Black Wind (46 page)

“And here I had good money down that you were lolling about in the
Odyssey
's lounge nursing a martini,” Giordino grumbled.

“I was the one shaken and stirred,” Pitt laughed. “Would have been baked alive when the
Badger
got jammed against the side pontoon, but I was able to manually force the rudder against the surge and broke free into cooler water. Even with the ballast tanks purged, it took me a while to surface until I got the bilge pump working. There's still a lot of water sloshing around inside, but she should stay afloat a while longer.”

“I'll radio
Deep Endeavor
and have her fish the
Badger
out once they've picked up the platform crew on Santa Barbara Island,” Giordino replied.

“I will have a furious sister on my hands if you first don't let her know you are safe,” Dirk chided.

Summer nearly fell over when her father's voice crackled through the
Deep Endeavor
's radio, jokingly ordering a beer and a peanut butter sandwich.

“We feared the worst,” she gushed. “What on earth happened to you?”

“It's a long story. Suffice it to say that the Scripps Institute isn't going to be too happy with my submarine-driving skills,” he said, leaving all on the bridge of the
Deep Endeavor
scratching their heads.

*  *  *

A
S
G
IORDINO
lifted the airship up off the water, Pitt noticed the F-16s circling the fleeing
Koguryo
.

“Cavalry finally arrive?” he asked.

“Just moments ago. The Navy has an armada headed this way as well. She's not going to get away.”

“Her tender is sure making haste,” Pitt said, nodding toward a white speck to the south.

Lost in the spectacle and confusion was the
Koguryo
's tender, which had slipped quietly away from her mother ship and was now motoring south toward the horizon at high speed.

“How do you know that's her tender?” Giordino asked, squinting downrange.

“Over here,” Pitt replied, tapping the WESCAM monitor. Pitt had been fooling around with the zoom lens while talking and happened to catch the speeding boat flash by. The focused image clearly showed it was the
Koguryo
's tender, which they had observed earlier.

“The jets definitely aren't tracking her,” Dirk said from the rear, noting the F-16s circling tightly around the
Koguryo
as she sailed farther to the west.

“Let's stay on her,” Pitt stated.

“She has nary a chance against our fleet wings aflutter,” Giordino snarled, pushing the throttles to
FULL
and watching as the airspeed indicator crept slowly toward 50 knots.

62

W
HY HAVEN'T THEY FIRED
on the aircraft, or that infernal airship?” Tongju swore as he stared at the
Koguryo
through a pair of binoculars. The bouncing movement of the tender as it ran at full speed through the waves made it impossible for him to steady his gaze and he finally threw the glasses down harshly onto a cowling.

“The aircraft have intimidated Lee,” Kim said over his shoulder as he clutched the steering wheel tightly. “He will pay with his life in about two more minutes.”

The
Koguryo
was growing smaller on the horizon as the tender accelerated south. But when the planted explosives detonated, they could clearly see puffs of water spray into the air along the ship's hull line.

Standing on the bridge, Captain Lee at first thought that the F-16s had fired on him. But the warbirds still circled lazily above, and there was no sign that they had fired any missiles. As the damage assessments came in reporting that the lower hull was compromised in several locations, Lee suddenly realized the culprit. Minutes before, a crewman had reported observing Kim and Tongju board the tender and the small boat was now seen running south at high speed. With a sick sensation of betrayal, Lee knew that he and his ship had been deemed expendable.

But a miscalculation would save them. Kim's demolition team had planted ample explosives to rip the bowels out of a normal ship
Koguryo
's size. But a critical piece of information about the cable ship had not been considered: she had a double hull. The detonated charges easily ruptured the vessel's inner hull but only buckled the plates of the outer hull. Seawater gushed into the lower holds, but not with the massive force that would submerge the running ship as Tongju had envisioned. Lee immediately stopped the ship, deployed portable pumps to the damaged holds, and then sealed off the high-risk areas behind watertight doors. The ship would list and be unable to run at speed but she would not founder.

Once the flooding was halted, the captain peered through a set of field glasses at the speeding tender escaping in the distance. Lee knew that he had little to live for now. As the captain of the vessel that launched the aborted missile attack against the United States, he would be the prime scapegoat if captured. If he somehow escaped, or was released, there would be no telling what sort of reception he'd receive from Kang. Satisfied that the ship was stabilized, Lee excused himself from the bridge and retired to his cabin. Retrieving a Chinese-made Makarov 9mm pistol from beneath a dresser drawer filled with pressed shirts, Lee lay down neatly on his bed, held the barrel to his ear, and pulled the trigger.

*  *  *

W
HILE PURSUING
the speeding tender, the men in the
Icarus
caught sight of the series of explosions that ripped along the hull of the
Koguryo
.

“Are those lunatics trying to scuttle her with all hands?” Dahlgren wondered.

For several minutes, they watched the ship as she slowed but held steady. Pitt noticed that there was no apparent rush for the lifeboats, and he could see several members of the crew standing idly at the rail watching the jets overhead. He studied the waterline for a significant change but could only detect a slight list.

“She's not going to disappear on us anytime soon,” he said. “Let's keep after the tender.”

Giordino glanced at the LASH system output on the laptop computer, spotting several gray shapes to the southeast approximately thirty miles away.

“Our Navy pals are on the way,” he said, tapping the screen. “They won't be alone for long.”

With a nearly 20-knot advantage in speed, the airship began easily gaining ground on the fleeing white boat. The
Icarus
had only ascended to a five-hundred-foot altitude when Giordino gave chase and he didn't waste power on any further climbing. The blimp glided smoothly toward the boat's wake, driving fast and low over the water. As the airship moved closer, Pitt focused the surveillance camera on the boat's open rear deck and cabin. Through the covered portico, he could only make out indiscriminate shapes at the helm.

“I count four men above decks,” he said.

“Apparently, they're not ones for a crowded escape,” Giordino replied.

Pitt scanned the camera about the deck, relieved to find no heavy armament but noting the extra drums of fuel near the stern.

“Plenty of gas for a run to Mexico,” he said.

“I think our Coast Guard friends in San Diego might have something to say about that,” Giordino replied, tightening his bearing on the boat.

*  *  *

T
ONGJU AND
his men had been focused on the
Koguryo
, but one of the commandos finally noticed the approaching blimp. While Kim manned the helm, the other three men instinctively stepped to the rear open deck to better observe the airship. Pitt focused the zoom lens of the camera on the men until their faces could clearly be distinguished.

“Recognize any of these characters?” Pitt asked over his shoulder to Dirk and Dahlgren.

The younger Pitt studied the screen for just a moment before gritting his teeth hard. The flash of anger subsided quickly, though, as a contented smile returned to his face.

“The Fu Manchu character standing in the center. His name is Tongju. He's Kang's master of ceremonies for torture and assassination. Appeared to be calling the shots aboard the
Odyssey
earlier.”

“For such a nice guy, it would be kind of a shame to ruin his Mexican vacation,” Giordino replied.

As he spoke, he dipped the prow of the blimp down and held steady as the airship slowly dove toward the water. When it looked like he was going to drive the nose into the sea, Giordino gently pulled up on the controls, leveling the gondola just fifty feet above the water. The
Icarus
had closed the gap between the two vessels during the dive, and Giordino guided the airship along the port side of the tender until the gondola was suspended side by side.

“You want to step off and have a beer with these guys?” Pitt asked as he eyed the men on the boat just a few dozen feet away.

“No, just want to let them know that they ain't going to outrun Mad Al and his Magic Bag of Gas,” he grinned.

Giordino eased back on the throttles until he matched speeds with the bouncing tender, the large envelope of the blimp casting a shadow over the topsides of the boat. Above the din of the tender's twin inboard engines and the airship's Porsche motor-driven propellers, the men in the
Icarus
suddenly detected an unwelcome staccato. Glancing back at the tender, Pitt saw that Tongju and the two commandos had retrieved automatic weapons and were standing on the stern deck blasting away at the blimp.

“I hate to be the one to tell you but they're shooting holes in your gasbag, Mad Al,” Pitt said.

“The jealous lowlifes,” Giordino replied, goosing the throttles.

Before departing Oxnard, they had been told that the airship could withstand a profusion of holes and gashes to the air bags and still retain its lift. Tongju and his men would have to exhaust a crate of ammunition to threaten the airworthiness of the helium-filled blimp. But the safety of the gondola was less assured. After a momentary pause in the firing, the floor of the main cabin suddenly erupted in a spray of splinters as the gunmen redirected their weapons at the gondola.

“Everybody down!” Pitt yelled as a burst of fire smashed the side cockpit window, the bullets grazing just over his head. The sound of shattering glass resonated through the cabin as a rain of bullets poured into the gondola. Dirk and Dahlgren lay flat on the floor as several bursts stitched past them and into the ceiling above. Giordino jammed the throttles all the way forward, and, while waiting anxiously for the blimp to speed ahead, turned the yoke full to port to turn away from the tender.

“No,” Pitt yelled at him, “turn and fly over him.”

Giordino knew not to question Pitt's judgment and, without hesitation, threw the rudder over in the opposite direction, pushing the
Icarus
back toward the tender. Glancing at Pitt, he could see him studying the tender below with an arched brow. The blistering fire continued to tear into the gondola for a second, then abruptly stopped as Giordino steered the gondola above and slightly ahead of the tender's cabin roof, temporarily obscuring the field of fire.

“Everyone all right?” Pitt asked.

“We're okay back here,” Dirk replied, “but one of the engines isn't faring too well.”

As the sound of gunfire fell away, the men could hear sputtering and coughing emanating from the starboard gondola motor. Giordino glanced at the console gauges and shook his head.

“Oil pressure falling, temperature rising. Going to be tough to run away from these guys on one leg.”

Pitt peered down at the deck of the tender, spotting Tongju and the two gunmen moving toward the stern of the boat reloading their weapons.

“Al, hold your position,” he said. “And lend me your cigar.”

“It's one of Sandecker's finest,” he replied, hesitating before handing Pitt the saliva-soaked green stub.

“I'll buy you a box of 'em. Hold steady for ten seconds, then turn hard to port and get us the hell away from the boat.”

“You're not going to do what I think you are?” Giordino asked.

Pitt just flashed a sly look, then reached up for an overhead ripcord with one hand while he turned a dial marked
FUEL BALLAST
to the open position. Pulling on the cord, he silently counted to eight, then released the line and closed the lever. At the stern of the gondola, an emergency dump valve opened on the fuel tank, releasing a flood of gasoline that surged out the bottom of the tank.

Pitt's quick discharge released more than seventy-five gallons of gasoline out of the gondola tank, which sprayed down directly onto the stern deck of the tender. Pitt looked down and could see that the rear deck was awash in fuel that sloshed along the rear gunwale as the boat charged through the waves. Tongju and the two gunmen covered their faces and sprinted under the portico as the rain of liquid splattered down on them but quickly returned after the deluge ended and raised their weapons again to finish off the blimp. Pitt watched curiously as the pool of gasoline washed around their feet and splashed over some deck chairs, a bench, and the four fifty-five-gallon drums tied to the side. He stoked a few puffs on the cigar to brighten its ember, then stuck his head out the shattered side cockpit window. Just a few yards away, Pitt eyed Tongju and smiled as the assassin looked up and swung his assault rifle toward him. Through his legs, Dirk could feel the blimp begin pulling to one side as Giordino threw the controls over. With a calm nonchalance, he took a last puff on the cigar and casually tossed it toward the stern of the tender.

A wave jostled the tender, and Tongju braced himself against a side railing as he jerked the stock of the AK-74 assault rifle to his shoulder. He barely noticed the small green object that fluttered down and struck the deck beside him as he took aim at Pitt's head poking out the cockpit window. His finger was just tightening on the trigger when a loud poof erupted at his feet.

The cigar's glowing ember ignited the gasoline vapors rising off the deck before the stogie even struck the surface. The airship's rain of gasoline had sprayed everywhere and in seconds the whole stern of the boat was a wall of flame. A commando standing beside Tongju had been drenched in fuel and the flames shot up his legs and torso in a rush. The panicked man dropped his weapon and danced frantically about the deck, his arms flailing wildly to douse his burning clothes. Screaming in pain, he finally ran to the railing and flung himself over the side, the ocean waters quickly extinguishing the human torch in a whiff of smoke. Kim watched from the helm as the man leaped off the boat but made no move to turn the boat around and rescue the scorched commando.

Tongju, too, was temporarily engulfed in flames, angrily lowering his rifle, without firing, and leaping under the portico, where he was able to stamp out the flames burning his shoes and pants. Kim gazed from the blazing stern to Tongju with a look of alarm in his eyes.

“Keep going,” Tongju shouted, “the flames will burn themselves out.”

The wind and sea spray from the charging boat had, in fact, extinguished some of the peripheral flames, but pools of burning gasoline still sloshed across the deck and deep black plumes of smoke revealed that more than just the fuel was on fire.

“But the fuel barrels!” Kim cried, watching as the flames licked at the drums of gasoline.

Tongju had forgotten about the full barrels of gasoline tied to the rear deck amid the blazing fire. The flames were initially concentrated to the rear of the barrels, but the sloshing gas on the deck brought the fire up to the base of the drums. Scanning the helm console, Tongju spotted a small fire extinguisher mounted to the bulkhead. With a quick lunge, he scooped up the extinguisher, pulled its lockpin, and sprinted onto the rear deck to protect the fuel drums. But he was too late.

A seal cap on one of the drums had not been tightened all the way, allowing a thin wisp of vapor to escape. The constant jarring from the pounding boat had generated more vapor pressure inside the drum, which expanded further by the heat of the nearby fire. When the flames finally drew near enough to ignite the vapor, the fuel drum exploded like a powder keg. In quick succession, the other three fuel drums ignited with devastating effect.

As the blimp peeled away from the boat, Pitt and the others watched in awe as the first fuel drum exploded right into Tongju. A chunk of flying shrapnel from the drum burst through his body, tearing an oblong hole the size of a softball through his chest. A stunned look crossed the assassin's face as he sunk to his knees. In the last seconds of life, he peered skyward toward the blimp and scowled defiantly before he was swallowed up in an inferno of flames.