Cyclops (Dirk Pitt 8)

Can't be anything else."

"Shall I give the order to cast off and get under way?"

"Yes, immediately. We'll come around across their bows and block their way."

Even as he spoke, the first officer's hand was reaching for the siren switch that whooped the crew to action stations.

Ten minutes later the thirty-year-old ship, retired by the Russian Navy after it had been replaced by a newer, modified class of frigate, drifted broadside across the channel. Her four-inch guns turned and aimed almost point-blank at the rapidly approaching phantom vessels.

Pitt gazed at the blinking signal lamp on the frigate. He was tempted to turn on the radio, but it was agreed upon from the beginning that the convoy would remain silent in case an alert port authority official or security post receiver happened to tune in on the same frequency. Pitt's international Morse code was rusty, but he deciphered the message as "Stop immediately and identify."

He kept a sharp eye on the Pisto. He was aware that any sudden evasive move would have to originate with Jack. Pitt called down to the engine room and alerted Manny to the frigate blocking their course, but the brass telegraph pointers remained locked on Full Ahead.

They were so close now he could see the Cuban naval ensign standing stiffly in the offshore breeze.

The vanes on the signal lamp flipped up and down again. "Stop immediately or we will open fire."

Two men appeared on the stern of the Pisto and frantically began reeling out more cable. At the same time the tug lost way, made a sharp turn to starboard, and heaved to. Then Jack stepped out of the wheelhouse and hailed the frigate through a bullhorn.

"Give way, you sea cow's ass. Can't you see I have a tow?"

Pinon ignored the insult. He expected no less from a tug captain. "Your movement is unauthorized. I am sending over a boarding party."

"I'll be damned if I let any candy-ass Navy boy step foot on my ship."

"You'll be dead if you don't," Pinon replied in good humor. He was uncertain now whether this was a mass escape attempt by dissidents, but the strange actions of the tug and unlit ships required an investigation.

He leaned over the bridge railing and ordered the ship's motor cutter and boarding crew to lower away. When he turned back to face the unidentified convoy, he froze in horror.

Too late. In the dusky light he had failed to see that the ship behind the tug was not a dead tow. It was under way and boring down on the frigate at a good eight knots. He stared dazedly for several seconds before his reeling mind took hold.

"Full ahead!" he shrieked. "Guns fire!"

His command was followed by a deafening blast as shells streaked across the narrowing gap, tore into the bow and superstructure of the Amy Bigalow, and exploded in a burst of flame and shattered steel.

The port side of the wheelhouse seemed to melt away as if ripped open by a junkyard mangling machine.

Glass and debris felt like pellets out of a shotgun. Pitt ducked and kept his grip on the wheel with a determination tied to blind stubbornness. He was lucky to emerge with only a few cuts and a bruised thigh.

The second salvo blew away the chart room and sliced the forward mast in two. The top half fell over the side and was dragged for a hundred feet before the cables parted and it floated clear. The funnel was shattered and turned to scrap, and a shell burst inside the starboard anchor locker, scattering a cloud of salt-rusted links like shrapnel.

There would be no third salvo.

Pinon stood absolutely still, hands tightly clenched on the bridge rail. He stared up at the menacing black bows of the Amy Bigalow as they rose ponderously over the frigate, his face white and his eyes sick with a certainty that his ship was about to die.

The frigate's screws beat the water in a frenzy, but they could not push her out of the way soon enough. There was no question of the Amy Bigalow missing and no doubt as to Pitt's intentions. He was compensating and cutting the angle toward the frigate's midsection. Those of the crew who were topside and could see the approaching disaster gazed numb with horror before finally reacting and throwing themselves over the sides.

The Amy Bigalow's sixty-foot-high stem slashed through the frigate just forward of her rear turret, shredding the plates and penetrating the hull for nearly twenty feet. Pinon's ship might have survived the collision and made shore before settling in the water, but with a terrible screech of grinding steel the bow of the Amy Bigalow rose up from the gaping wound until her barnacled keel was exposed. She hung there for an instant, and then dropped, crushing the frigate in two and pile-driving the stern section out of sight beneath the surface.

Instantly, the sea poured into the amputated stern, sweeping through the twisted bulkheads and flooding the open compartments. As the cataract surged into the doomed frigate's hull she quickly began to settle astern. Her dying agony did not last long. By the time the Ozero Zaysan was towed over the collision site, she was gone, leaving a pitiful few of her crew struggling in the water.

"You walked into a trap?" Velikov's voice came flat and hard over the phone.

Borchev felt uncomfortable. He couldn't very well admit that he was one of the only three survivors out of forty and lacked even a scratch. "An unknown force of at least two hundred Cubans opened fire with heavy equipment before we could evacuate the trucks."

"You certain they were Cubans?"