Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"He's going for the National Archives building," the President said, a bitter edge to his voice. "Fawkes is trying to destroy the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

"I urge you, Mr. President, to order a nuclear strike on the Iowa at once." Higgins's normally reddish coloring had turned to gray.

The President looked like one hunted. His shoulders were hunched as though he were cold. "No," he said with finality.

Higgins dropped his hands to his side and sat heavily in his chair. Kemper tapped the table with a pencil, quietly mulling something over.

"There is another solution," he said slowly, deliberately. "We knock out the Iowa's number-two turret."

"Knock out the turret?" Higgins said, a skeptical look in his eyes.

"Some of the F-one-twenty Specters are carrying Satan penetration missiles," explained Kemper. "Am I right, General Sayre?"

Air Force chief General Miles Sayre nodded in agreement. "Each aircraft is armed with four Satans, primed to gouge their way through three yards of concrete."

"I see your point," said Higgins. "But the accuracy? Miss, and you might unleash the QD."

"It can be done," said Sayre, a usually taciturn man. "As soon as the pilots fire the missiles, they switch guidance control to the ground troop

s. Your people, General Higgins, are close enough to the Iowa to lay a Satan within a two-foot diameter."

Higgins snatched the phone and stared at the President. "If Fawkes maintains his firing schedule, we have less than two minutes."

"Go for it," the President said without hesitation.

While Higgins gave instructions to the forces deployed around the Iowa, Kemper consulted a file on the ship's construction.

"That turret is protected with steel armor plating seven to seventeen inches thick," said Kemper. "We may not destroy it, but we'll sure as hell stun the crew."

"The SEALs," said the President. "Can they be warned of our intentions?"

Kemper looked grim. "We would if we could, but there has been no radio contact with them since they took to the water."

85

Fergus could not make contact, because the radio had been shot out of his hands by a machine gun deployed on the Iowa's citadel. A bullet had neatly amputated the middle finger of his left hand before biting through the transmitter and his right palm.

The backup radio was also gone, strapped to the belt of a team leader who took a hit in the chest and now floated lifelessly somewhere downriver.

Fergus had lost six men out of his original party of thirty while boarding the Iowa. They had climbed the sides after shooting and then looping small lines from crossbows across the ship's stern. These were attached to nylon ladders, which in turn were pulled up to the bulwarks. The SEALs were met with a scathing fire when they reached the main deck. Individually and in small teams they began pouring a return fire at the ship's defenders.

Fergus became cut off from his command and was pinned down behind the fantail mounting where the aircraft crane had once stood. Frustration overrode the pain in his wounded hands. Time was running out. His orders were to secure the landing pad before the South Africans could open fire. He shouted a curse as the burst from the third blast rumbled down the river channel.

Above the bluffs he could see the Marine helicopters hovering, waiting impatiently for his signal to land. Warily he poked his head around the crane mount and peered forward. The guns perched behind steel-armor plating atop the main bridge temporarily ignored Fergus and concentrated on his men, who had moved forward without him.

Cradling his automatic weapon in one arm, Fergus sprang to his feet and sprinted across the open deck, laying down a curtain fire. He'd nearly made it to cover beneath the aft turret when Fawkes's men repaid his attention, and a bullet tore through the calf of his left leg.

He stumbled a few steps, fell, and rolled under the bulk of the dummy turret. The new wound felt as though it were burning every nerve ending in his leg. He lay on the deck, listening to the gunfire forward, soaking up the pain as two Specter jets screamed out of the morning sun and expelled their lethal cargo.

If it weren't for the dull ache that clutched every inch of his body, Pitt would have sworn he was dead. Almost regretfully, he pushed the gray from his mind and forced his eyes open.

Then he ran his hands over his legs and body. The worst he discovered, besides a horde of bruises, were two, possibly three cracked ribs. He probed his head and sighed gratefully when his fingers came back free of blood. The wooden splinters he found embedded in his right shoulder puzzled him.

He pushed himself to a sitting position and then rolled to his hands and knees. All muscles were responding to command. So far, so good. He took a deep breath and wove to his feet, no less elated at the accomplishment than if he'd climbed Mount Everest. A patch of daylight spilled through a jagged hole several feet away and he stumbled toward it.

His mind slowly began to hit on six of eight cylinders and analyzed why he hadn't been crushed to oatmeal when he smashed into the side of the ship's superstructure. The quarter-inch plywood panels installed to replace the steel bulkheads had broken his impact. He'd barreled through one outer partition like a cannonball and made a healthy dent in a second before coming to rest in a passageway outside the officers' wardroom. So much for the mysterious slivers.

Through the haze he recalled a great booming sound and vibration. The sixteen-inch guns, he figured. But how often had they fired? How long had he been out? Sounds of small-arms fire rattled from outside. Who was fighting whom? He dismissed the thoughts almost as they occurred: they really didn't matter. He had his own problems to solve.