Flood Tide

All that could be done in preparation had been done. Cabrillo was proud of his corporate team. If there was unease, none of them showed it. What was visible was a determination, a grim satisfaction, that they were going to tackle an opponent twice their size and ten times as powerful and see it through to the end. There would be no turning of the cheek after a slap. The point of no return had been passed, and it was they who were going to slap first.

The destroyer came to a stop and drifted no more than two hundred yards away from the Oregon. Through his night glasses, Cabrillo could read the big white numbers painted near the bow. He called down to Ross, “Can you give me an ID on Chinese destroyer number one hundred sixteen? I repeat, one sixteen.”

He waited for a reply as he watched a boat being lowered from the destroyer's midships and clearing her davits. The boarding operation went smoothly, and the boat pushed off from the destroyer and headed across the gap between the two ships, coming alongside the hull of the simple-looking old freighter within twelve minutes. He noted with no little satisfaction that the turreted twin one-hundred-millimeter guns on the bow were the only weapons trained on the Oregon. The missile launchers appeared deserted and secured. The thirty-seven millimeter gun mounts had their barrels trained fore and aft.

“I have your ED,” came back Ross. “Number one sixteen is called the Chengdo. She's the biggest and the best the Chinese Navy has to offer. She is captained by Commander Yu Tien. With enough time I could get you his bio.”

“Thank you, Ross, don't bother. It's always nice to know the name of your enemy. Please stand by to fire all weapons.” “All weapons ready to fire when you are, Mr. Chairman,” Ross answered, cool and unruffled.

The boarding ladder was thrown over the side, and the Chinese marines, led by a naval lieutenant and a captain of the marine contingent, quickly scrambled from their boat onto the deck. There was an almost festive air about the boarders, a complacency bordering more on a Boy Scout camping trip than an operation conducted by tough fighting men.

“Damn!” Cabrillo cursed. There were more than twice as many of them as he figured, and all armed to the teeth. He agonized over not being able to spare any more men for the approaching fight on the main deck. He looked down at Pete James and Bob Meadows, the ship's divers and former Navy SEALs, and at Eddie Seng, all three of them standing at the railing, their machine pistols held under their coats. Then he spotted Pitt and Giordino standing squarely in front of the Chinese officers, their hands held high in the air.

Cabrillo's immediate reaction was one of infuriation. With Pitt and Giordino surrendering without a fight, the other three crewman wouldn't stand a prayer against over twenty combat-trained marines. The Chinese would brush them aside and be all over the ship in a matter of minutes. “You yellow-bellied wimps!” he exploded, shaking his fist at Pitt and Giordino. “You dirty traitors.”

“What's your count?” Pitt asked Giordino as the last of the Chinese marines came over the railing.

“Twenty-one,” Giordino answered complacently. “Four to one against us. Not exactly what I'd call 'slightly outnumbered.' ”

“I make the same odds.”

They stood awkwardly, wearing long winter coats, their hands raised over their heads in apparent surrender. Eddie Seng, James and Meadows stared at the boarding Chinese sullenly, like crewmen irritated by any interruption of their normal shipboard routine. The effect had the results Pitt counted on. The Chinese marines, seeing the feeble reception, relaxed and held their weapons loosely, not expecting any resistance from a disreputable crew on a shabby ship.

The naval officer, arrogant and staring as if in disgust at the motley crew that greeted him, strutted up to Pitt and demanded to know in English where he could find the ship's captain.

Without the slightest indication of malice as he looked from the naval lieutenant to the marine captain, Pitt purred politely, “Which of you is Beavis and which is Butt-head?”

“What was that you said?” demanded the lieutenant. “If you don't want to get shot, lead me to your captain.”

Pitt's expression took on a mask of pure fright. “Heh? You want captain? You should say so.” He turned slightly and made a production of tilting his head toward Cabrillo on the bridge wing, who was cursing a blue streak in anger.

In a moment of sheer reflex, all heads and every eye followed Pitt's gesture toward the shouting man.

Then from the bridge, with sudden, startling clarity, Cabrillo understood what the two NUMA men were up to and gazed hypnotized at the bloody fight that erupted before his eyes. He watched in dazed astonishment as Pitt and Giordino suddenly sprouted another pair of hands from under their coats, each hand gripping a machine pistol, fingers locked on the triggers. They cut a deadly swath through the Chinese marines, who were caught totally off balance. The two officers were the first to fall, followed by the next six men behind them. They could never, never have been prepared for such a vicious onslaught, certainly not from men who appeared frightened and cowering. In a fraction of a minute the unexpected assault had cut the odds from four to a little more than two to one. An arrogant confrontation quickly turned into a gory rampage of chaos.

Aware in advance of the phony-arms deception, Seng, James and Meadows instantly leveled their weapons and opened fire less than a second after Pitt and Giordino. It was bedlam. Men falling, scattering, frantically trying to cut each other down. The Chinese marines were professional fighting men and a brave lot. They recovered quickly and stood their ground on the deck, now heaped with their fallen comrades, and fired back. In a lightning stroke of time every clip in every gun had gone empty in almost the same instant. Seng was hit and down on one knee. Meadows had taken a bullet in one shoulder but was swinging his gun like a club. With no time to reload, Pitt and Giordino threw their weapons at the eight Chinese marines still fighting and waded in slugging. Yet even during that raging flash when the two forces fell on each other in a cursing, punching horde of twisting bodies, Pitt was aware of Cabrillo's cry from the bridge.

“Fire, for God's sake, fire!”

A section of the Oregon's hull snapped open in the blink of an eye and the two Harpoon missiles burst from their launchers in almost the same instant as the Mark 46 torpedoes shot from their tubes. A second later the twin Oerlikons opened up, aimed and fired by command from the combat control center, spitting a hail of shells against the Chengdo's missile launchers, that knocked their systems out of action before they could be activated and launched against the unarmored freighter. Time froze to a stop as the Oregon's first missile tore into the big destroyer's hull below the large single fu

The slower torpedoes came next, exploding as one no more than thirty feet apart, throwing up a tremendous pair of geysers beside the Chengdo, rocking it nearly over on its beam ends. It settled back on an even keel for a moment, and then began to list to starboard as the water rushed in through two holes as large as barn doors.

Captain Yu Tien of the Chengdo, normally a cautious man, fell for the sleight of hand as he peered through binoculars at the seemingly i