Towing Jehovah

“Captain, if you ca

“You mean retreat? Screw that, Eminence.”

“The cardinale has a point,” said Katsakos. “Maybe you noticed — these idiots still have six armed dive bombers over by the belly.”

Even as the mate spoke, a Devastator pilot’s agitated tones blasted from the bridge speaker. “Lieutenant Sharp to Commander McClusky. Come in, Commander.”

“McClusky here,” replied the leader of Air Group Six from his position above the omphalos.

“Sir, you got any eggs left?”

“One echelon’s worth. We’re about to unload ’em. Over.”

“There’s a Persian Gulf tanker on the field,” said Sharp. “Any chance you could help us out?”

“Gulf tanker? Whoa! Spruance said there wouldn’t be any screening vessels. Over.”

“Guess he fibbed.”

“We never done a Gulf tanker script, Sharp — nothin’ that modern. Over.”

“It’s kickin’ the shit out of us! We’re down to just me and Beeson!”

“Christ. Okay, I’ll see what we can do…”

Katsakos’s golden Mediterranean skin acquired a decidedly greenish cast. “Sir, may I remind you we’ve got a full hold? If just one of McClusky’s bombs co

A prickly sensation overtook Neil, a tingling such as he’d not experienced since getting gassed inside the Val. The dive bombers were coming, bearing their deadly matches. “I should’ve stayed in Jersey City,” he told Di Luca. “I should’ve waited for another ship.”

“We can always come back later and make sure the Enterprise pulled your son and his crew from their lifeboats,” said Katsakos. “As for now…”

“Anthony Van Horne won’t be crawling into any goddamn lifeboat,” said the captain. “He’ll be going down with his ship.”

“Nobody does that anymore.”

“The Van Hornes do.”

Sighting through the bridge binoculars, Neil saw McClusky’s Dauntless echelon abandon the belly and begin a steady climb, evidently intending to circle around and attack the Maracaibo from the rear.

“Mr. Peche,” said the captain into the intercom mike, “kindly target the approaching dive bombers with Crotales.” He grabbed a swatch of the second mate’s pea jacket, twisting it like a tourniquet. “Who on board can operate a Phalanx ca

“Nobody,” said Katsakos.

“Not you?”

“No, sir.”

“Not Peche?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll fire it.”

“I insist we turn around!” seethed Di Luca.

“Mr. Katsakos, I’m putting you in charge,” said the captain, starting away. “Alter course as the situation requires, whatever gives me a clear shot at the tow chains — they’re only targeting the Val so the body’ll go down with her!”

Neil looked south. Two Crotales were flying across God’s nose toward the maneuvering dive bombers. The warheads exploded simultaneously, hitting the echelon leader and the next plane in line an instant after their pilots and gu

Neil focused on the beard, each whisker enveloped by a high, slender flame coiling around its shaft. He lowered his gaze. Christopher Van Horne stood on the fo’c’sle deck, his mountainous form hunched over the starboard Phalanx, his purple parka rippling in the Arctic wind.

“Steady,” said Katsakos from the control console.

“Steady,” echoed Neil.

As the blood spill splashed against the Maracaibo’s prow, her captain swerved the gun and aimed. A sudden puff of smoke appeared, haloing the muzzle. Fifty yards from the Valparaíso, a fountain of seawater shot into the air, dead center between the chains.

“Left ten,” muttered Katsakos.

“Left ten.”

Van Horne fired again. This time the shell hit home, turning the central link into a silvery flash of pulverized metal. As the chain flew apart, the segment nearer the cranium slithered into the ocean while its stubby counterpart swung toward the stern, clanging against the hull.

“Nice shooting, Captain!” cried the excited mate.

“Steady!”

“Steady,” said Neil.

“Dive bombers at twelve o’clock!” screamed Katsakos.

Another shell flew from the starboard Phalanx, disintegrating a link and neatly separating the Val from her cargo. Whether or not Christopher Van Horne saw the fruits of his marksmanship was unclear, for the instant the chain broke, a Dauntless dropped its payload barely fifty feet from the captain. The bomb detonated. Ca

“No!” shrieked Katsakos.

“Holy shit!” groaned Neil.

“I told him to turn around!” sputtered Di Luca.

Flawlessly, the Maracaibo’s firefighting system sprang to life.

As the klaxon brayed across the Norwegian Sea, a dozen robot hoses appeared, rising from the bulwarks like moray eels slithering out of their lairs. Jets of frothy white foam shot from the nozzles.

“Oh, Christ!” screamed Katsakos as the flames gasped and died. “Oh, Lord!” he wailed. The foam subsided like an outgoing tide, leaving behind a mass of melted pipework and the fallen body of Christopher Van Horne. “Oh, God, they blew up the captain!”

When the Maracaibo went to war against Air Group Six, incinerating her torpedo planes and dive bombers with deadly guided missiles, the focus of Oliver’s terror shifted from Cassie to himself. He was not embarrassed. It was Cassandra, in fact, who liked to dismiss so-called heroism as but one step removed from theistic self-delusion, and besides, at the moment his own peril clearly outclassed hers, the Maracaibo being likely to interpret Strawberry Eleven as yet another hostile plane and attack accordingly.

True, the Gulf tanker had just sustained a direct hit from a 500-pound demolition bomb. But instead of touching off either the tanker’s cargo oil or her bunker fuel, the explosion had merely ignited her fo’c’sle deck — a localized conflagration soon brought under control by automated foam throwers — and before long she was enthusiastically targeting the two armed Devastators and three armed Dauntlesses remaining in the air.

“I can’t stand this!” shouted Oliver.

“Scared, are you?” asked Flume, who did not himself seem particularly happy.

“You bet I’m scared!”

“Don’t be ashamed if your bowels let go,” said Pembroke, likewise distraught. “During World War Two, almost a quarter of all infantrymen lost that kind of control in battle.”

“At least, that’s how many admitted to it,” added Flume, nervously winding his headset cord around his wrist. “The actual percentage was probably higher.”

Tow chains severed, the Valparaíso listed badly to starboard. Blood pooled along her hull. Even if she began to founder, Oliver reasoned, there’d be plenty of time for Cassie and her shipmates to get away in lifeboats — whereas if the Maracaibo opened fire on Strawberry Eleven, her crew and passengers would all, most probably, die.

“Van Horne must’ve been trimmin’ her with blood,” said Reid over the intercom. “Good way to lighten his load — right, Mr. Flume?”

Flume made no reply. His partner remained equally silent. As the Maracaibo took on the remnants of Air Group Six, the war reenactors sat rigidly in their machine-gun blisters and listened to the transceiver broadcasts, a radio horror show to put their beloved I