Flood Tide (Dirk Pitt 14)

This was the moment. As bullets stitched a groove of holes across the lustrous mahogany bow of the Chris-Craft, Pitt took the gear lever in both hands and yanked it back while the boat was at full speed. There was a horrifying grinding noise as the gearbox howled in protest. The engine revolutions raced past the red line on the tachometer, and the boat came to an abrupt stop. Then it leaped backward in a tight arc. Several bullets shattered the windshield but miraculously missed hitting anyone. And then the hail of fire, like a passing rainstorm, moved behind the boat. Julia tracked her target and fired until the last shell flipped out of the firing chamber.

Pitt glanced back and saw a beautiful sight. The ultralight was out of control, the racing engine shrieking like a banshee as fragments of the propeller spiraled in the air, spraying in every direction. He could see the pilot fighting the controls in a futile gesture as the craft hung poised in the air as if tied to a string. Then the nose dipped, and it plunged lifeless into the middle of the river, making a crater in the water and causing a huge splash before bobbing back to the surface for a few moments and then sinking rapidly until it vanished.

"Nice shooting," Pitt complimented Julia. "Wyatt Earp would be proud of you."

"I was lucky," Julia said modestly, not about to admit that she had been aiming at the pilot.

"You put the fear of God in the pilot of the other two. They're not about to make the same mistakes as his buddy. They'll lay back out of range of your Colt, take their time and pepper away at us at a safer altitude."

"How much farther until we're out of the canyon?"

"Four, maybe five miles."

They exchanged looks, she seeing the fierce determination in his eyes, he seeing her head and shoulders sag from severe fatigue, mental and physical. It didn't take a physician to see Julia was half-dead from lack of sleep. She had run on sheer guts as far as she could go, and had come to the end of the road. She turned slightly and stared at the bullet holes that had splintered the bow of the Chris-Craft.

"We're not going to make it, are we?" she muttered the words dully.

"Hell yes, we're going to make it!" he answered as if he truly believed it. "I didn't interrupt my vacation and go to all the work of bringing you and these people this far to let it end now."

She gazed at his dark, craggy face for a long moment, then shook her head in defeat. "I can't get off a straight shot if the ultralights stay more than a hundred yards away, not at that distance against a moving target from a boat that's bounding all over the place."

"Do the best you can." Hardly brilliant words of encouragement, Pitt conceded, but his mind was on other matters as he swerved around a series of large boulders protruding from the river. "Another ten minutes and we'll be home free."

"What if they both come at the same time?"

"You can bet on it. Take your time and divide your fire, two shots at one then two shots at the other. Maintain a show of resistance, just enough to keep them from getting too cocky and coming in too close. The farther they stay away, the more difficult for the gunners to fire with any accuracy. I'll throw the boat all over the river to spoil their aim."

Pitt had read Kung Chong's mind correctly. The Chinaman ordered his pilots to attack from a higher altitude. "I have lost one aircraft and two good men," he dutifully reported to Lo Han.

"How?" asked Lo Han simply.

"By gunfire from the boat."

"Not inconceivable that professionals would carry automatic weapo

ns."

"I am ashamed to say, Lo Han, the defensive fire comes from a woman with one automatic pistol."

"A woman!" Lo Han's voice came through Kung Chong's earpiece as angry as he ever heard it. "We have lost face, you and I. Conclude this unfortunate occasion and do it now."

"Yes, Lo Han. I will faithfully carry out your orders."

"I anxiously await your announcement of victory."

"Soon, very soon," Kung Chong said confidently. "Success or death. I promise you one or the other."

During the next three miles, the tactics worked. The two remaining ultralights pressed home their attack, weaving violently from side to side to escape the few pathetic shells sent in their direction, but making it next to impossible for the gunners to train their machine pistols. Two hundred yards away from the Chris-Craft they split apart and closed in on the runabout from two sides. It was a shrewd maneuver that enabled them to converge their fire.

Julia took her time and fired a round whenever she saw an opportunity for a remote hit while Pitt madly twisted the wheel and sent the speeding runabout zigzagging from one bank to the other in an effort to escape the sporadic spray of bullets that splattered the water around them. He stiffened when he heard the thud of strikes behind him as one burst of gunfire cut across the mahogany hatch over the engine compartment between the dual cockpits. But the big Chrysler marine engine's throaty roar never slackened. On instinct his eyes swept the instrument panel, and he noted ominously that the needle on the oil-pressure gauge was suddenly falling into the red zone.

Sam Foley will be madder than hell when he gets his boat back, Pitt thought.

Two miles to go. The stench of scorched oil began to waft from the engine compartment. The engine revolutions were slowly dropping off, and Pitt mentally pictured metal grinding against metal from lack of oil. It was only a matter of minutes before the bearings burned out and the engine froze. All the ultralight pilots have to do now, Pitt savvied, is circle over the boat and blast everyone to bloody bits. He pounded the steering wheel in maddened frustration as they came at him together, wingtip to wingtip.

They came head-on with no deviation, and much lower this time, knowing time was running out, keenly aware that once the boat and its occupants broke into the open bay, there would be spectators to report the murders.

Then, magically, the pilot of the ultralight that rolled off to the left of the Chris-Craft suddenly slumped in his seat and his arms fell to his sides. One of Julia's bullets had taken the pilot in the chest and torn through his heart. The aircraft sheered off violently, its wingtip brushed the water and then it cartwheeled crazily across the wake of the boat before disappearing into the uncaring river.