Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) (31 page)

Glen took out a tank right away, and he saw that the man next to him destroyed a missile launcher. He looked over to congratulate the shooter, and realized it was Zach. “I guess that Ranger training took,” he said, smiling broadly at his son.

“Just a chip off the old block, Dad!”

Not long after that, they saw two more missile launchers go down. With each hit, they saw men on the big ship fall. At least six men with rocket launchers were out of action.

Although the shooters on the big ship were as bad as Captain Kotchel said they were, there were so many of them, and they had so much ammunition, they couldn’t miss every time.

One small missile tore a large hole in the cutter’s bow on the starboard side, just under the deck. It knocked some men down temporarily, but in seconds they were up and firing again. The radar acquisition antennae on top of the superstructure was blasted away.

Four more missile launchers and six more men with rocket launchers on the larger ship went down. Individually, the people on the cutter were doing far more damage than their counterparts on the container vessel. The odds were going down but still favored the bigger adversary. It still had two functioning tanks and more than a dozen missile and rocket launchers.

More importantly, they had the helicopter, which lifted off in the midst of the battle. By itself, it could wipe out all of the shooters on the deck of the cutter before they could kill any more of the pirates. It headed straight for the cutter’s bow, where all the combatants stood.

Ron was the first to see it coming straight at them. He saw that the craft’s missile pods on one side were loaded and ready to fire. He only hoped the pilot would wait until he was close enough to be sure of his shots. Ron was trained for this, and he acted quickly.

Calculating the speed and altitude of the helicopter, he zeroed in on it in a matter of seconds. Just before the helicopter pilot was ready to fire, four missiles came flying at him.

Three hit his helicopter. They didn’t down the craft immediately, but tore away one side and set it on fire. It zigzagged out of control but kept heading toward the cutter. Then it lifted, dropped, and turned around and around. With one side completely open, they could see the pilot when the craft was above them. He was alive and looked wild-eyed at them as the flame-infested whirlybird bucked by. Flames licked at him from every side. Just past the cutter, the copter bucked one last time, then exploded.

The explosion fired off the craft’s missiles. Three shot harmlessly into the water, but a fourth hit one of the cutter’s propellers, shattering it. A piece of that prop shot across and hit the shaft of the other, bending it and rendering that prop useless, as well.

With both props out of action, there was nothing to propel the ship. It slowed to a halt, still heading in the direction of the container vessel.

* * * * *

The men at the controls of the big ship watched in dismay as the helicopter, their most fearsome weapon, went down. Angered, Hank went out and called down to the men below. “Knock them out, you fools! Kill them all!”

When he went back in, Joe was clicking off from an intra-ship call. “That was the engine room. We’re taking on water.”

“That idiot! Tell him to stop wasting time and close off the leaky compartment!” Hank shot back. “It’s watertight, so it’s no big deal if it takes on a little water.”

“That’s just it. He did close it off, but there’s water flooding into the next one, too.”

“That’s the problem with taking guys off the docks like we did; you end up with a bunch of incompetents. Watch the controls, and continue heading right at that cutter so we can get close enough for our guys to actually hit something. I’m going below to straighten out this flooding situation.”

While he was gone, another tank and ten missile launchers were destroyed by fire from the cutter. Now, they were not only taking missile and rocket fire, but there was small arms fire coming from the cutter, too. The bullets were finding targets. Two more men were killed, and the others were looking for places to hide. More than forty men were already down.

When Hank rushed back up the steps to the bridge, there was a look of panic on his face.

“What’s the situation?” Joe asked.

“There’s flooding forward, aft, and everywhere in between.” Hank groaned and slumped into a chair. “Those rats hit us below the water line five or six times.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re sinking, you fool. We need to finish off that ship and get to shore.”

“Finish them off? Did you see the mess down there?”

Hank went over to look at the foredeck. There were almost no missile or rocket launchers still operational, and the single tank that was operational was stuck behind the two that were knocked out. They were turned sideways, pushing the one good tank to the side of the bow. The inoperable tanks were so close to the bow, there was no room for the functional tank to get around them for a clear shot at the cutter.

“Push them over,” Hank screamed down at the men.

“There are men inside,” one of the men holding a rocket launcher called back.

“This is war. Push them over now. That’s an order!”

The man jumped up on the tank and relayed the order. The tank driver opened the hatch, stood, and looked up.

“Push them over if you want to get out of this alive!” screamed Hank.

The man didn’t argue. He stayed where he was, his head above the top of the tank so that he had a clear view of all around him. He moved his tank forward, pushing one disabled tank ahead of it. A minute later, the wrecked tank toppled off the deck. It bounced off the bow hull twice as the boat moved ahead, then hit near the ship’s bottom one more time as it sunk into the sea.

Just as the driver started to slide into the tank to stop it, a bullet from the cutter hit him in the neck, and he slumped over. The tank continued on, going over the side and replicated the previous tank’s voyage to the bottom of the sea.

Getting close was no longer a plus for the container ship. Well over ninety percent of their firepower and most of their men were gone. The closer they got, the more hits the gunners on the Coast Guard ship were registering.

There was no place for the pirates to go. The ship was slowly sinking, and the few gunmen left were being killed at a rapid pace.

“They’ve beaten us,” said Joe.

“No they haven’t,” argued Hank.

“We have no more weapons.”

“Oh yes, we do,” growled Hank. “We’ve got the biggest weapon left in the world.”

“You mean…?”

“I’m going to run that dinky little boat down. I’m going to crush it. As of this minute, they’re all dead!”

* * * * *

“We licked them,” said Denise.

The Coast Guard crew and those from the
La Sirena
were standing at the cutter’s bow, watching the container ship approach. There was no gunfire coming from the big ship.

“We outfought them,” Kotchel agreed, but shook his head. “It doesn’t look like they’re licked, though. They’re headed right at us.”

“I punched half a dozen holes it its bottom,” Glen Arthur said. “Why isn’t it sinking?”

“I’m sure it is,” the captain told him, “but a ship that size has multiple holds. It could take hours for it to go under.”

“And, we’re dead in the water,” George moaned. He looked anxiously at the captain, hoping to hear he was wrong.

The look on Captain Kotchel’s face did nothing to sooth George’s fears. “I don’t like your terminology,” he said, but I can’t quarrel with the reality of it. We can’t get out of their way and, in a few minutes, they’ll crush this ship like it was a sardine can.”

“How much time?” asked Zach.

“Three minutes at most.”

“Not near enough time to lower the life boats and get away,” Zach reasoned.

“No,” sighed the captain sighed. “There will barely be time enough for each of us to have one last word with whoever we consider our maker.”

T
HE massive explosions were so violent they shook the ground at The Isthmus settlement and even shattered a few windows. The container ship was cut in half with the first blast, and the second, which came less than a second later, blew both halves to pieces. The hole in the water the explosions caused sent forty-foot waves out in a wide, turbulent circle.

Large parts of decks, hulls, superstructure, and an engine flew hundreds of feet in the air. Smaller pieces of shrapnel and metal shards shot out much farther, hitting the only thing left on the water – the Coast Guard cutter.

Several aboard the cutter, which oscillated wildly when the explosion-born wave swept past, were hit by flying debris. A piece of shrapnel hit Denise’s right arm, cutting through flesh and breaking the bone. The thirteen-year-old was wounded for a second time in the wake of a global war in which everyone lost.

Even before the cutter stopped rocking, the questions began. “What happened?” cried George as he got to his feet.

“I’m not sure,” replied Captain Kotchel, who was lying nearby, “except for the obvious. That ship blew up before it got to us.”

“I know,” said Stacey. She was using a rail to get to her feet, scanning the area around the ship.

“You know what?” asked Zach, who used the same rail to get off the deck.

“Yeah, I know what happened,” she replied, smiling.

“You think?” asked the captain, now on his feet next to her. “Yes, of course. It has to be.”

“They’ve been watching us all along and came to our rescue once before.”

“Ah,” said Zach, “you’re talking about Captain Wang and his sub. I bet you’re right.”

While the water was settling, the ship’s medic started treating the wounded. It was only then that Zach and Stacey found out that their daughter was wounded… again.

“I’m so sorry, Denise!” Stacey held her daughter tightly.

“Mom, I’m alive. Three minutes ago, I didn’t think I would be, so everything is fine.” She giggled. “Except you’re hurting my arm.”

Stacey let go, and the family laughed.

When the wave action settled into small whitecaps around the explosion area, the Chinese submarine surfaced and motored over to the cutter. As always, Captain Wang was the first to climb up to the conning tower. He saluted. “Captain Kotchel,” he said.

The Coast Guard captain returned the salute. “Captain Wang. I offer you our most heartfelt thanks for torpedoing that ship.”

“We shot four simultaneously just to be certain. We couldn’t let them sink our source of food and fuel, now could we? The way it exploded, though, one would have been enough.”

“They had a huge amount of ordnance in their holds,” Kotchel explained. A torpedo must have hit the ammo, and it all erupted at once.”

“Live by the sword,” said the Chinese officer.

Stacey said, “I couldn’t think of a more fitting epitaph for a bloodthirsty bunch of pirates.”

“Mrs. Arthur… it is good to see you once again,”

“And, once again Captain Wang, I say the pleasure is definitely more mine than yours.”

He acknowledged the remark with a slight nod, and then turned back to Kotchel. “Is there anything more I can do for you folks before we again become invisible?”

“I think it’s time for us to rethink your being inconspicuous,” said Kotchel. “Among other things, I’d appreciate a tow to Port Hueneme where I hope I can find some propellers and shafts that fit.”

“Among other things?” said Captain Wang.

“If you’re going to be part of this community, and I believe you have proven reasons to legitimize such thinking, it would be odd if you were always invisible.”

Captain Wang smiled in response.

* * * * *

Before the Chinese and Coast Guard left for the mainland, Captain Kotchel took the
La Sirena
group ashore on the skiff. They took Captain Wang and two of his men along so they could be introduced to the people on the island. They also took all the supplies Glen and Mae had brought from Santa Maria.

The Arthurs offered to share all the supplies with the islanders, and Captain Kotchel relayed that information to them via the transceivers they used for communicating with one another. After the transfer was made, the Chinese crew became a topic of conversation.

The movable dock used at The Isthmus was sloshed up near shore by the explosion’s shock waves, so the people on shore moved it back out toward the bay. Once it was in place, fifteen of the settlement’s population walked out on the dock to meet the people from the boat. Zach was the first off the skiff. He tied its line to a cleat and went over to introduce himself to the people. The others stepped off the skiff and joined them.

“Welcome to The Isthmus, all of you,” one of the leaders said. He turned to Wang. “Captain Kotchel has told us about you. He says you and your men want to help around here.”

“We do,” said Captain Wang. “It is our hope to become an integral part of your settlement.”

“If you each do your share, you will,” the man said. He turned to Glen and Mae. “We originally planned on telling you to keep your supplies for yourself. However, we lost some things during the attack, so we will accept the things we need.”