“Aye-aye!”
The captain pivoted north. A sickly blue aurora glimmered in the sky. Beneath the waves, a fourth torpedo made its run, heading straight for the prow.
“Stop!” he yelled at the obscene fish. “Stop, you!”
The torpedo hit home, and as the cargo bay burst open, releasing its holy stores, a disquieting question entered Anthony’s brain.
“Stop! No! Stop!”
If the Val went down, was he supposed to go down with her?
“Get those bastards!” screamed Christopher Van Horne into the intercom mike. “Blow ’em out of the sky!” he ordered his first mate, a wiry Corsican named Orso Peche, presently stationed in the launch-control bunker amidships. The Maracaibo’s master spun toward Neil Weisinger. “Come right to zero-six-zero! They’re trying to kill my son!”
Never before had Neil witnessed such sheer volcanic anger in a sea captain — in any man. “Right to zero-six-zero,” he echoed, working the wheel.
The captain’s misery was understandable. Of the entire squadron called Torpedo Six, only three armed planes still remained in the fight, but if even one of them kicked its load into the bleeding Val, she would surely die.
“All ahead full!”
“All ahead full,” echoed Mick Katsakos at the control console. “What’s that red stuff?”
“Ballast,” Neil explained.
“Wish I had my camera.”
An elegant little Aspide blasted from its launcher, tracking down and vaporizing its target just as the crew bailed out.
“One down, two to go,” said Peche over the intercom.
“That is quite a body,” said Katsakos. “Mmm-mmm.”
“Never been another like it,” said Neil.
Now, suddenly, a fourth man was on the bridge. Dressed in a waterproof alb, trembling with a fury that paled only in comparison with the captain’s, Tullio Cardinal Di Luca waddled toward the console.
“Captain, you must stop shooting at those planes! You must stop it right now!”
“They’re trying to kill my son!”
“I knew we hired the wrong man!”
For the tenth time since the Maracaibo’s arrival at the 71st parallel, the rugged old Spaniard named Gonzalo Cornejo popped out of the radio shack to announce that the Valparaíso’s communications officer was trying to get in touch.
“She’s really — how do you say? — she’s really driving me bugfuck.”
“Like to talk back to her, would you?” asked the captain.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell the Valparaíso that Christopher Van Horne doesn’t negotiate with pimps for the skin-flick industry. Got that, Gonzo? I don’t talk to pimps.” As Cornejo made a crisp about-face, the captain gave him a second order — “Pipe in the traffic, okay?” — then turned to Neil and said, “Ten degrees left rudder.”
“Ten left,” said Neil, wondering what sort of man would commit cold-blooded murder on his son’s behalf but refuse to exchange two words with him over the radio.
“Captain, if you cannot resist the temptation to fire your missiles, then we simply must leave,” said Di Luca, face reddening. “Do you understand? I’m ordering you to turn this ship around.”
“You mean retreat? Screw that, Eminence.”
“The cardinale has a point,” said Katsakos. “Maybe you noticed — these idiots still have six armed dive bombers over by the belly.”
Even as the mate spoke, a Devastator pilot’s agitated tones blasted from the bridge speaker. “Lieutenant Sharp to Commander McClusky. Come in, Commander.”
“McClusky here,” replied the leader of Air Group Six from his position above the omphalos.
“Sir, you got any eggs left?”
“One echelon’s worth. We’re about to unload ’em. Over.”
“There’s a Persian Gulf tanker on the field,” said Sharp. “Any chance you could help us out?”
“Gulf tanker? Whoa! Spruance said there wouldn’t be any screening vessels. Over.”
“Guess he fibbed.”
“We never done a Gulf tanker script, Sharp — nothin’ that modern. Over.”
“It’s kickin’ the shit out of us! We’re down to just me and Beeson!”
“Christ. Okay, I’ll see what we can do…”
Katsakos’s golden Mediterranean skin acquired a decidedly greenish cast. “Sir, may I remind you we’ve got a full hold? If just one of McClusky’s bombs connects, we’ll go up like Hiroshima.”
A prickly sensation overtook Neil, a tingling such as he’d not experienced since getting gassed inside the Val. The dive bombers were coming, bearing their deadly matches. “I should’ve stayed in Jersey City,” he told Di Luca. “I should’ve waited for another ship.”
“We can always come back later and make sure the Enterprise pulled your son and his crew from their lifeboats,” said Katsakos. “As for now…”
“Anthony Van Horne won’t be crawling into any goddamn lifeboat,” said the captain. “He’ll be going down with his ship.”
“Nobody does that anymore.”
“The Van Hornes do.”
Sighting through the bridge binoculars, Neil saw McClusky’s Dauntless echelon abandon the belly and begin a steady climb, evidently intending to circle around and attack the Maracaibo from the rear.
“Mr. Peche,” said the captain into the intercom mike, “kindly target the approaching dive bombers with Crotales.” He grabbed a swatch of the second mate’s pea jacket, twisting it like a tourniquet. “Who on board can operate a Phalanx cannon?”
“Nobody,” said Katsakos.
“Not you?”
“No, sir.”
“Not Peche?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll fire it.”
“I insist we turn around!” seethed Di Luca.
“Mr. Katsakos, I’m putting you in charge,” said the captain, starting away. “Alter course as the situation requires, whatever gives me a clear shot at the tow chains — they’re only targeting the Val so the body’ll go down with her!”
Neil looked south. Two Crotales were flying across God’s nose toward the maneuvering dive bombers. The warheads exploded simultaneously, hitting the echelon leader and the next plane in line an instant after their pilots and gunners bailed out. Trailing black oil, the first Dauntless crashed into the chin, shattering the encrusted ice and igniting the beard. Wingless, the second plane became a flaming sphere, roaring through the sky and falling into God’s left eye like a cinder.
Neil focused on the beard, each whisker enveloped by a high, slender flame coiling around its shaft. He lowered his gaze. Christopher Van Horne stood on the fo’c’sle deck, his mountainous form hunched over the starboard Phalanx, his purple parka rippling in the Arctic wind.
“Steady,” said Katsakos from the control console.
“Steady,” echoed Neil.
As the blood spill splashed against the Maracaibo’s prow, her captain swerved the gun and aimed. A sudden puff of smoke appeared, haloing the muzzle. Fifty yards from the Valparaíso, a fountain of seawater shot into the air, dead center between the chains.
“Left ten,” muttered Katsakos.
“Left ten.”
Van Horne fired again. This time the shell hit home, turning the central link into a silvery flash of pulverized metal. As the chain flew apart, the segment nearer the cranium slithered into the ocean while its stubby counterpart swung toward the stern, clanging against the hull.
“Nice shooting, Captain!” cried the excited mate.
“Steady!”
“Steady,” said Neil.
“Dive bombers at twelve o’clock!” screamed Katsakos.
Another shell flew from the starboard Phalanx, disintegrating a link and neatly separating the Val from her cargo. Whether or not Christopher Van Horne saw the fruits of his marksmanship was unclear, for the instant the chain broke, a Dauntless dropped its payload barely fifty feet from the captain. The bomb detonated. Cannon, hatches, icicles, and chunks of bulwark sailed heavenward, borne on a pillar of fire. Within seconds the entire fo’c’sle was burning, gouts of black smoke swirling above the fractured deck like rain clouds poised to release India ink.