Piranha

“Wepps! Get ready!”

Murph didn’t look up from his furious typing. “I’m kinda busy trying to save the VP.”

“Max, get on weapons.”

Max rushed over and took Murph’s usual spot at the weapons station. The missile was already on its supersonic final approach. He pushed the button to activate the Gatling gun.

Using the same technology as the Navy’s Phalanx close-in weapons system, the six-barreled gun spun up to its full speed and fired 20mm armor-piercing tungsten rounds that sounded like an industrial saw ripping through a redwood. The radar, housed in a dome above the gun and looking unca

Max kept it firing, and fired the Metal Storm gun as well, unleashing five hundred rounds in the blink of an eye. The wall of tungsten finally made contact eight hundred yards from the Oregon.

Most of the missile disintegrated and plunged into the sea, but a substantial portion tumbled on, propelled by its supersonic velocity. Metal fragments smashed into Oregon’s hull.

“Damage report,” Juan said.

Max consulted the exterior cameras. “No hull breach, but we’ve lost the Gatling gun’s radar in the impact. Reloading the Metal Storm.”

“Another missile on the way!” Linda said. “Two minutes to target.”

“I’m turning us one hundred and eighty degrees to bring our starboard Gatling gun to bear,” Juan said as he swung the Oregon about. “Be ready on the Exocet, Max.”

“We need a target first,” Max answered. “We could hit any vessel on the other side of the island if we don’t have the coordinates of the ship that’s firing.”

Juan looked at Maria, who stared back at him with a stu

All he said was, “Hurry, please.”

The captains of both the Maracaibo and the Valera were radioing desperate Maydays about a ship in their midst firing missiles as the second Klub rocketed over the island separating Ruiz from the Oregon. Ruiz saw, by her adversary’s impotence, that her plan to hire ships to sail next to the Reina Azul had the effect she’d intended. Cabrillo didn’t have the cojones to fire blindly back at her when there were two cargo vessels full of i

She watched the Oregon on the monitor feed from a camera planted on the other side of the eight-mile-wide island. Kensit had warned her that he would be too busy to provide real-time intel about the Oregon’s location, so in the middle of the night she’d sent two men to set up a camera with a high-powered transmitter on a remote beach on the opposite side of the island. When Cabrillo’s ship sailed into view on the only course it could have taken out of Bahia de Grand Pierre, she’d attacked.

As her launch team had cautioned her, the missile control was limited by the container’s positioning on the old cargo ship, so they could only be launched one at a time. Initially, she’d been furious about the restriction, but now she was rather enjoying seeing the Oregon flail away at the missiles. The high-tech ship wouldn’t be able to shoot them down indefinitely. One of them would get through.

“Do you have the escape boat ready for evacuation?” she asked the captain.

“Aye, Admiral,” he replied. “It’s tied up on the port side.”

“What about the bombs? I want to scuttle all three ships as soon as the Oregon’s back is broken.”

“They’ve all been set and are ready to receive the detonation command.” He handed her the remote detonator.

“Excellent work, Captain,” she said. “You’ll have a high place in my government when I’m president.”

As the Maydays continued, she wasn’t worried about any authorities coming to the rescue. Haiti had a token Coast Guard and no Navy, so the best they could do was send out a police launch or ask for help from the Dominican Republic. She and her men would be long gone before either could mobilize.

The second Klub darted toward the Oregon and she was sure this one would make it through, but the missile exploded off its stern in a hail of defensive gunfire, showering the ship with debris. Flames cascaded across the deck and this time she was satisfied they were the real thing, not the fakery she’d seen off the coast of Puerto La Cruz.

The only disappointment was that Cabrillo didn’t know who was about to sink his beloved ship. But she’d know and that’s all that mattered.

Time to end this.

She radioed down to launch control. “Fire the third missile.”

—

“The last one took out Metal Storm,” Max said. “Only the two Gatlings left.”

“I’m going to angle us so both of them have a shot at the next missile,” Juan said, turning the Oregon toward Île de la Gonâve. “How are you doing, Maria?”

“I’ve got Captain Garcia on his sat phone,” she said in triumph. “He’s very upset. What should I ask him?”

“Can he get in touch with the Maracaibo’s captain, but not over the radio?”

She relayed the question. “Yes, he also has a sat phone.”

“Good. Tell them to come to a full stop, and get me their exact GPS coordinates—and I mean down to the inch. And ask them if there are any other ships in the area.” She looked confused by the request but asked Garcia anyway.

Juan turned to Max. “Get ready to plug them into the Exocet guidance computer.”

Max furrowed his brow then nodded in understanding. “Tell it what not to hit?”

“Right.” Juan checked the map and saw that the drones and Air Force Two were near to converging. “Murph, what’s your status with the drones? We’ve only got five minutes left.”

“Almost got it. I have to do this right the first time or Kensit will lock me out permanently.”

“All right. Keep on it.”

“I’ve got the coordinates!” Maria yelled, and told them to Max, who plugged them into the guidance computer.

“Missile three sighted!” Linda called out. “Two minutes to target.”

“Ready on the Exocet!”

“Fire!”

The Exocet was ejected from its tube and its turbojet kicked in, sending the antiship missile skimming across the water. Its radar altimeter kept it a mere ten feet above the surface.

“The Klub is one minute out,” Linda said.

“Max, try to get the missile in a cross fire with the Gatlings. It’s our only chance.”

An industrial-scale ripping sound echoed from two sides of the ship as the Gatlings spewed tungsten rounds at the approaching missile. The tracer streams danced as the missile bobbed and weaved to avoid the shells. But twenty seconds of uninterrupted fire eventually found its target and the missile erupted in an orange torrent of flame.

“Phew,” Max said as he pointedly wiped his brow. “Gun two is down to thirty rounds left in the drum. I doubt we can take down another missile.”

“Time to target on the Exocet?”

“I’m not sure,” Linda replied. “It’s over the island now, so we can’t see it anymore on radar.”

“Maria,” Juan said calmly, “can you kindly ask Captain Garcia if he sees our missile?”

—

When Ruiz saw the missile fired from the Oregon on the shore-based camera feed, she assumed it was a last-ditch effort to shoot down her own Klub and that it had failed when they passed each other.