Chapter 75

75

The Vendor stood on the deck of the Ghost Sword relishing the welter of noise and commotion all around him. His armed technicians had just finished loading the last drones into the Ghost Sword . The sub's hangar door shut with an airtight whisper.

The Vendor stole a quick glance at the digital countdown clock as it ticked just past the three-minute mark. He smiled for the first time in days. His sub would launch on time and the Guam attack would succeed.

He knelt down and double-checked one of the deck hatches as the last of the workers dashed past him and headed for the gangplank. The two automated machine guns kept a deadly vigil in the distance, their servo motors whirring as the barrels snapped back and forth. The techs had long since ignored the fact the deadly guns targeted them like a pair of hunters aiming at a flush of fat quail bolting into the sky. An automated pull of the trigger could wipe them all out with a single burst.

In their haste and concentration, nobody noticed the bubbles rippling the water on the far edges of the lagoon.

★

Cabrillo's team split up according to plan. Linc and Murph swam into their positions near the machine guns as the others advanced toward the mini sub and its smaller pier.

As soon as Juan's team arrived, everybody stripped off gear and pulled weapons. Juan's team couldn't climb onto the pier until Murph and Linc knocked off the machine guns or they'd be cut down.

With his head barely above the surface and hiding behind a pylon, Cabrillo whispered orders in his mic to commence the operation.

★

Linc and Murph slipped effortlessly out of the water, emerging just inches away from their assigned machine guns whirring on their gimbals. They slapped C4 charges with timed detonators against tripod legs in less than three seconds.

But as Murph warned earlier, that was enough time for the auto machine-gun sensors to pick up their glistening wet suits in the bright overhead lights. Both guns spun onto their targets and opened fire.

The first few rounds slapped the water just inches from Murph, but a fourth round hit him in the left bicep. He cried out before gasping for a lungful of breath and diving below the surface.

The other gun had a harder time locking onto Linc's lightning-fast physique. He disappeared back underneath the water with barely a ripple just as a spray of jacketed rounds hammered the surface.

Seconds later, the two C4 charges exploded. The tripod leg on Linc's machine gun collapsed and tumbled into the water as planned.

Murph's charge also exploded and broke the tripod leg on his assigned gun. But the unit itself merely collapsed to the rocky shelf, not quite reaching the water. Unable to rotate properly, the weapon shuddered like a heart attack victim on a bathroom floor, trying to fix its aim. Though incapable of tracking, the weapon could kill just the same if one of the Gundogs ran through its sensor field.

★

Shocked by the sudden eruption of gunfire, the Vendor froze in place, but his mind ran to overdrive, processing the electrical impulses from the cochlear nerve dumping information into his brain stem. Milliseconds later his incredible intellect understood he was under attack. But it was the raw acidic churn in his gut that told him Mendoza was behind it. The resulting C4 explosions seconds later confirmed both.

The Vendor shouted into his wrist device. "Keiko—launch the Ghost Sword !"

★

As soon as they heard the two C4 explosions, Cabrillo and his men pulled themselves onto the small dock and crouched down beneath the mini sub's hull, barely hidden from the beehive of activity ten yards away.

Leaning against the smaller sub's hull, Cabrillo heard alarmed shouts from the armed techs as they racked their weapons. Juan nodded to his guys, lifted the P90 to his shoulder, stood, and fired.

★

Aboard the Spook Fish

Callie had her acoustic sensors turned up. Perched in the pilot's seat and with her drone retracted, all she had was a dim view through the cutout in the anti-sub net she'd made earlier.

She caught the sound of a couple of dull splashes and then the muted sound of distant gunfire. She strained to see who or what hit the water, but she was too far away.

The speakers inside the Spook Fish suddenly splashed the metallic sounds of the big anti-submarine net parting like a Broadway curtain. Her blood pressure spiked.

What did that mean?

Had Cabrillo tripped a switch to let her in—or was somebody trying to get out?

★

The first salvo of bullets from the Gundogs' P90s dropped a half dozen surprised techs, spilling two of them into the water. The rest were dragged to safety, while others found shelter in the wall of rocks.

Just as the Ghost Sword 's bubbling ballast tanks began pulling its hull beneath the waves, a grenade sailed over the mini sub, where Juan and the others were standing. The grenade hit the pier six inches from Cabrillo's bare feet, but bounced off the deck and hit the water. The explosion a few seconds later sent a geyser of salt water into the air, but luckily no shrapnel came with it.

"We gotta stop that sub!" Cabrillo shouted in his comms.

"Cut me a lane," Eddie said.

Linc and Murph—with a now self-bandaged arm—lay prone on different points of the lagoon compass. Linc opened up with precision shots, while Murph cut loose with one-handed controlled bursts. At the same time, MacD and Juan tossed flash-bangs.

"Eddie—go!" Juan said.

The wiry operator bolted from behind the shelter of the mini sub and onto the rocky ledge, heading for the larger pier. Cabrillo and the other Gundogs laid down enough sustained fire to open up a clear path for Eddie. He took a giant leap and hit the Ghost Sword deck with a thud.

"Kill him!" the Vendor shouted in the distance, backpedaling away from the mayhem, and pointing at Eddie.

The Vendor's shouts caught Juan's attention. He saw the beefy Asian dash for a hidden door suddenly sliding open. Cabrillo's gut told him the Vendor was making his escape.

Not this time . Juan bolted out from behind the safety of the mini sub. He tossed flash-bangs far ahead of him, hoping to knock out anyone crouched behind the rocky outcrop framing the elevator entrance . He saw Eddie on his knees on the submerging deck of the Ghost Sword fixing a C4 charge to a hatch as water began washing over it.

A machine-gun blast from behind the rocky outcrop spanged on the hatch. One of those rounds hit the C4 charge just as Eddie turned to run away. The resulting blast catapulted him into the air. He tumbled into the water with a dead man's splash.

MacD instantly dove into the lagoon, swimming deep to avoid getting shot. He swam furiously toward his friend's sinking body.

Juan knelt down and swapped out another mag, his adrenalized vision narrowed on the Vendor's figure flinging open a steel door and dashing into the blackened gloom of an escape exit.

"Juan! Juan! The submarine net opened!" Callie cried out over the comms. "What do you want me to do?"

Juan glanced at the vanishing wake from the sub. There was no rush of air bubbles breaking the surface. The C4 charge had failed to breach the hatch and the vessel was making its way out to sea.

"Find a way to stop it!"

"How?"

"Figure it out!" He called to the others, "Linc, Murph—cover me!"

Cabrillo didn't wait for a response. Filled with a berserker's rage, he ran for the escape door.

The Vendor's goons hiding in the rock crevices took aim, but Linc and Murph kept them pinned down long enough for Cabrillo to race past them, arms and legs pumping like an Olympic sprinter.

What Cabrillo didn't realize was that he was running through the targeting reticle of the fallen auto machine gun, still whirring and jerking on the ground on the far side of the lagoon. As soon as Juan entered into the reticle, the onboard computer calculated his directional speed, the ambient air temperature, and a dozen other critical variables. It also determined he wasn't wearing a shot prohibition tag. And it did all of this in less than a heartbeat.

The machine gun unleashed a burst of three rounds that caught Cabrillo in the side just below the armpit. The bullets sledgehammering his ribs should have killed him, but the new lightweight Kevlar wraparound body armor the whole team wore saved his life. The force of the hammer blows cracked bones and stole away his breath. He stumbled forward and nearly fell, but in so doing advanced beyond the range of the gun's targeting reticle. He finally recovered his balance and raced for the open door just yards away.

He knew the gauntlet run had been an insanely risky move that nearly got him killed, and whatever lay beyond the door probably would. But Juan was determined to catch the Vendor or die trying.

★

Aboard the Spook Fish

The image of the sleek Ghost Sword pushing past the opened sub net filled the Spook Fish 's bulbous acrylic viewing sphere. Callie didn't have any weapons and the big sub could easily brush her aside. There was no way for her to stop it. What could she do?

Callie's heart raced. She could hear the Gundogs shouting and the sounds of gunfire and explosions in her comms. The entire team was under fire. She also heard the reports that both Murph and Eddie had been wounded, and maybe even killed. Clearly they needed help. Everything told her to dash inside.

But Cabrillo told her to stop the sub.

" Oregon , this is Spook Fish . Do you copy?"

"Copy, Spook Fish . This is Oregon ," Hali replied. "You are on speaker."

" Oregon , be advised the Vendor's sub is underway. Repeat, the Vendor's sub is underway. Suggest you hit her with a torpedo."

"Callie, Eric here. I've got a fix on Spook Fish . Where is the other vessel?"

"Twenty yards ahead of me and closing at three knots."

"She's a ghost on my sonar."

"Callie, Linda here. I'm acting weapons officer. I can't fire a torpedo if we don't have a sonar fix on its position."

Callie's eyes flitted to her sensor arrays. Something was wrong. Nothing was registering. She tapped on the screen. Her instruments indicated she was the only vehicle in the water.

How was that possible?

"Copy that, Oregon. I'll figure something out."

Callie rang off. Now what? That had been her best and only option.

She couldn't call Cabrillo. She had redeployed her comms link from inside the lagoon to the surface so she could radio Oregon . She was on her own.

She tightened the grip on her controls. Should she disobey Juan's orders and head into the sub pen lagoon now that the net was open? Or make some kind of crazy dash to stop the unyielding machine that was already beginning to pick up speed?

She watched the Ghost Sword approach her position even though her sonar said it wasn't there. But her eyes told her the truth.

So did her heart.

As badly as she wanted to help the guys she'd come to really care about, there were nearly two hundred thousand American lives at stake on Guam.

She yanked the yoke and slammed her throttles forward, cursing herself for her indecision. She had no idea how to stop it. But she had to try.

Now.