Skeleton Coast (Oregon Files 4)

The gun sounded like a cannon. The rebel who’d been standing over her had his head stretched like a Halloween mask before it simply vanished. She looked up to see Jim Gibson standing a few feet away in his size 13 Tony Lama’s holding a huge revolver with its barrel pointing skyward and smoking.

“Strictly speaking, I’m not allowed to have my leg iron on the platform, but I always figured rules are for suckers.” He reached down a big hand and hauled Linda to her feet. “You okay, darling?”

“Saved by a re

al live cowboy. How much better can I be?”

Knowing every rivet, screw, and weld on the rig, Gibson led her unerringly out of the labyrinth. When they got close to where Linda had first entered she realized she could no longer hear any gunfire.

She looked out cautiously. Five of the terrorists were standing up, their arms thrust so high they might have been standing on tiptoe. Two more emerged from where they’d been hiding in the safety net.

“Juan, I think it’s over,” she said into her throat mike.

Juan slid around the barrel and got to his feet, his aim never wavering from the marauders. He ran to them, shouting, “Down! Get down! Everybody down!”

Linda raced over to help cover them as they dropped flat. The Zimbabweans began to check the injured and dead while Juan cuffed the survivors. When he was finished he called his ship.

“Nomad to Oregon, target is secure. Repeat, target is secure.”

“Heard you the first time,” Max drawled. “I may be older than you but I’m not deaf.” Then he added, “Good job. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.”

“Thanks. What’s the situation?”

“Mike’s shut down the power plant. Oil’s still flowing from the loading gantries but nowhere near as hard without the pumps. It’s just gravity forcing crude through the lines from the tank farm.”

“Is Linc ready?”

“Our cue to launch the SEAL boat was five minutes after Mikey took out the generators. He’s leaving now.”

LIKE a jet fighter being catapulted off an aircraft carrier, an actuator punched the semi-rigid black boat down a Teflon ramp from the boat garage and into the ocean. With a deep V hull for stability and an inflatable curtain for additional payload, the boat had been built by Zodiac’s military division in Vancouver, Canada. She could cut across almost any sized wave as nimbly as an otter and hit speeds in excess of forty knots thanks to a pair of 300 hp outboards.

Linc had the wheel while Jerry Pulaski stood at his side. Both men wore two flak jackets over their utility uniforms. Bulletproof shields had been screwed into place so the helm amidships was nearly invulnerable. At their feet sat two long black cases containing Barrett M107 .50-caliber rifles. They had an effective range of a mile, making the thirty-two-pound guns perhaps the finest sniper rifles ever created.

With so much crude contaminating the waters around the loading terminal neither Juan nor Max were willing to risk the Oregon’s drive tubes becoming clogged with oil. And neither was willing to risk firing at the sensitive loading gantries if they couldn’t guarantee one hundred percent accuracy from her weapons systems. It would be up to Linc and Ski to form the backstop for Mike’s charge down the causeway.

They raced across the waves toward the bow of the supertanker lying at anchor and only slowed when the boat started cutting through the slick. The scum of oil was at least six inches thick and clung to the rubber pontoon ringing the hull. Fortunately, the props were below the toxic sludge; otherwise they’d barely make headway.

Behind them the Oregon was in motion again, maneuvering to get an oblique firing angle on this critical part of the facility. Though they wouldn’t aim directly for the causeway or the acres-sized floating pier, Max had no qualms about tearing up the ocean all around them with the Gatlings.

Peering through a large pair of binoculars, Ski scanned the slab-sided tanker for any signs that the terrorists were using her as an observation platform. She looked clear. Just to be safe they would board her at the bow, more than a thousand feet from the superstructure, the most obvious place for a lookout.

They reached a string of buoys marking the hundred-yard off-limits zone surrounding the massive ship and there was still no fire from above.

“Dumb as we thought,” Linc remarked.

From up close the ship’s hull under its coat of red antifouling paint looked more like a steel wall rather than something designed to cruise the oceans, and with her tanks nearly empty, the deck rail loomed sixty feet over their heads.

As Linc worked the wheel and throttle to bring them up to the bow, Ski readied a grappling gun with rubber-coated tines. Just before the assault boat slid under the bow’s curve he fired the hook skyward, two strands of nanofiber line trailing behind it. It sailed over the rail and when he drew back on the line it caught hard. Linc tossed a painter attached to a powerful magnet against the tanker’s hull to secure the assault boat.

Though too thin to climb, the nanofiber was stronger than steel. Ski threaded the line through a winch bolted to the boat’s deck and made sure the foot stirrups were secured. When he was ready he saw that Linc had opened the padded cases that held the two sniper rifles. Each already had a ten-round magazine in the receiver and they carried ten more apiece.

“Your chariot awaits,” Ski said and stepped into the stirrup.

Linc did likewise and hit the button to start the winch. The nanofiber line started to slide through the pulley on the grappling. Ski’s stirrup tightened and he was lifted off the assault boat, holding the rifle in one hand and the line in the other. When he was eight feet off the assault boat, the line took Linc’s weight, and both men were lifted up the side of the tanker.

It took just seconds to reach the top. Ski kicked himself out of the stirrup and leapt over the rail. He landed softly and immediately brought the rifle at his shoulder and his eye to the scope, scanning the deck and superstructure for any movement. His stirrup jammed in the small pulley, arresting the nanofiber wire, and leaving Linc to climb the rail in order to reach the deck.

“Clear,” Ski said without looking at him.