Vixen 03

The speaker crackled to life. "Cap'n Fawkes?"

The voice was unfamiliar. "Aye, this is the captain. Where is Shaba?"

"Below in the magazine, sir. The hoist, she's broken. He went to fix it."

"Who is this?"

"Obasi, Cap'n. Daniel Obasi." The voice had an adolescent pitch.

"Did Shaba leave you in charge?"

"Yes, sir," Obasi said proudly.

"How old are you, son?"

There was a harsh, coughing sound. "Sorry, Cap'n. The smoke, she's real bad." More coughing. "Seventeen."

Good Lord, Fawkes thought. De Vaal was to have sent him experienced men — ' not boys whose names and faces he had yet to see in daylight. He was in command of a crew who were completely unknown to him. Seventeen. A mere seventeen years old. The thought sickened him. Was it worth it? God, was his personal revenge worth the terrible price?

Steeling his determination, Fawkes said, "Are you able to operate the guns?"

"I think go. All three are loaded and breeched tight. The men don't look too good, though. Concussion, I think. Most of them are bleedin' through the ears."

"Where are you now, Obasi?"

"In the turret officer's booth, sir. It's awful hot down here. I don't know if the men can take much more. Some are still out. One or two may be dead. No way of tellin'; I guess the ones that's dead are the ones bleedin' through the mouth."

Fawkes squeezed the microphone handle, his face filled with indecision. When the ship went, as he knew it surely must, he wanted to be standing on the bridge, the last battleship captain to die at his station. The silence over the radiophone became heavy with torment. Ever so slightly the curtain lifted and Fawkes glimpsed the terrible dimension of his actions.

"I'm coming down."

"The outside deck hatch is jammed tight, sir. You'll have to come up from the magazines."

"Thank you, Obasi. Stand by." Fawkes paused to remove his old Royal Navy cap and wipe the sweat and grime oozing from the pores of his forehead. He gazed through the splintered windows and studied the river. The cold mists rose along the shallows and reminded him of the Scottish lochs on just such a morning. Scotland: it seemed a thousand years since he'd seen Aberdeen.

He replaced the cap and spoke into the microphone again. "Angus Two, come in, please."

"Gotcha, big Angus One."

"Range?"

"Eighty yards short but right on the money. just compensate for elevation and you got her, man."

"Your job is finished, Angus Two. Take care."

"Too late. I think the dudes in the khaki suits are about to take me away. So long, man. It's been a heavy date."

Fawkes stared at the receiving end of the microphone, wanting to speak words of appreciation to the man he'd never met, to thank him for jeopardizing his life even if it was for a price. Whoever Angus Two was, it would be a long time before he could spend the money placed in a foreign bank account by the South African Defence Ministry.

"A street sweeper," snorted Higgins. "Fawkes's spotter drove a goddamned city street sweeper. The city police are booking him now."

"That explains how he moved through the roadblocks without arousing suspicion," said March.

The President seemed not to hear. His attention was trained on the Iowa. He could clearly make out small forms in black wet suits darting from cover to cover, pausing only to fire their weapons before moving ever closer to the machine guns that dwindled their numbers. The President counted ten inert SEALs sprawled on the decks.

"Can't we do something to help those men.

Higgins gave a helpless shrug. "If we open up from shore, we'd probably kill more SEALs than we'd save. I'm afraid there is little we can do for the moment."

"Why not send in the Marine assault teams?"

"Those copters are sitting ducks once they land on the Iowa's aft deck. They each carry fifty troops. It would be mass slaughter. We'd accomplish nothing."

"I agree with the general," said Kemper. "The Satans bought us a breather. Number-two turret appears to be knocked out. We can afford to give the SEALs more time to clear the decks of terrorist opposition."

The President sat back and stared at the men surrounding him. "Then we wait — is that what you're saying? We wait and watch while men die in living color before our eyes on that damned TV screen?"

"Yes, sir," Higgins answered. "We wait."

62

Consulting his diagram of the ship while on the run, Pitt unerringly led Lusana down a series of darkened passages and alleyways, past dank empty rooms, until he finally paused at a bulkhead door. Then he wadded the diagram in a ball and tossed it to the deck. Lusana stopped obediently and waited for an explanation.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Outside the projectile-storage area," Pitt answered. He leaned his weight against the door, which grudgingly creaked three quarters open. Pitt peered into a dimly lit room and listened. They both heard men shouting against the metallic clash of heavy machinery, the rattle of chains, and the hum of electric motors. The sounds seemed to come from above. Cautiously, Pitt stepped over the sill.

The tall armor-piercing shells were neatly stacked on their bases around the hoist tube, their conical heads gleaming menacingly under two yellow light bulbs. Pitt eased past the shells and looked upward.

On the deck overhead two black men were leaning in the hoist-tube access doors and hammering and cursing at the elevator cradle. The explosions that rocked the ship had jammed the mechanism. Pitt pulled back from the opening and began examining the shells. There was a total of thirtyone, and only one shell had a rounded head.

The second QD warhead was not present.

Pitt took a tool kit from his belt and handed the flashlight to Lusana. "Hold this steady while I operate."

"What are you going to do?"

"Deactivate a shell."

"If I am to be blown to smithereens.." said Lusana, "may I know why?"

"No!" Pitt snapped. He hunched down and motioned for the light. His hands circled the cone of the shell as lightly as those of a safecracker fingering a tumbler dial. Locating the locking screws. he carefully undid them with a screwdriver. The threads were frozen with age and they fought his every twist. Time, Pitt thought desperately; he needed time before Fawkes's crew repaired the hoist and returned to the projectilestorage compartment.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the last of the screws sheared off and the nose cone came loose in his hands. Tenderly, as though it were a sleeping baby, he set it aside and looked inside the warhead.

Then Pitt began to disco

Pitt cut the wires leading to the radar altimeter and removed the explosive detonator. He paused for a moment and took a small money sack from his coat pocket. Lusana was mildly amused to see that the lettering on the soiled canvas read WHEATON SECURITY BANK.

"I've never admitted this to a soul," Lusana said, "but I once robbed an armored truck."

"Then you should feel right at home," replied Pitt. He lifted the QD bomblets from the warhead and gently deposited them in the money bag.