Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"Maybe But I do know that if she crushes the steamboat into firewood, our last chance to save Vince Margolin is gone."

IN THE PILOTHOUSE of the towboat a burst of fire from the SEALS had shattered the inner workings of the command console, fouling the rudder controls. Captain Pujon had no option but to reduce speed and steer by jockeying the throttle levers.

Lee Tong did not spare him a glance. He was busy issuing orders over the radio to the commander of the Pathfinder, while keeping a wary eye on the wallowing steamboat.

Finally he turned to Pujon. "Can't you'regain our top speed?"

"Eight miles is the best I can do if we want to maintain a straight course."

"How far?" he asked for the tenth time that hour.

"According to the depth sounder, the bottom's beginning to drop off. Another two miles should do it."

"Two miles," Lee Tong repeated thoughtfully. "Time to set the detonators."

"I'll alert you by blowing the airborn when we come over a hundred fathoms," said Pujon.

Lee Tong stared across the dark sea, stained by the runoff from the Mississippi River. The masquerading research ship was only a few hundred yards away from slicing through the brittle sides of the Stonewall Jackson. He could hear the haunting wail of the calliope drifting with the wind. He shook his head in disbelief, wondering who was responsible for the old riverboaes sudden appearance.

He was about to leave the pilothouse and cross over to the barge when he noticed one of the milling aircraft overhead abruptly sline out of formation and dive toward the sea.

A ghost-white F/A21 Navy strike aircraft leveled off two hundred feet above the wave tops and unleased two anti-ship missiles.

Lee Tong watched in numbed horror as the laser-controlled warheads skimmed across the water and slammed into the red-hulled decoy ship, stopping her dead in her tracks with a blast that turned the entire upper works into a grotesque tangle of shattered steel.

Then came a second, even stronger explosion that enveloped the ship in a ball of flame. For an instant she seemed to hang suspended as if locked in time.

Lee Tong stood tensed in despair as the broken vessel slowly rolled over and died, falling to the floor of the gulf and sealing all hope of his escape.

Fiery fragments of the Pathfinder rained down around the Stonewall Jackson, igniting several small fires that were quickly extinguished by the crew. The sea surface over the sunken ship turned black with oily bubbles as a hissing cloud of steam and smoke spiraled into the sky.

"Christ in heaven!" Captain Belcheron gasped in astonishment.

"Will you look at that. Those Navy boys mean business."

"Somebody is watching over us," Pitt commented thankfully. His eyes returned to the barge. His face was expressionless; but for the swaying of his body to compensate for the roll of the boat, he might have been

sculpted from Solid teak. The gap had closed to three quarters of a mile, and he could make out the tiny figure of a man scrambling across the bow of the towboat onto the barge before disappearing down a deck hatch.

An enormous man with the stout build of an Oliver Hardy barreled up the lander from the texas deck and came through the door.

He wore the gray uniform and gold brain of a Confederate major.

The shirt under the unbuttoned coat was damp with perspiration, and he was panting from exertion. He stood there a moment, wiping his forehead with a sleeve ' catching his breath.

At last he said, "Doggone, I don't know if I'd rather die by a bullet in the head, by drowning or a heart attack."

Leroy Laroche operated a travel agency by day, functioned as a loving husband and father by night, and acted as commander of the Sixth Louisiana Regiment of the Confederate States Army on weekends. He was popular among his men and was re-elected every year to lead the regiment in battlefield re-enactments around the country. The fact that he was about to engage in the real thing didn't seem to faze him.

"Lucky for us you had those cotton bales on board," he said to the captain.

Belcheron smiled. "We keep them on deck as historic examples of the sweet old darling's maritime heritage."

Pitt looked at Laroche. "Your men in position, Major?"

"Loaded, primed full of Dixie beer and rarin' to right," Laroche replied.

"What sort of weapons do they own?"