Patriot

CHAPTER 75

What happened?”

That’s what Fat said, running as fast as he could away from the oil dump, trying to keep up with Stoke.

“Nothing happened, that’s what happened,” Stoke said, looking back over his shoulder at all the oil cans still stacked up beside the warehouse.

“Bad fuse,” Fat said as they turned the corner and ran smack-dab into mass confusion. “It happens.”

“I guess,” Stoke said, shocked at what he saw. “What the hell?”

Redcoat and Bluecoat squads, still waiting for an explosion to signal their advance and the attendant diversion on the rear side of the three-story building, were pinned down by superior numbers. Blackshirts were guarding the wide stone staircase leading up to the second story of the warehouse. Sniper fire was coming from windows overlooking the little plaza. Nobody pinned by the withering fire could get off a shot.

Stoke immediately raced up the stairs of the empty building. He and Fat had both cover up on the second floor, and the angle on the blackshirts firing from windows in the building across the alley. Fat immediately dropped one with a head shot while Stoke heaved a few grenades through the windows to take out whoever the hell remained undead among the snipers up there.

He and Fat ducked back behind their cover and got on the radio. Bravo wanted to know what the hell had happened to their diversion.

“Bad fuse, Bravo One. No time to worry. We’ll just have to gut it out, Raiders. I’ve got a satchel full of grenades. Fat and I will pull the pins and toss them at the troops down on the steps. We’re under nine minutes — we gotta get something going, damn it!”

At that very moment, an old Russian-made jeep, painted jungle camo, came roaring around a corner on two squealing wheels. It got straightened out and barreled into the heart of the square. At the wheel was Harry Brock, driving like a madman on steroids. And, in the rear, manning a smoking .50 cal., was none other than the Gator himself. The gun barrel was red hot and getting hotter as Luttier whirled around unleashing a hail of lead in every direction…

It was a sight for sore eyes, and it was all the troops needed to rally.

With a loud “Hoo-ah!” Raiders exploded up out of their cover and started racing toward the phalanx of stunned blackshirts now being shredded on the steps under Gator’s withering .50-cal. fire and Stoke’s grenades. The man was a blur, swiveling his smoking barrel through 360 degrees and back around again.

The roar of cheers from the attacking Raiders rose in volume and scope, reaching a crescendo that rose above the square and seemed to hang in space.

“What the hell’s all that noise about, Fat?” Stoke said.

“Let’s go!” Saunders responded and lit out down the stairs.

The two of them ran out into the square just in time to see another miracle in progress.

“Holy shit, Fat! Will you look at Harry!”

It was Harry. And there was no stopping him now.

He plowed that jeep right through all the guards firing at him from the bottom steps. Bodies went flying as the jeep reached the bottom of the wide stone staircase leading up to the second floor. That was where the warehouse full of Firewater was located. Somehow, they had to get inside and check on the Semtex charges that 12-Gauge had strung all over the place earlier. They would destroy the rest of the cache when this was over.

This was the moment when this battle would be won or lost, and everyone knew it.

But the thing was, Harry’s jeep didn’t stop at the foot of the steps. He just downshifted to second gear, floored the accelerator, and kept on going. He drove that damn jeep straight up the steps! “Hold on, Gator!” Stoke heard Harry yell, and he saw that boy holding on to that hot fifty for dear life as the jeep bounced and careened upward until it reached the top. And then blasted forward, splintering the double wooden doors before disappearing inside the cavernous warehouse.

12-Gauge had used Hawke’s idea of creating gaping holes in the floors of all three warehouses for the huge vodka runoff. Stoke had been told it seemed to be working. Now he’d see if it was.

Stokely and his Raiders had the Big Mo now.

The raiders were hopping and popping all over the square now, preparing for one last surge that would take them inside the target. Two guys in Bravo were fighting for their lives, being attended to by medical corpsmen away from the skirmish. And the Americans were still taking casualties when the tide of battle shifted permanently. It was the Harry Brock Show once more.

His battered jeep reappeared. Only this time Harry and his wingman, Gator, were going in the opposite direction. They came out flying at full speed, exploding out of that blasted-out building and going airborne before landing with a bang and bouncing and skidding down the rest of the steps. Gator was still hanging on, still shooting when they came out, and Harry was still driving but just barely.

He had it, though. He had Hawke’s heavy wooden case of Feuerwasser balanced on his lap. It was interfering with his steering a little bit. But once Harry managed to crash-land the machine back down on solid ground, well, there was just no stopping him.

Brock braked hard, which sent Gator pitching forward, almost over the windshield, but then Harry put the big black wheel hard over, and somehow, maybe God knows how, still managed to keep both Hawke’s special reserve Feuerwasser and the kid named Gator from going overboard.

And then Harry and Gator disappeared gone-baby-gone down a twisting narrow side street that led, Stoke knew, directly back to the boat ramp where the two minisubs were waiting to ferry them all home safely to Mother.

It was time to go.

The Raiders melted away into the jungle and toward the docks.

But not before one man slipped through the chaos on the steps and disappeared inside the warehouse to set the timers. The Semtex charges were all in place, set a little earlier by 12-Gauge and his guys. Harry and Gator had made sure they were all set to blow.

It was only fitting that Stoke be the last man out, the one to finally bring down the house.

“Boom!” he said to himself as he slipped away.

“All ahead flank speed,” Hawke said.

He’d relinquished the conn to the boat’s skipper during the recovery of Stoke’s Raiders. He wanted to welcome the men back aboard. There were casualties, of course. Four of them had not come back alive. Harry’d been hurt, and Stoke had a bullet in his shoulder. They were bloodied, but unbowed; and they had accomplished their mission. The entire harbor was a smoking ruin. There’d be no more sabotage attacks on America’s coastal cities now, not from Isla de Pinos at any rate.

Vladimir Putin knew who the enemy was by now. News of Hawke’s naval attack had surely made its way to the Kremlin. He’d know Alex Hawke was coming for him. The two men had old scores to settle. And though fate would play a hand, the Englishman was nursing hopes of final victory. He felt Putin might have overplayed his hand in the global game. And that, maybe, all was not what it seemed in this conflict…

The big black warship was finally under way once more; headed for the harbor mouth and open sea beyond. Only one thing stood in her way: a Russian missile frigate armed to the teeth that wanted to sink her.

The Russian skipper had positioned his vessel so that it now lay stationary. It blocked the narrow harbor opening. This clever maneuver put Hawke in a nautical box. Go to port and present a very broad target? Or go starboard and present an equally broad profile? He found himself at a distinct disadvantage before the naval battle had even started.

But Hawke on the bridge was a picture of quiet confidence as they sailed into the thick of it. He was, as many said of him, simply good at war. And moments like the one approaching were what he lived for. His father had drilled a sentence from Kipling into his young head: “If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs… yours is the earth, my son, and — which is more — you’ll be a man, my son!”

“Hard a’starboard, all ahead flank,” he said quietly to the helmsman.

“Hard starboard, all ahead flank, aye,” came the somewhat nervous reply.

Hawke could read the helmsman’s mind, betrayed by his eyes and furrowed brow. Intuition was telling the helmsman that something terrible would happen if they maintained the new heading and — the speaker crackled.

“Helm, Fire Control, enemy vessel now with two missiles locked on, preparing to launch.”

Hawke thumbed the radio, only the protrusion of tendons on the back of his hand betraying the tension now everywhere on the bridge.

“Fire Control, Hawke, you on this?”

“Aye-aye, sir. Turrets one and four,” the fire control officer said.

The speaker squawked again.

“Missile batteries amidships enemy vessel now preparing to launch… suggest AMMS activation to preempt, over, sir.”

“AMMS, aye, Fire Control.” AMMS was the ship’s advanced antimissile missile system. Blackhawke’s defensive systems were designed to impact enemy missiles at their slowest point, just when they were leaving the tube. This caused maximum destruction to the enemy.

“Fire Control, five seconds to enemy launch… and… AMMs away!”

All eyes on the bridge were locked onto the two Blackhawke missiles streaking toward the incoming fire.

“Uh, Helm, Fire Control… one direct hit… and… second AMM missed the target… enemy missile still incoming!”

Hawke instantly dropped his radio and grabbed the helm, spinning the wheel hard to port. The ship instantly heeled sharply as the boat veered away to a new course. The incoming fire must have missed by a matter of inches. The fierce explosion upon impact with the sea drenched the aft gun crews with a towering tsunami of seawater.

“Helm, come back to course six-zero-six,” Hawke said. “Steer her right down that bastard’s throat…”

“Six-zero-six, aye-aye, sir!”

There was a pervasive attitude of disbelief among those on the bridge that night. Hawke was taking the boat on a collision course… did he intend to ram the Russian frigate?

He did not.

Blackhawke surged ahead through the oncoming waves as her twin gas turbines spooled up, delivering power to the four enormous bronze screws churning beneath the stern. Her course seemed intended to take her right into the teeth of the enemy guns. No matter what happened, the Russians on her bridge would have precious little time to avoid this sudden and deliberate incursion into their space…

At the last possible moment, Hawke said, “Helm, hard to starboard. Put her damn lee rail down… and… Fire Control, launch port-side JDAM… Now!”

JDAM, Joint Direct Attack Munition, was the most powerful antiship missile in existence. Two can take out any aircraft carrier afloat. The very idea that such an innocent-looking vessel could even conceivably be armed with such a weapon would be incomprehensible to Hawke’s counterpart on the opposing bridge. Still, life was full of surprises, as Hawke intended to remind the Russian captain.

“Fire Control, status?” Hawke said.

“Initiating prelaunch checklist… weapon powered up… autotrack engaged… master arm is hot… weapon status go, sir.”

“Then go!” Hawke said. “Fire!”

The fish was away.

Hawke’s stony blue eyes watched it close the gap between the ships… there was a cra-a-a-ck… men turned away from the blinding sight.

The explosion was nothing short of massive. A blinding, searing flash of white that quickly burned into geysers of yellow, orange, and red climbing skyward out of swirling clouds of blackest smoke.

And when it cleared, a cheer went up on the bridge and from one end of the ship to the other. The missile had literally blown the Russian ship in two, its back broken, blown apart. The two halves, engulfed in flame, were still afloat, canted at odd angles as masses of crewmen could be seen leaping from the rails and desperately trying to outswim the pools of burning oil spreading rapidly on the surface around the doomed vessel.

Hawke said, “Helm, set a course for NAS Key West, would you please? All ahead flank. I’m going below to grab a catnap. Could somebody wake me when we’re about an hour out? Thank you.”

And with that he retired from the bridge that had recently seen such intense action. The skipper headed for the owner’s stateroom; he was keenly anticipating reconnecting with his favorite goose down pillow.

To the victor go the spoils, after all.