Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (13 page)

 
          
The
six men on the foredeck of the
Numestra
spread out along the port railing near the front of the freighter, took quick
aim and fired anti-armor bazookas at the
Resolute
—from
only a few yards away they could not miss. Two high-explosive projectiles hit
the 3-inch cannon, one round hit the foredeck and two rounds hit the bridge.
Fire, smoke and red-hot glass showered the men on the forward half of the
Resolute
before they could react. One
line-handler and the rifleman on the foredeck died instantly, the second
line-handler on the bow was blown overboard by the force of the explosion on
the cannon turret.

 
          
The
surviving Coast Guardsmen providing cover for the boarding crew returned fire
but the attack wasn’t over. Three more bazooka rounds slammed into the
Resolute,
one hitting close enough to
destroy a .50 caliber machine-gun mount. Heavy rifle fire from the freighter
began to rake the cutter, and the
Numestra’
s
engines roared to life as it began to head away from the crippled Coast Guard
vessel.

 
          
Ensign
McConahay had survived on the bridge of the
Resolute
because as the Dolphin pilot’s warning echoed through the bridge
loudspeakers he had moved behind his plotting table. So there was something
solid between him and the freighter. And when the first shot rang out he ducked
behind it just before the first LAWS rocket shattered the windows and blew away
Applegate and the rest of the bridge crew.

 
          
McConahay’s
ears were ringing, he was dizzy and he tasted blood. He was covered with glass,
bits of metal and some gooey stuff. Somehow he had managed to crawl to the aft
bulkhead and find one of the auxiliary wall phones. He opened the phone’s cover,
retrieved the handset and sank to the floor as another rush of vertigo hit him.

 
          
“Bridge,
this is Auxiliary,” a voice said. “Bridge! Respond!”

 
          
“We’re
under attack,” McConahay shouted. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

 
          
“McConahay?
Is that you?”

 
          
“Yeah
.. . yeah ...” Somehow hearing his name helped him think, and slowly a bit of
his training began to filter through. “Radio for help. Call the day crew to the
bridge.”

 
          
“Where’s
the captain? Where’s Mr. Applegate?”

 
          
That
was the first time McConahay had looked around the bridge,
really
looked around, and the sight brought a massive wave of
nausea. The smell of the explosives, the stench of burned flesh, the acid smoke
in the air . . . overpowering. It was also then that he noticed the bodies,
torn and scattered across the so recently spotless decks.

 
          
“They’re
. . . they’re . . .” McConahay couldn’t finish the thought. He looked down at
the tattered remains of his life vest, covered with glass and red sticky globs.
His hands and arms were covered with it

 
          
“Can
you give us a heading?” the voice in Auxiliary Control shouted. “Can you give
us a course?”

 
          
McConahay
dropped the phone and staggered to his feet. The Gulf breezes were slowly
moving the acidic fumes out of the shattered bridge, and soon he could see the
Numestra
moving off to the right,
heading away at growing speed. Then through the broken windows he spotted a few
crewmen on the foredeck firing at the escaping freighter—and he saw that the
3-inch gun had taken some hits but its protective steel turret housing,
although backward, was still intact.

 
          
He
found the auxiliary control phone underneath the forward instrument panel—it
had been protected by its cradle well under the panel. “Auxiliary control,
report. What’s the status of the cannon?”

 
          
“The
3-incher is showing functional, ensign,” a voice replied, “but we’re showing a
fault in—”

 
          
“Come
twenty degrees right, make flank speed, and stand by on the forward 3-incher,”
McConahay broke in. He leaned as far as he could out the broken windows. “Clear
the foredeck! Clear the foredeck!”

           
“Ensign, we can’t make flank speed.
We’re sending damage-control to—”

 
          
“Then
give me whatever you got,” McConahay shouted, “but get that cannon on line.”
The riflemen scurried away from the gun turret as the huge cannon slewed left
and lowered its muzzle to nearhorizontal.

 
          
McConahay
now checked the fire-control radar but it was a smoking hole in the instrument
panel. Coughing through the acrid stinging smoke that nearly filled the
shattered bridge, he found one of the seldom used pieces of navigation
equipment intact—the pelorus. This simple device, resembling a surveyor’s
instrument, had a precision aiming-reticle on a moveable wheel mounted on a
compass rose that read bearings from the ship to a distant object. Using the
pelorus and a little trigonometry the navigator could compute range and
position. The pelorus had been replaced by the more accurate radar and other
electronic navigation devices, but McConahay, out of navigation school only a
few months, was still familiar with how to use it.

 
          
And
it came to him that, incredibly, he had what he needed to mount a
counter-attack. Maybe . . .

 
          
The
3-inch cannon needed range and bearing for an accurate firing solution. Bearing
was easy—line up on the freighter and read bearing directly off the pelorus. He
knew the approximate height of the freighter’s superstructure, and with the
pelorus he got the angle to the top of it. He had all the angles and one side
of a right triangle— height of the superstructure divided by the tangent of the
angle would give the range in feet to the freighter.

 
          
The
superstructure was about a hundred feet tall—remember to subtract the distance
above the waterline, McConahay told himself. He was about twenty feet above
water, so that equaled eighty feet. The pelorus measured angles in degrees and
mils—degrees for very tall objects and short distances, and mils for more
precise measurements. Mils, originally used by Civil War artillery officers to
compute distance for cannon fire, were made to order for this situation.

 
          
The
breeze through the shattered bridge windows was beginning to clear the smoke.
Rubbing dirt and soot from his watering eyes, McConahay sighted through the
scope at the retreating shape of the
Numestra
—the
measurement scales were luminescently lit—and read the angle:
twenty-six-and-a-half mils.

 
          
He
used his fingers like an abacus to make the range calculations. First, mils had
to be converted to radians. There were 16 mils in a grad—that came to 1.656
grads. Multiply that by 0.9 to get degrees— that came to 1.49. Multiply . . .
no, divide
that by 57.29 to get
radians—that came to 0.26. The tangent of that number was virtually the
same—.026. Divide 80 feet—the height of the
Numestra
’s
superstructure minus his own height above water—by .026, and moments later,
dividing on his fingers, he had the range: 3,054 feet.

 
          
“Auxiliary
control, range to target three thousand fifty feet, bearing twenty-two degrees,
estimated speed of target twelve knots, estimated heading of target . . .
one-five-zero degrees magnetic. Deck clear. Report when ready to shoot.”

 
          
“Ensign,
do you know what the hell—”

 
          
“I said report. ”

           
Silence, then: “Ensign,
ballistic-mode manual, lead mode manual showing feed fault after eight. Ready
up.”

 
          
McConahay
shook drops of sweat out of his eyes. “Batteries released. Shoot!”

 
          
The
3-inch cannon rang out, a tongue of flame leaping toward the horizon.
McConahay, the recent student, probably didn’t need all his fancy precise
calculations to hit the freighter—it was little more than a half-mile away—but
in any case his figures were dead on. The first round hit the freighter just
above the waterline and smack in the middle. A mushroom of fire blossomed into
the night sky. The cannon fired one high-explosive round every five seconds,
and each one hit home. The shells moved aft along the waterline, finally
reaching the engine compartment. When the fifth shell hit, it sent a massive
ball of fire erupting from the entire aft section of the freighter, and the
hulk began to burn fiercely.

 
          
“Feed
fault on the forward 3-incher,” the officer in auxiliary control reported.

 
          
“Auxiliary
control, cease fire, cease fire,” McConahay shouted into the phone. The
cannon’s heavy pounding had felt like hammer- blows to his chest, and the
vibration, along with the rush of adrenaline made his muscles actually quiver
with exhaustion. “Relay to engine room. All stop!” Men were now rushing onto
the bridge. McConahay let the phone drop, and found himself slumping to the
deck.

 
          
“I’ll
be goddamned, you got the son-of-a-bitch, Mr. McConahay,” someone was saying.

 
          
“Damage
report . . . head count . . . send S.O.S. . . .” McConahay was mumbling. The
emergency ship drills at the Academy were jumbling together with geometric
shapes and trig tables in his head, and soon everything turned gray, and
welcome darkness closed over him.

 
 
          
Coast
Guard Station,
Mobile
,
Alabama
,

 
          
The Next Morning

 
          
Reporters
and camera crews were on hand in boats, in helicopters and along every dock in
the harbor as the
Resolute
was towed
into port with the crippled freighter
Numestra
del Oro
alongside. A fire tug moved the
Resolute,
with a dozen firemen and engineers on deck studying the rocket-impact points
and fire damage on the cutter’s starboard side. Another fire tug was covering
the
Numestra
on the port side, but
this one had as many armed FBI agents and Coast Guardsmen on it as firemen.

 
          
Admiral
Hardcastle stood on
Resolute’
s
helipad just aft of the helicopter hangar, and was soon joined by Admiral
Albert Cronin, Hard- castle’s boss and commander of the Coast Guard Atlantic
Area. Cronin, just over five feet, had thick meaty hands, a waistline to match
and a wrestler’s neck. Those friendly referred to him as “the fireplug” or just
“Plug,” but Hardcastle never used that nickname even though the two men had
known each other for fifteen years.

 
          
Now
they stood at the edge of the helipad looking over the freighter
Numestra
tied along the port side.
Customs, DEA and FBI agents swarmed over its unsteady deck, taking photographs
and making notes as if the badly damaged freighter would disappear in a puff of
smoke any second.

 
          
“I
could use a smoke,” Cronin said gruffly. Hardcastle reached inside his jacket,
pulled out a cigar, offered it to Cronin, then took one for himself as well.
But as the Area Commander was about to light up Hardcastle held up a hand.
“Better not, sir. Diesel fumes.”

 
          
In
fact, the air was thick with the nauseating kerosene-like smell; the
Numestra
had left a trail of fuel oil in
its wake twenty miles long. Cronin’s scowl deepened. The two men, unlit stogies
clamped between their teeth, continued to look at the
Numestra
as if it were King Kong brought to
America
on a barge.

 
          
“They’re
going to transfer McConahay,” Cronin told Hardcastle. “Kid’s on the edge of
nervous exhaustion.”

 
          
“He
gave a damn fine account of himself out there last night,” Hardcastle said.

 
          
“C’mon,
Ian, he was a junior officer on the bridge of a cutter, scared shitless, and he
went over the edge. Damn near every other man on the bridge gets biown to hell,
he finds himself suddenly in command on a wrecked bridge, under attack, with
major damage to the vessel. Now I don’t need to tell
you . .
. the first thing to do is alert the crew, take care of the
injured and take charge of the damage control detail—
not,
for God’s sake, start shooting the damned cannon. Face it, the
kid went ballistic, he was out of control—”