Unlike its cousins that worked in harbors, the oceangoing tug was a good-sized vessel, nearly three hundred feet long, with a boom behind the wheelhouse big enough to haul the cargo carrier behind her. The flat stern deck was long and low in comparison to the rest of the ship, but it still towered over the waves; the tug was small only in comparison to its companion.
These guys have got serious amounts of money, Turk realized as he pulled the Tigershark away from the two ships.
It was of course an obvious fact — they would never have been able to build the UAVs otherwise, let alone grab the Sabres — but he hadn’t considered the seriousness of the threat they posed until now. It wasn’t just that they could take American secrets and use them against her interests: the conspiracy could, in effect, change the entire order of world politics.
Turk might have considered this further, or at least scolded himself for coming so late to such an obvious conclusion, but for a blaring warning that nearly pierced his eardrums — someone aboard the cargo ship had just launched a missile at his tailpipe.
11
Braxton was less than four miles from the island, but he wasn’t going to make it before the Chinese reached him.
He’d gone through nearly all of his ammunition trying to push the helicopters away. At least ninety percent of his bullets had missed — the robots were quick and small, and he was shooting from a moving boat. They ducked and weaved and moved off, and when one finally went down, a fourth took its place.
He had a single box of ammunition and an RPG launcher with a single grenade. But that wasn’t going to do it. Sensing that he was running low on ammo, the helicopters moved across their bow, egging him to fire.
Braxton picked up the rifle, then decided against firing it. He guessed that they wouldn’t actually allow a collision and told Talbot to keep the throttle wide-open. The aircraft zoomed close, the lead helicopter coming within inches of striking the forward prow of the launch before edging upward.
Maybe he could shoot it down on the next pass, but what was the point? The two motor torpedo boats chasing them were now practically even with them, flanking their sides. Small craft with a machine gun dominating the forward deck and a pair of stubby torpedoes on either side of their gunwales, the boats looked like souped-up versions of World War II American PT boats, with long platforms at the rear for the robot helicopters. The Chinese boats had sleek, speedboat-style hulls and open cockpit-style wheelhouses — and, more ominously, three or four sailors aboard each, pointing Chinese ZH-05 assault rifles at them. They flew Chinese flags from their masts.
“You will stop or be sunk,” said the Chinese commander over a loudspeaker.
“You gonna use the grenade launcher?” Talbot asked him. His face had grown increasingly pale as they’d fled; Braxton thought it might turn transparent soon.
“If I do that, they’ll rake us with their guns. I can’t sink them both.”
“Right. But what do we do?”
“Keep steady. Once we’re on the island they can’t touch us.”
Another two miles and they would be there, and then he could do just about anything. But it might just as well be 2,000 miles. Braxton grabbed the radio and called Fortine back on the cargo vessel.
“We are about to come under attack from the Americans,” said Fortine, before Braxton could say anything. “They’ve warned us they’re going to board.”
Braxton was taken by surprise, and momentarily forgot about his own predicament. “Are you sure it’s the Americans?”
“Yes. They’ve said as much. We’re fighting back,” Fortine added. “I’m not going to be taken prisoner.”
“The Chinese have caught up to us,” said Braxton. “Do what you think is best.”
He was talking more to himself than to Fortine. He might have tried to talk someone else into surrendering, but he’d known from the start that the fatalist captain would never give in to any government.
“We will win in the end,” said Fortine.
The line was covered with static — one of the Chinese boats was blocking the transmission.
“You will surrender!” said the Chinese commander over his loudspeaker. “There will be no other warnings!”
Just in case they didn’t get the message, the machine gunner in the boat on the starboard side fired a dozen shots into the launch’s bow. They weren’t simply warning shots — the bullets splintered the side of the craft.
“All right,” Braxton told Talbot. “We’ll let them take us. We’ll have to think of something on the fly.”
Talbot frowned, but he, too, had reached that conclusion. He put his hand on the throttle and slowly killed the engine.
12
Turk had been fired on dozens of times before. But that didn’t lessen the amount of sweat rolling from the back of his head down his neck, or keep a knot from forming in his stomach. A cloud of small decoy flares automatically exploded behind his aircraft as a laser-detonating system hunted for the enemy warhead, but even so, he and his aircraft were perilously close to twenty-some pounds of high explosive.
It might not sound like a lot, but up close and personal with an airplane, it was more than enough to ruin a day. The Tigershark’s small engine red-lined as Turk pushed the aircraft away from the missile; he held steady until he saw the missile explode harmlessly behind him, far enough away that the shock blast was lost in the wake of the aircraft’s escape.
Now it was his turn. Turk banked out of his climb, lining up on the rear deck of the cargo container ship. There were three men there, one with a bino, and two others working over a case.
The computer ID’ed the kit as a 9K38 Igla, a Russian-made antiaircraft missile known to the U.S. and NATO as the SA-18 Grouse.
“I have two targets preparing a MANPAD,” said Turk, recording what he was seeing as well as broadcasting it to Danny. “Preparing to take them out.”
“Cleared hot,” said Danny. “They’ve ignored our warning.”
Actually, thought Turk, they’d answered it, pretty emphatically.
The rail gun shook the aircraft as he fired, its slugs accelerating to several times the speed of sound as they left the plane. The first one struck the missile’s solid propellant. The explosion obscured the rest of the target area, and Turk couldn’t see that the next two slugs killed the men.
He was already aiming at the radar above the superstructure. He took it out, then wiped out the radio mast and the compartment directly below it. The big ship ceased transmitting any radio signals at all.
But it was far from dead.
“Container G7 — roof opening,” said the computer.
It took Turk a few seconds to understand what the Tigershark was telling him — one of the containers was hiding a weapon.
“Radar active,” warned the computer.
Turk was ready. Accelerating toward the ship, he aimed his nose at the container highlighted on the screen. He got off three rounds before he passed; the last slug ignited an explosion and small fire.
Three more containers popped their tops in the time it took for the Tigershark to climb and then turn back.
“Aircraft launching,” warned the Tigershark computer.
“Whiplash assault team, hold back,” radioed Turk. “We have resistance — they’re launching three UAVs, combat UAVs similar to the ones encountered last night by Basher flight.”
“Roger that,” replied Danny. “Standing by.”