Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series)

by Albert Correia

  “It will be my pleasure!”

  Zach stood by as patiently as he could while his father and the vessel’s captain talked but cut in when there was a lull in the conversation. “It sounds like the training is going to be top notch,” he said, “but what I meant was, why are we headed for The Isthmus instead of Avalon?”

  “Necessity,” said Kotchel. “The container ship apparently finished doing what it set out to do at Avalon. They left there and headed northwest. That can only mean The Isthmus.”

  “My son is there!” Stacey exclaimed.

  “I know.”

  “How long before we get there?” Zach asked.

  “About half an hour.”

  “Can we beat them there?” Stacey wanted to know.

  Kotchel looked her in the eye. “I don’t think so. The problem is that we don’t know exactly when they left Avalon. It could have been up to an hour ago, which means…”

  “Which means they may be near The Isthmus already.” She finished his sentence, and her voice dropped in her final words.

  They all looked ahead, straining to see their destination. The fog was thinning. Although they got glimpses of land at times, they never saw anything for more than a few seconds.

  The loud sounds of big guns going off brought total silence among those at the bow of the cutter. They still couldn’t see what was dead ahead, but there was no doubt that the sounds emanated from there.

  The Isthmus was under attack.

  Chapter 58

  THE modern-day pirates on the makeshift container-warship, fresh from demolishing the picturesque tourist town of Avalon, were having a marvelous time at The Isthmus. They had uncovered a stash of liquor in a ruined restaurant in Avalon that the ruffians who had previously taken over the town evidently overlooked.

  The pirates were depleting their newfound stash at a rapid clip. The alcohol magnified their already prevalent penchant to destroy. All three tanks and all the missile and rocket launchers pointed in the direction of the little settlement.

  They were just under two hundred yards offshore. Although they would have liked to move in closer to increase their chances of hitting their targets, the huge ship had a draft of almost forty feet, and they were as close as they could get.

  Because many of their targets were set lower than the deck level of the monster ship, all the weapons were near the bow. Ten men kneeled next to the tanks with small rocket launchers on their shoulders. Even in that normally stable stance, they tended to stagger. Nevertheless, they did get off shots between drinks. Most of their shots were hitting hills with nothing but plants.

  The men, staggering as they shot, were having a difficult time. The twenty men shooting missiles from the other side of the tanks weren’t doing much better. Having clear shots from the bow wasn’t much help at first, but that didn’t bother them. They were getting closer with each shot, and they seemed to believe they had unlimited ammo and time.

  The helicopter pilot was inside his craft. He still had four missiles loaded into the launchers attached to the sides, but he didn't need them for such a small job. He just drank and enjoyed the show.

  Although almost all the shooters’ first volley went wild, they did knock out one roof and started a small fire. The residents immediately went about putting out the small fires. Several shots went well wide of the buildings and traveled through the little “valley” between the two harbors, hitting and sinking two of the more than twenty boats anchored there. The hits were the results of bad aims, but those who fired the shots pointed proudly at their accomplishments. The sinking of the Bismarck in WWII probably engendered a less raucous outburst from their shipmates. They were having a great time.

  The pirates knew they would eventually kill everyone there, so they continued to drink and shoot. The captains of the ship, two ex-merchant mariners, watched from the ship’s bridge, which they called the wheelhouse. They did nothing to interfere with the men. Working with a crew such as theirs required patience. They, too, knew they had unlimited time and ammunition… and, virtually no opposition. The people on land had a voluntary “militia” of more than forty, but all they had were small arms, which were useless against the massive ship, tanks, rockets and missiles.

  The fog was lifting, and the pirate ship would have at least two hours of sunlight to accomplish their task. As bad as the shooters were, they would demolish the settlement in a quarter of that time.

  * * * * *

  After they heard the initial gunfire, the few minutes it took for the cutter to break through the last of the fog seemed like hours. Those aboard were in awe of the size of the container ship when it finally came into view.

  “That’s huge!” said Ron.

  Kotchel, who was looking at it through binoculars, said, “Well, it’s smaller than it might have been.”

  “Smaller? That’s got to be eight, nine hundred feet long.”

  “Over nine hundred I’d say. But some of the new ones are up to twelve hundred feet. At least now I have a better idea of exactly what we’re up against.”

  “You were right,” Stacey said. “It’s more than twice the size of the cutter. I bet it’s four times as big.”

  Kotchel shook his head. “I wish. Counting overall dimensions and weight, it’s twenty times our size.”

  They all took another look at it.

  “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” said Glen Arthur.

  “Think so?” asked the captain

  At that moment, the improvised warship was setting off another volley of tank, missile, and rocket fire.

  “I can hit it easily with one of those super bazookas,” Arthur said.

  The captain didn’t hesitate. “Do it!”

  Moving with a speed that belied his age, Zach's father picked up the bazooka he looked at earlier. A nearby crewmember overhead the two men and grabbed a rocket shell. As the senior Arthur aimed, the crewman loaded the shell and a few seconds later, it was on its way.

  At the same time, the cutter sounded its siren in an attempt to create confusion.

  Moments later, they could see an explosion half way up in the container ship’s superstructure, which was located in the middle of the vessel. The explosion looked small from a distance, but they knew it had done some damage.

  And it got the attention of the big ship. All the guns on the container-warship stopped firing.

  The blast knocked the two ex-merchant mariners down. While it didn’t do any damage to the bridge itself, it shook the whole superstructure. The two got off the floor looking quizzically at one another. “What the heck was that, Hank?” said one.

  The other looked out the back window. “Looks like there’s a ship coming toward us, and that sounds like a Coast Guard siren.”

  “Coast Guard ships aren’t armed like that,” the first one snapped.

  “Neither are container ships, Joe,” his partner reminded him. He picked up a pair of binoculars and studied the other ship. “It’s not very big. I’m going to turn our ship around and we’ll hit it with everything we have. We’ll sink it in ten minutes. I’ll go down and tell Marty to get the helicopter ready. Once we’re turned around, he can go over and disable it while we get in close. Then we’ll finish the job.”

  Before Hank could leave, they felt another jolt. This hit was aft and far away from the superstructure. They could barely feel it there, and had no idea an armor-piercing shell had penetrated their stern below the water line. Hank shrugged. “Not sure what that was, but it couldn’t have done much damage.”

  As he started down the outside steps leading to the deck, several of the gunners were starting up. “We’ve got it under control,” Hank called down to them. “Get back to your posts. I’m going to turn around and get close in so you can have fun knocking out a pipsqueak military wanna be ship. Then we’ll come back and finish off those dudes on land.”

  The gunners went back to their weapons and their drinks. Hank continued down to the deck and over to the helicopter. After
he talked to the pilot, he went back up to the bridge and started the slow process of turning the huge ship around.

  The war had been good to him. He finally had the power he always knew he deserved. Those petty military jerks who always looked down on him would soon get a taste of that power. He was about to send them to the bottom of the sea.

  Chapter 59

  AS THE big ship turned, the senior Arthur hit its stern with a rocket – a hit those in the bridge barely felt. Then, while it was still turning, he shot three more times at the starboard side. He aimed all the shots below the water line. He saw splashes after each shot and was confident they were all hits. The shells were powerful enough to penetrate thick metal, but there was no way of knowing how much damage the big ship suffered.

  By the time the ship turned around and headed toward the cutter, the Coast Guard ship had closed in, and the two were no more than a half mile apart.

  Captain Kotchel heard how poor the marksmanship of the thugs aboard the cargo ship was… an advantage they needed to exploit. “Those guys couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn at this distance,” he told the crew, “so they’re planning on getting in close. We can beat them if we knock out their guns before they get so near they can’t miss. That’s your mission. Don’t hold anything back.”

  “Okay,” said Glen, “but first I’m going to put a shell into either side of that wide bow of theirs.” He got off the two shots, and they saw water splash in front of the big ship, first on its starboard side, and then on its port side. He then raised the super bazooka and concentrated on the tanks.

  There hadn’t been time enough for the Coastguardsmen to train extensively, but they knew how to aim and shoot. There were people on all the weapons, including the four men and three women connected to the La Sirena. Ron was in charge of a missile pod, and Zach and George had handheld rocket launchers similar to the one Zach’s father was using. Stacey and Denise had their AK-47s. They were still too far away for the assault weapons to be lethal, but the container ship was getting closer. Mae looked doubtfully at her shotgun, set it aside, and picked up Zach’s AK-47. That was better.

  Glen took out a tank right away, and he saw that the man next to him destroyed a missile launcher. He looked over to congratulate the shooter, and realized it was Zach. “I guess that Ranger training took,” he said, smiling broadly at his son.

  “Just a chip off the old block, Dad!”

  Not long after that, they saw two more missile launchers go down. With each hit, they saw men on the big ship fall. At least six men with rocket launchers were out of action.

  Although the shooters on the big ship were as bad as Captain Kotchel said they were, there were so many of them, and they had so much ammunition, they couldn’t miss every time.

  One small missile tore a large hole in the cutter’s bow on the starboard side, just under the deck. It knocked some men down temporarily, but in seconds they were up and firing again. The radar acquisition antennae on top of the superstructure was blasted away.

  Four more missile launchers and six more men with rocket launchers on the larger ship went down. Individually, the people on the cutter were doing far more damage than their counterparts on the container vessel. The odds were going down but still favored the bigger adversary. It still had two functioning tanks and more than a dozen missile and rocket launchers.

  More importantly, they had the helicopter, which lifted off in the midst of the battle. By itself, it could wipe out all of the shooters on the deck of the cutter before they could kill any more of the pirates. It headed straight for the cutter’s bow, where all the combatants stood.

  Ron was the first to see it coming straight at them. He saw that the craft’s missile pods on one side were loaded and ready to fire. He only hoped the pilot would wait until he was close enough to be sure of his shots. Ron was trained for this, and he acted quickly.

  Calculating the speed and altitude of the helicopter, he zeroed in on it in a matter of seconds. Just before the helicopter pilot was ready to fire, four missiles came flying at him.

  Three hit his helicopter. They didn’t down the craft immediately, but tore away one side and set it on fire. It zigzagged out of control but kept heading toward the cutter. Then it lifted, dropped, and turned around and around. With one side completely open, they could see the pilot when the craft was above them. He was alive and looked wild-eyed at them as the flame-infested whirlybird bucked by. Flames licked at him from every side. Just past the cutter, the copter bucked one last time, then exploded.

  The explosion fired off the craft’s missiles. Three shot harmlessly into the water, but a fourth hit one of the cutter’s propellers, shattering it. A piece of that prop shot across and hit the shaft of the other, bending it and rendering that prop useless, as well.

  With both props out of action, there was nothing to propel the ship. It slowed to a halt, still heading in the direction of the container vessel.

  * * * * *

  The men at the controls of the big ship watched in dismay as the helicopter, their most fearsome weapon, went down. Angered, Hank went out and called down to the men below. “Knock them out, you fools! Kill them all!”

  When he went back in, Joe was clicking off from an intra-ship call. “That was the engine room. We’re taking on water.”

  “That idiot! Tell him to stop wasting time and close off the leaky compartment!” Hank shot back. “It’s watertight, so it’s no big deal if it takes on a little water.”

  “That’s just it. He did close it off, but there’s water flooding into the next one, too.”

  “That’s the problem with taking guys off the docks like we did; you end up with a bunch of incompetents. Watch the controls, and continue heading right at that cutter so we can get close enough for our guys to actually hit something. I’m going below to straighten out this flooding situation.”

  While he was gone, another tank and ten missile launchers were destroyed by fire from the cutter. Now, they were not only taking missile and rocket fire, but there was small arms fire coming from the cutter, too. The bullets were finding targets. Two more men were killed, and the others were looking for places to hide. More than forty men were already down.

  When Hank rushed back up the steps to the bridge, there was a look of panic on his face.

  “What’s the situation?” Joe asked.

  “There’s flooding forward, aft, and everywhere in between.” Hank groaned and slumped into a chair. “Those rats hit us below the water line five or six times.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re sinking, you fool. We need to finish off that ship and get to shore.”

  “Finish them off? Did you see the mess down there?”

  Hank went over to look at the foredeck. There were almost no missile or rocket launchers still operational, and the single tank that was operational was stuck behind the two that were knocked out. They were turned sideways, pushing the one good tank to the side of the bow. The inoperable tanks were so close to the bow, there was no room for the functional tank to get around them for a clear shot at the cutter.

  “Push them over,” Hank screamed down at the men.

  “There are men inside,” one of the men holding a rocket launcher called back.

  “This is war. Push them over now. That’s an order!”

  The man jumped up on the tank and relayed the order. The tank driver opened the hatch, stood, and looked up.

  “Push them over if you want to get out of this alive!” screamed Hank.

  The man didn’t argue. He stayed where he was, his head above the top of the tank so that he had a clear view of all around him. He moved his tank forward, pushing one disabled tank ahead of it. A minute later, the wrecked tank toppled off the deck. It bounced off the bow hull twice as the boat moved ahead, then hit near the ship’s bottom one more time as it sunk into the sea.

  Just as the driver started to slide into the tank to stop it, a bullet from the cutter hit him in the ne
ck, and he slumped over. The tank continued on, going over the side and replicated the previous tank’s voyage to the bottom of the sea.

  Getting close was no longer a plus for the container ship. Well over ninety percent of their firepower and most of their men were gone. The closer they got, the more hits the gunners on the Coast Guard ship were registering.

  There was no place for the pirates to go. The ship was slowly sinking, and the few gunmen left were being killed at a rapid pace.

  “They’ve beaten us,” said Joe.

  “No they haven’t,” argued Hank.

  “We have no more weapons.”

  “Oh yes, we do,” growled Hank. “We’ve got the biggest weapon left in the world.”

  “You mean…?”

  “I’m going to run that dinky little boat down. I’m going to crush it. As of this minute, they’re all dead!”

  * * * * *

  “We licked them,” said Denise.

  The Coast Guard crew and those from the La Sirena were standing at the cutter’s bow, watching the container ship approach. There was no gunfire coming from the big ship.

  “We outfought them,” Kotchel agreed, but shook his head. “It doesn’t look like they’re licked, though. They’re headed right at us.”

  “I punched half a dozen holes it its bottom,” Glen Arthur said. “Why isn’t it sinking?”

  “I’m sure it is,” the captain told him, “but a ship that size has multiple holds. It could take hours for it to go under.”

  “And, we’re dead in the water,” George moaned. He looked anxiously at the captain, hoping to hear he was wrong.

  The look on Captain Kotchel’s face did nothing to sooth George’s fears. “I don’t like your terminology,” he said, but I can’t quarrel with the reality of it. We can’t get out of their way and, in a few minutes, they’ll crush this ship like it was a sardine can.”

  “How much time?” asked Zach.

  “Three minutes at most.”

  “Not near enough time to lower the life boats and get away,” Zach reasoned.

  “No,” sighed the captain sighed. “There will barely be time enough for each of us to have one last word with whoever we consider our maker.”