“Okay, okay,” said Tanaka apologetically. “I was just asking.”
“The first thing we have to do is slow down the galleon,” said Taylor. “And give our people a good shot at getting on it.”
“I would suggest taking down the center mast,” said Tanaka. “This ship is most likely made of oak, but the masts are softer wood, pine. Also, see the row of windows in the stern castle? The second row?”
“Yes,” replied Taylor.
“The windows at each end are not windows at all. They are gun ports. There are two stern-facing guns there. Expect them to use those against us when we get in range.”
When Kansas had closed the distance to 500 yards, the doors to the two stern gun ports opened and the gun muzzles extended.
“Show time!” said Taylor. He aimed the Browning at the left gun port first and braced against the expected recoil.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
When the deafening roar had died, all that could be heard was the clink of empty brass shells hitting the deck below. The left gun port on the galleon was destroyed. It was a gaping jagged hole ten times bigger that it should be. The gun sat sideways in the port aimed at the port bulkhead. There were two bodies, one against the rear wall and one draped across the gun.
Taylor turned his attention to the right gun port. Right before he fired, he saw through the windows the gun crew abandon their stations.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The right gun port appeared to be wrecked now too with a wide irregular hole. There was also a hole in the wall behind it as well. Suddenly there was a voice in his ear.
“Sir, we’re seeing a man, possible sniper, on the stern rail.”
“Thanks, Maria.” He turned to McConnell. “Sniper on the rear rail. See him?”
McConnell put her right cheek against the stock of her weapon and sighted through her scope. “Got him.” She took in a breath and held it, moved her chin in a circular motion until it felt right. The sail was swaying back and forth with the roll of the boat in a very distracting manner. She closed her eyes, let out the breath, then opened them. It seemed forever to Taylor, but he didn’t want to interfere with her process. He sat very still feeling the sway of the sail with each wave.
POW!
“Nice!” said Lieutenant Guerrero from the control room. “Got him in the arm. He dropped his rifle.”
“Were you trying to hit his arm?” asked Taylor.
“What do you think?” replied McConnell sweetly.
“Hey,” screamed Tanaka. “She’s turning to port! They’re trying to get guns on us.”
“Maria,” said Taylor. “Stay on her tail. Don’t let her get a broadside into us.”
“Yes, sir. She won’t shake us.” Kansas turned right slightly and picked up speed, staying on the tail of the tightly turning galleon.
“I’m going to try to take out the center mast,” said Taylor. He turned the Browning toward the mast, sighted down the barrel, braced and fired.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The mast looked unharmed. “Let me see the binoculars.” Tanaka handed them over and Taylor put them to his eyes. He could see large splinters projecting out from the base of the mast. “I hit it! I’m going to try again.” He handed the binoculars back to Tanaka and picked up the gun again.
“Another sniper, sir,” said Guerrero. “First yardarm, stern mast.”
“Another sniper, Crystal. Stern mast, first yardarm.”
McConnell’s eyes went to the rigging on the stern mast. “I see him.” She went through her process again. Breathing, closing her eyes, opening. She was a picture of concentration.
POW!
It was a miss. The man sitting on the yardarm fired and a bullet pinged harmlessly off the sail a few feet below them.
“We don’t have to worry about him anymore,” said Tanaka. “Those old flintlocks were single shooters. It will take him a while to reload.” He looked through the binoculars and said, “Oh shit! He has another gun!”
“Let me try again,” said McConnell. She began going through her process again.
Then the galleon reversed direction and began to turn to starboard. Kansas reversed direction too and stayed on the galleon’s stern. The two ships were locked in a deadly dance.
POW!
This time McConnell scored a hit. The man plummeted from the rigging and hit the deck below.
As soon as the stern castle swung by and Taylor had a clear shot at the center mast, he fired at it again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
But the mast held fast like a mighty pine tree rooted in the deck. “I know I got at least six rounds into that thing.” Taylor took the binoculars and inspected the mast again. He thought he saw a few more jagged splinters protruding from it. “Alright, I’ll try again.” He shifted his position and sighted the gun. Just then a gust of wind came up, and the mast made a sharp crack. It was the same sound a big tree makes when it’s about to fall. Taylor yelled, “Timber!” There was another crack, then a crunch and finally the mast slowly toppled forward taking out ratlines, halyards and rigging from the first mast. The man in the crow’s nest hit the deck, the sails on the galleon began to flutter impotently, and the galleon almost slowed to a standstill.
Taylor hung his upper body out over the edge of the sail and looked back at Kansas’s aft deck. He could see the inflatable assault craft sitting on the deck. It was full of people. “Okay, Lambert, get ready,” said Taylor into his headset.
“We’re ready,” she responded and waved.
“Maria, trim ship and flood the aft deck. Assault team is ready to launch.”
“Yes sir. Flooding aft deck.”
Stern vents hissed loudly and Kansas dipped just enough to allow water to wash across the aft deck and float the small boat. In a short time the inflatable sped past Taylor, McConnell and Tanaka, bouncing from wave to wave, throwing spumes of spray from its propane-powered outboard. It looked like a team of SEALs going into action, complete with assault rifles, black helmets and body armor.
“Susan, see that thing that looks like a balcony coming off the stern?” said Taylor.
“Yes.”
“I think that’s your best bet. It’s only about ten feet off the water.”
“I agree. We’ll go there first.”
Lambert, COB Brown and Lieutenant Anderson all had SEAL blue tooth communicators tuned to Kansas’s control room. Lambert and Brown were also transmitting a live video feed to the control room through their helmet cameras.
The assault team arrived at the balcony projection and threw a grappling hook over the rail. The rope trailing from it had stirrups attached to it. Lambert tugged on it and the hook held fast. Just then a voice in Taylor’s ear said, “Someone came out a door onto the balcony. They have a gun!”
“Crystal! The guy on the balcony. Can you get him?”
“I see him,” she said sighting through her rifle scope. The figure looked down at the assault team and leveled his gun at them.
“Hurry, Crystal!”
“Shit!” She ripped off a shot.
POW!
The rail next to the man’s hand splintered. He was startled and looked toward Kansas in shock. She fired again.
POW!
This time the window frame next to the man’s head exploded. He quickly ducked back through the door.
“Damn it!” cursed McConnell.
“That’s okay. You did it, girl! He’s not a threat anymore, and the team has been alerted.”
Lambert made climbing to the balcony look easy. She must be a good triathlete, thought Taylor. Chief Brown, who was much bigger, struggled, but he made it. When there were only two men left to go, Taylor got another call.
“Armed men on the rail…three…no four…”
Taylor saw them. They were leveling rifles at his people on the balcony. He deci
ded there was no time for the finesse of sniping. Brute force was needed here. He aimed the heavy gun at the rail where the men were gathered.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
When he stopped there were no men at the rail. There was no rail either, just uneven broken posts like bloody teeth projecting from the deck. And there were bits of meat and a man’s severed arm impaled on them. The Browning had reduced the men to slabs of muscle, bone and gristle.
Someone on the command circuit whispered, “My God!” Violent death was a brutally shocking thing when it was in living color.
Taylor felt he needed to say something. “I didn’t want to do that, but they didn’t give me much choice.”
“We know,” replied Guerrero softly.
Now there was nothing for Taylor, McConnell and Tanaka to do but wait. Taylor could hear the voices of Lambert, Brown and Anderson, but he had no way to see the helmet cams.
Below in the control room, the crew was very tense. There were 59 people crammed into the small room. They watched Lambert’s helmet cam as she entered the ship. They had all expected resistance there, but the man who had tried to take a shot at them earlier had fled.
“Jesus, it stinks in here,” said Lambert.
“You can say that again,” said Chief Brown. “It smells like a cesspool in a slaughterhouse! How do they stand it?”
“Lights everybody,” said Lambert. They all switched on the halogen lights on their weapons and pointed them into the gloom extending down the passageway. When they turned the corner, they illuminated the grubby blinking faces of three crewmen with muskets and cutlasses. They were wearing muslin shirts and pants smudged with soot and tar. Their eyes went wide in surprise at the black clad intruders.
“Drop your weapons and get against the wall,” barked Chief Brown. The crewmen just stared in disbelief at what they were seeing. “Drop your weapons and against the wall! Now!” roared Brown and thrust his rifle at one for emphasis. The men threw down their weapons, got down on their knees, began speaking softly and crossed themselves. “Good enough,” said Brown as he stepped forward and kicked their weapons away from them and made them lay flat on their faces.
“Anybody have any guesses where they’re holding Castillo?” asked Anderson.
“The quickest way to find him,” said Lambert, “is to ask somebody.”
“Do you think they’ll tell you?”
“I’m not going to ask nicely,” said Lambert darkly.
“The officers are wearing red,” said Taylor into his headset. “One of them should know.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Chief Brown. “We’ll find one.” They proceeded down another passageway, made a turn and came face to face with an armed band of men. There were five men kneeling with rifles leveled and five standing behind them also with rifles leveled. They were backlit by the outside glare just beyond. A show of force. Lambert dove for the deck as the first one fired.
POW!
The bullet missed her, and Brown and Anderson both went prone and returned fire.
POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!
POW! POW! POW!
POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!
When the shooting stopped, the galleon crewmen all lay groaning and wounded. They had only gotten off four shots.
“Did anyone get hit?” shouted Lambert.
“I don’t think so,” said Brown looking around at everyone.
Lambert jumped up and ran to a big man in a red coat laying on the deck. She roughly grabbed him and screamed, “Where’s our captain?”
The man was wounded in his left leg and arm. He disdainfully snapped something at her.
“What’s that? Spanish?” asked Lambert.
“Yes,” replied Maria Guerrero in her ear. “He said something derogatory about your womanhood.”
“Let me ask him,” said Chief Brown, smiling evilly. “I know a little Spanish.” He walked up, knelt down so he was nose to nose and gripped the man’s injured arm and began to squeeze. The man grimaced, showing yellow teeth with black gaps in them. “Donde esta capitan?” growled Brown.
The man looked hatefully at Brown’s black face then spat on him. Brown stood up, wiped the spittle from his face then stomped down on the man’s injured left leg. The man roared in anguish and rolled away from Brown. Brown stepped forward and delivered a vicious blow to his stomach with the butt of his gun. The man gasped and turned the color of a dead mackerel.
Lambert turned her back on them. She didn’t have the stomach for this part. She heard blows landing and the man screaming, then silence.
When she turned back around, the man was pointing down the passageway with his good arm. He muttered something in Spanish.
Maria Guerrero translated. “Down the ladder and the room on the left.”
“You just have to ask the right way,” said Brown with satisfaction. He yanked the man forcefully to his feet and growled, “After you, pal!”
Brown forced the man to hobble down the hall and then descend the ladder with the Kansas team trailing. The ladder creaked and complained with every step of the heavy men.
When they reached the floor below, they saw two crewmen brandishing cutlasses, but the astonished crewmen quickly assessed the situation, laid down their weapons and knelt in surrender. Anderson stepped forward and forced them face down on the deck.
Chief Brown went to the door of the room and took the iron door grip and pulled, then pushed, but it was bolted from the inside. He could see the bolt across the crack between door and frame.
“We’re going to have to break this thing down.” Chief Brown, who had the build of a fullback, backed up and put his shoulder into the door, but the door held. Someone inside screamed something in Spanish.
Maria Guerrero translated over the comm net, “Someone just screamed, ‘If you come in, he dies’.”
Brown and Lambert exchanged concerned looks.
“What do we do?” asked Lambert.
“We don’t have much choice,” replied Brown. “We’ve got to go in. Maria, how do I say, ‘if he dies, you die’?”
Guerrero gave them a phrase to say and Brown bellowed it. He heard nothing in return. He turned to his team and said, “Okay, get ready to flood the room.”
Anderson said, “Come on, chief. Let’s hit this door together.”
They backed up against the wall on the other side of the passageway, took two strides and slammed the door hard. It burst open to reveal two men, one stripped to the waist, bloodied and tied to a chair and another bare chested man with a scar on his face standing over him with a cutlass. He raised the knife to strike, and Brown fired a burst.
POP!POP!POP!POP!
The man did a spastic dance, his mouth wide in a silent scream, then collapsed. Lambert ran to the bloodied man in the chair. “It’s Castillo!” He had wounds on his chest and there was a large pool of blood beneath him. His chin was on his chest and he was unresponsive.
“It looks like they used him for target practice,” said Brown.
Lambert picked up his head and looked at his waxy swollen face. “He looks terrible…but he’s alive.”
Their corpsman stepped forward and said, “Lay him down here so I can dress his wounds. I can’t do much for him here, but I can get him ready to move.” He expertly applied antibacterial ointment to Castillo’s wounds and dressed them. Then Brown and Anderson stood him up, and began walking him out, a man under each arm.
“You guys,” said Anderson, pointing to two team members. “Go make sure the path’s clear ahead.” They exited with rifles at the ready.
• • •
Norm Bloomberg sat in the tension-filled perspiration-laced atmosphere of Kansas’s control room watching the view from Lambert’s helmet cam on the big screen. He was wheezing. He needed his asthma inhaler, but he didn’t want to leave the room to go get it. He didn’t like what he was seeing. Something was wrong. Something about the men, the
old ship. He slowly and painfully hauled his bulk up out of his seat at the rear of the room and slowly limped to the command chair.
“Lieutenant Guerrero,” he said. “I have a request. It may be important.”
Guerrero turned her bespectacled face to him. She was tall, almost as tall as Taylor, and with a lantern jaw and light brown shoulder length hair. “Right now?”
“Yes. Have Lambert ask one of the galleon crew the date.”
“We’re a little busy right now, Mr. Bloomberg.”
“I know, but this may be important. I need to know what date these men believe it to be.”
Guerrero studied him and deliberated. Finally, she sniffed and said, “Miss Lambert, Mr. Bloomberg has a request.”
Guerrero relayed the request to Lambert, who was none too pleased with having to approach a skeletal foul-smelling galleon crewman and repeat the Spanish phrase to him: ¿qual es la fecha? and when he responded with day and month, Guerrero further prompted: ¿el año? When he answered, Guerrero was stunned.
“He says it’s July 28, 1588!”
Chapter 8
Lambert and Brown carefully supported Castillo and walked him up a ladder and down another ladder. They walked him past several galleon crewmen, but the men offered no resistance. They only stood and stared with gaunt hollow faces. Some of them crossed themselves as the black clad strangers moved warily by them with their strange rifles and lights.
• • •
“There are men on the stern,” warned McConnell as she sighted through her scope.
“Keep an eye on them but don’t shoot,” said Taylor. “I don’t think they’re a threat. They seem to be more curious than anything else.”
Fourteen galleon crewmen were standing along the stern and hanging out windows watching the assault team rigging a sling for Castillo. They lowered Castillo into the inflatable and transported him to Kansas. Once the inflatable was securely beached on the aft deck, they carefully lowered him through the access hatch in the deck.
Deadly Apparition Page 10
