Black Wind (Dirk Pitt 18)

With a nearly 20-knot advantage in speed, the airship began easily gaining ground on the fleeing white boat. The Icarus had only ascended to a five-hundred-foot altitude when Giordino gave chase and he didn't waste power on any further climbing. The blimp glided smoothly toward the boat's wake, driving fast and low over the water. As the airship moved closer, Pitt focused the surveillance camera on the boat's open rear deck and cabin. Through the covered portico, he could only make out indiscriminate shapes at the helm.

"I count four men above decks," he said.

"Apparently, they're not ones for a crowded escape," Giordino replied.

Pitt scanned the camera about the deck, relieved to find no heavy armament but noting the extra drums of fuel near the stern.

"Plenty of gas for a run to Mexico," he said.

"I think our Coast Guard friends in San Diego might have something to say about that," Giordino replied, tightening his bearing on the boat.

Tongju and his men had been focused on the Koguryo, but one of the commandos finally noticed the approaching blimp. While Kim

manned the helm, the other three men instinctively stepped to the rear open deck to better observe the airship. Pitt focused the zoom lens of the camera on the men until their faces could clearly be distinguished.

"Recognize any of these characters?" Pitt asked over his shoulder to Dirk and Dahlgren.

The younger Pitt studied the screen for just a moment before gritting his teeth hard. The flash of anger subsided quickly, though, as a contented smile returned to his face.

"The Fu Manchu character standing in the center. His name is Tongju. He's Kang's master of ceremonies for torture and assassination. Appeared to be calling the shots aboard the Odyssey earlier."

"For such a nice guy, it would be kind of a shame to ruin his Mexican vacation," Giordino replied.

As he spoke, he dipped the prow of the blimp down and held steady as the airship slowly dove toward the water. When it looked like he was going to drive the nose into the sea, Giordino gently pulled up on the controls, leveling the gondola just fifty feet above the water. The Icarus had closed the gap between the two vessels during the dive, and Giordino guided the airship along the port side of the tender until the gondola was suspended side by side.

"You want to step off and have a beer with these guys?" Pitt asked as he eyed the men on the boat just a few dozen feet away.

"No, just want to let them know that they ain't going to outrun Mad Al and his Magic Bag of Gas," he grinned.

Giordino eased back on the throttles until he matched speeds with the bouncing tender, the large envelope of the blimp casting a shadow over the topsides of the boat. Above the din of the tender's twin inboard engines and the airship's Porsche motor-driven propellers, the men in the Icarus suddenly detected an unwelcome staccato. Glancing back at the tender, Pitt saw that Tongju and the two commandos had retrieved automatic weapons and were standing on the stern deck blasting away at the blim

p.

"I hate to be the one to tell you but they're shooting holes in your gasbag, Mad Al," Pitt said.

"The jealous lowlifes," Giordino replied, goosing the throttles.

Before departing Oxnard, they had been told that the airship could withstand a profusion of holes and gashes to the air bags and still retain its lift. Tongju and his men would have to exhaust a crate of ammunition to threaten the airworthiness of the helium-filled blimp. But the safety of the gondola was less assured. After a momentary pause in the firing, the floor of the main cabin suddenly erupted in a spray of splinters as the gunmen redirected their weapons at the gondola.

"Everybody down!" Pitt yelled as a burst of fire smashed the side cockpit window, the bullets grazing just over his head. The sound of shattering glass resonated through the cabin as a rain of bullets poured into the gondola. Dirk and Dahlgren lay flat on the floor as several bursts stitched past them and into the ceiling above. Giordino jammed the throttles all the way forward, and, while waiting anxiously for the blimp to speed ahead, turned the yoke full to port to turn away from the tender.

"No," Pitt yelled at him, "turn and fly over him."

Giordino knew not to question Pitt's judgment and, without hesitation, threw the rudder over in the opposite direction, pushing the Icarus back toward the tender. Glancing at Pitt, he could see him studying the tender below with an arched brow. The blistering fire continued to tear into the gondola for a second, then abruptly stopped as Giordino steered the gondola above and slightly ahead of the tender's cabin roof, temporarily obscuring the field of fire.

"Everyone all right?" Pitt asked.

"We're okay back here," Dirk replied, "but one of the engines isn't faring too well."

As the sound of gunfire fell away, the men could hear sputtering and coughing emanating from the starboard gondola motor. Giordino glanced at the console gauges and shook his head.

"Oil pressure falling, temperature rising. Going to be tough to run away from these guys on one leg."

Pitt peered down at the deck of the tender, spotting Tongju and the two gunmen moving toward the stern of the boat reloading their weapons.

"Al, hold your position," he said. "And lend me your cigar."

"It's one of Sandecker's finest," he replied, hesitating before handing Pitt the saliva-soaked green stub.