Primary Target

49

Jackie watched a man jump into the yacht’s wake, then bob up and flail the surface of the water as he disappeared under the belly of the helicopter. Unsure if it was Scott, she made a tight, spiraling descent and buzzed the man. Stricken with panic, the deckhand was churning the water in a desperate attempt to keep from drowning.

Jackie pulled up and glanced at the aircraft carrier in Mayport Basin. Hurry, Scott. Take control of the yacht. She gazed at the channel leading to Kennedy. If the yacht maintained her present course and speed, she would enter the channel near the shoreline in approximately five minutes.

“Jax approach,” she radioed. “LongRanger Three-Niner-Five Tango has been hit by gunfire, but I’m going to stay close to the yacht.”

“Niner-Five Tango,” an excited voice said, “we have help on the way!”

Jackie scanned the water in every direction. “I don’t see anything that’s going to be able to stop the yacht.”

A calmer voice broke in. “There are two armed F/A-18s that have been recalled from a training mission. They’ve been ordered to sink the yacht.”

“Oh, my God,” Jackie said to herself, then took a breath and keyed the radio. “On whose orders?”

“The Pentagon, ma’am,” the controller answered in a pleasant voice. “From what we understand, it came straight from the secretary of defense.”

Taking time to compose herself, Jackie spoke slowly and clearly. “We have a friendly on the yacht. Repeat, we have a friendly operative on the yacht. Do not fire on the yacht until he’s clear. Do not fire on the yacht. Copy?”

“Stand by.”

“Let me speak to management.”

“Stand by.”

Jackie darted another look at the carrier and commenced a shallow descent toward the yacht. She estimated four minutes until the yacht entered the channel. Come on, Scott. You don’t have much time.

A hail of gunfire rang out as Dalton leaped sideways into the stateroom and slammed the door. He drew the Glock from the small of his back and made an educated guess as to where Ramazani was standing in the passageway.

“Well,” Scott said loudly, “I guess you win.”

“I always do.”

The terrorist leader sounded as if he was in front of the entrance to the stateroom. Scott fired three rounds through the thin wooden door and heard a clatter as Ramazani’s rifle hit the deck.

Scott kicked the splintered door open and caught a glancing blow as Ramazani swung the rifle upward. Dalton grabbed both ends of the weapon and slammed the terrorist against a bulkhead. Although Ramazani was bleeding from a stomach wound, he fought back with brutal ferocity.

Calling on all the strength he had, Scott threw the terrorist into the opposite bulkhead, then caught him with a vicious uppercut. The blow fractured Ramazani’s jaw and rendered him semiconscious.

Nose to nose, Scott held him against the bulkhead. “I think this cruise is about over, don’t you?”

Ramazani mumbled a few incoherent words as Dalton released his grip on him. When the terrorist leader slid to the deck, Scott grabbed the AK-47 and rushed into the master stateroom to get a fresh magazine. After checking the passageway for other crew members, Scott stepped over Ramazani and headed for the aft ladder leading to the sun-deck.

“Jax approach,” Jackie said, then fell silent when she saw Scott climbing the ladder leading to the sundeck and bridge. Thank God.

“Who’s calling approach?”

With a sense of relief, she aimed the helo toward the yacht. I have to get him off the yacht.

“Jax approach,” she said mechanically. “Niner-Five Tango has the agent in sight. I’m going in to pick him up.”

“Negative! Negative!”

Jackie ignored the controller and started her approach to the sundeck. The yacht appeared to be riding lower in the water. It looks like we ‘re down to about three minutes.

“We have two fighters closing from eighteen miles,” the controller exclaimed. “They’re supersonic and cleared to fire on the target.”

“Dammit!” Jackie radioed in a flash of anger. “Listen up! There’s an American agent onboard! He works directly for the national security adviser! Do not open fire on the yacht until the agent is clear!”

“Ma’am, we don’t give the orders. We just pass ’em along.”

Jackie concentrated on leveling off thirty yards behind the yacht. “Well, pass this along to the fighter pilots. The operative is a former naval aviator — a Marine Harrier pilot.”

Reaching the sundeck, Scott crouched behind an inflatable dinghy as the first mate fired a burst at him, then ducked into the pilothouse. Dalton waved Jackie away and fired a few rounds through the door to the bridge. A moment later the first mate stumbled out on the sundeck and fell to his hands and knees. Bleeding from wounds in his chest and neck, he crawled forward a few feet and collapsed facedown on the deck.

Scott was about to rush the pilothouse when something clamped around his ankle.

Lieutenant Commander Carl Zukowski keyed his radio. “Easing the power, easing the power,” he said to his wingman, Lieutenant Alan Swindell.

“Stand by the boards… boards,” Zukowski said as the pilots “popped” the speedbrake to rapidly decelerate as they approached the yacht.

“We’ll get a visual ID,” Zukowski radioed in a laid-back voice, “then set up for a firing pass.”

“Ah, roger.”

“Wildcat Four-Fourteen,” the Jax approach controller said to Zukowski, “be advised that a government agent is onboard the yacht. A civilian helo is in the process of picking him up.”

“Copy,” Zukowski said as he searched for the yacht and the helicopter. “Tell ’em to hurry ‘cause we’re runnin’ outta gas.”

“I’ll pass that along.” The controller paused a moment. “By the way, the agent on the yacht is a former Marine pilot.”

Swindell glanced at his flight leader’s plane, then keyed his radio. “That won’t be any loss.”

Startled by the unexpected attack, Scott lashed out at Ramazani as the terrorist stabbed him in the lower leg with a six-inch Kalashnikov bayonet. Swinging the rifle with both hands, Scott mashed Ramazani’s face flat, breaking his nose. The stunned man fell off the ladder and landed headfirst on the wide transom, snapping his neck. Although Ramazani was still alive, he could not do any more damage.

Grimacing from the searing pain in his leg, Scott yanked the blade out of his calf, then heard a familiar sound above the beat of the LongRanger’s rotor blades. He looked up to see two Hornets screeching low over the water in tight formation. Uh-oh, it’s time to checkout.

Scott turned and looked toward the Mayport Naval Station. The Kennedy was a tempting target and the speeding yacht was turning into the channel. We’re going to hit the boat in about two minutes.

Struggling to his feet, Scott again waved Jackie away and limped toward the pilothouse. Firing short bursts through the open door and the aft bulkhead, he was halfway to the entrance when the captain suddenly opened fire.

Jackie watched in horror as Scott dropped to the deck and returned fire. A man in a blood-soaked shirt stumbled onto the sundeck, then staggered backward in a series of spasmodic jerks. His legs crumbled under him as he dropped his AK-47, then fell against the wheelhouse and tumbled head over heels into the water.

She looked up to see the two Hornets rolling in for a firing pass. “Jax approach,” she frantically radioed, “tell them not to fire! The agent has gained access to the bridge! He’s in command of the yacht!”

“Wildcat One is rolling in hot,” Carl Zukowski radioed, then talked to his wingman. “Alan, hold your fire on this run. I’m going to shave the bow off and hope our Marine friend is bright enough to jump ship.”

“Copy,” Swindell replied. “I’m in cold.”

“Jax approach,” Zukowski said. “Wildcat One and Two are running on fumes — we gotta have answers.”

A long pause followed.

“Wildcat Four-Fourteen,” a deep voice said with the sound of authority, “your orders are to sink the yacht… at all costs. Do you copy?”

“Oh yeah, we copy,” Zukowski said as he and his wingman mentally prepared to eject from their Hornets.

Scott was approaching the pilothouse when—buuuurrrrrpp—the bow of the yacht exploded in a hail of twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon fire. Able to fire 6,000 rounds per minute, the Hornet’s six-barreled rotary cannon literally sawed off four feet of the bow. With the front of the yacht open to the sea and the powerful diesel engines churning at full throttle, Sweet Life was rapidly filling with water.

Time to punch out. Cringing from pain, Scott limped out to the edge of the sundeck and dove over the side. He quickly surfaced and frantically swam away from the thrashing screws.

Jackie saw Scott surface and immediately began slowing and descending toward him. “He’s jumped overboard — he’s safe!” she radioed. “The agent is clear of the yacht!”

“He’s off the boat and well clear,” Zukowski reported to Jax approach, then added, “the helo is closing on him.”

“Great,” the deep-voiced controller said with obvious relief. “The word is sink the ship — ASAP.”

“We’re workin’ on it,” Zukowski radioed, then talked to Swindell. “Alan, I’m going to work on the bow. You take the stern.”

“You got it, boss.”

Maneuvering the helicopter closer to Scott, Jackie skillfully brought the LongRanger to a hover near him. She would have to be extremely careful about lifting Scott out of the water.

The powerful rotor-blade downwash whipped the surface of the water into a frothy gale, sending sheets of spray in every direction as she moved closer to Scott. With absolute concentration, she lowered the landing skids into the water, then gasped.

Two large sharks were approaching Scott from his right side. Unable to remove her hands from the controls to point at the danger, she pulled up a couple of feet and hovered toward the sharks. Once she was in position, Jackie eased the LongRanger down until the belly was almost in the water.

Treading water and turning to keep Jackie in sight, Scott was stunned when he saw the dorsal fins. He faced the sharks and saw the fins disappear. I’m bleeding like a butchered hog.

Quelling his rising panic, he pulled his knees up to his chest and waited for Jackie to move toward him. With surprising power, something slammed into Scott’s lower back, then veered away. Oh, shit — this isn’t good.

Reaching for the landing skid, he saw a shark coming straight at him. Using both legs, Scott viciously kicked the predator in the snout, then threw his good leg over the skid and grabbed the brace aft of the pilot’s door. He pulled himself up and straddled the skid.

As Jackie was lifting the helo out of the water, Scott saw the two Hornets pulverize the yacht with deadly streams of cannon fire. When the pilots pulled up from their firing run, the 126-foot Broward was twelve feet shorter and rapidly turning into a submarine.

While Jackie flew toward Atlantic Beach at low altitude, Scott maintained a death grip on the brace protruding from the fuselage. He watched the yacht as it neared the slight dogleg channel leading to Mayport Basin and the Kennedy. One of the yacht’s engines was still thrashing the water into foam, but only the sundeck and the bridge were visible.

The Hornets came in for a third pass, then split when Alan Swindell’s F/A-18 flamed out. While the flight leader headed straight for Runway 31 at Jacksonville International, his wingman pointed his lifeless Hornet out to sea and waited until the last second to eject.

Sweet Life slowly came to rest at the entrance to the basin and sank in approximately forty feet of water.

Waiting until the helo slowed to a hover over a crowded stretch of beach, Scott dropped five feet to the sand. Jackie moved off to the side and gently lowered the landing skids onto the beach, then motioned Scott to get in. He hobbled around the front of the LongRanger and climbed into the left seat.

Scott’s eyes reflected his pain and fatigue. “Take off and fly straight south as fast as you can,” he gasped as he buckled his straps.

She gave him a quizzical look. “What’s wrong?”

“Go! The bomb is on the yacht, and I think it’s set to go off at any moment. Let’s get outta here!”

For a shocked instant Jackie stared toward the naval station, then applied power to lift off. At the same moment they saw a huge geyser of water shoot hundreds of feet into the air above the entrance to the naval basin. A visible shock wave preceded a blossoming mushroom cloud as the helicopter lifted off the beach.

With the LongRanger barely four feet in the air, the passage of the shock wave slammed the helicopter into the sand with such force that it ripped one of the main rotor blades off and collapsed the slender boom leading to the tail-rotor pylon. The remaining rotor blade thrashed the beach, flipping the battered helo onto its side and sending the crowd running for cover.

When they crawled from the wreckage, Scott and Jackie sat up and stared in disbelief. A low, rolling cloud of debris obscured everything in the direction of the naval base except for one thing; the mast of the carrier Kennedy. The nuclear explosion, for the most part, had been diminished by the depth of the water in the channel. The sinking of the yacht had saved thousands of lives.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked as he spit sand and blood out of his mouth.

“I think so,” she replied, dazed by the crash. She glanced at a handful of shocked beachgoers running toward them. Actually, the people were running at an odd angle, staring at the mushroom cloud with wide-open eyes.

“Well,” Scott began sadly, his spirits nearly flattened, “I sure as hell mucked that up.”

“The end result is what counts,” Jackie insisted, then looked at his bleeding leg. “I need to get you to a hospital.”

“What we need,” Scott suggested with a rueful grin, “is a nice, quiet vacation in St. Thomas.”

Jackie looked sideways at him and nodded. “As a matter of fact, you do owe me a ride on a sailboat.”

Maritza Gunzelman and Greg O’Donnell were visiting in his room when the familiar bright red logo appeared on the television. They fell silent when the surprised anchorwoman turned to the camera.

“This just in to CNN,” she said briskly. “We are receiving initial reports that Air Force One has crashed. Again, our sources are reporting that Air Force One has crashed north of Springfield, Illinois.”

She paused a long moment and looked away, then turned back to the camera. “It is believed — we’re getting unconfirmed reports — that President Macklin was onboard at the time the plane went down. These are unconfirmed reports. It is not known what caused the crash… wait, I’m getting an update.”

A stunned look crossed her face. “We have another breaking story just into our newsroom — this from the Associated Press. A nuclear explosion has taken place at the Mayport Naval Station near Jacksonville, Florida. Initial reports indicate that a nuclear bomb may have exploded aboard the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. We are receiving conflicting reports about the accident. Our sources are saying that casualties may be very high.”

Greg lowered the volume on the television and turned to Maritza. Both were shocked and horrified.

“I hope Jackie and Scott aren’t involved in any of this,” Maritza said with a distant look in her eyes.

“So do I,” Greg replied in a tight voice. “The sponsors of terrorism have grossly miscalculated this time.”

“God, if the president is dead…” Maritza trailed off and closed her eyes. “It’s time to destroy the cowards, eradicate them like a swarm of locusts.”

A stir was created in the hallway as word of the horrifying news spread throughout the hospital.