Flynn nodded. “Same situation here on the port side, Dragon Two,” he replied. “We’ve smashed their counterattack.” He climbed back to his feet. So far all they’d accomplished was to stave off immediate defeat. The only way to win this was to break into the tanker’s massive superstructure to find and then destroy the enemy’s launch control center. And a nagging itch at the back of his mind suggested they were fast running out of time to get that done.
“Holy shit!” Hynes yelled suddenly. “Here come more sons of bitches! A whole shitload of them!”
Flynn looked ahead to see another wave of attackers erupt out of the shadows around the tanker’s superstructure. He bit down on a startled oath. There must be at least twenty charging across the deck toward his little group of four men. And unlike their predecessors, these sailors made no effort to take cover. Instead, they ran straight toward him, shouting and yelling wild battle cries, and waving fire axes, crowbars, and heavy wrenches. He stared in shock for a split-second. Holy Christ, he thought in utter astonishment, this was a human wave attack like something out of the Middle Ages — or a ship-to-ship boarding action in the Napoleonic Wars. Tools and axes against rifles? What kind of crazy bullshit was this?
Then he recovered. An axe or crowbar swung hard enough could kill you just as dead as a 7.62mm bullet. “Open fire!” he shouted, sighting on the charging mob and starting to squeeze off shots.
Hynes and the others followed suit.
Iranian sailors started dropping, knocked to the deck by the impact of rounds moving at more than twenty-five-hundred feet per second. But there were a hell of a lot of them, and they only had a couple hundred feet of relatively open deck to cover, Flynn realized. His first magazine ran dry and he quickly dropped it out and slammed in a fresh one with twenty more rounds. But by the time he had his weapon back up and ready to fire again, the mob’s survivors were on top of them.
At close quarters, everything came down to reflexes and instinct. Flynn ducked the wild swing of an axe, slammed the muzzle of his carbine against the attacker’s ribs, and pulled the trigger. Crack. Blood spattered across his face. The dying axman dropped to his knees, still feebly trying to grapple him. He kneed the Iranian hard in the face, feeling bones and teeth shatter… and then whirled away as a long wrench flashed right past his shoulder.
This was bad, he thought desperately, sidestepping to dodge another sailor charging at him, this one wielding a crowbar. Really, really bad—
Out on an open catwalk three levels above the tanker’s main deck, Viktor Skoblin took the folding-stock assault rifle offered to him by Yvgeny Kvyat. He automatically checked to make sure it was fully loaded. His eyes narrowed. The Iranians might have returned their weapons, but the fools had neglected to include their body armor — and now there was no time left to retrieve that valuable protective gear. He glared back at the Iranian petty officer who’d come to let them out of their improvised prison. “What did Heidari say?” he demanded.
“He wants you to join our counterattack,” the other man repeated. “And destroy what remains of the enemy paratroops at close range!”
Skoblin risked a glance over the edge of the catwalk. The scene below was one of unrelieved madness. Corpses by the dozen sprawled across the deck. Forward of the superstructure, on the both the port and starboard sides of the ship, he could see tiny knots of men fighting hand-to-hand. A horrific cacophony of gunshots, shrieks, and yells rose above the conflict. He looked back at the petty officer and shook his head. “I won’t waste my troops like that,” he snapped. “Your captain can shove those stupid orders up his tight ass.”
Almost unbidden, the Revolutionary Guardsman’s right hand dropped to the pistol holstered at his waist. “Are you refusing a legal command, Major Skoblin?” His tone was dangerously calm.
At once, Skoblin offered him an apologetic smile. “Naturally, I meant no disrespect,” he assured the other man. The fingers of his left hand twitched in a private signal to Dmitri Fadeyev.
The former GRU assassin nodded minutely. Then, without warning, he hacked at the Iranian’s right wrist, paralyzing the nerves there. Stunned by the sudden onslaught, the petty officer’s mouth opened wide to yell a warning that might be heard by those on the bridge above them. But before he could make a sound, Fadeyev’s clenched fist smashed into his throat, crushing his larynx. Gasping, straining for breath that would not come, the dying man sank to his knees.
Skoblin studied him dispassionately for a second and then turned to two more of his men. “See if this asshole can fly,” he ordered.
Nodding grimly, they grabbed the choking petty officer under his arms and hurled him over the edge of the catwalk to plunge fifty feet straight down onto the steel deck.
Nervously, Kvyat licked his full lips. “What do we do now?” he asked softly.
Skoblin stabbed a finger at the pudgy ex-GRU intelligence officer. “You take four men and hold this catwalk against any attack from the deck,” he said. He nodded to Fadeyev, Yuri Linnik, Kirill Zaitsev, and two more members of his Raven Syndicate security team. “The rest of us will head up two decks and guard the approaches to the Launch Control Center.” He hefted his assault rifle. “That’s the key point. If we hold that, nothing else matters.”
“Captain Heidari won’t be happy that we’ve disobeyed his orders,” Kvyat pointed out carefully.
Skoblin shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t give a shit, one way or the other.” He nodded toward the deck below. “If any of the enemy make it alive out of that bloody mess, we’ll stop them cold.”
“And if the Iranians win?”
Skoblin considered the possibility dispassionately. “Even if they do, there won’t be many of them left in one piece,” he said coolly. “Which will leave us with all the power aboard this damned ship. And then, once that rocket is away, we can carry out the rest of the orders Voronin gave us… and finish off that pig Heidari and all of his remaining fanatical madmen.”
His men nodded eagerly. After the indignity of so easily being taken captive by the Iranians, they were looking forward to turning the tables on their supposed allies. Then, while Kvyat and his four men settled somewhat uncertainly into firing positions along the catwalk, Fadeyev, Linnik, and the rest followed Skoblin as he loped toward the nearest accommodation ladder up to the higher reaches of the Gulf Venture’s superstructure.
Forty
Frantically, Flynn backpedaled away from a desperate crewman wildly swinging a wrench and fired directly into the man’s open-mouthed face. Killed instantly, the Iranian crumpled. Silence fell across this part of the deck. Panting, he turned rapidly through an arc, looking for any remaining threats.
There weren’t any. All of the sailors who’d rushed them were dead or obviously dying. The only ones still on their feet were his own men. But not all of them, he realized with sorrow.
Surrounded by the Iranians he’d taken down with him, Mark Stadler lay facedown on the deck. He had an axe head buried deep in his back. Obviously swung with tremendous force, it had smashed right through his armor. Cole Hynes, with blood dripping from a long gash across his cheek, knelt down, and quickly checked the former Marine over. He looked up, grim-faced, and shook his head. “Mark’s gone, sir.”
Flynn winced. He’d known the odds were against all of them making out of this mission alive, but somehow he’d hoped to beat those odds. As it was, he knew, they were extraordinarily lucky to have lost only one man so far. From what he could see, the others, like him, were bruised and shaken, but not otherwise seriously injured. The combination of firepower superiority and the protection offered by their helmets and body armor had given them just enough of an edge to survive that swirling, brutal melee.