Sea Of Terror

Chapter 8

"Good morning, everyone," Captain Jorgenson said as he walked onto the bridge, pipe in his teeth, a heavy mug of strong coffee in his hand. As long as he'd lived in Great Britain, he'd never gotten the hang of their mimsy preference for tea. Jorgenson had been drinking coffee, good strong coffee, since he was twelve. "What's our status?"

"Good morning, Captain," Dunsmore replied, rising from the high captain's seat behind the helm and stepping aside. "We lost the Campbeltown four hours ago. It's just us and the Is She now."

Jorgenson quirked an eyebrow at Dunsmore's use of the IshikarVs popular nickname. Most of the English speakers in the crew, Jorgenson knew, had taken to calling the Japanese vessel the Is She or, more formally, the Is She? Ain't She? It was a harmless and typical bit of merchant marine humor. Jorgenson preferred a higher standard of propriety on his bridge, however.

Perhaps Dunsmore caught a taste of Jorgenson's displeasure. Standing with his hands stiffly at his back, he cleared his throat. "Sir. The Ishikari is currently eight hundred yards off our starboard bow. We are on course, on time, on a heading of two-three-five degrees true, speed twelve knots. Winds are blowing a fresh breeze from the southwest at twenty knots."

"Very well, Number One." Jorgenson walked over to the radar console, where a seaman stood watch at the large, round screen. Like an air traffic control radar, it showed the targets within range each accompanied by a six-character alphanumeric code returned by transponders on board the targets. The display currently was set to show radar contacts out to a range of twenty miles. Ishikari, C7D34K, was the only other target.

"Let's see out to two hundred," he said.

The radar operator touched a control, and the display changed, suddenly crowded with returns representing ships, aircraft, marker buoys, and the cluttered noise of coastlines. Jorgenson recognized the Scilly Isles eighty-five miles due east and, beyond that, the tip of Cornwall, Land's End. At this point, the Sandpiper wasn't seeing with her own radar, which had an effective horizon of only about forty to forty-five miles. Instead, she was tapped into an international satellite navigation system, relying on radar plots relayed from NAVSTAR satellites in orbit. At this scale, the Campbeltown, M4F99D, was now visible, seventy miles out, and apparently heading back toward the Bristol Channel.

A second strong return was showing thirty-six nautical miles southeast of the Sandpiper's position, about a third of the way from the Piper to the tip of Brittany. The target showed the IFF code V5K34R.

"Who's that?" Jorgenson asked, pointing.

The radar operator didn't need to check the traffic code. "RMS Atlantis Queen, sir. Cruise ship out of Southampton."

"Very well." His eyes shifted to another target, one showing an ID code of XXXXXX. "Who the bloody hell is that? No IFF."

The unidentified target was eighty-five miles to the southeast, at the mouth of the English Channel, roughly between Brest and Cornwall and some forty-five miles east of the Atlantis Queen's position.

"No, sir. We've already queried them. They're ALAT."

"Bloody frogs," Dunsmore said with a dismissive snort. "If there's a way to screw things up, they'll find it."

ALAT was Aviation Legere de l'Armee de Terre — French Army aviation.

"Cougar, sir," the radar operator added. "They're on maneuvers."

Cougar was the name of the military version of the Eurocopter helicopter. "Did you tell them they were flying without IFF?" Jorgenson asked.

"Yes, sir. They told us to mind our own business, sir."

"Well, screw 'em, then," Jorgenson said. Straightening, he scanned the horizon ahead. Except for the Ishikari a half mile off, they had the ocean to themselves.

"Very well, gentlemen," he said. He paused to take another sip of steaming coffee. "Next stop, Rokkasho, Japan, by way of the Panama Canal! Let's open her up, shall we?" He looked about the bridge, at the men standing at their stations. "Ahead full, Mr. Dunsmore. And have Sparks inform the Ishikari we are going to eighteen knots."

And the Pacific Sandpiper began increasing her speed.

Taii Ichiro Inui was methodical and he was well trained. A lieutenant in the Kaiso Jeitai, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, he'd worked with the American Harpoon antiship missiles for almost ten years and knew the deadly machines as well as anyone in his service. Working with the special tools quietly and with precision, he went from missile to missile where they lay strapped into their launch pods, removing the locks, pulling the yellow keys, and arming each warhead in turn.

Five done. Three to go.

Behind him, Kogyo Yano worked at the second part of the mission task, applying a fist-sized lump of C-4 explosives to four of the warheads, inserting a detonator, and attaching det cord to each, tying all of the charges together to a single battery and timer. The Harpoon antiship missile, with its 227-kilogram warhead, was equipped with a safe-arm fuse that prevented detonation of the warhead until after it was in flight, but Inui knew exactly how to bypass the safeties. When the C-4 charges went off, the missiles would go off in sympathetic detonation, all of them at once, over eighteen hundred kilos of high explosive in a single, spectacular blossom of flame and destruction.

A few meters away, a young seaman, Ryoichi Ikikaga, lay motionless in a growing pool of his own blood. Yano had dragged him to the spot after shooting him in the passageway outside, where he'd been standing guard. He would be missed soon. The two men would have to complete their mission within the next few minutes.

Six done.

The ship was pitching heavily in the chop, her speed increasing. Now that the small convoy was past the Cornwall Peninsula and out into the Atlantic proper, the two ships could increase speed to eighteen knots or so. It made Inui's job more difficult, but the deadly missiles were strapped to their pallets, immobile.

He hoped. An armed Harpoon breaking free of its straps and striking the deck just now would have unfortunate consequences.

Seven done. One to go.

The two men worked in silence. They'd planned this operation carefully, and there was no need for words. Last week, when the Ishikari had been in port at Barrow and most of her crew had been ashore, they'd even managed a walk-through, step-by-step, to check the timing.

Ichiro Inui had been an officer in the Japanese self-defense force for eight years, but his primary personal duty, his omi, lay elsewhere. He was shishon no Nihon Sekigun, a phrase translating roughly as "offspring of the Japanese Red Army."

He would observe that duty no matter what, even if it meant that he would die within the next few minutes.

Inui pulled the last key and turned to face Yano, silently holding up the bundle of yellow tags he'd removed from the warheads. Yano nodded, completed the preparation of his last charge of C-4, then said, "Isoge!"

"There is no need to hurry," Inui replied. "We walk, as we planned it."

Yano set the jury-rigged timer for 8:30, giving them ten minutes, and attached the battery. With a last look around, they locked the door behind them with the keys they'd taken from Ikikaga. Calmly they walked down the main passageway, heading forward. The munitions locker lay near the vessel's stern, directly beneath the two Harpoon missile launchers mounted on the ship's fantail. Up one ship's ladder and left, they stopped at a watertight door to pull a pair of bright orange life jackets from a rack on the bulkhead and don them, then pushed the door open, stepping into a wet and somewhat chilly, gusty breeze beneath a leaden sky.

The huge bulk of the Pacific Sandpiper plowed unperturbed through the rolling seas aft and to port, showing none of the roll and pitch of the smaller destroyer escort. Still at a casual walk, they made their way forward, hanging on to the safety railing with their left hands in order to maintain their footing on the pitching deck. The wind was strong enough to kick up a few whitecaps on the water, and spray came up over the ship's bow with each plunge through another swell.

The Ishikari was not a large vessel — twelve hundred tonnes, with a length overall of 84.5 meters and a beam of just ten meters. It put her at the mercy of a rough sea.

"You men!" a sharp voice called. "Where are you going?"

It was Lieutenant Watanabe, the deck division leader. He'd emerged from another watertight door just behind them.

"Sir!" Inui said, coming to attention but keeping hold of the safety rail. "Commander Shimatsume told us to check on a loose vent grating at the bow!" Shimatsume was the ship's executive officer.

Watanabe considered this, then waved them on with a nod. "Carry on, then," he said. "Just be careful, and be sure to use safety lines. On a day like this, you could find yourself swimming home!"

"Yes, sir!"

Heart pounding, Inui continued making his way forward, closely followed by Yano. He forced himself not to look at his wristwatch. Either they would make it or they would not.

Either way, the Ishikari was doomed and their mission complete.

They trotted down a ladder to the foredeck, then walked past the forward turret with its single 76mm Oto Melara gun. At the ship's bow, they made their way to a grating over a ventilation intake duct and worked it free. Inside was a black, heavy rubber package, a rubber raft Yano had hidden here the day before. Inui looked aft and up, past the forward turret at the line of bridge windows overlooking the two men from the ship's aluminum superstructure. Inui and Yano were in full view now of the personnel on the bridge, and within moments Shimatsume or Captain Otaka would be sending someone forward to find out what they were doing here.

"You men on the forward deck!" boomed suddenly from a loudspeaker above the foredeck. "What are you doing there?"

They'd been seen. Inui raised an arm and waved. At the least, the gesture might confuse the bridge officers, might buy the two men another few seconds.

The Ishikari's bow rose, then plunged, sending a blast of cold spray over the bow. Inui and Yano clung to the railing and to the packaged life raft, waiting it out. As the bow rose again, Inui finally allowed himself to look at his watch. One more minute…

A watertight door opening from the deckhouse beneath the bridge banged open, and two petty officers in bright orange life jackets emerged, walking toward them.

Thirty seconds…

Kozo Fuchida walked onto the Sandpiper's bridge. He glanced at the armed security man standing by the starboard-side wing access way, half-expecting the man to challenge him, but he did not. Fuchida and Chujiro Moritomi, in their guise of Wanibuchi and Kitagawa, seemed accepted now as legitimate members of the ship's company. He saw Dunsmore give them a dark look as they came in, but the executive officer said nothing. The captain was on the bridge, in his high-backed chair with pipe and coffee, and if anyone was going to order the two of them off the bridge, it would be him.

But Jorgenson didn't seem to notice them. Both of them wore bright yellow plastic windbreakers with the PNTL logo — shipboard issue. The jackets were loose enough that when they were zipped up, the pistols tucked into the waistbands of the men's jeans were completely hidden.

Fuchida looked at his watch — synchronized earlier with Inui and Yano on the other ship. Another minute, perhaps less. He glanced out the forward bridge windows at the Ishikari in time to see the other vessel take a white plume of spray across the bow.

He didn't envy his KKD brothers over there.

Fuchida exchanged a glance with Moritomi, who nodded, then walked to the passageway leading aft from the bridge. The ship's radio room was located there, with one door opening onto the bridge, another onto the passageway. Moritomi took up his position outside the passageway entrance to the radio shack. A ship's officer was inside, headset in place as he monitored radio traffic over the ship's satellite and UHF links.

"Anything we can do for you gentlemen?" Jorgenson asked, swiveling his seat to face Fuchida.

"Not a thing, Captain," Fuchida replied in perfect colloquial English. He'd lived for twelve years in England and for four before that in the United States. His bachelor's in economics was from Princeton. "We were told to observe all ship operations, so…" He shrugged. "We're observing."

"Observe all you like," Jorgenson replied. "Just don't touch anything."

"Of course, Captain."

"Would you care for a tour?"

"If you — "

Fuchida caught the flash out of the corner of his eye and turned in time to see a black cloud shot through with flecks of orange roiling into the morning sky. Portions of the aft superstructure crumpled as though swept forward by a giant's fist as the first explosion was followed immediately by a second, a third, by several more blasts in rapid succession, each extending the billowing cloud up and out; the mast amidships with its forest of radio antennae ripped free, twisting, and slammed forward into the rear of the bridge tower. A shopk wave raced out from the stricken vessel in a perfect circle, taking several seconds to cross the half mile of open water to reach the Sandpiper

"Holy Mother of God!" Dunsmore cried suddenly, eyes widening.

As the shock wave passed, thunder boomed and the Sandpiper shuddered, the bridge windows rattling in their mountings. The black cloud continued to grow, engulfing most of the Japanese escort, swelling vast and horribly as the ship's fuel stores exploded as well. A volcano of orange flame boiled into the sky from the ruin of the aft deckhouse.

Splashes started rising in the water ahead. Something large and twisted hurtled out of the sky and struck the number three cargo hatch on the Piper's forward deck with a thump, bounced, and toppled over the side. Other bits and pieces of debris continued to rain about the ship.

"All back!" Jorgenson snapped. The Sandpiper needed a long stretch of water in which to stop. They were not in danger of colliding with the other vessel, fortunately, given their relative positions, but the Piper would need to come to a complete stop to pick up survivors in the water, if nothing else.

"All back, aye!" the rating at the engine telegraph replied, hauling back on the levers that communicated the order to Sandpiper's engine room.

"Sparks! Send an SOS! Give our position and report an explosion on board the Ishikaril" He hesitated. "Add that we are providing assistance."

"Sir!"

"My God!" Dunsmore said. "What happened?"

"Offhand, Number One, I'd say that ship's armament magazine just blew. Those vessels carry eight Harpoons, six 324mm ASW torpedoes, and God only knows how much ammunition for its Melara cannon."

Some of the cannon shells were cooking off, now, in the fierce blaze amidships, the sharp, flat reports banging across the water. "Sir," Dunsmore said. "Is it a good idea to get too close?…"

"The law of the sea, Number One." Jorgenson shook his head. "Hell, I'm not going to leave those poor buggers!"

"No, sir. Of course not."

Fuchida glanced back at Moritomi, who was still standing next to the door to the radio room. They were ready to act should Jorgenson order the Queen to shear off, but their orders were to do nothing so long as the Britishers followed the script. The longer the Japanese could wait before showing their hand, the better.

The Ishikari was settling low in the water already, her stern either submerged or, as seemed more likely, completely blown away. Everything from her ruined bridge tower aft was engulfed in black smoke, which was billowing rapidly into the gray sky. A pyramid of flame continued to burn amidships; she'd had her diesel tanks topped off at Barrow for the long voyage home and she was carrying a lot of fuel. Some of that fuel oil was spreading across the sea's surface now alongside the sinking ship, carrying the flame with it.

He wondered if his KKD brothers on board the Ishikari had survived.

Ichiro Inui literally had no memory of the explosion. One moment, he'd been standing next to Yano on the Ishikari's bow, watching the seamen approach and wondering how he could delay them for another precious few seconds. The next, he was underwater, struggling to reach the shifting, silvery gleams of light rippling across the surface far, far overhead. Sound — tearing, creaking, thundering sound — surrounded him. His lungs burned, and he fought to keep the rising panic at bay. He kicked wildly, reaching for the surface.

He broke through at last, lungs bursting, and emerged into a world of booming, flame-laced nightmare. He'd hit the water fifty feet from the Ishikari" s bow, which loomed above him now like a great, sharp-edged gray cliff. He gasped for air and nearly strangled on the stink of hot diesel-oil fumes. Fire and black smoke erupted into the sky, and the oil-covered water close by the ship was blazing.

He saw men on the ship's deck, racing this way and that like ants on a kicked-over anthill. The heads of other men bobbed in the water closer to the ship, men struggling to get clear of the spreading fires.

A wave swept under Inui, lifting him bodily, and for a moment he had a better view of the disaster area. The oil was everywhere, the fires spreading. On Ishikari's deck, a man emerged from a doorway aflame, fire clinging to his upper body as he vaulted the port side railing and plummeted into the sea like a burning meteor.

He tried to find the life raft. It had a compressed air bottle triggered by contact with seawater and should have inflated automatically when it fell into the sea, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't see Yano, either, or the men who'd been coming to get them. Then the wave passed and he slid down the back side into the trough. For a moment, he couldn't see anything but water below and flame-roiled smoke above.

By now, he knew, the Pacific Sandpiper ought to be on the way to pick up survivors, but she would still be half a mile away. Inui was already exhausted and half-drowned. He didn't expect to survive.

He thought of his father, and prepared for a welcome death.

"That's damned odd," Fred Doherty said, looking aft, then up at the gray overcast.

"What is?" Petrovich asked, lowering the camera off his shoulder.

"Something's happened," Doherty said. "We're changing course. Picking up speed, too." He could feel the breeze stiffening on his face.

They were standing on the highest vantage point accessible to the Queen's passengers, a stretch of open deck immediately ahead of the cruise ship's single enormous smokestack. The Atlantis Queen's passenger decks were numbered from One, at the quarterdeck and Grand Lounge where they'd come aboard, up to Twelve, which consisted of this outdoor terrace overlooking the Grotto Pool. The Atlantean Grotto Lounge occupied the space immediately below, which opened onto the pool deck through large sliding glass doors.

Doherty had spoken with Bernstein, the Harper bitch's manager, last night in the ship's casino. The two men had bumped into each other while watching the incredible performance of the card-dealing robot and shared a few drinks.

Bernstein had told Doherty that Harper planned to do some sunbathing at the Forward Pool this morning but neglected to say what time. Doherty and Petrovich had decided that this might be an opportunity to get some candid footage of Harper, and if she showed up in one of her trademark almost-not-there thong bikinis, so much the better. Since they wouldn't be doing any interviewing, Sandra Ames had elected to stay in her stateroom. Doherty suspected she was feeling a bit queasy… a touch of mal-de-mer despite the fact that the rolling seas could scarcely be felt aboard the enormous and supremely stable cruise ship.

Unfortunately, the weather was gray and somewhat cool… not cold, but not exactly bikini weather, either, and Harper hadn't showed up. Doherty and Petrovich had waited there for twenty minutes and had just decided to give up and go inside.

"So?" Petrovich said. "We're changing course. Ships do that."

"No… I mean we're going the wrong way."

"What, are you the ship's captain?"

"No, jackass. Look."

He pointed aft, past the loom of the ship's smokestack. The Queen's wake curved off toward the left.

"So?"

"Don't you get it? We're headed west, out of the English Channel. From here, we're supposed to turn south — that's toward the left, okay? Why are we turning right?" He frowned, concentrating. "I think we're speeding up, too. Feel the engines?"

"No."

"Then look at that spray, forward. We're hitting the waves harder, now."

"Look, I'm getting cold," Petrovich said. "Let's go in and get some coffee."

"No," Doherty said. "Stay put. I have a feeling"

"You had a feeling with the police and ambulance at the dock yesterday."

"Damn it, this is different." He could feel it in his bones.

The Sandpiper was slowing perceptibly but very gradually as her engines pounded in full reverse. Captain Jorgenson had stood up from his chair and now leaned against the bridge forward console, peering out over the scene of destruction ahead.

"Helm!" he snapped. "Come left two points."

"Come left two points, aye, aye, sir," the helmsman replied, turning the wheel.

Jorgenson kept studying the route ahead, judging wave action, wind, and the Sandpiper's own staggering inertia and momentum. Maneuverable for her tonnage she might be, but the huge vessel still couldn't stop on the proverbial dime. The last thing Jorgenson could afford now was to ram the sinking warship ahead, or become entangled in the mass of floating wreckage surrounding her, or come so close aboard that further explosions or munitions detonations damaged his command. By shearing off two points, he ensured that they would keep the Ishikari well to starboard yet still be close enough to rescue men in the water.

"Mr. Dunsmore," he said.

"Sir!"

"Put the Cat into the water. Put three volunteers on board. Have them start getting those people out of the water."

"Yes, sir." The exec reached for a telephone handset and punched out a number. "Should we arm her?"

"The Cat" was a twenty-foot, high-speed powerboat stored in an ingenious launch tube over the Sandpiper's stern. The boat could be armed with a machine gun, at need, and was intended as a small auxiliary unit in case the Sandpiper was attacked by pirates.

"No, Number One," Jorgenson said after a brief hesitation. Breaking out a weapon and ammunition would take precious time, time those men in the water didn't have.

There could be no possible reason to arm a rescue craft.

"Captain Jorgenson!" a voice called from the radio shack.

"Yes, Sparks?"

Robert Orly, the ship's chief communications technician, leaned out of the radio room door. "Sir, we have acknowledgments of our SOS. Campbeltown has asked if we need SAR assistance. The Atlantis Queen reports that she has changed course and is on her way to assist. ETA… about one hour, forty-five minutes. We also have an acknowledgment from that ALAT helicopter. They say they're on the way as well."

"Very well." Jorgenson wondered what kind of helicopter the ALAT contact might be. It was over a hundred miles from the Sandpiper's position, and the Sandpiper was a good 175 miles from Brest, the nearest fair-sized French city. Helicopters weren't known for their long range.

Well, if necessary, the Sandpiper could provide plenty of deck space forward if the French helicopter ran low on fuel and needed to set down. And a helicopter would be invaluable in a search for survivors.

"What's the ETA on the helicopter, Sparks?"

"Forty minutes, sir. Maybe a bit less, depending on headwinds."

"Very well. Let them know their assistance is appreciated, and that we can provide a landing platform should they run low on fuel."

"Yes, sir. What should I tell Campbeltown?

Jorgenson considered the question. The British frigate had left the convoy four hours ago but hadn't been going at flank. If her skipper cranked her up to top speed — thirty knots — they'd be back here in a bit over two hours.

And the Campbeltown was a warship, with very little free space on board for survivors off the Ishikari. The only reason to bring her back would be if there was a threat — a military threat — to the Sandpiper The Campbeltown would be of little help in a rescue operation.

"Tell her thanks, but we have the Atlantis Queen on the way." The Queen would have tons of space on board, not to mention a large and modern infirmary for the injured. "Tell her we may need her as an escort later."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

"And radio Barrow and let them know what's going on."

"Right away, sir."

Jorgenson began going over everything in his mind again. Had he missed anything? Other ships and aircraft would be on the scene within a couple of hours or so. In the meantime, a French helicopter and a British cruise ship would be able to provide all of the search-and-rescue support necessary.

The sinking escort was less than four hundred yards off the port bow, now, and drawing very slowly closer.