet in range.

  Mike gathered up his gear and jumped for the wall. There was nothing to tie off the boat to so he unholstered a special gun from behind his back. Actuated by a .22-caliber cartridge, the gun fired a six-inch steel rod into the cement. He jacked the gun to reset it and fired a second bolt, then tied off a line dangling over theLiberty ’s side.

  The freedom fighters hadn’t forgotten their hard-won lessons in the years since their civil war. They were properly fanned out with each man able to cover the soldier to either side. Their fir
st objective was less than a hundred yards away. Mike glanced at the metallic patch of cloth on the inside of his left sleeve and cursed. The feed was down.

  With no choice, he led the charge, leapfrogging from position to position, always with men firing from behind to keep the terrorists at bay. Though there were only a handful of rebels at the moment, each passing minute saw more arriving in the area, having evaded theOregon ’s sophisticated array of sensors.

  The sixty-man contingent took their first casualty when a gunman suddenly emerged from behind a small utility shed and opened fire Hollywood-style, his AK held low at the hip and his finger never leaving the trigger as he sprayed bullets. It was a suicide attack and the counterfire obliged him, but four of Mike’s men were down, one of them obviously dead.

  Undeterred they ran on, dashing and weaving, holding up where they had protection so they could cover the skirmish line’s advance. It was urban street fighting at its worse, with enemies able to pop up almost anywhere.

  Mike’s radio crackled so he skidded behind a shot-up tow truck to listen. “Liberty, this is Eagle Eye, sorry about the delay but I’ve got you patched back in.” It was Tiny Gunderson flying the UAV.

  Trono again glanced at the odd square embedded on the sleeve of his black battle jacket. The silvery material had morphed to reveal a picture of the tanker terminal beamed to the E-paper screen from the drone. The flexible monitor’s resolution was as clear as the big flat panel in theOregon ’s op center, though power constraints allowed for only snapshots to be sent from the UAV on ten-second intervals rather than a continuous feed. The technology was state of the art, and still prone to bugs, so it was still years away from deployment with the U.S. Army.

  The image changed as Tiny zeroed in on Mike’s location. He saw there were three rebels on the far side of a warehouse who were about to outflank his men. Rather than explain how he knew, he leapt from behind the tow truck and dashed back so he could get a bead on the corner of the building where they huddled. A knob on the grenade launcher slung under his machine pistol constricted the barrel a fraction of a millimeter and thus slowed the projectile, allowing him to set any range he wanted. He estimated the corner of the building was forty yards away and dialed it in. The weapon made a funny, hollowbloop sound when it fired but the results were anything but comical. The grenade landed a foot from the edge of the building and detonated, shrapnel tearing through the thin corrugated metal and flesh.