Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (66 page)

PASSAGEWAY OF HELL

USS Atchison

THE
ENTERPRISE
LIT up in several fiery explosions as both ships were swallowed by a thick wall of surface fog.

“What are we going to do?” Spurs asked as she and North hid behind the large cube holding four Tomahawk cruise missiles.

“Three things,” he said, “Contact Admiral Pierce to tell him what these bastards are up to, then disable the Tomahawks to make sure they can’t do it.”

“What’s the third?”

“Actually, it’s the first. We get rid of the chopper. If they know they have no quick escape, it might take the wind out of their sails.”

North leaned his rifle against the missile station. “Stay here.” He looked toward the predawn Moroccan shoreline. A mile and a half out, the
Enterprise
was silhouetted in front of the rocky hills. North took off, ducking as he ran back into the helicopter. Spurs saw movement in the cockpit. The engines, already idling, revved loud.

Back at the superstructure, Chardoff stopped on the port bridge ladder. He frowned at the chopper.

The helo lifted quickly, but instead of going straight up, it tipped back and came up perpendicular to the deck. At first, it looked like North was going to fly it away, but certainly not like this, with its nose pointed to the sky.

The thing seemed to hover there and Spurs could see glimpses of North through the helo’s side ports as he scampered like a rodent down the inside of the body of the aircraft. At ten feet above the landing pad, North dropped from the open back ramp just as the big, back rotor beat the deck. The rotor blades splintered. Large pieces of it whistled across the ship, like a dozen deadly machetes. They slapped the superstructure, one flying past Chardoff’s head, causing him to duck.

North rolled away, the cropped rotor chasing him, as the helo did a somersault and finally flipped onto its back into the lightly rolling sea, smoking as it slipped under.

Chardoff raised his weapon and fired a dozen semiautomatic shots as North scrambled back toward Spurs. She leaned out from the missile station. With her 16 on full auto, she put the fear of a short life in the Marine with eighteen ricocheting bullets along the bridge ladder forcing Chardoff to dive into the Conn hatchway.

North ran up and slammed his back against the protective steel box as several of
Allah’s Jihad
opened up on them. Spurs ducked in.

“Where’d you learn to fly?” Spurs asked.

“Same place you learned to shoot,” North said.

“What now,
Kimosabe
?”

North peeked around the edge of the missiles. A volley of shots convinced him not to take a long gander.

“There’s no way we can get to the bridge or the message center to radio the Admiral,” he said.

“Is there another radio we can get to?”

North’s eyes brightened. “Jabrowski was working on a radio telephone in the CPO berthing area. I say we make our way to the aft hatch and go below for the
RT
. We can bring it back topside and see if we can get a hold of the
Enterprise
.”

“Ready when you are,” Spurs said, holding the rifle up.

“Might as well leave that here.”

“Why?”

“You’re out of ammo,” he said.

He popped the taped-together, banana magazines out of his rifle, flipped them around and jammed the full side back in.

Spurs turned her M-16 to its side and saw the open, empty chamber. Hers had only a standard, short magazine. She tossed it to the deck and pulled the Beretta out from under her belt. She’d have to be conservative now.

“Let’s go,” she said and nodded to North.

They bolted from the right side of the missile station, North leading. He gave several three-round automatic bursts as they zigzagged across the deck to the hatch, amid flying steel-jacketed rounds. Spurs ducked through the open hatchway and North backed through, squeezing the trigger twice more before setting the weapon on semi-automatic.

North and Spurs raced down two companionways toward CPO country, North leading. On the second deck down, they ran forward through several compartments.

Five times, startled gunmen turned to see the two flying toward them and five times North’s M-16 sent them to meet Allah.

Finally North stopped at a side compartment and went in. On the lower bunk of one of the two triple racks, sat the portable
RT
.

“We’re in luck!” he said and ran to it.

He laid the rifle on the bunk and Spurs stuffed her pistol behind her belt.

While she helped him slip his arms through its straps to carry it on his back, Sergeant Krebs, Chardoff’s number one henchman looked through the doorway.

Spurs pulled her Beretta from her belt as North went for his rifle, but not fast enough to prevent the sergeant’s first shot. She fired her two remaining rounds, one hitting the gunman’s M-16 on the barrel guard, the other striking the hatchway. It was enough to make him duck for cover, but her pistol was empty.

North sat hard on the deck grimacing as he pointed his assault rifle to the hatchway and nailed Krebs in the center of his chest when the traitor Marine took another try.

And a red pool grew on the floor under North.

RADIO FLYER

SPURS DROPPED TO her knees beside North, found the bullet hole mid-way up the inside of his right thigh and covered it with her right hand. With the fingertips of her left hand, she pressed hard above the wound to stop the gushing blood.

“Hold your hand there!” she told him.

As he did, she took off her field jacket, then yanked several times on the left sleeve of her fatigues until it tore off. She wrapped the strip around his thigh, and then grabbed a screwdriver that had been lying next to the RT and twisted the sleeve fabric tight. It seemed to do the job.

North held the screwdriver in place as Spurs helped him to his feet and grabbed the M-16.

“It’s empty too,” he said. He motioned to the dead sergeant. “We can rob his magazines.”

They made their way out the door of the stateroom and over the Marine’s body.

Spurs leaned North against the wall and took the dead man’s ammo, and they were off and limping.

“After we alert the
Enterprise
, we’ll have to jump overboard,” North said. “They’ll have to sink us to stop them from firing the Tomahawks. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Can’t we knock ‘em out?”

“With what? They’ve got the fire controls. The missiles are in a bomb proof, steel box. We don’t have any explosives.”

“What about the control cables from the fire controls to the missile station?”

“They snaked it through, under the deck,” he said, then his eyes became wide. “There is an access panel under the weapons station.”

“Where?”

“One deck up and about four compartments back.”

They hustled up the companionway and through the compartments, finally coming to the access panel without incident.

Four slotted screws held the small steel door in place, four feet up on the wall.

“We need a screw driver,” Spurs said.

“It just so happens, I’ve got one,” North said sitting down and pulling it out of his tourniquet.

“You fool!”

“Just hurry.”

He held pressure against his leg and handed her the screwdriver.

She passed him the rifle and he kept watch while she took the four screws out, letting them fall.

She caught the last screw in her hand, but the panel door came loose, slipped and clattered on the floor.

They both cringed. Inside were dozens of cables.

“Which one?”

“It should be the big green cable. Under its sheathing are eight leads wrapped together. Probably on top since it was the most recently installed.”

“Yeah, I see it.” Spurs reached in and tried to yank it loose. It wouldn’t budge. “What do I do with it?”

“You got your fingernail file?”

She remembered losing it when she and Sabre were escaping from the boiler tank. “Sorry. In all the excitement, I left my purse.”

A motor whined above them. The Tomahawks were being positioned.

“Hurry,” North said. “If we have to, we can shoot them.”

Spurs began stabbing the cable with the screwdriver. The first couple of jabs glanced off of the thick rubber insulation, but the next few gouged deep. The motorized whine stopped, but she didn’t know if she had stopped it or it had completed positioning.

Suddenly, bullets struck around the panel. She dropped the screwdriver inside the panel and heard it fall to the floor.

She turned to North.

“Damn it, let me get out of the way first!”

North seemed stunned as he let his rifle fall to the deck.

“It jammed,” he said and pointed toward the hatchway, ten feet away.

One of
Allah’s Jihad’s
finest stood motioning with his M-16 for Spurs to move away from the panel.

She stepped back and the man moved between them and took North’s rifle.

He backed away smiling.

“You think he understands English?” She asked.

“Let’s find out. Hey towel head, how many humps does your sister have?”

The man rattled off several Arabic syllables, but didn’t seem to understand as he motioned for North to move over to Spurs.

“My leg,” North said pointing at his thigh, “I can’t.”

The terrorist spewed more Arabic, insistently.

“Okay, okay,” North said, holding up his hand. He quickly tied the tourniquet tight and began to scoot over.

“I’ll distract him with the screw,” Spurs said, rushing her words, “you hit him with the panel door.”

“What?”

Spurs flipped the screw through the hatch on the other side of the gunman with her thumb as he watched North.

The screw clicked behind the terrorist and as he turned to look, North got the idea. He picked up the steel access panel door and flung it like a Frisbee.

It caught the gunman in the chest and he fell against the wall, firing his weapon.

Spurs bolted to the terrorist as North struggled to stand. The gunman’s rifle squirted out bullets on full automatic, but the shots weren’t aimed. Spurs grabbed the muzzle of the blazing weapon, directing it away and snapped her foot up in a high kick to the man’s chin. She brought her leg down, did a short hop and kicked again, catching him in the throat. Again, with a third kick, her toes broke teeth as the gunman fell back, unconscious.

North seemed amazed as he hobbled to her.

She turned. “I was a cheerleader in high school.”

“Tough school.”

More bullets struck around them and Spurs took the gunman’s rifle and North’s arm and they ducked through the hatch toward the companionway topside. At least three of the terrorists were shooting at them. Outnumbered and outgunned, they had no choice but to run and hope the wires Spurs had torn loose were the important ones.

On the main deck level they rushed through the still open aft hatch, North grabbing a life vest hanging on the bulkhead nearby as they passed. They staggered back to their position behind the now aimed cruise missile station. It would be the safest place on the ship to hold their enemy off, since they would be cautious not to hit the big steel box with more than small arms.

“Put this on,” North said handing the vest to her, then he slipped out of the RT’s shoulder straps. Spurs fired several rounds, answering a volley of snapping bullets around them, then put her head through the vest.

“Hope it works,” North said, turning the unit on.

“What was wrong with it?”

“Had a short. Could only get it to work about half the time.”

North keyed the mike several times and frowned. He tapped the unit with the handset. Keyed it again.

“Damn it!”

“Let me try,” Spurs said, squeezing off several more rounds.

Handing North the rifle, she took the radio.

She rapped it several more times and keyed the mike.

North fired two more rounds.

“Shit,” he said, “No more bullets!”

Spurs struck the radio with her palm. She picked the RT up and slammed it into the side of the missile station twice, screaming in a frustrated fit.

The two lights on the radio lit and the thing began to squeal, increasing into a loud static.

She looked to North surprised.

“I know, I know,” he said, “you were a cheerleader in high school.”

Spurs keyed the mike.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! Ship in distress. Can anyone read me, over?” She tried again. “
Enterprise
, this is the
Atchison
. We are under siege and preparing to fire on you. Defend yourself, over.”