"It's an ungodly mess down here, but the bilge is dry!" Dodge yelled back between coughing fits.
To those on board the pirate yacht, it looked as though the fishing boat was mortally hit, as they watched the column of smoke billowing from inside her hull. Believing her crew dead and too injured to resist, the yacht's captain backed off on his engines, slowed the vessel and drifted across Poco Bonito's, bow.
"Do we still have power, Rudi?"
"Our port engine is dead, but the starboard is still turning over."
"Then they just made a big mistake," Pitt said with a cold grin.
"And what was that?" Gunn replied.
"Remember the pirate ship?"
"I do indeed." Gunn cut back on the throttle to the good engine for the sucker play, allowing the little research boat to stop dead in the water. The ploy worked. Certain that his victim was about to sink, the yacht's captain swallowed the bait and idled closer.
Seconds crawled by, until the yacht was almost sitting on top of them at point-blank range. Seeing no movement on board and smoke still gushing from the hull, no small-arms fire was poured into the seemingly stricken vessel. Then a bearded man leaned out the window of the yacht's pilothouse, and with an American Deep South accent spoke through a bullhorn.
"Y'all who can hear me. If y'all do not abandon your boat, it will be blasted to kindlin'. Do not attempt to use any communication devices. Ah repeat, do not open communications. We'all have detection equipment on board and will know immediately if y'all transmit. Y'all have exactly sixty seconds to take to the water. Ah promise y'all safe passage to the nearest port."
"Shall we reply?" asked Gunn.
"Maybe we should do as he says," muttered Dodge. "I want to see my children and grandchildren again."
"If you trust a pirate's word," said Pitt coldly, "I've got a gold mine in Newark, New Jersey, I'll sell you cheap."
Seemingly ignoring the yacht, Pitt rose into view and climbed through the gear piled on the stern and approached the jackstaff on the transom that was flying the Nicaraguan flag. He lowered the flag, unclasped the fasteners and removed it. Then he retrieved the bundle he'd been carrying inside his shirt. In a few moments, a silk, three-by-five-foot emblem was raised.
"Now they know where we come from," Pitt said, as everyone stared reverently at the stars and stripes snapping defiantly in the breeze.
Renee returned on deck, carrying two glass jars and a wine bottle topped with gasoline. Quickly sizing up the situation, she suddenly had a revelation. "You're not going to ram him?" she cried.
"Say when," yelled Gunn, in a voice edged with anticipation and the stony face of a poker player bluffing to win a pot.
"No!" Renee moaned. "That isn't a hologram. It's a solid object. Ram that and we'll fold up like Lawrence Welk's accordion."
"I'm counting on it," Pitt snapped back. "You and Patrick light the wicks and get ready to toss the cocktails as soon as we collide."
There was no more hesitation. The yacht was creeping past Poco Bonito's bow, now less than a hundred feet away.
Giordino threw Pitt one of the M4 carbines and they began blasting away at the yacht. Giordino fired full automatic, sending a spray of 5.56-millimeter NATO rounds into the pilothouse, while Pitt aimed and accurately fired single shots at the crewman holding the rocket launcher, taking him out with his second shot. Another man leaned down to pick up the weapon, but Pitt canceled him out too...
Stunned that Poco Bonito was unexpectedly fighting back, the crew of the yacht dashed for cover without returning fire. Giordino did not know it but he had put a bullet in the shoulder of the captain, who had fallen out of sight onto the deck of the pilothouse. At the same moment, the helmsman was dropped by the shower of shells, and the yacht began to lose steerage and angle away. With only just one engine providing power, Poco Bonito flattened out at less than half her top speed, but she still gamely thrust her bow through the water with more than enough power to do the job.
No one had to be told to sit against the bulkhead with their arms protecting their heads. Renee and Dodge shared apprehensive looks at the orange life jackets that Gunn had passed out. In the pilothouse, he stood firm, hands clutched on the wheel, knuckles turning ivory. The single screw chewed the water, driving the boat straight toward the big, opulent yacht. Its crew stared back, numbed with horror and disbelief, as they realized the innocent-looking fishing boat was not throwing in the towel but rather attacking them with the intention of ramming. A fox in sheep's clothing, surprise was total, no other boat or ship had offered resistance before being captured. They were also shaken by the unexpected show of the American flag.
Pitt and Giordino kept up their devastating fire, sweeping the decks and clearing them of the yacht's crew as Poco Bonito closed the gap. The Epona looked bigger than ever, as they surged toward her hull amidships just aft of the wheelhouse. The decks had been cleared. Like scared rabbits, the crew had concealed themselves belowdecks rather than risk the accurate fire pouring from the oncoming boat.
Poco Bonito looked like the boat from hell, with exhaust fumes issuing through the engine room hatch along with smoke, blown back on a ninety-degree trail astern by the wind over the bow. Gunn had served as executive officer of a missile destroyer that had rammed an Iraqi submarine in the Mediterranean during the conflict to rid the area of Saddam Hussein. But the conning tower of the sub was all that had been visible then. Now, he was looking at a big, solid ship that towered over him.
Ten seconds to impact.
23
Pitt and Giordino laid aside their carbines and braced themselves for the collision. From her curled-up position against the deckhouse bulkhead, Renee could see that the two men's faces were impassive, with no indication of fear or stress. They seemed as indifferent as a pair of ducks sitting under pouring rain.
In the pilothouse, Gunn was planning his moves in sequence. He aimed the bow to strike into the yacht's engine room just aft of the main dining salon. After impact, the next trick was to reverse the engine and pray it could pull Poco Bonito out of the hole she just gouged and keep afloat while the enemy made a one-way trip to the seabed. The sleek hull of Epona looked so close now, Gunn felt as if he could reach through the shattered windshield and touch the elongated image of the horse.
The yacht loomed up and blocked out the sun. Then havoc piled on havoc and everything seemed to go into slow motion as the sound of a dull lingering crunch that never seemed to end broke the atmosphere. Poco Bonito sliced into her far larger antagonist, smashing a V-shaped slash, demolishing the engine room bulkheads on the starboard hull of the big catamaran and crushing anyone working inside.
Renee and Dodge stood and hurled their fuel-filled bottles, with soaked rags aflame. One bounced on the teak deck without breaking, but the other smashed and ignited a ball of fire that spread down the side of the yacht in a fiery waterfall. Without pause, they hurled the glass jars, then the wine bottle, and all burst into a holocaust that covered half the yacht. The once-beautiful vessel looked as though it was locked in a psychotic's nightmare.
Even before the research boat had lost her momentum, Gunn pulled the throttle into full reverse. For several tormented seconds, Poco Bonito just hung there, her shattered bow driven six feet into Epona, caught like a fist in a vise, propeller flogging the water convulsively. Ten seconds, fifteen seconds, then twenty. At last, with a great shriek of ripping debris, she began to pull free. As her crumpled bow unplugged the gash in the yacht's hull, the brown crud gushed into her like a raging river. The yacht immediately began to list sharply.
Two of Epona's crewmen, protected on the opposite hull, recovered and began firing automatic weapons at Poco Bonito. Their aim was erratic and low because their eyes were influenced by the downward list of the starboard hull. Bullets splashed the water around the research boat's hull, some penetrating and leaving several small holes for water to spurt through.
Pitt and Giordino fired blindly into the smoke and fire until resistanc
e aboard the yacht faded away. The superstructure was hidden by flame and smoke. Screams and shouts could be heard inside the conflagration. Fanned by a light breeze, flames flickered through the great hole driven in her starboard hull. The catamaran yacht was settling deeper in the water now, lifting the undamaged port hull free of the water surface.
Everyone on board Poco Bonito crowded the railing, staring in rapt fascination at the dying yacht. The Epona's crew frantically scrambled aboard the helicopter, whose pilot started and revved the engine. Compensating for the angle of list, the pilot lifted the helicopter off the burning vessel and banked toward land, leaving any wounded behind to burn or drown.
"Pull alongside her," Pitt ordered Gunn.
"How close?" the little man inquired anxiously.
"Close enough for me to jump aboard."
Knowing it was senseless to argue with Pitt, Gunn shrugged and began easing the badly damaged boat toward the yacht that was aflame from bow to amidships. He kept the engine in reverse and moved astern to ease pressure from the water that was streaming into the smashed bow section.
Meanwhile, Giordino labored furiously in the mangled mess of the Poco Bonito's engine room, making necessary repairs to keep the boat afloat and under power. Renee cleared the deck of any useless equipment and threw it over the side. Blackened and stained with smoke, Dodge went below and dragged a portable pump into the bow section and attacked the rising water that flowed in through the bow that had been smashed back to the forward bulkhead.
As Gunn carefully maneuvered Poco Bonito alongside Epona, Pitt waited until they nearly touched before he stood on the railing and leaped aboard, landing on the open teak deck behind the main dining salon. Thankfully, the breeze was blowing the fire forward and the aft section had not yet suffered the effects of the blaze. If he were to find anyone alive, he had to move fast before the once-sleek ship sank into the deep. The sound of a fire out of control was like a steam locomotive thundering down the track.
Pitt ran through the dining salon and found it empty. A fast search through the staterooms below failed to turn up any sign of crew member or officer. He tried to go up the plushly carpeted stairs to the pilothouse, but met a wall of fire that drove him back. The smoke seeped through his nose into his lungs. His eyes streamed tears from the acrid smoke and felt as though they were burning out of their sockets. With his hair and eyebrows singed, he was about to give up and abandon the search when he stumbled over a body in the galley.
He reached down and was stunned to feel that it was a woman wearing nothing but a brief bikini. Hoisting her over his shoulder, he stumbled out onto the stern deck, coughing and wiping the tears from his eyes onto one arm.
Gunn instantly appraised the situation and moved the boat ever closer to the yacht until their hulls bumped. Then he rushed from the pilothouse and took the limp shape of the woman that Pitt passed across the railing. The heat from the flames was beginning to blister the paint on the sides of the research boat, as Gunn laid the woman gently on the deck, noting only that she had long straight red hair before hurrying back to the helm and moving Poco Bonito away from the flames.
Pitt, barely able to see until his eyes cleared, felt her pulse and found it had a regular beat. Her breathing was also normal. He brushed back the flame-red hair from her forehead and found an egg-sized bump. He assumed that she had been knocked unconscious during the collision. The face, arms and long, shapely legs revealed an even tan. Her face was beautifully sculpted, with a flawless complexion and lips that were full and sensual. The upturned nose was a perfect complement to the face. Because her eyes were closed, he could not see their color. From what he could tell, she was a very attractive woman, with the lithe body of a dancer.
Renee finished throwing a box of net buoys over the side and rushed to the woman lying on the deck. "Help me get her down below," she said. "I'll take care of her."
Still partially blind, Pitt carried the woman from the yacht down the stairwell to his cabin and laid her out on his bunk. "She has a nasty bump on the head," he said, "but I think she'll come around. You might give her air from a dive tank to help clear the smoke from her lungs."
Pitt returned topside just in time to watch the end of the yacht.
It was slipping under the water, her once lavender-colored hull and superstructure now blackened by the fire and stained with the brown crud. A sad and pathetic ending for a beautiful ship. He regretted that he had been the cause of her demise. But then cold, hard logic took the place of sadness, as he envisioned Poco Bonito succumbing to the same fate, with all her crew dead. His regret was replaced with a euphoria that he and his friends were alive and unharmed.
The starboard hull of the catamaran had sunk completely under the brown water. The port hull hung briefly in the air as the superstructure slipped below the surface, leaving behind a swirling spiral of steam and smoke. Her polished bronze screws sparkled in the sun, and then they were gone. Except for the hiss of the water as it squelched the flames, she went down quietly, without protest, as if wanting to hide her disfigurement. The last sight of her was the pennant with the golden horse. Then it too was swallowed by the indifferent brown sea.
After she disappeared, fuel oil surfaced and spread across the muck, painting it black with rainbow-hued streaks reflecting under the sun. Bubbles came up and burst, along with distorted debris that popped to the surface and seemed to hang there, waiting to be carried to some distant shore by the currents and tides.
Turning from the tragedy, Pitt stepped into the pilothouse, his shoes crunching in the shattered glass scattered on the deck. "How's it look, Rudi? Can we make the coast or do we take to the rafts?"
"We might make it if Al can keep the engine running and Patrick slows the flooding in the bow, which isn't likely. It's gaining faster than the pumps can handle."
"We're also taking water from the bullet holes that penetrated below the waterline."
"There's a large canvas tarp in the storage locker below. If we could lower it over the bow like a mask, that might slow the water enough for the pumps to catch up."
Pitt could see the forward section of the boat was almost two feet down at the bow. "I'll work on it."
"Don't take too long," Gunn cautioned. "I'll keep us in reverse to slow the flooding."
Pitt leaned over the engine room hatch. "Al, how's the party down there?"
Giordino appeared and looked up. He was standing knee-deep in brown crud water, his clothes were soaked and his hands, arms and face were coated in oil. "Barely staying ahead of the game, and believe you me, it ain't no party."
"Can you give me a hand topside?"
"Give me five minutes to unclog the bilge pump. The crud plugs it if I don't clean out the filters every few minutes."
Pitt dropped down and made his way past the cabins to the storage locker, where he found a large folded canvas tarpaulin. It was heavy and bulky, but he managed to drag it up a ladder and through a hatch on the forward deck. Giordino soon joined him, looking like he'd fallen in a tar pit, and together they spread out the canvas and tied all four ends with a nylon line. Two of the ends they weighted with fractured parts from the engine struck by the rocket. When ready, Pitt turned and motioned for Gunn to reduce the speed astern.
Together, he and Pitt threw the canvas off the crunched bow into the water, holding on to all four ends of the line. They waited until the weighted side of the tarp sank slowly through the crud. Then Pitt called to Gunn.
"Okay, move ahead slowly!"
They stood on opposite sides of the bow and pulled in the lines until the weighted end hung beneath the remains of the bow. Next they tied off the lower lines and pulled on the upper ends until the tarp was spread over the damaged section, greatly reducing the flow of water inside. Soon as the lines were secured, Pitt pulled up the forward deck hatch and checked with Dodge.
"How's it look, Patrick?"
"That did the trick," Dodge replied, wearily but happy. "You've reduced the flooding by a good e
ighty percent. The pump should be able to hold its own now."
"I have to get back to the engine room," said Giordino. "It's not a pretty sight down there."
"Neither are you," Pitt said, smiling, as he put his arm around Giordino's shoulder. "Let me know if you need a hand."
"You'd only get in the way. I'll have things under control in another couple of hours."
Then Pitt entered the pilothouse. "We can get under way now, Rudi. Our patch seems to be working."
"Lucky for us the computerized navigation controls survived intact. I've programmed in a course for Barra del Colorado in Costa Rica. An old naval buddy of mine retired down there and lives next to a sport-fishing lodge. We can tie up at his dock and make the necessary repairs for the trip across the sea to the NUMA boatyard at Fort Lauderdale."
"A wise choice." Pitt gestured toward the huge and mysterious containership across the water. "We might find trouble if we run in there. Better safe than sorry."