“NO!” Belewa’s leg buckled beneath him again, his scream a cry of rage and denial.
“Moonshade to Palace.” Amanda’s slightly hoarse but matter-of-fact voice issued from the overhead speaker in the briefing trailer. “Tow established. We are under way.”
“Acknowledged, Moonshade,” Operations replied with equal matter-of-factness. ”Bajara is under way. You are inside the time line.”
“She’s done it! By God, she’s done it!” Macintyre emphasized his words with a crushing arm around Christine Rendino’s shoulders. The intel’s reply was a wordless, joyous squeal of relief.
Via the electronic vision of the hovering Eagle Eye, the Algerian tanker could be made out on the wall monitor, edging slowly astern, the Union Banner straining at the tow line like a husky attempting to drag a railway car. The enormity of the task and the tug’s inching speed restored sobriety rapidly.
“How far out to the scuttling site?” Macintyre demanded.
Christine reached back for the display controller and called up the Monrovia harbor chart. “In the main channel, out toward the harbor entrance, far enough so that they won’t be able to get another deep-draft ship past her. They’ve got about two-thirds of a mile to go.”
“Two-thirds of a mile,” Macintyre scowled. “That’s one hell of a gauntlet to run at five knots. When will the seafighters be committed to cover the extraction force?”
“Amanda’s tasked to make that decision, Admiral,” Christine replied. “Covering the extraction, the PGs are going to burn through their ammo load awful fast. She wants to hold off committing for as long as possible to maintain a firepower reserve.”
Maclntyre’s brows knitted together. “So she intends to just sit out there and take it?”
“Something like, sir.”
A systems operator looked up from his work station. “Commander Rendino, TACNET indicates that the Union gunboats have picked up on the attack against Port Monrovia. They’ve come about and are heading back to the port at full speed. We estimate they will be a factor within the next twenty-five minutes.”
Atiba had brought the Steyr command track up to the base of the oiling pier. Its headlight glared into Belewa’s eyes as he hobbled toward it, the leg of his jungle fatigues sodden with blood.
“The General’s been wounded,” one of the staff called out. “Get an aid man up here.”
“Never mind that,” Belewa yelled back over the idling engine. “Where is Brigadier Atiba? I need Atiba!”
“Here, General.” The Chief of Staff swung down from the track’s lowering tailgate. “Your orders, sir.”
“Communications status? Where do we have contact? What have we got left to fight with?” Belewa’s damaged leg refused to support him any further, and he slid down to the tarmac of the access road, his back to one of the track’s bogie wheels. The summoned aid man knelt beside him, hastily tearing open his medical kit.
“We have regained communication with Roberts Field, General,” Atiba replied coolly, standing over Belewa. “They are launching the gunship now. We also believe the gunboat squadron has received its recall order and is returning.”
“Good.” Belewa pulled himself upright. Taking the canteen from the aid man’s belt pouch he took a long pull of the tepid water, clearing the dryness and smoke taint from his throat. “The damned Americans are using one of our own harbor tugs to move the tanker. Redeploy the harbor defense units along the breakwaters. Concentrate all fire on that tug boat! Sink it at all costs! Then commandeer any small craft you can find and organize a force to retake the tanker before they can get it out of the harbor.”
Belewa gulped another mouthful from the canteen, then grimaced as the aid man clamped a compress over the oozing leg wound. “It will not end this way. I will not let it end this way!”
Quillain stuck his head in through the door of the tanker’s main crew’s mess. “You got ’em ready to go?”
The space was jammed with a combination of the vessel’s civilian officers and crew, the sniffling and red-eyed children of the human shield force and the few soldiers of the ship’s guard who had managed to throw their hands up in time to surrender. All had been strapped into life jackets and all sat uneasily on the mess-room benches, their hands behind their heads. Submachine-gun-armed Marines covered them from one end of the compartment.
“Yes, sir,” the guard leader replied. “Ready to move ’em out.”
“Okay, we’ll put ’em over the port side. We’re still getting land fire to starboard. Single file! Let’s go! Hurry it up!”
The grim-eyed guards herded the prisoners down a short passageway to the starboard side of the deckhouse and to a weather-deck hatch. Beyond the hatch another pair of Marine sentries stood by at a gap cut in the tanker’s cable railing. First in line, the Algerian captain goggled at the cut railing and at the black waters of the harbor beyond. Frantically, he stammered what must have been a protest in Arabic.
“Pipe down and get on with it,” Quillain growled. “The longer you wait, the farther you swim!” Grabbing the captain by the back strap of his life jacket, he marched the man the two steps across the deck and launched him over the side, the Algerian’s despairing wail climaxing with a splash.
The other prisoners followed in short order, alternating between the children and adults until the mess room was empty and a string of blinking life-jacket beacons trailed in the wake of the tanker. The tanker crew and the boy soldiers would have to make their own way to shore. There was no more that the Marines could do.
The Union gunnery had dropped off when the Bajara had first pulled clear of the dock, but now the intensity of the shoreside fire was growing again. The occasional thud of a grenade launcher or the snarl of a SAW replied from the tanker’s deck and upperworks.
Quillain hurried across to the starboard side, dropping down beside Tallman at the deck edge.
“What’s happening?” Quillain demanded.
“The Union’s starting to pour it on again, Skipper. Only this time they’re not shooting at us. They’re going for the tug.”
“Well, we knew they weren’t stupid.”
Looking forward, they could see the Union Banner straining at the end of the towline, a blunt arrowhead at the tip of the white foam shaft of her wake. Tracer streams arced toward the little craft and a backflash flared atop the shadowy line of the breakwater. A recoilless rifle round detonated alongside the Banner an instant later.
“SAW teams and grenadiers,” Tallman barked into his tactical mike. “Carl Gustav on the breakwater at ten o’clock. Take him out.” Marine gunners responded and another series of explosions danced along the top of the breakwater, incoming this time instead of outgoing.
“That’s the stuff, Top. Keep ’em off the tug.”
Tallman looked across to his C.O. “That’s just the thing, sir. We can’t. Not for much longer. Ammo’s getting real tight. We burned a whole lot of our base load holding them off at the pier. Only a few rounds of forty left, and the SAWs are eatin’ M-4 clips. Another five minutes and we’re gonna be down to pistols and K-Bars.”
“Lord A’mighty.”