Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

the air, giving Pitt the thumbs-up.

Pitt left the helm and returned to the side window to watch the impact. Behind him, he suddenly noticed the roar of a high-revving engine, punctuated by the shrill scream of a woman’s voice. He glanced down to see Lazlo still lying prone on the deck at the head of the stairway. This time, he noticed a small pool of blood on the deck near his chest. Beyond Lazlo, he saw the yacht alongside, wildly weaving back and forth, once even banging into the side of the tanker.

Pitt idly wondered why the yacht was even still hanging around. But it wasn’t worth pondering now, he thought, as he turned and faced the dredger, and the moment of truth.

“GET US CLEAR!” Maria screamed for at least the third time.

The normally controlled tyrant was flush with panic as she repeatedly looked at her watch. There were just minutes to go.

Sweat ran down the yacht captain’s brow as he swung its rudder to and fro, fighting to break free of the embedded ramp. He had waited until they cleared the Galata Bridge before reversing engines, bucking against the momentum of the tanker. Yet the ramp remained lodged in the yacht’s deck like a barbed hook in the mouth of an angry marlin.

The yacht’s engines howled as the captain applied full reverse power before trying to swing the boat wide. Unknown to the captain, the stairway’s lower wheels and axle had caught around the anchor chain in the yacht’s anchor locker and was now hopelessly entangled by the wrenching motion of the boat.

The stairway now was a twisted pretzel of steel, yet the platform refused to break apart. With its props churning a maddening boil of water off its stern, the yacht was dragged alongside the tanker like a puppy on a short leash. The captain looked ahead at the dredger, waiting for the Dayan to turn away from the Belgian ship. But as they drew closer, he came to the grim realization that the tanker wasn’t going to move clear.

With desperate urgency, he swung the yacht hard side to side, slapping against the side of the tanker before pulling wide. But the stubborn platform refused to break free. The Dayan’s bow was now abreast of the dredger, but he could see that there was a narrow gap between the vessels, although a boom hung low in the water.

With Maria still staring him down, he nodded toward the dredger.

“The boom will break our tie to the ramp,” he said. “We will be free shortly.”

79

PITT’S ALIGNMENT WAS LESS THAN PERFECT, BUT NOT by much.

The Dayan’s bow grazed several feet past the cutter head before the rotating teeth made contact with the tanker’s hull. Though muffled somewhat by the water, the cutter emitted a screeching wail as its teeth ground against the steel hull plates. For several feet, the head simply forged a deep indentation into the tanker’s side. Then the endless line of teeth caught a hull plate seam and ripped open a gaping hole.

Once breached, there was no going back. The rotating cutter ball ate through the hull like a hungry beaver, fed by the forward momentum of the 8,000-ton tanker. The tungsten teeth chewed past the hull and into the stainless steel tanks that held fresh water when the ship was under load. But instead of being fresh, it was now murky green, as the waters of the Bosphorus rapidly began filling the tanks.

From his high perch, Pitt could see water swirling around the bottom of the forward starboard tank. He could only hope that rising waters would spill over into the port tank and dilute the explosive force of both stockpiles. But time was not on his side.

Scanning the deck of the Ibn Battuta, he spotted Giordino already sneaking back to the NUMA submersible. He had been replaced at the stern rail by a handful of the dredger’s crew. Awakened by the racket, they stood staring dumbfounded at the physical carnage their ship was inflicting on the huge tanker just a few feet in front of them.

As the cutter head bore even with the bridge, Pitt stepped to the helm and as a final gesture cut the rudder fifteen degrees to port. Already slowed by the incoming water, the tanker might travel another half mile, Pitt guessed, before exploding, and he wanted to ensure that she was headed to the center of the channel. The head was still grinding across the hull with a metallic din when Pitt abandoned the bridge, hurrying down the stairwell to grab Lazlo and get off the ship.

He didn’t wait around to watch the fate of the yacht. With Maria still screaming in the Sultana captain’s ear, the captain tucked the yacht up against the tanker’s hull, hoping to avoid a direct collision with the dredger. He quickly noticed the subtle bank of the tanker as it eased to port, giving him a slim hope of escape. The turn allowed the yacht to pass just clear of the dredger’s boom, as the cutter head was pulled free of the Dayan. But there was no room to escape the head itself.

The masticating ball reached the bow of the yacht, striking the starboard hull. Still being dragged like a rag doll, the yacht was pulled up and across the top of the cutter head. The cutter easily chewed a six-foot swath across the underside of the yacht’s fiberglass hull before decapitating its whirling twin propellers. The yacht’s thumping motors fell silent as the engine compartment flooded, and the yacht began settling by its stern.

The captain stood frozen in shock, his hands still glued to the wheel. But Maria showed no such restraint. Retrieving a Beretta pistol from her purse, she stepped close to the captain, pressed the muzzle against his ear, and pulled the trigger.

Not waiting for his body to hit the floor, she scurried to the yacht’s bow to free them from the tanker once and for all.

80

BY THE TIME THAT PITT REACHED THE MAIN DECK, THE tanker had already developed a noticeable list. The cutter head had ripped a two-hundred-foot gouge down its length, slashing into every one of the starboard storage tanks. A full crew of men with pumps couldn’t have staved off the flooding for long. It was exactly the effect Pitt had hoped for, but now he had to find a way off for Lazlo and himself.

As the tanker rapidly leaned to starboard, Pitt figured it would be either a short hop down the stairway or, if necessary, a jump from the rail. As he approached Lazlo, he was surprised to see the yacht still clinging alongside. From the angled position of the tanker’s deck, he was able to peer right down onto the yacht and see the entangled stairway impaled in it. Of greater interest was the figure of Maria standing on the bow, wielding a pistol. She fired several shots into the twisted link of steel that held the ramp together, then spotted Pitt a short distance above her.

“Die with the ship!” she yelled, aiming the gun at Pitt and pulling the trigger.

Pitt was a hair faster, diving to the deck alongside Lazlo as the bullet whizzed over his head.

“Come on, Lieutenant, it’s time we find another exit,” he said to the commando.

Lazlo struggled to turn his way, looking at Pitt with glassy eyes that were barely open. Pitt suddenly realized the severity of his wound, seeing the bloody shoulder that Lazlo had managed to patch with a bandage. Every second counted now, though, so Pitt reached over and took a firm grip of the back of Lazlo’s collar.

“Hang on, partner,” he said.